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Show HN: Speedsums

speedsums.com

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Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#31

Post by refrigerator »

GuiA wrote: post #18
refrigerator wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it would motivate people to try harder, but I guess it's backfiring... sorry! I'll change it

The thing is, humans are using your app. And when humans are facing something for the first time, if it's not friendly to them, they're going to be taken aback and pissed off. Good products have friendly, warm, inviting copy. You could spin it around by turning it to 11, and call it something like "Speedsums for assholes". Then you could insult the user at every opportunity you get, using over the top curses in a ton…

Yeah I do see what you mean, I should have either gone the whole hog or not at all, I actually read that book a couple of years ago as it turns out!

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#32

Post by kaahne »

Cool little Game ! As a lot of people here, I threw together some JS to try and 'hack' the challenge. As mentioned by OP, this is "staggeringly" easy to do. Yet, I was wondering : How would you go around to preventing such a behavior ?

I would try obfuscating the problem a little bit :

* Display an image instead of a text (using canvas for quick drawing ? You'd have to create the images server side to really be sure)

* If you really want to display text, use a custom made font (Reverse-engineering the characters match would take a little time)

* Changing the elements id (#answer and #question) every question.

Any ideas ?

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#33

Post by mkmk »

3825 wrote: post #21

>> For future reference, 8 x 9 = 72. It should not take 3.04s to solve that next time. I really disliked learning the multiplication tables. When faced with 8 * 9, my mind thinks 8 * 8 = 64 and adds 8 to it to get 72. :-/

Multiplying by 9 is easy using your fingers (assuming you don't want to multiply by more than 10). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVbcra3rCqc

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#34

Post by Houshalter »

I wonder if teaching people analog math would be better. This is more practical if you don't need exact quantities, and more in line with how your brain actually works. Symbolic math isn't "natural" and you learn it not by generalizing but by memorizing a large number of facts and heuristics. But your brain is really good at approximating continuous functions. Imagine how much complex math goes on in your brain when you see a ball in the air, predict where it's going, and coordinate hundreds of muscles to catch it.

I imagine it would work by seeing two bars or boxes and then drawing a third bar/box with the correct area/length and getting rewarded based on how good you do. Another exercise would train you to convert numbers to or from boxes with the same length and at the appropriate scale.

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#35

Post by spiralganglion »

refrigerator wrote: post #8
iandanforth wrote: post #6

I think this kind of practice is great. However I don't think insulting learners is ever a good idea. "If you got below like 30 on your first attempt, you should probably practice a little before embarrassing yourself again."

I thought it would motivate people to try harder, but I guess it's backfiring... sorry! I'll change it

"It should not take N seconds" - I was doing it on an iPad!

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#36

Post by refrigerator »

Houshalter wrote: post #34

I wonder if teaching people analog math would be better. This is more practical if you don't need exact quantities, and more in line with how your brain actually works. Symbolic math isn't "natural" and you learn it not by generalizing but by memorizing a large number of facts and heuristics. But your brain is really good at approximating continuous functions. Imagine how much complex math goes on in your brain when…

that's actually a really cool idea!

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#37

Post by refrigerator »

kaahne wrote: post #32

Cool little Game ! As a lot of people here, I threw together some JS to try and 'hack' the challenge. As mentioned by OP, this is "staggeringly" easy to do. Yet, I was wondering : How would you go around to preventing such a behavior ? I would try obfuscating the problem a little bit : * Display an image instead of a text (using canvas for quick drawing ? You'd have to create the images server side to really be sure)…

since it's client side, it's physically impossible to completely prevent cheating :( using images instead of text and changing element id's and things would certainly make it harder to hack though!

Re: Show HN: Speedsums

#39

Post by The_Double »

runekaagaard wrote: post #9

And here's a cheat: http://pastebin.com/483UcMLx

shorter: document.getElementById('answer').onkeypress = function(){document.getElementById('answer').value = eval(document.getElementById("question").textContent.slice(0,document.getElementById("question").textContent.length-2).replace('÷','/').replace('x','*'));}

Just mash enter.

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