Puzzle

puzzle

While working on complex tasks, finding different approaches is key. Personally, I am always on the lookout for new methodologies that can help me manage work tasks and life challenges. That’s how I found ‘The Puzzle Method’. So far, understanding my explosive nature has helped me to see the bigger picture, face complex challenges, and manage them partly, building ‘puzzle’ step-by-step.  And now, I want to share my key findings with you. Imagine how you open a big box of a 1000-piece puzzle. These pieces are all different, scattered, and chaotic. You quickly find those with smooth edges that should become a frame and those complex ones that build the inner picture. What is your first step? For some people, assembling a puzzle can be an enjoyable activity. However, looking deeper into this, you can turn a simple game into a framework that can help you tackle more challenging questions and projects. Here is how this method works. Key Principles of the Puzzle Method Strategy and Planning When we start collecting the puzzle, sometimes we begin by building the frame from edge pieces. In other words, we outline a framework for our project. Similarly, when we address a problem, we begin with foundation elements or key steps to set a starting point for the process. The Step-by-Step Approach You can’t collect all the pictures in one moment, and the process requires you to fit piece by piece at a time. This gradual process makes you stay focused and patient when tempted to rush. In real situation, moving patiently to the bigger picture helps to solve complex problems more effectively and not fall under hasty decisions. System and Order Randomness does not apply to puzzles. Here, you work with sections and groups, focusing on small parts and connecting them to the bigger picture. Same in your projects or life goals: breaking them into smaller and manageable parts helps you avoid being overwhelmed, maintain clarity, and stay focused on the goal. Real-Life Application Example 1: You work on a complex project Considering you are working on a complex project, big launch, or strategic research. We often see fragmented pieces of the bigger picture, which look confusing. How can the Puzzle Method help? Identify Key Parts: Like puzzles, try to find the foundation of your projects, e.g., deadlines, teams involved, etc.
Find Connections: Discover how tasks are linked to each other, just like pizzle. Which process depends on what and what is the priority?
Move Step-by-Step: Remember to tackle each stage gradually and not make hectic decisions. Small steps help you minimize the risks. Example 2: Achieving Goals Let’s say you are working under a goal like promotion, sports achievement, or a new language mastering. With the Puzzle Method, you can turn it into achievable steps: Identify Key Parts: Again, starting with the foundation is essential. For example, when preparing for a race, you need to establish a daily physical routine to prepare your body.
Embrace Failures: There are times you feel nothing fits the picture and can’t find a proper piece. It happens in real life as well. Instead of giving up, take a step back and change the strategy. There is always a right piece; you just need to find it. Benefits of the Puzzle Method Concentration and Focus: When you work on a puzzle, you concentrate on details and keep in mind the bigger picture. In real life, it encourages you to balance prompt actions and long-term strategy.
Consistency and Progress: Complex tasks require persistence. By achieving small victories, you can guarantee yourself progress.
Think Outside the Box: Working with a puzzle requires flexibility and creativity by trying different forms and approaches. For example, in your daily routine, being flexible helps you soften your edges and adapt to obstacles. Final Thoughts The Puzzle Method reminds us that every piece, every effort, and every small step matters. Life is assembled piece by piece like a puzzle, gradually revealing a beautiful, cohesive picture. By applying this method, we gain a clearer vision of our goals and challenges, building a life where each moment, each puzzle piece, fits into a meaningful whole. So, start assembling your life’s puzzle, one piece at a time, and enjoy the process. The picture is worth the effort. While working on complex tasks, finding different approaches is key. Personally, I am always on the lookout for new methodologies that can help me manage work tasks and life challenges. That’s how I found ‘The Puzzle Method’. So far, understanding my explosive nature has helped me to see the bigger picture, face complex challenges, and manage them partly, building ‘puzzle’ step-by-step.  