go

done

Difficulty score 19.

I totally suck at easies. *putting in greens now*

yup, that did it

hi all

hi sprite

sprite whyu arent you at babble with inge and hodag

how do you play this game

go

done no greens

Correction, difficulty score is 18.

that high? it seems even easier than that

Yes. The only technique needed is cross hatching, but you have to make a lot of passes through the data to

get it all.

gottcha

I also consider cross hatching a row or column harder than cross hatching a block.

oh really? interesting! I guess I can see that... to be honest, I'd never put that much thought into the difficulty of puzzles other than if it takes me longer than 10 minutes and I get stuck, it's tough. lol

I generate the score with a program that I wrote. It was originally to satisfy my own curiosity.

yeah, I checked your profile, and site. neat concept! have you ever applied them to 16x16 puzzles?

No. Maybe someday. I find the 9x9 puzzles hard enough.

hehe... I have a book of 16x16s in my car at the moment... and those can be frustratingly difficult for me. I think it's the time it takes to complete them. I used to breezing through puzzles pretty often, and those 16x6s can take what seems like forever.

The 9x9s used to take me forever. I think I have been getting better. But I am not as fast as you.

heh... only on these easy's, my friend. lol But it helps me to wake my brain up in the morning... coffee for the body, and a good puzzle for the mind

all right... time for me to go and face this drizzly madison, wi morning. Have a great day Dr. Who!

Thanks, and you too. Madison? The home of Rocky Roccoco?

heck yeah! I had no idea they were only a local/regional chain, until I went down to St. Louis for college... I was nearly crushed when I asked about the local Rocky's and nobody had any idea what I was talking about

We have 1 or 2 here in the Twin Cities. There used to be more but they went out of business.

all right, I've gotta take off. later!

Bye.

drwho -- did you get the 'expert' the other day without forcing/guessing. Everybody, including me, got down to 23 possibilities with no option but to guess. Did I miss a technique??

Someone on the chat log mentioned a technique called swordfish, which enabled that person to solve without guessing.

I made some logical errors that turned out badly so I ended up with only one possibility left. Yeah I guessed.

As gwenski says, swordfish got me through without guessing and from the log that day I think a lot of people found the same

gwenski & drwho -- thanx for responding.. I've always been of the opinion that the 'evil' and 'expert' and some hard ones require forcing. I do them on paper using a pen and it looks like a war on paper when I'm done, sometimes. I'll check scanraid for the swordfish thingy.

Or look at the archives, choose yesterday's puzzle, and read thru the chat log!

gman, you might also want to check out brainbashers -I found the description there (of swordfish) easier to follow than scanraid...

I like websudoku.com for generating 'evil' puzzles that are easy to print out and print out 'large'. Bad eyes when you get over 50!!

I think the swordfish and jellyfish techniques are variations on the locked pairs theme.

And the locked pairs theme is a variation on the simple coloring technique.

Very interesting ideas, but hard to apply to a puzzle. Too hard for me to find usually.

gman - You still here?

spreadeagle yeah, I'm still here

The swordfish technique is something I found when I refused to guess at that expert the other day. I know others must have a better way, but they aren't telling.

spreadeagle -- your bio shows rental property work.. That's what I do except I'm usually NOT the owner

spreadeagle -- your bio shows rental property work.. That's what I do except I'm usually NOT the owner

Spreadeagle--How are you at estimating. Sorry about double clicking the enter button

I buy, fix up, and rent to retired people. In addition to owning a medical office for my wife, where I maintain everything from the computers to the toilets. It's a GYN office, so there's LOTS of toilets...

n I can do myself.

I don't know what just happened. Estimating? I hire contractors and let them do the estimating when the job is more than I can do myself.

Let me know if you need a second opinion on your next, big fix-er-upper or if your reg contractors are too backed up. I 've done work in Fl, Il Oh, DC etc.

I'm in eastern NC, just finishing a year-long complete remodel of my beach house on Ocracoke island. My son is 17, getting ready for college, and I intend to make up for the off-shore fishing we didn't do last year.

Weather permitting. We don't like hurricane around here.....

Spreadeagle -- fishing & skiing; sounds like you're busy. I'm off to brainbashers. Time to let the others have the chatroom back. eh?

done!!!

Back to "swordfish" - I agree with poreid about BrainBashers. Their explanations are easier for me to understand than the ones on scanraid. I'm not sure how I stumbled onto their site, but I like the "puzzle loop" and "bridges" games. They're good for flexing the brain a little.

Go.

Poreid, thanks for the brainbashers tip. I finally understood the relation of X-wing and swordfish techniques.

Now that I think about it, the X-wing technique can be generalized to 4, 5, 6 7 or even 8 rows/columns!

I may have to teach my program that technique.

There are a lot of weird little techniques you can use, but most people don't because it gets complicated. puzzles are supposed to be fun :)

I'm looking at Brainbashers. Where do I find the explanation of xwing and swordfish?

