Suburb in the sky: how Jakartans built an entire village on top of a mall - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/aug/05/suburb-in-the-sky-how-jakartans-built-an-entire-village-on-top-of-a-mall <comment><USER2> I guess relative to other options in Jakara, Cosmo Park is quite nice. However, the air quality in the city is so bad from Monday morning until Saturday afternoon that I cannot imagine jogging or doing other outdoor activities.

The air burns the throat and smells like fire and exhaust (especially from the millions of 2-cycle engine scooters with no emissions systems). Like other cities with terrible air, Jakarta will have to do something significant to become more livable; otherwise, local lifespans will dive (are diving, but will become obvious) over the next 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Decently interesting article (more of an interesting subject than the article itself), but I hate these current trends in article titles. There's absolutely nothing in this article about how they built it.

<comment><USER4> They would just have to drop the "How" to make it accurate.

Seems like a common mistake. Common enough that I now just ignore certain words when parsing titles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Suburbs in the sky are unusual because they're not very space-efficient, but fortress-like apartments-atop-mall complexes are quite common in Jakarta. Here's one of the first, the Ciputra Mall complex (mall, hotel, apartments), which any visitor to Jakarta will have seen because it's right next to the highway from the airport:

[https://travel.detik.com/travel-news/d-2146644/selama- banjir...](https://travel.detik.com/travel-news/d-2146644/selama-banjir-hotel- ciputra-tidak-terima-pesan-kamar-)

And its newer, flashier cousins Ciputra Worlds 1 (built), 2 (u/c) and 3 (planned):

[http://www.ciputraworldjakarta.com/cwj1/](http://www.ciputraworldjakarta.com/cwj1/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Given the track record of improvised solutions in Asia I wonder as a layman if the building engineers gave the green light for this with good conscience.

I mean the mall was clearly built first, with a certain structural integrity in mind. And then an entire village was built on top of it.

<comment><USER7> " Cosmo Park is one of two such developments in Jakarta by the Indonesian property developer the Agung Podomoro Group, and was built according to regulations. The second is above the Mall of Indonesia in the city's north."

Sounds like it was all built together.

</comment></comment><comment> papa-whisky Not really a 'village' like the one in the article, but I recently discovered that there's a row of townhouses on top of a shopping centre in central Melbourne: [https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-37.8256146,144.9495821,168a...](https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-37.8256146,144.9495821,168a,35y,39.5t/data=!3m1!1e3)

<comment><USER8> there is a similar thing in Brighton where there is a whole block of flats built above (presumably at the same time) as a multistory car park

when you park there it does look like they were just dropped on top

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-0...](https://email@example.com,-0.1475139,79m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48758509f6294167:0x9cc6af7a727d0ef9!8m2!3d50.82253!4d-0.137163)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like the full-size two-lane roads go well past clever and into fetishizing suburbia. The roads and car ports take up a huge amount of precious space and force you to drive up and down 10 stories of ramp every time, instead of parking lower in the garage (possibly with reserved spaces, the place is expensive enough for that) and taking the elevator. I guess it's handy when moving in/out, but again, for the cost, they could provide workers with motorized carts to move your stuff for you. Just seems really impractical with no upside, all to make you feel like you're having an "authentic suburban experience" or something.

Especially note the way the road on the right side of the pic runs _right_ up to the dropoff, well past the last carport entrance, with sidewalk and road markings all the way. They're selling the image of a chunk of suburbia sliced out and airlifted into the city.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this for lease or can people buy these houses? If they do buy them, what does that even mean? Do they own the land? And what happens if the mall people decide that it is no longer profitable?

I mean, I __really __love the idea to live there, but there are so many questions that the article didn 't answer!

<comment><USER11> From what I know most houses in Indonesia can be bought without actually owning the land. So I doubt they own the land on these houses.

Next to that, there is a huge leasing and lending market in Indonesia. So I would guess that these houses are bought with a mortgage but they don't own the land.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There used to be similar housing above the arndale shopping centre (which got removed after the bombing in 96)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- manchester-13378696](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- manchester-13378696)

</comment><comment><USER13> This was quiet interesting to hear the reactions of locals who live in cosmo park. An interesting concept.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow this is so cool, looks like something from Altered Carbon or some sci-fi video game!

</comment><comment><USER15> Not cheap, for the rich - [https://www.jakarta- apartment.net/category/apartment/cosmo-p...](https://www.jakarta- apartment.net/category/apartment/cosmo-park/)

Don't know why the article has no pics with cars in it since all the townhouses have car parks.

Interesting to know what the PM 2.5 is.

<comment><USER16> PM 2.5 is particulate matter (in the air) with diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers. I only know this because the Tokyo weather reports on TV include the PM 2.5 forecast for tomorrow as well (it seems to mostly blow over from China, although there must be domestic sources as well).

Very heavy PM 2.5 can cause disruptions like schoolkids being kept indoors... from this, I've deduced it is probably harmful to health, or at least presumed to be so.

Finally, masks that can filter out PM 2.5 can be easily purchased from webstores, but none of them are comfortable to ride a bicycle or walk around all day in.

Now you know as much as I do. :)

<comment><USER16> Oh what _the_ PM 2.5 is, right, lol. Well I will leave my answer for the other guy who hadn't heard of PM 2.5.

As for the PM 2.5 level in Jakarta, well... not... so good...

[https://aqicn.org/city/jakarta/](https://aqicn.org/city/jakarta/)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: GitHunt – GitHub Trending Page on Steroids - <AUTHOR> https://kamranahmed.info/githunt/ <comment><USER2> Which feature exactly contains the steroids?

</comment><comment><USER3> How does it work?</comment>


Ask HN: What would alien code look like? - <AUTHOR> Hi fellers,
Disclaimer: Not a programmer, but semi-technical and know a little bit about engineering concepts.
That said, lets be imaginative for a bit and pretend we made contact with an advanced space travelling race of alien. We have the opportunity to look their technology and programming behind it.
What do you think would be significantly different from the way they write their code and ours? Would they have the same logic as us? Could they use logic gates that we don't have yet? Would their computers have to be based in binary? What could they use instead?
Fundamentally, could their programs be translated directly into human code, like C++, or would a difference in conceptual understanding be so different that human code could not express alien logic?
Feel free to let your mind run with this. Would love to hear some crazy thoughts. Thanks <comment><USER2> " _Few of us have been to Mars. But science fiction has filled in many of the gaps. We know that the Martian civilization is immensely old. Its software technology, therefore, must be similarly antique. Obviously nothing like it exists on earth - though those of us who remember VMS might be deceived...

...Since Earth code is fifty years old, and Martian code is fifty million years old, Martian code has been evolving into a big ball of mud for a million times longer than Earth software. (And two million times longer than Windows...)

...There is only one thing to do with it: obliterate the trunk, fire the developers, and hire a whole new fscking army of Martian code-monkeys to rewrite the entire fscking thing.

This is such an obvious and essential response to the big ball of mud pattern that, despite the fact that we know nothing about Mars, we can deduce that it must have happened on Mars. Probably several times. Probably several hundred. For each of these attempts but the last, of course, the result was either (a) abject failure, (b) another big ball of mud, or (c) both.

But the last, by definition, succeeded. This is the crucial inference we can draw about Mars: since the Martians had 50 million years to try, in the end they must have succeeded. The result: Martian code, as we know it today. Not enormous and horrible - tiny and diamond-perfect._"

No comment on what follows, but you might find it entertaining.

[http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional- progra...](http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming- from.html)

<comment><USER3> Warning for others following the link: that's an overly verbose post with too much unfunny humour, describing a language whose implementation - on Google code - is written in a language (Watt) the author defines in the previous post. That language, in turn, doesn't appear to be much more than a more obscure version of the lambda calculus, and about as readable.

<comment><USER4> Counter-warning: I liked it :) but I tend to like more fanciful, meandering approaches to CS topics, like Why the Lucky Stiff and Clifford Pickover. Or Lewis Carroll, for that matter.

Notable concepts from the article: a "fixed-point" of language design, the idea of working backward from an aesthetic (Martian) to a language, and Kelvin versioning, in which "releases count down by integer degrees Kelvin. At absolute zero, the system can no longer be changed."

It's true, though; I found the actual language the author's made (or is still making?) to be pretty opaque.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Logic gates are fundamental, and would be exactly the same. [1]

They don't have to be binary, but it's a lot easier, so it's a near certainty. Plus true/false is also fundamental.

So I think at a low level it'll be pretty similar.

Math is usually considered to be universal, and computers are based on math, so that will all be the same.

Memory access however could be totally different. Our machines are Von Neumann, but aliens could use a totally different architecture.