And now, I want to share my key findings with you. Imagine how you open a big box of a 1000-piece puzzle. These pieces are all different, scattered, and chaotic. You quickly find those with smooth edges that should become a frame and those complex ones that build the inner picture. What is your first step? For some people, assembling a puzzle can be an enjoyable activity. However, looking deeper into this, you can turn a simple game into a framework that can help you tackle more challenging questions and projects. Here is how this method works. Key Principles of the Puzzle Method Strategy and Planning When we start collecting the puzzle, sometimes we begin by building the frame from edge pieces. In other words, we outline a framework for our project. Similarly, when we address a problem, we begin with foundation elements or key steps to set a starting point for the process. The Step-by-Step Approach You can’t collect all the pictures in one moment, and the process requires you to fit piece by piece at a time. This gradual process makes you stay focused and patient when tempted to rush. In real situation, moving patiently to the bigger picture helps to solve complex problems more effectively and not fall under hasty decisions. System and Order Randomness does not apply to puzzles. Here, you work with sections and groups, focusing on small parts and connecting them to the bigger picture. Same in your projects or life goals: breaking them into smaller and manageable parts helps you avoid being overwhelmed, maintain clarity, and stay focused on the goal. Real-Life Application Example 1: You work on a complex project Considering you are working on a complex project, big launch, or strategic research. We often see fragmented pieces of the bigger picture, which look confusing. How can the Puzzle Method help? Identify Key Parts: Like puzzles, try to find the foundation of your projects, e.g., deadlines, teams involved, etc. Find Connections: Discover how tasks are linked to each other, just like pizzle. Which process depends on what and what is the priority? Move Step-by-Step: Remember to tackle each stage gradually and not make hectic decisions. Small steps help you minimize the risks. Identify Key Parts: Like puzzles, try to find the foundation of your projects, e.g., deadlines, teams involved, etc. Identify Key Parts: Find Connections: Discover how tasks are linked to each other, just like pizzle. Which process depends on what and what is the priority? Find Connections: Move Step-by-Step: Remember to tackle each stage gradually and not make hectic decisions. Small steps help you minimize the risks. Move Step-by-Step: Example 2: Achieving Goals Let’s say you are working under a goal like promotion, sports achievement, or a new language mastering. With the Puzzle Method, you can turn it into achievable steps: Identify Key Parts: Again, starting with the foundation is essential. For example, when preparing for a race, you need to establish a daily physical routine to prepare your body. Embrace Failures: There are times you feel nothing fits the picture and can’t find a proper piece. It happens in real life as well. Instead of giving up, take a step back and change the strategy. There is always a right piece; you just need to find it. Identify Key Parts: Again, starting with the foundation is essential. For example, when preparing for a race, you need to establish a daily physical routine to prepare your body. Identify Key Parts: Embrace Failures: There are times you feel nothing fits the picture and can’t find a proper piece. It happens in real life as well. Instead of giving up, take a step back and change the strategy. There is always a right piece; you just need to find it. Embrace Failures: Benefits of the Puzzle Method Concentration and Focus: When you work on a puzzle, you concentrate on details and keep in mind the bigger picture. In real life, it encourages you to balance prompt actions and long-term strategy. Consistency and Progress: Complex tasks require persistence. By achieving small victories, you can guarantee yourself progress. Think Outside the Box: Working with a puzzle requires flexibility and creativity by trying different forms and approaches. For example, in your daily routine, being flexible helps you soften your edges and adapt to obstacles. Concentration and Focus: When you work on a puzzle, you concentrate on details and keep in mind the bigger picture. In real life, it encourages you to balance prompt actions and long-term strategy. Concentration and Focus: Consistency and Progress: Complex tasks require persistence. By achieving small victories, you can guarantee yourself progress. Consistency and Progress: Think Outside the Box: Working with a puzzle requires flexibility and creativity by trying different forms and approaches. For example, in your daily routine, being flexible helps you soften your edges and adapt to obstacles. Think Outside the Box: Final Thoughts The Puzzle Method reminds us that every piece, every effort, and every small step matters. Life is assembled piece by piece like a puzzle, gradually revealing a beautiful, cohesive picture. By applying this method, we gain a clearer vision of our goals and challenges, building a life where each moment, each puzzle piece, fits into a meaningful whole. So, start assembling your life’s puzzle, one piece at a time, and enjoy the process. The picture is worth the effort.

