hydravion's recent activity

  1. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Hey, thanks for the feedback! I apologize for lacking clarity, what I meant to say is that I would offer a full, clean free trial, and only then would I cycle between the base and the full...

    Hey, thanks for the feedback! I apologize for lacking clarity, what I meant to say is that I would offer a full, clean free trial, and only then would I cycle between the base and the full versions. So, you get the full version for say a month, and then, instead of being downgraded to the base version until you pay to upgrade again, you are still downgraded to the base version, but you are then regularly upgraded to the full version for free, but for a limited amount of time (so you are downgraded again, and the cycle repeats).

    So, instead of just getting the base version after the free trial, you regularly get access to the full version. You get a repeating free trial in a sense. Would that clarified scenario be a deal-breaker for you?

    PS - Wouldn't you use some sort of P2P alternative to tildes and reddit by any chance?

    2 votes
  2. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Thanks for linking your websites! They look like interesting tools.

    Thanks for linking your websites! They look like interesting tools.

  3. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

  4. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    I'm wondering how we could easily tell which countries each passport adds to the set of countries one will be able to visit visa-free to know which passports we can choose to forgo to reduce the...

    I'm wondering how we could easily tell which countries each passport adds to the set of countries one will be able to visit visa-free to know which passports we can choose to forgo to reduce the number of years we need to dedicate to acquire them.

    I suppose that if you wanted to minimize the number of years dedicated to acquiring passports while still being able to access most of the world visa-free, you would need to go with a combination like Canada + Australia + Singapore, but this is just me guessing, and I don't really know how many countries (and which ones) would still be left inaccessible visa-free. According to the data given by @xk3 this would probably take only around 9 years? This seems much more manageable, although it may not be the most optimal combination if you already own a powerful passport, like the French or German ones?

    1 vote
  5. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Hey krellor, that rocks! I like your unusual angle, I actually didn't even know about such methods! Is there a way to list all the optimal solutions that exist using this method? PS - Interesting...

    Hey krellor, that rocks! I like your unusual angle, I actually didn't even know about such methods!

    Is there a way to list all the optimal solutions that exist using this method?

    PS - Interesting to see that many powerful passports fail to grant you visa-free access to India, but the Maldives' passport does, and also that Singapore's passport grants you visa-free access to China.

  6. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    hydravion
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The Chrome team stated on the official website that they would deprecate MV2 on pre-stable versions of Chrome in June and then on the stable version starting in July, where they say it would take...

    The Chrome team stated on the official website that they would deprecate MV2 on pre-stable versions of Chrome in June and then on the stable version starting in July, where they say it would take at least a month (they wrote 1-X months somewhere) to roll out MV3 gradually.

    You're welcome! I hope you'll be successful, but bear in mind that many of these extensions will probably be updated in time to MV3 though. If you intend to launch paid extensions, would you mind talking about their monetization? Are you going to go the freemium route?

    3 votes
  7. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    hydravion
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Thanks! Yes, I agree with you, which is why I intend to offer the base functionality for free under a freemium model, just like the abandoned extension with 100'000 users. I also intend to offer...

    Thanks! Yes, I agree with you, which is why I intend to offer the base functionality for free under a freemium model, just like the abandoned extension with 100'000 users. I also intend to offer the paid version for a very affordable price (so little that you wouldn't notice the difference at the end of the month), since it's "just an extension" and not a revolutionary product like ChatGPT. I mean, even ChatGPT Plus is cheaper than Netflix's most expensive plan, so I better not ask too high of a price.

    Striking just the right balance between offering features for free and enticing users to upgrade with some features put behind a paywall is going to be tricky...

    I was thinking about some unusual variations on the typical business models, what do you guys think about them?

