RANDEVU

Universal Probabilistic Daily Reminder Coordination System for Anything

• UNIVERSAL - reminders for the same object are the same for everyone
• PROBABILISTIC - reminders are calculated using a simple probabilistic algorithm based on powers of 2
• DAILY - reminders are following a daily schedule/interval (UTC)
• INTRADAY - infinite optional intraday reminder times (RDVT - added in version 2.0 as an extension to the existing system)
• GENERIC - applicable to anything and everything, literally (where it makes sense, see use cases)
• FOSS - in the public domain (Unlicense or MIT or Apache-2.0)
• OFFLINE - no internet connection required
• PORTABLE - simple code, easy to port anywhere where blake3 is available
• DETERMINISTIC - easily computable and predictable for any object and any date
• PSEUDORANDOM - reminders are spaced randomly and uniformly
• ADJUSTABLE - user can decide how frequently (roughly) they’d like to see reminders for each object

https://github.com/TypicalHog/randevu (Rust - REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION) https://github.com/TypicalHog/randevu-ts (TypeScript) https://github.com/TypicalHog/randevu-py (Python) The above implementations are available on Crates.io, PyPI, and npm as randevu. Feel free to contribute, create an implementation in another (missing) language, or even an alternative one for 1 (or more) of the 3 languages I’ve already created a repository and crate/module/package for.

EXAMPLE USAGE

use chrono::Utc;
use randevu::{rdv, rdvt};

fn main() {
let object = "THE_SIMPSONS";
let date = Utc::now();
let rdv_value = rdv(object, &date);
let rdvt_value = rdvt(0, object, &date);

println!("Object {} has RDV{} today with RDVT0 at {:?}", object, rdv_value, rdvt_value);
}

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I’m aware of the fact that README.md is a confusing jungle of words, random thoughts, and ideas. (Will work on it) I kinda suck at explaining stuff and structuring text in an organized manner. I’m sorry about that. :/ I gave it my best, and I’ll keep trying to improve it in the future. This whole document will probably be revamped entirely. Stuff will be explained better, irrelevant things, tangents, thoughts and rambles removed, etc. I would also like to write something like a proper spec for the RANDEVU algorithm/system. I’m thinking about creating a FAQ section/document where I’ll explain various aspects of the system and anything else I’d like to clarify or expand on in more detail. Also thinking about adding some visual analogies (infographics) with coin tossing and such which I believe have enormous potential in terms of making the system easier to explain, as well as understand.

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KEY CONCEPTS

• OBJECT - a string representing anything that is representable with a string of characters (a game, a movie, a person, a song, a place, a video, a topic, a word, a book, a number, a brand, a post, an event, an item, a website, an app, a quote, an action, a movement or literally anything else)
• DATE - a date (UTC) for which we want to calculate the RDV for
• RDV - a positive integer representing the level/significance/rarity of a reminder for a certain OBJECT on a specific DATE

(New feature of version 2.0)

• RDVT - one of an infinite number of random moments in a day (0-24h UTC) when an object has its reminders for that day, allows for infinite precision
• RANK - RDVT rank, ranked 0 (most significant) to infinity - RDVT0, RDVT1...

RDV CALCULATION

RDV = number of leading zero bits in blake3::keyed_hash(key: DATE, data: OBJECT) Note: The previous version (1.0) used a different algorithm, so the RDV values between the two versions have changed and are completely un-correlated. By implementing this change, I’ve eliminated 2/3 blake3 hash calculations and improved performance (not that it mattered). But now I can calculate about 10 million RDV values per second on my PC. I have strong reasons to believe such major changes won’t be happening in the future and that this is the final version of the algorithm. It was still a good time to do such a fundamental change to the algorithm, since RANDEVU had essentially no adoption apart from myself and a small community I’m a part of.

HOW IT WORKS AND POTENTIAL USE CASES

Imagine a system that assigns a special number (RDV) to every object each day. The number assigned to each object is different for each object and changes daily. The number has a 50% chance to be 0, 25% chance to be 1, 12.5% to be 2, and so on (each number being twice as rare). I’ve based everything around base-2 (simplest numerical base after unary), it makes everything fit together so perfectly (you’ll probably see why when you learn more about how the system works). By making each reminder level twice as rare - we can achive effectively infinitely infrequent reminders, as well as daily ones, and a pretty good range of reminders of various frequencies in between. If an object has a reminder RDV4, that also implies RDV3, RDV2, RDV1 and RDV0. Users can then choose to set a threshold value for each object and if the RDV value for a specific object is greater than or equal to the threshold - the user may decide to do something with that object. For example, one may decide to watch a certain video once its RDV value (RDV value for that specific video) hits their desired threshold. Threshold allows one to decide how often they would like to be "reminded of" a certain object. 0 -> every day, 1 -> every 2 days (on average - it’s random), 2 -> 4 days, 3 -> 8 days, and so on (allows for essentially infinite frequencies of reminders, though ones above 10 happen quite rarely - 2^10 = 1024 days). If multiple people used this system to get reminded of the same things - they would all get reminded of them on the same days and thus be able to coordinate meetings/actions related to the objects in question. This could allow fans of a "dead" game (game with no or little players online) to all meet and play it on the same day, let’s say once every 256 days. People could re-watch their favorite movies or videos and discuss them with other fellow fans on the same days. This system can be applied to anything. It can be used to assign special appreciation/remembrance days to your favorite books, songs, artists, events, or (as I already said) - ANYTHING. One could have a huge list of objects they care about and never again risk forgetting any of them - since they will be reminded of them eventually (for example - bookmarks).

