Rounds: Here.
The chat with Norm is pretty contentless tonight, as it was last night. I don't really feel that we've had much chance to learn about him at all.
Tonight's challenger is Hans Pieterse, a sales manager. He works in the bearing industry, and points out (with some prompting from Richard) that an awful lot of things today depend on them. As he puts it, "everything that moves or rolls uses a bearing", so (amongst other things) there would be no power or transport without bearings.
Norm is in very good form tonight -- it's easily the best he has played -- and left very little chance to overtake him. Hans found some good words, but they were just short of being long enough, and Norm kept scoring the points. Norm did well on the numbers also, and very much against form it took the conundrum to stop him. He steamrolled his way to a 62 to 6 victory, and becomes a retiring champion with a total of 369 points. Last series that would have put him in second place, and I'm predicting that he will be either first or second this series.
I actually had a good game also, but I just could not get away from Norm. There were chances, but they certainly weren't easy ones. I had an eight point lead going into the conundrum, which was very nervous territory; it proved too difficult for me also, and I was fortunate that Norm was likewise stumped as he has been excellent throughout on the conundrums. So a tense win by default, that could easily have gone another way.
Showing posts with label Norm Do. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norm Do. Show all posts
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Ep 404: Norm Do, Diana Greenslade (March 15, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
It was really hard to resist the temptation to simply title this post "Ep 404: Not found". I hope you appreciate my forebearance. *chuckles*
Richard mentions that Norm has been pretty consistent about solving the conundrums and also finding seven letter words. Norm responds that it doesn't usually happen like that at home, although seven letter words are what he aims for.
Tonight's challenger is oceanographer Diana Greenslade. Diana works on the Australian Tsunami Warning System, an initiative started after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004; the System went operational in 2008. She has been leading the scientific development of it -- running the computer models that provide the underlying basis for the forecasters, who can then choose whether to issue a warning or not.
Diana gets an early lead, but Norm claims most of it back in the next round with a very nice word. The sevens are hard to come by tonight, but he finds another to take the lead. The contestants are matched throughout in the numbers and so it comes down to the conundrum, with Norm leading. It's a disconcerting mix but Norm sees his way through it once more to solve it and take his fifth win, 59 to 43.
I had a decent game, solving all the numbers and getting mostly maximal results in the letters; the two cases where I could have done better involved words I did not know in the first, and a word I wasn't certain of in the second. So the only negative mark here is how I froze up on the conundrum, eventually finding the solution three seconds after Norm. Still and all, a comfortable win, and a nice result after yesterday's game.
It was really hard to resist the temptation to simply title this post "Ep 404: Not found". I hope you appreciate my forebearance. *chuckles*
Richard mentions that Norm has been pretty consistent about solving the conundrums and also finding seven letter words. Norm responds that it doesn't usually happen like that at home, although seven letter words are what he aims for.
Tonight's challenger is oceanographer Diana Greenslade. Diana works on the Australian Tsunami Warning System, an initiative started after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004; the System went operational in 2008. She has been leading the scientific development of it -- running the computer models that provide the underlying basis for the forecasters, who can then choose whether to issue a warning or not.
Diana gets an early lead, but Norm claims most of it back in the next round with a very nice word. The sevens are hard to come by tonight, but he finds another to take the lead. The contestants are matched throughout in the numbers and so it comes down to the conundrum, with Norm leading. It's a disconcerting mix but Norm sees his way through it once more to solve it and take his fifth win, 59 to 43.
I had a decent game, solving all the numbers and getting mostly maximal results in the letters; the two cases where I could have done better involved words I did not know in the first, and a word I wasn't certain of in the second. So the only negative mark here is how I froze up on the conundrum, eventually finding the solution three seconds after Norm. Still and all, a comfortable win, and a nice result after yesterday's game.
Ep 403: Norm Do, Gavin Griffith (March 14, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Richard talks with Norm a little about how Norm helps train students for the mathematical olympiads. As Norm says, it basically involves feeding them maths problems and letting them go at it. I'll note from personal experience that there is a lot more done in the way of teaching and discussion about the problems, but fundamentally that is the approach: Get students working on challenging problems, see what they make of them, and then suggest ways in which they might find more helpful approaches to them.
Tonight's challenger is Gavin Griffith, a primary school teacher. Seven years ago Gavin "stumbled upon" a sports camp in America, and since then has spent pretty much every American summer there (from about May through to September), dealing with around 260 kids playing a variety of sports. As Richard points out, this means that Gavin more-or-less gets a perpetual summer, or at the very least avoids winter. The camp involves a lot of team sports; Gavin says that he isn't that good at the sports but makes sure that they play safely and have a good time.
Norm gets an early lead due to a longer word and an error from Gavin in the numbers. Gavin misses a couple of chances to create longer words by prefixing in the next two letters rounds, thereby giving up seven points instead of gaining them. Norm makes a mistake in the second numbers round to give some of the large lead back, but manages to ride his remaining eleven point lead into the conundrum for safety. Once again Norm solves it, a bit short of halfway, to end up winning 61 to 40.
I had a very disappointing night tonight. Two words turned out to be invalid (I didn't get any longest word within time) and I was uncomfortably far away on one numbers round. It was a night for seeing better answers within five seconds of time running out, which is always a bit frustrating. I was actually behind going into the conundrum, but honestly fortunate to still have a chance by that point since it needed Norm's error to bring me back into contention. I solved the conundrum quickly to escape with a very lucky win, perhaps making up for some poor luck in the game.
Richard talks with Norm a little about how Norm helps train students for the mathematical olympiads. As Norm says, it basically involves feeding them maths problems and letting them go at it. I'll note from personal experience that there is a lot more done in the way of teaching and discussion about the problems, but fundamentally that is the approach: Get students working on challenging problems, see what they make of them, and then suggest ways in which they might find more helpful approaches to them.
Tonight's challenger is Gavin Griffith, a primary school teacher. Seven years ago Gavin "stumbled upon" a sports camp in America, and since then has spent pretty much every American summer there (from about May through to September), dealing with around 260 kids playing a variety of sports. As Richard points out, this means that Gavin more-or-less gets a perpetual summer, or at the very least avoids winter. The camp involves a lot of team sports; Gavin says that he isn't that good at the sports but makes sure that they play safely and have a good time.
Norm gets an early lead due to a longer word and an error from Gavin in the numbers. Gavin misses a couple of chances to create longer words by prefixing in the next two letters rounds, thereby giving up seven points instead of gaining them. Norm makes a mistake in the second numbers round to give some of the large lead back, but manages to ride his remaining eleven point lead into the conundrum for safety. Once again Norm solves it, a bit short of halfway, to end up winning 61 to 40.
I had a very disappointing night tonight. Two words turned out to be invalid (I didn't get any longest word within time) and I was uncomfortably far away on one numbers round. It was a night for seeing better answers within five seconds of time running out, which is always a bit frustrating. I was actually behind going into the conundrum, but honestly fortunate to still have a chance by that point since it needed Norm's error to bring me back into contention. I solved the conundrum quickly to escape with a very lucky win, perhaps making up for some poor luck in the game.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Ep 402: Norm Do, Casey Duggan (March 13, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Norm is asked to explain the difference between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. He says that pure mathematics is more abstract and is motivated by ideas, whereas applied mathematics is mathematics in the field and is motivated by real-world problems. He adds that -- despite the rivalry between the two areas -- the actual division is somewhat nebulous.
Tonight's challenger is product manager Casey Duggan. Last year she went on a bear-viewing holiday with her husband. This was in an Alaskan national park, and every day they would go and watch bears catching fish and doing other bear-like things. These were big brown bears, catching salmon in the streams, etc. At times they were only a couple of metres away, which sounds pretty worrying to me. Their guide had a can of "bear spray" (a variety of pepper spray) as their only defense, which... well, just as well it was not needed, anyway.
Both contestants start with an invalid word (the same one, in fact), and match results a couple of later times, but mostly Norm draws steadily ahead, gaining with a couple of letters rounds and all of the numbers rounds. He caps it off by solving the conundrum again for a 58 to 13 victory.
A somewhat mixed effort from me tonight; I did find some good words, but overreached in one round and ended up with an invalid one. Then I got lost on what should have been a very easy numbers round, and was beaten to the conundrum. I'd still done enough to win, but I'm disappointed about the numbers round -- I conceded far too many 10-pointers in similar fashion last series.
Norm is asked to explain the difference between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. He says that pure mathematics is more abstract and is motivated by ideas, whereas applied mathematics is mathematics in the field and is motivated by real-world problems. He adds that -- despite the rivalry between the two areas -- the actual division is somewhat nebulous.
Tonight's challenger is product manager Casey Duggan. Last year she went on a bear-viewing holiday with her husband. This was in an Alaskan national park, and every day they would go and watch bears catching fish and doing other bear-like things. These were big brown bears, catching salmon in the streams, etc. At times they were only a couple of metres away, which sounds pretty worrying to me. Their guide had a can of "bear spray" (a variety of pepper spray) as their only defense, which... well, just as well it was not needed, anyway.
Both contestants start with an invalid word (the same one, in fact), and match results a couple of later times, but mostly Norm draws steadily ahead, gaining with a couple of letters rounds and all of the numbers rounds. He caps it off by solving the conundrum again for a 58 to 13 victory.
A somewhat mixed effort from me tonight; I did find some good words, but overreached in one round and ended up with an invalid one. Then I got lost on what should have been a very easy numbers round, and was beaten to the conundrum. I'd still done enough to win, but I'm disappointed about the numbers round -- I conceded far too many 10-pointers in similar fashion last series.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Ep 401: Norm Do, Patrick Johns (March 12, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
We kick off series five with champion Norm carrying over 67 points from his first win, eight episodes ago. Norm has two chihuahuas that like to watch the show; asked if they favour the letters or the numbers, Norm responds that he has not seen them get the numbers ever, but one of them may once have got WOOF in the letters.
A later chat reveals that they are named Choba and Taco, causing Lily great surprise -- she has a dog called Taco also. Richard asks Lily whether her dog can play Letters and Numbers; Lily responds that he is a little bit "ruff" at it.
