c4countdown

I'm putting some of these on my Facebook 'Countdown Screen Shots' album. If anyone objects, I'll remove them. I guess Charlie owns the copyright anyway.

Martin Gardner wrote:I'm putting some of these on my Facebook 'Countdown Screen Shots' album. If anyone objects, I'll remove them. I guess Charlie owns the copyright anyway.

Will you be rehosting the images or linking to them in their original locations? If the latter, be warned that I shall probably be moving mine at some point. If/when I do, I'll edit the forum posts that they're in to reference the new locations, but any links you've created will break.

Martin Gardner wrote:I'm putting some of these on my Facebook 'Countdown Screen Shots' album. If anyone objects, I'll remove them. I guess Charlie owns the copyright anyway.

Sounds fine to me.

http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=2 ... 47#r438547

L for COPULATE. You're lucky you're not one of my offspring.

I wrote:Sometimes the insertion of a DC word into the template dialogue has an outcome that is truly felicitous:

And another one along the same lines, which almost made up for being insulted by Jeremy Kyle throughout one of my worst Duel performances ever:

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:I'm putting some of these on my Facebook 'Countdown Screen Shots' album. If anyone objects, I'll remove them. I guess Charlie owns the copyright anyway.

Will you be rehosting the images or linking to them in their original locations? If the latter, be warned that I shall probably be moving mine at some point. If/when I do, I'll edit the forum posts that they're in to reference the new locations, but any links you've created will break.

Quick heads up Phil just for the sake of being informative - Facebook photos all have to be uploaded to their server, you can't make albums from external images.
It's an interesting point, especially if you consider their recent attempts to change their terms & conditions - FB wanted to retain the rights to images (and all other content) that you upload regardless of whether you eventually close your account - which was overthrown by mass rejection in favour of a return to the previous set up whereby they delete all of their copies of your images and stuff if you remove your account.

Matt Morrison wrote:whereby they delete all of their copies of your images and stuff if you remove your account.

...except not really. The images are still there, it's just that the public can't access them. You can confirm this by closing and then reopening your account, because all your old stuff will reappear.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:whereby they delete all of their copies of your images and stuff if you remove your account.

...except not really. The images are still there, it's just that the public can't access them. You can confirm this by closing and then reopening your account, because all your old stuff will reappear.

Not quite true Charlie, although I suppose I perhaps should have been more clear.
If you just 'close your account' through the confusingly-titled 'close my account' link, then yes, things are kept on the server and can be resurrected if you choose to come back.
But they DO make it a bit clearer these days that if you 'terminate' your account (by e-mailing support) then absolutely everything gets deleted properly.
Can confirm this happens as a mate of mine who was on an anti-corporate tip decided to terminate his account and then three days later needed some pictures of himself for some reason and re-signed up to find a totally blank 'as new' account in place of where all his bits had been.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:whereby they delete all of their copies of your images and stuff if you remove your account.

...except not really. The images are still there, it's just that the public can't access them. You can confirm this by closing and then reopening your account, because all your old stuff will reappear.

Not quite true Charlie, although I suppose I perhaps should have been more clear.
If you just 'close your account' through the confusingly-titled 'close my account' link, then yes, things are kept on the server and can be resurrected if you choose to come back.
But they DO make it a bit clearer these days that if you 'terminate' your account (by e-mailing support) then absolutely everything gets deleted properly.
Can confirm this happens as a mate of mine who was on an anti-corporate tip decided to terminate his account and then three days later needed some pictures of himself for some reason and re-signed up to find a totally blank 'as new' account in place of where all his bits had been.

Interesting. I still wouldn't trust them to really really delete anything, but then if I had something really incriminating or private then I wouldn't put it on Facebook in the first place.

My Facebook security settings are so tight that nobody can get to me.
Which makes the whole exercise a bit futile I suppose.

Ralph Gillions wrote:My Facebook security settings are so tight that nobody can get to me.
Which makes the whole exercise a bit futile I suppose.

