c4countdown

Thomas Cappleman

Ian Fitzpatrick wrote:Can someone explain the magic in "the product of two primes", Rachel mentions it often and I feel I should know it but I'm afraid it has escaped me. Thanks.

I think it's just that there is a way of getting the target by multiplying 2 smaller numbers, but only one so it's hard to spot.

Thomas Cappleman

I'll put in another vote for full ODO adjudication. Playing on Apterous is annoying at the moment, having to guess whether or not to try a new word.

Thomas Cappleman

England: Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Carlisle, Coventry, Durham, Exeter, Leeds, Lincoln, London, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Salford, Salisbury, Sheffield, Southampton, St Albans, Wakefield, Winchester, Worcester, York (26) Scotland: Aberdeen, Stirling (...

Thomas Cappleman

Just Guernsey for me.

Thomas Cappleman

Graeme Cole wrote:
Jennifer Steadman wrote:
James Laverty wrote:Vatican City (dubious if this is counted)
OF COURSE THIS COUNTS.
Wait what? That's a sovereign state that's a member of the UN in its own right?

I went there while I was in Rome. So 9.

No it's not, but it counts under the more important category of being a country on Sporcle.

Thomas Cappleman

UK (3), Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Vatican City, Montenegro, Croatia, Greece, UAE (transfers only), Japan, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, USA for 20 total. No new ones planned for this year yet - may fill in one of the holes in Western Europe

Thomas Cappleman

Graeme-ish question: In Rounds 10/11 today, the vowel pile contained three consecutive As. Consecutive matching (i.e., repeated) letters have seemed to me to be even rarer than usual lately. Is this the first instance of a repeated letter anywhere in CoC XIV? It is, and there's been a large number ...

Thomas Cappleman

Mandela's a more recent one that I remember being very big. Can't think of anyone in a similar category (ex-politication/leader who still has that level of interest)

Thomas Cappleman

Here is the breakdown by type, and how far away you can get: Zero away 1 away 2 away 3 away 4 away 5 away 6 away 7 away 8 away 9 away 10 away 11+ away 6S 1963726 (76.64%) 353472 65417 26954 15232 9859 7357 5780 4589 3945 3326 102493 1L 4966076 (95.11%) 220295 21730 5813 2527 1272 713 470 339 264 21...

Thomas Cappleman

What about the same question the other way round... which targets are solvable by every 1-large selection? Every 2 large? 3 large? 4 large? Which target is solvable by the fewest selections? I'll guess 911 or 937 for the least solvable target. High primes, and good distance from multiples of 25 (I ...

Thomas Cappleman

In please

Thomas Cappleman

So based on this, and using an estimate of the number of valid conundrumable words (probably 10,000 or so), we should be able to work out how many different possible shows there can be. That will get more complicated again, as each letters round will remove a load of other possibilities for the lat...

Thomas Cappleman

Used this to work out how to determine the number of possible consonant combinations: http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56197.html. It turns out the way to choose n consonants is to take the coefficient of x^n in the expansion of (1+x)^6*(1+x+x^2)^5*(1+x+x^2+x^3)*(1+x+x^2+x^3+x^4)^3*(1+x+x^2+...

Thomas Cappleman

Can't be bothered to do a proper calculation, but randomly picking 9 letters and dividing by 9! to remove duplicate selections (ignoring duplicate letters within selections) gives just over 15,000,000. Refining this to pick valid numbers of consonants and vowels brings it down to around 3,500,000. ...

Thomas Cappleman

Can't be bothered to do a proper calculation, but randomly picking 9 letters and dividing by 9! to remove duplicate selections (ignoring duplicate letters within selections) gives just over 15,000,000. Refining this to pick valid numbers of consonants and vowels brings it down to around 3,500,000.

Thomas Cappleman

Potentially hard trivia, but solvable via the wiki: Does anyone know what the two contestants in this game had in common that is not shared by any of the other contestants in the CoC (as far as I know)? NOTE: Statements to the effect of "They both played in Episode 6279" will be punished ...

Thomas Cappleman

Great, tense final to a rather unpredictable series. Well done to both, especially Jonathan. 4 series won by returning players in a row now.

Thomas Cappleman

R1 IRONHEADS And RHOEADINS. Was the groan for the last numbers was from the people who knew the record, rather than people generally disliking 4 large? Pretty sure Jonathan's was, given how frantically he appeared to be searching for a 9 in the last letters. Another great game, and well played by b...

Thomas Cappleman

Great game by both players. Playing along at home I had 0 after 6 rounds. But - if I had a silly made-up nine (which happens a lot to most people I imagine), and obviously didn't go for it, I wouldn't say I was sticking with an 8. Yes, I'm talking about overplait. I mean, that could never be a word...

Thomas Cappleman

Of the CoC contestants, Samir is the lowest on 3, with me and Tracey next on 4. The highest are Jen and Giles on 7, both of whom are playing 6s in the first round.

Thomas Cappleman

Had a brief one a couple of nights ago. I was playing against Tom Cappleman on apterous and he was ahead going into the crucial conundrum. He buzzed in and got it wrong but before I could do anything else, Matty Artell (even though he wasn't in the game) buzzed in with the right answer and I lost. ...

Thomas Cappleman

Graeme Cole wrote: In the following tables, only games between series 67 and 72 count. Series 73 isn't complete so isn't in the database.

