c4countdown

Gavin Chipper

Anyway yea I've always been against best of 5 finals in Scrabble. As I've said before I would much rather the player's record from the main part of the competition was carried over to the best of 5 bit. There's enough luck in Scrabble as it is without exaggerating it via a shoddy, amateurish format...

Gavin Chipper

What do the asterisks mean next to some of the other available words? Isn't the point of an asterisk that you get told? Or am I being blind?

Gavin Chipper

My favourite beef about film premiere is that it's a masculin noun in French and therefore should be film premier! Martin I'm confused as to how you pronounce it. Is it pruh-mear or prem-yair? I think American is pruh-mear and British is prem-yair. Could be wrong. What about "Prem-ee-air"?

Gavin Chipper

Joe Denniss wrote:It all goes to pot soon though!

Don't tell us that! Or do you just mean about enjoying yourself?

Gavin Chipper

It is one of those weird things like the TV show Lost, Mozilla Firefox and Sudoku, that, despite being pretty crap, people seem to get really obsessed with. I don't trust such things and would advise staying well away from them. How can you not like Sudoku? If you don't like the original Sudoku, th...

Gavin Chipper

Corby wrote:Anyway, I think it's pertinent in your analysis Martin to record whether the first or second player wins, I can't believe you ignored that. Go back and start again

Exactly - you might find your "random chance variable" is greatly reduced if you take this into account.

Gavin Chipper

I think it would be good to ask for three from one of the rows that isn't the top and then three from any other row of your choice. So Carol has to choose between three large or no large. Or two from a non-top row and four from any other one row.

Gavin Chipper

Carol should also be horsewhipped for being pleased when the numbers game is piss-easy. She groans if the target is 101 and there is a 100 and a 1, but other than that she seems to prefer the easy games.

Gavin Chipper

I was disappointed that he didn't become an Octochamp. With the scores he was getting in the games I saw, he must have been on for some sort of record.

Gavin Chipper

After hearing it said for so many years I believe any contestant who - after being offered an `X` or a `Z` - says "And a better one please Carol", should be severely punished. Perhaps taken outside and horse-whipped, or automatically eliminated. Or both. Just to show how reasonable I am -...

Gavin Chipper

I was round someone else's house the other day and they complained about Carol's head. Back of the net.

Gavin Chipper

I had this on while doing something else and didn't write anything down and didn't play properly. But I thought I might have seen DIASPORAS in one of the rounds. Was it?

Gavin Chipper

It would be nice to see Jo Brand back on soon or another Countdown virgin. Any preferences anyone? I have to say that I'm not a big fan of Jo Brand. It seems she tries to come across as a bit "Richard Digance" with her ridiculous suggestions for words, but only succeeds in being (even) le...

Gavin Chipper

What about 3π?

(Sorry)

Gavin Chipper

Looks like we're all struggling with this.

Gavin Chipper

This is the off-topic forum though. How are we to decide when a topic is valid? I think a poster say he isn't going to be around as much is reasonable enough.

Gavin Chipper

I quite liked Richard Samson. Susie's alright but I've never seen why people think she's so much better than everyone else.

Gavin Chipper

If he doesn't, the slot's yours. So you are the all-powerful God round here - not just the chap who happens to administer the forum. :mrgreen: (Just an observation) I've really enjoyed your recent posts, Gevin, I don't know why you feel the need to revert to such pointless digs. People often ask me...

Gavin Chipper

Charlie Reams wrote:If he doesn't, the slot's yours.

So you are the all-powerful God round here - not just the chap who happens to administer the forum.

(Just an observation)

Gavin Chipper

Is it just me that's having difficulty following this thread?

Gavin Chipper

You've posed two different questions here. 1. What is the probability of a random individual being in the bottom 6 of 11 individuals ranked in order of height? 2. What is the probability of a random individual being in the bottom 6 of 11 individuals ranked in order of height, given that 4 of the to...

Gavin Chipper

Gevin-Gavin wrote:Is there a grand slam of these CO events? If so, has anyone held all of them at one time?

