c4countdown

JackHurst

I used the chess.com app a while back and thought it was great. Another good app is the official Ticket to ride app. You have to pay for it but for the enjoyment I have got out of it I thought it was worth it. I have my own Countdown app that I've been playing obsessively for the past year which I'v...

JackHurst

Contracted it mid-December, via Heather's school being more concerned with staying open and bums on seats than sensible measures. Am in the extremely vulnerable category due to a drug I take to control my psoriasis being an immunosuppressant (and having a comorbidite to go along with it). Isolation...

JackHurst

Getting much less exercise overall, but also eating a lot less food and generally eating healthier. I think being in the house all the time has made it easier to plan healthy meals with fresh ingredients. I found myself eating a lot less wfh than when in the office. 1) There's quite a lot of social...

JackHurst

Getting much less exercise overall, but also eating a lot less food and generally eating healthier. I think being in the house all the time has made it easier to plan healthy meals with fresh ingredients. I found myself eating a lot less wfh than when in the office. 1) There's quite a lot of social ...

JackHurst

What's the highest number you can get to such that all whole numbers from 1 up to that number have had their spelling appear in letters selections in a single episode. So for example, if an episode had: SWTEEOCRN TREEHOUSE (kudos to readers who spot the falsie) FORTUNESE as selections, but no select...

JackHurst

What's the most Darrens a player has spotted in a single game?

Which players who've played 50 or more letters rounds have the best darren spotting per centage?

JackHurst

"I am going to Don King the fuck out of this intro" was what I heard Colin saying to the others on the studio floor just before cameras went on.

JackHurst

Great performance from both players today, well done guys. I believe Conor maintains his ridiculously long streak of maxes on letters rounds.

I know most people probably wanted to see the Conundrum go solved, but I do think a crucial going all the way to 30s make for more exciting TV

JackHurst

Thx to everybody involved in making these specials happen, and especially whoever edited the episode for somehow doing the impossible and not making me look like a tit. It was great to be back in the studio. Hopefully in 2021 we'll have the chance to return as audience members. Well played to Callum...

JackHurst

Great stuff last night. Susie was excellent as were both the players. Big congrats to the winner! (Won't name here in case spoilers?)

JackHurst

Jon O'Neill wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 21, 2020 3:44 pm
Could, not Would.

Would have been if they just chose to go with the result of the first. But yeah I see your point.

JackHurst

There was a bit of an unfortunate technical error with the original Conundrum in the studio for this episode. First Conundrum: BAUBLEDIT Tom George Stare blankly at Empty space because it hasn't shown in their monitor for 10 seconds. Tom looks up at the overhead monitors to see the conundrum shuffle...

JackHurst

Enjoyed watching this from the dressing room. Colin has taken to presenting duties well.

245 = 203 + 42 I know Tom and George were frustrated to miss.

Callum had POLYMATH in dressing room which made me poop my ass (I had my door open while he watched from the corridor)

JackHurst

Published yesterday: an interesting new Computerphile video about the Countdown numbers game, and a method of generating every possible solution using Reverse Polish Notation. Analysis of this kind has been done on this forum before, but one thing that I hadn't realised was that even targets are st...

JackHurst

Yep, apterous also uses a "backward" solver (given a target and working numbers, find the method) rather than a forward calculation of every possible number that can be made. However the answers are computed in advance and stored, in order to solve the problem from olden-days apterous where, for mo...

JackHurst

By the way, bonus detail: I picked that last vowel in round 13 specifically hoping for the E for MAEGBOTE, so it wasn't a complete coincidence I knew the longest word in that round! Nice fishing. Must be a weird feeling to sit there for 30s just knowing you opponent has to spot a tough 8 for you no...

JackHurst

It was a shame (but the right decision) that there could be no trophy presentation. Wouldn't it be nice if Luke could be invited as a guest to present the trophy in the next series finals or something?

JackHurst

Congratulations Luke on a brilliant series victory. Amazing standard especially on the letters. Well done to Sam for getting to the final, and in most series he would have had no problems taking the trophy home.

(Well apart from the fact you don't get to keep the trophy)

JackHurst

Longest reigning:
- Series champion
- Series number 1 seed
- Champion
- Dictionary corner guest (1 consecutive stint)

I would guess James H takes longest reigning series champ and Luke takes longest reigning number 1 seed?

JackHurst

Not sure if this is the right topic but I'm genuinely proud of this effort having just received a set of A-Z, 0-9 foam tiles for the bathroom. https://i.postimg.cc/Z08mpCXL/IMG-20201214-192752.jpg (The leftover tiles spell "99 WORK X", which is obviously shorthand for "I got 99 problems but work ai...

