frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

CTO Lunches – Thread of the Week – AI Assistants [audio]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51X1BNwv3Us
1•mooreds•27s ago•0 comments

Why Is Everything Written in Rust Now?

https://medium.com/@cdcore/why-is-everything-written-in-rust-now-5bfd52e1926f
1•syumei•1m ago•0 comments

If You Knew God Exists, Wouldn't You Become a Priest?

https://joecmarshall.com/posts/if-you-knew-god-exists-wouldnt-you-become-a-priest/
1•webappsecperson•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: ABC v0.1 – A teaching language grows up a little

1•michael-lehn•2m ago•0 comments

Clarity: AI Writing Skill and Editor

https://clarity.addy.ie/
1•achairapart•2m ago•0 comments

Linux has an INFINITE file [video]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fu4M1JlmK6M
1•dalvrosa•2m ago•0 comments

Bounded gaps between primes – Julia Stadlmann

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.31126
1•csheehan10•3m ago•1 comments

There May Be Nobody There

https://yusufaytas.com/there-may-be-nobody-there
2•vibeloop•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I gathered 992 posts about my startup idea. 7 were about my idea

https://github.com/gokulsai1004-create/painpoint-finder
1•gokulsai367•3m ago•0 comments

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

https://nshki.com/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/
1•speckx•3m ago•0 comments

NjordDeploy – Agentless self-hosting engine with dual Docker/Podman support

https://github.com/HenkVanHoek/njord-deploy
1•HenkVanHoek•4m ago•0 comments

58 PRs, 572k lines: reviews in the in-between times

https://neonronin.sh/blog/prs-in-the-in-between-times/
1•pandemicsyn•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: EU-hosted content extraction API

https://danubia.tech
1•gbogard•8m ago•0 comments

ExactTex. A gradually-typed superset of LaTeX

https://github.com/camilochs/exacttex
1•camilochs•8m ago•0 comments

Io_uring Without Readahead

https://frn.sh/io-uring/
1•porridgeraisin•8m ago•0 comments

Move in C++ without a std:move

https://andreasfertig.com/blog/2026/09/move-in-cpp-without-a-stdmove/
2•dalvrosa•10m ago•1 comments

New Europe Privacy Policy

https://openai.com/policies/eu-privacy-policy/
1•AdriaanvRossum•12m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Noctovisor – Third-party risk alerts by email, from public records

https://noctovisor.com/
2•noctovisor•12m ago•0 comments

Awe does not require PAE, though PAE makes it more useful

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260831-00/?p=112660
2•ibobev•13m ago•0 comments

Having Fun with Vercel's AI SDK and AI Gateway

https://blog.master.dev/having-fun-with-vercels-ai-sdk-and-ai-gateway/
2•ibobev•13m ago•0 comments

20 Years Later: Pluto Is Still a Planet, and the IAU Is Still Wrong

http://laurelsplutoblog.blogspot.com/2026/08/20-years-later-pluto-is-still-planet.html
1•speckx•13m ago•0 comments

Job Sites in 2026: Use the Right Platforms and Automate Your Applications

https://www.foxapply.com/blog/en/job-sites-2026-right-platforms-automate-applications
1•josanjohnata•13m ago•0 comments

Normal Tools for Normal Tasks

https://www.normaltools.com/
1•bookofjoe•15m ago•0 comments

Getting started with Neovim – PDE p.I

https://xnacly.me/posts/2022/neovim-ped-1/
1•ibobev•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Durable Workflow 2.0 polyglot workflows in PHP, Python and Rust

https://github.com/durable-workflow/sample-app
1•rmcdaniel•16m ago•0 comments

The IBM PC, Part 2: Tsunami – Creatures of Thought

https://technicshistory.com/2026/08/29/the-ibm-pc-part-2-tsunami/
1•rbanffy•17m ago•0 comments

Private group wants to launch "cheapest possible" mission to Alpha Centauri

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/09/private-group-wants-to-launch-cheapest-possible-mission-to-...
2•rbanffy•18m ago•1 comments

Please stop calling databases CP or AP (2015)

https://martin.kleppmann.com/2015/05/11/please-stop-calling-databases-cp-or-ap.html
3•deadletterq•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: MQLens – A Native MongoDB GUI (SSH, X.509, Kerberos, No Electron)

https://mqlens.com/
1•deveshk0•19m ago•0 comments

Attention Is All You Need, with a real transformer running in the page

https://onehop.world/
2•timratl•19m ago•2 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