What would a CO event at Norwich be called?

And as well as having a tournament named after Mr. Travers, what would a tournament in London be called?

Gavin Chipper

But anyway, evidence from a computer program should count for less than mathematical reasoning (or proof). And I think that it is quite clear that this situation is identical to asking if eleven people are picked at random, what is the probability that a random person from this eleven (this being th...

Gavin Chipper

Gevin-Gavin wrote:I will give it a go myself.

Actually no, my graphical calculator's way too slow to get anywhere.

Gavin Chipper

Is there a grand slam of these CO events? If so, has anyone held all of them at one time?

What would a CO event at Norwich be called?

Gavin Chipper

This seems to have gone a bit bad. How about everyone kisses and makes up? I actually read Corby's post as a joke. I've seen enough to know when people really dislike you.

Gavin Chipper

If your program doesn't model the situation correctly then it will converge to something that has no relevance to the problem. If the program is made as I described it, then it is exactly as I intended the problem to be. If there is any disagreement about whether the program as I described it model...

Gavin Chipper

You will if you make the same incorrect assumption about uniformity you've been making all along. David is correct. What incorrect assumption about uniformity? Try it then. Edit - also if you look at it from this perspective - i.e. do it as this computer program, you can forget about all accusation...

Gavin Chipper

What's CP?

Gavin Chipper

The point of my quoting "What would your answer be if all nine were taller than him" was that my next line was in fact answering that question, ie. 9/9 on the available evidence. I wasn't answering the original question with 9/9. OK then. The big problem in your solution is that you are b...

Gavin Chipper

Corby wrote:
Gevin-Gavin wrote:And then we ask, what is the probability of them being the 2nd tallest? Obviously 2/11.
1/11?

You know what I mean!

Gavin Chipper

Thanks for drawing attention to this game Charlie, you are a legend, as is Beth Sutton. May I also draw attention to the fact that she had five words disallowed in this game and still won, which must surely be a unique achievement. I may put this on the Wiki some day! But doesn't this show that it ...

Gavin Chipper

I'll just say to anyone who thinks it's 5/9 . . . What would your answer be if all nine were taller than him, or when he'd only met one person? David I would say that his best estimate based on the available data would be that there is a 9/9 chance the next person is taller than him. With, of cours...

Gavin Chipper

Michael Wallace wrote:I quite like cheese, but can't really stand things that smell cheesy (yes, I'm an odd sort, don't even get me started on cheese *flavoured* things...)

Really? And what does Gromit have to say on the matter?

Gavin Chipper

M. George Quinn wrote:No, but it's an it.

And the tail of it would be its tail (unlike the way I described the Earth's axis). But then if you named it "it"...

Gavin Chipper

jimbentley wrote:I'd probably drop dead mid-stroke if I tried it now.

Most people would probably drown if they went swimming while having a stroke.

Gavin Chipper

Paul Howe wrote:Oh right, sorry for the misunderstanding. I still don't think what you've written is completely right though, as for one thing it implies the probabilities will converge to a multiple of 1/11.

Shouldn't they then?

Gavin Chipper

Joseph Bolas wrote:Howard has explained how to work it out step by step, but I think because theres quite a bit of bruce force required to solve this, most have decided not too. I think it was harder than I implied .

But what is the answer?

Gavin Chipper

Did anyone watch Horizon this evening? They had this chap on it who reckons that there is evidence of "precognition". His name was Dean Radin, which immediately made me suspicious that it was a joke as it is an anagram of Randi (as in James Randi). Then they had these fighter pilots on, on...

Gavin Chipper

I was invited to a ghost weekend or something for someone's 30th birthday once but it cost too much money - presumably to do with the magic ghost-detecting equipment.

Gavin Chipper

M. George Quinn wrote:"It's"
That one confuses me. If your cat is neutered can you say "it's tail"?

Only if it is tail. Is it?

Gavin Chipper

If there Earth didn't rotate at all around it's axis then I just had to quote Gevin-Gavin and correct him - you mean "its" not "it's" don't you! And why "there" and not "the"? :) "there" instead of "the" is less embarrassing than the other...