[1] There is one gate for each combination of binary input and output. There are three inputs: 0 0, 1 1, and 0 1 (1 0 is the same thing). For each input there are two possible outputs, total 6. There are 6 gates: and, or, xor, nand, nor, nxor (xnor)

Or put another way:

                                     xnor
                 nor  xor  nand and  nxor or
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
      1 1:  0    0    0    0    1    1    1    1
      0 1:  0    0    1    1    0    0    1    1
      0 0:  0    1    0    1    0    1    0    1

(A gate that always returns 0 or 1 is useless, so those two don't count.)

If you want logic gates that depend on position, then you have more options (16 in total, compared to the 8 I listed), and you can see them here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective#Table_of_bin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective#Table_of_binary_logical_connectives)

Our computers don't use them, I suppose alien ones could, but I doubt they would.

<comment><USER6> Maybe they also invented the memristor:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=397335>

The memristor is an imply gate:

      0 0 | 1
      0 1 | 1
      1 0 | 0
      1 1 | 1

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not even going to venture a guess on the lower-level similarities. It's certainly easy to say that, of course they'd use binary, it's the obvious, simple choice. But I'm not an alien and don't presume to know what they would find obvious. Their "computers" might be built by wiring a bunch of alien cow brains together until they get something that can navigate starships but can't be trusted to add two numbers together reliably. Things are made from what's handy and then grow from there, not necessarily from whatever is the most elegant or mathematically pure.

One thing I would bet on is that they wouldn't code in anything resembling C++. Even now, only a handful of decades into human computing, languages are becoming increasingly high level and abstracted from the machines themselves. Assuming that our alien friends have had a few centuries / millenia to improve on things, I'd expect that they'd have progressed to much more intuitive, more automated, and less detail-oriented methods. Especially if we assume that they've developed reasonably strong AI, the very idea of "programming" could be as strange to them as someone building their own computer from wire and logic gates would be to us.

<comment><USER8> actually I saw someone at the retro computer fair who'd done just that with a ZX spectrum: <http://www.zxdesign.info/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They will use balanced ternary rather than binary at the lowest hardware levels:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary>

I first learned of balanced ternary from this article:

[http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,cont...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3268,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx)

(Beware; the balanced-ternary example values there don't seem to be rendering negative digits correctly.)

</comment><comment><USER10> That's a great question. I think any advanced space-faring civilization would have no further use of programming languages as we know them, as any ship or computer system would be sentient or even sapient by their builder civilization's standards. Communicating with these artificial minds would be as difficult as communicating with the aliens themselves.

We would have to overcome whatever language barriers we find before being able to do the equivalent of "programming" - I don't think there would be any language below whatever their equivalent of microcode though, nor do I think any language could express everything necessary.

Well, maybe Lisp ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> So you think they could just describe what they need, and their awesome AI computers could just whip up something just like that? If so, even the AI bots would express alien logic birthed unto them (unless we're talking about a species of AI that has evolved into its own race, but lets not go there :D). So at some point, something or someone has to put code down into some hardware.

<comment><USER10> Well I think anything that was used to describe the AI programming would have long since been lost to the ages, and the AI outgrown any known language which can describe it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If they are advanced enough to space travel, and they evolved from a survival mode, it would imply that their thinking organs are not designed to deal with infinite complexity. Just like us, their brains would have been evolved to deal with some primary physical stuff (like falling rocks, fire, etc). So programming will be as complex to them as it is to us.

The complexities would have to be abstracted away, and if they were space travelling, the abstractions have to be reliable. So probably, by the time we meet them, they have some type of black-box elementary code particulars for many different functions that everyone needs to join together to produce machines.

Probably, they would have developed some type of inform interface method, where you can specify what you want in and out and the appropriate atomic block gets delivered to you. They would have some type of global repository that harnesses the power of many different individuals working on problems to avoid any form of repetition.

Currently, we interface with code through typing. This is inefficient for us, and we don't know how they will coummicate. However, for them to be capable of abstract though, they will need to create pictures in their mind. It does not seem farfetched to assume that they have much faster interfacing methods that work directly on pictures they visualise. This allows them join the atomic blocks much quicker.

In effect, they will try to eliminate the manual work entirely, and only do the specifications part of things (tell it what you want), and let the computer build the rest of the things.

On the other hand, perhaps they lack our sense of moral, and will work with biological computers, and not metal-based.

</comment><comment><USER12> Imagine humans in prehistoric times thinking about making contact with aliens: "Will their spearheads be made of stone or a more advanced material?" If aliens will come we'll see that the questions you ask here are irrelevant, as the terms programs and programming languages will not apply to their technology -- it will be something completely different.

Admittedly, programming has mathematical foundations (algorithms) so it has a good change to still be relevant.

If they do have programs, then the according to the Church-Turing thesis the programs could be translated to human code, but not necessarily in a clear way.

</comment><comment><USER13> Aliens exist in the same physical universe that we exist in.

However we only engage directly with a small subset of the universe and in ways that have been evolutionarily useful.

Aliens might well have evolved to engage in a different subset.

We certainly have different subsets here on Earth -- consider colour vision for example and the effects on colour coding interpretations between humans, fish, birds, reptiles, bees, etc.

Communication requires being able to predict response to stimulation. The degree of similarity with which we perceive a given stimulation will determine how well we can communicate.

Computer programs can been seen as a kind of communication with a computer, and it only makes sense for programs to be written in a convenient communicative form.

While it might seem obvious that aliens would use digital computers it isn't necessarily so.

Analog computers might make more sense for them -- the main reason we don't use them much these days is that they're hard to reprogram -- but with nanotech or biotech it might be far more trivial.

There are also quantum computers, and non-electrical computational systems.

People also assume numeracy, but consider aliens without recursion which deal with numbers by subitization up to some large quantity rather than counting.

</comment><comment><USER14> The hardware and software would not necessarily be as distinct as it is in our technology. Alien technology might more closely resemble that of organic life, where the decision making processes are built into the physical structure of the system. Conceivably, these systems could also be designing through an evolutionary-like process, instead of the human engineering process.

<comment><USER15> I agree.. I would think that a more highly advanced technology would start to resemble organic life. I'm no engineer, but I'd say we're still a long way off from this in most regards, am I correct?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think if we encountered aliens, they will not be "biological" but mechanical and electronic. These have by far the more superior characteristics needed for space travel.

The same holds for us, we are sending robots already and it will only be more and more robots in the future.

Also, "artificial" AIs will be the ones doing the programming. They can be extremely more complex than humans, because their electronic brains can actually be scaled up, and new data can be much faster interpreted and shared.

The code they write will be machine code, because they can compile their own abstract ideas themselves. On a low level the code will be extremely optimized. Like how an expert human programmer would optimize his 100 lines of assembly code in the 70s.

Resources will not be wasted, in fact they will have way more computing power and use it very effectively at the same time.

So, how would the code look like? Sadly only ones and zeroes. We would have to translate it to assembly ourselves and then extract more abstract concepts of it, for us to understand it.

<comment><USER17> _"The code they write will be machine code, because they can compile their own abstract ideas themselves."_

This doesn't seem likely. Unless this alien species is isolationist to the extreme, they'll need to communicate with others of their species. Therefore they need a language that can communicate high-level concepts, something assembly is not known to be good at doing.

Or to put it another way, even though we communicate with our bodies in a very low-level way (sending neural impulses to contract or relax muscles), our language is very high level. We don't say, "Fire neuron 10212, fire neuron 39232...", we say, "Come over here, please." We don't think in terms of firing neuron either; that's a job for the low-level subconscious.

In a similar way, I'd expect any artificial life form to have a language to express high level concepts, and "compile" with their subconscious.

<comment><USER16> Yes, but we were talking about writing code, not communication.

<comment><USER17> What's the difference?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What would alien code look like? Perhaps like Piet: <http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html> <http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet/samples.html>

</comment><comment><USER19> As programming have mathematical foundations, I think it makes more sense to ask what alien mathematic would look like. Would their mathetmatic be isomorphic with ours? Would they have just their own versions of caluculs, set theory, topology, differential geometry, etc. with just some minor differences? As most of mathematics is based on few simple axioms (from which more complex 'things' are derived[1]) this seems quite unlikely - but on the other hand 'basic and simple' may mean something completely different to them; for example classic geometry for creatures whose vision is not main sense would kind of awkward, also they wouldn't probably think of some integrals as an area.

[1] At least that is how I see mathematics right now as a math/cs student; please correct me if I am mistaken.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's not exactly an answer to your question, but if you aren't familiar with the Church-Turing thesis (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis>), you might find it interesting.

</comment><comment><USER21> Lets step back a little bit and look at the question of 'sentience'. So far, just as we only have one example of a planet full of life, we also only have ourselves (I am being inclusive of all life on Earth that has neuronal structures we collectively call a 'brain') to draw our references from.