RDVT CALCULATION AND USE CASES

RDVT is a newly added (version 2.0) feature of the RANDEVU system and an optional extension of the RDV algorithm. We calculate the hash the same way as for RDV, except we append a RANK integer to the DATE inside the key, separated by an ‘_’. And we don’t count leading zero bits. Instead, we iterate over the bits in the hash and add increments to the RDVT time (which starts at 00:00h, midnight). For each 1 we add an increment, and do nothing if the bit is 0. An increment starts at 12h, and we divide it by half after processing each bit. For example, if the first 4 bits are 0110 - this will result in a time value of 09:00h (0 * 12h + 1 * 6h + 1 * 3h + 0 * 1.5h...). Note that there are 256 bits and we keep doing this until we reach 1 ns (or millisecond/microsecond, depending on the implementation). This means we get a different uniform pseudorandom time (0-24h) for each RANK. If users find the daily RDV reminder too broad and would like a more specific time for the reminder - they can calculate one or more RDVT times and choose one. Since RDVT0 is the most important/main time, users should choose the lowest-ranked RDVT that works for them - this increases the chances other people will also choose the same RDVT time as them, thus increasing the chances of an interaction. Let’s say a certain YouTube video has an RDV10 today. We could have a browser extension or a website that would schedule streams (like video premieres) for that video at the first 10 RDVT times (RDVT0-9). Fans of that video could all come re-watch it live with others at one of the RDVT times, and perhaps chat about it in the live chat (assuming the feature existed) while experiencing it together. This is just one super specific hypothetical use case I came up with.

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OBJECT NAMING CONVENTION (non-exhaustive examples)

OBJECT is a string (preferably uppercase A-Z, 0-9). No spaces allowed. Spaces and any other characters should be replaced with a single underscore (‘_’). Characters outside of this set should only be used for external identifiers that are case-sensitive or contain other symbols, for example, YOUTUBE video IDs.

XONOTIC (all letters should be uppercase)

STAR_WARS (spaces and dashes in multi-word objects should be replaced with _)

THE_MATRIX_1999 (movies should have a year of release at the end)

GRAND_THEFT_AUTO_5 (objects should be referenced by their full name, Roman
numerals should be replaced with Arabic ones)

ASAP_ROCKY ($ should be replaced with S, same for other similar instances)

C_PLUS_PLUS (++ should be replaced with _PLUS_PLUS)

C_SHARP (# should be replaced with _SHARP, in other contexts it could be _HASH
or omitted)

YEAR_2000 (years should have a YEAR_ prefix)

FRIDAY (weekdays and months should not be abbreviated, same as all other
objects)

2023-08-25 (dates should be in ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD)

NO_MANS_SKY (apostrophe in MAN'S should be dropped)

HARRY_POTTER_SMOKES_WEED_Cdfkq2Nmb3c (video ID should be appended to the video
title, double underscore is fine if the ID starts with one, IDs are allowed to
use dashes and lowercase letters)

GETTING_BANGED_BY_GREEN_BOOMERS_MINECRAFT_BETA_1_7_3_SOLO_SURVIVAL_NO_COMMENTARY_OJzsmWBQE3I
(brackets, quotation marks, colons, and other punctuation should be dropped,
periods in version numbers like 1.7.3 should be replaced with _)

NUMBER_69 (numbers should have a NUMBER_ prefix)

WHY THIS VERY SPECIFIC AND STRICT CONVENTION THO?

TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE GETS THE SAME REMINDERS FOR THE SAME THINGS ON THE SAME DAYS.

Due to how the algorithm works - even just a single character difference between two objects causes the system to generate completely different reminders for each. For example: WEED, weed, Weed, and W33D would all be treated as different and independent objects with completely unrelated reminders. One can think of objects like passwords - the same password gets you the same reminders as everyone else using said password. If one wanted to get completely different reminders from other people for a specific object - they could append extra characters to it. However, this is not the focus of the system. The whole point is to help people coordinate getting reminded about stuff at the same time as everyone else.