Author Archives: gmdirect

PuzzleNation Live Game #3: Answers!

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As promised, here are the answers to Friday’s PuzzleNation live game, a.k.a. the Progressions challenge! Thank you to everyone who gave it a shot. I look forward to doing another live puzzle game soon!

(And for anyone who didn’t get a chance to play, you can check out the original puzzles on our Facebook and Twitter accounts!)

FACEBOOK

1.) 18  25  28  35  ______  45  48  55  58

Answer: 38 (+7 +3 +7 +3 +7 +3 +7 +3)

2.) 92  91  89  85  ______  76  74  70  62

Answer: 77 (-1 -2 -4 -8 -1 -2 -4 -8)

3.) 64  71  78  83  ______  91  94  95  96

Answer: 88 (+7 +7 +5 +5 +3 +3 +1 +1)

4.) 81  162  54  108  ______  72  24  48  16

Answer: 36 (x2 /3 x2 /3 x2 /3 x2 /3)

5.) 22  23  28  33  ______  35  40  45  46

Answer: 34 (+1 +5 +5 +1 +1 +5 +5 +1)

6.) 242  121  123  41  ______  11  15  3  8

Answer: 44 (/2 +2 /3 +3 /4 +4 /5 +5)

7.) 15  9  18  14  ______  22  44  40  80

Answer: 28 (-6 x2 -4 x2 -6 x2 -4 x2)


TWITTER

1.) 39  43  49  52  ______  63  69  72  79

Answer: 59 (+4 +6 +3 +7 +4 +6 +3 +7)

2.) 9  17  25  23  ______  29  37  35  33

Answer: 21 (+8 +8 -2 -2 +8 +8 -2 -2)

3.) 108  104  52  48  ______  20  10  6  3

Answer: 24 (-4 /2 -4 /2 -4 /2 -4 /2)

4.) 58  49  52  44  ______  40  43  35  40

Answer: 49 (-9 +3 -8 +5 -9 +3 -8 +5)

5.) 31  22  66  57  ______  162  486  477  1431

Answer: 171 (-9 x3 -9 x3 -9 x3 -9 x3)

6.) 46  47  49  46  ______  47  53  46  38

Answer: 42 (+1 +2 -3 -4 +5 +6 -7 -8)

7.) 4  16  18  6  ______  28  30  10  11

Answer: 7 (x4 +2 /3 +1 x4 +2 /3 +1)

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Beware the Brain Melter…

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meninhats

I’m a huge fan of brain teasers. I love pitting my mind and mental quickness against word puzzles and other challenges, so brain teasers are perfect.

A terrific example of a quality brain teaser appeared here a while back: the Men in Hats problem (pictured above).

It’s a great brain teaser because it’s deceptively simple, but requires careful, outside-the-box thinking to figure out how to solve the puzzle.

But there’s another kind of brain teaser out there that’s not intended to be solved. These are more tricks or bits of wordy gamesmanship than brain teasers. I like to think of them as brain melters.

Here’s an example of a brain melter I tweeted a month or two ago:

True or false? Thare are five mistukes im this centence.

Now, parsing it out, you can see the misspelled “thare” (1), the misspelled “mistukes” (2), the misspelled “im” (3), and the misspelled “centence” (4).

But the statement says there are five mistakes when there are only four, which would make the statement false. If you count “five” as a mistake, then it becomes five mistakes, which makes the statement true. But if five mistakes is true, then saying “five” ISN’T a mistake, so the total goes back to four mistakes, and…

You see? You soon find yourself in a brain-melting loop that never goes anywhere. It’s like the barber who shaves only the townsmen who don’t shave themselves. So does he shave himself? If he does, he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he does.

Still with me?

Okay, here’s another brain melter. (The one, in fact, that inspired this blog post.)

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

A) 25%
B) 50%
C) 60%
D) 25%

At first glance, this seems simple. There are four options, so the chances of being correct should be 1 in 4, or 25%.

But wait. Two of the answers are “25%”, meaning that A AND D could lead to the right answer, so those odds become “50%”.

But “50%” as an answer only appears once, so the chances of choosing “50%” are only 25%.

And if you keep following that chain of thought, you circle around and around and around, going from 50% to 25% and back again while your brain dribbles out your ears and down into your shoes.

Beware the brain melters masquerading as brain teasers, my friends.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Let’s get this puzzle (kick)started!

