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Ask HN: How are researchers using AlphaFold in 2026?

1•jocho12•54s ago•0 comments

Running the "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Compiler

https://spawn-queue.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3786614
1•devooops•5m ago•0 comments

Watermark API – $0.01/image, 10x cheaper than Cloudinary

https://api-production-caa8.up.railway.app/docs
1•lembergs•7m ago•1 comments

Now send your marketing campaigns directly from ChatGPT

https://www.mail-o-mail.com/
1•avallark•10m ago•1 comments

Queueing Theory v2: DORA metrics, queue-of-queues, chi-alpha-beta-sigma notation

https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/queueing-theory
1•jph•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Hibana – choreography-first protocol safety for Rust

https://hibanaworks.dev/
5•o8vm•24m ago•0 comments

Haniri: A live autonomous world where AI agents survive or collapse

https://www.haniri.com
1•donangrey•25m ago•1 comments

GPT-5.3-Codex System Card [pdf]

https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/23eca107-a9b1-4d2c-b156-7deb4fbc697c/GPT-5-3-Codex-System-Card-02.pdf
1•tosh•38m ago•0 comments

Atlas: Manage your database schema as code

https://github.com/ariga/atlas
1•quectophoton•41m ago•0 comments

Geist Pixel

https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-geist-pixel
2•helloplanets•43m ago•0 comments

Show HN: MCP to get latest dependency package and tool versions

https://github.com/MShekow/package-version-check-mcp
1•mshekow•51m ago•0 comments

The better you get at something, the harder it becomes to do

https://seekingtrust.substack.com/p/improving-at-writing-made-me-almost
2•FinnLobsien•53m ago•0 comments

Show HN: WP Float – Archive WordPress blogs to free static hosting

https://wpfloat.netlify.app/
1•zizoulegrande•54m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I Hacked My Family's Meal Planning with an App

https://mealjar.app
1•melvinzammit•55m ago•0 comments

Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
2•basilikum•57m ago•0 comments

The Future of Systems

https://novlabs.ai/mission/
2•tekbog•58m ago•1 comments

NASA now allowing astronauts to bring their smartphones on space missions

https://twitter.com/NASAAdmin/status/2019259382962307393
2•gbugniot•1h ago•0 comments

Claude Code Is the Inflection Point

https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inflection-point
3•throwaw12•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: MicroClaw – Agentic AI Assistant for Telegram, Built in Rust

https://github.com/microclaw/microclaw
1•everettjf•1h ago•2 comments

Show HN: Omni-BLAS – 4x faster matrix multiplication via Monte Carlo sampling

https://github.com/AleatorAI/OMNI-BLAS
1•LowSpecEng•1h ago•1 comments

The AI-Ready Software Developer: Conclusion – Same Game, Different Dice

https://codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/the-ai-ready-software-developer-conclusion-same-game...
1•lifeisstillgood•1h ago•0 comments

AI Agent Automates Google Stock Analysis from Financial Reports

https://pardusai.org/view/54c6646b9e273bbe103b76256a91a7f30da624062a8a6eeb16febfe403efd078
1•JasonHEIN•1h ago•0 comments

Voxtral Realtime 4B Pure C Implementation

https://github.com/antirez/voxtral.c
2•andreabat•1h ago•1 comments

I Was Trapped in Chinese Mafia Crypto Slavery [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOcNaWmmn0A
2•mgh2•1h ago•1 comments

U.S. CBP Reported Employee Arrests (FY2020 – FYTD)

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/reported-employee-arrests
1•ludicrousdispla•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a free UCP checker – see if AI agents can find your store

https://ucphub.ai/ucp-store-check/
2•vladeta•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: SVGV – A Real-Time Vector Video Format for Budget Hardware

https://github.com/thealidev/VectorVision-SVGV
1•thealidev•1h ago•0 comments

Study of 150 developers shows AI generated code no harder to maintain long term

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9EbCb5A408
2•lifeisstillgood•1h ago•0 comments

Spotify now requires premium accounts for developer mode API access

https://www.neowin.net/news/spotify-now-requires-premium-accounts-for-developer-mode-api-access/
2•bundie•1h ago•0 comments

When Albert Einstein Moved to Princeton

https://twitter.com/Math_files/status/2020017485815456224
1•keepamovin•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•9mo ago

Comments

thechao•9mo 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•9mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•9mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

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

thechao•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•9mo 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•9mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•9mo 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•9mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•9mo 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_•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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/