Pretty sure your lists didn't include series 72

Thomas Cappleman

Tony Atkins wrote:Did everybody miss MISGAVE?

I think I chickened it

Thomas Cappleman

When you suddenly have an old Countdown favourite like TOWNEE disallowed, you know it's not going to be your day. I wonder did Tom know it was no longer valid? or just didn't spot it. I hadn't spotted it, and had learned from past experience to use RESONANT rather than NORTENAS, so was very lucky t...

Thomas Cappleman

One step towards a Magdalen/G&C rematch, and would definitely fancy G&C over Durham next week

Thomas Cappleman

Definitely won't be May June 2015. Hoping to get it sorted for the start of Jan 2016 (transmission), which would mean filming in from Oct 2015. Will post any definite news once everything is cleared up. Any reasons why not? I asked when I was up for filming, and they said that the summer schedule g...

Thomas Cappleman

4 coundrum solves in 2 games is an impressive effort.

And a good start from Rufus - great poem, and always nice to have a genuine fan as the guest.

Thomas Cappleman

Full working here Diagonal of square = sqrt(800), by Pythagoras. Subtract diameter of large circle = sqrt(800)-20 = 20 * (sqrt(2)-1) This is 2r, where r is the radius of the small circle, plus 2 * the length from the centre of the small circle to the nearest corner of the square. This second length ...

Thomas Cappleman

What a game! Very unlucky for Neil, but great performance under pressure by Tracey.

Thomas Cappleman

Very good end to the run for Andy - some more performances like that will give him a great chance in the finals

Thomas Cappleman

Got a filming date now - Tuesday 3rd Feb, hopefully continuing to the next day

Thomas Cappleman

I'll be there

Thomas Cappleman

Thanks Matty, that worked for me (or just coincidence)

Thomas Cappleman

I'm seeing the same problem, and changing browser doesn't help. Charlie (if you see this), has the outage last night caused an issue with the Java certificate somehow?

Thomas Cappleman

Still can't get on. Tried uninstalling, reinstalling, installing old versions, adding to exception list, disabling any checks I can, IE, Firefox and Chrome. Any advice?

Thomas Cappleman

Any idea how to get Java to let me on from? I've tried adding that IP address to the exceptions but it still won't let me start the game

Thomas Cappleman

When have finals for the first series in the year been in the past? I'm also hopefully in the next series (passed audition in August, but no date yet), and potentially away for half of May. (Again, checking in case things go well)

Thomas Cappleman

Great performance again by Magdalen - two very good scores against strong teams.

Thomas Cappleman

Unlucky again Bob, not much you can do against another strong Manchester team. Though will be interesting to see how they do if Collings has an off day. I happened to see where the music starter was going, but 15 was definitely also plausible with the wording (and a lot more right than 40). Almost a...

Thomas Cappleman

Almost certainly in

Thomas Cappleman

This is all just a plan to maximise your TV appearances, right?

Unlucky on this one - hope you won your next (especially if it's against Manchester)

Thomas Cappleman

Great performance again Bob. Are you against Somerville next? Would definitely fancy you against them (though I'm expecting an interesting match against Trinity/Manchester in the semis)

Thomas Cappleman

In please (though my parents are in Nepal then so won't be attending)

Thomas Cappleman

Just watched your second round - truly spectacular effort, well done! The quick buzzing tactic was working ridiculously well.

Less spectacular was the question setters' knowledge of Sudan, but at least it didn't matter.

Thomas Cappleman

Nice work Bob, some very good buzzing by your team.

Thomas Cappleman

In please

Thomas Cappleman

Well done to all involved - between this and the final surely the greatest day of Countdown ever!

Thomas Cappleman

Speaking of Graeme, I look forward to a flood of enthralling new statistics once James has completed the recap. Will James be alive to do the recap? This game might have actually finished him off. Ridiculous game throughout - Connor's performances have been amazing through the whole series, and Jac...

Thomas Cappleman

Thanks all ! Next show is this coming Monday (and the entire series was filmed by the end of April, so nothing I can do now)

Thomas Cappleman

For those who aren't friends with me on Facebook (and those who are don't know when to watch anyway), I'm appearing on the current series of UC. The date to watch is 22nd October - pretty much the last first round match to be shown, and over 7 months since it was filmed. I'm going to be out of the c...

Thomas Cappleman

In please

Thomas Cappleman

To add to the Countdown/University Challenge crossovers, I'm going up to Manchester this weekend to film our (New College, Oxford) first round match. I think we're the last match, before the highest-scoring losers, so won't be shown till late September/early October.

Thomas Cappleman

Qualifiers please

Thomas Cappleman

Yes please

Thomas Cappleman

Only a few miles from my house, so I'm going.

Thomas Cappleman

Absolutely brilliant game, and very well done to Graeme on (just about) keeping the Apterous record going!

Thomas Cappleman

My guess for the conundrum was actually SANGALOGY (obviously still wrong, but at least the right letters)

Thomas Cappleman

Can someone post me a link to Supee's account/album? I can't find her on Facebook

Thomas Cappleman

In please

Thomas Cappleman

Championship Result:
http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=527487

Marcus Hares 109 - 119 Thomas Cappleman

Fantastic game - right down to the wire, with just one letters and numbers miss each before the conundrum.

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