First, I should apologize. The seventh MLP puzzle I was promising hasn't been finished, and it won't be finished for some time yet. But I do have something to show today.

Alexandre Muñiz posted some combinatorial musings on the World Cup recently, and I had a stab at the main posed problem. Figured out some shortcuts, but it's quite combinatorially ( Read more... )

Take a six-letter word, convert it to Braille, and write it in two rows of three letters. You'll notice this forms a 6x6 array of dots. Is there a starting word such that turning this array 90 degrees results in another word?

Braille and other codes can be found here (enlarged Braille in lower right). A 180-degree rotation doesn't work, since only ( Read more... )

In unrelated news, I'm doing a work-assessment program in which I'm demonstrating my office skills. We're hoping this will lead to finding a good placement for me at some company.

Kinda been relaxing on the puzzle construction front, though not so much on the solving front. There's been a cluster of Fillomino work (see here, puzzles 4 and 11 in ( Read more... )

It's often said that two wrongs don't make a right. Sometimes, it's cheekily added that three lefts do make a right. With that in mind, look at these cryptarithms:

LEFT WRONG
LEFT +WRONG
+LEFT RIGHT
RIGHT

Between them, these equations have eleven different letters, so obviously they can't both be right. Or... can they?
PUZZLE 1: If each ( Read more... )

Hey there.

Yeah, I should've done something yesterday for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and yes, I haven't been rendering puzzles lately. And by that, I mean "creating pleasant digital images of." I have a couple of nice Spokes variants on paper, but I haven't gotten around to moving them to the computer for various reasons on top of my ( Read more... )

Off and on, I have considered making videos along various lines. One such idea was "Furry Views," a series about the furry fandom in the same vein as "Zero Punctuation" (quickly joined on the Escapist by "Extra Credits" and MovieBob's two series, so the style is getting greater definition). But don't bother looking for "Furry Views" in some obscure ( Read more... )

No, apparently I have great difficulty following up on these things. (Which reminds me, I still need to call the Luggage Doctor.)

I came across the following image on Wikipedia while looking for a picture of a Scrabble board. I realized it could make for a good programming challenge, at least.


( Read more... )

Below is a clickable thumbnail. Maybe I should use that option more often.

( Read more... )

Happy 4th of July!

This week, I played matchmaker between Erich Friedman and Alexandre Muñiz. (These links contain some necessary background on weightominoes and sumominoes, respectively.) As sort of a thank-you, Alexandre sent me a problem reminiscent of Erich's extension tilings (problem 5) last month.

Is there a n-omino for which all the ( Read more... )

Since school let out-- and yes, also before-- I've been working on Erich Friedman's Math Magic for December and January. I'm the one with all the BH credits.
Before I lose this again, I want to show you a sudoku puzzle I created as a proof-of-concept. In this variant, one box has arithmetic symbols going across and down, and the expressions formed ( Read more... )