    I was thinking to offer some mix between:

    • a free trial (start with that)
    • then switch to a freemium type of model where only the base version can be accessed for free
    • while users are on the free version, I'd regularly give them access to the full version to give them a taste of the paid features, but then I'd also take these paid features away regularly to encourage them to upgrade (so the users would maybe have access to the base version for 3 weeks, then the full for 1 week, then again the base for 3 weeks, then the full for 1 week, etc.). This is to keep the benefits of the paid features fresh in their minds and regularly reignite interest in these features, while still keeping them regularly behind a paywall to encourage them to upgrade.
    • maybe go even more extreme and do the opposite: offer the full version for 3 weeks, and then downgrade to the base version for 1 week, and repeat the cycle. This way, users would have access to the full version most of the time and fully make use of it during that time, but they would then regularly experience the inconvenience of losing access to some features for a short while, before gaining access to them again. I think that people would upgrade just to get rid of these regular and inconvenient downgrades. However, I'm afraid that this model (even though it may be the most beneficial to non-paying users since it gives them the most days of free access to paid features) would still face backlash from users and generally not be very well received. What do you guys think?

    In any case I think I should probably try different models with different cohort of users and see which one fares better, then switch everyone to that same model.

    Edit - As for the beta test (it just occurred to me that I forgot to answer that, my bad...), I need to make a few more important changes, fix some bugs breaking important functionality and to implement or integrate some sort of free trial mechanism, but then I would probably be ready to release a beta version :)

    2 votes
  8. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    hydravion
    (edited )
    Link
    For the past 1-2 years, I've been working on and off on a Chrome browser extension to help me manage my tabs and bookmarks. According to the time-tracking app I use, I've spent around 1228 hours...

    For the past 1-2 years, I've been working on and off on a Chrome browser extension to help me manage my tabs and bookmarks. According to the time-tracking app I use, I've spent around 1228 hours of dedicated, focused work (excluding breaks) on this project. This includes starting with reading a book on JavaScript because I was not familiar enough with it.

    At first, I was just doing this for myself because I could not find a tabs & bookmarks management extension that answered my needs, so I thought that I would just reuse an existing open source project and modify it free-style to just have a quick and dirty tool to get the job done. But I soon realized that that was not going to work, and that I needed to actually learn the programming language they used in the project to get this done. I ended up starting a new project from scratch.

    For quite a while, as I said, I was just doing this for myself, but one day it clicked in my mind that what I was building could actually be useful to other people. There were plenty of such browser extensions available, and some of them had more than 100'000 users even though one of them seemed to be abandoned by its developer. Being a part-time minimum wage worker with quite a low income for where I live, I saw in this an opportunity to start a business and started dreaming that it could become successful. I told myself, there is definitely a need for such a product, hundreds of thousands of people are already using similar products, even though some of them are literally abandoned, why not try to launch your own? Who knows, if you end up with a large, worldwide userbase, and even if only a small fraction of them became paying customers, you would still earn much more than you are currently earning with your part-time minimum-wage job.

    I thought, the infrastructure is already there, the internet is already there, payment service providers are already there, people all have computers, it's a digital product, you need no warehouse, you need no large upfront investment, people have a real need for such a product, what are you waiting for? This felt like an awesome opportunity that I would not have had had I lived only a few decades ago.

    So this became the focus of my life. I would go to my minimum-wage job during the day, and work on my program during the evening. Then, during the evening and the night. And then, during the evening, the night, and the morning. I would still try get some sleep here and there, enough to remain productive, although sometimes I would get so deep into it that I would barely get a few hours of sleep before going back to my day job.

    I hope to be able to ship the first version of this program before June, or maybe July. I've had to strip away a lot of features and requirements to be able to finish on time, and even then, I am not sure that I will be able to make it. Why June? Because that's around the time where the Chrome team will start to roll out Manifest V3, the latest version of the extensions platform. And this is a breaking change, meaning that extensions still using Manifest V2 that are not updated to MV3 will stop working around that time.

    Remember these abandoned extensions with dozens if not hundreds of thousands of users? These users will be looking for an alternative, and that's why I'm in a hurry to ship my product before then so that I'll be able to gain these users when they start looking elsewhere.

    I think I'll probably make a dedicated post about my product when I release the beta version. I would love to get you guys' opinion on it and get some feedback, and maybe fix bugs that I haven't noticed yet.

    To talk about the product itself:

    It aims to give users the tools to organize their tabs and bookmarks when they are conducting long research sessions on their computer.

    It also aims to make the user's computer faster by reducing the internet browser's memory consumption. Indeed, having many open tabs can consume a lot of RAM, and when the computer has to fall back to using the hard drive, performance takes a hit, as the hard drive is much slower than the RAM.

