Fun stuff -- word related or not, ramblings, junk, whatever.

[bwt1213]

Sometimes CC can be as hilarious as spellchecked texts.

Bad ears demand CC. Wife hates it. When she tells the remote "closed caption off!' there's a bit of snarl.

If you have Netflix, try Midnight Diner and The Extraordinary Lawyer Woo. The first in Japanese with subtitles, the second Korean.

Don't know if you caught the ps added to the previous comment.

The phenomenon is called allophonic variations of phonemes.

Must be fun teaching kindergarten in Boston and having the write about "Cuba."

The last place I taught before I retired, the cleaning crew were all Korean. I would leave them messages on the whiteboards, written in Korean -- things that I thought I knew well, and Korean is simple because all spelling is phonetic. Alas, my pronunciation is not. The longer I got from my time in Korea, the worse my accent became, and now it's nearly a joke. They still understood what I was trying to say, of course, and they appreciated that I was making the effort. But still, it is embarrassing. That was eight years ago, and now I'm certainly worse. It doesn't bear thinking about.

As far as closed captioning, I can hear and understand Brit and Aussie speech, though not always the slang. I'm fine with Indian versions of English, too, and to people who are speaking English with a heavy accent. To my wife, they all may as well be speaking Cantonese or Aramaic. I have no idea why she's lost so much of her hearing; neither of us made a habit of listening to really loud things, and in fact I've probably heard more really loud things in my life than she has. She has never fired a rifle, and I've done that thousands of times. And thrown live grenades. It's probably genetic, though it sucks.

On the bright side, my wife and I went to Pearce's Farm Stand for the end of the season sales (bargain bags were the best -- five pounds of vegetables for $2). While there, we encountered a lady of middle years who spoke precise English with a noticeable German accent. So I asked her, in German, if I was correct and she was from Germany. It took thirty seconds to speak reasonably well in German again, though I had to confess that it had been some years (about forty) since the last time I had. I guess I haven't lost everything, but if my hearing was only as good as my wife's I probably wouldn't even have made the attempt.

It's not nice getting old. But consider the alternative, and I'm in good shape -- upright and taking nourishment. And I know that in past days I was able to speak, read, and write a whole lot of languages and didn't need subtitles or closed captioning at all. To use the Billy Joel line: "then I wore a younger man's clothes". Yes, "Piano Man".

My father was a piano man. He'd play requests. He'd make up a piano line for anything and it would sound good. He thought I'd be a concert pianist someday. It was his dream, not mine. I knew my limits better than he did. For his high school graduation, he played "Rhapsody in Blue" on piano only, and the audience was crying at the end. And then he went into the Navy. Christ, and we're going to do it all over again.

[2cute]

After spending ungodly hours practising short boards to concentrate on ultra rare words and turn the word display completely red, finally was able to hit 100 ultra rare words in a game.

Screen Shot 2022-11-02 at 8.47.41 AM.png

Here's the list. Nothing fancy. Mistyped nete and got net, so ended up with a common word, but...

Lots of useful high point words for beginners to add to their arsenal. And just to demonstrate it's not magic.

160-29-49-44-26-12 b2.png

I've noticed lately a lot of 5x5 boards have more ultra rare words than common ones. So your goal is certainly perfect for that kind of board. That being said ... WOW! Fantastic achievement! Again, practice makes perfect!

[2cute]

Sometimes CC can be as hilarious as spellchecked texts.

Bad ears demand CC. Wife hates it. When she tells the remote "closed caption off!' there's a bit of snarl.

If you have Netflix, try Midnight Diner and The Extraordinary Lawyer Woo. The first in Japanese with subtitles, the second Korean.

Don't know if you caught the ps added to the previous comment.

The phenomenon is called allophonic variations of phonemes.

Must be fun teaching kindergarten in Boston and having the write about "Cuba."

