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AI will transform science. Just not the way you think

https://ischemist.com/writings/long-form/will-ai-transform-science
1•hiddenseal•1m ago•0 comments

My Battle with Datetimes in Prod

https://www.datacompose.io/blog/fun-with-datetimes
1•tccole•2m ago•1 comments

Distropack now supports TAR archives aside from RPM DEB and PKG

https://distropack.dev/Blog/Post?slug=introducing-tar-package-support-simple-distribution-without...
1•segfault0x23•4m ago•1 comments

Job security in the age of AI? Get a state license – any state license

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/15/job-security-state-license
2•bookofjoe•5m ago•0 comments

Rethinking a Mathematical Notation for Possible LLM Applications

https://ursaxza.substack.com/p/a-hole-new-word
1•ursAxZA•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Carolina Cloud – 1/3 the cost of AWS for data science workloads

https://carolinacloud.io/
1•bojangleslover•8m ago•0 comments

Avoiding Fallback and Cold Paths

https://timkellogg.me/blog/2021/01/29/cold-paths
1•fanf2•10m ago•0 comments

Trump's new visa fee inhibits hiring teachers in California – CalMatters

https://calmatters.org/education/2025/12/teaching-jobs-california-foreign-worker-visa/
1•bilsbie•16m ago•0 comments

How do you stay focused while working on a computer all day?

1•Ben_Tycho•20m ago•1 comments

Opik Agent Optimizer – Open-Source Prompt Optimization Framework

https://github.com/comet-ml/opik/tree/main/sdks/opik_optimizer
4•calebkaiser•22m ago•0 comments

Is Your Startup Failure Your War or Shame?

https://manidoraisamy.com/startup-failure.html
1•QueensGambit•22m ago•0 comments

Reviving, reproducing, and revisiting Axelrod's second tournament

https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15438
2•m-hodges•24m ago•0 comments

Current Game and Season Materials (First Tech Challenge 2025-2026)

https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/ftc/game
1•dustfinger•25m ago•0 comments

AI-Driven Development Life Cycle: Reimagining Software Engineering

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/ai-driven-development-life-cycle/
1•asasidh•28m ago•0 comments

Building Secure OTA Updates for ESP32 over BLE with Rust – Harry Gill

https://gill.net.in/posts/building-secure-ota-updates-for-esp32-over-ble-with-rust/
1•mygnu•30m ago•0 comments

Do you think a job seekers front product a bad idea?

1•madeye7•30m ago•0 comments

Tesla Europe registrations drop 36% in November

https://www.automotiveworld.com/news/tesla-europe-registrations-drop-36-in-november/
20•randycupertino•31m ago•2 comments

I've been sleeping on Chinese models

https://kylenessen.com/ive-been-sleeping-on-chinese-models/
2•kylenessen•34m ago•1 comments

A Cosmic Offense: Elias Canetti's contest against death

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/cosmic-offense
2•diodorus•35m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Cut the Crap – A meritocratic community for builders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2xdJ5ISoTI
1•shrutisingh18•35m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Please suggest a smart watch that can be customized

3•VladVladikoff•35m ago•1 comments

I made a website where you can arrange a Secret Santa over email

https://secretsanta.email
1•elliotbeskow•37m ago•0 comments

Bystander tackled and disarmed one of the Sydney gunmen, video shows

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/world/australia/bondi-beach-gunman-tackled-video.html
3•mhb•40m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Remixify – Find alternate versions of tracks in your Spotify playlists

https://remixify.xyz
1•kwakubiney•40m ago•0 comments

Control Plane MCP

https://docs.controlplane.com/mcp/overview
1•dorongrinstein•42m ago•0 comments

Get to Know iPhone Privacy and Security Settings

https://ssd.eff.org/module/how-to-get-to-know-iphone-privacy-and-security-settings
1•nabla9•42m ago•0 comments

E: An all in one webapp built using React.js

https://github.com/B35000/E5UI
1•bryonyoni•43m ago•0 comments

Language Immersion, Prison-Style (2017)

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/12/14/my-do-it-yourself-language-immersion-prison-style
3•johnny313•43m ago•0 comments

Take the Power Back (Over My Music)

https://wonderfulfrog.com/posts/take-the-power-back-music/
1•cdrnsf•45m ago•0 comments

2002: Last.fm and Audioscrobbler Herald the Social Web

https://cybercultural.com/p/lastfm-audioscrobbler-2002/
36•cdrnsf•46m ago•8 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•7mo ago

Comments

thechao•7mo 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•7mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•7mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•7mo 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•7mo 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.
jcgrillo•7mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•7mo 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•7mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•7mo 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•7mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•7mo 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_•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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•7mo 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/