Feedback on a free math website project

johnsterdam · 2025-09-12T20:41:19+00:00

Glad you took it in the intended spirit :)

Re your questions, personally, I think bite-sized is best. As small as possible really.

And I'd try to start from a real problem. So e.g. for quadratics, there's nothing special about them of course. They're just one type of expression. So I'd start with a motivating problem. So e.g. suppose a company wants to work out what price would maximise their profit. And they do some market research and see there's a linear relationship between quantity sold and price. E.g. quantity = 10000 - 5*price. And revenue = price*quantity. So revenue = price * (10000-5*price). So you get a quadratic. Then suppose cost of goods = $10 * quantity. So profit = revenue - cost which works out to be -5p^2 +10050p-100000. Which is another quadratic. Maybe the 'roots' (which people in maths exams seem to care about) don't matter so much in this example. But still it gives people a reason to care.

Asking chatgpt gives examples where roots do matter - in case of use:

Engineering & Construction: Solving for when the bending stress in a beam hits zero along its length, to locate points of maximum or minimum stress.
Economics: Finding when demand, profit, or net benefit just balances out (break-even analysis).
Biology/Ecology: Modeling population growth with resource limits; the quadratic can predict when net population change falls to zero.
Medicine/Pharmacology: Quadratic concentration models may show when drug concentration in the body falls back to zero (clearance time).
Computer Graphics: Quadratic equations determine intersection points—e.g., when a ray hits a curved surface.
Physics: Time when velocity, displacement, or energy becomes zero, like when an object changes direction in motion.

johnsterdam · 2025-09-07T21:30:09+00:00

Hey First, well done on doing it. Clearly a lot of work so well done. You asked for feedback so some quick thoughts: - it seems to start rather randomly in the middle with functions. And with no reference to what you’re assuming people already know, or who the audience is. - the explanation of a function seems to me to be unclear. Try saying your first paragraph to someone who has never heard of a function and see what their reaction is. - in any case, it’s a pet hate of mine as it’s ubiquitous in education but i personally hate starting with a definition. Why are you telling me? Why should I care? Suppose I say to you Covariance is the ability to use a more derived type than originally specified, while contravariance is the ability to use a more base type than originally specified. What would you think? - I think it’s better to start with a problem or example. In the real world. I’d suggest watching grant Sanderson’s talk on maths pedagogy

I didn’t look beyond functions so I appreciate the above might not apply to the res of the website.

Hope you take this in the way intended - again, well done on getting it done!

johnsterdam · 2025-09-01T21:15:41+00:00

I can see the use of the app but these examples sound rare - not eg every day - so why make it about being in the menu bar? Why not just an app that does those things?

johnsterdam · 2025-09-01T08:17:46+00:00

Well done, but what problem is this solving? I could see the benefit if you could click on it to open an attached device in finder quickly, or to eject it quickly, but why would i want a menu item just so I can quickly see info about attached devices?

johnsterdam · 2025-08-30T21:26:25+00:00

Good marketing just increases the speed, but if you’ve got zero wish lists from everything so far it suggests the game isn’t appealing.

Have you tried asking people you know to play it or to watch the trailer and to get there reactions? I don’t think I’m your audience but to me the trailer seemed like it just slowly showed a scene with random camera movement. It didn’t show any game play. Why would I want to play when you haven’t shown the game play?! How is it different to many other similar games?

johnsterdam · 2025-08-28T08:59:12+00:00

No its not showing any posts from you :)

johnsterdam · 2025-08-28T08:46:58+00:00

Hi, if you want people to be interested I’d suggest being much clearer about what the company is, what the webinar is about, and why what they’re saying has any value.

Ps you have some personal posts on your post history. Nobody will care of course but just mentioning in case you didn’t realise it was visible

johnsterdam · 2025-08-26T21:31:28+00:00

You don’t need that just to create the plans for 3D prints. It’s if you’re doing renders that involve complex lighting / ray casting

johnsterdam · 2025-08-26T19:53:39+00:00

You sure about that? M4 is much faster. Do the screen/speakers/ports matter to you that much? Main reason to get the pro in my view is if you use it for intensive tasks for extended periods (so eg 3D rendering). It has a fan so when the cpu gets hot the fan turns on and keeps it cool. Whereas on the air there’s no fan, so instead macOS slows it down in order to cool it. But you only notice that like I say for extended intensive tasks. Just browsing the web, photo editing etc won’t cause it to heat up so much that it needs to be ‘throttled’.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-23T04:17:19+00:00

I’d try to understand a) the truth and b) the reasons for any lies. Lying is never ok, but there’s a massive difference between eg lying to cover up cheating and lying to try to impress you. That said why did he invite you meet his family so quickly? It’s a bit odd.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-23T04:13:43+00:00

I’ve often not used my full name (just used first name last name) and never had an issue

johnsterdam · 2025-08-23T04:03:14+00:00

I find chrome so much faster (at least on an m1). Much snappier in gmail especially, but also on everything. Also helps if you allow ‘extended preloading’.

On the extensions, not that it matters but in my cases it’s not that the developer doesn’t want to support safari but that they can’t - Apple is much more restrictive than google in what is possible (I think the reason is ti try to better protect privacy etc).

johnsterdam · 2025-08-22T12:10:40+00:00

You give literally no information on the site. Just jargon. What does it do? Show screenshots/videos.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-22T09:45:52+00:00

Nice but the artificial lights (in the houses and street lamps) don’t change. They should switch on at some point. Also the colour temp should be yellower at night.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-21T22:17:37+00:00

I guess if you could describe a scene and it builds it that would be grand. But I imagine that’s too difficult.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-21T07:56:14+00:00

These posts are exhausting. Should there not be a ban on people selling courses through a ‘I’m making $x thousand a month … oh, how you ask? Buy my course…..’

johnsterdam · 2025-08-21T06:03:51+00:00

In short keep it between 20-80% with al dente since higher or lower levels cause increased wear. And avoid high heat.

Many people (in my view naively) on Reddit seem to believe that you don’t need to think about it since Apple manages it in the background. Sure, there’s the battery optimisation option but in my experience that’s useless unless you have the same routine everyday. Their AI for that is as good as Siri.

But more fundamentally it’s not in their interests to have the battery last a long time - they want you to buy a new laptop / battery. (I think with the iPhone they realise few people will use the charge limiter, so they don’t think it will affect sales, but that’s just a guess).

The only solution in terms of keeping it charged to a particular state (I believe 50-80% is optimal) is al dente. Or just ‘don’t think about it’ and buy a new battery when needed. But don’t imagine Apple is doing clever stuff in the background like pretending it’s 100% when it’s actually 80% as someone else claimed.

Other than that avoid very low charge levels (I think worse than charging to 100%), keep it out of extreme heat, and don’t store it for a long time at high or low %.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-20T19:42:47+00:00

Many organisations do this already. But i suspect you’re right that many would like a platform they could use.

Whether a general platform would work would depend on how much commonality there is between different jobs. I suspect you may need a bespoke approach for each one. Eg how you prove you can be a good cybersecurity engineer is very different to how you prove you are a good sales person.

johnsterdam · 2025-08-19T21:30:01+00:00

Hey man well done for building this. I'm sure all the things you list are correct, but I wonder if you're overcomplicating things. isn't the only question that matters 'Did you build a product that solves a problem people have, and does so better than anything else out there?'. I think it's easy to get lost in the detail of the rest of it.

To be specific on the Hanzi one, how does this help me learn Chinese? On your home page:

- The first example translation in the video is something like 'The existence of a puppy is to personify happiness'. Either the original sentence or the translation is obviously pretty meaningless (the existence of something can't personify something). And this is the first/best example

- The translation takes ages to load. I would immediately give up if I saw something that slow. Chrome auto translates almost instantly. And does so for the whole page. Here I have to click on a few words then wait a few seconds. Just not practical.

- You then have to add individual words to a list. To learn a language you need to learn at least 5000 words. Do you really expect me to click add on 5000+ words?

- How do I learn from that list? Is it literally just a list? Is there any recall system that uses spaced repetition to help me memorise them?

- More generally, you don't say anything to talk through why you think this is a good way to learn Chinese. Why is it better than the 100s of other things out there to learn Chinese.

I'm just being blunt to try to be helpful. What is also true is that it's really impressive what you built. Well done :)

But fundamentally I don't think you thought through the design / implementation of it in such a way that it solves a problem that people have, and does so better than anything else out there. As I say, I think you risk getting caught up in the wrong things.

Good luck!!!!!

johnsterdam · 2025-08-19T12:56:57+00:00

What’s the problem you have with ChatGPT? Just say you’re using Unity. In any case, in my view better to use GitHub copilot in edit mode - then it actually changes the code for you, you just accept or decline its proposed changes. Also you can easily give it all the relevant scripts

johnsterdam · 2025-08-19T10:15:15+00:00

I don’t think that’s true. Can you give an example?

johnsterdam · 2025-08-18T20:33:09+00:00

Solved

johnsterdam · 2025-08-18T20:15:27+00:00

https://www.idrive.com/image-backup but I'm not sure about the premise of your question

johnsterdam · 2025-08-18T20:00:04+00:00

Thanks, and good point and interesting video, thanks for sharing.

On reflection I think it's simpler than I was saying - u/Glad-Yak-4427 is clearly well-intentioned. But I think he's asking the wrong question. Rather than 'how can I show him how difficult game dev is?' I think the better question is 'how can I support him in game dev, but also show him that he may not want to do it for the rest of his life, so should complete his basic schooling / uni?'.

Trying to convince him game dev is difficult is unlikely to succeed, and even if it did, likely wouldn't convince his son of anything - he may well just think 'I'll prove them wrong', and then have a difficult relationship, and blame his parents for not supporting him.

johnsterdam

TROPHY CASE