I think closed captioning can really be hilarious as the typist will use funny terms if it doesn't know the subject. Like for Tennis matches, Tennis is an international sport so there are players from all over the world & they sometimes have difficult to pronounce names. The closed captioning typist has really botched so many names, especially if they think it should be pronounced phonetically and its not. Also for some films, like Despicable Me, when the minions are talking, they can't figure out what they're saying & lots of times its a visual cue rather than the actual words, I've actually seen the closed captioning say "speaking minionese" LOL. Another hilarious film for closed captioning are the Harry Potter ones as the terms used aren't common ones, w/the fame of the film you'd think they'd know certain character names or terms, nope, not everyone does.

I have excellent hearing (thank goodness), though sometimes I'll turn it on just for the laughs or if a film has difficult to understand accent (like lots of Scottish accent films).

[Naboka]

I've noticed lately a lot of 5x5 boards have more ultra rare words than common ones. So your goal is certainly perfect for that kind of board. That being said ... WOW! Fantastic achievement! Again, practice makes perfect!

Thanks for the compliment.

Don't think I'll ever move from 4x4's to 5x5's. Find myself playing games and just hoping I can last til the time runs out. My fingers, wrists and hands just get so tired. Seems like at a minute 30-45 fatigue sets in. Trying to go 3 minutes would be exhausting.

Probably why I've gravitated to playing short boards for 15-40 seconds. Been working on turning the the column red with a specified length of words. Such all all 3,4,5, 6 or seven letter words. If 4 letters has the most words, I'll try to get only 4 letter ultra rares. If 5 then 5. Completing all 13 availble word slots with 7 and above has proven
impossibly elusive.

If playing the short board is sufficiently promising, I'll run it to the end. Or dump it if I lose traction.

"Ultra rare" is definitely a spectrum. Some just pop up on soo many games. Like ats, tas, sei rei, sten steen reen, treen, rin, rine trine. Avoiding the common ultra rares makes it more challenging. Then you have to find the really rare words that will only pop up for players like Megaword.

I've thought about posting lists of the ultra rare words with point values in the comments section. Then, figured it would just take up too much space. Not to mention, all that information is readily available to anyone who wants to take the effort to study the boards after playing them. Or study the games Megaword has on Youtube.

Working with the wife's kindergarteners is a study in how we learn. What qualities do the better learners exhibit, and how to they approach/apply those attributes?

Just like anything, being a "good student" lies on a spectrum. How one gains and applies information.

Reminds me of a funny story about a girl in College. Let's call her Erin.

Talk about a good student.

Erin was academic royalty. Valedictorian in HS, all the awards and acclamation one would expect. Accepted to every college she applied.

She was so proud of her progeny, she'd push them in a gilded stoller everywhere she went, stopping to allow the less fortunate to view and admire her offspring. She moved with an aura of regal invincibility on campus. She'd spent her first year dominating all of her classes. Then, steeped in noblesse oblige, she would encourage the rest of us to try harder and to do our best.

How kind.

Little did she realize that she'd thrown down a guantlet.

Her coastal comliness invited that amorus interest refined millions of years ago in steaming swamps.

To hit on her...

or to knock her off her pedastal...

hmmm.

So many girls on campus. Only one on a pedastal like hers.

Since we were in our first (and only) class together, the choice seemed obvious.

Before the first test, we were chatting amicably. She asked if I had studied. Of course, I told her I hadn't--eventhough I had more than doubled my normal efforts. She gave one of those you-poor-fool smiles, and swept into class with the style befitting a queen.

In the 70's, grading on a curve was widespread. Test results came back and...

shock of shocks...

The professor chalked the individual results on the board.

one person had something in the high nineties...

another had something in the high 80's...

the rest of the class were in the very low seventies or worse.

So the professor threw out the high score and even entertained throwing out the second.

Erin was furious.

There was no way a member of the rabble could have...

this barbarian...this thug...this barely intelligible ruffian...this...this...jock...could not have possibly...

With her Mt Etna spewing indignation, she blurted out the obvious moral insult of someone who had failed to study having somehow illegally gained access to the tests in advance. The injustice was intolerable. Such shameful disregard for fellow students. Such behaviour shouldn't be tolerated. . And that said behaviour should be harshly punished.

