Tool book of a Nuremberg knight from 1505
loeffelholz-codex.org
loeffelholz-codex.org
First of all, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to explore the project. And for the criticism. Some of it was pretty harsh, but much of it was fair.
You were right about the English texts. I originally created the site in German and used AI to help with the translation. I should have reviewed the results much more carefully. That's on me.
As you noticed, I used AI-generated images to imagine what the devices in Löffelholz's drawings might have looked like in real life. It seemed like a great idea at first, especially before I had found actual replicas and artifacts. To be honest, I thought some of them looked really pretty.
I wasn't trying to pass them off as real: They were always clearly labeled as AI-generated, but that wasn't the problem. Some of the original drawings have perspective errors, and the AI carried those errors over into realistic-looking renderings. In some cases, the devices couldn't have looked like that.
Having those images on the folio pages made the whole project look AI-generated. I can see that now. I removed them completely.
I'm also working through the English translations again. Quite a few revised pages are already live (through folio 24r), and there's more to do. I still appreciate feedback, especially when something doesn't read naturally or seems wrong.
A special thank you to everyone who spoke up for the project. I really appreciate that! Your encouragement helped me deal with some of the harsher comments.
The original drawings have ambiguities in them; they are well done but perspective and scale are off, and there are lots of questions about particular details of the drawings. The AI drawings simply take these particular questionable details and render them as "real."
There should be real life artifacts for many of these tools. LLMs can just as easily go search the web for images of those as create completely unreliable, fictional renderings of the same.
(Edited wording to correct for jacquesm's point)
The owner of the site is an SEO consultant in Munich:
https://loeffelholz-codex.org/en/project/dirk-schornstein.ht...
And this person is Austrian.
Reading this in between studying information theory makes a good laugh. This is the most inefficient code I've ever heard of. It's basically unary.
(For background, the first popular optical telegraph wasn't created until ~300 years later, and used 98 visually-distinct coding symbols).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappe_telegraph#Coding_and_de...
If it's worth doing, why not do it well? This is a tiny book by book standards and writing this text would be a matter of a few weeks at most. And that way it would be much more valuable (and less off-putting)
As he says, he doesn't have much time to research the entire book.
You think he has "weeks" to write it up for others?
I imagine there are thousands of interesting projects people are doing solo and can't be bothered creating website to share with others for.
If AI can do this- fantastic! Let people moan if they can't see the positives of this. He's not trying to win an award or is paid to create a site for the public.
https://community.carbide3d.com/t/locking-register-calipers-...
It would be interesting to see what would be involved in making the digital files which would allow re-creating each of these objects.
Were the holes at the top routed or done by hand?
The fasteners were sourced from a local hardware store and modified w/ a hacksaw, a wire crimping tool which was just the right size to hold them, and a file.
The holes and outline were cut using a CNC following G-code output by MakerCAM (a fork of the Flash file PartKam).
That was a _long_ time ago, and the free software has gotten much better/easier, and these days I work for a company which makes integrated software for the CNC machines which we sell.
I'd love to see more things you've made.
https://cutrocket.com/u/WillAdams
(and mostly wood/bamboo)
A bit stalled because I've been working on:
https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview
Though I will note that I got into small-scale and inexpensive CNC because I couldn't figure out how to fit a Bridgeport that was being sold locally for less than scrap value in working condition into my basement.
I've been debating getting a lathe or making a Gingery Lathe or going the 3D print route:
> Not a diary, not a family chronicle - a tool book.
> As reliable as it says on each page - no more and no less.
> Pages without a special note have been editorially reviewed: carefully checked and corrected.
This sounds like an extremely interesting topic but the lack of care in the presentation is disappointing.
But that is typical AI quality. It is a fancified Babelfish 2.0 translator.
Some humans also use AI to "interact" with other humans. They don't seem to understand that this is a problem for some humans. When a human AI slops me, I stop all any every further interaction (assuming I can find out that this human did so. It is not always possible to find that out).
I focus my frustration on writing that is circular, vague, unnecessarily explanatory, etc. In my experience this is a symptom of the fact that there were no original ideas to begin with.
If an AI can save you time so you can continue with your passion, I say go for it. No one has paid you to create the page, he's not vying for an award. If people are interested they can read it.
[0] https://gist.githubusercontent.com/birep/bb865b2799d3f86d55f...
