Tag Archives: Puzzlin’ fool

A Surprise Escape Room… During a Wedding!

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We’ve seen puzzly marriage proposals (even helping design a few over the years!), we’ve seen puzzly wedding party invitations, and we’ve seen puzzly wedding receptions…

But I think this is the first puzzly wedding I’ve ever seen!

Yes, the bride surprised the groom with a wedding ring trapped in a combination lock!

She then read out a riddle, loaded with clues that were tied to costumes and items held by various guests in attendance, each of them with a number.

So he needed to decode which references in the riddle connected to the numbers and characters in the audience.

And, quite cleverly, the combination turned out to be the exact date they met.

This is the lovely sort of puzzle fun that I think all of us sorely need right now, so thank you to friend of the blog and all around good egg Jen for sharing the video with me!

And if you’re in the mood for other lighthearted, puzzle-fueled, wedding-centric content, here’s a quick bullet list of links for you to enjoy:

Happy puzzling, everyone! Happy Valentine’s Day! And watch out for those escape rooms… they can show up anywhere these days!

puzzlelove

What’s a Shortz Number?

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While I was researching Salomon Numbers for last week’s post, I discovered another crossword-centric number system with an S-name attached.

The Shortz Number.

Actually, I found several of them.

Allow me to elucidate.

XWordInfo lists a constructor’s Shortz Number as a reflection of when that constructor was first published in a daily puzzle during the Shortz Era of The New York Times crossword.

For instance, Jacob Reed debuts in today’s puzzle, and his Shortz Number is 1373.

Peter Gordon is 1. Merl Reagle is 26. Bernice Gordon is 77. Matt Gaffney is 97. Nancy Salomon is 143. Patrick Berry is 257. Deb Amlen is 378. Doug Peterson is 431. Patti Varol is 1000.

It’s an incredible insight into an ever-evolving roster of constructors.

According to a cursory Google Search, this seems to be the most legitimate definition of a Shortz Number.

But there are others.

The second and most specious definition seems to be a Shortzian take on the Salomon Number, connecting constructors to Shortz through a Kevin Bacon-like system of collaborations.

I only found a few references to this interpretation, so it seems more like a coincidence than actual cultural permeation.

But that still leaves one more version of a Shortz Number, and it’s my favorite one.

This version is actually referenced on Wikipedia under Humorous Units of Measurement and apparently originated as a Reddit post.

But in this instance, a Shortz is a unit of measurement for fame. More specifically, it’s the number of times a person’s name has appeared in The New York Times crossword as either a clue or a solution.

The brief post then goes on to state that Shortz himself is 1 Shortz famous. (I was unable to verify this through XWordInfo, either through SHORTZ, WILLSHORTZ, or WILL as grid entries.)

But as someone who enjoys weird statistics, I was definitely intrigued by this one. What’s the Shortz Number for common crosswordese and frequent fill?

I mean, RIPTORN only has a 6, but that’s an impressive number of times to get your first AND last name in a crossword.

So let’s dig in.

First things first, I’m jettisoning the clue aspect of the definition. Let’s stick to grid entries.

I’m also doing my best to eliminate shared names or ones with multiple definitions. ETTA has 241 uses in the Shortz Era, but I don’t want to parse between James and Jones. Same for ELLA (249), ANA (342), and ALOU (150).

Second, let’s stick to real people. It’s cool that SMEE has 114, ODIE 145, and ASTA a staggering 183. But the Bacon, Erdos, and Salomon Numbers rely on real people, so our Shortz Number will too.

So allow me to present the people with the 8 highest Shortz Numbers I could find:

#8 ENYA – 149
#7 ALDA – 152
#6 UMA – 162
#5 OTT – 188
#4 ONO – 196 (minus a half-dozen or so fish references)
#3 ESAU – 226 (hard to stat out other biblical figures like Adam, Eve, Enos, because of other uses)
#2 ASHE – 264

and, as you might expect…

#1 ENO – 268!

It’s certainly a close race, and one that could easily change in the future!

Let’s add one more wrinkle before we go.

Because it’s interesting to track all the Shortz Era uses… but there are decades of puzzles before that, and XWordInfo has stats on them too.

So do the rankings change when you factor those puzzles in?

Absolutely.

Let’s call these Farrar Numbers and see how things shake out.

I mentioned ETTA earlier. The pre-Shortz puzzles cause their Farrar Number to be more than double, vaulting up to 516. Similarly, ELLA leaps to 688 and ANA to 758!

Some of our fictional friends also prosper, with SMEE moving from 114 to 332 and ASTA rocketing from 183 to 533! But ODIE only adds a handful more, moving from 145 to 156.

So how did our top 8 do?

ENYA (149) stayed in the exact same place. There were NO pre-Shortzian references.

UMA (167) drops from 6th to 7th, only gaining 5 more references. She swaps places with ALDA (270), who adds a lot of references (discounting the hundred or so mentioning his father or opera star Frances Alda).

Sadly, ENO (280) plummets from the #1 spot all the way to 5th, only adding another dozen or so references to make his Farrar Number.