JackHurst

Spoilerz

JackHurst

Fiona T wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:45 pm
Other feedback - the word lookup doesn't work for me - just sticks me on google homepage.

Fixed this issue and also added an option to disable vibrations in the latest update.

JackHurst

I just had a look online, and obviously asking for the difference between the width and height works well. Not quite. You need to ask for the square (or absolute value) of the difference to guarantee it's a none-negative. e.g if W was 17 and L was 15 and you asked for L - 5 you would get -2 rounded...

JackHurst

It's gonna be great when they cut the show down to 5 rounds because the host insists on listing every single letters max and going over boring alternative numbers solutions in painstaking detail.

JackHurst

Other feedback - the word lookup doesn't work for me - just sticks me on google homepage. Thanks. Have added it to the list of improvements. Thanks to those of you who have downloaded and played. I can see scores on the scoreboard from Josh H and Tom S (and maybe more of you but I don't recognise y...

JackHurst

Well done to him on a successful 10 years on the show, and I hope he enjoys his retirement

It's just a shame for him that nobody knew his last day was his last day, that's a crappy way to leave any job.

If Colin became full time host I think that would be great for the show. Let's see though

JackHurst

Fiona T wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 06, 2020 2:52 pm
Nice - having a play now, but my phone vibrating every key press annoying MrT who's watching the footie - is there a way to turn that off? Can't see any setting/options

This is a piece of feedback I've had a few times now. I will turn vibration off by default in the next update.

JackHurst

Hey I've published a word puzzle app on the Play Store. It should be good fun for for those of you who like Countdown, Crosswords, Scrabble etc. You can find it here https://i.ibb.co/TBd3TYN/Screenshot-2020-12-06-at-11-19-31.png Features include: 1000 levels of varying difficulties An overall scoreb...

JackHurst

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 05, 2020 2:25 am
I wonder what Gary Male is doing now -- maybe you should message him?

Yeah that's where I got the idea from I think. Thanks for finding!

Getting this up and running physically would he easy, the challenge is making a website where players can log on and play it

JackHurst

Tl;Dr Do you have web development skills and want to help make a game which is a mash up of Countdown and Texas Holdem poker? If so please get in touch! I'm on a quest to make an online game which is a mash up of Texas Holdem poker and Countdown. The premise is simple: The rules of Texas Holdem poke...

JackHurst

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:30 pm
I would do away with the weird tradition of putting up the numbers right to left. I (and I'm sure others) like to have the numbers on my paper in the same order as the screen, but it's a bit awkward writing backwards.

Who the hell writes the selections down when playing along

JackHurst

How much would Richard Osman want to be presenter Then offer him the job. Have more people of colour as players and guests. This show is too white. I would consider people on their own merits. But while we're here, why not a black presenter? Good idea. I cant see why we can't have presenters on rot...

JackHurst

Events won would be a good column to add. Imagine Worsley/Foster would have a dominant lead over the rest?

JackHurst

Patrick Thompson wrote: ↑
Wed Dec 02, 2020 4:17 pm
What’s the highest number of points conceded for an octachamp?

Great question!

Another good question inspired by this is which players have the highest and lowest aggregate score difference over all of their games.

JackHurst

Ahh, yeah, I forgot about Thameslink. (Crazy that it's significantly quicker to get to Brighton from North London than it is from Tunbridge Wells if you don't have a car.) I think Brighton is a great location for an event tbh, especially if it's early autumn 2021 and the bars/clubs/karaoke are open...

JackHurst

I pulled some data from recent human-vs-human apterous games I think a really interesting (but possibly difficult to calculate) piece of data from apterous would be to see a list of words most frequently missed that would have change the outcome of a game from loss to win if other rounds in the gam...

JackHurst

Robert Foster wrote: ↑
Sun Nov 29, 2020 6:45 pm
Cheers! I've uploaded the CSVs for each tab now.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... OBoD4LcS_4

Lovelier jubblier

JackHurst

Robert Foster wrote: ↑
Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:54 pm
Latest version of my word usefulness doc following the Nov 2020 update:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... OBoD4LcS_4

Lovely jubbly

JackHurst

Go on then. Donald Trump Robert Mugabe Hugh Hefner Vera Lynn George HW Bush Prince Philip Diego Maradona Jake the Snake Roberts Betty White Peter Sallis Sneaky-good performance from Wilson here - Mugabe, Henfer, Lynn, Brush, Maradona and Sallis have all died. I have some sort of morbid admiration f...

JackHurst

Ian Volante wrote: ↑
Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:07 pm

Paul Anderson wrote: ↑
Tue Nov 24, 2020 1:56 pm
I got 6 wins and 740 odd
Martyn's nearly 800 trumps you then!

