c4countdown

Clare Sudbery

Yeah, good point.

Clare Sudbery

Someone linked to this handy page on countdown wiki a while ago, which lists 7-letter words which are never the max (because each one only contains 2 vowels and the addition of any vowel will give you an 8-letter word). But according to Mark Tournoff's book, there is also an "8s which are alway...

Clare Sudbery

It was Did I see GOTHIC disallowed somewhere the other day? That's wrong, it's definitely okay. It was me, in my daily duel day before yesterday. I doubt it'd make that much difference to my overall score if I got given the points for it though. And anyway it makes sense to me that it might be capit...

Clare Sudbery

Something else that isn't stated in the guidelines... When adding -ER to verbs, do they have to be specified in the dictionary, or is it one of those one-syllable things, or what? For instance, a BAKER is one who bakes. That'd definitely be in the dictionary, but what about an INSTILLER or a FLOPPER...

Clare Sudbery

Aha, I hoped it was something like that. Thank you.

Clare Sudbery

Something I wanted to clarify... When I'm practising, I often have various pieces of solving software open (such as the numbers solver on Kountdown, and Lexpert), as well as my own crib sheets, so I can check how I could have optimised my play (after playing). But even worse than that, I sometimes u...

Clare Sudbery

Ooh, have encountered a problem... don't suppose anyone can help? In the guidelines they send out to competitors, it says the following: "Please be aware that comparitives of adjectives can be risky. Words like GREEDY do have specified next to them their logical comparative (GREEDIER, GREEDIEST...

Clare Sudbery

Only really useful to end a round early when you're playing a bot or doing a duel anyway, isn't it? When the target is 120 and the numbers include 4, 3, 10 (for instance) I guess I get impatient*. Mostly I know my opponents do too, cos I click End Round Early and hey presto, the round ends. But occ...

Clare Sudbery

Well obviously I want to catch you all wanking, so I can throw biscuits at you. And... I would also be really happy if, when you click "End round now" in a numbers game, the clock didn't stop. So you could tell how much longer you have to wait. The time goes weirdly slowly when there's no ...

Clare Sudbery

Apologies if it's already been suggested, but it would be absolutely lovely if, when you click on a player's name, you could be told what they're up to. Even better would be if there was already some indication next to each name, e.g. P for Playing. It's just because when there are a lot of players ...

Clare Sudbery

I just installed Firefox on the (IE7) PC which couldn't previously get at apterous.org, and now I can get there just fine. Intriguing.

Clare Sudbery

Curiouser and curiouser... I'm now on a different PC in the same house, and from here I can get to the home page but not into the game (SocketException: ConnectionReset). This one is Firefox whereas the other is IE7. Might that be relevant? I can see from Today's Games that others are getting in all...

Clare Sudbery

For the past 48 hours, I can't get into apterous.org at all (not even the home page). I just get "Connecting..." and it sits there not connecting. I've inadvertently left it in this state for over an hour at a time and nothing happens, so I don't think it's just slow.

Clare Sudbery

Seriously. As far as I'm concerned, it's the online equivalent of you lowering your hand to your groin, bending over double and making a wanking gesture at someone, if we were having this conversation in a pub. Lewd, horrible, offensive. It's a fucking emoticon you cabbage. It's the equivalent of g...

Clare Sudbery

Haha, hilarious. The entire point of her post was to be offensive. I would go as far as to say she did it purposely to get a reaction Like I said, her original post was insulting and unnecessary. Nobody's arguing about that. And Clare, you're offended by little pixellated (virtually featureless) me...

Clare Sudbery

still you've failed to grasp Jon Corby's sense of humour, such as it is. It doesn't matter. When he feigns outrage just to get a rise out of gullible fools like me, then fair enough. Fair game. But when he gets this offensive it doesn't matter whether he actually means it or not. It's still offensi...

Clare Sudbery

I'm not going to dignify Jon's post by repeating his final sentence. If (and only if) his assumption is correct, what he says before it is fair comment. But that's so way over the top it's unbelievable. She's 18, for God's sake. Yeah, come on guys. She's been pretty insulting, but that's no excuse ...

Clare Sudbery

Phil Reynolds wrote:That mathematician named Riley
Has looks that some chaps think of highly
Her classic selection
Gave Reams an erection
While Corby just sat there, all smiley.

Love it.

Clare Sudbery

I know there are bound to be people on here of the "looks don't matter, it's what's on the inside that counts" mindset, but they really don't understand the psychological impact that looks have on yourself and the people around you. Looking good makes you feel so much more confident in yo...

Clare Sudbery

Do you need help with your spelling?
Then come up to Leeds and ask Stelling.
Just form a neat queue
He'll soon be with you
But shush at the back, and no yelling!