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The Internet has become the new frontier for innovation. The global marketplace is more open than ever, and with blogs, websites, and social media, virtually anyone with an idea can get the word out. From artists to inventors, entrepreneurs to aspiring businessmen, the Internet is as close to a level playing field as you’re ever likely to find.

The newest tool in the arsenal of big thinkers and big dreamers is crowdfunding, wherein creators take their ideas directly to the people in the hopes that a lot of small donations will add up into capital to make their ideas reality.

Websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have literally made dreams come true, and that’s as true for puzzle entrepreneurs as anyone else.

From a tangram game for your iPhone to the world’s biggest word search, from a X-shaped Rubik’s Cube variant to puzzly video games and short films, it seems like the puzzle community is as vocal in its support as it is generous.

And as I was browsing Kickstarter, I came across a few as-yet-unfunded projects that seemed interesting.

The first is a puzzle-based platformer game with a darkly artistic motif.

It’s called Monochroma, and it involves a pair of brothers solving numerous puzzles and overcoming obstacles as they explore a curious black-and-white cityscape. It’s heavy on atmosphere and suspense, and looks like great fun.

The second is an attempt to crowdfund a collection of cryptic crosswords made by some popular cryptic puzzlers (similar to successful efforts by Roy Leban, Trip Payne, and other puzzlers to fund their own puzzly endeavors). Cryptic crossword fans are a crafty and devoted fanbase, so I suspect this kickstarter will do well.

The third is an intriguing hybrid of books and board games, inspired by the legend of King Minos’s labyrinth from Greek mythology. Essentially, one player (or multiple players) tries to gain points and escape the maze that traverses every page of the book. Its one-and-done gameplay experience (there are no do-overs, apparently) might dissuade some donors, but the challenge could definitely entice some hardcore maze enthusiasts.

The last one is arguably the most ambitious, featuring a light-up life-size puzzle for attendees of the annual Burning Man festival.

Playuzzle is a grid of color-shifting polygons, and the challenge for players is to use strategically placed buttons and their own movements through the grid to make every polygon the same color. It’s like a life-size Q-Bert game!

With ideas as varied and interesting as these, the puzzle community can rest assured that we won’t run out of engaging puzzly challenges anytime soon.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions for Crossword Constructor Ian Livengood

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s newest feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m proud to have Ian Livengood as our first 5 Questions interviewee!

Ian has constructed puzzles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, building a reputation as both a savvy constructor and a crafty cluesmith. He spends his days as a crossword editor for Penny Press, in addition to his extracurricular puzzle constructing. (And he even found time to contribute some terrific entries to two clue-centric PN blog posts earlier this year!)

So, without further ado, let’s get to it!

5 Questions for Ian Livengood

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

I started solving crosswords in high school as a way to pass the time. I was a pretty horrible solver at first, obviously, but stuck with it. I tried my hand at constructing a puzzle when I was 19 or 20 and the results were, uh, less than stellar. I think I used 82 words (78 is the limit in most outlets) with some suspect fill. I got the constructing “bug” again in my mid-20’s. I didn’t even know construction software existed — I was using Microsoft Excel and a crude wildcard search engine — but I eventually stumbled on some nice software and began to study exactly how puzzles were made. 

2. Who are three creative types that inspire you?

It’s tough to identify specific people, but I certainly respect certain types of puzzles. I really enjoy a smooth and easy Monday, a diabolically tricky Thursday-level puzzle and a tough themeless puzzle. I really admire “smooth fill.” These are the non-thematic entries in a puzzle that avoid “crosswordese” (entries you only encounter in crosswords) and that are fun and interesting to solve. Frankly, it’s really hard to pull off, and I recognize and respect the skill it took to create ’em.

3. What puzzly endeavors are you currently working on?

I teach a crossword construction class every Sunday in the Spring and Fall in New York City to a group of seniors. As a class, we go through the process of picking a puzzle theme, building a grid, filling the grid and writing the clues. The goal is to get the collaborative puzzle into the New York Times.

Also, I have a book coming out in Spring 2014 called “Sit and Solve Sports Crosswords” through Sterling Publications. As you might guess, the book has 42 easy-medium 10×10 sports-themed puzzles. Since I’m a sports nut, this was a really fun one to make. Available wherever books are sold.

4. You were recently interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation regarding your crossword construction class. What was that like, and how did that affect how you see yourself as a constructor?

