Tag Archives: Puzzlin’ fool

Crossword Charities Have No Chill (and That’s Awesome)

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Words are awesome. We use words to express ourselves, to paint pictures for each other, to explain the world and our viewpoints in vivid, meticulous detail. There is a heart-stirring magic in the poetry and art of words.

But words can also obscure, conceal, and mislead. Words can be bent, they can weasel into unlikely positions, they can camouflage and doublespeak ideas as something else. There is a sinister potential in how words can deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate. (That’s one for the diehard X-Files fans in the readership.)

This is not news to puzzle solvers. Crossword cluing is often about playfully duping the reader, using puns, alternate pronunciations, and clever phrasing to challenge the solver.

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Picture courtesy of ThinkingCloset.com

But there is a certain charm and elegance to speaking directly, to bluntly sharing who you are and what you are about. No room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Only truth and honesty, explicitly stated.

And that’s why I appreciate how crossword charity endeavors have been dropping all pretense and simply stating what they’re about.

Like These Puzzles Fund Abortion. They don’t call it reproductive rights or protection for women. They say what they’re doing with no ambiguity. These Puzzles Fund Abortion.

That’s awesome.

And I recently saw another crossword charity project with a similarly unflinching level of honesty and forthrightness that I’d like to highlight today.

A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle.

A collection of 10 puzzles created by trans constructors, A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle celebrates the trans community and their contributions to puzzles and society alike.

Donate $10 or more to an American trans charity (like G.L.I.T.S., Rainbow Railroad, or The Trevor Project) and you’ll receive your puzzle packet.

You can click here for more information, and I sincerely hope you do. It’s an incredibly worthwhile cause.

Puzzle Activism, like our trans friends and fellow puzzlers, is here to stay.

Happy puzzling, everyone!

No Prep Road Trip Games!

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Summer is nearly upon us, and with the arrival of summer, one cannot help but think of road trips with friends and ways to pass the time in the car.

While singalongs, I Spy, and the License Plate Game are all well and good, perhaps you would like a little more challenge with your road trip games.

Well, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a few suggestions for road trip games that require no preparation, save for a little imagination!

The Movie Game

I learned this game while stuck on a long train ride, and it certainly made the delays go faster.

Someone starts with a film, and the next player names an actor in that film. The next person names ANOTHER film that actor has appeared in, and the next person names ANOTHER actor from that film. And you keep going until someone can’t continue the game.

(If you present an actor or film in the chain that the next player can’t continue, you can only eliminate them by offering another answer, showing that the chain can continue. If you give them a chain link you can’t continue either, you’re out!)

It’s surprisingly difficult, because the more you play, the more devious you try to get. You want to lure other players down garden paths, but you have to make sure you don’t go so obscure that you can’t find your way out as well.

Playlist

Friend of the blog Jen Cunningham created a music-themed version of The Movie Game: Playlist.

In this version, you start with a song and an artist, and the next player either names another song by that artist OR another song using one of the key words in the song.

So, for instance, if you say “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles and you need to match the song, you could do “Owner of the Lonely Heart” by Yes or “Only the Lonely” by Roy Orbison. Then someone needs to name another Yes song or another Roy Orbison song, and then the chain continues.

I find this game slightly more challenging than The Movie Game because of both the musical knowledge (which isn’t as strong as my movie knowledge) and the associative nature of the song title aspect. But many hours have been wiled away with this game!

My Friend Is An Expert… / Conspiracy Theory

In this game, the first player picks two random subjects, and then prompts the next player with them, and it’s the next player’s job to explain in entertaining fashion something fascinating about them that only an expert would know.

For instance, the first player would go “My friend is an expert in ancient archaeology and polka music” and the next player has to riff on those subjects for a bit. Other players can ask questions to continue the silliness.

The game continues with different topics and additional nonsense.

There’s a similar game to this called Conspiracy Theory where someone has to rant about the grand conspiracy behind two seemingly unrelated topics provided by the other players.

Both of these are great fun with a group of improvisers or snake oil salesman during a long road trip.

Alien Ambassador

(I haven’t played this one yet, but a friend recommended it, so I’m happily including it.)

In this game, one player is selected to be the alien ambassador, an alien visiting Earth for the very first time. The other players must answer the alien’s questions and explaining simple concepts to them. (It’s sorta like that comic strip with the aliens.)

As the alien ambassador asks more questions about this, the players will invariably scramble to explain the very weird things we accept as normal, everyday life, and laughter will ensue.

Hastur Horta Hodor Mordor

Inspired by a Dork Tower comic, Hastur Horta Hodor Mordor is a road trip game that actually became a real card game. But let’s focus on the road trip version.

This is a memory game where one player says a word — preferably one related to fandom, geek culture, etc. — in order to begin a nerdy tongue twister. The next player says that word AND another word. The next player says the two previous words AND another word, and the chain continues.

If you can’t complete the chain or you hesitate too long, you get a Hodor point, and a new chain begins.

If you get 3 Hodor points, you can only say “Hodor” for the rest of the car ride. (That’s a reference for the Game of Thrones fans in the audience, if there are any of you left after those dismal final seasons.)

