c4countdown

As promised on the recent podcast, it's here after approximately nine months of incubation... Superstats!

Superstats is a super-awesome new part of the apterous website which allows you to study all aspects of your game in unprecedented detail. We show your most missed words and most common errors to allow you to work on your weaknesses (if any!); and, we track your performances over time so you can see the improvement as it happens. We've also extended some features from standard user pages to go right back to the beginning of Aptotime, so you can see every nine you've ever had and so on. You can also choose what format to focus on, to give the results most relevant to you. It's really pretty cool.

Computing with so much data puts a lot of strain on our system, so if you'd like to enable Superstats for your own account, we're asking for £5 to help fund hardware upgrades. Hopefully the feature proves popular enough to cover the necessary improvements. If this seems like a good deal to you, head over to the donation page and we'll upgrade you right away. This modular upgrade approach is something of an experiment so we'd welcome feedback to the usual address. Of course, anyone who sent a donation of £20 or more already should find they have Superstats automatically, although if you want to send some more money then I probably won't stop you.

It's brilliant.

Charlie Reams wrote:We show your most missed words and most common errors to allow you to work on your weaknesses (if any!); and, we track your performances over time so you can see the improvement as it happens.***

*** We, the creators of Superstats, cannot guarantee any improvement. Use Superstats as part of a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

Er, we've paid, like, 45 quid.

Can we get it?

Kai Laddiman wrote:Er, Mrs Laddiman has paid, like, 45 quid.

Fixed that for you.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:Er, Mrs Laddiman has paid, like, 45 quid for her new son-repellent.

Fixed that for you.

That's the only way that makes sense.

Lobbed a fiver your way.

Superstats is utter sex. Seriously.

Ben Hunter wrote:Lobbed a fiver your way.

Cheers

I'm open for suggestions for new pages by the way.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Ben Hunter wrote:Lobbed a fiver your way.

Cheers

I'm open for suggestions for new pages by the way.

Head to head with other users on the graphs, though I imagine this will be a bit of a strain CPU-wise.

I've done the same.

The graphs are fascinating. I particularly like the fact you can tell when I stopped cheating at the letters, following which there is a gradual ascent indicating improvement. The numbers (which I never cheated at) show improvement too, a whopping 40% improvement in fact, which is twice as big as my letters improvement. This surprised me because I've never consciously tried to improve my number skills. Had I not cheated to begin with, I'd probably have improved my letters by 40% too and could well have been sparring with the top brass by now.

My conundrums have actually gotten worse, which is something I was aware of anyway. I think this reflects the fact I've gradually changed the way I play Countdown over the months, having moved away from pure spots and anagramming to pattern spotting and stemming. It's obviously a style that works for the letters rounds but not conundrums (average contestants on the show nearly always beat me to conundrums). Funnily enough I checked other people's graphs and realised quite a few of us have gotten worse at conundrums, I wonder if their reasons are the same...

Now for a question: do the 'most missed' tables only show words that were maximums?

Ben Hunter wrote:The graphs are fascinating. I particularly like the fact you can tell when I stopped cheating at the letters, following which there is a gradual ascent indicating improvement. The numbers (which I never cheated at) show improvement too, a whopping 40% improvement in fact, which is twice as big as my letters improvement. This surprised me because I've never consciously tried to improve my number skills. Had I not cheated to begin with, I'd probably have improved my letters by 40% too and could well have been sparring with the top brass by now.

Maybe, but also numbers is probably more improvable for relative beginners, because you already know a lot of words from every day life but you probably don't pick up many arithmetic algorithms that way.

My conundrums have actually gotten worse, which is something I was aware of anyway.

Bear in mind also that 1) your opponents have probably improved (even if you're playing the same people) 2) new conundrums have been gradually introduced, and each set tends to be harder than the last, so the average difficulty is increasing.

Now for a question: do the 'most missed' tables only show words that were maximums?

