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Show HN: Supermind – The easiest way to improve memory in all you do (superm.in)
74 points by ahoskins 2286 days ago
8 comments

What makes this better than Anki, SuperMemo, or the many other programs already out there with excellent interface and addon support?
I do agree is Anki is GREAT and has proven to work for those who make the effort to learn the UX, and make the continuous effort to use it. But my goal with Supermind is to bring this to more people who would find Anki / SuperMemo too difficult / too high-friction (which is a lot of people afaik). I'm trying to integrate this system into a browser as cleanly as possible.
I've been using Anki for more than a decade, and while SuperMemo-based spaced repetition definitely works for me, I've been frustrated by the implementation itself - UX is far from being good and tons of possible use cases across differrent platforms just aren't possible.

For example, as I'm using Anki mostly for learning words in foreign languages I read in articles/books, I want to remove a friction of adding a word to the deck, ideally making it a single click action. As the very least, I want Anki to add an entry into contextual menu in my iOS/MacOS system, and that's not currently possible.

Another thing – I'm willing to write a better cross-platform UI (using Flutter, for example), without reimplementing the whole codebase. Actually, I tried this once in 2010 while making Anki version for Nokia N900 (Maemo/Linux, using PyQT), and the code was quite a mess and quite hard to port.

Not to mention that I love to recommend apps that work for me, and Anki for iOS costs almost prohibitively high price of ~25$ (for whatever beliefs Anki author has about iOS users), which makes it a no-go for recommendations.

I wish there was a standardised set of protocols/formats for decks/cards and spaced repetition apps.

Really cool extension! Another advantage over Anki that I could identify is being web based. I see the potential of Supermind making learning a collaborative experience through sharing cards and other learning resources.
AnkiWeb[0], made by or at least affiliated with Anki creator, allows accessing and studying any of the decks you sync in your Anki app.

It also features a database of user-contributed decks[1] on various topics.

That said, I don’t know whether AnkiWeb could be used completely without the accompanying desktop or mobile app.

[0] https://ankiweb.net/

[1] https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/

You can, and I've done it some since migrating to iOS until I feel like I'll use it enough to pay for the app (I suck at sticking with flashcards; they're so boring).
The collaborative idea is something I'm thinking about. I want it to eventually balance on "easy sharing / collab on sets of cards" with "still able to be personal", since learning is fundamentally a personal experience. I'm happy to talk about this more or setup some time to talk: please email at arh.hoskins@gmail.com
I've been looking for a flash-card app with this sort of functionality since I do a lot of reading/learning from the web. However, the extension wont work on my chrome (Version 77.0.3865.120) edit: [resolved]
Please do email me at arh.hoskins@gmail.com with what the problem is (screenshot would be great). Thanks! I would like to look into what is not working.
I really need something like this. Great job identifying a pain point.

>> 1. Highlight text on any page, and a popup will appear

Popup is not appearing. I am using the chrome extension + mac. Does this only work on Windows?

You'll need to refresh any tabs that were open prior to installing the Chrome Extension. If you refresh it, or open a new tab, does it work?
Seems similar to ThoughtSaver? https://www.thoughtsaver.com/
Is the spaced repetition algo same as Anki's?
It's not the same. I believe Anki is based on SuperMemo 2 (SM-2). I choose to not use this same approach, however may change in the future.
Really cool extension!

A suggestion would be to enable adding pictures in the Answer part of the card

Yes! Supporting different types of media types is something I agree would be great. Out of curiosity, what types of pictures would you like to upload as an answer?
For example, you're reading a technical article and the answer to a question is a complex diagram or a graph that could easily fit in one card but would take way too long to explain in pure text.

Also, another suggestion would be to enable some kind of formatting of the text in the cards, in case you're trying to remember steps to a recipe, algorithm or something else.

Really good job again, love the extension :)

Please consider an extension for Safari.
Yes! Definitely on my roadmap. I hate to limit to just Chrome right now, but as 1-person team currently, limited by time and prioritizing!