Whether we look at snails with 12 neurons for a brain, or a human or cetacean that have the most complex brains on earth, the biochemistry behind how they work is all rooted from the same evolutionary source.

We can _hypothesize_ that on a another planet where life arises using the same kinds of naturally occurring elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc etc), and that this life lives in a similar environment (a warm, wet, ball of rock) that we might see convergent evolution across many, many worlds that share these properties.

DNA is what life here on Earth eventually settled on, but remember that the latest theories of life's beginnings on our world is that RNA probably came first. So its not 100% proof positive that DNA or its chemical equivalents are the _only_ way to make a living, complex cell. Different replicative mechanisms could create different biochemistry, even on a world that is nearly identical to Earth.

The point of this is that even on a world with a different kind of replicative biochemical system, complex life could evolve similar large-scale structures. Fins for the water, legs for land, wings for air, eyes for seeing, etc, etc.

So, does this hypothetical situation also extend to things like brains? If this alternate biosphere uses a chemical system very different from DNA, how does that affect the chemistry of what makes a brain? Perhaps arsenic is like seratonin or dopamine, for example.

Putting aside the chemistry for a moment, does a similar physical environment that encourages things like legs, eyes, and skin encourage the development of similar brain structures to control those systems? Or, are there vastly different kinds of brain structures that can control the stuff that makes up a body?

IBM has been working on simulating the neuronal columns that make up a cat brain. Mice, cats, and humans all share some variation of these columns. It makes sense because we all share common ancestors and we inherited these basic structures from them. But would we necessarily expect to see these structures in life coming from a different biochemical history?

So pulling this back to the original question, how much of our mathematics and computing models correspond to how our form of intelligence has evolved?

Based on the universe we can see and test, we have developed a very large and thorough mathematical knowledge-base of how the universe fits together. But it does beg the question, if another kind of sentient life discovers the same mathematics do they utilize that knowledge in the same ways that we have?

Binary logic is a very efficient way to do our kind of computing. But its not the only way. Quantum computation is an easy example of a non-binary way to do computation. We've also only been doing this for a little over a century, and if we can take anything from the lessons of history its that we should never assume what or how we do something now is going to be the best way for all time.

I can't and shouldn't offer a definitive answer to the question. No one on Earth can provide anything more than a strong hypothetical argument one way or another. Remember, black swans and all.

What it would take to answer this would be to find that ever so elusive alien tech and stick some probes in it and start studying it. Experimental evidence is the only way to ever really prove something.

I will offer a hypothetical answer though, here at the end. From everything I have learned in my life, its likely that math and physics work everywhere we can see. And we can see a long, long way away. Even if some sentients on another world with a vastly different arrangement of biochemistry and thinking-stuff (aka brain analogues) invent their types of 'computers' that work differently than ours, I think we can understand how they work.

As we are demonstrating that we can simulate the physics of the universe in our Turing-complete machines (biology to nuclear explosions to air flow over a race car body), when we figure out all the nitty-gritty of how our brains work we'll simulate those too. Given the proper amount of knowledge of how a system works, such as for alien brains and alien computers, we'll be able to load them up and run them as well.

So, as long as the aliens we encounter are based on the same physics we are, there shouldn't fundamentally be a problem to figuring out how their systems work. There might be a high likely-hood that we find many, many similarities at the root level of their computing technologies to our own.

</comment><comment><USER22> Speaking as a sci-fi author, who thinks about this quite a bit: there will be more _kinds_ of programming, but it'll all pretty much resemble what we already have. It will be faster and easier, and use (or "waste", depending on your perspective) lots more resources. It would be completely predicated on the technology, not in "alien thinking"; if given a tutorial, humans could easily program the alien computers the same way the aliens could, after struggling with concepts that are about equivalently difficult to recursion or pointer arithmetic.

The kind of programs we know today (encoding static text segments using a tower of abstractions and compilers) would still continue to exist. What we today call "programming" as a whole, will be what aliens call "embedded programming"—the kind you do under severe resource-constraints, where every gate must be secure, reliable, and could be hit with hard radiation at any time. We'd easily be able to understand these programs, given an appropriate disassembler. They would likely be written mostly by constraint-solving AIs, however, not tediously by aliens, who have better things to do. Aliens would, however, check them over out of paranoia/"defense-in-depth." They would be intensely parallel: imagine how NASA shuttle software works, with several independently-contracted codebases on independent hardware voting on each decision—but multiply the scales a millionfold.

Most programs, however, would not be "embedded"; they could expect to rely on a "silly" amount of resources. They would be inscrutable, mostly JIT- genetically-evolved from small "goal scripts" (which themselves would still, indeed, resemble human source code—clear and exact communication of rules and intent within a business domain survives no matter the language used.) They would rely on a "universal library" of "common sense", both in process knowledge (algorithms, protocols) and semantic knowledge (datatypes, fixtures, "facts" in the RDF sense) that would allow programmers to actually write "Do What I Mean" programs as well as could ever be achieved.

There would only be a single "programming language", for the same reason that we, today, have a Unicode character encoding. All programs would be _internally_ stored in something resembling S-expressions (just a binary- encoded tree), and represented, textually or graphically (or audially or kinesthetically or experientially or somatically or telepathically...) through a bijective transformation. Every identifier in a program would be a universally-unique resource-locating ID (i.e. something that is both a UUID and a URL) allowing for importing of live code from external (network) libraries, cross-program optimization and symbolic unification, global API versioning, and removal of all "name clashes."

Also, a bonus sociological perspective: there would be living software—like with carbon-based life, we would classify software into "plants" (natural resources that we care about mostly as an enabler), "animals" (feeling but unthinking goal-directed objects that we think should have some, but not all, the rights of sentients) and "people" (which would have just the same rights bio-people do.) "Animal" software would have control systems that mimic (or simply _are_ ) emotions; an alien Roomba would indeed be considered a pet. But in the converse view, the aliens would consider genetically programming carbon-based plants and animals to have symbiotic functions, just as we currently live in symbiosis with robots and machines. They might all be ultra- vegans, for the simple reason that any combination of flavor, texture, and nutritional content could be turned into the fruit of a plant (a symbiotic arrangement), and so would abhor the non-symbiosis with which we consume our own environment.

<comment><USER23> _after struggling with concepts that are about equivalently difficult to recursion or pointer arithmetic_

I think that's a bit optimistic. Even within the realms of human programming languages, competence may require struggling with concepts that are as difficult as, say, monads or virtual destructors or Prolog cuts or abstract factory factory factory factories or call-with-current-continuation. Those are all at least one step up from recursion or pointers. I don't see any reason to expect that alien languages would be nearer in conceptual difficulty to C than to Haskell or C++ or Scheme or Prolog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Their programming languages will be frighteningly similar to Javascript: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendhak/2643251456/>

</comment><comment><USER25> Their programs would be single real numbers: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_computer> .

</comment><comment><USER26> There are those (myself included) that would say Perl looks like it was created by aliens.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think it's unclear. We have some ability to do math, but even our specialists learn it with great difficulty. (We see something a bit similar when we try to teach other primates language or math. They can learn enough to fake some of it, with lots of difficult training.) If we want to see more examples of human cognitive limits, I hear we can look to games like chess. We play them because we're bad at them.

It's very possible that there's things we can't imagine how to begin answering (even things we really care about) that another species finds trivial. Or funnier, we could have roughly similar mental powers, but our thought processes are so different that each species' insights seem entirely mystical to the other.

I hear that psychologists (and following them, AI researchers) keep finding that intelligence is buried in our visual and lingusitic systems. What if these aliens have very different organs? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXQtoAyCGA&feature=PlayL...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXQtoAyCGA&feature=PlayList&p=9F536001A3C605FC&playnext_from=PL)

And off-topic, might this explain "rubber-duck debugging," where we explain our problems to a rubber duck? (Because using language clarifies our thoughts.) And why we often write pictures on paper to better visualize abstract problems? (To leverage our powerful visual apparatus.)</comment>


Barnes and Noble Announce $259 'Nook' E-Book Reader - <AUTHOR> http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/features/techspecs/ <comment><USER2> The potential for integration with the physical store is awesome. First of all, it means I know exactly where to go to try one.</comment>


IBM becomes the first company to be granted 5000 US patents in a single year - <AUTHOR> http://java.sys-con.com/node/1677580

<comment><USER2>
      It took IBM 50 years to get its first 5,000 patents and that milestone was hit 40 years ago back in 1961.

<pedantic> That was 50 years ago, not 40. </pedantic>

</comment><comment><USER3> It's pretty tempting to rattle something off about the patent system with a story like this, but given that IBM has so many research facilities and an R&D budget rivaling the NSF's, I'd guess IBM has more legit patents (non- frivolous) than other company.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just imagine all the legal and administrative budget be put toward developing new products (or even adding to IBM's bottom line).

