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How Fast Is .NET 11 Runtime Async?

https://medium.com/@skyake/how-fast-is-net-11-runtime-async-b9c821529cd5
1•doomroot13•28s ago•0 comments

There are two kinds of theorems

https://blog.plover.com/math/two-kinds-of-theorems.html
2•mhb•4m ago•0 comments

Statically linking an Elixir command-line application using Burrito

https://www.jonathanychan.com/blog/statically-linking-an-elixir-command-line-application-using-bu...
1•auraham•5m ago•0 comments

Distributing Elixir Applications with Burrito

https://juanpabloaj.com/2023/08/20/distributing-elixir-applications-with-burrito/
1•auraham•5m ago•0 comments

Hello There

https://www.thegoalonline.com/atlantis-marketplace/rotator
1•robert753•6m ago•0 comments

Bank of Japan September rate hike locked in; SME bankruptcies hit 12-year high

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/bank-of-japan-september-rate-hike-locked-in-sme-bankruptc...
1•petethomas•7m ago•0 comments

DOJ finds three federal STEM education programs unconstitutional

https://fedscoop.com/doj-opinion-nsf-stem-dei-unconstitutional/
1•petethomas•10m ago•0 comments

Computer History

https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/customization/computer-history
1•mfiguiere•11m ago•0 comments

LinkedIn Wants Users to Lean Less on AI. Maybe Less

https://www.wsj.com/cmo-today/linkedin-wants-users-to-lean-less-on-ai-maybe-a-lot-less-8e03b2aa
1•JumpCrisscross•11m ago•0 comments

Vibe coding local first personal apps in mid-2026

https://www.flourish.org/2026/08/personal-apps/
1•frabcus•11m ago•0 comments

Burrito – Cross-Platform Elixir Deployments

https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito
1•auraham•15m ago•0 comments

Let's get physical

https://newsletter.wirepine.com/cp/210683776
2•rbanffy•19m ago•0 comments

IOI 2026 Official Results

https://stats.ioinformatics.org/results/2026
1•pykello•19m ago•0 comments

White House Opens Path for Private Companies to Hack Cybercriminals

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08/13/us/trump-news
1•mikhael•20m ago•0 comments

Fake Forbes websites and the PR agency offering guaranteed coverage – at a price

https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/fake-forbes-websites-and-the-pr-agency-offering-guaranteed-covera...
1•ilamont•21m ago•0 comments

Coding was never the hard part

https://ulveon.net/p/2026-08-13-coding-was-never-the-hard-part/
2•kevin061•23m ago•0 comments

Privacy Email with No Logs

https://polve.cc/
1•dzkuser•25m ago•1 comments

CodeJourney – Small utility to create evidences for technical due diligence

https://github.com/adaptive-scale/codejourney
1•debarshri•25m ago•0 comments

I built an MCP server so Claude can send my invoices

https://getholdings.com/mcp
2•sirjrg•25m ago•0 comments

Garry Tan says turning down early offer to join Palantir a $2-4B 'mistake'

https://www.businessinsider.com/garry-tan-turning-down-palantir-billion-mistake-2026-8
1•muzz•27m ago•1 comments

SF exempted 1900 parcels from a housing law. YIMBYs are suing city to reverse it

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-housing-yimby-lawsuit-sb79-22385659.php
3•littlexsparkee•28m ago•0 comments

CalPrivacy 2nd Fine in As Many Days Against a data broker

https://captaincompliance.com/news/calprivacy-hits-second-data-broker-in-days-cybba-fined-52400-f...
1•richartruddie•28m ago•1 comments

One Hundred Reasons to Be a Scientist [pdf]

http://web.archive.org/web/20090115212435/http://users.ictp.it/~pub_off/books/100_reasons.pdf
1•joebig•31m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Hearth – a shared family workspace where an agent can build apps

1•jmtulloss•33m ago•0 comments

Classic: How hard can it be?

https://pastila.org/essays/classic-gradient-interpolation/
1•jjgreen•34m ago•0 comments

Mistral AI Strategy

https://venturebeat.com/infrastructure/mistral-ai-wants-to-build-1-gigawatt-of-european-compute-b...
2•PhilipVinc•35m ago•1 comments

Apache Fory JSON: Fast JSON Serialization for Java

https://fory.apache.org/blog/fory_json_fastest_java_json_framework/
1•mooreds•35m ago•0 comments

