Launch Week 110

As is normal in Grace and I's lives, this past week has been quite full, both in adventure and spirit. From professional bits like Grace getting comfy in her new job, to at home events like meeting with church friends, celebrating birthdays, and somehow finding the time to exercise, we've run the gamut of summer activities these past few days.

However, despite the lack of free schedule, I still found time to do one more thing. Launch the website. The link is on the front page and also below if you want to check it out. To get a sense of the direction and vision I have for Super Slow Software, I do invite you to read the mission statement on our front page too. Outside of those updates, I'm not sure what else to do here in this post space other than to provide some insight to the viewers as to what they might see next, and what benefits they'll enjoy for the foreseeable future. So please check back to this page periodically for announcements and updates as Grace, Ada, the users, and I figure this out together.

In that spirit, let's talk about what's coming up for the users:

First, you may have noticed when you log in that there are a couple of fields in your user information called "Verified" and "Premium". You might have asked what these two fields mean and do. The short answer is nothing (yet). The long-winded answer (at least for the Premium field) is that we'll be attempting to monetize the site in the future through a freemium model with 3 planned application tiers:

1. No login or registration required applications. If you've used the Random Word Generator, you've already experienced one application in this category.
2. Login required applications. If you've played Tudle, you've experienced this as well.
3. Premium only applications and application features. The most probable future example of this would be playability of the Tudle daily catalog.

For now, everyone that registers an account on the site will get marked as Verified and Premium by me. We'll keep this going until I can't keep up with it day to day, and until I start to see folks I don't recognize on the user list. If you take anything away from this paragraph it's that early users are going to get Premium for life.

You might also be wondering, why not just post ads? Personally, I hate ads. One of my core beliefs as a developer is that they've ruined most of the user experience of the web. That's not to say we won't ever have them (stay tuned in for future posts where I'll be presenting creative ideas for niche advertising on the site), but that they will not be a primary revenue driver for us.

Second, let's talk about user data. One of the biggest questions I've gotten this week (outside of "Why is this captcha so hard??" -- if you know, you know) is, "Can you see my password?". The answer is yes... I can see only your password hash. I'm taking security seriously, and we're using the best modern security practices to safekeep your data. In layman terms this means it'd take me (someone who has direct access to the login data in the database) the following amount of time to brute force your password using the following resources:

1. A Single GPU (RTX 4090): ~500-2000 years
2. A Large GPU cluster (100 GPUs): ~5-20 years
3. Nation-state resources: ~6 months to 2 years

As you can probably guess, I don't even have access to a 4090, much less an NSA datacenter. So, it's safe to assume I won't be wreaking havoc in your hotmail account anytime soon.

Answering the password question does offer me the opportunity to go more in depth about user data and our plans to upkeep its privacy. Another core belief I have is that your data is your own, and it is not mine to sell or redistribute as I please. That is why, whatever I can see about you, you can also see in your account page. This is a tenant we plan to continue to refine, so as we grow, check back into your account page, and you'll hopefully see it grow with your usage of the site. However, as we grow know that the data you see there won't be sold to 3rd parties for a quick buck. I'd rather shutdown operations than take money to run the site unethically.

Finally, we get to talk about the Verified field. To register you had to put in your email address. Eventually we'll set up two factor authentication for sign in, where an email code gets sent to your email address. We'll also include another flag to opt in to receive email updates from us. Neither one of these features are implemented yet but be rest assured we'll announce them when they're coming.

If you made it down here to the end, I appreciate your time investment into this crazy journey I'm embarking on. If anything, I've said or am planning to do sparks your interest or touches your soul in any way, I warmly invite you to please Buy Me a Coffee or share our website with someone you love. It's currently the only way to support what we're doing.

:) Matt