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Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

https://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2009/commands-with-comma/
210•theblazehen•2d ago•64 comments

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

https://openciv3.org/
686•klaussilveira•15h ago•204 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
960•xnx•20h ago•553 comments

How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes

https://floedb.ai/blog/how-we-made-geo-joins-400-faster-with-h3-indexes
127•matheusalmeida•2d ago•35 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
65•videotopia•4d ago•3 comments

Jeffrey Snover: "Welcome to the Room"

https://www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02/01/welcome-to-the-room/
29•kaonwarb•3d ago•26 comments

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

https://jesperordrup.github.io/vocal-guide/
44•jesperordrup•5h ago•23 comments

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
236•isitcontent•15h ago•26 comments

ga68, the GNU Algol 68 Compiler – FOSDEM 2026 [video]

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/PEXRTN-ga68-intro/
8•matt_d•3d ago•2 comments

Monty: A minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust for use by AI

https://github.com/pydantic/monty
230•dmpetrov•15h ago•122 comments

Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the features I use

https://vecti.com
334•vecti•17h ago•146 comments

Where did all the starships go?

https://www.datawrapper.de/blog/science-fiction-decline
26•speckx•3d ago•17 comments

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

https://hackers-1995.vercel.app/
500•todsacerdoti•23h ago•244 comments

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
384•ostacke•21h ago•97 comments

Microsoft open-sources LiteBox, a security-focused library OS

https://github.com/microsoft/litebox
360•aktau•21h ago•183 comments

Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/
295•eljojo•18h ago•186 comments

An Update on Heroku

https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/
421•lstoll•21h ago•280 comments

PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Prolok

https://martypc.blogspot.com/2024/09/pc-floppy-copy-protection-vault-prolok.html
67•kmm•5d ago•10 comments

Dark Alley Mathematics

https://blog.szczepan.org/blog/three-points/
95•quibono•4d ago•22 comments

Was Benoit Mandelbrot a hedgehog or a fox?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01122
21•bikenaga•3d ago•11 comments

Delimited Continuations vs. Lwt for Threads

https://mirageos.org/blog/delimcc-vs-lwt
33•romes•4d ago•3 comments

How to effectively write quality code with AI

https://heidenstedt.org/posts/2026/how-to-effectively-write-quality-code-with-ai/
262•i5heu•18h ago•212 comments

Female Asian Elephant Calf Born at the Smithsonian National Zoo

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/female-asian-elephant-calf-born-smithsonians-national-zoo-an...
38•gmays•10h ago•13 comments

I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

https://kirkville.com/i-now-assume-that-all-ads-on-apple-news-are-scams/
1074•cdrnsf•1d ago•460 comments

Introducing the Developer Knowledge API and MCP Server

https://developers.googleblog.com/introducing-the-developer-knowledge-api-and-mcp-server/
61•gfortaine•13h ago•27 comments

Understanding Neural Network, Visually

https://visualrambling.space/neural-network/
294•surprisetalk•3d ago•46 comments

I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

https://infisical.com/blog/devops-to-solutions-engineering
153•vmatsiiako•20h ago•72 comments

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/07/ai-spending-economy-shortages/
14•1vuio0pswjnm7•1h ago•1 comments

Why I Joined OpenAI

https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2026-02-07/why-i-joined-openai.html
159•SerCe•11h ago•147 comments

Show HN: R3forth, a ColorForth-inspired language with a tiny VM

https://github.com/phreda4/r3
74•phreda4•14h ago•14 comments
Open in hackernews

World's largest functioning musical instrument: Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanamaker_Organ
84•bookofjoe•1mo ago

Comments

dmwood•1mo ago
A trip to Wanamakers at Christmas (including eating in the top-floor restaurant and listening to scheduled organ concerts) was a treasured fixture of my childhood in the late 50s and early 60s. If I remember correctly, there was a monorail-like tram that ran around the periphery of the toy department too. Christmas lights festooned the facade of the organ.
myvoiceismypass•1mo ago
The Wanamakers Christmas Light Show was so fun, always loved going to that with my family as a kid in the 80s!
gerdesj•1mo ago
That beast must surely require an orangutan to play it properly! Six manuals and the rest means that you don't exactly play it, more like you dance on it. Whacking out something complicated, written by Bach, on that thing is going to raise a serious sweat and I hope no one has ever tried to play "The flight of the bumblebee" without getting into peak physical condition first.

Does it have a stop labeled "Vox Dei"?

