Good morning

good morning...

morning

Hi lawfully and raggedy,
How are you both?

good

how about you?

good, but ready for bed, after class in the morn, 4 mile run, and 3 games of ultimate frisbee

So far so good ...
I'm starting to cool down from the heat of the day. I miss winter. 8-)

raggedy,
You are allowed to have a calm day or two during the summer.

haha, ya, someday

the prob is, people always have something to do, and im not one to turn down sports or social events

And it is far better to be too busy than bored.

I agree...

(although too obsessed with this prob to agree on anything :)

this one's going slow but steady

This does appear to be a challenging medium.

appearances can be deceiving

how many times do I have to say it...the mediums are always the worst!

it's pretty easy, if a little unusual

sometimes that's true

Well, I'm often a bit slow at these. I get there, but it takes a while and this one is a little slower than usual.

upper right box's killing me

ill say

full of possibilities...

I'm starting to make pretty good progress. The middle rows have just fallen into place.

And I'm done.
Not as bad as I first thought. The upper right corner was a little stubborn, but really medium.

congrats penguin

I'm glad to hear that...

Time for me to run out for some late night groceries (when the store's not crowded). Have a good night!

why is it that i tend to figure out tricky ways of cancelling out possibilities but then i'll miss the most blatant things to fill in?

good night penguin

blah, anyway that wasn't too bad

peace peeps

I really do wish there was some way to not accidentally drag a number's image into the address toolbar. Re-solving puzzles is rad!

haha

(the answer's probably "don't drag numbers into the address toolbar." oh well.)

done, not that bad as Penguin said

done, just screwed up pretty bad at the beginning and had to start over

done (hooray for having to re-fill the puzzle three times by the end. awesome!)

Morning all

hi sprite

hi all

very easy

Good morning

good morning all

done

hey! this one's got rotational symmetry too! i wonder if a lot of them do and i just didn't notice before.

Rotational symmetry?

just about all of them do

wow, how dumb am i then

it's just not very noticeable most of the time

yes, they all seem to have a symmetry based on a diagonal line

rotational symmetry is when you can turn something a certain number of degrees (180 in this case) and it's the same. the grey boxes line up.

Ohh..

well i know crossword puzzles have it, i wonder why i never thought about it until the other day

I wonder if you can have a non-symmetrical sudoku?

of course you can

I never tried to check it

gosh

now i'm checking at websudoku

cool... I noticed the symmetry, but just assumed they were all that way... maybe computer generated...

they all seem to have rotational symmetry!

i wonder if there IS some reason it's necessary

it doesn't seem like it should be necessary...

gee... maybe you have stumbled on a useful tool...

nah, it isn't anything about where the numbers go

cause they are not symmetrical with respect to numbers, only grey boxes

they couldn't be symmetrical with respect to numbers, it wouldn't work.

true, it probably isn't much help with the solving

but it is still a cool observation

btw, hurshy... we have a new kitten!

ooh nice!!! i love kittens! obviously.

i am just covered with shame, though, i can't believe i've done thousands of these and didn't notice for so long. i am going to have to try to research this now and see if there is any explanation of why sudokus are this way

"In 1986, Nikoli introduced two innovations: the number of givens restricted to no more than 32 and puzzles became "symmetrical" (meaning the givens were distributed in rotationally symmetric cells)." (Wikipedia)

me too. we had 2 older cats, both orange tabby like your pic. One died about 2 years ago and the other this past march. So the time was right, a house without a cat just doesn't seem complete to me.

ah, david's done it for me. i wonder why they did that? just for kicks? oh UDbmas! you have my sympathies on the loss of your cats :(

oh this is something i've been wondering about, if it isn't indelicate to ask, i have 3 cats, and they are only 6, but i sometimes wonder, when they get old and die, how will the others react to the loss? what did you find with yours?

thanks hursh... Just out of curiosity, I wonder if it would be harder or easier to solve a non-symmetrical one?

Ours pretty much took it in stride as best I can tell. The first to go was my Tiger, 17 yrs old. The other was his Spotledge, at 26 yrs old. They had only been together a few years.

oops...Spotledge was 16...

I don't think I've ever seen a non-symmetrical Sudoku. (That is, the given #s as non-symmetrical.)

hmm, only together a few years, that might make a difference. mine, though not biologically related, have all basically lived with each other all their lives.

oh my gosh, euler was involved with sudoku. how fun.