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. A Canadian NPR producer was solving a recent Sunday New York Times puzzle that class made and thought it would be fun to interview the seniors that helped contribute to the puzzle. I can’t say my Q-rating has really spiked, but it’s always nice to get positive feedback from solvers.

5. If you had a million dollars and three Hawaiian islands, what would you do with them?

Well… since I’m a skier and not much of a beach guy, I’d sell the islands and just go heli-skiing everyday. That sounds pretty nice.

Many thanks to Ian Livengood for his time. Check out his ebook of 25 easy puzzles here, and keep your eyes peeled for his work in the New York Times (Monday’s puzzle is a Livengood original)!

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Teasing your brain (and your job applicants)

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Did you ever have a job interview where someone posed a mental test or brain teaser?

These were all the rage a few years ago and I’ve heard plenty of stories from friends and acquaintances who applied for jobs only to find themselves wandering down tangential rabbit holes instead of presenting their credentials in the best light.

How many golf balls can fit in a school bus? How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle? Why are manhole covers round? How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

Google (among other companies) became notorious for this sort of on-the-spot cognitive analysis, but in an interview with The New York Times, senior vice president of people operations at Google Laszlo Bock admitted that these kinds of questions proved completely worthless as predictors of employee creativity or performance.

As a puzzle guy, I can appreciate the spirit behind asking these questions. When you present a seemingly unsolvable puzzle, you’re not really looking for the solution, you’re looking for the resourcefulness of the solver. When you present a brain teaser that demands great results with only two tries, you’re examining the interview’s insightfulness and efficiency.

The problem is… abstract problem-solving isn’t the same as actual problem-solving. I daresay the interview is the most stressful part of many jobs, so the pressure you endure sitting in the hot seat and trying to earn a job overshadows the pressure you’ll endure actually doing that job. After all, there’s not a yes-or-no implied after each question when you’ve got the job, but that uncertainty permeates the interview process.

But, Bock also explains how properly-framed questions about problem-solving can be more useful indicators:

Behavioral interviewing also works — where you’re not giving someone a hypothetical, but you’re starting with a question like, “Give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically difficult problem.” The interesting thing about the behavioral interview is that when you ask somebody to speak to their own experience, and you drill into that, you get two kinds of information. One is you get to see how they actually interacted in a real-world situation, and the valuable “meta” information you get about the candidate is a sense of what they consider to be difficult.

I’ve never had to answer a brain teaser like the ones listed above, not even when I interviewed to be a puzzle guy. Of course, if you ask me how many golf balls can fit in a school bus, my first answer would probably be “more than I could ever need.” Plus I don’t do windows.

[Check out this io9 article for greater detail, including source links and list of former Google interview questions.]

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Palindromic answers for all and sundry!

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As promised, here are the answers to Friday’s PuzzleNation live game, a.k.a. the Palindromes challenge! Thank you to everyone who gave it a shot. I look forward to doing another live puzzle game soon!

TWITTER

1.) Forgetful cats. (2 words)

Answer: Senile felines

2.) Love in the Italian capital. (2 words)

Answer: Amore, Roma

3.) First-person speaker favors a particular mathematical constant. (3 words)

Answer: I prefer pi.

4.) Instructions to hoist in conjunction with the speaker. (6 words)

Answer: Pull up if I pull up.

5.) A fencing challenge offered to a reluctant opponent. (3 words)

Answer: Draw, o coward!

6.) Young Mr. Hawthorne attacked a lama. (4 words)

Answer: Nate bit a Tibetan.

7.) Orders to retreat, given to one’s distant pixie. (5 words)

Answer: Flee to me, remote elf.

FACEBOOK

1.) Television premiere (2 words)

Answer: Tube debut.

2.) Young comic strip miscreant did wrong. (2 words)

Answer: Dennis sinned.

3.) Exclamation to grab the attention of the lad toting certain fruit. (3 words)

Answer: Yo, banana boy!

4.) Weather unsuitable for cheering or owl noise. (4 words)

Answer: Too hot to hoot.

5.) Question a Gotham City resident might ask after the caped crusader’s first appearance. (6 words)

Answer: Was it a bat I saw?

6.) Post’s indecorous citrus fruit (3 words)

Answer: Emily’s sassy lime.

7.) Show boredom in a manner akin to Caesar. (5 words)

Answer: Yawn a more Roman way.

And if there’s some kind of live game puzzle challenge you’d like to see, be sure to let us know! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!