Do you have any favorite no prep road trip games, fellow puzzlers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

A-Ha Moments Stick in the Brain!

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It’s one of the best moments in puzzle solving.

When all the pieces click into place brilliantly. When the wordplay is unraveled. When the cryptic crossword clue is deciphered. When the trickery behind the riddle is revealed.

That rush, that satisfaction that coincides with overcoming the clever, devious creation of another keen mind.

The a-ha moment.

And it turns out that the a-ha moment isn’t just significant for puzzly spirits, it’s biochemically significant as well.

According to a study by Maxi Becker, Tobias Summer, and Roberto Cabeza, the brain remembers a-ha moments better than solutions reached through traditional methodologies.

From a report by Gizmodo:

As study participants solved brain teasers, he [Cabeza] and his colleagues recorded their brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that measures changes in blood flow associated with brain activity. The brain teasers were visual fill-in-the-blank puzzles that revealed a previously hidden picture once participants completed the image.

And the brain activity resulting from an a-ha moment was comparable to the brain characteristics of important insight events. This means that the solutions derived from a-ha moments were remembered more clearly and with greater detail than those derived from traditional solving or process of elimination-style solving. Some of the solvers still recalled their a-ha moment solution a full five days later!

Researchers are already looking to revamp the ways we teach by utilizing techniques that inspire more a-ha moments, hoping that students will benefit more in the long term from inspiration-focused learning, rather than rote memorization.

Here’s hoping for more a-ha moments for all us! They’re good for the soul and good for the memory banks.

Happy puzzling, everyone!

A Gateway Puzzle for Crossword Solving?

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Where do you get started with crossword solving?

I see that question a lot. And the advice offered to new solvers varies. Sometimes they’re pointed particular crossword outlets promising a more newbie-friendly solve. You certainly don’t want someone tackling a crossword too difficult for their skill level and getting discouraged.

Often, they’re told to just plug away at it, since the only way to get better at crosswords… is by solving crosswords.

None of this advice is wrong. I’m sure people follow these suggestions and slowly start to enjoy this puzzly world that many of us have embraced for decades.

You might think that Mini Crosswords, like those featured in the New York Times puzzle app, are the way to go. But while the grid is smaller, that also means new solvers have fewer chances to find crossings and work on their solving.

Imagine a regular crossword. A Mini is essentially one corner of the grid. If you started a crossword in one corner, and didn’t get any entries, you can move to another spot. But if you’re stumped on a Mini, where do you go?

I also think the running timer feature — although obviously not a necessity for solvers — can add to a new solver’s anxiety. If you’re stumped, and you’re just sitting there, watching the timer tick away, that’s going to eat at your confidence a bit.

crisscross

You might think that crisscross-style puzzles (like the one above) would be less intimidating, since they don’t have the same dense grid surrounded by clues that crosswords have, but I’ve found that folks don’t warm to those quickly. No matter how well-constructed the crisscross, it tends to remind people of activity books for kids, and no one wants to feel patronized when trying out a new hobby or giving it another go.

Not only that, but they are missing one of the most helpful components to crossword solving: all the overlapping letters! In a crossword, you have two chances at every single box because of the across and down clues. But in a crisscross, you usually only have one or two points of overlap, so if the clue isn’t helpful or intuitive, you’re just stuck. That doesn’t build solver confidence.

I do have a suggestion, though.

I’ve tried this with several friends and acquaintances who had sworn off crosswords entirely, and not only introduced them to a new puzzle they didn’t know, but opened their eyes to the possibility of more puzzle solving in the future.

My solution was: Fill-Ins.

fillin sample
A sample puzzle from our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles.
Check out their fill-in library here!

For the uninitiated, fill-ins utilize the same general grid style as a crossword. But instead of answering numbered clues to place the words in the grid, you’re already given the answer words, organized by word length. Your task is to place them all into the grid, using other words and letters in the grid to guide you.

It’s closer to Sudoku-style solving than crosswords, because you’re eliminating options in a logical manner, rather than figuring out clues to place the words.

I believe solving fill-ins helps remove the intimidation factor of crosswords in three ways:

1. No trivia or outside knowledge is required, which removes a huge burden from a solver who has probably felt overwhelmed by crossword cluing in the past.

2. It makes empty crossword grids less intimidating. Do you ever have those moments where you read three or four crossword clues in a row and you don’t immediately conjure up answers? And then you look at all those empty spaces in the grid and feel dumb? It happens. But fill-ins often have a set word to get you started, and once you start placing letters, recognizing useful crossings, and filling the grid, all that goes away.

3. Fill-ins help strengthen another skill valuable in crossword solving: letter-blank recognition. If you see B _ U _ , a regular solver instantly starts listing off possibilities: BOUT, BLUE, BLUR, BAUD, etc. But a new solver — who might not have that reflexive knowledge of possible words — can read through the list of four-letter words and see what fits, helping to build that mental lexicon for future solving.

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After solving a handful of fill-ins, word placement goes quicker, confidence in filling in those letter blanks increases, and empty grids become fields of potential puzzle fun, not stark empty spaces.