I had a group of 4, tiger was the last, who were together as a group for about 8 years. I think they miss each other for a few days, but nothing serious.

I may have had the exception with Tiger, he had no siblings, he was an only kitten and mom disappeared at 3 weeks. So I had fed him from that point. I think he thought he was the human and the others were merely animals...

interesting. i wondered because i had 2 birds before, brothers, and one died, and the other went not long after.

It may have been genetic, or a contagious illness that took them together. It is hard to tell with small animals.

Our younger cat, who is lying on my back right now (yes, that leads to awkwards posture), lost his sister to a birth defect a few years ago.

He is still nearly as timid as ever, but he's done pretty well..

He has you all to himself now. In my lifelong experience with cats, while they like the companionship of other cats (and other animals) if they can have exclusivity with their human, they LOVE it.

yeah, they don't HAVE to have the symmetry, people just like it i guess. the lowest number of givens anyone has found that still leads to a unique solution is 17, 18 with the symmetry.

wow... this is starting to feel like a physics issue... but it is fun anyway! LOL

lol, they had a show in england where people did sudoku on tv, and they carved a giant sudoku into a hill for publicity, and then it turned out the giant sudoku had like 1900 solutions (major gaffe!)

oh my! talk about getting sand in it!

golly. what an educational day this is so far.

yep...that's what a "medium" will do to you...

hehe

Actually, UDbmas, he still has an "uncle" or something, an older and larger male cat we've had years longer

Hopefully 'Uncle" is a good role model...

I've seen interesting personality changes as cats come and go, but that's a topic for another time, as I need to get to work

hagd David!

Thanks, and the same to y'all

bye david mitchell!

okay...made a mistake...starting over! I always have trouble with the medium ones.

hello everybody

hello!

how are you today, chebuctorian :)

ah, excellent now that I've finished it :)

how about you?

i am fine, thanks. I wish stupid tabloid newspeper 'news of the world' is finished. it's evil

No arguments here, but out of curiosity, what sparks the focus on it?

if you look at bbc.co.uk you will see...

news front page

Hmm, sorry, not seeing what you're referring to

news.bbc.co.uk trio cleared of red mercury plot article

nor me!

Heh, sounds like classic entrapment

it is beyond stupid

newspepers like that should hawe a 'stupidity' tax put on them.

The way to handle it is to not buy the crap they put out

They put it out there cause it sells

If no one buys, they'll either change tactics or go out of business

they should pay for the harm thay have done (wishful thinking) :(

finished. good day

done... bye all

Howdy, U-All, eh?

HI lIMER

OOPS

hello :)

sorry, I didn't realize my caps was on

lets try that again

Hi Limer

Hey Mandi and scribble!

and hi Scribble

Say HI to scribbles mom

is my mom on now?

Don't think so, You can pass on the greetings, right Scribble?

i guess so....you are confusing me a little

Well if it's only a little, guess what I'm going to do next...

hmmm...

i suppose it would have something to do with finishing the puzzle...

A sudoku puzzle!

You are such an intelligent girl!

yep that would make sense

i know i am

What did the doe say as she came out of the woods?

ummm..."im out of the woods"...??? :)

no, it's a joke

Punch line

well what did she say then?

I'll never do that again for a couple of bucks.

*grin*

oh Limer

*Rim shot*

hahaha :) how funny...

No tomatoes please

If you must throw tomatoes, please reomve them from the can

i have some vegetable soup...

this seems harder than yesterday's hard!

just a wee bit more than a tad

would that be a tad more than a tad then?

Ha

Nailed that puppy!

Rank me, baby!

Lots of green this time

Cue theme music

My apologies to Scribble

Later all to all the people.

and cu hurshy

woot! this was a hard medium.

...

...

DONE!!

man finished in under 5!!!

that was mad easy

hi

hi

hey!

Hi! Would someone please give me a hint on the second square going across???

Is there anyone out there??

I am! Jusr starting.

Well, when you get the second square, will you give me a hint?

Sure. Gotta take a break now to take the grandkids into the pool.

Point of clarification, Stephanie. THe Second square is the middle of the top row of squares, right?

Never mind! I finally got it!!