Nice one

:)

done

Done

done yesteradys expert g/ng - a hidden UR

start

ding

Bit more work than usual for an easy or is it that I've just worked for 14 hours today at the end of the week.

What does hidden UR mean?

I was reviewing the chat log for puzzle #340 (13 Feb 2007) because I was finding the puzzle very difficult, and I noticed that folks were talking about a required payment of $15 to be able to access the archives. I don't recall paying anything to access the archives when I started doing IronSudoku puzzles (circa 2016), so does anyone know when that payment requirement to access the archives was eliminated (and possibly why)?

harpjane, it means "hidden unique rectangle" http://www.sudokuwiki.org/Hidden_Unique_Recta\nngles

Thanks, I am still learning

no worries, harpjane. I asked the same question a few months ago ... can't say I utilize all the techniques folks talk about here because I am also still learning !

i was reading that article and my head was spinning!

I know what you mean, hoyagirl. I'd recommend starting here to learn about "unique rectangles", which can be very useful once you have all the greens in place in the puzzle. Manually put greens into a cell by hitting the shift key and choosing the possible values that can go in the cell (they will show up as tiny numbers in green, hence they are called greens)

@ JudyHall. Maybe they meant you had to pay the joining fee to see the archives and to play them. With babble you will lose the the total word count etc if you do not pay the lifetime fee after two weeks (I think) must be the same for here. Although I may be wrong...just a hunch.

https://sysudoku.com/2013/01/08/unique-rectan\ngle/

zoomzoom, I've never paid $15 for Babble either and I've always had access to total word count and all other data. I think the required payment has been eliminated in both IronSudoku and Babble ...

Unless someone gifted you a lifetime membership. some people have had that gifted to them before. If that is the case that it is free it was not before so maybe that is why they mentioned the payment. I joined in 2009 and I had to pay for here and for babble.

I asked on babble, JudyHall. i was informed that the lifetime membership fees seems to have stopped a while ago now. So that seems to be the answer to the question you posed earlier and that you used to have to pay and I think that is what they were referencing to the $15. Not sure when the fee stopped though.

zoomzoom, thanks for confirming my thought that the lifetime $15 fee (for both Babble and IronSudoku) was eliminated. Am still curious about when and why the fee was eliminated, if anyone knows.

I was just discussing it in babble chat if you want to take a look. Tallmike left a few comments too.

JudyHall, we can only guess at the reason to eliminate the joining fee. My guesses are to allow for a relatively guilt free shutdown of the websites sometime in the future, or possibly to avoid any obligation to make site improvements.

TallMike, both of your guesses sound reasonable to me. And following your reasoning, I would add "eliminating the need for instantaneous web site maintenance". Web site maintenance can be a tedious chore, and having folks clamoring any time 24/7 for immediate troubleshooting and resolution of problems can be exasperating.

dng

Pretty slow. 16.