<comment><USER5> "Toward developing new products"... which would be killed because someone else patented something remotely related to them.

I don't imagine playing a game at that level and not use patents so I don't blame IBM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I especially love the comment regarding the USPTO as "efficient." As if there is any metric measurable by an outside source that can distinguish between "efficient" and "just grant the damn things."

</comment><comment><USER7> Is that a matter of pride or a matter of shame?</comment>


New Challenge App - <AUTHOR> 60 Second Workout Challenge https://appsto.re/gb/LNiXab.i<p>New app that works for anyone and everyone at all levels and is backed scientifically and proven by doctors globally <comment><USER2> > is backed scientifically [citation needed] and proven by doctors globally > [citation needed]</comment>


Security hole found in Rails 2.3's http_authentication.rb - <AUTHOR> http://n8.tumblr.com/post/117477059/security-hole-found-in-rails-2-3s

<comment><USER2> Yep, looks real enough to me. Confusion between "nil" and "false" in Ruby, where an assumed true/false return value actually takes on a third value that also matches a nil password.

<comment><USER3> Not being a ruby programmer, is there a defensive coding idiom that would have prevented this confusion?

<comment><USER4> You can always test for nil explicitly. Compare:

      unless foo
        # ... foo can be false or nil to reach this branch
      end

      unless foo == false
        # ... this branch is reached unless foo == false
      end

Since terseness is considered such a cardinal virtue amongst Ruby programmers (including myself), however, this kind of issue is often ignored, and difficult to detect unless your tests explicitly check for "truthy" and "non- truthy" values in addition to the true/false literals.

<comment><USER3> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two thoughts:

1\. It shows that tests are only as good as the thinking that goes into them, i.e., it's up the programmer to think through all the use cases, possibility for breakage, and use the appropriate tools to try a wide range of inputs.

2\. This lack of responsiveness to the vulnerability reminds me of the complaints Zed (Shaw) made about the Rails Core back when he announced he was leaving the Ruby community.

Preemptive disclaimer: These are not supposed to be snide remarks in any way, they're just two quick associations of a tired brain. So please no flames.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, back in January I came across a directory traversal vulnerability in Rack ([http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby- talk/...](http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby- talk/324389)). They had lots of unit tests, but none testing that particular case. Unit testing is certainly no magic bullet.

On the other hand, the Rack team was incredibly responsive and put out an update within hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious, did you submit a bug report for this patch? I can't find it on <http://rails.lighthouseapp.com>.

It seems odd to me that you would use Tumblr and Hacker News as a sounding board for a security flaw rather than submitting a bug report or notifying the Rails team through existing mailing lists.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Security vulnerabilities should be reported via an email to firstname.lastname@example.com, do not use lighthouse for reporting security vulnerabilities. All content in lighthouse is publicly available as soon as it is posted."

Yes, as I mention in the blog post, I've attempted to contact this security list and a couple members on the core team through their individual email accounts over a week ago. I've only received one response last Thursday that someone would look into it, but the issue seemed to die there.

Now that enough time has been given for the security list to look into the problem (and hopefully not ignore it), the best practice I thought would be to tell as many people as possible about it so the fix can be applied and publicized. I felt I'd get a lot bigger audience here at Hacker news than the rails bug tracker. The bigger the audience the more people that can get their Rails 2.3 instances fixed if they are effected and avoid a problem. I was also planning on posting it there, but feel free to do it as well.

<comment><USER8> Nate,

I'm sorry that you weren't told that we were working on this as part of a point release that was due out in the next 24 hours. Clearly there's been a failure in communications somewhere along the line. For what its worth your emails to the security list never arrived in my inbox. There's something wrong with one of our mail servers, but other messages to that list arrive frequently.

However I remain incredibly disappointed that you posted this so publically without so much as following up one more time with pratik, or emailing the rails core list or anything.

The wheels were in motion with this one, and drama like this will merely distract people from the issues at hand.

Michael Koziarski Rails Core Team Member and 'Dude who gets the security emails'

<comment><USER3> "I've only received one response last Thursday that someone would look into it, but the issue seemed to die there."

I am not clear here where the 24 hours starts.

<comment><USER8> We'll push this fix to 2-3-stable and master now as the 'damage is done' in terms of disclosure.

The timeframe for the 2.3.3 point release is hopefully 'this week'. We're just waiting on a few other things to fall into place.

<comment><USER9> If you're trying to convince your community that it's better to work through your process, letting nebulous "other things" continue holding up a week-old one-line fix to a catastrophic security flaw is not helping. Disclosure enables everyone else to work around the problem _now_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> a sad story, comparing to the recent arc/hn security hacking: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639976>

reading that post was delighting me: a serious bug, a fix added, a community supporting & being thankful.

here at rails, a framework i would like to love it, a serious bug, no fix, a community throwing the shit over the fence and each other.

this immediately reminds me of the recent pr0n story in rails, where some members of the community were offended, by whatever reasons, by other community members.

the only good, non-technical advancement in rails in the last period i saw was the documentation project supported by the community and backed by rails eminents.

i'm expecting a firm and strong support here from rails, either would it come from dhh, or anybody else.

otherwise even if i would like to work with rails and build my life on it i can't afford a serious security hole being treated like this.

ruby and almost in the same way rails are close to my heart. i'm always defending them in such cases, even making myself being too subjective.

i can accept rails edginess, mac-alike metrosexualism (no ofense to anyone!), handsomeness and awesomeness, funky geekness BUT in some cases, like this, we should act normally, promptly, professionaly as any other community does.

EDIT: the official rails core answer: [http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails- security/browse_t...](http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails- security/browse_thread/thread/20e17a978d2ccbd3?hl=en) posted 10hrs ago this comment was made. it contains a bugfix, instructions and a disclosure i'm copying here:

Disclosure Notes ====

Due to communication difficulties and a mis-understanding between the reporter and the security team. This vulnerability has been publicly disclosed on several websites, users are advised to update their applications immediately. Steps are being taken to ensure that the security email is more reliable in the future. We regret the nature of this disclosure and will endeavor to update processes and documentation to ensure it doesn't happen again in the future.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, I'm not getting this flaw at all. Which version of 2.3 is this addressing? Rails 2.3.1 only? I just tried this on a 2.3.2 app and got HTTP Basic: Access denied.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rails 2.3.x. The app you tested this on, what's the password procedure like? One part of problem is doing a password procedure like "Users[name]" where Users is a hash of usernames/passwords. Also I believe this just effects folks doing digest auth (authenticate_or_request_with_http_digest) not basic auth (authenticate_or_request_with_http_basic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> IMO, you should write your own code, instead of relying on someone else's possibly buggy code. If you are going to use somebody else's code, you should at LEAST look at it to make sure its correct, especially something as terse as this.</comment>


Startups and indie game developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.techship2038.com/post/25468247172/single-player-mode <comment><AUTHOR> Single Player Mode</comment>


A CIA calendar the CIA gift shop refuses to sell - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-cia-calendar-the-cia-gift-shop-refuses-to-sell-yes-and-heres-the-strange-story-behind-it/2016/12/28/bde03862-c604-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html <comment><USER2> It would be interesting to gain some professional insight on what's happening here, as I (like several other responders) find this article somewhat objectionable. The story that is presented literally ends with these words:

> the gift shop can't sell the calendar because "it's not an official work of > the U.S. government

There's no need for punctuation, no need to close the quote. The story is over.

There's still a question in my mind, though, about how this came to pass. Looking at the story closely, it appears to largely consist of a human interest filler piece on one particular man's hobby devotion to the CIA, as well as the sentimentality of several former operatives; actually, I imagine some frowns at the CIA to see the story being published, because it looks awfully like a major national newspaper known for investigative journalism _doing a favour_ to former (and possibly current) CIA employees by publicizing their pet project.

I don't have the experience to look at an article and recognize what it was meant to be, but the structure seems very awkward, and I am wondering if we are seeing a story that just turned out to be meaningless and was published anyway (the gift shop refusal) or a rather boring (to anyone without a 'patriotic'-type interest in the CIA) human interest piece that was unwisely and badly rearranged to justify a clickbait title.

Knowledgeable replies would be very welcome. I am willing to say things that are wrong if that would help inspire you.

<comment><USER3> speaking of WaPo running CIA PR, from today: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/27/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/27/why- its-so-hard-to-prove-russia-was-behind-the-election-hacks/)

<comment><USER4> The Washington Post does a lot of favors they don't publicize. For example, this: [https://wikileaks.org/dnc- emails/emailid/2699](https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699)

They made an arrangement with the WaPo to quietly add DNC donors to the party invite list. They wanted to put that on their donor price sheets, but the lawyers wouldn't allow it. It's not clear how or why this kind of stealthy donation of services from the WaPo to the DNC was better.