Ouch! Poor Martyn

JackHurst

Tom S wrote: ↑
Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:07 pm
Any non-finalist who averaged over 90 in their games? (excluding those who couldn't make the finals)

Frank Mulvey.

JackHurst

Continuing in the spirit of asking questions which are awkward to find an answer to and which I think I may appear in the answers for: Who is the soberest aptoholic to appear on the show? Defined by: - Given somebody who had recorded an episode and also played at least 1 game on apterous (or we coul...

JackHurst

Not really one for Graeme to answer, but more a bit of fun for the community at large to try and have a guess at. Which contestant(s) has been seen from below the waist in most episodes? I know e.g. for myself the answer is three (s63 final, 30BC QF Hug with DoD, 30BC Final). I think for Conor the a...

JackHurst

Very sad news indeed. I met Howard once or twice and he seemed like a top bloke. My thoughts are with his family.

JackHurst

If I have understood correctly, Colin's first episode will be Monday 21st December and he will continue for some of the next series.

A great opportunity for him and I hope he does a great job!

JackHurst

Charlie will be offered a deal to run Apterous as a gaming site that is fully affiliated with the show. It will be advertised in each episode as part of the ticker tape that runs during the end credits. Did you realise that the producer would have no real power to make this happen? Channel 4 own th...

JackHurst

I am willing to go to somebody's house for dinner to help boost their score.

JackHurst

Countdown needs the full 30s each time because it is a televised quiz show, with very strict timing criteria to adhere to. Zoomdown caters to a high brow audience, and has more fluidity re: show durations... and I do not recall a single complaint from the viewers (in chat) any time the Maths rounds...

JackHurst

In the case of Zoomdown, I don't think anything is lost by always giving the full 30 seconds for each round - it prevents controversy if a player doesn't have it yet, viewers might still be working on it, closer atmosphere to TV Countdown, more time to soak up the funky disco beat, etc. At Lincoln-...

JackHurst

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑
Fri Oct 30, 2020 7:43 pm

Matt Morrison wrote: ↑
Fri Oct 30, 2020 5:39 pm
Sure, if the program is made for statisticians and pricks.
ooh, touchy!

Don't worry, nobody on this forum thinks you're a statistician.

JackHurst

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:59 pm
I think it highlights a potential flaw in Bristol-style events. I think a not-written-down solution should probably be written down immediately following the declaration.

Hearing declarations from other tables is the main flaw.

JackHurst

Nothing to contribute to any of this, other than admitting that I enjoy checking to see if there have been any more posts to this thread. 100% this. It’s like Countdown Eastenders So what is the plot twist at the end of the episode going to be? Janine Butcher was blackmailing him into doing it?

JackHurst

Ben Wilson wrote: ↑
Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:58 pm
Now available to purchase from The Calendar Club, Amazon, Waterstones and many more retailers! This year's even better, and I can say that with confidence as I (with help from others) wrote both.

Good work Ben!

JackHurst

In hindsight given how everything has unfolded I realise typing into an overlay probably wasn't the best (or fairest idea). I've discussed the matter privately with Paul and apologised. I suppose at the time, I was a bit naive about the whole cheating thing, so thought it would be fine. This below q...

JackHurst

A similar analysis of his opponent's looks to the side would likely give much clearer "evidence" if one wished to believe he was cheating (again, I'm not suggesting this is the case and don't for one second believe it to be the case). Just to clear something up. I was using an overlay to type in nu...

JackHurst

I didn't find either Anki or Zyzzyva worked in quite the way I wanted to be able to use them, so I made my own SRS app specifically for Countdown that is customised to exactly the way I want to be able to learn words. On the topic learning methods, I have made an app to practise with which has the ...

JackHurst

If you are an existing player who is good but looking to become elite then maxes is all that matters imo. If you are a new player looking to get good then I agree that the maxes only approach probably isn't very good. Another thing to consider is the difficulty of remembering words. Some words I wil...

JackHurst

I was supposed to be a good boy and not comment further on this matter after the original post, but some of the comments and behaviour from people has just made me want to smash my head through a window. What a farce.

JackHurst

But what about Jack now? Things I have done for ZoomDown Agreed to play Conor in ZD season 1 as my first game so there could be a rematch of 30BC. Offered technical assistance and feature ideas for ZD series 2 as well as volunteering to help with production if needed. Spent weeks practising for ZD ...

JackHurst

Fiona T wrote: ↑
Fri Oct 23, 2020 3:42 pm
Cheating in a game we all care about is bad. Bullying is far far worse.

Just out of curiosity, where does systematically manipulating and deceiving your closest friend rank among these?

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