c4countdown

Ian Volante

Thanks gods, I've always hated the purple stripes. It was no better being on set in front of them, truly nasty!

Ian Volante

Kai Laddiman wrote:Is today's meant to be a time challenge or what?

Probably in the wrong thread now

Ian Volante

It broke for me today. Tried to close it and restart due to the 120s time and an early wrong guess, and it just disappeared. Hmph.

Ian Volante

I recently had NUTRIAS disallowed. I can't see any sign in the dictionary that NUTRIA shouldn't be pluralised with an S, so why's it not in?

Ian Volante

He left? Boo. I did suspect that from his comment the other day, but what a pisser indeed.

Ian Volante

Just tried a bit ago and Caesar didn't answer my challenge. I was rather offended actually.

With regard to the previous problem, my Daily Duel challenge was absolutely huge today for the first time.

Ian Volante

Jon O'Neill wrote:Ian caused the credit crunch.

By calculating the total Scottish income from farming? I'm not convinced...

Ian Volante

Can you explain this? Why does a uniform distribution not have equal probability? Does this explain why I'm a Government statistician and not a real one? A uniform distribution has equal probability across some range and is zero everywhere else; it's not (and couldn't be) uniform across all real nu...

Ian Volante

This is quite an interesting site for those of a verbose nature:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/index.htm

Ian Volante

Oh gods, get me a life someone, or at least some originality.

Ian Volante

A sharp poke in the ribs.

Ian Volante

It's not possible to have a distribution that makes it equally likely to pick any number. The original question didn't mention probability distributions but the theory is fundamental. It is possible to have a distribution which makes it possible to pick any number, but they won't be equiprobable. (...

Ian Volante

I was stuck with BOOKFLESH for about 20 seconds...

Ian Volante

Charlie Reams wrote:Hmm, that should very much not be possible...

That's why I was surprised! It was worth carrying on to see how far I could get. Now I look back, I've no idea how I managed it, as obviously you don't get buttons come up normally apart from one. What is this "melting pot" thing anyway?

Ian Volante

Innis Carson wrote:I saw that and was very confused. How did you manage to challenge yourself?

Same way I'd challenge anyone else! Forgot I'd clicked on my name and not actually the person I was challenging.

Ian Volante

I just challenged myself by accident. It all worked fine actually up until the number selection bit came up. I suspect it might have worked if I'd have clicked the round start buttons in the opposite order...

That's a thing I never expected to be able to do...

Ian Volante

I think I do better relative to others at ten seconds, but worse marginally than at 30s. I'll have to trawl my results and see.

Ian Volante

Can you upload my avatar please?

kthxbye

Ian Volante

Martin Gardner wrote:Only I and Ian Volante got STOPGAP as well. I thought it was the hardest letters duel I've ever done. I liked today's numbers duel though; I won't make any further comment on it.

I was quite pleased with that spot, one of the later ones too.

Ian Volante

In my only ever game of Goatdown I noticed that there was a time limit for thr last letter. Is there any logical reason why there should be a time limit for that but not for consonant/vowel choices, or for the last choice in a normal round? And what happens if you miss the time limit? I never did t...

Ian Volante

I thought I'd seen one in a game - impressed it's the only one!

Ian Volante

I notice the font changing sometimes.

Ian Volante

I concur...

http://www.countdownwiki.com/Episode_4272

Ian Volante

That's my philosophy too. After taking lots of risks at first, I realised that I can usually end up mid-table or occasionally better by playing safe. Especially so on the tough formats. Where's the fun if people just dodge the ones that are difficult? Surely the challenge is a lot of the fun?

Ian Volante

Nah, they can keep destroying vehicles in silly ways all they like, but it still won't be big or clever. Or particularly entertaining.

Ian Volante

Martin Gardner wrote: Ken Doherty from Ireland, people sometimes forget that it's a separate country.

Not overseas though, which is the usual criterion.

Ian Volante

Yeah yeah, but not so long ago it was 31 brits and James Wattana and it was still the 'world championships'. Of course, way before Watana ever came onto the scene, there had already been South African and Canadian world champions... ;) Well Perrie Mans never won it, but you make a fair point. At so...

Ian Volante

With a one-conundrum duel, the might be a lot of random guesses at the first letter so it might ruin it. Only from people with a poor grasp of game theory. I don't think so. You can click on the letters of the conundrum, so it wouldn't be a 1 in 26 guess (not that you'd pick the letter at random an...

Ian Volante

Then I realised that Totopoly was much better, and so on, basically the more complex the game, the more I liked it. Never heard of this game before, and Googling tells me it's a horse racing board game. How they made Horse Racing into a board game baffles me. Firstly there was a training phase wher...

Ian Volante

I loved Monopoly when I was too young to know any better. Then I realised that Totopoly was much better, and so on, basically the more complex the game, the more I liked it. To an extent however, some of the bigger wargames (Conquistador springs to mind) take six hours to work out the rules, and so ...