<comment><USER5> At this point I don't even click on WaPo links anymore even when the headlines sound interesting. Their one sided political ideologism makes the most politics-free stories into left-wing manifestos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it would be interesting and heartbreaking to view this calendar. The CIA is not the noble intelligence agency that's sold to the world. There is testimony given before congress that confirms they have injected propaganda into major magazines for decades and they have refused to answer any questions about TV propaganda.

> Flip to April for "The First Sting," depicting a CIA-trained Afghan > mujahideen striking Soviet helicopters with a Stinger missile.

The mujahideen was created when the US convinced Egypt to release their criminals (murders, rapists, some political prisoners) and let them gain freedom by fighting a war in Afghanistan. That's where you get the Taliban. Also in case anyone has forgotten, the US is still bombing Afghanistan. Their civilian population is terrified of drones. It's been the longest military campaign by the US ever. (see the BBC documentary: The Power of Nightmares)

<comment><USER7> > The mujahideen was created when the US convinced Egypt to release their > criminals (murders, rapists, some political prisoners) and let them gain > freedom by fighting a war in Afghanistan.

That is a theory I have never come across before. Can you point me to the book or article that you got that idea from?

<comment><USER6> I'd start with the BBC documentary: "The Power of Nightmares." It comes in three parts and covers the entire cold war era up to the early 2000s.

You may also want to read up on Sayyid Qutb and Leo Strauss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This post[1] about the CIA gift shop was far more interesting to me.

[1][http://savageminds.org/2013/11/13/made-in-china-notes- from-t...](http://savageminds.org/2013/11/13/made-in-china-notes-from-the-cia- gift-shop/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm hopeful that after the Washington Post hires the 5 dozen additional reporters it plans to add in 2017, readers will again see real investigative journalism. The hard-hitting reporting of the 1970's and 80's has been replaced by opinion pieces masquerading as journalism and puff pieces like this.

<comment><USER10> No doubt. I subscribed to WaPo in hopes of finding a politically neutral (or at least, balanced) paper that focused on real news and not political opinion and crap. The last year, however, has been dreadful for that paper. It feels like 80% of the first page of front page content has been anti-Trump opinion pieces.

I want to read about the war in Syria, ISIS, finance, the American economy, and technology. This stuff should be the mainstay of any U.S. paper.

<comment><USER11> Do you recommed another paper I can subscribe to that tries to reports more neutral?

<comment><USER10> I sure wish I had one to recommend. I asked this question on Facebook last year and got a bunch of good responses from some friends:

* The Economist (left-leaning but has good reporting)

* Wall Street Journal

* BBC

* Christian Science Monitor

<comment><USER12> The Economist is not particularly left-leaning - they're quite in favor of free markets and a light regulatory touch for many things.

The Financial Times is another good one.

<comment><USER13> I mostly agree, but I felt like they were bursting at the seams to criticize Trump. Hardly a piece on the site that I RECALL had anything positive to say about the Brexit, Trump, or other movements. I like to read positive and negatives for both. Overall, a good site/magazine.

<comment><USER14> Better to say that The Economist is pro-globalism, right or left.

<comment><USER13> Yeah maybe that's more accurate, depending on what you mean by globalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I imagine he's going to sell a hell of a lot more of them due to this article than he would in the gift shop.

<comment><USER16> I'd rather read the story of how they managed to land that product placement.

<comment><USER17> [http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fascinating. Where can I read about the Manchurian ambush and the guy shooting into the Chinese biplane?

<comment><USER19> The events depicted in "Ambush in Manchuria" are described here:

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol50no4/two-cia-prisoners- in-china-1952201373.html)

This appears to be the painting in question:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/7190299989](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/7190299989)

The circumstances surrounding the gentleman shooting at the biplane from a helicopter are described here:

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol52no2/iac/an-air-combat- first.html)

I agree with your sentiment that the WaPo should have provided more detailed accounts or external links to such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I once had a passenger who'd moved to Scottsdale, Arizona when he was a Green Beret (Army Special Forces). They'd picked Scottsdale because General North needed an airport with a big enough runway for their planes [1]...

I always wonder what the secret services are really up to.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair)

<comment><USER10> Sorry to break it to you but any time a random person offers up that they were in special operations, they almost always are lying. This paradox is well- known among military servicemembers but not as much by civilians.

You never, ever here these fakers offer up that they were an Army cook or a Navy supply clerk, even though there's 1000x more of these than there are special operators. If someone ever tells you he or she was a generator mechanic or a network tech in the war, they're almost certainly telling you the truth.

<comment><USER21> Special Ops also includes Airborne. That's roughly 30,000 people right there. Seems to me that it's a poor understanding on part of the public that spec ops means you're a badass.

Of course, your comment about the cook is spot on, and too many people make it seem as thought their role in spec ops was bigger than reality.

<comment><USER10> Not exactly. The Army, Navy, and Air Force all have special operations forces that are Airborne-qualified (they've attended the U.S. Army Airborne School) and many are also Military Freefall-qualified (aka HALO).

That does not mean, however, that all airborne are special operations. In fact, the _vast majority_ of Airborne troops are not special operations- qualified. Most are members of FORSCOM, which is the traditional major command for U.S. Army ground forces--i.e. not special operations. An example of such a unit is the 82nd Airborne Division. Airborne, but not special operations.

To further complicate things, it's also possible to be a member of a Special Forces unit but not actually be special operations-qualified. Like every other part of the military, special operations requires a vast logistics machine to keep it moving and there are many non-combat personnel who belong to these units and are Airborne-qualified who are not special operators. Typical non- combat jobs in these units include vehicle mechanics, logistics specialists, etc.

Relatively speaking, the special operations units of the U.S. military are a tiny percentage of the overall force. Given their traditional status as "quiet professionals", it's extremely unlikely that someone offering up their status as a "green beret", "Navy SEAL", or "Army Ranger" is telling the truth.

Source: I am a Captain (Engineer branch, very not-special) with eight years of service. Currently serving in the U.S. Army Reserve.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for your addition. I left out of my post that there are different commands and different definitions of "special" because I was typing on my phone (which I hate).

Have a great new year and thanks for all your work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Intelligence agencies proportedly of democracies should invest more in cultural (and philosophical) self-reflection. That might mean "wasting" comparatively tiny sums on art, architecture, history, archival, philosophy and other non-mission-oriented realms because they may bring social wealth and beauty to where there may otherwise be only perfunctory, brutalist utility.

</comment><comment><USER23> I can't read the article, when I use the web link the WP complains I've read too many articles and I don't see an easy way (outside using dev tools) to get rid of the popup. Of course it is their right to ask me to subscribe.

<comment><USER24> I'll sum it up:

        The inaugural "Secret Ops of the CIA" calendar was produced by the nephew
        of an agency contractor killed in the line of duty and features
        reproductions of the actual paintings that have hung for years inside the
        hallways of the CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia.

        (...)

        The calendars are on sale for $28 at the International Spy Museum (...)

        (...)

        Toni Hiley, the longtime CIA museum director, said the gift shop can't sell
        the calendar because "it's not an official work of the U.S. government."

<comment><USER23> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you want to fight global terrorism, you needto create one first. Commemorating this very idea, 'The First Sting' painting is priceless.</comment>


I fell in love with a girl, so I built a web app to dedicate to her. - <AUTHOR> http://cupidco.de/ <comment><AUTHOR> I fell head over heals for a girl. I thought about her way too often, missed her way more than a normal person ought to, and was pretty much in a constant state of love-induced sugar shock. I didn't want to seem overzealous or desperate, so I tried to play it cool -- and yet, the impulse to post embarrassing, saccharine love quotes to Facebook was overwhelming (I am but only a dork, after all).

So I did what any self-respecting geek would do in my position: I computed a SHA-2 hash of her name and put it in that weird little box thingy on the left hand side of my Facebook profile. It provided just the right balance of self expression and social tact. I was happy.

I liked the idea so much that I decided I would wrap it in a small application and dedicate it to the object of my dorkitude. As I knew it would take a few weeks to flesh out and things were (shockingly) starting to work out between this lovely individual and myself, I thought that the final product might make for a cute little way of sharing my feelings. The idea of tiny "cupidcode" links spreading across facebook and the twitters -- each rooted in my nerdy affection for this particular young lady -- seemed like a terribly powerful way to say "I really think you're great". And because I suck at music and writing, it was pretty much my only option.

Fast forward a few weeks, and cupidco.de is done. It's probably not well suited for the sorts of folks that read YC so I hope you don't mind me sharing my link with you. My hope is that this post will kick-start the spread of a few cupidcodes 'cross the nets so that my crush (who I've been seeing now for about two weeks!) may casually stumble upon one while checking her facebook or reading a blog and discover just how special she is to me.

tl;dr -- fell in love with a chick, wanted to do something special for her, suck at everything else, so I built her a webapp.

