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Show HN: SpacedTime – Remember the important things in your life
- uptownhr 6y agoHi Hackernews, I created Spacedtime because I'm known to have a horrible memory. Maybe people are kidding but I wanted to change that. There are flashcard apps out there but I wanted to create one that is focused on creating cards for my personal memories. My personal goal is to store and recall all that is dear to me. Given the personal nature, I do plan on spending a lot of my time on protecting the user's information. Today, Spacedtime does not have a server and stores all information locally. The command-line app stores information in a local JSON file and the web app stores into Local Storage. However, I'm not sure what is the best user-friendly way to go about the encryption layer and how it should be applied. I've posted to Product Hunt, [Lobste.rs](http://lobste.rs http://lobste.rs) and Indiehackers so far. I've been saving my self from posting to HN till now. It is still an MVP but at least it is not the first version :). I've been pretty aggressive in publishing my work. I'm looking forward to everyone's feedback! Best, -James
- notechback 6y agoHere the answer coming from an idiot (me): I've lost far more data to password or key loss or bugs in an encryption software than I've had someone try to our succeed to access/steal/... So encryption for something that is on your local machine from my perspective wouldn't need to be a priority.
- uptownhr 6y agoGreat point. I've been battling this in my head but definitely not an immediate goal to encrypt. However, I personally want to make sure I do not have access to your data. As I start to work on providing functionality around syncing across devices I'll be keeping this in mind.
- kmorgh 6y agoHow about 3rd party storage through the users own dropbox, gdrive, 1drive. Then it's still sort of self hosted Also easy to use same data across devices. Not sure on the syncing strategy/performance
- rdslw 6y agoIt's cool app, but I'll definitely rewrite it, using as inspiration. Why rewrite you ask? npm install gives: added 509 packages from 307 contributors and audited 258096 packages in 11.65s 509 packages WTF?!????????????? Javascript ecosystem is a mess. I did not believe it, but looks like it's true: `npm ls |grep -v deduped |wc` 512 3359 24956 wait for more: `du -sh node_modules` 56M !?!?!?!? and final check: `find node_modules -type f|wc ` 6745 6745 303596 Verdict: NO, THANK YOU BUT NO. p.s. among them 6 warnings about using sth deprecated. You can guess how many of 500 of them just dont give a shi^H^H^Hwarning. npm WARN deprecated request@2.88.2: request has been deprecated, see https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142 https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142 npm WARN deprecated resolve-url@0.2.1: https://github.com/lydell/resolve-url#deprecated https://github.com/lydell/resolve-url#deprecated npm WARN deprecated urix@0.1.0: Please see https://github.com/lydell/urix#deprecated https://github.com/lydell/urix#deprecated npm notice created a lockfile as package-lock.json. You should commit this file. npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: fsevents@^2.1.2 (node_modules/jest-haste-map/node_modules/fsevents): npm WARN notsup SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Unsupported platform for fsevents@2.1.2: wanted {"os":"darwin","arch":"any"} (current: {"os":"linux","arch":"x64"})
- JoeQuery 6y agoHi there! A couple of notes :) * It seemed to me that the cli and the web app would be related. I had to come read your comment to realize the cli doesn't read from the web app (I also had to come here to realize it was stored locally). * Once I started creating questions, there was no way to "log out" to get back to the splash page. So that means I couldn't see the npm install command Good luck!
- uptownhr 6y agoThanks for the feedback. I will be adding a api connected version in the future but will work on making that clear. There isn’t a login so I technically cannot log you out right now. Either way a menu in the app would be helpful to direct users back to the homepage.
- quickthrower2 6y agoNice, and thanks for making the CLI version, because for such personal info (some of which might be security questions for a bank!) I'd rather not use the web site. On the website however it seems to make it impossible to go back. Clinking the browser back button gets stuck in a loop after you click "Start Remembering Now"
- uptownhr 6y agoThank you. Will take a look and fix.
- juliend2 6y agoIt looks like Anki cards. I also value spaced repetition to help me store valuable facts in my long term memory. I personally use my Todoist for that (Project called "Anki" where every todo is a question and the answer is in the comments. And I can manage intervals by using the task scheduling feature to have them appear later (depending on the ease to remind the answer). But I like the simplicity of your app and the logo is kinda cool also. +1 for the command line interface. Good idea.
