Semantle: Can you think like a computer?

xp PBKR - i feel like my extensive experience with charitable fundraising was a hindrance because i got over a dozen high 900s based on words used in the context of thank you letters written to donors but then i thought about the tendency for the words to be polysemous and i thought of the guesses that were somewhat close that were related to food and i got it.

63 today, only 2 greens then a lucky leap to the correct answer, always a nice double take when that happens

xp Several ppl have mentioned it, but the first green you get and the route you take can really make things harder or easier for you.

I solved Semantle #39 in 75 guesses.
My first guess (“wine”) had a similarity of 16.33.
My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #11 with “sweet” - got stuck on the sugary sense of it for too long, until “lovely” at guess #30 shot me up to 848. Still took me 45 (!) more guesses in the same realm (both adjectives and nouns) to finally get there.
My penultimate guess had a similarity of 27.46 (375/1000).

part of me thinks this might be a "better" game if you're given the #1000 word from the start. a lot of the time it doesn't feel like getting into the green is an actual skill, just random chance. but that's not true, some people are clearly better at it than others

got puzzle #40 in 53 guesses. largest leap so far, only had 3 in the green and closest was 356/1000

50, trying an animal-vegetable-mineral type of approach to early guesses

Got it in 41. Struck the high greens at 13, then just a question of trying out a bunch of words in the general area.

I solved Semantle #40 in 59 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 2.12. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #42. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 6.75. I was due!

johnny, I had only two in the greens, and the closest was...356/1000.

I solved Semantle #40 in 41 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -0.66. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #7. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 33.31 (937/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

Best one for me in a while

I solved Semantle #40 in 71 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 1.10. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #40. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 14.97. https://semantle.novalis.org/

I’ll take it!

part of me thinks this might be a "better" game if you're given the #1000 word from the start. a lot of the time it doesn't feel like getting into the green is an actual skill, just random chance.

hmm not sure I agree with this - there's been a lot of times where following a thread from the 10-15 guess range eventually got me into the greens. Today it was "computer", which led v quickly to "device", a low green.

but yeah, definitely not fun on the days where it takes ages to get there though.

i mean i don't agree with it either

I solved Semantle #40 in 78 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 11.19. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #7. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 43.35 (991/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

got to 998 fairly early and was stuck there forever

I solved Semantle #40 in 66 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 7.78. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #38. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 22.30 (102/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

Maybe the most satisfying Semantle for me ever, in that my winning guess neatly combined two different lines of inquiry, music-related and group leader related. Normally I'm desperately trying to branch out from a single approach.

I solved Semantle #40 in 57 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -1.00. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #35. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 25.81 (619/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

my winning guess neatly combined two different lines of inquiry

Nice. I was stuck on president and leader for a while - so tempting to just hammer out synonyms but they weren't even top ten so it had to be something slightly more tangential.

I solved Semantle #40 in 73 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 4.27. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #6. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 25.21 (569/1000).

I solved Semantle #40 in 93 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 9.23. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #9. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 15.07.

I went down a musician wormhole but diverged from soloist and vocalist to find the word.

I solved Semantle #40 in 39 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 6.45. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #26. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 31.68 (909/1000).

95 today. Interested to see other people's paths, I basically followed the same chain as calzino, got stuck writing down every single musician type - violinist, trombonist, pianist etc - that I could think of before moving more laterally.

My 1st green was 'voice' on 26 guesses. There are lots of directions you could potentially go from there but luckily for me my higher greens to get me to the solution included both 'megaphone' and 'microphone'.

xp

yeah I did the whole orchestra as well lol, with the forlorn hope one of them might miraculously be the right one!

I solved Semantle #40 in 61 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -1.00. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #8. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 30.66 (882/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

Was surprised to finally get it - all my close guesses were stuff like "leader", "president", "elected", "governor", etc.

same, i was stuck on legislator, parliamentarian, lawmaker, leader, politician - guessed "orator" on a whim and got the answer next guess

nearly done the whole bloody orchestra and related terms and am on 935/10000 fuuuuuuuck. realised it’s some like beach or something and i just haven’t made some sort of obvious in retrospect lateral jump.