Poor Erin. A victim of brutal academic assault. Knocked to the gutters, her crown stolen, her robes trampled.

The prof pointed out the unlikelihood of anyone getting the tests since she made new ones each time. And, since she had had said offender in other classes, perhaps the accusation was misplaced.

But, said student, being a consummate Ahole, admitted to the class with undying shame that he had in fact been given the answers in advance. He held up the textbook and pointed at the professor and confessed to all present that, yes, he had taken the answers. His shame knew no limits. He had stolen the information off the pages and from the lectures. He begged forgiveness for taking unfair advantage of the situation.

In his defense, he naively claimed that he thought the information was free to be taken and used.

There was undoubtedly not enough time left before the sun died to say each Hail Mary required to gain full penance. The River Styx would some day see his reflection. Charon would nod, having long anticipated his arrival. Coin would change hands and the crossing made.

Poor Erin. Study as she would, the semester in that class proved to be an outrage, an insult to all that was just in her world.

If she's still alive, Erin probably still believes her God-given rights were unjustly stolen.

The barbarian? He's simply thankful that Erin hadn't chosen one of those schools where such aptitude for study was commonplace and midgrade. How shattering would that have been for her ego?

The relevance of the story? The answers are there for the taking. It's not magic. If someone wants to know the ultra rare words and their point values, the information isn't hidden.

Putting in time and effort guarantees little other than improvement.

And, no matter how good you are (or think you are), somebody better always seems to be sitting at the next table.

Scores, ultimately, scores are irrelvant in this game. It's just a matter of enjoying YOUR challenge.

And appreciating the success others find in their own.

[bwt1213]

I said good-bye today, a final good-bye. We had a rescue dog named Copper that had had a toe removed for malignant melanoma a few months ago. Initial x-rays and ultrasounds showed no evidence of metastasis. Copper, a golden retriever, had come to us because his former owners had died and because he was too "anxious" to be acceptable in his two previous homes. He was more than 11 years old when we adopted him, and we had him for about 3 and a half years. Alas, the melanoma had indeed spread. The day before his last day, he ran around the fenced yard, barking at the wind and smiling at the sun. He seemed to be a young dog again and it made me glad to see him so happy; the weather was warm for that time of the year (70 degrees F and light winds and bright sunlight). I will never forget him, standing on the fallen leaves and facing the sun and smiling.

And then I woke the next morning to the sounds of a dog panting. I thought he had to go out. But it was worse than that; he couldn't stand for long. He couldn't walk. We took him to the vet and they did the tests: Copper had cancer all through his chest and various organs. It was the end. When I told him he was a good boy, he seemed happy again. Soon after, he breathed no more. And that was my Friday. I think I played one game today. I don't wonder why. But brave Copper had his people with him at the end. Please, let it be so for us all.

[2cute]

I said good-bye today, a final good-bye. We had a rescue dog named Copper that had had a toe removed for malignant melanoma a few months ago. Initial x-rays and ultrasounds showed no evidence of metastasis. Copper, a golden retriever, had come to us because his former owners had died and because he was too "anxious" to be acceptable in his two previous homes. He was more than 11 years old when we adopted him, and we had him for about 3 and a half years. Alas, the melanoma had indeed spread. The day before his last day, he ran around the fenced yard, barking at the wind and smiling at the sun. He seemed to be a young dog again and it made me glad to see him so happy; the weather was warm for that time of the year (70 degrees F and light winds and bright sunlight). I will never forget him, standing on the fallen leaves and facing the sun and smiling.

And then I woke the next morning to the sounds of a dog panting. I thought he had to go out. But it was worse than that; he couldn't stand for long. He couldn't walk. We took him to the vet and they did the tests: Copper had cancer all through his chest and various organs. It was the end. When I told him he was a good boy, he seemed happy again. Soon after, he breathed no more. And that was my Friday. I think I played one game today. I don't wonder why. But brave Copper had his people with him at the end. Please, let it be so for us all.