Gavin Chipper

Did we get an answer to this?

Gavin Chipper

Yes, there are definitely more top players around now than in the past. But having said that, there's still only relatively few players that I'd back to beat Harvey Freeman at his peak.

Gavin Chipper

2. The top contestants nowadays are just better. Maybe better prepared, but definitely better. 3. The average contestants, I believe, are worse. I was thinking about this, and the average contestants getting worse could be down to having Countdown on all year. I don't know if the same numbers apply...

Gavin Chipper

David Williams wrote:I agree that a score of 100 is the equivalent of 60 in the old days. They are mathematically pretty much equivalent, they are both nice round numbers, and you need to score consistently to reach them.

Yeah, yeah, just because it would elevate you.

Gavin Chipper

Craig Beevers wrote:But I'm sure there are more important things to worry about.

No! Never!

Gavin Chipper

The letters and numbers are visible on a small monitor embedded into the set, so it isn't vital to write them down. I must admit that I've often solved the easiest games before the 30 seconds have started. But with harder games it can help to wrote them down. Oh are you just talking about for conte...

Gavin Chipper

1. Has anyone else noticed that at some point in the past (I can't remember when) the normally unobscured numbers started becoming obscured by Carol's head when she puts the rest of them up? How and why did this happen? I'm sure it never used to happen, so something must have changed. 2. Does anyone...

Gavin Chipper

Only just noticed this. I agree that a score of 100 is the equivalent of 60 in the old days. They are mathematically pretty much equivalent, they are both nice round numbers, and you need to score consistently to reach them. So why are there so many more 800s than 480s? 1. Luck. You can get away wi...

Gavin Chipper

Mike (who eagerly awaits the return of the comparatives of polysyllabic adjectives debate!). Is this not a more clear-cut matter? Only allowable when listed, right? Of course then you have words like FRAIL and REAL that everyone considers to be one syllable, but when you really think about it, are ...

Gavin Chipper

There can only be a limited number of these mass nouns, so surely it would even be possible for the Countdown team to give a definitive list of pluralisable ones. Failing that, either allow or disallow them all, with a possible exception for the ones that would have irregular plurals. Either disallo...

Gavin Chipper

Julian wrote:I don't want this to turn into a Gevin-style rant

Gevin-style rant indeed. Just stae your case, and let others react to it how they like.

Gavin Chipper

So yes I think exceptional female contestants are going to be even rarer now than they were before, sadly... there was one lady in the 9-round era who got an octochamp total of 500+, Lucy Roberts - 500 points then being roughly equivalent to 900 points now 504 was a pretty good total, but nothing l...

Gavin Chipper

Natascha Kearsey is is the only female CofC winner, and while all her scores were pretty average, she did seem to up her game when she beat Scott Mearns. Also first game loser Linda Dawe racked up an impressive 126 against Melanie Beaumont in a special. I wonder if she would have carried that on giv...

Gavin Chipper

This is a brilliant read. Keep it going.

Gavin Chipper

Yes, that about sums it up, although methinks you may have seen this before ;) Well, it's one of the many things that have interested me ever since I came across a young Patrick Moore, some years before he started his Sky at Night TV prog. He's been doing that for 50 years! When was this?! Presumab...

Gavin Chipper

OK, well according to Craig's logic the answer is probably 366. But I still wouldn't count the Earth's orbit around the Sun as an extra rotation. Pedantically speaking, yes, but surely it has no actual relation to reality. Also, the question asked, 'How many times does the Earth rotate around its o...

Gavin Chipper

So it might be worth while if anyone (Mike Brown) has access to round scores in old games, to have a look at the average player ratio from one format to the other, and then one big assumption later, compare the top players that way. This would be a waste of time actually. Just look at average score...

Gavin Chipper

I sense quite a long Gevin post is on the cards... Yeah, why not? A few of us did work out a round by round conversion for some players - 6:11 on the letters, 2:3 on the numbers and 1:1 on the conundrum, and while the overall ration for each player was different each time, it seemed to work out at ...

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