It’s Follow-Up Friday: Monopoly’s Birthday edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today, I’d like to revisit the subject of Monopoly.

I recently posted about the 80th anniversary of the game and their real-money promotion in France.

And whether you’re a fan of the game or not, you can’t deny its staggering success or the genuine historical impact it has made.

Yesterday was the official 80th anniversary of the game. March 19, 1935 was the day Parker Brothers acquired the rights from the game from Charles Darrow, who claimed to have invented Monopoly, although the game was actually invented by a woman named Elizabeth J. Magie. (Parker Brothers now owns the rights from both parties.)

And over the course of 80 years, a lot of trivia has accumulated regarding the game. Here are a few of my favorite little nuggets:

  • The character locked behind the bars is called Jake the Jailbird. Officer Edgar Mallory sent him to jail.
  • Escape maps, compasses, and documents were inserted into Monopoly game boards smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during World War II. Real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of Monopoly money.
  • Tokens from the United States Monopoly: Here & Now Edition were flown into space aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2007.

You can check out Hasbro’s full listing of Monopoly history and trivia here!

And now, a few questions: when you play Monopoly, what token do you use? And what’s your favorite variation of the game? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

“Do nine men interpret?” “Nine men,” I nod.

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I’ve written about Bletchley Park and the efforts to crack the German ENIGMA code several times now, both from a historical standpoint and a cinematic one with the recent release and Oscar success of The Imitation Game.

Bletchley Park was the home of world-class codebreakers, chess players, and crossword solvers, but as it turns out, there was one more type of puzzle that the Bletchley Park crew mastered: palindromes.

In their spare time, they had competitions to create new sentences that could be read both backward and forward — like the title of today’s post, one of my all-time favorites — and mathematician Peter Hilton was far and ahead the most gifted when it came to crafting these palindromes. (His penchant for the puzzle was even mentioned in his obituary in the British online magazine The Independent.)

Perhaps you’ve seen his most famous creation, one of the world’s longest palindromes, composed during one sleepless night at Bletchley Park:

Doc note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

From an article on Vocabulary.com:

Incredibly, the young codebreaker did not use paper or pencil while composing his epic palindrome. He simply lay on his bed, eyes closed, and assembled it in his mind over one long night. It took him five hours.

It all started, apparently, with a contest to best a well-known palindrome: Step on no pets.

Two days later, Hilton responded with the cheeky “Sex at noon taxes.”

And they were off to the races, competing to create longer and more elaborate palindromes. It’s not known how many of the Bletchley Park alums were involved — whether Alan Turing played remains a big question mark — but it’s been said that the competition, instigated by mathematician John Henry Whitehead (nephew of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead), helped spawn the golden age of palindromes.

Some estimate that more palindromes were written in the ten years after Bletchley Park’s competition started than were published across the world in the more than three hundred years that preceded them.

That’s one heck of a legacy.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Pluto, Pi, and Puzzles edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today, I’d like to return to the subject of puzzly and otherwise nerdy holidays!

I already mentioned the fast-approaching American Crossword Puzzle Tournament yesterday, but did you know that today is Pluto Planet Day?

Yes, today is a day when all those scarred or upset by Pluto’s demotion from planet to dwarf planet (or plutoid, or Trans-Neptunian Object, or whatever they’re calling it now).

In fact, the residents of the state of New Mexico were so upset by Pluto’s dismissal from the list of planets that they made a law stating Pluto is forever a planet in New Mexico skies. Which is pretty great (and in flagrant defiance of the current scientific literature).

Tomorrow is a holiday as well! It’s Pi Day (March 14th, a.k.a. 3.14)! And, actually, it’s the most mathematically significant Pi Day since 1592!

When you take Saturday’s date — 3/14/15 — you have the first five digits of Pi. When you add a certain time — 3/14/15 at 9:26 — you have the first eight!

(MIT used to email its acceptance letters out at 1:59 on March 14.)

Plus, March 23 is crossword icon Margaret Farrar’s birthday!

Hired as a secretary for The New York World, she soon found herself assisting crossword creator Arthur Wynne with proofreading puzzles, only for her puzzles to surpass his in popularity! She was the first crossword editor for The New York Times, a position she held until 1969 when Will Weng took over the position.

So, fellow puzzlers, will you be celebrating Pi Day or Pluto Planet Day or Farrar’s birthday? Better yet, will you be participating in this year’s ACPT? Let me know!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is coming!

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The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is just over two weeks away — Friday March 27 through Sunday March 29! — and this year is promising to be something special.

After seven years in Brooklyn, New York, the tournament is returning to Stamford, Connecticut, the tournament’s previous home for many years.

Every year, constructors and crossword fans alike test their puzzly mettle (and pencil points) against time and nerves as they solve topnotch puzzles as quickly and accurately as possible.