    My tab manager aims to offer many features that are not found everywhere else.

    A major advantage of my program is that it helps users avoid ending up with many similar bookmarks folders. When saving tabs in a bookmarks folder, and resuming your research the next day, one opens some bookmarks of the first folder and again saves tabs as bookmarks in a second folder. This results in having two folders, with some bookmarks in the first, others in the second, and some in both. After a few days, one has many folders with many duplicated bookmarks across several folders, and it becomes very disorganized.

    I'd say that this program would be useful to master, PhD students and academics in general, software engineers, journalists, etc., basically anyone who does a lot of research on the internet and ends up with dozens, if not hundreds of tabs open at any one time.

    Here is a list of the main features (some are still under development and others probably won't be implemented before some time):

    • Display of tabs/bookmarks/folders (the "entities") in a tree-like hierarchical structure (like with folders and files in your file system, but with tabs/bookmarks instead of files)
    • Ability to close a tab without removing it from the tree (to be able to reopen it later)
    • Ability to "zoom in" on a part of the tree (to focus on and work with that part only)
    • Robust local data backup in case of browser crash
    • Automatic data backup to an online storage space
    • Real-time automatic synchronization of entities in the tree with Google Chrome's bookmarks
    • Use of folders and tags to organize bookmarks
    • Annotations (for taking notes)
    • Undo-redo functionality
    • Trash feature
    • Filters (by type (tabs, bookmarks), tag, date, URL, ...) and sorting (alphabetical, chronological, ...)
    • Search bar
    • Split screen with multiple tree instances to work with different parts of the tree at the same time
    • Drag-and-drop, in a tree or between multiple trees (in split screen mode)
    • Floating and dynamic informative box (displays additional information (like the full title, URL, tags, a screenshot of the web page) without taking up space in the user interface when the box is not displayed)
    • Collaborative mode (with other users, interesting for teams)
    • Different display modes: sidebar, overlay, and separate window (popup)
    • Sessions (to easily resume work where one left off)
    • Mobile version
    • Synchronization across multiple devices
    • Data import and export
    • Keyboard shortcuts
    • Context menu (right-click)
    • Integrations with third-party software (e.g., WorkFlowy/Obsidian for note-taking, etc.)
    • Light or dark mode
    • Translations in several languages for a global audience
    • Aesthetic design
    • Tutorial for new users

    I am not done yet, but I hope to show you guys a beta version soon, and hopefully, version 1.0 before June.

    Thanks for reading, and take care folks!

    13 votes
  9. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Well you can include it in your solution if you want, even though most people would not be able to get a hold of one.

    Well you can include it in your solution if you want, even though most people would not be able to get a hold of one.

    7 votes
  10. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Nice! A quick Google search also yielded this and this. Thanks again!

    Nice! A quick Google search also yielded this and this. Thanks again!

    4 votes
  11. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Even the most powerful passports won't let you travel in the whole world visa-free unfortunately.

    Even the most powerful passports won't let you travel in the whole world visa-free unfortunately.

    4 votes
  12. Comment on Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world in ~comp

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Good observation! I think that I'll just let participants decide how they want to handle such edge cases.

    Good observation! I think that I'll just let participants decide how they want to handle such edge cases.

    5 votes
  13. Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world

    Hey there, I wanted to know which sets of passports grant together visa-free access to every country in the world, but I could not easily find that info online. So I figured that I could try to...

    Hey there,

    I wanted to know which sets of passports grant together visa-free access to every country in the world, but I could not easily find that info online. So I figured that I could try to write a small program to determine these sets of passports myself, and then it occurred to me that it would probably be a fun programming challenge to organize, so here we go.


    Here's the challenge.

    1. Scrape the data you need for instance from The Henley Passport Index.
    2. Design a clever algorithm to efficiently find out which are the smallest sets of passports that will grant you visa-free access to every country in the world.
    3. Optional. Allow the user to specify which passports they already hold and find out which sets of passports would complement their passports well.
    4. Optional. Rank the sets of passports by how easy it is to acquire citizenship in those countries.

    The choice of the programming language is yours, bonus points if you write it in assembly 😂

    Feel free to collaborate and share your solutions (the algorithms and the actual results) in the comments, and feel free to share your own twists to the challenge that could make it even more fun & interesting.