- uptownhr 6y agoAwesome idea. I did have a chrome extension as a future feature I wanted to work on.
- kabacha 6y agoAnki flash cards (floss) do use spaced time learning algorithms that are also easily adjustable to personal preference. Anki has native mobile/desktop, cli and web clients. The big community also provides shared decks and vast plugin ecosystem like auto text-to-speech and imagery. I haven't seen any of these tools doing anything that anki doesn't — why not contribute to it instead? https://github.com/ankitects/anki https://github.com/ankitects/anki
- uptownhr 6y agoI've actually been a long time user of Anki and definitely thought about contributing to them. However, I'm personally unfamiliar with their stack and given the simplicity of a flashcard app, it was easier to start here. However it probably is worth considering an import of Anki cards in the future. For now though, I'm focused on cards with answers you'd only know.
- anthonycerra 6y ago> I haven't seen any of these tools doing anything that anki doesn't — why not contribute to it instead? For the same reason that your area likely has more than 1 pizza restaurant. Other people want to take a stab at their own vision of a thing and that's awesome. Personally, I find Anki to be pretty uninviting to the general public. Fluent-Forever.com is an example of an application of spaced time learning applied specifically to languages and their app is pretty great. We may disagree philosophically, and that's ok, but I tend not to buy into the perspective that if X already exists and Y is like X then Y should not exist.
- kabacha 6y agoYou are comparing apples to oranges here. Starting up a whole new "study group" community is not the same as opening up a pizza restaurant. I don't mean to be harsh or mean but OP is treating this as a product rather than a hobby projects with producthunt submissions etc. when in reality it's a barebones clone of a standard application that already exists. Open communities benefit from numbers. Another developer to Anki even if you'd just wrap around nice web ui around it would be significantly more efficient and valuable then reimplementing the same spaced learning logic and starting everything from 0. The whole point of Anki is to standardize this field - it's libre software made for the medium not for profit.
- jaequery 6y agoit's like a JS port of Anki, nice!
- goblin89 6y agoThere seems to be an unaddressed need for a well-maintained library implementing spaced repetition algorithms. I have seen implementations for SM15[0] and SM2[1][2] around but nothing that provides multiple implementations and a consistent API on top. If there was a library like that, a tool like SpacedTime could use it easily (currently it uses fibonacci sequences when determining how soon to recall). [0] https://github.com/slaypni/SM-15 https://github.com/slaypni/SM-15, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9844613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9844613 [1] https://github.com/walterscarborough/LibSpacey https://github.com/walterscarborough/LibSpacey [2] https://gist.github.com/doctorpangloss/13ab29abd087dc1927475e560f876797 https://gist.github.com/doctorpangloss/13ab29abd087dc1927475...
- uptownhr 6y agoGreat share! Gotta check these out and see if I can take advantage of them :)
- osdiab 6y agoGiven that I’ve wanted to make apps for learning languages but always get lost in the weeds of various spaced repetition algorithms - would love this kind of open source resource. If anyones interested in making this kind of thing, I’d love to chip in. For example I notice it’s really common for spaced repetition algorithms to really easily allow me to shoot myself in the face by learning too much up front and then drowning in reviews; or to destroy myself by missing a few days. Not sure what is out there, but some extensions I’d like as a user is to be “I don’t want to spend more than x time per day doing this, so pace me please”, things like: - the ability to specify a max “learning load” taking into account projected reviews + new cards - the ability to “recover” from missed days not by seeing 1000 pending reviews and panicking, but by saying “do an extra 10 cards a day and in two weeks you’ll be caught up” I’m sure I’m not the first one to think of these things but I don’t know how to research what people have done - and if these kinds of usability things, good documentation with clear comparisons of strategies, flexibility of use in different environments/languages were encapsulated in a library it would be a game changer for me.
- uptownhr 6y ago
- z3rgl1ng 6y agoThe questions read a bit like you’re trying to phish my security questions...