View Life as a Puzzle to Solve Complex Problems

Our wordCent contest challenged , to complete a crossword puzzle about and incentives. The results were . nCent Nation, our 20,000 telegram users our project, our blog incredible One month ago, we launched nCent out of stealth mode. Our had less than 20 people. Today, there are over 20,000 members of , and telegram group nCent Nation Worldwide they just completed the world’s most cooperative, international crossword puzzle. We wanted to find a fun and interactive way for people to learn about . More than that, we wanted to find a way to start building a community of people who shared . So we made a crossword puzzle using words from , and we released the clues at random intervals on . our mission at nCent our philosophy our litepaper telegram We awarded points to people who solved the word first. The Prize? 1ETH to the top three scores and to the first to submit a picture of the completed puzzle. At first, there were only a handful of participants. But it didn’t take us long to put some community incentives in place! We decided to reward people for recruiting others into the search. If someone you referred earned points, you’d receive a reward too. A word solver got 16 points. However, the parent of the solver got 8. The grandparent got 4 and so on. This created a viral incentive for folks to invite their friends and encourage them to solve words too — a dynamic the three winners were able to prove out well. Each of our three winners had a chain that contributed meaningful points to their final totals. The rules of wordCent created individual and community incentives. What happened next blew us away. There were over 20,000 people trying to solve our crypto-puzzle. Within just a few weeks, our telegram group went viral. — @NaveenRaina “The power of referral incentive was clearly demonstrated through the game. If not for my referral chain, I might not have been a winner.” But it was more than just that . We joked around with each other — A community was forming. Some people even tried to curry sympathy with fake pets like @djchahal’s lovesick kitty “mewmew” — “Do it for mewmew” We started to stretch across multiple time zones — Our random timer released clues well, randomly, so as not to advantage any timezone in particular. People were waking up at odd hours just to solve a crossword puzzle. “It’s been like an 18/7 shift to work on this game. Have went through all the articles line by line to crack certain clues. Nice learning experience with this event, and it’s a healthy way to introduce the project.” — @DoYouSmell The value of a welcoming, cooperative community to solve problems cannot be overstated. Our puzzle solver was someone completely fresh to the contest and hadn’t solved a word previously. In fact the blocking clue was “Palo Alto” which stumped the crowd. This shows the value of “fresh eyes” in looking at the problem (ideally someone you refer!). In fact the winner’s uncle actually tipped him off! “I really liked the friendly atmosphere on here (unlike many other projects…), so the community is really what drew me in.” — @Wolves444 (puzzle solver) We learned that growing a community can be fun. We learned that people believe in our mission at nCent. We learned that our philosophy of incentives works in practice. Through the course of learning about nCent for this contest, @llovan I went off on many interesting tangents reading about consensus protocols, other cryptocurrencies, economics, and even philosophy. It was worth more than the monetary incentive. - We can’t help but think about the possibilities moving forward. A crossword puzzle with 3 ETH on the line engaged a community of over 20,000 people in just a few days. This is our vision. Imagine if that same dynamic could be scaled and directed to solve all kinds of hard problems. wordCent Puzzle: Clues Across Decentralized protocol for markets 4. Engine 6. Gödel 7. San Diego 9. CMU 11. y²*e² 14. Not debit 17. Energetic equilibrium 20. Future 22. Firm 23. Plato Luther Jr 25. Massive Miner 27. Game of Angels and Life 28. Fox 29. Wood Tall or High Wood 33. Stop it to “go to moon” 35. Campus 36. Labor 39. Haystack 40. (Lumen)Ary 42. OG BTC predictor 43. Chat 44. Deep learner 46. Giant 47. Outstanding 48. Herbivore Clues Down 2. Hypertext & Mice 3. TV 5. Floodgate 6. Radiant or stellar 8. Dishonest node 9. 37-D 10. German UFO Sightings 12. Combinator 13. Mr. Cornelius 15. Solitary Wood 16. The first 18. 48 LP 19. Alpha 21. 10 24. Ubermensche 26. Engine 28. HODLers 30. Lee 31. Angel Coin 32. Rowers 34. Satoshi Grandcite 37. Robot Wars 38. Mykines’ twin 41. Magnum opus 45. ID Offense wordCent Solution To stay in the nCent loop and participate in our community, follow me on twitter and join our international telegram channel . As always, you may email me at kk@ncnt.io to get involved or learn more!