Yep. It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Brilliant idea Charlie I will treat myself to the upgrade when my rating gets back to 4 figures (before the ratings change)

I cannot think of any other stats to include apart from trivial ones like most darrens or most played opponent

Kai Laddiman wrote:Er, Mrs Laddiman has paid, like, 45 quid for her new son - repellent.

Blimey - and I thought Kai was an unusual name.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Ben Hunter wrote:Now for a question: do the 'most missed' tables only show words that were maximums?

Yep. It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Why wouldn't it count as a miss if it was longer than the word you offered, but also not the maximum? Surely if you get a 6 and there's loads of 7s and an 8, you've missed them all, not just the 8?

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Ben Hunter wrote:Now for a question: do the 'most missed' tables only show words that were maximums?

Yep. It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Why wouldn't it count as a miss if it was longer than the word you offered, but also not the maximum? Surely if you get a 6 and there's loads of 7s and an 8, you've missed them all, not just the 8?

It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Charlie Reams wrote:It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Once again, your slapdash attitude appals me.

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Once again, your slapdash attitude appals me.

Your slaphead appalls me

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:It would be pretty infeasible to do anything else.

Once again, your slapdash attitude appals me.

Your slaphead appalls me

I told you I'm not bald anymore, I've grown my hair back

Jon Corby wrote:I told you I'm not bald anymore, I've grown my hair back

Edit to say: That hair makes you look strangely like the murderer from Silence of the Lambs.

Now make Rach bald

And then post it on RachelRiley.org !

Et voila

Is that sasquatch behind Gail Porter?

Really nice, keep up the good work. Was a bit disappointed to find my letters performance completely flat over my apterous career and surprised to learn I've actually been improving at the numbers. Second the request to be able to superimpose charts.

Props for the unique words feature too.

Maybe unique words could be modified to include words that are unique apart from also being spotted by a bot?

You'll also get all the new bonus stuff as that rolls out, and I'll be open to suggestions from the player base

Hmmmm....

Douglas Wilson wrote:

You'll also get all the new bonus stuff as that rolls out, and I'll be open to suggestions from the player base

Hmmmm....

Good point, I guess I didn't work hard enough for the £15. Or in your case, £0.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Douglas Wilson wrote:

You'll also get all the new bonus stuff as that rolls out, and I'll be open to suggestions from the player base

Hmmmm....

Good point, I guess I didn't work hard enough for the £15. Or in your case, £0.

If Man Utd sold season tickets with the promise of entry to every game that season and then asked for £20 for entrance to the last game of the season, would that be acceptable?

Douglas Wilson wrote:If Man Utd sold season tickets with the promise of entry to every game that season and then asked for £20 for entrance to the last game of the season, would that be acceptable?

That's only analogous if Charlie ever said something like "for your £15 you get everything I ever add to apterous".

Douglas Wilson wrote:If Man Utd sold season tickets with the promise of entry to every game that season and then asked for £20 for entrance to the last game of the season, would that be acceptable?

I wrote "you'll also get all the new bonus stuff as that rolls out" sometime around October 2008, referring to the small number of things that I had planned at the time. To me it seems fairly obvious that it didn't imply that £15 bought you unlimited rights to anything I might do for the rest of my life, but I guess there's no limit to how much someone is willing to misinterpret you when it suits them. Just to recap, since I wrote that sentence, contributors have got:-

Classic games
Lexplorer
Statland
The Duel (or maybe that was before, I forget)
The chat game
Head to head
Chat archive
Various things on the user page
Other stuff I've probably forgotten

Not to mention the huge amount of time I've put into improvements and features for contribs and non-contribs alike. If you feel that £15 is too much for all that and a project which has literally consumed my life for an entire year then I'm terribly sorry to have disappointed you.

Douglas Wilson wrote:
If Man Utd sold season tickets with the promise of entry to every game that season and then asked for £20 for entrance to the last game of the season, would that be acceptable?

