Author Topic: Nothing, nada, nil!!!  (Read 14060 times)

technomc

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Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« on: August 08, 2007, 10:10:23 AM »
 Hi VIRAL, top 'o the morning to ya!!
I tried NULL, and nothing, nada, nil.....it wasn't allowed.
It is an English word meaning nothing...
And oft used in the phrase; 'Null and void'
Would you consider this one please?
Thanking you...

Alan W

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #1 on: August 08, 2007, 10:44:12 AM »
Morning, T

Thank you very much for pointing that out. I was astonished to read your post, because I couldn't believe null would be a non-presence in our word list, but I couldn't see how you could be mistaken about it.

It turns out that you've discovered a bug in our database. (Where are those spiders when we need 'em?) Apart from its general uses, null is also commonly used in computer programming circles to signify an absence of data. When I look in our word table, the entry after nuking looks something like this:           In other words, nothing there. Obviously when the data was loaded, the instruction to insert 'null' was interpreted as meaning insert no value.

So, skipping over the technicalities, the result is that, although null is sort-of present in our word list, it's more or less invisible - null by name and null by nature. As it turns out, there doesn't seem to have been a daily puzzle until now where this would be an issue, although it has cropped up in a few random ones.

It's not practical for me to fix this up for today's puzzle, but I will fix things so it's not an issue in the future.

Thanks again for alerting me to this, T, and good luck with the rest of the puzzle.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

a non-amos

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #2 on: August 08, 2007, 11:01:26 AM »
There appears to be another bug in the system.  I don't know if it is related to this null value.

My screen shows nobody with a star.  According to what's on the screen, nobody has yet found the nine letter word for today's challenge puzzle.

I know of at least one player who has.
Carpe digitus.
(Roughly translated, this is possibly the world's oldest "pull my finger" joke)

Tania

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #3 on: August 08, 2007, 11:19:02 AM »
I was wondering why I was the only one who had gotten it, seeing as it's not a hard word to find.  ???

Alan W

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #4 on: August 08, 2007, 11:27:58 AM »
Wow, what a disaster!

I'll see what I can do to fix things up, before I have a rebellion on my hands.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

Tania

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #5 on: August 08, 2007, 11:42:58 AM »
Now I have lost my star as well  :'( 

Alan W

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #6 on: August 08, 2007, 12:07:27 PM »
I've done what I can to fix things up. If you reload the page (you can use the F5 key on most browsers), you should be able to play null. However, I think you'll find that the list of words you've played include a lot of words you didn't play, and leave out a lot that you did play - including the nine-letter word, hence the lack of stars on the scoreboard. Things were out of synch because of the null problem. So, I expect the end result will be some players get much higher scores than usual, by the time they've re-played the words they played earlier.

Please let me know if you see any other anomalies.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

Dave

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #7 on: August 08, 2007, 12:09:12 PM »
Alan, unless I am going completely crazy there is a lot more weird behaviour in today's puzzle than the couple of things mentioned above.  I suddenly have a lot of words, almost all rare, appearing in my answer to the puzzle -- words that I did not put there -- and my score on the common words appears to have dropped, almost as if I had suddenly got somebody else's identity.

Is this just me, or what?

Yours sincerely,

Totally Bewildered ??? ??? ???
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerneā€¦

Tania

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2007, 12:16:30 PM »
The stars seem to be there, but yes I have lost about 12 words, mostly common (I think  :-\).  Now I have to try to remember them!!   :o

Alan W

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2007, 12:16:58 PM »
Our posts probably crossed, Dave. So, it's not just you - it's anyone who played during the first couple of hours of the puzzle. You now have the once in a lifetime opportunity to get credit for a bunch of words you've never heard of, and you can still re-play all the ones you do know.
Alan Walker
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Gaye

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #10 on: August 08, 2007, 12:19:57 PM »
What a blow - I'm too late to benefit from this little glitch!
Gaye
   :)

Alan W

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #11 on: August 08, 2007, 12:24:55 PM »
The stars seem to be there, but yes I have lost about 12 words, mostly common (I think  :-\).  Now I have to try to remember them!!   :o

It may help you in recalling those words to know that the words you were credited with were ones that come alphabetically just before the word you actually played.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

nenneke

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #12 on: August 08, 2007, 12:38:36 PM »
Hello Alan,  Please accept this as an official notice of my resignation from today`s game.  I was enjoying a mild buzz from being the first to find the nine-letter word, was fined a percentage for "null", read the relevant post and decided to take a break. I returned to find umpteen words I`ve never come across replacing those that I`d entered.  This sort of thing could lead to galloping lysdexia (sic), so I shall stick with the standard.   Nenneke

anonsi

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #13 on: August 08, 2007, 12:51:47 PM »
Darn...I'm too late to profit from the errors as well, Gaye.

Alan W

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Re: Nothing, nada, nil!!!
« Reply #14 on: August 08, 2007, 12:59:35 PM »
Please accept my apologies, nenneke. I would hate to see things get to the stage where you had to join the DNA (National Dyslexia Association).
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites