Those look like pretty normal numbers in my experience. Certainly nothing to worry about. But, the effectiveness of your marketing isn’t necessarily a good measure of your idea and product. Different targeting can change those numbers drastically.
Also, how good web or search ads are really depends on the economics of your product. If your customers will be paying $60 per year then paying 5$ to acquire them is pretty damn good.
For the moment though, I would focus on getting into real conversations(phone or video) with your customers to understand what they want, how much they’d pay, etc. With so much competition for attention, the days of validating with a landing page may be over.
Knowing powers of two in your head (as I guess many of us do) can helps with root estimates and this algorithm.
Take an example sqrt(5819):
That's between two powers of two 2^12 = 4096 and 2^13 = 8192.
The square roots of those numbers are easy, since you just half the exponent
sqrt(4096) = 2^6 = 64
That gives us our initial estimate g for the algorithm from the article.
Now we do:
b = n / g = 5819 / 64
To do this division in our head we remember that we already know 4096 is 64 x 64. So we just need the remainder (5819 - 4096) / 64 ~= 1700 / 64. Now that's low enough that I can approximate it in my head 64 * 30 is too high by about 3 * 64 so the answer should be around 27 (actual answer 26.5). So b = 64 + 27 = 91
So now we finish the algorithm, sqrt(5819) ~= g + b / 2 = (64 + 91 / 2) = 77.5.
If we are going for technical correctness... Anything being broken by this is relying on the output of man with no arguments which is not documented as far as I can see, other than that it should have exit code 0.
Where is the boundary between responsible and harmless fun?
Perhaps I should be careful not to edit this comment in case someone's test pipeline curls it and checks the content.
Sadly while many people enjoyed it, others were annoyed by it. And the author has now removed it.
I find it hard to relate with people who not only would be annoyed by something like this, but are annoyed about it enough to push their view on the internet to the point that the author feels the need to remove it.
In my view, the best response to those people? Update it to a more recent, or perhaps a more recognisable reference. Perhaps "Rocket Man".
Smart C++ Engineer | CloudNC | London, UK | Full-time | ONSITE
CNC milling machines are at the heart of manufacturing with more than $300B of components produced by them each year. Despite this, their software is in the dark ages. Industrial CNC machine in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80iIhfjTm5I
We’re researching and applying breakthrough methods to control these machines automatically and more optimally than ever before. We’re looking for experts in C++, 3D graphics and GPGPU acceleration who want to help revolutionise how the things around us are made. From MacBook cases, to jet engine turbines.
Your role will consist of developing novel algorithms to solve real world problems in machining and working with a team to engineer our core product.
Yup SketchUp is pretty good, but it's really not ideal for 3D printable objects. And it's still not easy enough to help enable the widespread adoptions of 3D printing.
Implementation wise, it's using WebSockets to send relevant key up/down events. A key is considered pressed if more than 50% of active users are pressing the key (active users must have pressed a key in the last few seconds).
Hmm. This is unlikely unless Objective-C can be made to work on Vita with GNUStep or something. Doesn't look like anyone's tried it so probably a lot of work.
Thanks! We're still having trouble deciding how to monetize exactly. We were initially thinking $4.99 on Mac. But now we're thinking maybe freemium and you can buy the remaining levels after you've completed the first 9 (for still a few dollars on Mac). What do you think?
It's actually my own engine. The whole game started out as an experiment in lightmapping, believe it or not. The graphics are OpenGL, the physics are chipmunk physics ( https://chipmunk-physics.net ), I used Sketch-up and Blender for the 3D design and Lua for scripting.
I'm planning on writing some articles on the process over the next few weeks which will appear on http://blog.helftone.com :-).
Thanks! You're right that it feels weird on the underside of platforms, though you get used to it ;-). We considered some alternatives (if you jump on to the bottom of a platform then invert the controls until you let go), but they were just weird in different ways.
The feedback button does hide the window. Perhaps it shouldn't. I'll fix it :-)
Thanks! You're right that gaming isn't that big on Mac. The main target is going to be iOS initially with Mac on the side, but the Mac version is already ready and much easier to link to a bunch of people :-).
The game is written in Obj-C, but I think with either gnustep or cocotron (or I think there was a commercial one that I'm forgetting...), it wouldn't be too hard to port since it's almost entirely OpenGL. I hope that will be in Pentumble's future :-).
This is very cool and all, but I just see it as another example of a web tech demo that if rewritten for my 20 year old Super Nintendo would run with more frames per second. There appears to be no hope in the near future for smooth interaction on the web. WebGL can do the smooth web - But then it's not the web, it's just javascript+opengl.
Also, how good web or search ads are really depends on the economics of your product. If your customers will be paying $60 per year then paying 5$ to acquire them is pretty damn good.
For the moment though, I would focus on getting into real conversations(phone or video) with your customers to understand what they want, how much they’d pay, etc. With so much competition for attention, the days of validating with a landing page may be over.