Aww, that is sooo sad ... my condolences to you for your loss.

Parts of your story sounded familiar as I used to pet sit for my cousin's dog. He too was ill & soon would be visiting the vet to go peacefully. They had to work & didn't want him to be alone, so I cared for him during the time they couldn't. He ran around like a puppy, you'd never know he was ill.

I think they both Cooper & Curly knew their time was coming & wanted to enjoy every moment as long as they could as they enjoyed their time w/us & wanted to forever have that memory.

[bwt1213]

Aww, that is sooo sad ... my condolences to you for your loss.

Parts of your story sounded familiar as I used to pet sit for my cousin's dog. He too was ill & soon would be visiting the vet to go peacefully. They had to work & didn't want him to be alone, so I cared for him during the time they couldn't. He ran around like a puppy, you'd never know he was ill.

I think they both Cooper & Curly knew their time was coming & wanted to enjoy every moment as long as they could as they enjoyed their time w/us & wanted to forever have that memory.

I think you're right -- they do know their time is coming. Especially dogs who are seriously ill. They can mask it from us for a long time, but they know how ill they are. On their next to last day, they spend all the energy they have to deny reality even to themselves and pretend they are younger and healthy one last time. To be fair, many of us would probably do the same thing if we were able.

[Seamonster]

Seamonster and Folkslinger would like to also offer our heartfelt condolences on Copper's loss. We still grieve the loss of all our furry babies. We both have seen some of our animals that knew when it was time. We are sorry for your loss.

[floppers]

What is important is that Copper was a good and happy boy at the end. I have alway told the Offspring, on losing a pet (read family member), that its best that they pass before us, because they would be so sad to lose us, and that they would not have had the happy life they enjoyed, and we enjoyed with them, if we didn't have them. I'm telling myself as well. And I believe it. Copper spent his final years with you, and you with him, and that is the best. Hold that in your heart when you turn to tell him something, or come home and forget for a moment that he is not there. When our pups leave us, those feelings are bonus, let them bring a smile to your face.

[Naboka]

If the criteria for recycling is 40 games or 600 pints (should be points, but 600 pints?....) this is a special one for Balderdasha.

Screen Shot 2022-11-19 at 7.54.04 PM.png

[Razorflame]

Sorry for commandeering this thread, but I have a question: About how rare are the highest scoring single word boards? To me, they seem to be roughly 1:1000 or so.

[Naboka]

Kind of surprised by the value of synthetization dropping 8 points when adding an s.

Screen Shot 2022-12-16 at 7.21.40 AM.png

Adding a s to a word is such an adventure. It can turn a 6 point word into a 3 point one, or turn a 3 pointer into an 8 pointer.

Or change nothing.

Keeps you on your toes and thinking.

[2cute]

Kind of surprised by the value of synthetization dropping 8 points when adding an s.

Screen Shot 2022-12-16 at 7.21.40 AM.png

Adding a s to a word is such an adventure. It can turn a 6 point word into a 3 point one, or turn a 3 pointer into an 8 pointer.

Or change nothing.

Keeps you on your toes and thinking.

Why does the S lower or change the score?

[Spike1007]

Word score is based on word length, a rarity value, and any special letters used. The main reason adding or subtracting an S changes the score (aside from changing the word length a little) is the rarity value. I don't know how they're assigned, but in the example above, SYNTHETIZATIONS is considered "wide" while SYNTHETIZATION is "ultra-rare."

[Naboka]

While playing the "what word did lalatan find this time," was surprised by the disparity in point values between diagonalizing and rediagonalizing.

Despite having worked in at least 3 fields where the word might have come into play, have never ever ever come across diagonalize in actual use. Odd that it's somehow in wide usage.


Screen Shot 2023-01-02 at 3.43.40 PM.png

Maybe Spike used the term casually with his fellow mathematicians over afternoon tea with a frequency that....

pps: has anyone here every used this term outside this game?