ONO (390) stays in 4th despite nearly doubling the number of references, while OTT (432) leapfrogs over ONO, going from 5th to 3rd with an impressive pre-Shortzian showing.

ASHE (560) stays in 2nd despite more than doubling his references (and obviously disappearing from the pre-Shortzian rankings in the early 1960s).

This means ESAU (609) goes from 3rd to 1st in the Farrar Number rankings!

So, whether you prefer your Shortz Number to be chronological, Baconian, or grid-centric, you’ve got plenty of options.

But personally, I think the Farrar Number is gonna take the world by storm!

Okay… maybe not. But it’s certainly fun to think about.

Happy puzzling, everyone!

The ORCAS: The Oscars of the Crossword World!

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Constructors are doing incredible things with crosswords, so it’s fitting that there’s an award show dedicated to the hardworking cruciverbalists of the world and their marvelously devious creations.

Originally called The Oryx Awards or the Oryxes, The ORCAS (an anagram of OSCAR) celebrate crossword excellence. For the 13th edition of the event, the team at Diary of a Crossword Fiend have lined up some seriously impressive puzzles and puzzlers.

Be sure to check out the full list of nominees and cast your votes! Here are the categories:

  • Best Easy Crossword
  • Best Themed Crossword
  • Best Themeless Crossword
  • Best Sunday-Sized Crossword
  • Best Clue
  • Best Tournament Crossword
  • Best Contest Crossword
  • Best Variety Crossword
  • Best Midi Crossword
  • Constructor of the Year

Voting closes at midnight ET on Monday, February 17 (President’s Day).

Image courtesy of the World Wildlife Fund.

I was very pleased to see a few favorite puzzles of mine make the cut (as well as a clue for CHARLIE BUCKET that melted my brain with its cleverness).

I also enjoyed checking out many of the nominees that hadn’t crossed my path. (Here’s a link to the publicly available puzzles nominated.)

Oh, and if you’d like to make sure YOUR favorites get included next year, here’s a link for 2025 nominations for next year’s edition of the ORCAS.

Good luck to all the creative contenders and happy solving to everyone checking out the nominees!

Constructors, What’s Your Salomon Number?

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I’m a nerd.

I know that probably comes as a huge shock to you, fellow puzzler. Positively astonishing that a guy who has spent over twenty years making puzzles — more than ten writing about them here — and even more years running D&D games, LARPs, escape rooms, and murder mystery dinners is a nerd.

But that’s the truth.

And as a nerd, I love watching people quantify things in strange ways. Weird units of measurement like smoots, or how FEMA uses whether local Waffle Houses are open to determine the severity of natural disasters, or the Muta Scale used by wrestling fans to determine how bloody a wrestling bout is.

So when a recent Puzzmo crossword namedropped the Salomon number, I immediately wanted to know more.

Created by crossword constructor and super cool website owner Quiara Vasquez, the Salomon Number is named in honor of Nancy Salomon, a prolific and influential crossword constructor whose generosity, mentorship, and creativity still shapes the world of crosswords today.

Akin to the Bacon Number (how many steps it takes to link someone to Kevin Bacon through shared performances) and the Erdos Number (how many steps it takes to link someone to Paul Erdos through co-authored papers), the Salomon Number represents how many steps it takes to link someone to Nancy Salomon through collaborative puzzling.

Nancy Salomon collaborated with over forty constructors over the years, so there’s a very healthy talent pool to build a Salomon Number through.

You’re welcome to play the game mentally, but if you need a helping hand, Alex Boisvert has created an automated system for generating Salomon Numbers!

A visual graph of the Salomon Number network.

I tested it by searching for several of my very favorite puzzle people.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Los Angeles Times crossword editor and puzzle badass Patti Varol had a Salomon Number of 2, thanks to a collaboration with Matt Skoczen.

Crossword gentleman Doug Peterson had a Salomon Number of 3, linked by Joon Pahk and Brendan Emmett Quigley.

As I explored the database, it quickly became apparent how small a world crosswords can be — despite all the wonderful new voices entering the field over the last few years — so I started to wonder…

What’s the largest Salomon Number in the system?

I started with the celebrity constructors during the 75th anniversary celebration of The New York Times a few years ago.

Weird Al Yankovic’s number was 4. A good start. But this quickly petered out, as many of those celebrities were paired with veteran constructors with strong Salomon Numbers.

I pored over the list for familiar names to see their scores. Gaby Weidling’s number was 5, which was the highest I’d seen so far.

But I was surprised to find some prolific cruciverbalists in the database with no Salomon Number at all. With so many indie crossword outlets, there’s a chance there are collaborations that aren’t included in the current database, so there’s always the possibility of a successful search later.

(I also couldn’t resist doing a little sleuthing myself to see if I could uncover connections that weren’t in the database. Nothing yet, but I definitely can’t resist more digging later.)

But as constructors collaborate and innovate going forward, it’s going to be fascinating to watch this network continue to expand and complicate.

Make sure to check out Quiara’s post, which dives deeper into Salomon Numbers and even ponders Bacon-Erdos-Salomon Numbers!