Clare Sudbery

Yes, 937.5 rule. Jono decided to say the last step a little differently, multiplying by 50 to get to 81,300, then dividing by 100. Nice. Probably worth stating for those that don't know: (75*25)/(100/50) is 1875/2, which is 937.5. No use on its own cos of the fraction, but you only need to add an o...

Clare Sudbery

I always put lines through my 7s, because oherwise it's too easy for them to get muddled with 1s, which in turn I draw with a hook so they don't get confused with lower-case Ls... I picked up the habit when I was learning French at school, and the explanation for the line made so much sense to me. R...

Clare Sudbery

I am amazed at my ability to see phantom letters, a great talent, completely wasted on countdown LOL! I forgot to check the final score, but am I right in thinking you would have won even without THEROPODS (which was indeed a gobsmackingly good spot)? Great game. I had cotton-wool-for-brains while ...

Clare Sudbery

((25x(75-10))+1)/(100/50)? The lovely 937.5 rule - which surprisingly I've known about for a while now, cos Kirk told it to me on Apterous a few weeks ago. Actually what bothers me about this kind of thing, but also much simpler sums, is that I tend to think strategically for numbers. So for instanc...

Clare Sudbery

Tips on 4 large? Best one IMO is that 25 x 25 = 625. You can use (100-75) or (75-50) to get one of the 25s; you've got 100 or 50 left to add or subtract; and you've still got 2 small numbers to fiddle about with for the detail. Anything between 510 and 740 or so and that's my first stop. If it's a ...

Clare Sudbery

I couldn't see anything beyond my PENISES in round 9. You should have some of them amputated, it will make the remaining ones look bigger. Genuine LOL. Fwiw I spend a frustrating amount of time on here getting seriously pissed off at the point-scoring, put-downs and general unfriendliness - particu...

Clare Sudbery

Clare, do the Countdown audition team give you any tips on practising, or even point you towards apterous and this forum? No Ian, they don't. I found this place through Google after having vaguely remembered seeing someone mention something on the show itself (I realise now it was probably Charlie,...

Clare Sudbery

Once I've been on the show, maybe the stats geeks can try and quantify how much advantage I gained from my numbers performance. They'll enjoy that. Damn right I would. If you let me know when you start practising the numbers I could start doing some statistics-fu on your apterous data if you want. ...

Clare Sudbery

Jon O'Neill wrote:squirming penis

Just seen this. Disgusting, puerile, but also moderately amusing.

Clare Sudbery

If you get maximum points in all numbers and conundurum you get 40 points, and are running the risk in the numbers games that your competitor is going to get the same as you so net result = 0. Tactical play in numbers games feels to me like a stranger playing snookers in a good pool pub (when i pla...

Clare Sudbery

As has been quoted loads in Scrabble and on here, most of the time when you miss a word, it's one you know. If you never missed a word you know, you could still get 110 points a game without the other words. Fwiw I'm not learning unusual words, i.e. when using word lists, my aim is not to increase ...

Clare Sudbery

Fwiw I'm at a level where word-learning practice is genuinely beneficial (that level may be lower than whatever you're contemplating, I dunno - all I can tell you is that it's helping), but I'm still reading this thread. Well I can't really argue with evidence but I would ask for examples of words ...

Clare Sudbery

In my opinion, if you audition, then pass then have like 2 months before you appear and you want to be awesome, then time and experience will be against you. Well... I auditioned in Jan, passed and altogether will have had about two and a half months by the time I'm on... and I'm certainly not goin...

Clare Sudbery

Just PRACTISE and eventually you will be good! Seriously? You don't use any other methods for improvement? Surely there's a lot more to it to be that good? Seriously. Most of these techniques help by engaging your mind with letters and numbers, but you would benefit just as much from playing the ga...

Clare Sudbery

God I love this thread. Spent many happy hours this evening mucking about with 6-small numbers games.

That is all.

Clare Sudbery

I know personally I don't need it to come out: TAROLED for me to spot LEOTARD; it might as well come out DTLEAOR. With much practice order usually doesn't matter too much but one thing I will say (which maybe goes along with David's post) is that I struggle when vowels come out first. I always writ...

Clare Sudbery

Phil Reynolds wrote:Kate, have you heard of sentences?

[hissy fit removed]

PS. Empowering my geekiness for womankind, LOL! Rah.

Clare Sudbery

Ralph Gillions wrote:I like Victoria Wood. So there!

Me too.

Clare Sudbery

I thought it would make it slightly more awkward for contestants who view the selection in a straight line using the ordering as called. Regardless of how an opponent chose their letters I always put the vowels on an inner circle and the consonants on the outer circle That's interesting. Most of th...

