I found this story in The Abbotsford News about a man attempting to set a second world record.  Joe Defries is hoping for a world record in Marathon Solo Sudoku Puzzles (solving sudoku puzzles continuously with limited breaks.)  His previous record is in Marathon Solo Handbells.

At the time of this articles writing, Joe had been at it for 27 hours and 47 minutes.  It doesn’t seem like there’s an existing record for Marathon Solo Sudoku Puzzles, so all that he really had to do was break 24 hours, the minimum time required by Guinness.

There are no puzzles involved, but puzzle lovers might be interested to know that Movies Online is giving away a copy of the recently-released Wordplay DVD.  Entry requires sending an email to the site.

Here’s this week’s puzzle:

pdf solution

I came across a site today called Disassemblance which features a comic strip.  The site also features two original puzzles called Meander and Outflow.

Meander involves drawing a single continuous line between a start and finish on a grid, with the added challenge of going through every square on the grid exactly once.  There are a few symbols on the grid to add complexity as well.

Outflow involves a flow diagram and modifying a set of numbers so that they are all the same.  It’s harder to describe, because it’s unlike other puzzles that I’ve seen.

Of course, the best way to get a feel for these puzzles is to check them out.  Here’s a link to the first puzzle.  You can cycle through them all by clicking next or previous.

I came across this post on Puzzle Ratings about a month ago and, looking it over again today, I should have posted on it sooner because it’s fantastic.  The post is an excerpt from a longer pdf file in which Cihan Altay discusses general puzzle solving techniques.  The paper makes use of a few specific puzzles to describe the kind of logic that is often needed in puzzle solving.

Advanced puzzle solvers will likely see this paper as describing what they know intuitively, but I’m impressed that Cihan has put it in words.  It’s a good read for those who like puzzles but are often confounded by them.

It’s not uncommon, when interviewing for a job that requires a lot of analytical thinking, to be given a puzzle to solve. The web site techInterview has a number of brain teasers and logic puzzles intended for a job interview. Of course, you can try to solve them just for fun too. There’s about 30 puzzles on the site.

I recently came across this funny variation on a traditional maze called chopstick mazes. It doesn’t test your mind so much as your manual dexterity. The maze is actually two intertwined mazes divided into four colored regions. The goal is to solve both puzzles simultaneously with two pencils held like chopsticks. To add a layer of difficulty, both pencils must always be on the same color at the same time.

Ok, it’s not earth shattering, but it’s cute.