How 20,000 Telegrammers Solved the World’s Most Cooperative Crossword Puzzle

What is Codewars? is a place where you can solve coding puzzles and then feel pretty smug about it. The smugness is then recorded in points that level you up on the site. You do all the puzzles within their site and try to pass its tests. Codewars Maybe the creators are obsessed with martial arts because that’s how everything is themed. Katas are like the level of difficulty except that lowest is best and highest is newbie status which is level 8. Codewars is themed towards Martial Arts which is pretty fun! In all fairness it is quite fun, although sometimes the puzzles are not that clear and/or you don’t know what the tests are testing when it comes to edge cases which can be quite frustrating. A good tip is to check out the discussions if your stuck because some of the puzzles may have some inconsistencies or be unclear about certain things. Cant see the discussion button? Yeah you need to make sure your window is a larger size, as for some crazy weird reason that button disappears. Breakpoints still has bugs when I noticed this last year. Left is full screen, middle and right are slightly thinner widths. Losing the discuss button is huge as its important to find out if the puzzle has inconsistencies that other users report Pre-course Pre-face Actually the idea of doing this had been on my mind for a while now. Before we started the coding boot camp, we were asked to use Codewars to practice what we learned. Then afterwards, we went back to it with our new found confidence… still realised that it wasn’t that easy, but used them to practice for tech tests that interviewers might set. I remember using them mainly to find some puzzles to practice testing first on (TDD). Old blog posts reveal my struggles doing codewar puzzles So I’ve always thought, well its been a year since doing the pre-course and it’d be kinda a cool milestone, so why not give it a go and see what its like? The Puzzle! I’m a huge Hearthstone fan, and thought that there could be potential continuing this theme later on if this became successful. My idea was to make a puzzle based on the mechanics of the game. In Hearthstone, you put minions on the board and try to make them trade with each other in the most efficient way. Here my minions are ([2, 1], [2, 1], [2, 1]), my opponent’s are ([1, 4]). When I trade my 2, 1 into his 1, 4 the result is that my 2, 1 dies because it has one health and the 1, 4 has one attack, and the 1, 4 ends up being a 1, 2 because it 2 from the 2, 1’s attack is deducted from the 4. This was not a good trade for me! Each minion has an attack and health value. The attack value never changes, and when two minions trade, their attack values deduct their health values. If either minion ends up with no health they die and are removed from the board. Choosing to convert this into a coding problem was interesting, but I already had an idea of the input and output I wanted. And it’s live! After a little while I decided to post it live. It did take a while to work out how to use their platform to write the code, the tests and fulfil their criteria. It is quite hard knowing what kata to put this at, and at codewars I have noticed that the levels system does seem rather inconsistent because different people find different puzzle hard, it can be relative… I found their documentation rather unclear on a lot of things, it seems that trial and error ended up being the best way of understanding how things worked, which mean posting and reposting multiple times. All tabs had to be filled in, Complete solution, Initial Solution, Test cases, and Example Test cases. Once it was live I looked forward to the variety of answers that people would come up with. There were a few that I thought were interesting, manipulating the order of the stats first to make it easier for the trade calculations. Its clear that there are some veterans in the game want to get on the overall leaderboard by jumping on the new katas that are created, I assume they have already done most of the existing puzzles on the site. This was because I quickly got feedback about my kata, which was great and I used it to clarify my description. However soon I got feedback about not having random tests which I had no idea what was about. I already wrote 