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kappasan

Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025) on Sunday June 29, 2025 @11:54PM (#44419194)
Still working on dédédé [1] - it's a simple web-based platform to share the "good, bad, and why"s of urban spaces. We're slowly adding functionalities and crushing bugs, an iOS app is in the pipeline too!

[1] https://dedede.de/en

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025) on Monday April 28, 2025 @11:12PM (#43828383)
Thanks so much, and super cool newsletter btw!

Not directly involved with for Cities, but they're friends of friends and we should have a chance to meet them very soon.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025) on Monday April 28, 2025 @03:31AM (#43818600)
Did a Show HN about a month ago, but we're hard at work building dédédé [1] - it's a not-for-profit website that invites people to casually share the "good, bad, and why"s of urban spaces.

[1] https://dedede.de/en

We're based in Kyoto and the posts are heavily Japan-centric; we'd love to see posts from all over the world!

Re:Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures on Sunday April 27, 2025 @04:41AM (#43810415)
Haven't been to Chongqing in a while, but the vertical nature of the city is fascinating [1]. It's like they layered multiple cities on top of each other! Curious how that affects social interactions in daily life.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/comments/8kqwnf/chongqing_...

Re:BART's Anime Mascots on Saturday April 26, 2025 @09:07PM (#43808616)
We have something similar here in Kyoto! But we're Japan so there's an actual anime [1] and a character relationship chart [2], both straight from the city government.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OInuZFHeQo

[2] https://www.city.kyoto.lg.jp/kotsu/cmsfiles/contents/0000215...

Re:Algebraic Semantics for Machine Knitting on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @02:34PM (#43764977)
Speaking of computational knitting, I recently learned about "solid knitting" [1] which is awesome.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/2024/solid-knitting

Re:On Jane Jacobs (2017) on Thursday April 17, 2025 @04:11PM (#43721656)
A big Jacobs fan here, but I remember reading her book (The Death and Life of...) and also about Robert Moses and thinking "hmm both sides have a point" so she'd probably hate me if she was still alive.

I personally think she was a bit too trusting of the (cybernetics-adjacent?) idea of order spontaneously arising from chaos.

Re:Kezurou-Kai #39 on Monday April 14, 2025 @05:59AM (#43679674)
Tangential but the name is a pun - "kezuroukai" translates to "shall we shave?" in Japanese, but "kai" can also mean something like "gathering" or "community".
Re:What if your website had business hours? (2022) on Thursday April 10, 2025 @05:14PM (#43648061)
So like Gossip's Cafe? https://gossips.cafe
Re:Photographs of 19th Century Japan on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @05:23PM (#43638156)
Thanks so much for checking out the website! I hear machiya are quickly disappearing in Kyoto (often turned into generic apartments) so it's great to hear your friend is keeping the old city alive.
Re:Photographs of 19th Century Japan on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @03:37PM (#43636752)
Cool photos! My workplace is an old machiya [1] in Kyoto that's more than a hundred years old, so I kinda live like the people in these photos (not really of course - no konbini back then).

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

Re:Obituary for Cyc on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @03:08AM (#43629578)
I wonder if it's possible to design a new formal language (something like lojban [1], with a grammar strictly based on formal logic) but with better UX so that it can be used by regular folks like me? Maybe combine something like Attempto [2] with a dedicated visual UI?

I would think a language like that could speed up knowledge base construction. Maybe it can also serve as a substitute for natural languages in some situations where we want our communication to be logically airtight.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempto_Controlled_English

On a separate note, I've always wondered how Cyc is pronounced. Is it "sike", or is it "see-why-see"?

I remember in junior high, we kept a pack of much smaller and cuter planarians [1] for a science class. We cut them up into pieces (sorry worms!) and they really do regenerate! Fascinating creatures.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugesia_japonica

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025) on Monday March 31, 2025 @06:25AM (#43533266)
We just did a Show HN last week [1], but we're building dédédé (https://dedede.de/en), a place to share the "good, bad, and why"s of urban spaces. Please check it out if you hadn't already!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43465740

Re: on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @03:16PM (#43485860)
I guess you're referring to this one? https://dedede.de/en/posts/CimzQqTYi4

FWIW that's a post I made myself - the German embassy in Tokyo put up a series of posters explaining some German words, and that's the image they chose for "schadenfreude".

Re: on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @03:11PM (#43485799)
I agree that is very true. We'll see if there are free (or very cheap) solutions we could use.
Re: on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @10:24AM (#43482610)
Thanks so much, we'll look into it!
Re: on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @02:05AM (#43479281)
OP here - just to let you know the signup form asks for an email address, but we're just using it as the user ID so a non-working address works fine.

EDIT: apart from one minor inconvenience, you won't be able to reset your password if you forget it

Re: on Tuesday March 25, 2025 @11:25PM (#43478577)
Huh I vaguely remember hearing that term somewhere... will read up on it, thanks!
Re: on Tuesday March 25, 2025 @11:24PM (#43478570)
Thanks, would love to see posts from outside Japan!