Last year, Dan Feyer won his fifth consecutive tournament, tying the record set by fellow competitor Tyler Hinman. Will he go six for six this year and move one step closer to meeting Jon Delfin’s remarkable record of seven tournament wins?

But there’s more going on than just the tournament! It’s a weekend dedicated to puzzle goodness of all kinds.

In the past, there have been talent shows, puzzle challenges, displays of live puzzle creation, team solving games, scavenger hunts, crossword songs, film viewings (including the Wordplay documentary), and performances of puzzle magic by David Kwong.

This is my first year attending the tournament, and I’m excited not only to witness the event firsthand, but to meet many of the names in puzzles I’ve interviewed and gotten to know over the last few years.

And I won’t be the only member of the PuzzleNation Crew at ACPT this year, as Fred, our Director of Game Development, will be there to show off the Penny Dell Crosswords App and talk shop with fellow puzzlers!

Plus, several friends of the blog will be in attendance, like Penny Press variety editor Keith Yarbrough, crossword gentleman Doug Peterson, and Uptown Puzzle Club editor Patti Varol.

For more information or to sign up and test your puzzle skills, click here! (You can participate online or by mail!)

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

PuzzleNation App Review: TRUpuzzlE

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Welcome to the another edition of PuzzleNation App Reviews! Today we continue our quest to explore the world of puzzly games and apps for your tablet or smartphone!

Our resident app player and puzzle fiend Sherri has a new game for us today, so let’s get down to business and dive into her review of TRUpuzzlE for iPad and iPhone!

TRUpuzzlE is an iOS app where you’re tasked with moving the group of green pieces to a specific location.

If you like straight puzzles, then this is the game for you. Your goal is to shift the green group of pieces to the green squares. Easy, right? Well, guess again. Blocking your way are other groups of colored pieces that you have to move around in order to get the green pieces to their proper squares.

This is a real corker of a game, as the levels get progressively harder. Much harder. You have set paths to move the pieces through; in order to get the full three stars for each level, you have to move the green pieces to their squares in a certain number of steps. Of course, you can take as many steps as you need and earn one star, which is good, as completing one level opens up the next.

The graphics are pretty good. Each level’s puzzle board is superimposed on machinery, with moving gears in the background. It has a steampunk flavor that I really enjoy. To reset a level, you simply flick a switch.

Since you’re pretty much solving the same type of puzzle for each level, if you aren’t a lover of this type of puzzle, the game can get a bit tedious. The graphics keep levels interesting, though, and the increasing difficulty really works your brain. This is one game that keeps your puzzle-solving abilities sharp!

Ratings for TRUpuzzlE:

  • Enjoyability: 2/5 — It’s a very straightforward game that really depends on if you like solving that particular type of puzzle. Since each level is essentially the same, just increasing in difficulty, it can get a bit tedious.
  • Puzzle incorporation: 4/5 — This game is all about the puzzle. Each level gets progressively harder with the same type of puzzle.
  • Graphics: 3/5 — They’re minimalist but have a good steampunk flavor. The moving gears really add atmosphere to the game.
  • Gameplay: 3/5 — It’s a fairly easy game to play. Good luck trying to get three stars on each level. Those levels get very tricky!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: That Dress edition

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today I’d like to return to the subject of optical illusions.

Yes, by popular demand, I’m talking about The Dress.

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[The original photo is in the middle. To the left, the photo has been color-corrected toward white and gold. To the right, the photo has been color-corrected toward black and blue.]

For those who haven’t heard — and wow, I’m sincerely amazed you haven’t by now — the above picture of a dress was uploaded to Tumblr not too long ago, and the Internet collectively lost its mind debating whether the dress was white and gold or black and blue.

Some people think that color blindness has something to do with the different opinions on the dress, but the answer is simpler than that.

I’ve written about optical illusions in the past, and this photo is another prime example. As for why people are seeing two different sets of colors, it’s all about visual context and how we interpret contrasting colors.

The photo is saturated with sunlight, which skews the color of the dress. But for some people, when their eye color-corrects to determine what they’re looking at, they discount the blue in the photo, and end up seeing white and gold. Other people discount the gold in the photo, and see blue and black.

(This was also one of those cases where actually tilting your laptop screen could significantly change how the colors looked, since changing the angle of your screen altered how the image interacts with whatever light sources are nearby.)

I’ll give you another example. Check out this image from Gizmodo:

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These green and blue spirals, contrasted against the pink and orange, appear to be different colors, but they are actually the exact same color. Our eyes are fooled into seeing them as different shades by the alternating stripes around them. (The “green” have orange contrast while the “blue” have pink.)

The differing interpretations of The Dress operate under the same principle.

Oh, and for the record, here’s the dress without the sunlight skewing the color scheme, as seen on Ellen DeGeneres’s show:

people-behind-the-dress-appear-on-ellen-02

So which camp were you in, fellow puzzlers? White and gold or black and blue?

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!