If it was an extra, special game, not advertised in the original programme, yes I think so.

Douglas Wilson wrote:If Man Utd sold season tickets with the promise of entry to every game that season and then asked for £20 for entrance to the last game of the season, would that be acceptable?

Your example sucks. It's nothing like charging for the final game, it's actually the very-reasonable equivalent of Man Utd offering season ticket holders a VIP tour of the stadium for an extra £20. It's your choice whether you want to go on the tour.

And don't ever compare apterous to Man Utd again. Jeez.

Charlie Reams wrote:As promised on the recent podcast, it's here after approximately nine months of incubation... Superstats!

Forceps delivery it seems!

Kirk is the only player to ever spot INDUCTION. I'll say no more.

Douglas Wilson wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Douglas Wilson wrote:Hmmmm....

Good point, I guess I didn't work hard enough for the £15. Or in your case, £0.

If Man Utd sold season tickets with the promise of entry to every game that season and then asked for £20 for entrance to the last game of the season, would that be acceptable?

You're basically a fucktard. A cunt fucking fucktard.

Jon O'Neill wrote: You're basically a fucktard. A cunt fucking fucktard.

Very eloquently put Jon! A real example of the literary minds we have here, that can argue their case with the huge vocabulary at their disposal.
I spent an hour composing a huge rant on this lot, only to scroll back and find the above, I thought, yeah he's right, and deleted all mine. Sometimes it ain't worth wasting the oxygen. Still no idea what a F*******d is though, but I think I get the general picture!

Maxine Silkstone wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote: You're basically a fucktard. A cunt fucking fucktard.

Very eloquently put Jon! A real example of the literary minds we have here, that can argue their case with the huge vocabulary at their disposal.
I spent an hour composing a huge rant on this lot, only to scroll back and find the above, I thought, yeah he's right, and deleted all mine. Sometimes it ain't worth wasting the oxygen. Still no idea what a F*******d is though, but I think I get the general picture!

Admittedly, I was pretty drunk when I wrote it, but that doesn't mean it isn't accurate.

Way back when apterous started, I paid £20 (direct back transfer), but my account here on apterous still shows only 1p as having been paid. If you didn't get it Charlie, do let me know and I get something sorted. I've just checked with my bank, and it went to someone with your name on 16th September 2008.

Howard Somerset wrote:Way back when apterous started, I paid £20 (direct back transfer), but my account here on apterous still shows only 1p as having been paid. If you didn't get it Charlie, do let me know and I get something sorted. I've just checked with my bank, and it went to someone with your name on 16th September 2008.

Apologies, must've forgotten to update the records once that came through. Done now.

I love Oliver's graphs.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Howard Somerset wrote:Way back when apterous started, I paid £20 (direct back transfer), but my account here on apterous still shows only 1p as having been paid. If you didn't get it Charlie, do let me know and I get something sorted. I've just checked with my bank, and it went to someone with your name on 16th September 2008.

Apologies, must've forgotten to update the records once that came through. Done now.

Thanks Charlie

Jimmy Gough wrote:I love Oliver's graphs.

So do I

Superstats is another in a long list of great apto-features. One question - do the stats and graphs there get updated - if so how often? (Is it once a day?)

Anyhows - my £5 towards hardware upgrades should be with Charlie by now (please let me know if it didn't arrive) so if that qualifies me for a Superstats page, that would be lovely. (Although it will mean that everyone will be able to see how much worse I am at numbers than letters...)

Matt Bayfield wrote:Superstats is another in a long list of great apto-features. One question - do the stats and graphs there get updated - if so how often? (Is it once a day?)

Yes and yes.

Anyhows - my £5 towards hardware upgrades should be with Charlie by now (please let me know if it didn't arrive) so if that qualifies me for a Superstats page, that would be lovely. (Although it will mean that everyone will be able to see how much worse I am at numbers than letters...)

And yes.

Brilliant! Thank you.