31 tests and looking at their documentation there was nothing written about it. Apparently random tests is meant to be implemented to stop people from cheating by manipulating the tests to pass. I think its quite bad for the platform to make everyone do random tests for their puzzles when; Their documentation says nothing about it. They make everyone do it even though it seems to be an edge case and I cant imagine that there are many cheaters out there because it is a lot of effort. Surely it is easier to keep track of the cheaters due to their high scores achieved in quick time, and automate that instead? And its dead… — D: ←(Annoyed Face) I thought it would be a good idea to let community members to contribute and edit my kata, and so one guy added the random test into my tests which was nice. However, his test was slightly wrong and therefore correct answers started failing and since I didn’t really understand what he did I think my puzzle got downvoted and around a day later it was automatically retired When I was a newbie and first started doing these, it was interesting to see the solutions that were voted up for as being ‘clever’ or ‘best practice’. Eventually I concluded that ‘least number of characters’ = best solution! Now I know that actually that is awful and it really should be ‘most readable’ or ‘easiest to understand’. What are we saying to new coders when solutions like this are being voted as ‘clever’? Note, changed slightly so this wont work. How readable does this code seem to you? This is one of the problems of codewars, and I’ve seen much feedback from other users that complain about this and would like to see another category created for this. Having the shortest solutions been voted for as ‘best’ gives out mixed messages to what is great code. Broken Windows In freakonomics there is a theory called ‘Broken Window’ theory. It talks about how a building has a broken window, and after time graffiti shows up and the area gets much worse. The inclination is that no one has fixed the broken window, and therefore no one cares about this building/area. No updates to the main site for over a year?? With the lack of communication from any ‘staff’ and the no recent improvements to the site, it really feels that this is a place that just isn’t maintained or cared for anymore. It had a broken window and now more things are breaking around it. Any help seems to only come from community members, and having with no feedback feels terrible when trying to solve issues… aka ‘YouTube style’ automation Today Codewar’s front page for a new user doesn’t even seem to be live anymore? This can be understandable considering looking at their github there are two contributors and only one of them is a dev. The whole site is maintained by one person and that doesn’t seem to be his main priority (they have another website qualified.io). Having users be able to create katas easily through great support and documentation would give the site more credibility rather then frustration. My experience was not great at all, my puzzle went live for as long as it took for me to write it up, I got complaints about random tests which is not mentioned at all in the documentation and then an automated retirement of my puzzle was implemented. There was no communication was fed back to me as officially why, and how it could be reversed. Having other users suggest to ‘keep submitting more and cross your fingers’ is a terrible infrastructure and totally unmotivational. No response at all, their twitter seems to have died the last activity was in April Final Thoughts All in all though, for practicing coding it is pretty good training, just keep in mind that readability should be priority and use the site’s filter and comments section to find good puzzles because some can be unclear and have edge cases which will not allow you to pass the tests. As for creating katas I would say it might not be the best. It takes a lot of effort and then you have to hope that the automation accepts it, so it may take a few attempts before one gets accepted, and who has time for that? The original puzzle on is here, but as an alternative I’ve created my own repo of my puzzle if you guys wanna have a go at it, feel free to fork it and get the tests passing! codewars here Have a great week and happy codings!