Ian Volante

Numerous scientific studies have been done on ouija boards, and it was found that if you blindfold the participants then you end up with a load of meaningless shite nearly every time. That happens anyway, but still. :o It's almost as if people want things to happen, and enjoy being scared. Especial...

Ian Volante

Charlie Reams wrote:Great news indeed. Hopefully he can get some good stuff done before public cynicism returns to its usual state.

Too late for me...I'm quite the optimist, except where politicians are involved.

Ian Volante

I'd have kicked up a bit of a stink.

Ian Volante

Mario Kart for me too. I'd hand anyone's arse to them on a plate.

Ian Volante

Very little of what i write has a sarcastic / playful / humourous look about it when read as a post, but in actual fact that's exactly what it is. I have that problem too, otherwise I'd probably have said a bit more on telly. Self-censorship is usually wise in my case, I'm too good at insulting peo...

Ian Volante

Not to have to log in at random to the forum when clicking through from an e-mail. Only a minor gripe admittedly, but it's slightly annoying when I never log out.

Ian Volante

I eventually won this game:

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=9113

Is that a record number of conundrums?

Ian Volante

Hmm, fascinating.

Ian Volante

It's down for me too, and I'm still malingering at home.

Ian Volante

In that second zero game, why was PREDATED disallowed?

Ian Volante

Damian E wrote:We all know the best ever is Harry Peters.

I thought you'd stopped stirring this thread?

Ian Volante

Getting closer...

Ian Volante

Damian E wrote:Better still, the 'end the round early' button should be renamed "end your life early" and those pressing it by accident get an all-expenses paid trip to Dignitas in Switzerland.

Even better if it instantly fires a curare-laden needle straight into one's forehead, save on aviation fuel.

Ian Volante

How about ratings for each basic game type? Overall rating could be calculated by weighted average, and individual ratings can just appear on the profile page.

Ian Volante

Not that I'm accusing anyone of cheating (well maybe I am) but Thomas Cappleman topping the leaderboard caught my eye today. Upon checking out his game, he got the conundrum in 0.2 seconds - an obvious cheat there. If you're going to cheat, don't get the conundrum faster than reactions allow! Caugh...

Ian Volante

I agree with Oliver - it's borked right now!

Ian Volante

Damian E wrote:
Ian Volante wrote:
Damian E wrote:Oh, and red ants.
Boozing between takes again?
Eh?

You, as opposed to the ants

Ian Volante

Damian E wrote:Oh, and red ants.

Boozing between takes again?

Ian Volante

Brian Blessed is the greatest man ever!

DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Ian Volante

I did have a thought that in some situations, a guaranteed loss of rating for a defeat almost seems unfair. Say if Conor beat Prune by one point, surely Prune could justifiably argue for an increase (But maybe muck up the solution), although I assume the decrease would be vanishingly small at the m...

Ian Volante

I did have a thought that in some situations, a guaranteed loss of rating for a defeat almost seems unfair. Say if Conor beat Prune by one point, surely Prune could justifiably argue for an increase (But maybe muck up the solution), although I assume the decrease would be vanishingly small at the mo...

Ian Volante

For some reason I just like the notion of midnight being in the middle of the night and midday being in the middle of the day. I find the aesthetics of it comforting. Maybe not on here, but I've seen a lot of people argue for BST all year round. And I see it as more arbitrary. I agree with you ther...

Ian Volante

Sounds good to me, I do have an account there.

Ian Volante

I support St.Helens rugby league team. As a Leeds Rhinos fan, I welcome you especially warmly, with joyous memories of a recent trip to Old Trafford :P Not a very nice memory for me.But you would know the feeling.Probably the way that you felt after the C.C.semi-final at Huddersfield.Admit it you a...

Ian Volante

I play at numerous places, have made a good few quid over the years, but not really enough to live off. Would be interesting to play you lot...

Ian Volante

Got blanked by Martin Jarvis and had a natter with Barry Cryer and Susie, depending on the week.

Ian Volante

Looks very well thought through.

Ian Volante

It's possible that I twiddled something in the shuffling code (intended to keep Q and Z apart) and ended up getting it arse-backwards. I might look into this over the weekend. In the meantime I will just call it good practice for Q+Z words. Isn't it enough that the letters are randomised without tr...

Ian Volante

David O'Donnell wrote:This is a bit of a non sequitur but did anyone else feel that the champion's chair is at a funny angle (so that they can get the right headshot presumably).

That rings a bell, I seem to remember that I wasn't allowed to be as close to the desk as I'd have liked.

Ian Volante

Jennifer Turner wrote: It's also much preferable to Noel cracking jokes about bungee jumping, as he was today.

Really? He's gone back up in my estimation a little for such tastelessness! Not up to Swap Shop levels of appreciation, he'd have to please me much more for that.

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