
Show HN: Countdown – Twitter bot which tweets answers to the Countdown TV show - Bambo
https://github.com/benjojo/Countdown
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binarymax
Awesome! I originally wrote the anagramica API so I could cheat at home while
watching countdown, and then built a game on top of it. Always great to see a
fellow hacker get inspired. The OCR is a fantastic addition.

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benjojo12
Wow nice! Didn't realise this had been posted to HN, if you have any questions
about how it works (although I have made a pretty descriptive readme.md) then
just ask!

It was alot of fun making it!

~~~
jdkram
When you mention that it responds at speed, what's kind of time is there
between the word being shown and the answer?

Very impressive stuff :). Thanks for the detailed documentation too.

~~~
stbullard
1-5s, according to the Twitter account bio for
[http://twitter.com/countdownanswer](http://twitter.com/countdownanswer)

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mdisraeli
That's rather neat! Although I'd suggest separating the roles into "countdown
clues" and "countdown answers" bots. The former announcing the questions live
on twitter, and the best answer being provided by Countdown answers when the
timer ends. Turns Countdown into an interactive twitter game ;)

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stbullard
Being unfamiliar with Countdown, I was curious about the output format;
looking around, I found the author's original announcement[1], which shows the
following:

    
    
      "For 'EOEFPRCTSN' Word prefects is 8 letters long. Word perfectos is 9 letters long."
    

[1]
[http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1260790&p=42291145&vie...](http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1260790&p=42291145&viewfull=1#post42291145)
\- also seen at
[http://twitter.com/countdownanswer](http://twitter.com/countdownanswer)

~~~
jessedhillon
I knew I had heard of Countdown before at some point in the past. I searched
my bookmarks and found this video, which apparently really happened in one of
their episodes:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHhw_x-
gHxI&feature=youtube_...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHhw_x-
gHxI&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

~~~
unfunco
This one wasn't actually real. TV shows in the United Kingdom have a tradition
of creating crude and funny references to their show as a Christmas gift to
executives or people that work on the show and this happened to leak out, a
similar thing happened with the children's TV show Rainbow:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgbcQIT7BMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgbcQIT7BMc)

However, it is hilarious and deserving of attention.

~~~
JonnieCache
This did happen the other day though:
[http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2013/dec/18...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2013/dec/18/countdown-
channel-4-conundrum)

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unfunco
This is a really interesting project, and something I wish I had the capacity
to think of. I watch Countdown, and the comedy mash-up 8 out of 10 cats does
Countdown[0] and love the shows. And it's not entirely for Rachel Riley[1].

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_Out_of_10_Cats#Countdown_mash...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_Out_of_10_Cats#Countdown_mashups)
[1]
[http://i1.cdnds.net/13/38/618x348/rrcountdown.jpg](http://i1.cdnds.net/13/38/618x348/rrcountdown.jpg)

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fidotron
Hilarious and brilliant!

Now to only add the vowel/consonant choosing for optimal letter sets and
solving the number puzzles.

I've been trying to come up with a comparison about it being a poor man's
Watson, but failed.

~~~
erichurkman
If we're even coming close to Watson, should we also feed the Countdown bot
the contents of Urban Dictionary [1]?

[1]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-w...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-
watson-memorized-the-entire-urban-dictionary-then-his-overlords-had-to-delete-
it/267047/)

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drakaal
Great, First Watson smokes us at Jeopardy, now this is going to prove
computers are better than humans at one more thing. Our slow walk to being
obsolete is hastened by our own efforts.

Cool project. Would be interesting to see how much effort it would take to do
something similar for the Classic TV version of Scrabble.

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taternuts
Man, the project is a LOT cooler than I thought it was going to be. Nice
change of pace to see some c#, too

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elwell
I'd have thought [0] Moss was behind it if not for source being open! Great
work.

[0] -
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49UakIHb1yI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49UakIHb1yI)

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abava
See [http://t411.linkstore.ru](http://t411.linkstore.ru) \- a generic bot for
Twitter

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elwell
This is awesome!

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jamesbrownuhh
Genius!

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torvalso
Wow, that's really neat!

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Bambo
Yeah! it has a great description in the Readme too.