I wrote a CodeWars Puzzle and it was a disappointing experience

When I was learning how to code I got stuck all the time. I didn’t know why I was stuck but getting unstuck was a lot of fun. I would retrace my steps and investigate every line of code that may have caused my program to crash. It was like trying to solve a puzzle. The seemingly unsolvable problems thrilled me the most and I always found the energy to confront them. This is what got me hooked on programming. This was a long time ago… I’ve been a professional software engineer for over 12 years now and getting stuck, or finding a bug as I refer to it these days, has become the bane of my existence. The origin of the word bug as it pertains to engineering goes all the way back to 1947 when Dr. Grace Hopper discovered a moth stuck in one of the relays of the Mark II computer. When asked why the machine was not operating as expected she explained there was a “bug in the system”. Today, the word bug carries a lot of weight. Simply uttering it — especially on a Friday afternoon — will immediately turn a smiling engineer into a frowning one. I don’t know how it feels to open up a gigantic computer and examine the relays for dead insects, but if I had to describe the feeling I get confronted with a new bug, this analogy will serve well. The source of my pain was never the problem itself but what it could signify in a fast-paced development cycle: missing the schedule; letting my team down; disappointing my users. Those early days puzzles were fun because I was building things for myself but now I had to worry about the pressure of the everyman work life. It never occurred to me it didn’t have to be this way. I recently finished reading The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas and I can’t praise it enough. One of the many topics covered in their book is the mindset of debugging. Here’s what they had to say about it: Debugging itself is a sensitive, emotional subject for many developers. Instead of attacking it as a puzzle to be solved, you may encounter denial, finger pointing, lame excuses, or just plain apathy… It’s easy to get into a panic, especially if you are facing a deadline, or have a nervous boss breathing down your neck while you are trying to find the cause of the bug. But it’s very important to step back a pace. This paragraph inspired me to try something new. A couple of weeks ago I scribbled the word on a sticky note and taped it to my monitor. I wanted to remind myself to treat the next bug like an exciting new challenge instead of an urgent catastrophe. PUZZLE In 1988, Dr. Dweck first presented a research-based model to show the impact of mindsets. She showed how a person’s mindset sets the stage for their performance. Approaching problems with curiosity — what Dr. Dweck described as the growth-mindset approach — showed a significant increase in the desire to learn, embrace challenges and persist when facing setbacks. Ahh, the power of the mind… As foolishly as it may sound, choosing to approach bugs with a different mindset changed my entire outlook. It felt more like the good old days and less like doomsday. It makes sense that approaching problems with playfulness instead of anxiety will improve your ability to solve them but what I learned is that it’s possible for us to choose it. We just need a simple reminder. If you feel anxiety building up when your program starts crashing, you should try this approach for yourself. Approaching bugs as if they were puzzles will make the process of solving them more enjoyable; it will help you become more efficient, and it will make the solution much more rewarding. It might even remind you what got you excited about writing code in the first place.

It’s not a bug, it’s a puzzle

Making puzzles hard on you

2020 isn’t the year everyone thought it would be. The year that was promised to bring forth the ‘best decade ever’, has in fact propagated global lock-downs and bad news. It hasn’t been fun, which is why everyone is looking forward to 2021. There’s almost an impregnable belief that has developed among all of us: the remaining months of 2020 aren’t going to get any better. At .Tech Domains, we wanted to do something that’s an exception to this rule. Normally, we’d roll out crazy Black Friday discounts and call it a day. But this year, we had a near-ubiquitous epiphany. We wanted some change. So, we decided to Break The Code for Black Friday 2020. How Do We #BreakTheCode For Black Friday? Head on over to to sign up and geek out over six distinct game rooms which promise some mind-blowing prizes too! breakthecode.tech Each game room has puzzles, ciphers, tests of logic, trivia; peppered with a little bit of scavenger hunt too. Once you start playing, you may not want to stop till you make it to the end. While each game room offers prizes, the ultimate winner of all six game rooms will be announced on 2nd December. We believe it’s the perfect way to bring in the festivities ‘tis season. After all, holidays are not just about holiday deals, but also about the experience of spending time with friends and family. And that’s what you can do; invite your friends and family as well to join the game if they’re up for a challenge! What Are The Prizes? Black Friday wouldn’t be Black Friday without something up for grabs! Beat these game rooms and stand a chance to win prizes worth $15000. Yes, we typed that right. Prizes include: $5000 Custom Gaming Rig a Macbook Pro a PlayStation 5 Digital Edition an Oculus VR Gaming Headset a Samsung 49” curved gaming monitor and much, much more. There’s only one catch: do you have what it takes to Break The Code? If you think you do, head over to and play now! breakthecode.tech