Metacelsus•1mo ago
at least it wasn't designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson!
QuesnayJr•1mo ago
It was sad to read that the store has closed (though they still managed to do some seasonal events with the organ).
wcunning•1mo ago
The Friends of the Wanamaker Organ society is doing work with the new owners towards preservation. I doubt it's going anywhere, but concerts will be sporadic for a while.
abhinavb05•1mo ago
oldest instrument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjXZzB5bUAo
0xbadcafebee•1mo ago
The Wanamaker building is fascinating. Around Christmas time, they'd turn the 3rd floor into a sort of model Dickensian village to walk through. There's a small chapel with original stained glass by Tiffany, and a wood-paneled ballroom of sorts with ornate ceilings and electric lamps by the original Edison company that are still operating. There's a large room in Egyptian-revival architecture used for fashion shows, and a chandelier-lined ornate grand ballroom with glass atrium that can seat 1,000 people. There also used to be a complete model house you could walk through, and a functional monorail to bring kids around the toy department floor.
hamonrye•1mo ago
Percentage was shifted to the Carter Hawley Hale and The May Department Stores, as well as Lord & Taylor.

John Wanamaker purchases the organ to move it to 13th and Market, which took a series of freight cars to transport.

analog8374•1mo ago
I've sang into a canyon, did a duet with myself, big canyon. Just saying.
Aboutplants•1mo ago
I thought this would be about the Luray Cavern’s Great Stalacpipe Organ.

“The Great Stalacpipe Organ is an electrically actuated lithophone located in Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA. Covering 3.5 acres of the cavern, it is considered the world's largest instrument by Guinness World Records.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stalacpipe_Organ

A great place to visit btw

conradev•1mo ago
There is a nice co-working space in the Wanamaker building if you need an excuse to visit:

https://www.mindspace.me/philadelphia/wanamaker/

jpb0104•1mo ago
If you liked this post... enjoy: Pipe Organ (An instrument the size of a building) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeB3JnKp8To
stevenjgarner•1mo ago
Also "Full tour of Largest Organ in the World! (Boardwalk Hall)"[1], the pipe organ at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJyUwk6L9lA

ajdude•1mo ago
I've been going here almost every year my entire life, most recently this past December when I got to hear the Oregon play in a concert.

In December they also have a huge light show featuring the organ and a very cool Charles Dickens walk-through village.

harel•1mo ago
And I naively assumed the one at the Royal Albert Hall in London is pretty big...
TheRealPomax•1mo ago
Calling an organ "an instrument" is like calling an entire orchestra "an instrument". You kind of hit the "what does instrument even mean" wall very, very hard: an organ this size is a control surface for 1000+ instruments.
IAmGraydon•1mo ago
This is extremely far-fetched. Would you call a piano a control surface for 88 instruments? No, you wouldn't. An individual pipe from a pipe organ is pretty useless on its own as it can only create one note, just like a piano string.
TheRealPomax•1mo ago
It sounds like you don't actually know how a real organ works, which literally has different instrument groups all over the place behind the walls, with your stops controlling which instruments sound out, and your separate decks giving you additional control over which sections to play.

You'll want to give https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeB3JnKp8To a watch, where Rob Scallon takes us on a trip to discover how incredible these instruments are, and should highlight just how little an organ is like a piano (not even "four pianos") and how much it really is an entire orchestra.

JKCalhoun•1mo ago
It looks like it has a 64' pipe labeled "Gravissima". I know only how pipe organs work mechanically, not the terminology (Google translate thought Gravissima was Italian—translated to "Very Serious" in English, ha ha).

Those low frequencies though are the draw for me.

The lowest frequency I have come across in pop music might be the backing organ from the song "Prologue" on ELO's album Time. I had the vinyl in the day… One wonders: even with RIAA bass compensation, I suspect it might have been close to jumping the needle out of the groove.

lemming•1mo ago
This is not the largest in the world but it is enormous, and is also amazing for having been built by a 15-year old to answer the question: "When I was 14 I asked my piano teacher how long a bass a string would need to be if it had no copper on it at all".

I love this follow-up quote: "I think because I was so young I absolutely knew it was totally possible to do, I was fully determined and without consulting any professionals I had no barrier stopping me."

https://www.alexanderpiano.nz/page/the-alexander-piano

There's also something quintessentially New Zealand about the whole story - making it in a mate's garage, and then moving the project to a farm tractor shed when it got too big and the inaugural concert that looks like it's still in the same shed, the photo of the tractor moving it for the outdoor concert...

IAmGraydon•1mo ago
Afraid not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stalacpipe_Organ
tmnvix•1mo ago
Can't see it described as the world's biggest instrument on the wiki page - only the biggest pipe organ. Is it really bigger than the biggest carillon?
MathMonkeyMan•1mo ago
> The display pipes of the Wanamaker Organ. These pipes are decorative only. The pipes that sound are behind and above them.

:(

Still an impressive object.