Recently I've been implementing the Y-wing with great success.

dr w, I can't really claim credit for brainbashers as somone else posted it the other day, but I'm glad it was of help. I'd read about swordfish before but didn't really get it until I read brainbashers

spreadeagle posted it, as I recall.

Hunter: Click on "logic games" on the home page, then at the bottom go to solving strategies.

nice for an old dog to finally get a new trick...

Same here. His explanation was not so good, but that forced me to think harder and it all made sense then.

I don't see Solving Strategies.

Picky picky. solving techniques

I don't see that either.

I can't help you then.

UTH, drill down a little further into the Sudoku links at brainbashers.

Got it. Thanks.

Nobody likes linguistic variation anymore.

My favorite solving techniwue is "woman's intuition"...which is a tiny bit better than a blind guess...LOL

When I was a kid I could substitute words and phonemes anywhere I wanted.

ya know...they really should NOT put that "W" so close to the "Q"...

Another too-easy one.

Done. No greens. Crosshatch only (including anticipatory crosshatch.)

When I was a kid, I tried doing what OrangeSlice did. I got my mouth washed out with soap.

when i was a-strong enough, i dedicate my life to the study of fencing. so the next time we meet, i will no fail. i will go up to the six-fingered man and say...

hello, my name is inigo montoya. you killed my father. prepare to die.

you've done nothing but study swordplay?

more pursue than study lately. you see, i cannot find him. after twenty years, i am starting to lose confidence. i only work for vizzini to pay the bills. there's not a lot of money in revenge.

well, i certainly hope you find him someday.

you're ready then?

whether i am or not, you've been more than fair.

you seem a decent fellow. i hate to kill you.

you seem a decent fellow. i hate to die.

begin.

"princess bride"

yes, rather.

it's kind of inertial. once i get quoting...

google knows all......

good thing you happened along.

you had to google it? shame shame.

haven't seen it

gasp!

you must!

Gooooooooooooooo

I checked the reviews on Netflix, and it looks like it's worth a try. I love a good satire, even if it involves a fairytale.

it is a feat of comic genius

Thanks for the tip. Any more?

While I enjoyed The Princess Bride and all, "feat of comic genius" sounds a bit strong. Well worth watching though. :)

clueless. a modern adaptation of austen's "emma". utterly brilliant, and not a single moment in the entire movie is less than 100% enjoyable.

im amazed that there are people that haven't seen the princess bride

cold comfort farm, an excellent british comedy with a tremendous cast. kate beckinsale, ian mckellan, stephen fry...

bringing up baby, cary grant/katharine hepburn in their young days... ah what a fine looking pair.

and my cousin vinny. there, those are my top 5 comedies.

it is always so fun to show the princess bride to a PB virgin, only hard to hold yourself back from quoting along.

i can't decide which is harder, not quoting along with PB, or not singing along during mary poppins.

mary poppins is one of the very very very few children's movies with no villain. it's really striking, if you think about it.

well, enough dancing with myself... ttfn

bye hursh

hope some of my tips prove enjoyable for you :)

I've entered 2 of them in netflix. Thanks

When you raise boys, you don't bring home many movies with "princess" in the title.

thats funny, cause the beginning of the movie is fred savage being a little jerk about that exact fact and peter faulk explains to him why he'll like the boo

k

I like it already....

Darn - I think I goofed somewhere. Sometimes the easy ones toss me but I do okay with the hard ones. Maybe I get sloppy mentally since I know it's supposed to be easy

yeah, i kinda wish they weren't ranked

but still have different point amounts, ranked behind the scenes i guess

Oh well - reset and go again, no big loss -- after all, it's just an easy :D

I've been "chatting" so much, instead of concentrating on the puzzle, that I may never finish....

OK, focus, focus, and done......

Second shot was nice and clean, if a bit slow -- was leaning maybe a bit too heavily on greens. :D

Go

Done! Easy. No guesses but used greenies.

hi minski long time no see

minski why are yuo never at babble

go

done

hello everyone

has anyone solved the expert from...was it yesterday or two days ago?

Actually, just finished it this very second, miller!

i got pretty far thinking "this can't be an expert" and then it hit me all at once!

still haven't solved it

I tried several different guesses until it worked....

i'll probably have to do that too...i'm doing an easy as a confidence booster before i reattempt it

good idea!

I'm sure you'll get it....

thanks mamabear...it's good to have people like you on here who make everyone feel confident...thank you!

you're welcome miller.......

gotta run now - good luck!!!! {{{bear hugs}}}}

my mom is disgusted because i caught up on some sudoku points over spring break and now there's no way she can catch up.

bye!

who's your mom?

mayan warrior

ahhh.... tell her she can do it too!!! mamabear said so!! LOL.... see ya! *waving*

:) waving back