#BreakTheCode To Win Prizes On Black Friday 2020, Instead Of Lining Up To Buy Them

10 React Puzzles O’Fun How well do you know React-centric terminology? A Rebus is an image-puzzle that represents words. We were having too much fun in the #riddles channel in the and we did what nerds do, we started to create our own React rebuses. TL:DR; IR community slack Here are 10 rebuses with the theme of . How many can you figure out? React-centric technology Puzzle 1: thanks Derek Greenberg Puzzle 2: by Samuli Hakoniemi Puzzle #3 Puzzle #4 Puzzle #5 Puzzle #6 Puzzle #7 thanks Justin Lane Puzzle #8 Puzzle #9 Puzzle #10 The Answers I thought about just simply posting the answers, but half the fun is seeing what people guess. So to the comments we go. About Gant 🎉 View technical tweets and puns with on Twitter, or follow him on and . You can see where he’s speaking next on @GantLaborde Medium GitHub http://GantLaborde.com/ Gant Laborde is Chief Technology Strategist at , published author, adjunct professor, worldwide public speaker, and mad-scientist in training. Infinite Red Read the writings of Gant and his coworkers in our Red Shift publication or invite him to speak at your next conference.

React Rebuses

A gift idea for parents and grandparents. Don’t worry. They might even enjoy it! The computers that we have in our lives are immensely powerful. At any other time in human history, the computational power of a simple smartphone would have been enough to start a worldwide revolution in science. But now they mostly just sit in our pockets, and occasionally simulate the sound of a fart. One way to make our computers more useful is by taking part in a . These take big problems that need a lot of power, split them up into little chunks and send these off to be processed by the idle home computers of anyone who signs up. distributed computing project computing Another awesome computational device we have is our brain. We can do a lot with the mushy mess of neurons between our ears. But sometimes we just need to keep it busy not thinking about stressful stuff. And so we fill it with TV. Or playing sport. Or Super Mario Run. Or Sudoku. It’s always nice when these activities do something useful. It’s not clear exactly what useful stuff Super Mario Run does, but Sudoku seems like it should be doing something. It’s a puzzle based on a grid of numbers. It’s maths. And maths is useful, despite what your experience at school might tell you. The trouble is that the in Sudoku doesn’t actually correspond to any useful problem in the world. Doing Sudoku won’t magically get your finances in order, or help cure cancer. It keeps you busy, and might keep you clever. But not much else. puzzle This is a bit of a shame. Imagine how many hours of human effort every day go into solving the Sudoku problems in the newspapers. And the crosswords. And all the other useful seeming and yet ultimately useless teasers of brains. What if we could change this? What we could make a distributed computing project for brains? So when we want to keep ourselves from reflecting upon the absurdity of existence, we could give them a fun task that actually helps science. This has actually been done! Starting with and moving on to you can use your brain to classify images of galaxies, penguins and even aardwolves (whatever they are). Galaxy Zoo Zooniverse But classifying pictures, as fun as it may be, does not appeal to all. What about the many people obsessed with puzzles like Sudoku? The people who obsessively do the ones in newspapers, and then go and buy big books full of them? Can we harness their brains for science? That’s what I’m trying to do with a project I call . We take an actual problem from quantum mechanics, namely the design of decoding algorithms for quantum error correction. We then strip out all the complicated seeming stuff until we’re left with a straightforward puzzle based on a grid of numbers. Just like Sudoku. Decodoku The numbers come in groups that add up to a multiple of 10. Work out what’s in the ? squares. That’s all there is too it! So if you want to give your puzzle loving relatives a new challenge for Christmas, give them the free book I made. You can download it (did I mention it was free?), and then turn it into a pile of paper and ink using the usual methods (not free). here To help science, those who solve the puzzles just need to give us a few tips on how it should be done. If they help out before the end of the year, they could even win a prize in our . competition So there you go. A present for some of your relatives. It’ll only cost you a bit of printer toner, and it’ll help science. Merry Christmas!

