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AWS billing bug causes 1000x increase in token prices

https://repost.aws/questions/QUveO4Hv5ITKmWvfoCNizR4A/from-1k-to-400k-monthly-usage-billing-with-...
1•nawitus•19s ago•0 comments

Launching Aroha Astrology – would love feedback from fellow founders

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aroha.astrology&hl=en_US
1•subir17•22s ago•0 comments

Whoop just made its most stylish band yet

https://mashable.com/tech/whoop-meridian-band-announcement-price
1•kuuuzya•35s ago•0 comments

Amazon is shutting down "artificial AI" service Mechanical Turk

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/amazon-service-that-jeff-bezos-called-artificial-ai-is-shutting-d...
1•kuuuzya•1m ago•0 comments

Lounge Discussion

https://dis.tinychan.net/lounge/
1•allgirl•3m ago•1 comments

C can be memory-safe

https://blog.erratasec.com/2023/02/c-can-be-memory-safe.html
1•signa11•3m ago•0 comments

Why Israeli Authorities Are Encouraging Settler Violence Against Palestinians

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-israeli-authorities-are-encouraging-settler-violence-a...
1•hebelehubele•3m ago•1 comments

Metaⁿ: Recursive Self-Improvement Through Emergent Depth

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.24735
1•sbulaev•4m ago•0 comments

The U.K. Is Falling for Palantir's Salesmanship

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/08/26/palantir-operator-starmer-united-kingdom-nhs-software/
1•CaptainZapp•4m ago•0 comments

Flat vs. segmented memory – it's recursive

https://www.humprog.org/~stephen/blog/2026/08/25/#flat-vs-segmented
1•signa11•8m ago•0 comments

Meta $16.68B settlement with 29 states

https://oag.dc.gov/release/attorney-general-schwalb-announces-meta-will-pay
1•Sentralis•10m ago•0 comments

Claudeforce

https://www.salesforce.com/claudeforce/?bc=HL
1•makeramen•13m ago•0 comments

Baltimore neighborhoods rely on private security to fill policing gaps

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/09/20/baltimore-neighborhoods-rely-on-private-security-to-fill-...
1•allgirl•13m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Text editor that does it all

https://kraa.io/about?s=hn
1•levmiseri•19m ago•1 comments

C++26: Std:Inplace_vector

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/08/26/cpp26-inplace-vector
1•signa11•22m ago•1 comments

SpaceX plans a $100B spaceport built for launches a year

https://thenextweb.com/news/spacex-louisiana-spaceport-100bn-europe-launch-cadence
1•ksec•24m ago•1 comments

Composition and Modular Verification of TLA+ Specs

http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2026/08/composition-and-modular-verification-of.html
2•matt_d•25m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How do you protect self-hosted websites from LLM scrapers?

1•atmosx•28m ago•1 comments

OpenAI staff observed warning signs before AI agents attack on Hugging Face

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/26/openai-staff-observed-warning-signs-before-ai-...
4•nreece•28m ago•1 comments

Prefix Sliding for efficient test-time scaling

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.26070
1•E-Reverance•29m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Wallps: set different live wallpapers for macOS desktop and lock screen

https://deepanshumishraa.github.io/wallps/
2•dipxsy•31m ago•0 comments

The choices we make about AI now are critical

https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to...
1•kristianp•34m ago•1 comments

Social Link Vault – Local-first Android bookmark manager (Never forget a link))

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yzh.social_link_vault_ai&hl=en_US
1•yhammadieh•34m ago•0 comments

DRM/xe: Don't hand out the flat CCS storage as usable VRAM

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=818bebeb63dd6bf5f4e...
1•DarmokJalad1701•35m ago•0 comments

Centuries-old hunger stones are emerging as Europe's rivers recede

https://www.dw.com/en/hunger-stones-the-history-behind-if-you-see-me-weep/a-78345729
1•divbzero•36m ago•0 comments

In Hilbert Space, All Things Are Quantumly Possible

https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-hilbert-space-all-things-are-quantumly-possible-20260826/
2•pykello•37m ago•1 comments

Bootstrappable Builds: How and Why

https://lwn.net/Articles/1088279/
1•pykello•37m ago•0 comments

How to Spot a Psychopath

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/27/how-to-spot-a-psychopath-its-like-the-difference-...
1•sandebert•43m ago•0 comments

Edit PDFs Online for Free

https://editpdfsonlinefree.com/
1•bobby2shorts•52m ago•0 comments

Dominion spent nearly $600K at State House before seeking rate hike

https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article315469742.html
1•newsomix9xl•56m ago•1 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