I solved Semantle #40 in 8 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 1.01. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #6. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 20.47.

Insane, sheer blind dumb luck, I was listening to Eleventh Dream Day when I opened up the tab, so my second guess was "guitar" which led to "feedback", "music", "noise" and "amplifier".

I solved Semantle #40 in 66 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 4.77. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #6. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 27.04 (728/1000).

I solved Semantle #41 in 23 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 6.47. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #12. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 18.35 (41/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

Wooooo needed this today!

Gave up after getting every word from 988 to 998 and then spinning out - I thought I'd already guessed the answer

124 - but I was completely lost until the last 3 guesses

I solved Semantle #41 in 46 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -4.23. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #15. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 51.22 (991/1000).

First green guess was 950/1000. After that, all my little sidetrips were just that -- little.

This is the first puzzle where I said "This has got to be the answer" and it was!

I solved Semantle #41 in 41 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 7.62. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #20. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 42.17 (977/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

I solved Semantle #41 in 57 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 0.56. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #4. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 48.15 (988/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

i hate spending this much time in the green. got stuck in a technology profession loop (programmer, technician, etc) before trying "controller" for some reason, which got me to leader and then director.

I solved Semantle #41 in 34 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -0.36. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #8. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 21.41 (466/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

two good days in a row yay

I solved Semantle #41 in 46 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 2.42. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #28. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 26.28 (765/1000).

I solved Semantle #41 in 49 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -2.19. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #41. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 66.64 (998/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

lol at “speaker” yesterday. i was getting high scores for pianist, violinist and my highest for soloist. totally got me in a the wrong space. needed to go back down and work up again.

I solved Semantle #41 in 44 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 10.69. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #10. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 43.43 (981/1000).

got agency + department after a dozen guesses, which led in a straight line towards boss and it was a lot easier going than yesterday.

people who got to ‘speaker’ via hi fi means are very fortunate! i spent forever trying to think of obscure parliamentary terms (admittedly i should have thought of speaker sooner).

also makes me think that sometimes word2vec is better at polysemy than other times (i guess more equal representation of each meaning in its reference marerial?)

I solved Semantle #41 in 34 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 6.30. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #32. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 19.06 (155/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

one more like this and my average might get below 150!

I solved Semantle #41 in 52 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 8.84. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #5. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 43.68 (983/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

I solved Semantle #41 in 53 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -9.65. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #8. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 31.24 (888/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/

Tantalizing one - almost half my guesses were in the green, actually got #998 at guess 25

92. God damn all of you guys!

i had actually quit playing for a few days, given up early because I was getting frustrated, but yesterday I did a speed run where instead of thinking about it, I just rapid fire started guessing words, and that seemed to help a lot. that and the path being a little more linear.

think when I move slower, I tend to just do the synonym olympics rather than being instinctual

satisfying 29 today, just pipped by two of my friends by one guess which is a little less satisfying

I solved Semantle #41 in 103 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of -0.99. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #80. (!!!!!!!!!).
My penultimate guess had a similarity of 22.35 (560/1000).

What the hell! I never had so much trouble getting a decent score in - first 15+ word at guess #35.

why though do we get a very similar word to the one we had yesterday?

“similar” depends on your vector i think (again i use vector irresponsibly). unless you mean “a noun”.

see yermans point about “feedback” and me being stuck on “soloist”

one thing i’ve found myself doing quite early on, without any sense of whether it’s a viable heuristic, is do “city” and “country” or sometimes “urban” and “rural” to divide between “natural” and intensively human spheres. both of the last two days have been “city” based definitely but not sure that makes them the same as such.

another one is whether things are spatial (geography) or time based (history).

please to be clear my success rate is rubbish. however i will stick to my superstitious success heuristics. #cargocult

please Fizzles don’t spoiler!

as in you’re openly responding to my hidden comment