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Show HN: An iOS budget app I've been maintaining since 2011

https://primoco.me/en/
1•Priotecs•28s ago•0 comments

Earn Money and Take a Shower

https://gagadget.com/en/691597-earn-money-and-take-a-shower-the-superheat-h1-boiler-which-heats-w...
1•majkinetor•3m ago•0 comments

Ten Papers That Built the AI We Have Today

https://deadneurons.substack.com/p/ten-papers-that-built-the-ai-we-have
1•nr378•3m ago•0 comments

IsoCity is a open-source isometric city-building simulation game

https://github.com/amilich/isometric-city
1•Brajeshwar•4m ago•0 comments

A pink aesthetic wallpaper hub for makers/creators, with built-in AI edit tools

1•xiaolu627•4m ago•0 comments

Mississippi Transformed Its Schools from Worst to Best

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/mississippi-schools-transformation.html
1•jbredeche•6m ago•0 comments

We update our credit pricing from $4 to $5 per PR as of today due to increasing

https://gitauto.ai/blog/how-to-open-pull-requests-from-github-issues
1•nishiohiroshi•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Pdftl – pdftk in Python with pipelines, AES-256, geometry and more

https://github.com/pdftl/pdftl
1•pdftl-dev•8m ago•1 comments

We were tricked: How one woman lures foreign men to fight on Russia's front line

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9yv4gmn9lo
1•breve•10m ago•0 comments

Claims about AI productivity improvements

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/01/claims-about-ai-productivity-improvemen...
1•smitty1e•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: What is wrong with the current coding agent workflow

https://phantomx.dev/blog/What-is-wrong-with-current-coding-agent-workflow/
2•daemon_9009•15m ago•0 comments

AWS Lambda for GenAI: The Real-World Architecture Guide (2026 Edition)

https://www.rack2cloud.com/aws-lambda-genai-architecture-guide/
1•NTCTech•16m ago•0 comments

Hegseth Announces Grok Access to Classified Pentagon Networks

https://www.newsweek.com/hegseth-announces-grok-access-to-classified-pentagon-networks-11349020
4•_____k•19m ago•1 comments

Apple: You (Still) Don't Understand the Vision Pro

https://stratechery.com/2026/apple-you-still-dont-understand-the-vision-pro/
2•verganileonardo•21m ago•1 comments

Ralph Wiggum went from 'The Simpsons' to the biggest name in AI

https://venturebeat.com/technology/how-ralph-wiggum-went-from-the-simpsons-to-the-biggest-name-in...
1•doppp•23m ago•0 comments

I Got Scammed

https://future.forem.com/om_shree_0709/i-almost-fell-for-a-last-wish-scam-heres-what-you-need-to-...
1•OmShree0709•23m ago•1 comments

Forward Compatible Unions in TypeScript

https://www.speakeasy.com/blog/open-unions-typescript-type-theory
1•mfbx9da4•24m ago•0 comments

Most Popular Computer Operating Systems 1981 – 2025 [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COEyINLyAsE
1•lutusp•29m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: What's the best solution to query a code repository as of today?

1•epolanski•29m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Watchfolio – TV show ratings as stock market charts

https://watch-folio.vercel.app/
1•abishekvenkat•29m ago•0 comments

Servo is starting to become usable

https://book.servo.org/building/building.html
2•hagbard_c•30m ago•1 comments

Hybrid Search in PostgreSQL: The Missing Manual

https://www.paradedb.com/blog/hybrid-search-in-postgresql-the-missing-manual
1•thunderbong•32m ago•0 comments

Meta Plans to Cut Around 10% of Employees in Reality Labs Business

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/technology/meta-layoffs-reality-labs.html
4•_____k•33m ago•1 comments

Russian Trademark Poachers Are Targeting Brands Like Armani and Amazon

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-13/russian-trademark-poachers-target-brands-like-...
1•throwaway290•35m ago•0 comments

Jangoro – A decision ledger for product teams

https://jangoro.com
1•isaaksmart•37m ago•1 comments

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is launching its own AI infrastructure initiative

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-says-meta-launching-214443279.html
1•_____k•37m ago•0 comments

Rethinking Helix

https://asta.boserup.eu/forest/rethinking-helix/
2•birdculture•40m ago•0 comments

U.S. Emissions Jumped in 2025 as Coal Power Rebounded

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/climate/us-emissions-2025-coal-power.html
17•fleahunter•41m ago•1 comments

Domains and Resources in Ash for Elixir

https://blog.appsignal.com/2026/01/13/domains-and-resources-in-ash-for-elixir.html
1•amalinovic•41m ago•0 comments

UK Expands Online Safety Act to Mandate Preemptive Scanning

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-expands-online-safety-act-to-mandate-preemptive-scanning
4•aftergibson•42m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•8mo ago

Comments

thechao•8mo 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•8mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•8mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•8mo 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•8mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•8mo 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•8mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•8mo 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_•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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/