Happy puzzling, everyone!

A New Medium for Optical Illusions: Quilting?

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Optical illusions are puzzles for the eye, a visual treat that tricks you into seeing things that aren’t there. These inspired bits of perceptual trickery can fool you into thinking near is far, big is small, or two dimensions are really three.

The advent of computers has helped push the boundaries of optical illusions, with eye-catching tessellations and visual effects that confuse the eye into thinking they see moving objects or impossible figures.

This makes it all the more impressive when people can accomplish the same in a purely physical medium.

Like quilting.

People accomplish some amazing designs with quilting, like this labyrinth quilt:

The dimension in this one is fantastic. (Though the puzzle nerd in me must point out that it’s not exactly solvable. Even to a minotaur.)

And then there’s this eye-popping wonder:

I can only imagine the amount of work required to get all of those squares cut and positioned the right way to create that bulging illusion in the middle of the checkerboard pattern. Talk about ambitious!

Quilts like those above are incredible efforts. But they feel doable. They feel natural when you look at them, even as they wow you with their exacting detail.

But nothing has amazed me quite as thoroughly as this glitch quilt pattern designed by Modern Groove Quilts.

The precision and color play required to create this illusion is a mathematical wonder.

It’s literally hard to look at! My eyes keep protectively sliding away from the design just to prevent my brain from struggling with it.

It feels like my computer screen is malfunctioning.

Using a rug as a backdrop is one thing, but in the wild, where nature is crisp and clear and the quilt appears blurry, it’s a baffling visual experience.

The only thing I can liken it to? This tattoo that looks blurred but isn’t:

These artistic, handmade optical illusions really show that, computer-assisted or not, it’s the ever-evolving ingenuity of creators that keeps the world full of wonder and creative achievement.

Now everyone, go stare at something boring and rest your eyes for a while.

(Oh, and check out the other patterns available from Modern Groove Quilts!)

Happy puzzling, everyone!

Minotaurs Don’t Make Sense?

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When you think of mazes, there’s probably no figure more iconic than the legendary minotaur.

The Bull of Minos — the direct translation of “minotaur” — called an elaborate labyrinth on the island of Crete home. This labyrinth, built by Daedalus, was said to be inescapable.

Even if you’re not a fan of Greek mythology, you probably know the basics of the story. Unsolvable maze. Half-man, half-bull. It’s all pretty simple.

So you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon not one, but TWO different videos talking smack about one of my favorite mythical creatures!

The first one discussed the intelligence of the minotaur:

Now, a very simple misconception lay at the heart of this video. The speaker is conflating two different definitions of labyrinth.

The first is the traditional idea of an elaborate maze full of intricate passageways, blind alleys, and torturous complexity.

The second refers to labyrinth gardens, which are designed to be walked slowly, meditatively, and take you on a journey through a series of paths and concentric circles, but one that can be easily navigated or escaped. None of the trickery or challenge of a traditional labyrinth.

So when the above video claims that a minotaur would have to be pretty stupid to fail to escape the labyrinth, they’ve got the wrong labyrinth in mind.

This brings us to the second video of the day, which discusses how minotaurs have been adapted for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game:

The speaker claims that D&D’s minotaurs don’t make sense, since they “can never get lost in a maze and will always find a way out.”

So, I went to verify what he said.

He referred specifically to the 5th edition version of the minotaur, so I checked both the 5th edition Monster Manual and the Monsters of the Multiverse sourcebook released later.

In the MM, all I find is this: “the minotaur can perfectly recall any path it has traveled.”

So what? There are a LOT of paths in a labyrinth, and remembering which ones you’ve walked doesn’t necessarily make you better at finding your way out.

Plus, how long is a path? How is the start or end of a path defined? Maybe our life is one LONNNNNG path, and he’s gotta recall ALL of it?!

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

This ability is restated in the Monsters of the Multiverse book as “you always know which direction is north”. That’s it. Cool. That’s great for navigation, but also not terribly helpful when it comes to solving mazes.

So I’m not really sure where he’s getting the whole “effortlessly defeats mazes” thing. I mean, the original Minotaur never bested the labyrinth. He was killed by Theseus there.

But, for the sake of thoroughness, I grabbed my 3rd edition Monster Manual off the shelf to see what it had to say about minotaurs.

The book states that minotaurs can’t ever become lost and are “immune to maze spells” (which banish someone to an extradimensional labyrinth).

“Can’t ever become lost” is incredibly open to interpretation. Does it always know the way out of a place? Or does it always know WHERE it is in a vague sense? There’s a big difference between knowing where the exit of a labyrinth is and simply knowing you’re in a labyrinth.

Like, if I know I’m in New York City, does that mean I have any idea where I’m going? Not necessarily.

Image courtesy of Do You Maze.

So, where does this leave us?

Well, in short, it tells me that people don’t necessarily know what a labyrinth is or what it means to have the skills of a minotaur.

After all, do we know if the original Minotaur ever really wanted to leave? He got regular deliveries of food, and was otherwise left to his own devices.

Doesn’t sound so bad, really. Anyone know a labyrinth that’s hiring right now?