I’ve suggested fill-ins to several crossword-shy or puzzle-shy friends, and usually, a few weeks later or so, they start asking what other puzzles are out there, or where a good place to start with crosswords might be. And that’s a win.

Happy puzzling, everyone!

New Rubik’s Speed-Solving Record: Blink and You’ll Miss It!

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Clever, quick-fingered solvers are constantly pushing the boundaries of what can be accomplished with a Rubik’s Cube.

I’ve seen the world’s most complex Rubik’s-style cube being solved, a building turned into a solvable Rubik’s Cube, and a Rubik’s Cube solved one move at a time by strangers across the globe.

I’ve even seen a Rubik’s Cube solved during a skydive.

But, amidst all those amazing achievements, there has been something lurking in the background. Over the years, there has been an escalating cold war in the world of Rubik’s Cubes.

The two sides? Human and machine.

The battlefield? Speed-solving.

Human speed-solvers often count their records in seconds, not minutes. The current record for a 3×3 cube solve is 3.05 seconds!

But speed-solving devices are often so fast that they end up ripping the cube to pieces instead of completing the solve. So puzzly designers must carefully walk a tightrope between speed and power in order to challenge speed records for mechanical solvers.

The record for an automated solve is an astonishing 0.305 seconds – ten times faster than the fastest human solve! — set by Mitsubishi Electric engineers in Japan in May 2024.

Or it was, until a few days ago.

The new Guinness World Record for “Fastest robot to solve a puzzle cube” belongs to Purdubik’s Cube, the robot created by Junpei Ota, Aden Hurd, Matthew Patrohay, and Alex Berta, a team of students from Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The new record? 0.103 seconds.

It’s hard to fathom how quick that is. Thankfully, one of Purdubik’s Cube’s creators has an apt analogy:

“We solve in 103 milliseconds,” Patrohay said. “A human blink takes about 200 to 300 milliseconds. So, before you even realize it’s moving, we’ve solved it.”

Utilizing a combination of color recognition and finely-tuned industrial-grade motion-control hardware — guided by algorithms written by the students themselves — Purdubik’s Cube carefully accelerates and decelerates its movements faster than the eye can see.

And despite the fact that a team of four college students smashed a record previously held by a billion-dollar corporation, they’re not done yet.

They aspire to solve a Rubik’s Cube with Purdubik’s Cube in less than a tenth of a second! I don’t know how they expect to shave a few milliseconds off their time to achieve their goal, but you know what? I fully believe they can do it. In less than a year, they set their goal of a new Guinness World Record and achieved it.

Who knows what they’ll achieve next?

[You can read the full story of their journey from the initial goal to their world record success on the Purdue Engineering website. I highly recommend it!]

A Secret Egyptian Code Hiding in Plain Sight?

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Thirty-three hundred years ago, an obelisk was carved in ancient Egypt. It stood at the entrance of the Luxor temple as part of a pair.

Almost two hundred years ago, the obelisk was given to France by Egypt’s ruler. It stands at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, thousands of miles from its sibling in Egypt.

Two centuries of students and tourists and philosophers and photographers and scholars gazing at the obelisk, reading the intricately carved hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphs were traditionally written in columns reading downward. But there are also left and right directional markers, marking the beginning of a sentence, often indicated by which direction a human or animal figure is facing.

As you can see, the placement of different symbols allows them to combine with others, both vertically and horizontally, to create different words or concepts.

And whomever did the inscriptions on the obelisk used the multidirectionality of the language to conceal messages in plain sight.

Even after centuries of study, it took a keen eye and some lucky conditions for Egyptologist Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier to uncover the hidden messages.

You see, the obelisk was surrounded by scaffolding as part of its renovations, and this allowed Olette-Pelletier to get up close to the highest point of the obelisk and observe the inscriptions rarely seen by casual observers.

The hidden messages required him to read the hieroglyphs horizontally rather than vertically, and at a particular angle as well. This three-dimensional study of the inscriptions, known as crypto-hieroglyphs, allowed the creator to conceal messages that didn’t simply sing the praises of Pharaoh Ramses II, but actually point to his rulership as divine right, claiming his power came directly from the gods themselves.

It was propaganda, intended to reinforce the pharaoh’s status in the eyes of the elites of Egypt, cloaked in messages for the common people. (One of the messages, for instance, could only be seen by those arriving by boat, a privilege available only to the elite.)

For example, from an article in EuroWeekly News:

“People had not noticed that under [one of the drawings] of the god Amun, there is an offering table. This allows us to discover a sentence where no element is missing: an offering that the king gives to the god Amun,” Olette-Pelletier told BFMTV. Combinations of the newly identified inscriptions produce additional meanings in what’s called three-dimensional cryptography. In total, the Egyptologist identified seven encrypted messages across the obelisk’s various facades. He explained that the enigmatic text can only be understood by walking around the monument.

Imagine the creator of the obelisk, carving with specific angles and readers in mind, an iconic gift to the pharaoh… only for the code to be cracked thousands of miles away, thousands of years in the future, by a different kind of elite.

The puzzly kind.

That’s amazing.