Semantle: Can you think like a computer?

I hate this game

I got it in 45. Better!

My god Kim what does the inside of your brain look like?

320 guesses and I'm up to 991/1000 but I've danced all around my highest scoring answers and I'm out of ideas.

got it in 166 today - fluked a jump from word #689 to THE WORD - happily all "warm" guesses were in fact pointing me in the right direction and my mind didn't seize up

I spent 5 minutes trying to guess answers after I knew the word and couldn't get anything else in the top 10.

i tried this and got a couple in the top 10 - it's an interesting exercise! some words I would've imagined being pretty adjacent were way down the list

Dave informs me his user base is up to 76k?!?!?

I solved Semantle #17 in 22 guesses. Guess 8 was "hospital", very lucky.

Nice! 111 for me today, def easier than yesterday

I solved Semantle #17 in 51 guesses.

yeah this one seemed easier (not complaining)

121, took 63 guesses to get anything green then i took the roundabout route of professions, military ranks, scientists, psychiatrists etc, medical professions so I could have taken a shortcut there, but felt like a satisfying solve.

22 today. It's fascinating closing in on a vector.

115 today. I agree with Fizzles. It's great closing in once you're in the right ballpark.

lol, my first attempt and I just got a slight frisson of excitement getting a 20.16 after 20 odd much stone colder attempts, but I can see how the hunt could become addictive.

At the moment my top guess, at 28.01, is 'penis'.

Which I've just beaten with 'breast' (29.84)

which is quite funny knowing the answer, and that the word that really got me on the chase was helicopter at 22.36.

75 today. Love it when those green bars pop up.

OK, clitoris at 30.80. And yet I still can't shake the feeling I'm barking up the wrong tree

Yeah, it's hard to know where to go next after you've found clitoris.

Onward and upward, boring old kidney at 33.76

OK, got it at 77.

115 today. I agree with Fizzles. It's great closing in once you're in the right ballpark.

― Grandpont Genie, Tuesday, February 15, 2022 9:52 AM bookmarkflaglink

I think the bit where i started closing in was the difference between helicopter 22.36 and airplane 17.82, which caused me, after some mechanical guesses, to go for hospital

Interesting to note that both ill and sick were respectively 11.27 and 9.82.

Say if the hidden text stuff is annoying! but i find it all interesting enough to want to discuss some of the process!

my first top 1000 hitdiplomat 29.06 sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase but I hit pay gold with doctor 67.93. I must be good at this because it give me a very high score!

by the time those NYT cunts have put wordle behind a paywall I'm hoping to be averaging regular sub 100 scores on this.

36 today, ended with an incredibly satisfying series of three logical guesses that correctly closed the circle. david this is the best game

Got this one in 14. Also had a couple lucky early guesses.

got today's in 30, made a leap from mechanic to the secret word

Yeah my son beat my score today by a few guesses, he came to the answer by a different route though. my guesses went from star to celebrity to leader and then other notable types of people while he found it with the multiple body parts to anatomy to doctor etc.

I gave up on yesterdays because my 4 closest guesses were (iirc) PERHAPS, NEITHER, uhh maybe SILKILY??!, and EITHER. None of them were going to get me to the answer, in retrospect.

*cracks fingers* let's try today's.

Today's in 64. It took me a while to start scoring, and then when I did all mine were eye related, so I was in a similar ballpark but far too specific!

I did give up yesterday but only because I had to go to bed after having the page up all day to try new things - yes, I am one of those people who took "it's too hard" as a challenge. I got green scores at 25, 990 at 54, and then pages upon pages of green, very few of which were related to the answer in a way I would understand. My highest match was IRONICALLY, ffs. I was working on a few different strands, one was conjunctions and old-timey constructions (I had a lot of fun with inasmuches and heretofores), one was a sort of "quirky" adverb strand (QUIXOTICALLY and NEBULOUSLY and BIZARRELY all scored green), and I got a few that could theoretically have led me to the answer (SUBSEQUENTLY and CONSEQUENTLY), however more obvious matches like AFTERWARDS and LASTLY were cold, so I wasn't looking in that direction.

Honestly, I love this game despite the frustration at machine-calculated relations.

I had pretty much the same strands, emil.y! Less exhaustively than yours, I imagine, tho I even ran through all the contractions thinking maybe that was what made it "difficult."

I mean...SILKILY???! lol it's inexplicable.

Got it in 144! Possibly my best day yet tho I maybe took a funny route.

Got it in 25 today, which is my best yet.

Took me ages but I got there. Highest was tendon] for a long time, then cardiac which led me to implant and scalpel

I have no idea how anyone does these in less than 100. I think I kind of enjoy typing random words into a computer text box... as my ILX posting history will demonstrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol otm

I looked back on the "tail" one from the other day because I still had it open in a tab, and noted that while I got there from typing in "bird" then "flapping" then "wing" then various aeroplane/helicopter-related terms (it liked "propeller" and "rotor" quite a lot) and then typed "tail" while I was considering helicopter parts.

(I haven't spoiler-tagged these since it's not today's puzzle; sorry if anyone feels I should have done!)

Meanwhile, the names of various animals which have tails and particular noted behaviours thereof (dog, cat, pig) scored way less than bird, as did other things with tails (shirt and, uh, sperm), and things like "follow" and "stalk" which are synonyms of "tail" in some contexts scored cold too.

It's a mystery. But it's a fun mystery. Also kinder otm, such fun to type random words and follow weird tangents while imagining "the computer must be thinking really hard about why I chose this one!!"

xxp

I wouldn't feel bad at being crap at it, because you definitely aren't alone! But I feel like once you start getting a feel of how the word2vec data set works, then it will become even harder!

Kinder--I took a totally different route! My first hits in the green were BARBER and BEAUTICIAN, which then led (eventually) to CLINICIAN, and then I was in the home stretch. Random!

Just got the new one! 12 minutes, 108 guesses, but this is definitely a speed record for me.

I solved Semantle #18 in 133 guesses. Again, felt like a pretty linear process (rewardingly so) once I got the first green bar!

I solved Semantle #18 in 159 guesses. Went on a weird tangent when I got a hit on online, and then pay in the top 100.

got it in 127. sadly took me 70 tries after I got my first green to realize I'd been going the opposite path that it wanted.

benefits was my first word approximating 20% similarity, and then pension was the first that got me green. all of my work jargon was helpful this time around.

53, my best yet - got lucky with a green on my 9th guess

111, not too bad a showing. If I’d followed an instinct earlier I probably could have halved that, but I spent a long time chasing a dead end.

Meanwhile, the names of various animals which have tails and particular noted behaviours thereof (dog, cat, pig) scored way less than bird

I'm guessing this is because 'bird' is a larger class than 'dog', 'pig', etc, and any text about parts of a bird or a particular species will use the same other words (beak, wings) whereas if it's about a cat it will mention paws and whiskers, if it's a pig it will mention trotters and snout, etc. 'Nose' was pretty high up though.

From memory nose, snout and beak and maybe proboscis all scored pretty highly on that one - which had me totally stuck looking for “animal face parts” - didn’t think for a second to look at the other end!