I was looking for a mate yesterday who I know quite well.
Searched, found her. Laughed for a moment that she had her profile picture turned off for searches ("how does she expect friends to know its her?").
Thought I'd look at her friend list, see if it sounded like it was her. Oh, she's got her 'View Friends' option turned off.
Oh well I'll just add her as a friend anyway, presume it's her. Oh, she's got the 'Add Friend' option turned off too.
Hmm guess I'll just have to send her a message then and ask her to do the add herself. Oh, she's removed the 'Send Message' option too.
Talk about cagey.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Ralph Gillions wrote:My Facebook security settings are so tight that nobody can get to me.
Which makes the whole exercise a bit futile I suppose.

I was looking for a mate yesterday who I know quite well.
Searched, found her. Laughed for a moment that she had her profile picture turned off for searches ("how does she expect friends to know its her?").
Thought I'd look at her friend list, see if it sounded like it was her. Oh, she's got her 'View Friends' option turned off.
Oh well I'll just add her as a friend anyway, presume it's her. Oh, she's got the 'Add Friend' option turned off too.
Hmm guess I'll just have to send her a message then and ask her to do the add herself. Oh, she's removed the 'Send Message' option too.
Talk about cagey.

Yeah I look up people with common names all the time, and if there's no photo and no date of birth, you're a bit screwed!

I wrote:

PS If you didn't find that funny, you need to look up CAPONIZED in the dictionary.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

I wrote:

PS If you didn't find that funny, you need to look up CAPONIZED in the dictionary.

I thought it was funny, although the other one is better.

Question: Why did the Rastafarian go to the bank?
Answer: To open a joint account.

Charlie Reams wrote:Question: Why did the Rastafarian go to the bank?
Answer: To open a joint account.

Racist poofter.

Apologies for the size!

Martin Gardner wrote:

Apologies for the size!

Yes, it was a bit small.

Now, I thought playing GONAD was bad enough...I was very, very wrong.

Question is...does he go sloblock-deep?

Matt Morrison wrote:

Presumably Ann's off to administer herself a quick urine test...

Great spot by the way.

Kai Laddiman wrote:

I wish you'd found Apterous before you applied for Countdown.

8th and 9th rounds, both of us declared PENISES before following up with FELLATED.

Ben Hunter wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:

I wish you'd found Apterous before you applied for Countdown.

lol wat

...yes, it really did.

Brilliant!!

Mental. What is the probability of getting a nine letter word come out from the off, anyone know?

Ben Hunter wrote:Mental. What is the probability of getting a nine letter word come out from the off, anyone know?

Stop torturing us statisticians, you nasty person.

Ian Volante wrote:

Ben Hunter wrote:Mental. What is the probability of getting a nine letter word come out from the off, anyone know?

Stop torturing us statisticians, you nasty person.

Given that the shuffling is far from truly random, it would be very hard to give anything more than an empirical estimate anyway. So 1 in 548495 is about the best we can do (I checked that it has never happened before.)

Charlie Reams wrote:

Ian Volante wrote:

Ben Hunter wrote:Mental. What is the probability of getting a nine letter word come out from the off, anyone know?

Stop torturing us statisticians, you nasty person.

Given that the shuffling is far from truly random, it would be very hard to give anything more than an empirical estimate anyway. So 1 in 548495 is about the best we can do (I checked that it has never happened before.)

Even still, you could argue it has a lot to do with the way in which the contestant chooses the consonants and vowels. If you choose Kirk's way of CCCVVVCVC then you're never going to get a word spelt out, whereas if you're going CVCVCVCVC or something similar then you're inviting words to pop out early on. Finally, if your intention is for a word to be spelt out, the word-in-progress is obviously going to guide your picks, such that if you have AMBIGU from the first 6 letters then it behoves you to next choose a vowel.

I always go CVCVCVC with my first 7, and yes, when it came out MILEPOS I of course chose two consonants, trying to complete the word. Far from random, but still extremely unlikely!

