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Difficulty: Hard Thursday, June 7, 2007

Not Completed Play This Puzzle

CHAT LOG for Thursday, June 7, 2007

12:21 am
WHB

Done, an easy one.
1:18 am
lawfully

done, not bad...
1:48 am
h

i got stuck. guessed once - checkpoints are cool...
2:03 am
Kukana

that was much easier than yesterday's hard puzzle. I'd have ranked that as medium at most.
3:36 am
sprite

I love your icon, h :D
3:37 am
h

thx. ive liked your smile too sprite. :D
3:39 am
h

going pro makes your eyes all watery from staring at puzzles too long... gl on todays - im playing with archives now.
3:39 am
sprite

and hf with the archives!
3:40 am
h

tyvm
3:45 am
h

(sprite) doh - all this time id been seeing a blue-ball-face with white eyes and a huge smile. i just clicked on your icon and realized it was a devilish heart. funny. anyways - enjoy... sorry to interrupt. :)
3:45 am
sprite

lol, np, and thanks
3:45 am
president

i can't see the end of this one! LOL
3:46 am
president

hi sprite! I lost my account name! can't find it!!
3:46 am
sprite

ow, that s*cks
3:46 am
h

there IS no end - just more numbers... j/k
3:47 am
president

I hope mrp can still apply in here
3:47 am
sprite

isn't there a help function for forgettin gyour account name?
3:49 am
president

yeah probably... just too tired to look for it and wait for dr.g to get back to me I think... I just lost all my workings cause I accidentally pressed the back button ... :(
3:49 am
sprite

argh... well, you're entitled to tiredness ;)
3:50 am
h

not having a good day... sometimes it makes you just want to crawl back into bed and try again tomorrow. :)
3:50 am
sprite

yeah... or skip a decade ;)
3:51 am
h

nope - skip too maky decades and all youre left with is wheelchairs and gumming your food. just a day-or-two for me, thanx... ;)
3:51 am
sprite

lol... ok, sounds reasonable.
3:53 am
sprite

yesterday's was easier for me than this one
3:54 am
h

honestly, i used a single guess on both yesterdays and todays. i think going-pro made me dummer (or less patient to look thru things).
3:54 am
h

lol - dumBer...
3:55 am
sprite

*big grin* being pro makes it easier to use trial and error, for sure. But my fun is in solving, really knowing why I put a number somewhere. Finally found what I was overlooking on this one, here it comes :)
3:57 am
sprite

done! Bye all, till next time
3:57 am
h

congrats! cya
4:47 am
herinfernallady

start
6:58 am
smooth_pappa

go!
7:05 am
smooth_pappa

done
7:05 am
smooth_pappa

used 2 greens in the mid.
7:16 am
ypsigirl

go
7:32 am
ypsigirl

stuck....hate to go green
8:32 am
UnikeTheHunter

Go.
8:37 am
UnikeTheHunter

I like the way this one begins, before greens are needed.
8:39 am
drwho

Difficulty score 27. There are 3 pairs in one block. Find them and the rest is easy.
8:39 am
UnikeTheHunter

Then I'll see if I can do it without greens.
8:58 am
OrangeSlice

easy without greens.
8:58 am
UnikeTheHunter

Good going. I'm stuck w/o greens.
9:00 am
OrangeSlice

lots of sets.
9:00 am
OrangeSlice

mostly pairs, but there's some triples in there.
9:01 am
UnikeTheHunter

Any loners?
9:02 am
OrangeSlice

nope, but you'll get a conjugate chain that breaks several other things down once it's solved for.
9:04 am
UnikeTheHunter

I get to a certain stage and my brain starts getting fuzzed over with regret that I ever started.
9:05 am
drwho

The funny thing about pair and triples, etc. is that there is alway a complimentary tuple.
9:05 am
drwho

If you have a row with 5 empty cells, and you find a naked triple, there must have been a hidden pair also.
9:06 am
UnikeTheHunter

I was just thinking about that. Is the complimentary tuple just as easy to spot as the one you found?
9:06 am
drwho

In fact, after you discover the naked triple, you then uncover the hidden pair.
9:07 am
UnikeTheHunter

Maybe that's why I so seldom find the hidden ones.
9:07 am
drwho

Generally speaking, I have found naked quads easier to spot than hidden pairs!
9:08 am
UnikeTheHunter

But Doc, it's possible for a row to have three pairs. Something there must not be a compliment.
9:08 am
OrangeSlice

Quads are lovely.
9:09 am
OrangeSlice

Also the wxyz-wing, though I've yet to spot one in the wild, it's basically a distributed quad.
9:09 am
drwho

Sure, 2 pair make a quad, then the pairs within the quad are complimentary.
9:09 am
UnikeTheHunter

Okay.
9:12 am
OrangeSlice

Yesterday's puzzle is killing me.
9:12 am
UnikeTheHunter

In yesterday's, there's a quad that opens up a pair. Then it's busted.
9:14 am
drwho