<comment><USER2> Everything about this project was meta-interesting. I feel like someone could write a very entertaining NYT piece about this project. If this was not posted on HN, I would think the narrative was bogus. However, being posted on HN, I doubt you are feigning hopeless romanticism.

P.S. I am half-convinced XKCD started for a similar reason. <http://xkcd.com/55/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm flattered that you think that! As embarrassing as it is, I'm really as dorky as described.

<comment><USER2> I once bought a girl I was semi-obsessed a six-volume set of a series about WWI published three years after WWI. She was a FP nut, so I thought it was cool. I did so even though I knew she was taking a plane the next day. I even wrote a good essay length inscription, informing her that she was awesome.

Sometimes, it's fun to say f*ck rationality. Good luck to you, sir.

<comment><USER3> Did it work? Was she touched?

<comment><USER2> Yet to be determined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just philosophizing here... Falling head over heels for a girl without knowing if it will be reciprocated is not much unlike building a beautiful webapp without a concrete business model planned yet.

All the best on both.

<comment><AUTHOR> You, sir/madam, have been quoted. I'll throw that one up on the about page later tonight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> About a year ago, I wrote an iPhone app to propose to my girlfriend. She told me that she didn't want a ring so I had to come up with something unique. It worked -- we got married 3 months ago! :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I did something similar once...just with a less happy ending. This girl had a dream to be a guest on Oprah, and had an idea for a mobile app that just might get her there. I was in love with her and thought that it would be a very thoughtful Christmas present to make the app for her. She was a designer, so she just had to style it and launch.

I built the app over a few weeks by sleeping an hour less each night, ultimately giving it to her for Christmas. She loved it. Unfortunately, things went way off course between the two of us. I don't think the grand gesture helped. It's a lot of pressure to put on a person.

If I had to do it over again, I probably would, but I sure as hell wouldn't have let her go at the end.

We don't talk anymore and she has let the project go. C'est la vie.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really sorry to hear that :( I hope that this isn't too grand a gesture though I'd be very excited were it to become one! Computer hackery is how I've always "expressed" myself. I didn't really know else how to do something extra special for her than to code up something sweet and so I went with my gut. That stinks that things soured between you two :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sure you're not like this, but there's a worry to keep in mind as users of such an app:

There was a meme app like this that went around on LiveJournal a few years ago. It seemed all cool and sweet, but they announced a few months later that they'd let you come back and pay them $5 to see what the crushes actually were.

Lots of people paid to see who had crushes on them. I'm sure they made a killing.

In this case, imagine rampant capitalism, and that people who visit the link (who aren't the submitting IP) get to see a "Shhhh: Pay $10 to see who this person has a crush on."

In theory, from a technical perspective, it may not be stored on the back-end, but you have to trust t3mp3st isn't storing the actual names.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that I would ever do this whatsoever. That's so sleazy. I'm not looking to exploit people -- just to channel my cheesiness into something productive and possibly make my own crush (cupidco.de/a) smile :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Guess my crush!

<http://cupidco.de/07>

<comment><USER9> That makes the two of us.

I think, however, that he is already married.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Your story is cool and all, but I'm a bit confused about your app. Normally the selling point of crush-management webapps (over the alternative, i.e. 'just effing tell the person already') is that your crush won't be revealed unless they indicate, on their own, that the feeling is mutual. With cupidcodes there's essentially no secrecy, because anyone who visits a cupidcode page can just type in their own name and see if it's them. Or, honestly, someone could just try all of the code-maker's Facebook friends and at 10 guesses a day it would take a few weeks at most to crack the code. Is there some other social problem this solves that I'm not thinking of?

<comment><USER11> The site's intention seems to be that you don't want it to be an impenetrable secret, and you wouldn't really mind if your crush typed his/her name in and found out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love the design. (Lovebirds on the computer - awesome). The process was confusing to me. I didn't know what the goal was. I used descriptions from here to figure it out.

I would emphasize the flirting component more. It's a great idea: send a flirt anonymously, with your own code, and then you can safely see if the feelings are mutual.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't sure which would be more fun. I decided to just post things as is and then evolve as people started giving me feedback. Speaking of which, thanks for your suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I saw this post earlier today I initially didn't know what to make of it. So I decided to ask my girlfriend what she thought of it.

She said "why doesn't he just tell her?", Thus, we clearly don't understand the purpose of the application. She said "it seems pointless".

</comment><comment><USER14> What a brilliant idea. This has already ben said in another comment but I have to say that I'm impressed with the no login system.

You just need to make sure there is still a way to see what is happening if you clear the cookie cache.

</comment><comment><USER15> The "secret page" needs to say the name of the person I have a secret crush on so I remember who it was when I created it. I mean, if it's not the current Maxim cover girl, then I may forget.

<comment><AUTHOR> too true :P I'm working on a bit.ly-esque "your recent cupidco.des" list that'll help you keep track of your most recent (per-computer) codes. I'll also throw the name up on the monitoring page, too, for good measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cool!

Once I had written some javascript to encrypt/decrypt mails between me and my girlfriend...

Brandon, Andre and Sharon might get a lot of spam soon, they should avoid email addresses as plaintext in the source.

Just an advice.

</comment><comment><USER17> you need to work your headline/story here into your site somehow.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't know whether it is by design but it answers: "You've cracked the cupidcode" almost for any input.

edit: Oh, I see: "The system will tolerate names within an edit-distance of 2,"

</comment><comment><USER19> Great idea. What did you built it with?</comment>


80% of browsers need a patch - <AUTHOR> http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/researcher-at-rsa-80-percent-of.html <comment><USER2> Why the blogspam? Just link directly to the article:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9209958/Bulk_of_brows...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9209958/Bulk_of_browsers_found_to_be_at_risk_of_attack)

<comment><USER3> Here is a direct link to the scanner as well: <https://browsercheck.qualys.com/>

<comment><USER4> Guh.

Shockwave Flash, 10.2. Fix it! ... takes me to Adobe's site.

       You have version 10,2,161,23 installed.

       The table below contains the latest Flash
       Player version information.

       Platform         Browser  Player version
       Windows, Linux   Chrome   10.2.154.12

Sidenote: I really wish Adobe would settle on using periods or commas in the version number. Are version number delimiters really localizable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> a: I use Chrome

b: I turn off Java

How often have I needed to use Java on the web? Almost never. It's not worth the security risk of keeping it on.</comment>


SoftBank Vision Fund Employees Depict a Culture of Recklessness - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-12-18/softbank-vision-fund-employees-depict-a-culture-of-recklessness <comment><USER2> Softbank isn't perfect, but its disappointing to see such a snarky/dismissive tone coming from Bloomberg.

This is ridiculous:

> Three months later, Zume has yet to revolutionize food production or to be > profitable

I've worked with Jeff Housenbold. They got his intelligence right, but this nonsense sounds like Gawker not Bloomberg

> Jeff Housenbold,... Acquaintances describe him as smart and arrogant and > almost entirely lacking in self-awareness

And when did random company gossip become news reported as fact? How does publishing the denial make it OK to report anonymous smears as fact?

> Navneet Govil, told a Mormon employee to "go back to Utah to get more > wives." The employee left the company. Via a spokesman, Govil denies making > such a statement. Around that time, Govil also berated a young accountant in > front of a group, bringing her to tears. She later quit. And at a work lunch > a few months later with several colleagues, Govil remarked that "Chinese > people sound stupid," according to two people who heard the comment. Via a > spokesman, Govil denies making such a statement or berating the employee; > SoftBank says it has no record of these events.

<comment><USER3> > the Vision Fund's Zambia-born chief financial officer, Navneet Govil, told > a...

Make sure you say where someone is from that way you can judge how upset you should be about their comments.

<comment><USER4> You can't even mention someone's place of origin in our politically correct world without a racist accusation.

The above suggestion is a shame. It appears to be a victim "woke" mentality.

Is it possible Bloomberg was describing where the individual was from for reasons outside what you suggest?

<comment><USER5> While I agree that it should be possible to mention nationality without being labeled racist, what legitimate value do you think his nationality adds to that sentence other than to preload whatever preconceptions people have about African businessmen onto that person? I just don't see how it adds any substance.

<comment><USER6> It's certainly notable to any US domiciled person. How many Zambian born CFO's do you know? How many Zambian born people do you know?

<comment><USER7> None! I also don't know anyone from Mason City, Iowa. But everybody's gotta be from somewhere.

Seriously, if you're writing a whole article about someone it seems worthwhile to mention if they're from Zambia, but if you're writing a single sentence it's a bit off putting.

