Comments

[Naboka]

"While making roasted Brussels sprouts . . ." Roast them with cumin seeds and make a drizzle of agave nectar and Dijon mustard (add some mustard whisk and taste then adjust until you get the flavor profile you prefer). Another nice way is to toss the Brussels sprouts in rendered guanciale fat roast them and then toss them with the diced browned guanciale and drizzle with a little maple syrup,

Yum.

The wife's a lacto vegetarian so no guanciale. And she's not prone to experimentation with food. When she finds something she likes, that's it. She knows exactly what she's getting at any restaurant we frequent.

This batch I just used salt and pepper. Not especially flavorful. Organic ones from Costco. Think I'm gonna try the cumin/agave/dijon. She does like mustard

And thanks BoggleOtaku. Life just goes better when we're able to give something worthwhile to others. I've always been a bit of a self-absorbed twit. But long ago, I realised that the most selfish thing you can do is make others happy. Seems contradictory, but the rewards far exceed anything one gets from being merely about one's self--selfish. Not that it's completely cured my self-absorbed twittishness, but...

[dannyb]

"While making roasted Brussels sprouts . . ." Roast them with cumin seeds and make a drizzle of agave nectar and Dijon mustard (add some mustard whisk and taste then adjust until you get the flavor profile you prefer). Another nice way is to toss the Brussels sprouts in rendered guanciale fat roast them and then toss them with the diced browned guanciale and drizzle with a little maple syrup,

[BoggleOtaku]

Naboka, I found your sleuthing analysis facinating, and it also helped me understand why the "tempest in the teapot", to quote your characterization of it. It made reading this thread worthwhile for me. Thanks for sharing!

[Naboka]

While making roasted brussel sprouts I thought about coming up and playing a game or so while they cooked. It struck me that my wife and I had never discussed this tempest in a teapot. I had asked her if she had any darks for the laundry. She discussed whether we wanted a live edge for the mantle. There were hundreds of things we had talked about during this time. But not this.

Why?

It's not really important. A little entertaining. But just a little. If I were reading a novel and the answers we're looking for here were the incentive to turn the page, I'd undoubtedly return the book to the library.

My wife and I sometimes engage in a battle of good vs evil. She's the good. And, like in Star Wars and every other epic, good tends to win. It's not like that in real life, but what the heck. She's kicking my butt in ours, making me see the advantage of her viewpoint over mine.

If I bothered to bring up this subject and explain it, she would look at me with that you-don't-have-anything-better-to-do-with-your-time look. A scathing look. Withering. Humbling. The one thing she would ask would be, "have you ever considered what might be going on in their life?" Did they lose a loved one? Did they get fired? Are they just socially inept and desperate for attention? We just don't know what goes on in anyone else's life.

Maybe what he's doing protects him from life's absurdities.

Living with a decent person has gradually eroded the cliffs of my cruelty. But its was day after day, wave after wave, one grain at a time. Nothing said on these forums or any other will change who we are , will change our morals, will change our justifications for what we do. We can't change anyone. They have to change themselves. It's like the lesson we give every kindergartener: "can we make you want to do your best work? Can we get inside your brain and make you learn?" The answer is inevitably "no." They have to do it themselves. They're the ones who have to want to be honest. They're the ones who have to want to use their brains to do the work vs stealing what their neighbor's done.

"Don't rob their brain," is a constant for the kids. They have to decide. They have to do the work. Not all of them will ever learn those lessons. A percentage will grow up dependent on what exists outside their brains to get through life. They'll become workers who claim to have done the work someone else has done. So many things they'll end up doing because they never learned.

But, each of has to make our own choices and whatever choices any other player makes here really has no impact on my life at all. I don't know what burdens anyone else here has --or doesn't.

It's just not my place to think for anyone and make them better. That's their job.

[lalatan]

Fair enough, Boulevardiere. If anyone plays w/o cheating it's all good with me. I didn't consider your alternative explanation of a sudden appearance with abilities. I started out as a speed player 10 years ago but I didn't sign in for the first few months until I could come up with decent scores. Just practised then. So I get it. Enjoy the games.