Claude First Customer Finder

https://github.com/leo-proger/claude-first-customer-finder-skill
1•leo_proger•36m ago•0 comments

Namecheap is down due to DC cooling failure

https://www.engadget.com/2236616/hosting-provider-namecheap-is-down-after-data-center-cooling-fai...
3•nvahalik•38m ago•0 comments

Reachpad now includes free Gemma 4 31B and Gemini 3.6 Flash

https://reachpad.dev/blog/free-models
2•sakuraiben•40m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•1y ago

Comments

thechao•1y ago
I've always wanted to build (distinct) mechanical computers out of the following kinds of elements:

1. Spur-gear differential; and,

2. Shishi-odoshi.

Both of these are saturating mechanical devices that can be used to build NAND gates; the latter, I think, would be very pleasing, if exceedingly slow.

For the spur-gear differential, you'd need to up-scale the output by a factor of 2 (since the output is half-speed), and use a locking wedge to build a one-way gear out of one of the spur-gear differentials. However, it has the nice property that the logic is made entirely out of a single element: the spur-gear differential.

Similarly, for the shishi-odoshi: you're going to have to do a bit of analysis (drilling a hole in the bottom part of the bamboo ladle), to figure out the in-flow and out-flow to build the basic AND gate, and then balancing out the NOT gate, to build your basic NAND. This is, obviously, very finicky; but, I supposed, that'd be quite a bit of the charm of a Zen computer garden?

hnlmorg•1y ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•1y ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•1y ago
Has any computer been built out of spur-gear differentials? Like maybe some sort of adder circuit, not necessarily a full instruction executing computer. The only uses I could find was what seems to me like the differentials being part of some sort of analogue computer.
thechao•1y ago
Spur gear differentials are naturally adders (with carry!); so, traditionally they've only ever been used for analogue logic. They're overly complicated for digital logic: you need two spur gears to build a single gate (NAND) to perform a single binary operation. If you want any sort of reasonable lash characteristics you're going to need ~60 teeth. At that point, two 60 teeth spur gears give you a 3600-valued adder. That'd take something like 300+ spur gears in binary: it just doesn't make any damn sense.

I think the last time I looked at this, if I used the cast spur gears available I needed a staged approach to "start" the computer and a 1100 hp motor to run it.

rightbyte•1y ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

Oh, ye that sounds impractical. A really big truck engine more or less.

thechao•1y ago
Convincing Mrs. thechao that we needed to drop 80000$ on a blown V8 to build a 4b 3 function calculator didn't workout, BTW.
rightbyte•1y ago
Well I want to be on your side but I think one need to keep the dreams not within grasp but at least in sight.
byronknoll•1y ago
I built some logic gates using water and a 3D printed "seesaw" that tilts to the left or right: https://byronknoll.blogspot.com/2022/06/water-computer.html
thechao•1y ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•1y ago
the shishi-odoshu seems like the more promising avenue. The key question in mechanical computing is never designing gates, its designing power amplifiers.
eccentricwind•1y ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•1y ago
I just smile hearing the term "Millihertz Computer". I'd love it if building and designing mechanical and analog computers grew as a hobby/educational activity as I find them both fascinating and somehow satisfying.

Also, this 1950s Naval Training film explaining the fundamentals of how mechanical fire control computers work to solve complex problems is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

256_•1y ago
I was incredibly surprised to find that this actually is a computer. Normally when you hear about a "computer" constructed in an unusual medium, it turns out to just be a binary adder or an analogue computer. I've learned to expect disappointment.
ryukoposting•1y ago
About 8 years ago I visited TU Chemnitz and they had a lab making similar things to this. It wasn't clear to me what the goal was, but it was very cool nonetheless.
ogogmad•1y ago
Is anyone going to produce a proof-of-concept Analytical Engine?

Will robots (which will hopefully soon be available) be able to do it?

tenthirtyam•1y ago
This brings to mind two stories: Exhalation by Ted Chiang (short story), and the Three Body Problem (specifically the human computer) by Cixin Liu (novel length).

Exhalation really gets me thinking about what it means to be sentient & self-aware. If the neurons in our brains could, even in theory, be simulated by logic gates then, equally in theory, a Turing machine could be sentient. I can even imagine a bunch of rocks being sentient: https://xkcd.com/505/

jcgrillo•1y ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem