JanuaryJet (August 27, 2011 @ 6:58 p.m.)

Best of success and much prosperity to you in your new position. And thank you so much for providing this site. It's marvelous. -- JanuaryJet

JanuaryJet (August 27, 2011 @ 7:02 p.m.)

BTW - Could you give me some idea of how people get 100% in the categories and still have over a minute left? I'm a very fast typist and a Scrabble newbie who can get through the 2 letters okay, but not with a minute to spare. Clues appreciated. Again, congrats on your new position.
JanuaryJet

JanuaryJet (August 27, 2011 @ 9:41 p.m.)

Okay, one last observation on folks managing 100% completion on the higher letter combinations. For the 8 letter challenge, two people finished with 2 of the 4.5 minutes left, which means they were deciphering/unscrambling/ puzzling out the letters while continuously typing at 50 words per minute. Of course, if they paused, for a few seconds, their typing speed would have to be faster. That's impressive.

Years ago, I was clocked at 80 words per minute. Have probably slowed a bit but still go fast.

Are these folks 100% folks with 2 minutes left both fleet and highly-accurate fingered geniuses or what? I'd much appreciate knowing how they accomplish 5, 6, 7, 8-letter word lists in two or so minutes.

Thanks - January Jet

arenasnow (August 28, 2011 @ 10:35 a.m.)

Because most of those people are top-100 (or so) rated experts who literally have memorized all, or nearly all, the 2-8 letter words through Aerolith/Zyzzyva/etc... Will Anderson (wanderer15) I am convinced MUST know all the 2-8 letter words cold from his regular daily performances here. Going here is a great way to get depressed. I range from 45%-60% on the 7s which would probably be pretty great in real life but is extremely mediocre here, which means I need to do way more studying.

Typing speed can help you score higher than you deserve sometimes. I've beaten experts (even Joel Sherman a couple times) on the Aerolith 4s even though I am an intermediate player and WAY more shaky on them than most experts because I am one of the fastest typists in the United States. I won the Ultimate Typing Championship in Austin, TX last year typing at 163 wpm over 3 minutes, and I have also won the international Intersteno championship, but I'm capable of being even faster than that (last weekend, I typed 174 wpm over 50 minutes). I don't even know why I do the 2s and 3s here at all sometimes (except that I think typing them is fun), but those tests obviously would come down to typing speed if you know them cold. In other words, if I type as quickly as I do and almost always have 70 or 71 seconds left on the twos (which I know 100% cold) and about 83 seconds left on the threes (all of which I know but once in a while make a thoughtless screwup because I'm not paying attention), there aren't many people who could beat me on those.

The true experts realize that 2s and 3s come down solely to typing speed, which is why you never see a real expert doing any Aerolith test here shorter than 4s. But even there, I know the 4s well-enough that I can beat people who certainly know more words than I do because of my typing. The 7s/8s/9s-15s are the real tests of word knowledge and word finding...and results there have little to do with typing speed at all (unless, again, you're comparing the 50 or so people who know all the bingos...)

As for Will, who seems to be the king of Aerolith at the moment, I am quite confident that he knows every word of 8 or fewer letters in TWL AND types over 100 wpm...

wanderer15 (August 30, 2011 @ 4:31 p.m.)

I am not the king of Aerolith, but I am the king of nerds for making this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vCBAUJWmZQ

arenasnow (August 30, 2011 @ 8:48 p.m.)

Yeah, you're the king of Aerolith if you can beat Dave Wiegand by 25 seconds on last week's weekly bingo challenge considering it's Internet convention to equate Wiegand to Chuck Norris (though Nigel Richards probably deserves it more). You lead pretty much every test you do every day.

I didn't doubt your ability. I'm amazed you were able to do that with the distraction of a wildly oscillating Flip camcorder, a train whistle(?), and talking to yourself.

Speaking as the king of typing nerds who's put up 15 videos or so of me typing, if you for some reason want to record any Aerolith attempts again, use CamStudio screen capture software. It won't distract you as much and the image will be far less blurry.

Your entering the words in an S curve is an interesting idea I never thought of, as I usually go top-bottom, left-right, but your way probably would be much faster... Not that it would help me anagram the remaining 30%-40% of seven-letter words each day better, which is more relevant for these purposes.

arenasnow (August 30, 2011 @ 8:57 p.m.)

Ah, looking at some of your other videos, you're well aware of CamStudio. Why did you try to use a camcorder for Aerolith then?

njdevil44 (August 31, 2011 @ 6:32 a.m.)

Man, you tripped up on ACOLD and still beat my 151 s time. Ridiculous, I cannot compete.

I also follow the S-curve, as your eyes don't have to move as much so you can process the next word faster. I'm usually anagramming the next word while I finish typing the one I'm working on, especially on the 4's and 5's. It's a skill I developed at Word Racer (Yahoo! Games) long ago, where you didn't have the luxury of finding words in a grid at your leisure if you wanted to do well.

cesar (August 31, 2011 @ 4:28 p.m.)

haha thanks for the awesome video