[Boulevardiere]

In the long word game, the last year I have seen many hitherto unseen names in the best word competition list with 20-24 letter words played. There were also a few usernames there I have never seen on ANY best/longest word record. Seems like there's some cheating going on but no way to prove it. Just have to accept playing along with fraudsters...

I can't remember when I actually joined (I suppose it'll say when I post this), but I played for years before that without an account. Never will I ever approach the point totals of the best or even average players, but I enjoy looking for long and unusual words. One day, I thought it might be vaguely interesting to put my weird/long/scientific words on the record. As a casual player, I did not expect there to be so much discussion and controversy around the "ethics" of the game, and I'd just as soon go back to playing signed out if the way I play bothered people – although I don't play with enough dedication (or talent) to be likely to cause a stir.

Whether people are cheating or not (and some of them surely are; they're people, after all), I just thought I'd offer this possible alternative explanation for someone seemingly showing up out of nowhere with long words. Ignorance of unspoken rules isn't necessarily a good defense, but it's a common one.

[Brisul]

Seems like there's some cheating going on but no way to prove it. Just have to accept playing along with fraudsters...

I wish we didn't have to accept it. I'd prefer to not accept it. This game is not easy and I am not even a good typist.

[lalatan]

I had a look at mpd's stats a couple of months ago. When he started in Feb 2023 he puttered along (compared to his present standard) at 642-749 wpg for 4 months. Then there were quantum leaps of 100-150 ppg from his previous monthly ppg high, culminating in last month's peak of 1078 ppg. Never saw that before but it could be possible, I suppose. I compared his best month of typing with MegaWord's on 4x4. He came in at 97 wpm compared to MegaWord's 104 wpm. We know MegaWord has been ramping up his typing speed for 12 years. We have seen numerous videos of him playing such games. We have seen 1 of fasteddieb playing a game. I became a true believer of their mind-blowing abilities after seeing them. We have seen none of mpd's and never will by his account. So I am officially a skeptic. I think it would be fairly easy for admin to record some of his games once it was detected he was online and then analyze whether it is legit or not, as naboka did with MegaWord's videos. However it seems Stephen doesn't want to be an arbiter of fair gameplay, understandably so. He has enough to do running this website of multiple puzzles.

In the long word game, the last year I have seen many hitherto unseen names in the best word competition list with 20-24 letter words played. There were also a few usernames there I have never seen on ANY best/longest word record. Seems like there's some cheating going on but no way to prove it. Just have to accept playing along with fraudsters...

[Brisul]

Just out of curiosity, I tallied what happened today. Sometimes our memories are weird. So far I have scrolled through 753 games, played 35 (of which I dumped 22--so 13 recorded), ran across just one of my games. Sure saw a lot of games for Turbo, tufts, skinnylaura2, jbud1980, Stolch14, emerging, dannyboy and others. I feel greivously under-represented. And there sure are a lot of low-word-count games today.

I was just looking for games that I might be able to score 701 or better. A thousand point player would have had double the opportunities I took.

Maybe I'm in the wrong lane or wrong time zone or something. Can't imagine how many games I'd have to go through to find 10 of mine in a day.

Beginning to feel sorry for someone willing to put in that much effort for whatever drives them. Seems a bit finger twirling around the ear to me. All I can say is good luck to them and I hope they find whatever they're working so hard for. I wouldn't expend that kind of effort. Just too lazy I guess.

If admin would like, they can transfer a couple thousand of my records to any person who wants them that badly. Means naught to me. Just submit this check to admin for 2,000 free highest score records deducted from my account. If it were a bank, there's sometimes a bowl of candy.

Your comments have made this whole thread worth while. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed!

[Naboka]

Whenever I play, I have to scroll through hundreds of games before I come across one that I think may have the kind of numbers I need. It's actually really frustrating and kind of a deterrent to playing. In one month, I usually play anywhere between 50-60 games, and in all that time, I may come across one of my own scores once in a whole month!

