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Self Hostable Multi-Location Uptime Monitoring

https://govigilant.io/articles/self-hostable-multi-location-uptime-monitoring
1•DutchBytes•3m ago•1 comments

Quantum Finance in Action: Fast Portfolio Optimization for Stock Investors

https://soma.biz
2•Hellene•12m ago•0 comments

MetaMagic turns any URL into 3 SEO titles and descriptions in 10s

https://metamagic.vercel.app
1•astralshard•14m ago•1 comments

One Handed Keyboard

https://github.com/htx-studio/One-Handed-Keyboard
1•doppp•17m ago•0 comments

The honest troubleshooting code of conduct

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2021/05/01/code/
1•fanf2•19m ago•0 comments

Apple's new 15% mini-app deal gets Tencent to cut Cupertino in

https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/15/apple_tencent_app_deal/
2•praseodym•24m ago•0 comments

Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO 'as soon as next year'

https://9to5mac.com/2025/11/14/tim-cook-step-down-as-apple-ceo-as-soon-as-next-year-report/
3•dabinat•42m ago•0 comments

Future data centers are driving up forecasts for energy demand

https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-energy-texas-ohio-pennsylvania-ferc-data-cente...
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•44m ago•0 comments

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Got Money from $220M DHS Ad Contracts

https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-dhs-ad-campaign-strategy-group
4•TheAlchemist•45m ago•0 comments

NATO Ended Russia's Estonian Air Incursions

https://themilitaryanalyst.com/2025/11/13/the-real-story-how-nato-ended-russias-estonian-air-incu...
4•madspindel•47m ago•0 comments

Unlocking high software engineering pace

https://dev.jimgrey.net/2025/11/13/unlocking-high-software-engineering-pace-ruthlessly-eliminate-...
2•vinhnx•50m ago•0 comments

Forensic linguistics: how dark web criminals give themselves away

https://theconversation.com/forensic-linguistics-how-dark-web-criminals-give-themselves-away-with...
2•zeristor•50m ago•0 comments

What happens when you press a key in your terminal? (2022)

https://jvns.ca/blog/2022/07/20/pseudoterminals/
1•vinhnx•51m ago•0 comments

The Original iPhone SE Is the Best iPhone Apple Ever Made

https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-is-the-best-iphone-apple-ever-made/
2•usui•52m ago•1 comments

Valve just built the Xbox that Microsoft is dreaming of

https://www.theverge.com/tech/819844/valve-steam-machine-xbox-console-steamos-competition-notepad
2•ent101•54m ago•0 comments

Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/business/media/ai-defamation-libel-slander.html
4•1vuio0pswjnm7•58m ago•2 comments

Where Should Philosophy Go in the Age of AI?

https://dotnetxpert.com/philosophers_ai_intro.html
1•nettalk83•1h ago•1 comments

Vibe Coders vs Natural Language Developers

https://marmelab.com/blog/2025/09/03/natural-language-developers.html
1•nerdright•1h ago•0 comments

Supply Chain Security made the OWASP Top Ten, this changes nothing

https://anchore.com/blog/supply-chain-security-made-the-owasp-top-ten-this-changes-nothing/
1•birdculture•1h ago•0 comments

EyesOff: I Built a Screen Contact Detection Model

https://ym2132.github.io/building_EyesOff_part2_model_training
1•Two_hands•1h ago•0 comments

Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/14/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop30
5•measurablefunc•1h ago•0 comments

Blender Ocean Wave Tutorial for Beginners (Animation Guide) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9S9ZSSaMw4
1•techwrath11•1h ago•0 comments

How to change ICON in Filament 3.2 Laravel 12 [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWD3q89eEOY
1•techwrath11•1h ago•0 comments

Why Is There a Sea in the Middle of California? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYRYUuhfML0
1•dataflow•1h ago•0 comments

Strilanc uses gauge symmetry to help Aaronson ward off quantum hype

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9325
2•gsf_emergency_4•1h ago•0 comments

Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture
3•luu•1h ago•2 comments

How My Speed Date Got Stolen Onstage at a Live Comedy Dating Show

https://psychotechnology.substack.com/p/how-my-speed-date-got-stolen-onstage
11•eatitraw•1h ago•3 comments

AI Diffusion Where AI is most used, developed and built

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/aiei/ai-diffusion/
1•hunglee2•1h ago•0 comments

Projection: A static site generator for your coding project portfolio

https://github.com/quasarbright/projection
1•QuasarBright•1h ago•1 comments

AMD Enterprise AI Suite

https://enterprise-ai.docs.amd.com/en/latest/platform-overview.html
2•latchkey•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•6mo ago

Comments

thechao•6mo 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•6mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•6mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•6mo 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•6mo 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•6mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•6mo 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•6mo 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•6mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•6mo 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•6mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•6mo 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•6mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•6mo 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_•6mo 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•6mo 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•6mo 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•6mo 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/