frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Looking for Work

1•rmcdermott•1m ago•0 comments

TDD is dead. Long live testing. (2014)

https://dhh.dk/2014/tdd-is-dead-long-live-testing.html
1•yokto•2m ago•0 comments

Vint Cerf is working on a plan to unleash AI agents on the open internet

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/15/vint-cerf-is-working-on-a-plan-to-unleash-ai-agents-on-the-open...
1•indigodaddy•2m ago•0 comments

Dan Boneh: The elliptic curve running the modern internet might have a backdoor [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WDOpzxpnTE
1•philipfweiss•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: One More Letter

https://playonemoreletter.com/
2•hmate9•4m ago•0 comments

Reverse Engineering Apple Wallet

2•asxeem•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A Monte Carlo model that called the World Cup finalists 2 weeks ago

https://github.com/fabio-ricardo/worldcup-forecasting-model
2•fabioricardo7•6m ago•1 comments

Nul Characters in Strings in SQLite

https://sqlite.org/nulinstr.html
4•basilikum•11m ago•0 comments

Can AI Do RCA?

https://coroot.com/blog/hard-part-of-ai-root-cause-analysis-is-no-longer-the-model/
2•ekiauhce•13m ago•0 comments

Decarbonizing Singapore's Data Centers Using Sumatra's Geothermal Resources

https://ccsi.columbia.edu/the-case-for-decarbonizing-singapores-data-center-boom-using-south-suma...
2•crookedroad44•13m ago•0 comments

Will AI Fix Prior Authorization – Or Make It Worse?

https://undark.org/2026/07/15/medicare-prior-authorization-ai/
2•EA-3167•14m ago•0 comments

Metal-Organic Frameworks, Chemistry's New Miracle Materials

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/meet-metal-organic-frameworks-chemistry%E2%80%99s-new-miracle...
4•andsoitis•14m ago•0 comments

Eaon (Preview)- Private all in one AI super app

https://eaon.dev
2•morriszdweck•15m ago•1 comments

New York won't build big data centers for 12mos, weighs energy and climate risks

https://apnews.com/article/new-york-data-centers-moratorium-ai-c1e05b74208a6c570eec7c658ac8f187
4•1vuio0pswjnm7•15m ago•1 comments

LeetCode in Your Terminal

https://github.com/HarryYCChou/lcx
2•harryycchou•18m ago•0 comments

The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/anti-mac-interface/
8•ninglor•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Homer's Odyssey Tree Viewer

https://github.com/pettijohn/homer-odyssey-tree/
3•pettijohn•24m ago•0 comments

Japan Builds Intelligence Agency It Hasn't Had Since World War II

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/world/asia/japan-intelligence-agency.html
3•gmays•30m ago•0 comments

Zoom warns of critical account takeover vulnerability

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/zoom-warns-of-critical-account-takeover-vulnerabil...
3•tatersolid•30m ago•0 comments

Great mysteries of archaeology: an ancient Amazonian world revealed from the sky

https://theconversation.com/great-mysteries-of-archaeology-an-ancient-amazonian-world-revealed-fr...
5•zeristor•30m ago•0 comments

SQLite should have (Rust-style) editions

https://mort.coffee/home/sqlite-editions/
23•gnyeki•32m ago•5 comments

Concurrent JavaScript: It can work (2017)

https://webkit.org/blog/7846/concurrent-javascript-it-can-work/
2•Altern4tiveAcc•32m ago•0 comments

Are my evals lying to me?

https://hoplabs.substack.com/p/are-my-evals-lying-to-me
4•joanwestenberg•34m ago•0 comments

UK 16- and 17-year-olds to be encouraged to follow midnight social media curfew

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/14/uk-16-17-year-olds-midnight-social-media-curfew
2•bookofjoe•34m ago•0 comments

Anthropic Accidentally Made the Perfect Commercial

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/07/anthropic-ai-commercial/687925/
5•samizdis•36m ago•1 comments

I don't like the "staff engineer archetypes"

https://www.seangoedecke.com/staff-engineer-archetypes/
4•gfysfm•36m ago•0 comments

Carucate, An Ancient Unit of Land

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carucate
3•frikyng•36m ago•0 comments

Nobel-Winning U.S. Chemist Omar Yaghi Will Move to China to Lead A.I. Institute

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/science/nobel-winning-us-chemist-will-move-to-china-to-lead-ai...
6•yogthos•37m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Autoportrait- Painting Timelapses in JavaScript

https://github.com/philipfweiss/autoportrait
2•philipfweiss•40m ago•0 comments

I Didn't Sign the "We Must Act Now [on AI]" Statement (Yet)

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-i-didnt-sign-the-we-must-act
3•nozzlegear•40m ago•0 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