Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[Spike1007]

Naboka, what I said seems right for 5x5. (There, for a word with n letters, the value is r*(n-1)+s, where r is a rarity multiplier (which 1 for common words, 1.3 for wide, 1.6 for rare, and 2 for ultra-rare (rounding down to the nearest integer when necessary)), and s comes from the special letters as in my previous post.) For your 4x4 board, scoring seems different. I assume that HOT and OAT are "common", but they're both 3 points. OAK and OAKS are both worth 4, which is weird unless there's a difference in rarity values (which I doubt) or something else is going on. My guess is that, for 3-letter words (which aren't accepted in 5x5), scoring is r*n+s (with n = 3), while for 4 or more letter words, it's r*(n-1)+s, the same as 5x5, with s the same in both. (I assume OAT and OAK are both common, and the K in OAK just adds one point.) Maybe I'll play with some 4x4 boards & test my thoughts...

[Naboka]

I used to think there should be a rarity difference between American & British spellings, but the score difference just comes down to word length (like using -OU- rather than -O-) & "special" letters. Q is worth 4, Z is 3, X is 2, and J & K are 1. (Each letter can only contribute once per word. For instance, two Qs still only add 4 points.)

Always thought k's and j's generated more points. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean.

Here's the k portion of a game I just finished. Seems like a lode of points. And who knows what didn't get typed.

Screen Shot 2022-08-30 at 11.27.45 AM.png

[Spike1007]

I used to think there should be a rarity difference between American & British spellings, but the score difference just comes down to word length (like using -OU- rather than -O-) & "special" letters. Q is worth 4, Z is 3, X is 2, and J & K are 1. (Each letter can only contribute once per word. For instance, two Qs still only add 4 points.)

[bwt1213]

Congratulations! Personal best records are the only ones that count; there is always a King Kong to make you feel small, otherwise. And for the point difference? The "Z" counts for more points than the "S". I didn't think it was three points, though.

[JedMedGrey]

Just got my best single word score on a 4 x 4 - POSTERIZES - for 21 pts. Interesting that POSTERISE is 16 pts, but with a "Z" it is 19 pts.

[JedMedGrey]

I believe I recall a post about SEPTENTRIGINTILLIONTH (21 letters, 40 pts by lalatan). Well, I got that board, and although I did not find said word, I did find "GILLIONS", a first for the board.

Belated Happy Birthday, folkslinger!

[lalatan]

Happy birthday folkslinger! Wow, a flight in WW!! bomber would be amazing.

[Spike1007]

...we were the same age (until today, now I'm 72.)

Happy birthday, folkslinger!

[folkslinger]

mcdonna ......."And make sure to include time here. You have friends here." Quoted from BWT1213.

I will certainly 2nd that sentiment.

You have been great to watch since you have come back to the game.
Your earlier comments on the new long words (quinquaquinqua...etc etc.) How fast you found information on them and understood what they were FLOORED me because it had taken me sooo much longer to get my head around them and we were the same age (until today, now I'm 72.) Which reminds me I better play the game and get to bed because I have to get up early and go for a flight in a World War II B25 Mitchell Bomber for my birthday. Tick another one off the bucket list!

[bwt1213]

Freevee is also free, and so is Tubi and Plex and Xumo, and . . . Anyway, here's another one for you: Columbo. I'll bet you haven't seen them all. I certainly haven't. Ah, but Peacock is free, too. And they have all the original Columbo stuff. The ads are really light, though, only 15 - 30 seconds for most of them. There's a Columbo movie that predates the series: "Prescription: Murder". The movie starts with an announcement that they don't want to mess the movie up, so there will be only one commercial break at the beginning, and the movie will then be shown uninterrupted. And it was good, too.

FreeVee (formerly IMDb) has almost every movie you ever wanted to see. And every series. I'll bet you'll like Mary Berry and her cooking shows (British, of course). But Pluto has America's Test Kitchen, and Antiques Roadshow (British version) and Antiques Road Trip (addictive and fun). Haystack News and Local News Now give you local news broadcasts free.

There's another feed for Science Fiction classics. Wanna watch "Flowers for Algernon"? It's there.

You have to be judicious. There's so much there. It really is a firehose. If you have ADHD, then you need to make a list. Here are the movies I'd like to watch. Here are the series. Here are the kinds of shows. Now, where are they? Today, you watch one Columbo and one Antiques Road Trip. Tomorrow, you watch one America's Test Kitchen and one Julia Child. And so on. If you like Star Trek, then Paramount+ is where you go. You can watch all the original Star Trek and all the spin-offs. Want to watch Twilight Zone? That's Peacock, also free.

I wasn't kidding about shows about life in old Rome and Greek Myths and the rest of it, either. So it really is a firehose. The only possible solution to that is to ration your time. Two hours of TV per day (or whatever) and no more. So many hours of reading, and no more. So many hours walking, or jogging, or exercising. If you let yourself run free, you're running down the rabbit hole too much of the time. You know that already.

And make sure to include time here. You have friends here.