    The person with the most clever, efficient and elegant algorithm wins!

    Happy coding folks!

    32 votes
  14. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link
    After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways: Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct? My argument...

    After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways:

    Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

    • My argument about the extinction of humanity seems logical, but we could very well eventually find out that it is totally wrong. We may not be doomed to go extinct, which means that what we do wouldn't be for nothing, as humanity would keep benefitting from it perpetually.
    • We are at an extremely early stage of the advancement of science, when looking at it on a cosmic timescale. Over such a long time, we may well come to an understanding of the Universe that allows us to see past the limits I've outlined in my original post.
    • (Even if it's all for nothing, if we enjoy ourselves and we do not care that it's pointless, then it will not matter to us that it's all for nothing, as the fun we're having makes life worthwhile in and of itself. Also, if what we do impacts us positively right now, even if it's all for nothing ultimately, it will still matter to us as it won't be for nothing for as long as humanity still benefits from it.)

    Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

    • This is not possible, because we'd either have the meaningful work of improving our situation (making ourselves fulfilled and happy), or we would be fulfilled and happy, even if there was no work left.
    • I have underestimated for how long one can remain fulfilled with hobbies alone, given that one has enough hobbies. One could spend the rest of their lives doing a handful of hobbies (e.g., travelling, painting, reading non-fiction, reading fiction, playing games) and they would not have enough time to exhaust all of these hobbies.
    • We would not get bored of a given food, book, movie, game, etc., because we could cycle through a large number of them, and by the time we reach the end of the cycle (if we ever do), then we will have forgotten the taste of the first foods and the stories of the first books and movies. Even if we didn't forget the taste of the first foods, we would not have eaten them frequently at all, so we would not have gotten bored of them. Also, there can be a lot of variation within a game like Chess or Go. We might get bored of Chess itself, but then we could simply cycle through several games (or more generally hobbies), and come back to the first game with renewed eagerness to play after some time has passed.
    • One day we may have the technology to change our nature and alter our minds to not feel bored, make us forget things on demand, increase our happiness, and remove negative feelings.

    Recommended readings (from the commenters)

    • Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World by Nick Bostrom
    • The Fun Theory Sequence by Eliezer Yudkowski
    • The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
    • Into the Cool by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan
    • Permutation City by Greg Egan
    • Diaspora by Greg Egan
    • Accelerando by Charles Stross
    • The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
    • The Culture series by Iain M. Banks
    • Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
    • The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
    • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
    • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund
    • Uncaused cause arguments
    • The Meaningness website (recommended starting point) by David Chapman
    • Optimistic Nihilism (video) by Kurzgesagt
    2 votes
  15. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    In my view, the final state, if it was extinction, would render all of what came before it meaningless. Why do you not see it that way?

    In my view, the final state, if it was extinction, would render all of what came before it meaningless. Why do you not see it that way?

    1 vote
  16. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Thank you for sharing, and for the support, too.

    Thank you for sharing, and for the support, too.

    1 vote
  17. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    That's an interesting take, thanks for sharing.

    That's an interesting take, thanks for sharing.

  18. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Honestly this sounds like a very interesting book. Would you mind giving me a reference? Thank you for your answer and your advice.

    Honestly this sounds like a very interesting book. Would you mind giving me a reference?

    Thank you for your answer and your advice.

  19. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    I did not know that, thanks for sharing. I think part of the problem is also that a depressed person tends to have a very flawed and skewed judgement on things (at least it seems to me).

    I did not know that, thanks for sharing. I think part of the problem is also that a depressed person tends to have a very flawed and skewed judgement on things (at least it seems to me).

    2 votes
  20. Comment on CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living. in ~talk

    hydravion
    Link Parent
    Ah okay, I better understand. They may have had fulfilling lives, but I'm not sure how if they believed we were going to come to an end. I find it much easier believing the opposite, but that...

    Ah okay, I better understand. They may have had fulfilling lives, but I'm not sure how if they believed we were going to come to an end. I find it much easier believing the opposite, but that could just be me.

    By the way, I appreciate the honest, straightforward way you have approached this question, including awarding deltas

    Thank you friend!