http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:36:19 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/04/17/093619.php djapeFor more than two years, Sudoku puzzles have thrilled the minds of numerous solvers around the world. They solve them while having breakfast, on a train to their work or, most likely, at work!To be honest, I haven&#39;t fallen so much into the trap of solving Sudoku puzzles. However, I have become addicted to another aspect of Sudoku puzzles: I enjoy creating them. Actually, I focus on its variants that have mushroomed after the initial success of the original &quot;number-place&quot; puzzles.It is difficult to keep track of all the different variants that have been invented in the past two years. Two of the most successful ones are surely Killer Sudoku and Samurai Sudoku. They extend the original puzzle in two different ways. While Samurai demand even more patience because of its size, Killer Sudoku asks that you use some basic arithmetics in order to solve a puzzle.But that is not all; there are many variants that impose additional restrictions on the placement of numbers in a puzzle: diagonal, consecutive, odd/even, or greater/less than Sudoku, to name a few. Then there are jigsaw Sudoku puzzles. Some authors even combine a couple of these extra rules into one puzzle.And then, once you&#39;ve become familiar with the family of Sudoku puzzles, you learn that there are other logic brain teasers that ask from you to play with the numbers. Kakuro is a hybrid between Killer Sudoku and good old crosswords; Hanjie puzzles (which also go under different names: griddlers, nonograms, pic-a-pix, or paint-by-numbers) reveal interesting images after you solve them; to extend your Japanese vocabulary, you learn about Hashi, Masyu, or Hitori puzzles.It is my intention to write a series of articles here at Blogcritics and introduce some of these puzzles to you. I hope that you, dear reader, will also become addicted to these magnificent mind-benders!<div id="authorbio">djape is a nickname of Predrag Stanojevic, who grew up in Belgrade, Serbia where he lives now; but he has travelled a bit and has lived in USA and Australia for three years. He is the author of many Sudoku and Hanjie puzzle books and magazines.</div> Gaming62570@blogcritics.org Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:36:19 EDT