Look at the conundrum times on this one...

James Hall wrote:Look at the conundrum times on this one...

Amazing!
It's shocking it took you so long to solve that!

Can anyone tell me how to get a screenshot into here, it's saved on my desktop as a jpeg. Where do i go from there? It's obviously something to do with Img button up there, but the 'http://image_url' in between the brackets means nothing to me. And if I just paste nothing happens.
Perhaps someone should write a dummies guide to forums...

Maxine Silkstone wrote:Can anyone tell me how to get a screenshot into here, it's saved on my desktop as a jpeg. Where do i go from there? It's obviously something to do with Img button up there, but the 'http://image_url' in between the brackets means nothing to me. And if I just paste nothing happens.
Perhaps someone should write a dummies guide to forums...

You need to upload the image to the Internet somewhere - I think some people use imageshack, for instance. Then your picture will be located at a url, and then you need to do [img]url_of_your_picture[/img].

Hope that makes sense/is right.

And there was me thinking it would be technical!

Couldn't find the Screen Print button at the time, but this round 12 was rather amusing.
TITABUSEY BUTTIES 45 - 59 ABUSE BATISTE, BATTIES, BATTUES etc. 86

Happened a while ago - but only just managed to upload it! Interesting conundrum guess!

Barry Evans wrote: Happened a while ago - but only just managed to upload it! Interesting conundrum guess!

Haha brilliant. COCKLOVER would make a great scramble.

Not sure if this lives here or in bugs, certainly had me scratching my head,
"Maybe Junior sometimes does 8 letters not always 7" thinks me after I have found STUTTER and still have an N left over.
then the solution comes up


By the way, thanks for the masterclass on images Michael, as you can see I figured it out.

Maxine Silkstone wrote:Not sure if this lives here or in bugs, certainly had me scratching my head,
"Maybe Junior sometimes does 8 letters not always 7" thinks me after I have found STUTTER and still have an N left over.
then the solution comes up.

Haha. Oops. There was a bug in one of the shuffle generation modules which had been sitting latent for a while but a change to some distant part of the codebase caused it to suddenly be exposed and start spewing out bad conundrums. I think I've fixed this now.

Didn't take a screenshot at the time, but just remembered this conundrum-based anomaly.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=75721

Forget last second, this is somehow past second!

Charlie Reams wrote:

Maxine Silkstone wrote:Not sure if this lives here or in bugs, certainly had me scratching my head,
"Maybe Junior sometimes does 8 letters not always 7" thinks me after I have found STUTTER and still have an N left over.
then the solution comes up.

Haha. Oops. There was a bug in one of the shuffle generation modules which had been sitting latent for a while but a change to some distant part of the codebase caused it to suddenly be exposed and start spewing out bad conundrums. I think I've fixed this now.

So, in English then, there was a nasty gremlin locked safely in a little box, but then a visiting elf came and loosened the lid and he got out and started throwing mud pies around.

Nice one, Carol.

I think this speaks a bit...

I was nervous about misspelling this one!

Rob Thomas wrote:I was nervous about misspelling this one!

DAILYSEX?

lolled at the scramble

Derek Hazell wrote:

I don't know how to do a screenshot, so I'll just have to do a link instead.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=121816

Despite failing to get the conundrum, Georgina was pleased to get her first win.

IMO not bad for an 11 year old.

Philip Jarvis wrote:I don't know how to do a screenshot, so I'll just have to do a link instead.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=121816

Despite failing to get the conundrum, Georgina was pleased to get her first win.

IMO not bad for an 11 year old.

Haha you meanie! And I was only telling her what a nice guy you are too.

Of course I let her win though

Derek Hazell wrote:...an image...

Not bad, but I'm pretty sure Prune has had a disallowed 1 before.

Now that's just greedy.

Omelette's just served up a blinder of a selection:

Chris Philpot wrote:Omelette's just served up a blinder of a selection:

FUNKS?

OK, I'm not sure it's that good Des...