Monthly Archives: December 2007

Two Blogs

December 20, 2007
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I’ve recently come across two blogs that I’d like to mention here.

The first is called logic puzzler and the author posts puzzles of all kinds with the occasional video clip thrown in. There’s a pretty good mix of puzzles available here, most of which come from other sites which also makes it a great place to find new puzzle sites.

The second is called Cassowary Crossing and it’s the blog of Australian writer David Astle, who has also written a book called Cassowary Crossing: A Guide to Offbeat Australia. David Astle is also a major fan of puzzles and blogs often about them. He even has a specific category called birdbrain, where he challenges readers with a word puzzle every week. It’s a great weekly word puzzle that is usually considerably harder than the one posed by Will Shortz on NPR Sunday Puzzle.

Color Sudoku

December 18, 2007
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There was an article in Science Daily today about something called “color sudoku.”  Color sudoku is part of a research project at the University of Warwick regarding “Empriical Modeling.”  It’s not entirely clear to me what this is from the article, but the general idea is to look at the interactions between logic and perception.  This is where the color sudoku comes in.  In color sudoku, each digit is assigned a color and each square that has that digit in it is filled with that color.  The empty squares are filled with a combination of all of the colors for all of the possible digits that could go in that square.  This is intended to give you clues as to what should be there.  Darker colors, for example, will indicate more possibilities and, if the color in an empty square exactly matches that of a digit, you know which digit must go there.

While playing around with it, it was hard for me to see, at first, the advantage of the colors, but as more digits are filled in some patterns did begin to emerge.  Though I’m not sure if logic and perception ever actually met.  It’s an interesting idea and sudoku is a very accessible example, though likely not the best.

BestCrosswords.com

December 16, 2007
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I’ve come across another site for the crossword lover.  The site is BestCrosswords.com.  The site features daily puzzles that are either printable or playable through an online java applet.  It also features daily crosswords from guest constructors.  These puzzles tend to have a little bit more variety and are organized by popularity, difficulty, grid type (British or American), and clue type (straight or cryptic.)

The guest constructor puzzles are also playable in the java applet and really make the site worth visiting.  Currently, there are nearly a thousand of these puzzle available.  Enjoy!

Tanga — Contribute and Solve Puzzles

December 13, 2007
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Over a year ago, I first posted about Tanga.  Then, it was a fun little site that had a daily puzzle.  It’s worth going back to check it out.

The site let’s you solve or contribute puzzles to collect points.  There are four basic categories of puzzle on the site:

  • One Word Wonder — You are shown a picture.  It can be of anything or a number of different things.  You need to figure out what one word the picture is trying to communicate.
  • Cryptopix — This is the Tanga version of a rebus.
  • Hypercross — It’s a crossword, but the clues are pictures or sound clips or video clips.
  • Random Question — Any question.

The site allows you to create any of those types of puzzles and contribute them.  If your puzzle is selected as a featured puzzle, you get points.

There also seems to be a social networking aspect to Tanga now.  You can create a profile for yourself and make friends with other users.   There are always contests going on between the players and prizes can be won daily.  Puzzle lovers should definitely check it out.

Slitherlink on krazydad.com

December 12, 2007
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I’ve posted before about all of the puzzles available by Jim Bumgardner at krazydad.com. Recently, he’s added thousands of Slitherlink puzzles to his site with varying degrees of difficulty and grid size.

Jim is also looking at variations on the classic Slitherlink puzzle and he’s constructed a hexagonal slitherlink that appeared in a recent blog post.

Extremely Local Politics

December 11, 2007
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Comedy Central as a part of their Indecision 2008 coverage has created a little puzzle game called Extremely Local Politics.  Each week, you are given four small sections of some vaguely political pictures and asked to identify the entire picture.  It reminds me a lot of the “Where in the World?” section that was always part of the National Geographic World magazines that I got as a kid.  (I’m pleased to see that this game is still going on.)

As with all things on Comedy Central, the point is to have a good laugh, so giving you a mental workout is not a high priority.  Still, it’s fun and, as I mentioned earlier, brought me back to my childhood a bit.  Enjoy!