Clare Sudbery

How come I seem to be so unusual in that, when I pick letters, I alternate between vowels and consonants? That way, as the letters come out, they're nicely mixed up - in a distribution more likely to appear in an actual word (where you rarely get more than two consecutive vowels or consonants). Most...

Clare Sudbery

Ooh yes, these are the kind of stats I like.

Clare Sudbery

Charlie Reams wrote:Let's all just do whatever grabs our attention and never work to be good at anything!

That's not really what she said. There's something to be said for relaxing and having fun. Although I would like to stick up for all the geeks and nerds (myself included)...

Clare Sudbery

Kate Richardson wrote:allow yourselves to lose....it's ok....enjoy playing

Oh Kate, that's such a lovely sentiment and makes loooooads of sense, but I just can't help it. I fell in a cauldron of testosterone when I was a baby. I've always been like this, i.e. fiercely (even when unfulfillably) competitive!

Clare Sudbery

If it means anything to you Clare to have a bit of support, I always had you down as inquisitve as opposed to clueless! :) Aw bless you Matt, that's a really nice thing to say. And after all I do have a BSc and an MSc and I'm actually quite clever really and and and [mutter mutter mutter] And right...

Clare Sudbery

Kai Laddiman wrote:I reckon we should start a 'Clueless Clare' subforum for her to post all of these.

LOL! Sounds good to me.

Clare Sudbery

Any chance of a link to wherever these Kirk quotes can be found?

Clare Sudbery

Aha!

Didn't think of that. Thank you.

Clare Sudbery

Blimey, fascinating (and complex) stuff. The reason I specified NODE is because that's what they call it in the bumff - I guess they just haven't got round to updating it. If Apterous is (as much as it's able) following the same rules, then I'm happy. There's always an element of luck anyway: unless...

Clare Sudbery

After having been away and had a bit of a tinker, I have another qu... On Apterous, the Stemmer facility just gave me this list: SATINE+A: TAENIAS [S] SATINE+B: BASINET [S] SATINE+C: CINEAST [S] SATINE+D: DESTAIN [S], DETAINS [S], INSTEAD [S], SAINTED [S], SATINED [S], STAINED [S], TIENDAS [S] (etc)...

Clare Sudbery

Does this include all those words that are actually in NODE, e.g. OSTRACIZE, SYLLOGIZE etc? OSTRACIZE and SYLLOGIZE are not American spellings. However it does indeed include American spellings which are in the ODE such as TUNNELED. That's interesting, I always thought -IZE was an American thing. F...

Clare Sudbery

Alternatively, I could send you a list of my answers, in the same sequence that the clues are listed. That's what I did, I'm pretty sure that's what Phil's expecting. Yes - the easiest way to do it is just to copy and paste the list of clues from the top of this thread, and insert your answers (or ...

Clare Sudbery

I have another qu...

I've just got my bumff through from YTV and am all excited, but it's got me wondering:

1. According to the bumff, "we no longer accept American spellings". Does this include all those words that are actually in NODE, e.g. OSTRACIZE, SYLLOGIZE etc?

Clare Sudbery

All most useful, thank you.

Clare Sudbery

Ooh, that's interesting, thanks Charlie. I already have Lexpert for Scrabble purposes (not for playing, but for my brief attempts to design the perfect game) but I thought it was only any good for that. Didn't realise it contained the right dictionary for Countdown. If I were to look on Countdown Wi...

Clare Sudbery

I think it's a shame that they don't ask if a member of the audience knows the conundrum, when it's not guessed by the contestants, they used to win a mug for that, I believe? Maybe it's the second cost-cutting move (After getting rid of carol, of course!) :P Yawn. It's true though, it is a shame. ...

Clare Sudbery

Hello all, I know, me again, asking questions again, and you'll probably tut loudly and say I should have been able to find this out by myself, but I searched on here and got a squillion results, then searched on Google and got eff all... I'd really love some word lists - particularly stems - and I'...

Clare Sudbery

Dan Vanniasingham wrote:Insomniac to the rescue!

Clare had "dorritos" disallowed in round 9
Waldorf had "goods" disallowed in round 9 for obvious reasons

Argh.

[hangs head in shame and embarrassment]

Clare Sudbery

Cool Brian, ta. But how did you find it? There were no obvious links and I couldn't find it via the search function?

Clare Sudbery

Is there anywhere online you can go to independently verify what's in and what's not? I've had a few disallowed by Apterous lately which have surprised me, for instance: GOODS BRASSED (as in "brassed off?") REROUTING OK, so I can see that BRASSED and REROUTING could be dodgy, but GOODS? As...

Clare Sudbery

Phil Reynolds wrote:I have just discovered the Countdown game on it and spent a happy 15 minutes playing along.

Ha yes, me too. The ads were a bit annoying though...

Search found 327 matches