<comment><USER6> look, in essence, I hear what you are saying, but when considering the readership of Bloomberg News, Mason City, Iowa and Zambia is a false equivalency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All this from Bloomberg, who published an explosive piece on Chinese spies infiltrating "America's technology supply chain". [1] Then when it became clear that the story was bogus, refused to admit they made a mistake. [2]

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the- big-h...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how- china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies)

[1] [https://pxlnv.com/blog/one-year-after-big- hack/](https://pxlnv.com/blog/one-year-after-big-hack/)

<comment><USER9> you say bogus, I say its entirely possible.

[https://www.wired.com/story/plant-spy-chips-hardware- supermi...](https://www.wired.com/story/plant-spy-chips-hardware-supermicro- cheap-proof-of-concept/)

<comment><USER10> Lots of things are entirely possible; many fewer have any tangible evidence that they actually happened.

<comment><USER9> If you trust Edward Snowden (a lot of HN users appear to), wouldn't his leaks be tangible evidence?

<comment><USER10> Those would be tangible evidence that it's _possible_ , again, not that it happened in the Chinese supply chain as alleged in the Bloomberg story that hasn't been retracted yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is comedy gold:

> _After Vision Fund invested $375 million in Zume Pizza Inc., whose mission > to use robots to automate pizza making had shades of Silicon Valley > frivolity, CEO Alex Garden expanded his mission to include rethinking the > entirety of U.S. food production. Employees were unnerved. "Are we the next > Theranos?" went one anonymously submitted question at an all-hands meeting > over the summer_

edit: More info about Zume and the investment: [https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20974979/zume-pizza- so...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20974979/zume-pizza-softbank- fundraising-four-billion)

<comment><USER12> > The four-year-old company has largely pivoted to an enterprise model where > it works with restaurants that have no storefront and prepare their food in > shared centralized kitchens, or "cloud kitchens"; with delivery providers > like DoorDash and Postmates; and with existing pizza companies to build a > hub-and-spoke model for the entire delivery industry. The company has been > trying to morph into a data and logistics provider, part of an effort by > founder Alex Garden to become "the Amazon of food."

So they want to become... a commercial bakery? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UjUWfwWAC4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UjUWfwWAC4)

Once again proving that SV companies do no market research before making their ideas...

I'm not in the food industry. I've talked to a couple of food engineers though, and its apparently a very difficult space to work in, with a variety of safety regulations to prevent disease (and if disease does break out, provide a mechanism to track where it came from).

Ignoring that, the space of commercial kitchens / commercial bakeries already produces tons of bread for a variety of companies. From my understanding, these commercial bakeries are flexible enough to change the recipe and create different breads / doughs for a variety of companies. That is to say: commercial bakeries are already "hub-and-spoke" models that centralize production for McDonalds / Burger King / Grocery Stores / etc. etc.

\</comment></comment><comment>-

If you're entirely focused on logistics / sales of products from a kitchen to a variety of restaurants, that job is called a Food Broker ([http://www.foodbrokers.org/](http://www.foodbrokers.org/)). Its kind of the opposite of a commercial kitchen: if a small kitchen makes a particular food that probably has mass-appeal, a food-broker will distribute that food in a wide area. Food broker work for many kitchens, delivering food to many commercial locations.

In effect: the food industry is already filled with "hub-and-spoke" style businesses. Food Brokers, Restaurants, commercial kitchens, etc. etc. Ever think why your cheap chinese food all tastes the same despite coming from 10 different restaurants?

<comment><USER13> Cloud kitchen? Are you serious?

Is Silicon Valley now at the point where they are inventing things that already exist, but they aren't yet aware of because of the bubble they are stuck in?

<comment><USER14> Some people call them "dark kitchens" or "ghost kitchens" instead.

It's what Travis Kalanick is up to these days, incidentally. Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund has supposedly put 400MM into his new company at a 5B valuation.

<comment><USER15> I think next big thing will be 'Dish as a service' where one does not have to know how kitchen works, or the quantities of ingredient combined in what proportion. One can just order a sandwich platter or a pasta tray for 100 people without ever being bothered about how it is done. Now that would be revolutionary.

<comment><USER16> Catering?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article reads like some authors found a popular topic and just tried to use it to push it's own little unrelated insults, insinuations, and agendas.

It reads like silly the "rome fell because <insert topic i care about>" articles that were semi popular a while ago.

SoftBank might be reckless, but I've no idea what the metoo movement or the random insults have to do with it.

<comment><USER18> It's popular to hate Softbank-backed companies at the moment, so even an extremely thin article that is basically gossip and anecdotal character assassination strung together into a narrative can get eyeballs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article turned out to be a lot more contentious on here than I would have expected.

Nonetheless, I will add one perspective from the inimitable Matt Levine:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-12-18/the- st...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-12-18/the-story-doesn- t-match-the-vision)

Of course, you could gain infinite karma votes on here just by posting his article every day, but he has some interesting things to add to this article.

Specifically, its not clear if Softbank is doing all that badly and maybe Masa's gift is this meta ability to get people to think bigger.

Levine is always also a little cynical.

</comment><comment><USER20> I met with SoftBank one time as part of due diligence. They had virtually no substantive questions about the tech. The person who led the deal was soon fired. I lost respect for SoftBank after that.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is so shoddily written:

> At a portfolio meeting in October, Housenbold defended his performance by > arguing he'd been trying to back female CEOs. Then he seemed to blame the > #MeToo movement for limiting his ability to maneuver, bewildering at least > one attendee.

What? This gives absolutely no specifics, no quotes, even softens the shit sandwich the author is attempting to feed us by saying "seemed to." And it's supposed to matter because it "bewildered" one unnamed attendee. God almighty I need to stop reading shit like this.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if Nuro will be swept up in all this...it seems like a legit opportunity but left wondering with the SB investment.

</comment><comment><USER23> >The strategy that Son and his all-male phalanx of managing partners followed seemed less about any specific technology than about placing large bets on the buzziest startups...

What does his staff being male have anything to do with how he runs his fund?

<comment><USER24> > _What does his staff being male have anything to do with how he runs his > fund?_

For one, there is research on all-male trading and investment teams taking more risk than mixed-gender teams. For another, we have documented cases of overt sexism among SoftBank-backer founders (most notoriously, Adam).

<comment><USER25> Is the team all-male?

When I met Lydia Jett I assumed that she is a woman but I did not ask.

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/lydiajett](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lydiajett)

<comment><USER24> > _Is the team all-male?_

On this, I have no information. Was just justifying citing an all-male team, within the context of a group with poor controls and a history of losing money due to taking unchecked risk, as a risk factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "All-male run"

This article is trash.

<comment><USER23> Too true.

Terrible management comes in all forms. Look at Stephanie Korey or Elizabeth Holmes.

<comment><USER27> The problem is the dearth of women, not the presence of men.

<comment><USER26> The dearth of women is not a problem. We mostly have equality of opportunity in America.

<comment><USER27> It's a material problem, not a moral problem. Workplaces with gender parity function better, as evidenced by the article about securities fraud linked by elliekelly that you ignored.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crowd Saving and Investment Platform - <AUTHOR> Hey guys just launch an MVP of group saving app, where you and your friends can save and invest towards a common goal safely and with transparency. <comment><USER2> Link?</comment>


Wikipedia-size maths proof too big for humans to check - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25068-wikipediasize-maths-proof-too-big-for-humans-to-check.html#.UwKqifldXSo

<comment><AUTHOR> TLDR Version: It would take years to check the computer's math. Extending the method to check for yet higher discrepancies would produce proofs that are simply too long to be checked by humans.

So, can a proof really be accepted if no human reads it?</comment>


I am a teacher. You are OUT OF Your DAMN MIND if you think I'm arming myself - <AUTHOR> http://www.thejayfk.com/?p=2808 <comment><USER2> People who grow up without guns get so freaked out about them. My dad grew up in a time and place in the American West where lots of the kids and teachers brought guns to school as their parents and grandparents had. Walking home from school, they'd shoot potatoes for fun. In the entire history of the town, nobody ever shot anybody, in anger or by accident. Guns were just tools like knives, trucks, or farm machinery. You learned to use them carefully, and you used them all the time.

I agree that arming an untrained hothead like this professor would be a mistake. He would probably laugh at a fuzzy studies colleague who noticed a radiation warning on some chemical in his closet and freaked out about RADIATION! RADIATION! Yet he's just as superstitious about his gun taboo. Letting him near students at all is probably a mistake.

But allowing some people to go through reasonable training and, if certified and background checked, be allowed to carry a weapon would probably be fine. I suspect it just wouldn't make any difference. On rare occasion, an armed staff member would save or rescue somebody. On other rare occasions, somebody would grab a teacher's gun, just playing around or seriously, and hurt somebody. Statistically, it would probably be a wash.

