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Bring Back Idiomatic Design

https://essays.johnloeber.com/p/4-bring-back-idiomatic-design
1•phil294•37s ago•0 comments

Apple, Still

https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2026/04/12/1330
1•rcarmo•3m ago•0 comments

BrickFormer Source Code Released

https://github.com/loryruta/brickformer
2•loryruta•10m ago•1 comments

LLM Wiki Skill: Build a Second Brain with Claude Code and Obsidian

https://medium.com/@alirezarezvani/llm-wiki-skill-build-a-second-brain-with-claude-code-and-obsid...
1•jungard•14m ago•0 comments

HubVanta AI

https://hubvanta.com/
1•hubvanta•16m ago•0 comments

PEP 495: Local Time Disambiguation

https://peps.python.org/pep-0495/
2•tosh•18m ago•0 comments

Day 3 post-launch. No viral moment. Still shipping

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/day-3-post-launch-no-viral-moment-still-shipping-985da62829
1•AnimeMyPic•19m ago•0 comments

Fast and Easy Levenshtein distance using a Trie

https://stevehanov.ca/blog/fast-and-easy-levenshtein-distance-using-a-trie
1•sebg•21m ago•0 comments

Google Displayed Polymarket Bets as News 'In Error,' Google Says

https://gizmodo.com/google-displayed-polymarket-bets-as-news-in-error-google-says-2000745381
1•giuliomagnifico•23m ago•0 comments

The Protégé Problem Today

https://www.proofofconcept.pub/p/the-protege-problem-today
1•kiyanwang•24m ago•0 comments

Tea: A Stimulant That Made the Modern World

https://worldhistory.substack.com/p/tea-a-stimulant-that-made-the-modern
2•crescit_eundo•24m ago•0 comments

How the Toyota Prius comes to die in Mongolia [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyEVDmoh5lo
1•nxobject•25m ago•0 comments

mb: fast month boundary, in memoriam of aab

https://github.com/kparc/mb
1•tosh•28m ago•0 comments

Agentic Memory: Memento Mori

https://kubekattle.github.io/ktl/blog/portal-long-term-memory.html
1•KyleVlaros•29m ago•0 comments

No one owes you supply-chain security

https://purplesyringa.moe/blog/no-one-owes-you-supply-chain-security/
2•birdculture•32m ago•0 comments

Israel Mounts Lavish Campaign to Win Back Evangelicals

https://washingtonspectator.org/israeli-government-is-spending-millions-to-court-american-evangel...
4•throw310822•33m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Android AI agent-assistant operating your apps (no adb,PC,root,etc.)

1•sshnaidm1•33m ago•1 comments

Launchfolio – Create a portfolio in minutes for free, no account needed

1•SyedAtril•34m ago•0 comments

Running an x86-based computer with minimal to no RAM sticks [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHItbgHutVo
2•exploraz•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Uncook, the Social Network for Food

https://uncook.xyz
1•moffers•34m ago•0 comments

2026 Hungarian Parliamentary Election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Hungarian_parliamentary_election
1•JumpCrisscross•34m ago•0 comments

Don't Let Your Boss Do Your Job

https://kevingoldsmith.substack.com/p/dont-let-your-boss-do-your-job
1•kiyanwang•35m ago•0 comments

Knuth Reward Check

https://www.thomas-huehn.com/knuth-reward-check/
2•Tomte•37m ago•0 comments

The Role and History of Bitcoin Core Maintainers

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/the-core-issue-the-role-and-history-of-bitcoin-core-maintainers
1•giuliomagnifico•42m ago•0 comments

Thoughts on the use of artificial intelligence in programming courses [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u-gQ-d5Lv8
1•leduyquang753•42m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Reverse-engineered Cursor tab completion client

https://github.com/abyesilyurt/cursor-tab
1•abyesilyurt•42m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Git Diff TUI with Go

https://difi.vercel.app/
1•oug-t•43m ago•0 comments

Is Cybersecurity Over? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM7GIIylXqI
4•0xcrypto•43m ago•0 comments

Put your SSH keys in your TPM chip

https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Put_your_SSH_keys_in_your_TPM_chip.html
1•type0•43m ago•0 comments

Linux 7.0 Ready for Release with Many Changes

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.0-Changes
2•Bender•43m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•11mo ago

Comments

thechao•11mo 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•11mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•11mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•11mo 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•11mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•11mo 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•11mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•11mo 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_•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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•11mo 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/