Just out of curiosity, I tallied what happened today. Sometimes our memories are weird. So far I have scrolled through 753 games, played 35 (of which I dumped 22--so 13 recorded), ran across just one of my games. Sure saw a lot of games for Turbo, tufts, skinnylaura2, jbud1980, Stolch14, emerging, dannyboy and others. I feel greivously under-represented. And there sure are a lot of low-word-count games today.

I was just looking for games that I might be able to score 701 or better. A thousand point player would have had double the opportunities I took.

Maybe I'm in the wrong lane or wrong time zone or something. Can't imagine how many games I'd have to go through to find 10 of mine in a day.

Beginning to feel sorry for someone willing to put in that much effort for whatever drives them. Seems a bit finger twirling around the ear to me. All I can say is good luck to them and I hope they find whatever they're working so hard for. I wouldn't expend that kind of effort. Just too lazy I guess.

If admin would like, they can transfer a couple thousand of my records to any person who wants them that badly. Means naught to me. Just submit this check to admin for 2,000 free highest score records deducted from my account. If it were a bank, there's sometimes a bowl of candy.

post script: this is the next day and I've already run across 2 within the first 150 games. It's also a day full of bigger boards so far.

[bwt1213]

We've also had a lot of cats. One of the last was one I called "Outer" and the girls called "Mikie". Outer was an outside cat the girls fed when he wasn't much more than a kitten. He was semi-feral, male, and very large and not fat. I did weigh him when he was mature and fit and I think it was 23 pounds, or maybe my memory is faulty and it was 21. But he was large. The girls fed him with lots of cat kibble in an aluminum pie pan (the kind left over when you buy a pie from a grocery store). One night, a male raccoon decided that the cat kibble was for him, and Outer objected. In the end, there was an eviscerated and very dead 45 lb (20 kg) raccoon in our front yard -- a good 50 yards from the pie tin and kibble, and Outer with a serious gash through his shoulder and down his side that put him in the animal hospital for several weeks (that's when he was neutered). Outer moved with us when we moved, and had no trouble with coyotes, or foxes, or other predators -- either he learned to leave them alone or hide, or he just flat scared them. But Outer was a Nemesis for all rodent pests. All our other cats were house cats, and most lived at least 15 years because of that. Outer lived only about 8, and FIV eventually did him in. The girls had two cats they grew up with: Cleokitra and Betty Grayball. Both lived to be about 18. The younger girl got a replacement for Betty Grayball, which she named Houdini (Betty didn't like her, so Houdini disappeared for a few days, hence the name). Houdini lived to be about 20, by which time my younger daughter had several dogs -- who loved Houdini and she loved them, with pictures to prove it.

[Naboka]

Thanks for the thorough answer, Naboka.

I'm sorry about your cat. I have 5 cats, from which you can accurately deduce how I feel about felines.

Funny but true: just before I checked the forum, I played a game where RussDNails had the high score, and I beat him. That's never happened before and is unlikely to happen again - he's a much better player than I am. (I'm guessing the phone rang or there was some other interruption that artificially depressed his score.) But it was a humorous coincidence.

Congrats on the humorous coincidence.

We love cats too. Had at least 2 for decades. But...

It's no fun when you come down stairs and discover a couple of brand new $700 chairs shredded. Or you spend over a grand carpeting a stairway, only to see it slowly destroyed as a scratching post.

My favorite cat was a 20 lb monster Snowshoe mix. Coloring like a Siamese with blue eyes. Loved the outdoors. When we moved to this new house, he solved a huge mole problem for us and all the surrounding houses. Liked to gift us their corpses. He was tough enough to walk away from a fight with a fox. I heard battle sounds out back, ran to the window and saw them going at it. When I pounded on the glass and yelled they ignored me. So I ran to the back door, grabbing a carbine from the study on the way. By the time I got to there Blue was casually walking up the deck and the fox was racing through the woods. Guess the much bigger fox thought he was going to have an easy meal. The cat just looked at me like he didn't have a care in the world. I rewarded him with some of the left over salmon.