If you're ever in the Netherlands I can recommend a visit to the Zaanse Schans where they have a mill[1] from the days when pigments were ground with windpower. You can see the colors and you'll have a better understanding of why Royal Blue[2] was Royal (because it was incredibly expensive to make a lasting blue pigment).
Fascinating stuff.
I imagine it would be a rabbit hole, but rabbit holes can be a lot of fun. I will have to work with the poor-man pigments though. No ultra expensive gemstone grinding for me :-).
Good quality pestles can be found on flea markets, people hardly ever use them now so they don't appreciate what they've got.
What I find fascinating about Löffelholz's drawings is how alive they look. I guess he used a pencil for sketching, then ink for the outlines, washes for coloring and shadows. Then bright white paint for highlights.
This devalues the scientific value a lot because every line must be checked for correctness and source.
The book itself is very beautiful and I'm thankful for the high quality pictures.
Couple of immediate examples:
- The Codex has 154 pages. 127 of them have been reviewed, 27 not yet. - Each of the 154 pages gets a page of its own.
If an author doesn’t have time to write. Why should I give up my time to read?
"If an author doesn’t have time to write. Why should I give up my time to read?"
Perhaps he is taking the time to translate it for you, otherwise you'd have to do it yourself.
It isn't.
> Löffelholz does not open his book with a showpiece. He opens it with a practical tool you can adjust: choose a size, clamp it, work.
Because -- if the author is to be believed -- essentially no one bothered to look at this work at all before AI became available to help with it. I had certainly never heard of it before. Had you?
That's the choice being offered. Not between "LLM slop" or "painstaking human authorship", but between something being done or nothing at all being done.
Interacting with AI content makes me feel like I'm consuming something that was created purely for engagement farming. Not that human created content wasn't for engagement farming, but noticing an AI tell breaks the suspension of disbelief in a way. It devalues the relationship between creator and consumer, so that genuine care is not being shared. It's like I'm a cow being milked on an industrial engagement farm.
I'm not pro AI by any means and I don't like the way this tech is turning the world into, but I see this as a people's problem, AI is a tool, the problem is how is being shoved into everything. Is nothing else than abstraction on top of another level of abstraction.
Being an engineer is about finding the best way to solve the issue at hand. Your client won't care if you use to code AI, or if you use Javascript, or C#, Java,... your client will care that the issue at hand is fixed on the best possible way. Fix the issue fast and you'll have a happy client.
1 point by scrollop 0 minutes ago | parent | next | edit | delete [–]
"The problem with AI generated content is, it tells me you didn't care enough about the work to do it yourself."
It may be the translation, however, this project is a passion for him. I would guess the passion is the book itself, and though he wants to share his passion, I imagine creating the actual page for others is tedious compared to the work of discovering the book. I have had the same issue.
If an AI can save you time so you can continue with your passion, I say go for it. No one has paid you to create the page, he's not vying for an award. If people are interested they can read it.
There are likely many people out there doing remarkable work but they can't be bothered creating a website to share with others.
If AI can do that, fantastic - even though some people will moan. There are always people who complain.
Always were, just now this signal makes people aware of it and they don't like how it makes them feel.
> You are letting your personal biases color your view. That is your right, but check to see if it is making you happy.
Why the free psycho analysis? GP just made a statement.
Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
It's like saying "but a lot of human care goes into factory made X" when comparing it to handmade X. It starts on a lesser footing unless evidence suggests otherwise
AI is being used for the most part to shit out as much “content” as possible in order to show ads, sell courses and other products (bonus points if what is sold is itself also pure AI slop), or to finish tasks at work with as little effort as can be done, so that boss man is impressed by the velocity. “Who cares about quality? This is 2026, bro.”
The actual thoughtful use of AI is the minority case. Not the default. We humans are lazy, and when we can get away with less effort we put as little effort as we can into things.
What scientific value are you looking for?
>I still have not found a place where truly every page of the Codex is described and interpreted in detail. I want to change that. But as a single person, I can only take on a project this big with AI as a tool.That's so not true though. One of my uncles did work like this and it usually took a year or two to fully research a project and write a book but it is definitely doable to do this sort of thing - and much better, frankly - as a single individual. AI makes it a matter of days, but it also makes it next to worthless.
The biggest contribution here is to make an otherwise lesser known book more known.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%B6ffelholz-Codex
(Couldn't find an English wikipedia page on it)