Yesterdays puzzle got the highest score (50) of any of the Hards published here.
9:14 am
OrangeSlice

hmm, I'll have to green it then
9:14 am
UnikeTheHunter

I think so.
9:14 am
drwho

I'd recommend it too.
9:17 am
UnikeTheHunter

My brain is getting fuzzed over. I need a break before continuing without greens.
9:17 am
OrangeSlice

Found it.
9:21 am
OrangeSlice

hmm, an xy-wing reveals another pair as well.
9:24 am
drwho

I almost forgot, the best part about complimentary tuples is that one of the tuples is always naked.
9:35 am
drwho

Or more accurately, at least one of the tuples is always naked. Both could be naked, only 1 could be hidden.
9:49 am
tonyfro

mmmmm, naked tuples
9:52 am
drwho

This site is in danger of losing its G rating.
11:07 am
moedog

hi everyone
11:10 am
moedog

boom!
11:38 am
UnikeTheHunter

Well, I regret that I need to get to work. Going green.
11:49 am
UnikeTheHunter

Even with greens, I'm not seeing those tuples.
11:50 am
UnikeTheHunter

Ah, there's one.
12:00 pm
UnikeTheHunter

Done. Ashamed I needed greens. Nothing harder than pairs I had missed.
12:56 pm
gemma

hi im new to this game what are greens?
1:21 pm
K M

not that i'm an expert, i'm not, greens are helps. kinda like allows you put down possibilities. go into Help. more info there.
1:22 pm
gemma

yeah ive read about it i understand now thanks
2:29 pm
sandbox74

as for naked tuples... I don't want to get into it LOL
3:33 pm
Minski

Phew! Just finished yesterday's. It was a toughie. I think I need a break before I start today's.
3:39 pm
helenkeller

go
3:52 pm
helenkeller

done
3:52 pm
helenkeller

minimal greens - much easier than yesterdays, --- much, much easier :)
4:03 pm
drwho

HK - was that the absolute minimum green? ;-)
4:04 pm
drwho

Or a relative minima?
4:23 pm
Minski

Done! Much easier than yesterday's but had to use greenies.
5:28 pm
brittlefish.com

go
5:39 pm
brittlefish.com

done. autofill g+r. the triple broke it open.
5:42 pm
brianarn

Woohoo, I broke into experts on rankings after going crazy playing yesterday :D
5:43 pm
OrangeSlice

I haven't been working the archives much lately, so I'm stuck in Pro for the time being.
5:46 pm
brianarn

I've been kinda ridiculous with archive lately
5:47 pm
OrangeSlice

Well, I have them nearly completed, only about two months' worth of puzzles left, I just haven't found time to do anything more than the newest daily ones, and I'm even falling behind on those.
5:47 pm
OrangeSlice

That's what happens when final exams are looming, I suppose.
5:48 pm
brianarn

Oh how I don't miss tests :D Although, on the other hand, corporate deadlines aren't fun either, and I'll have one of those looming soon
5:53 pm
OrangeSlice

Ah yes, the working world. I hope to avoid going there for as long as possible.
5:53 pm
OrangeSlice

I'll take college any day :)
5:54 pm
brianarn

While I prefer the environment, the money I make in the corporate world versus the money I spend to stay in college helps make up for it :D I do miss academia though. Someday I'd like to teach, and combine being there with making money and the immense satisfaction of teaching.
5:56 pm
OrangeSlice

Well, someone else is paying for my schoolin', at least presently. I'm hoping to get a scholarship and go to some fancy-pants institution with my high gpa, though.
5:57 pm
brianarn

That's cool. My wife's currently working on her masters and we got a random scholarship to cover everything but books for the next full year (including this summer, oddly). I was a slacker in my early years of college, so I kinda flushed all hopes of free money. :/
6:00 pm
OrangeSlice

I haven't actually applied for any free money yet, but I've only just completed my freshman year, so there's still time I suppose.
6:03 pm
brianarn

All this talk of numbers reminded me that I hadn't updated my IronSudoku averaging spreadsheet in awhile. I like stats, so it's interesting to see what score averages are over time
6:05 pm
brianarn

I can tell you the average of all prior puzzles given a certain day. It's much more chaotic at the beginning, spiking to an average difficulty of 2.5 once, but it's slowly trending down over time.
6:06 pm
brianarn

Back in January, the average puzzle score dropped below 2 and hasn't come back up since, although it's still really close to 2
6:07 pm
OrangeSlice

Whoops, was off reading another web page for a bit. Sorry.
6:10 pm
brianarn

Ignoring that the first puzzle was an easy, the average puzzle difficulty didn't dip below 2 until puzzle 232 pulled it under
6:11 pm
brianarn

yay math
6:12 pm
brianarn

and now I have to get away from this machine for awhile, boo.
7:50 pm
My username

hello
7:51 pm
My username

does anyone play babble
7:53 pm
My username

Anne2 r u there
7:54 pm
My username

ello every body
8:27 pm
Zugzug7

go
8:39 pm
Zugzug7

done. simple comapred to the last two days.
9:53 pm
Spac3Monk3y

the puzzle is glitched
9:53 pm
Spac3Monk3y

no way to win
9:55 pm
Spac3Monk3y

nvm