Lots of fun cat stories. But, with the kids now gone and Gracie being the last feline, we're decorating with nicer furniture we don't want destroyed. So no more cats. I can only watch cat videos on line now and reminisce.

[Brisul]

The answer was in that post. It might be vague.

Though you don't have to worry about RussDNails knowing it was you who beat him. Even if you did, he'd probably think good for you.
I'm hoping to see Tufts kick my butt one of these days.

A while back I started logging my stats at the end of the day. Picked that up from Lalatan. So, I would know what my total accumulated high scores were. I also track how many games I play that day as well as how many were on boards I'd played (you only get a best total once, play it again and beat it you still only have one best.) So, if I had 1,000 record highs, played 15 games and got the record on all of them (best case scenario) I would end up with 1, 015--unless I'd played myself once, then it would be 1,014. Of course, I don't win every game so...

My goal mostly is to retire a particular board and put it back into circulation.

Anyway, for months I had been holding steady on the counts, sometimes I'd be playing and notice an extra loss so I'd check who's on line to see who could have beaten me. Usually it would be ThunderRock, boysmom or Megaword. Then, suddenly my total scores started taking serious losses. At first it was 4-8 a day, and could go 12 or more. Initially I couldn't spot who was doing the damage.

Then I did.

So I looked up their player stats and started tracking how many games they were playing. Turned out I could look at my losses and fairly predictably guess how many they had played. If I had 8 losses they would have played 40 ish games. (modified by knowing one of the afore mentioned players had taken a bite.) In a short span in May my losses were minus 7,8,1,3,2,0,2,4,8,12. All to one player when the normal loss rate would be around 3-4 in a week from all other players combined. And his games played were give or take 5 times those totaled.

So, 20% ish.

Since I factor how many times I play myself, I have a pretty good idea how often my games show up versus other players. And since I skip through probably 10 games before finding one I want to play, and because I dump 2/3's of the games I start, I would estimate that I go through 300 games to record 10. And because I don't even see boards with my name every day the math on how many games a player has to skip through to play 20% of their games against me and beat me 12 times in one day is staggering.

Creepy staggering. Made me wonder what would motivate such a thing.

I don't care about the losses. Everybody loses games. I'm not more deserving of wins than anyone else here. I don't even enjoy beating most players because it takes a win from them. It's like when I find a $20 bill and feel sorry for the person who lost it. Chances are they needed it far more than I did.

At first I was a bit ticked, wondering what the hell is wrong with this person? What the hell did I do to make them so obsessed with my games? They had to be skipping dozens of high scoring games to find mine with such a high frequency. If I played 40 games in a day and retired all 40, I doubt that I would have played anyone more than twice. And if I did the same thing the next day, that person might not be on the list at all. I don't know how many tens of thousands of games are here. over 60,000 for sure.

Anyway, it was simple investigation and tallying. Plus, a little provocation to flush out some answers. The answers never came, but I didn't really expect them. Some people you know you can trust, some you can't. But sometimes by provoking a person you can get part of the truth. Cops to it all the time. Crazy the things you learn by what a person says and what they don't say, plus what they refuse to say.

Such is the world.

Got to go. The wife wants to go look at carpet. Our last cat died and had taking to use the stairs as a litter box. Poor thing.

Whenever I play, I have to scroll through hundreds of games before I come across one that I think may have the kind of numbers I need. It's actually really frustrating and kind of a deterrent to playing. In one month, I usually play anywhere between 50-60 games, and in all that time, I may come across one of my own scores once in a whole month!

[BoredInTheCar]

Thanks for the thorough answer, Naboka.

I'm sorry about your cat. I have 5 cats, from which you can accurately deduce how I feel about felines.

Funny but true: just before I checked the forum, I played a game where RussDNails had the high score, and I beat him. That's never happened before and is unlikely to happen again - he's a much better player than I am. (I'm guessing the phone rang or there was some other interruption that artificially depressed his score.) But it was a humorous coincidence.