- KhoomeiK 6y agoIt would be a shame if someone were to misuse all the data you're collecting about people's first grade teachers and mother's birthdays. Better keep that data safe! :)
- uptownhr 6y agoUntil I have security/privacy and encryption down. I am actually not storing any data. All the data is stored locally on your machine.
- KhoomeiK 6y agoOh cool, there could still be vulnerabilities there so maybe some kind of client-side encryption is in order? I don't have too much client-side storage experience.
- tzm 6y agoAlthough a cool project, I can't help to think of this as a honeypot for bad actors.
- ryanmjacobs 6y agoI like the commandline interface a lot! It's really clean and I like the formatting. I definitely plan on using this daily. Seems easy to interop casually while in coding sessions. I don't forsee using this for remembering my security questions. But I will definitely use this for remembering little bits of knowledge and trivia that I want to become second nature. I'm a big fan of the `spacedtime list` command by the way. Looks good! Preview here: https://i.imgur.com/5BZygbE.png https://i.imgur.com/5BZygbE.png
- uptownhr 6y agoThanks for the compliment :)
- SoulMan 6y agoI was thinking on the same line, to dump all the personal memories into cloud not just anniversaries and birthdays but also what I promised to others and what I observed or any decision at work so that later I can back myself up with data. Its like a personal journal in case my memory becomes weak. There are things like evernote but they are more of a active notes which you open sometimes infront of others or while screensharing. I wanted something like Date wise or tag wise. It will be great if this can have a timeline. I also thought of making private facebook posts but for obvious reasons its not a good idea.
- uptownhr 6y agoAh, promises are something I didn't think about but a great one! Can you elaborate on the time-line? What do you mean by it?
- SoulMan 6y agoBy time-line I meant any content that is put be it promises or decisions or even imp events like meeting someone new must be stored with a timestamp and can be viewed in a chronological order. Something like facebook timeline, I can jump right back to Jun 2015 with a couple of click and see what was I thinking that time. Something we used to do in a Diary which had a page for a day. This may also help reminding us important recurring event like Birthday's anniversary, insurance premium without having to explicitly look for them
- edf13 6y agoGrrr... started browsing and it took control of the back button!!! (Mobile safari iOS)
- stared 6y agoWith computers, which excel at memorization, why not off-load out faulty memory there? And use time, and brain capacity, for things that we are still better at, or at least at fun or fulfilling? For each prompt, my first thought was "yeah, I have it in Evernote/1Password/Google Calendar" followed by that it makes my life easier. So basically, let's embrace our extended phenotype! I am sure that there are people around that can flawlessly remember hundreds of complex passwords and numbers, even ones they have used in a decade. Also, knowing something does not guarantee that we can use that. For example, I guess a lot of you had: A: Honey, when is our anniversary? B: April 20th, obviously. A: And which date is today? B: April 21st... oh f-.
- keiferski 6y agoThe ability to quickly google a piece of information != knowing, understanding, or being able to use it in any meaningful sense. The notion that memorization is useless or somehow not integral to the learning process is wrong. When you intuitively know an idea, you can build upon it and combine it with other ideas in a subconscious and long-term way. This isn't possible if you externalize your memory to a computer.
- stared 6y agoI bet you know this, quite old, quotation on memory: "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." > The notion that memorization is useless or somehow not integral to the learning process is wrong. When you intuitively know an idea, you can build upon it and combine it with other ideas in a subconscious and long-term way. There is a profound difference between memorizing sequences of characters (passwords, ids, phone numbers, surnames, dates, particular APIs) and memorizing concepts (which may, but not need to, use these characters as a component).
- keiferski 6y agoSure, that quote is from Socrates about books. I don’t think he’s actually wrong: the average person today probably is less mentally capable than ~2,500 years ago. Books are more useful as a storage device, to be sure, but externalization does have downsides when it comes to mental cognition itself. Don’t disagree with on the sequences of characters point, though. Unfortunately most people don’t make that distinction and lump everything into the ‘not worth memorizing’ camp.
- jrowley 6y agoI love that this was posted on 4/20
- bobbyz 6y agoNice, I like the website. What did you use to create it? Currently evaluating new framework/tools to speed up my side project quality/workflow.