Tonight's challenger is Patrick Johns, a software engineer. One of the software projects that he worked on a few years back was driverless trains -- it was for a mining company in Western Australia, and involved replacing the driver of iron ore trains with a computer that would drive the train instead. This apparently has large benefits for both efficiency and safety.
I'll note that he did not give any identifying information beyond that, but my (possibly incorrect) belief is that the mining company in question was Rio Tinto and that Patrick undertook this work as part of Ansaldo STS.
Patrick consistently found five-letter words, which was good in a couple of places but mostly outdone by Norm's selections. That would have put him well behind regardless, but Norm also managed to get closer on every numbers round. Norm capped off this all-round performance by solving the conundrum at the halfway mark to finish with a comprehensive 62 to 10 victory.
I started off in good form, finding two longer words than David in the first round. That's rare enough to be decidedly worth celebrating! I continued in mostly good ways, but dropped three points in the first numbers round and missed a gettable and thematic eight in the last letters round. But all in all it was a fairly decent game and a mid-sixties score to start with despite not scoring in one round. An auspicious start to the series; I hope I can continue in this fashion.
We kick off series five with champion Norm carrying over 67 points from his first win, eight episodes ago. Norm has two chihuahuas that like to watch the show; asked if they favour the letters or the numbers, Norm responds that he has not seen them get the numbers ever, but one of them may once have got WOOF in the letters.
A later chat reveals that they are named Choba and Taco, causing Lily great surprise -- she has a dog called Taco also. Richard asks Lily whether her dog can play Letters and Numbers; Lily responds that he is a little bit "ruff" at it.
Tonight's challenger is Patrick Johns, a software engineer. One of the software projects that he worked on a few years back was driverless trains -- it was for a mining company in Western Australia, and involved replacing the driver of iron ore trains with a computer that would drive the train instead. This apparently has large benefits for both efficiency and safety.
I'll note that he did not give any identifying information beyond that, but my (possibly incorrect) belief is that the mining company in question was Rio Tinto and that Patrick undertook this work as part of Ansaldo STS.
Patrick consistently found five-letter words, which was good in a couple of places but mostly outdone by Norm's selections. That would have put him well behind regardless, but Norm also managed to get closer on every numbers round. Norm capped off this all-round performance by solving the conundrum at the halfway mark to finish with a comprehensive 62 to 10 victory.
I started off in good form, finding two longer words than David in the first round. That's rare enough to be decidedly worth celebrating! I continued in mostly good ways, but dropped three points in the first numbers round and missed a gettable and thematic eight in the last letters round. But all in all it was a fairly decent game and a mid-sixties score to start with despite not scoring in one round. An auspicious start to the series; I hope I can continue in this fashion.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Ep 393: Roman Turkiewicz, Norm Do (February 29, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Roman is learning to play the tabla (Indian drums). He says it is quite difficult, and there's actually a language associated with the drumming -- the beats have their own letters and phrases associated to them. (These are mentioned in the link above.)
Tonight's challenger is mathematician Norm Do. Richard asks what Norm is researching, and Norm doesn't really give an answer; he just says "pure mathematics". That's like an author being asked what they write and responding with "books". A more detailed answer (courtesy of his webpage) is that he studies geometry and topology, and in particular moduli spaces of curves. Not that this is necessarily more informative to the layperson, but I think he could have made a brief description of topology and that would have worked much better.
There's some tough mixes tonight, particularly in the letters. Norm starts out with a good word to get ahead, and extends his lead in each of the numbers rounds. Roman just isn't able to outdo him at all, and is beaten to the conundrum for a change. That gives Norm a comprehensive victory, 67 to 16.
I felt pretty poorly about my performance, starting out by falling behind in the first round. I managed to claw my way back to a lead but was never comfortable, and missed a couple of chances to seal it before the conundrum. In the end I got to it first, but it was a wobbly win.
As usual, details after the jump.
Roman is learning to play the tabla (Indian drums). He says it is quite difficult, and there's actually a language associated with the drumming -- the beats have their own letters and phrases associated to them. (These are mentioned in the link above.)
Tonight's challenger is mathematician Norm Do. Richard asks what Norm is researching, and Norm doesn't really give an answer; he just says "pure mathematics". That's like an author being asked what they write and responding with "books". A more detailed answer (courtesy of his webpage) is that he studies geometry and topology, and in particular moduli spaces of curves. Not that this is necessarily more informative to the layperson, but I think he could have made a brief description of topology and that would have worked much better.
There's some tough mixes tonight, particularly in the letters. Norm starts out with a good word to get ahead, and extends his lead in each of the numbers rounds. Roman just isn't able to outdo him at all, and is beaten to the conundrum for a change. That gives Norm a comprehensive victory, 67 to 16.
I felt pretty poorly about my performance, starting out by falling behind in the first round. I managed to claw my way back to a lead but was never comfortable, and missed a couple of chances to seal it before the conundrum. In the end I got to it first, but it was a wobbly win.
As usual, details after the jump.
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