[Naboka]

Okay, first - I have no dog in this fight. I haven't particularly noticed scores by mpd - do they mostly play 4x4? Never mind, it doesn't matter.

What I am curious about is - how the heck would you know that someone had a "20% stalking rate"? There must be ways to look at past game data that I am completely unaware of.

The "stalking" part is, in my very limited understanding, technically possible - if what you mean is, someone flips through game after game after game looking at who has the high score, then playing only games where the high score is from a particular player. That would be tedious but doable. For example, I don't "stalk" RussDNails, but I do like to play the same games he does - if he scores 900+ I can usually score 700+, which for me is pretty good.

But ... let's assume (falsely!) that I actually beat his scores. How would he know that I had come through after him, played the same game and beat him? Further, how would he know what percentage of my total games played were ones where he had previously held the high score?

(Oh wait ... do you get more data if you are a premium player? Maybe that's the answer.)

The answer was in that post. It might be vague.

Though you don't have to worry about RussDNails knowing it was you who beat him. Even if you did, he'd probably think good for you.
I'm hoping to see Tufts kick my butt one of these days.

A while back I started logging my stats at the end of the day. Picked that up from Lalatan. So, I would know what my total accumulated high scores were. I also track how many games I play that day as well as how many were on boards I'd played (you only get a best total once, play it again and beat it you still only have one best.) So, if I had 1,000 record highs, played 15 games and got the record on all of them (best case scenario) I would end up with 1, 015--unless I'd played myself once, then it would be 1,014. Of course, I don't win every game so...

My goal mostly is to retire a particular board and put it back into circulation.

Anyway, for months I had been holding steady on the counts, sometimes I'd be playing and notice an extra loss so I'd check who's on line to see who could have beaten me. Usually it would be ThunderRock, boysmom or Megaword. Then, suddenly my total scores started taking serious losses. At first it was 4-8 a day, and could go 12 or more. Initially I couldn't spot who was doing the damage.

Then I did.

So I looked up their player stats and started tracking how many games they were playing. Turned out I could look at my losses and fairly predictably guess how many they had played. If I had 8 losses they would have played 40 ish games. (modified by knowing one of the afore mentioned players had taken a bite.) In a short span in May my losses were minus 7,8,1,3,2,0,2,4,8,12. All to one player when the normal loss rate would be around 3-4 in a week from all other players combined. And his games played were give or take 5 times those totaled.

So, 20% ish.

Since I factor how many times I play myself, I have a pretty good idea how often my games show up versus other players. And since I skip through probably 10 games before finding one I want to play, and because I dump 2/3's of the games I start, I would estimate that I go through 300 games to record 10. And because I don't even see boards with my name every day the math on how many games a player has to skip through to play 20% of their games against me and beat me 12 times in one day is staggering.

Creepy staggering. Made me wonder what would motivate such a thing.

I don't care about the losses. Everybody loses games. I'm not more deserving of wins than anyone else here. I don't even enjoy beating most players because it takes a win from them. It's like when I find a $20 bill and feel sorry for the person who lost it. Chances are they needed it far more than I did.

At first I was a bit ticked, wondering what the hell is wrong with this person? What the hell did I do to make them so obsessed with my games? They had to be skipping dozens of high scoring games to find mine with such a high frequency. If I played 40 games in a day and retired all 40, I doubt that I would have played anyone more than twice. And if I did the same thing the next day, that person might not be on the list at all. I don't know how many tens of thousands of games are here. over 60,000 for sure.

Anyway, it was simple investigation and tallying. Plus, a little provocation to flush out some answers. The answers never came, but I didn't really expect them. Some people you know you can trust, some you can't. But sometimes by provoking a person you can get part of the truth. Cops to it all the time. Crazy the things you learn by what a person says and what they don't say, plus what they refuse to say.

Such is the world.

Got to go. The wife wants to go look at carpet. Our last cat died and had taking to use the stairs as a litter box. Poor thing.