[mcdonna]

Since you don't have TV, I suggest you investigate Pluto. It's FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) and you can view it on your computer. ...

The internet can be like a firehose, but you can filter it down to something a little more manageable. ...

Thanks for the suggestion of Pluto; I'll definitely look into it.

As for firehoses, long before the Internet there was infinitely more content than I'm able to manage, starting with our small local library when I was in first grade. I've only had TV/streaming service a few times in my life and then only because someone else in the household had chosen to install it. I've picked up little packages here and there to watch Star Trek or local news but if I have more options I can disappear into them and never come out. I discovered last year (at age 71) that I have ADHD, which helps to explain why it's so difficult for me to focus on anything important if there is something more immediately appealing in the neighborhood.

YouTube is almost manageable. The first year of the pandemic I became seriously addicted, first to news, then to opera (go figure), then to Baryshnikov ballet. The only way I can keep it under control these days is that I unsubscribed and hid the most tempting channels and do NOT pay to turn off ads, as they are annoying enough to remind me that I might need to be doing something else!

The only real downside is that I'm left out of conversations whenever the topic turns to popular culture. I don't really miss watching the shows but I do miss being able to chat with friends. Luckily there are Star Trek fans lurking in many corners.

[Spike1007]

In an earlier post of mine, I said that losing contact with the Wordtwist server during play might not be fatal if you could reestablish the connection even after the time had run out. Stephen may have been paying attention & changed that. I played a board where I entered a word, then lost contact before time ran out. (I have occasional Xfinity problems, especially in the morning.) Anyway, I managed to switch networks & get reconnected, probably less than 30 seconds after the board would have timed out. This time, it did give final stats for the board showing no words played and a message I'd never seen before: "This game started too long ago to be tallied." Looks like Stephen may have added a timer.

[2cute]

Okay, after I wrote the list, I realized I hadn't kept up w/what they owned & for how long, the info could've changed. Yep, it changed. So my info is a little wrong. As far as Disney, it does own Fox Sports (so Murdoch only owns the news division now). I found this informative very detailed map of all the companies Disney owns but if I add the actual link, this message will be flagged for spam, so here's a portion of it: titlemax.com/wp-content/uploads/every-company-disney-owns.jpeg (this map is as of 2019, so it could've changed since then). Here's another site that lists their holdings: filmdaft.com/what-companies-does-disney-own/ .

As far as Comcast still owning Disney, I'm finding conflicting info, I know it did @ one time but ... well, that'll be another hour of research for another time.

[2cute]

It's not just snow that will knock satellite TV out. Ice, heavy rain, and the wrong time of the year (your satellite is covered by the sun during the equinoxes) will do it, too. And some of those outages can take a while to resolve, too. I had satellite TV for years and I can verify all those things, because they all happened to me.

As far as "cheap" or "expensive" is concerned, in my on-line chats with people in cities like Chicago, LA, and NYC (and other large cities) their charge for gigabyte internet is about half what I'm paying and I have a tenth of what they do. I live about 80 miles from Chicago and 50 miles from Milwaukee, but I used to live about 45 miles from each of them and I had the same deal I have now. To get really fast internet, I'd have had to live in Chicago or one of the close suburbs -- and not all of them had it, either.

I'd have to check to be sure, but I think Spectrum and ComCast are the same thing; one owns the other or they're both owned by something else. If you don't have Spectrum, you probably have ComCast. In markets where there is no competition, you will be paying the same as I am. I verified that, too, with customers from Washington to Georgia. Same plans, same prices, same push to get their cable TV service, etc. And, as you pointed out, not cheap.

Xfinity is Comcast. It is Comcast that owns a whole bunch. Comcast owns Universal Studios, Universal Parks & Resorts, Dreamworks, ABC, Disney, ESPN, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, E Network, Telemundo, Olympic Channel, USA, SyFy, Bravo, Fandango, Style, Peacock On Demand, Fox Entertainment (not News or Sports that's still owned by Murdoch), Carnival Films, Matchbox Pictures, XUMO etc ...

[bwt1213]

One more thing: Since you don't have TV, I suggest you investigate Pluto. It's FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) and you can view it on your computer. All the news feeds are available, but without the talking heads and special shows -- it's just the news feed. But there's a lot more you can view if you wish. I like America's Test Kitchen, Antiques RoadShow (BBC version) and Antiques Road Trip (BBC again). PBS is also free and available on line. I doubt sincerely that you will come anywhere near your maximum download limit as long as you're watching on your computer. You can even watch movies on your computer. Or cooking shows about Korean/Japanese/French/Italian cuisine. Or lecture/documentary shows about how to correctly don a Roman toga and life in Rome at the height of the empire, Greek myths, ancient military strategies, battles in the various world wars, the life of Alexander the Great, and a thousand other things. I like shows in foreign languages, especially if they have subtitles that can help my understanding.

The internet can be like a firehose, but you can filter it down to something a little more manageable. Your download speed is certainly sufficient. Yes, you're overpaying for what you're getting. But it is sufficient, and that's what matters.