Edit: I can't find my (or anyone else's) list of nines since the beginning of aptotime. If it is there (as mentioned in the initial post in this thread), could someone point me in the right direction? Ta.

If the all-time list of nines isn't there yet in Superstats, it would be a nice feature to have - especially for folks like me who don't spot too many nines.

Matt Bayfield wrote:Brilliant! Thank you.

Edit: I can't find my (or anyone else's) list of nines since the beginning of aptotime. If it is there (as mentioned in the initial post in this thread), could someone point me in the right direction? Ta.

If the all-time list of nines isn't there yet in Superstats, it would be a nice feature to have - especially for folks like me who don't spot too many nines.

I've found this if this helps:

http://www.apterous.org/viewuser.php?us ... &section=4

PANOPLIES --- what?

Matt Bayfield wrote:Brilliant! Thank you.

Edit: I can't find my (or anyone else's) list of nines since the beginning of aptotime. If it is there (as mentioned in the initial post in this thread), could someone point me in the right direction? Ta.

If the all-time list of nines isn't there yet in Superstats, it would be a nice feature to have - especially for folks like me who don't spot too many nines.

It's in the pipeline. As in, I forgot to write it.

Ah, okay! Thank you - I see it's already on its way.

Ta for the link Kirk although I was after the "all-time" list of nines rather than my list from the last 30 days. PANOPLIES is probably one of my better words...

Yum graphs graphs graphs. Mmm. Thanks Charlie.

Anyway: does the rating graph have all three ratings in it, now? Cause I've got what looks like three different lines going on after the Great Ratings Shift. (Maybe we could do the different ratings in different colors! Ooh.)

On the maximums graphs, are those cumulative? (I.e., the last numbers maximum for me is ~58%. Does that mean I'm at 58% over all time/the last 30 days?) If so, would it be possible to get histographs for game maxes (probably more meaningful for letters and overall than numbers) -- it would be nice to know, I think, how often I get x-max games.

Is it possible to get a subsection of "most missed words" like "words you've never got"? For example, PRISONED is high on my missed list, but I know I've hit it a few times too, while I'm not sure if I've ever hit RAINOUT.

If someone else uses one of your unique words, does it then fall off your unique list?

Maxine Silkstone wrote:If someone else uses one of your unique words, does it then fall off your unique list?

Uh-huh.

Must work harder, must work harder

How about an inventory item for stealing someone's unique words? A swag bag perhaps!

Sorry Maxine... it was me!

What makes it worse is I had spotted MOROCCO as well, but because I wasn't sure that was valid, I went for the shorter word which I knew would be in the dictionary because you had mentioned it in the "best words" thread... *blush*

Good on you mate, I'm now cruising other peoples uniques, fascinating insight into peoples psyche.

You can also tell who plays from their own accumulated vocabulary (some lovely words) and those who memorise all the regular countdown words (empty space!)

Does the word still count as unique for you if you're the only person who got it, but you got it more than once?

Maxine Silkstone wrote:Good on you mate, I'm now cruising other peoples uniques, fascinating insight into peoples psyche.

You can also tell who plays from their own accumulated vocabulary (some lovely words) and those who memorise all the regular countdown words (empty space!)

I do like my list of uniques - no idea where most of them came from!

Shaun Hegarty wrote:Does the word still count as unique for you if you're the only person who got it, but you got it more than once?

Yes.

Maxine Silkstone wrote:You can also tell who plays from their own accumulated vocabulary (some lovely words) and those who memorise all the regular countdown words (empty space!)

Oh really?

Kirk's like a living exception to any apterous rule of thumb you can come up with.

Matt Morrison wrote:Kirk's like a living exception to any apterous rule of thumb you can come up with.

"Good Apterites are good mathematicians."

...Yep.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Kirk's like a living exception to any apterous rule of thumb you can come up with.

"Good Apterites are good mathematicians."

...Yep.

Haha fuck off. That's plain insulting.