Solving Sudoku : Technique 7 : Hidden Pairs/Triples Hopefully you've got the hang of finding Naked Pairs and Triples - if not, practise looking for those before trying to understand the hidden equivalent! Hidden pairs and triples are quite a bit trickier to spot - they're hiding after all! Using the same notation as before, just looking at the cells which haven't been fixed yet: {46} {24} {13} {26} {123} Because 1 and 3 can only exist in two of those cells (no other cells will accept either of them), that means they must be in those two cells, leaving no room for any other. Even though you don't know which is a 1 and which is a 3, you do know that the two isn't welcome, so you can remove it as a candidate from the end cell! (The eagle-eyed readers will spot that you could have arrived at the same result by looking for the naked triple {46} {24} {26} - which would result in just the same - removing the 2 as a candidate from the end cell. Looking for hidden groups Even harder... Can you find the hidden triples in these lines?
Olle Linge - Languages, literature and the pursuit of dreams · A guide to Carcassonne strategy: The basics Introduction This article is meant to lay the groundwork for how to master the board game Carcassonne (Wikipedia). I do not intend to explain the rules of the game and I assume that the reader is familiar with the basic mechanics of the rules. If need be, I will of course refer to a specific rule to prove a point. Over the years, we have tried various rule sets and different expansions, and we have finally settled on playing with first edition rules and only one expansion, Inns & Cathedrals. Even though some specific parts of this article will pertain only to games using that particular setup, most strategies are valid for other combinations as well (even for games in general). I am making two assumptions for the majority of this guide, which both are crucial. That being said, who am I to lecture about how to play Carcassonne? Please note that even if I have originated many of the ideas in this article, I am indebted to my friends. Compare the result between these two. ShareThis
SAW-Online : Home Astroblog: Hand Drawn Anaglyphs! You may be familiar with red/(cyan or blue) anaglyphs. These are pictures where a 3D effect is produced by overlapping red and cyan (or blue) images. I have used anaglyphs to make stereo images of Mars and the Sun, for example. A couple of days ago MiddleOne asked if you could draw 3D pictures. I thought it was possible from my experience with anaglyphs, and we experimented with various coloured textas, but with only minor successs. Around 5:30 this morning SmallestOne kicked me out of bed, and I started thinking (or maybe I was already dreaming) about anaglyphs. It was pretty easy to find a light red text that fitted the bill (our previous attempts had used too dark a red). Once you have your colours, then how do you match them up to give depth? You also have to choose your viewing postion, straight up and down at about a meter away works best. The planet with craters and rings above is the result. Labels: sketch, stereograms
Sudoku Generator Sudoku Generator Here is a free Sudoku generator that can generate puzzles of varying difficulty in PDF, Postscript, plaintext, and HTML. It is a nice example of the website fun you can have with 250 lines of Python over a Labor day weekend; it also makes a handy command-line Sudoku solver... Update: For Google Chrome users, try installing this Chrome Sudoku Web App for hints and more. What is Sudoku? Have you ever played Sudoku? The rules of Sudoku are simple: finish filling in the squares of a 9x9 grid so that the digits 1-9 appear exactly once in each of the nine rows, columns, and 3x3 blocks. Ways to Play Sudoku is a good solo game; if you are having trouble getting into it, you can read about various solution strategies on the web. But, like crosswords, it can be even more fun to work Sudoku puzzles together with somebody else. I realized Sudoku was a major phenomenon when I saw the Dora Sudoku books for preschoolers. Counting Sudoku Boards Counting Sudoku Hints Rating Puzzles Thank you
Carcassonne Strategy Carcassonne Strategy Guide, Rules and New Farmer Scoring Winner of the prestigious Spiel Des Jahres (German Game of the Year) in 2001, Carcassonne is quite simply the best board game you’ve never played. The unique concept behind Carcassonne has players actually constructing the board as they play, interlocking the finely-crafted selection of 72 tiles that comprise the game and scoring points based on how many cities, roads, fields and cloisters (monk houses) they develop and control. Since the game board may expand in any direction a large table is preferred, unless you can play on the floor and avoid toddlers, pets and other tile-disturbing hazards. Players begin a Carcassonne game by finding the special starting tile and placing it onto the gaming surface. The remaining tiles are shuffled and mixed face-down, finally being placed into several random stacks off to the side of the table usually beside the scoreboard. Carcassonne Game Pieces Meeples and Claiming Portions
Sick of smudges on your screen? Get a candle Who would have guessed that the solution to one of the biggest problems for a technophile would be simple candle soot? It may seem implausible, but researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany have indeed proven that the carbon residue released when burning a candle can be used to create a coating that is both oil and water resistant. Simply put, by making the screens on your mobile devices dirty with soot, you can keep them from smudged with fingerprints. Of course the process to make this happen is much more scientific then slapping a pile of soot on your device, so please don’t be rushing for your fireplace. While the hurdle of liquid resistance in electronic screens is nothing new, no one has come up with a practical solution until now. Pictured above is a 5-micrometer drop of solvent that has been dropped on this superamphiphobic surface. The other applications for the soot coating are wide and varied. Read more at Technology Review
How To: Capture Your Memories In Full 3D! My sister recently had a wedding, and I wanted to do something special for her wedding that few, if any people had. What could this be? Obviously the most important thing you can take away from a wedding are the memories. Memories, however, fade with time, and you need photos to keep them fresh. Photos on the other hand are bland, 2D pieces of paper. Often the background merges with the foreground, details are missed, etc. How awesome would it be, I thought, to capture her wedding in full 3D? This eventually lead to one of the methods I will show in this instructable where I created her wedding images in full 3D. Simply put, you need two different, though similar images to be viewed by each eyeball.