<comment><USER3> The problem is these days much of our society, in 1st world 'developed' countries, are sick - we aren't healthy; Physically, mentally or emotionally. You shouldn't view one context without taking the whole picture, the holistic aspect, into account when analyzing a situation. It's therefore best to structure societal and cultural rules around not what the 80% of healthy will do action wise, though what the 20% on the other end of the scale might do in times of great stress and sickness -- especially because in many countries, once you're sick it's a downward spiral trying to obtain full health again (and not just getting bandaids and 'functional enough to be productive to work a basic job' -- I'm talking about getting back to happiness, being socially capable and enjoying life).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whats going on in the US is strange. What a dangerous and way of reacting to such tragedies... I have friends that are teachers in the school of Winnenden (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting>). I know they would say the same. Nobody here thought about arming the teachers... not at all... You guys should take down the weapons lobby and help the victims. Not arm the teachers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Then again, it could help with more problems than just mass shootings. Pointing a gun at the students might do wonders for discipline. Also it might be a useful skill to practice problem solving at gun point. According to movies those situations seem to arrive surprisingly often where you have to make complicated decisions while in mortal danger. Just because you can calculate 6*7 in your head doesn't mean you can still do it with the barrel of a gun pushed to your forehead.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a much better link (also authored by a teacher, who does use firearms for recreation) explaining why arming teachers may not be a good idea: [http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/14w806/be_wary_of_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/14w806/be_wary_of_people_who_say_if_those_teachers_had/c7h0776)

Less ranting, more measured/substantive discussion plz.

</comment><comment><USER7> The article presents a good point, but it is so overloaded with anger that I found it a little annoying to read.</comment>


Wekan: An open-source Trello-like kanban - <AUTHOR> https://wekan.github.io/ <comment><USER2> If you want to do Kanban right, double down on making it possible to design actual Kanban workflows. Pretty ticket UI with checklists and GIFs must be secondary to this goal.

Things that most actual Kanban flows have that no one has built into a decent product[0]:

        - Nested columns in lanes
        - Rows for class-of-service
        - WIP limits (per lane, per column, and per class-of-service)
        - Sub-boards for meta issues

The actual content of each work item is the least important part of Kanban; it could be a hyperlink for all I care. Kanban is about managing the flow, not managing the work.

[0] Please prove me wrong if there is such a product out there!

<comment><USER3> KanbanFlow, [https://kanbanflow.com/](https://kanbanflow.com/) , is pretty serious about their Kanban implementation. Worth a look!

<comment><USER4> Not open source though (from a quick glance)

<comment><USER5> I agree that this is important. Optimizing and integrating the tools is a fairly significant part of my work, when I am leading a small team. Webhooks and a plugin framework are decent compromises, but there are so many times when I just want to dive into the code to increment a constant, or subclass and extend a method that doesn't have an externally accessible hook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought for a second my touchpad just broke. Might want to make the landing page look less like there's content down the fold …

<comment><USER7> And actually there is... For me the image is cut at about one third down the way, and I can't scroll to see the rest.

<comment><USER8> You can also go into browser dev tools and untick "overflow: hidden" on the body element css

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I like the idea of having open source alternatives to the popular applications, this one is a pure and simple copy of Trello. This is a bit too much IMO.

<comment><USER10> Hi, I'm maintainer of Wekan.

Trello related CSS was dropped in Wekan v0.9 2015-09-10, so after that Wekan does not use anything from Trello. UI and feature set is different.

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/FAQ#why-does-wekan- look-...](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/FAQ#why-does-wekan-look-so- different-now-compared-to--v09)

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/blob/devel/CHANGELOG.md#v09-2...](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/blob/devel/CHANGELOG.md#v09-2015-09-10)

According to Open Hub, Wekan currently has about 9000 lines of code without counting Meteor.js framework and related packages.

[https://www.openhub.net/p/wekan](https://www.openhub.net/p/wekan)

<comment><USER11> What made you decide on meteor?

<comment><USER10> Hi, I'm current maintainer of Wekan.

I don't remember did Wekan original creator Maxime Quandalle mention why did he choose Meteor.js in his talk at YouTube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3iMLwCNOro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3iMLwCNOro)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gitlab needs a better issue UI and perhaps this could be integrated.

</comment><comment><USER13> Trello got so mature, has a great API, is well integrated with Zapier and hundreds of other services AND is free (I still don't know why one should get into the paid plan, even witn bigger teams, the free version is torally fine) that it must be super hard for any clone or competitor to win users.

<comment><USER14> Trello has been super stagnant for years. It's a dying product. No swim-lanes, no nested boards, No proper time-stamps. All basic features on several of the competitors.

<comment><USER15> Also recently bought by Atlassian.

Not sure about the other stuff, I love Trello, but that purchase gave me pause.

<comment><USER14> Yes that's another thing in the negative column. Confluence and JIRA are even worse in their own magnificent ways.

<comment><USER16> I used to hate JIRA until I worked with a company whose admins had taken the time to configure it properly to fit into their workflow - that was actually a very pleasant experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think lack of an OSS alternative with a solid mobile app is the only thing keeping me on Trello at this point.

</comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone here had success with a personal kanban board?

Considering it for myself, even if it isn't the intended use case.

<comment><USER19> Have a look at TasksInaBox ( [https://tasksinabox.com/](https://tasksinabox.com/) ). What is nice is that besides the usual web and mobile apps, it also has a client living inside Outlook so you can create tasks from emails as they arrive in your inbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does it have Authentication yet? Last time I checked there were no users or administrations or any permissions

<comment><USER10> Hi, I'm maintainer of Wekan.

Wekan is available on many platforms: [https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Platforms](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Platforms)

a) In Wekan standalone version it's possible to disable self-registration in Admin Panel. There is inviting users, user permissions Admin/Normal/Comment only, but not user management yet:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Features#authentication-...](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Features#authentication- admin-panel-smtp-settings)

and in next version it's possible for user to change password: [https://github.com/wekan/wekan/blob/devel/CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/blob/devel/CHANGELOG.md)

b) In [https://sandstorm.io](https://sandstorm.io) version there is already user management, Google/GitHub/LDAP/SAML authentication etc:

[https://discourse.wekan.io/t/sso-passing-variables- through-u...](https://discourse.wekan.io/t/sso-passing-variables-through- url/493/5)

Newest version of Wekan is coming to Sandstorm in near future, progress is at:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/799](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/799)

<comment><USER21> Is there a reason things like LDAP and SAML are Sandstorm only?

<comment><USER22> I suspect that the primary developers may be unfamiliar with AD/LDAP.

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/119](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/119)

<comment><USER23> Wekan is pretty much fully community contribution-driven. So the answer for it not having it's own AD/LDAP support at this point is that nobody has seemed interested in actually doing it and submitting a PR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> what's the storage backed for this app ?

Also shout out to [https://greggigon.github.io/my-personal- kanban/](https://greggigon.github.io/my-personal-kanban/) that is a simple and offline board

<comment><USER10> Hi, I'm current maintainer of Wekan.

Wekan can be used locally on local network that is not connected to Internet. There is no offline sync yet.

Wekan is made with Meteor.js Javascript framework, using Node.js and MongoDB as backend currently.

There is possibility to use read-only mirroring to PostgreSQL using ToroDB:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan-postgresql](https://github.com/wekan/wekan- postgresql)

but currently there's this bug, please wait for it to be fixed:

[https://github.com/torodb/stampede/issues/202](https://github.com/torodb/stampede/issues/202)

There is issue about directly using other backends than MongoDB, but that would require some code changes, so it's not implemented yet:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/787](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/787)

Wekan can be installed on x64 operating systems where source/Docker/Ubuntu snap/VirtualBox installs work.

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Platforms](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Platforms)

There is no Raspberry Pi version yet:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/1053](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/1053)

<comment><USER10> Bug is now fixed, read-only mirroring to PostgreSQL using ToroDB works again:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan-postgresql](https://github.com/wekan/wekan- postgresql)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is it API-compatible with Trello? That would rock, being able to use Trello extensions.

<comment><USER10> Hi, I'm current maintainer of Wekan.

Wekan has API and Outgoing Webhooks, but they are different than Trello:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Features#api](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/Features#api)

Is it possible to use Trello extensions and integrate them with only Trello API ? And is it allowed to use Trello extensions outside Trello ? Or would they require separate integration to Wekan ?

For example on Trello templates can not be used outside Trello:

[https://trello.com/inspiration](https://trello.com/inspiration)

For general integration (similar to Zapier) there is plan to use Open Source tool Huginn:

[https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/1160](https://github.com/wekan/wekan/issues/1160)

[https://github.com/huginn/huginn](https://github.com/huginn/huginn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> what i only want to know is why a chinese-like name: kanban, ^_^

<comment><USER27> Kanban is the name of a well-known process management method. The word is Japanese - 看板 - literally meaning "signpost" or "billboard" (thanks Wikipedia).</comment></comment>