I'd say about 90% of programming is lining up all the ducks so you can easily knock them down with one shot. And then if you need to knock them down again later, they're still nicely in line. I love the magic moment when you finally get to take that shot ( Read more... )

After several close calls in the past few weeks, I finally got 100% on the Aerolith 6s daily challenge today. I didn't even have to do too much random guessing. I've been studying words of all lengths 2-8 every day for a couple months now, and it's really been helping. For the 6s, I've made it through 5,700 out of 15,788 words, or about 36% so far.

I haven't made a whole lot of personal posts lately, but this one is a little more personal than usual ( Read more... )

Zyzzyva Lite version 1.0.0 is now available in the App Store! This free "lite" version of the app only includes word judge and search functions. Quiz functionality will be available in the full Zyzzyva app by the end of this year. You can get Zyzzyva Lite here ( Read more... )

magratheazaphod asked me whether it is possible to create lists of words that have M anagrams in one lexicon and N anagrams in another. For example, is it possible to create a list of CSW07 words that have 2 anagrams, only 1 of which is acceptable in OWL2 ( Read more... )

My study plan is still on track so far. I just hit 4000 for 6s, 7s, and 8s. That's about 25% of the way through the 6s, 17% through the 7s, and 13% through the 8s. Wow, there are a lot of 8s ( Read more... )

The very first word to make it to cardbox 4 in my current study regimen is not one I would have ever predicted ( Read more... )

This past week, I was interviewed by Tim Harford of the BBC 4 radio programme "More or Less" regarding an interesting Scrabble situation. The interview has just been posted on the BBC site ( Read more... )

I think I might have mentioned that I'm sick of not knowing the dictionary. I really dislike when an opponent plonks down a bingo and I have to wonder about whether I should know it or not. The obvious solution is, of course, to learn every single word, so that's what I'm going to do. (OWL for now.)

( Find out how... )

I have a database of locations of books in my house, and this literally just happened:

sqlite> select box from books where author like '%Dante%';
6
6
6