Sudoku Cel mai dificil Sudoku din lume Un matematician finlandez sustine ca a facut cel mai dificil Sudoku din lume. L-a realizat in trei luni, si are doar o singura solutie. Pentru rezolvarea acestui puzzel, publicat de abcnews.go.com, sunt necesare cateva deductii logice si incercari alternative. Autorul, sustine ca, desi acesta este cel mai greu Sudoku creat pana acum, cu siguranta vor aparea si alte variante chiar mai dificile de atat. Numarul combinatiilor posibile este, practic, infinit, asa inca nu exista un Sudoku care sa nu poata fi rezolvat, desi unele dintre acestea sunt cu adevarat foarte grele. Incearca si tu acest puzzel. Daca te pierzi si esti decis sa abandonezi, sau daca doar vrei sa te verifici, AICI este raspunsul. mai mult Sambata, 30 Iunie 2012, ora 22:05 1 comentariu Slabeste facand Sudoku! Daca te gandeai cum sa slabesti fara sa te ridici din fotoliu, Sudoku sau cuvintele incrucisate reprezinta solutia, pretind cercetatorii. Miercuri, 25 Noiembrie 2009, ora 11:09 2 comentarii
Carcassonne Strategy Guide Carcassonne is a tile-laying game that expands well from 2 to 5 players. With its simple rules, depth of strategy, and large number of available expansions, it's considered by many to be a perfect "gateway" to strategic boardgames. In this article, we'll review some of the common strategies for winning this popular game. How to Win The victory conditions for Carcassonne are simple: the player with the most victory points at the end of the game is the winner. Common Strategies Since winning a game of Carcassonne takes a combination of maximizing the amount of points you collect and reducing the amount your opponents get, a strong player will end up using a mixture of the tactics listed below. Tile Placement - All roads lead to victory Every tile placement should meet at least one of two objectives: improving your position to grant you points, or weakening an opponent's position to cost them points. Cooperation - Beating them with smiles Follower Placement - Holding one back Conclusion
DIY Solar Lamp: Make Your Own Eco-Friendly Sun Jars The principle is simple and seductively clever: solar lights that store energy during the day and release light at night. These can be purchased ready-made in a variety of colors (yellow, blue and red) but they can also be built at home. A simple, less-technical approach involves buying a conventional solar-powered yard lamp and then essentially harvesting it for key pieces to put in a jar. This is simply a way of taking an existing solar lamp design and appropriating its parts to make something more attractive for display around a house or home. A more electronically-savvy individual can take the more complex route and built a solar lamp from the ground up using small solar panels – though the aesthetic result may not be as impressive. Whatever route you choose to go, these are fun and sustainable gadgets that make it easy to go green, automate the process of turning on lights at night and can add some color to your porch, patio, garden or windowsill.
Adding Depth To Illusions Copyright © Donald E. Simanek, December 1996 Older computer screens don't have have precisely linear geometry. The stereo illustrations look best when viewed on an LCD screen, or from a printed copy. Disclaimer: Some of the isometric illusions below were creations of Swedish Artist Oscar Reutersvärd. Since many of the common illusions seem to depend on "false" perspective, or on the lack of true stereoscopic depth, we might inquire how illusions could be constructed with true perspective, and possibly even in full stereo depth. The ultimate challenge would be to create illusory sculpture. We will begin by considering whether some of the common illusions could be altered to include perspective. Many classic "tribar" illusions are conventionally drawn in isometric fashion, in which parallel lines are rendered parallel on the page, there being no convergence toward a vanishing point. Isometric drawing is essential for some of these illusions. Isometric illusions depend upon two deceptions.