Don’t know what to do with your grandparents this Christmas? Let me use their brain for science!

I think it was over a week ago, I was scanning through the canvas and I remember seeing this thought bubble from Marilyn Monroe, but at the time, I didn’t look into it much. Then last night I was reading through the new Reddit-style site called EOS Discussions App, and I found that someone had discovered a cipher that leads to a $750 EOS account. The account name is nibogonibogo and can be seen on this block explorer: pixEOS Paint https://bloks.io/account/nibogonibogo That would explain why the words “priv key” and “51” were written in the canvas. All EOS accounts have a public and private key, and the private key has 51 digits in it. All private keys also start with the number “5”. The anonymous person who first found and wrote about this have detailed most of the clues in this post: https://eos.discussions.app/#/e/pixeos/5252422109/Private_Keys_to__750_EOS_Account_Hidden_in_Cipher The passages are also posted on Twitter and the EOS Discussions App: cipher cipher The original poster made a small error in the visualization of the private key, and today, the nibogonibogo account corrected it. Here’s the corrected image of the private key in an unknown script: from https://eos.discussions.app/#/e/pixeos/5252422109/Private_Keys_to__750_EOS_Account_Hidden_in_Cipher I started following this nibo_go account on Twitter too: https://twitter.com/nibo_go I’m not good at figuring out ciphers, but I bet there are some people out there who can decode them.

Can You Solve This Cipher? If So, $750 EOS Account is Yours

Authors:
(1) Smaran Deshmukh, Email: smarandeshmukh@gmail.com;
(2) Jayant Murthy, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore 506034, India (murthy@iiap.res.in). Authors: Authors: (1) Smaran Deshmukh, Email: smarandeshmukh@gmail.com; (2) Jayant Murthy, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore 506034, India (murthy@iiap.res.in). Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Summary of the Story 2. Summary of the Story 3. Observables 3. Observables 4. Possible Scenarios and Consequences 4. Possible Scenarios and Consequences The other Suns The other Suns Simulation Simulation Conclusion and References Conclusion and References 4. POSSIBLE SCENARIOS AND CONSEQUENCES The most important constraint is that of the red star Dovim. This is the only star visible in that crucial time just before the deadly eclipse and the plot hinges on two factors: 1. Dovim is bright enough to blot out the other stars in the Universe. 2. The eclipse lasts for a period of 9 hours at the equator, sufficient that the entire planet is covered in darkness. If we look at the case of our own Earth, the Sun has an apparent magnitude of -26.74 (Williams, 2004) and the faintest object visible to the naked eye during the day is -4.00 magnitudes (Wikipedia, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude) for a difference of about 22.5 magnitudes. We will assume that Dovim is bright enough to blot out 0th magnitude stars and hence must be brighter than magnitude -22.5. This puts the star at a distance of about 44 light minutes from the Onos (Kalgash’s primary star). The distance of the star from Kalgash would then vary from 34 to 54 light minutes and the star’s angular diameter as observed from the planet would vary from 3 to 5 arcminutes. The eclipse of Dovim by Kalgash 2 as seen from the planet lasts a minimum of 9 hours, compared to a solar eclipse on the Earth of less than 8 minutes (Meeus, 2003). Our Moon is about the same size as our Sun but Asimov does mention that the angular diameter of Kalgash 2 is seven times that of Dovim or about 2°. The orbital period of the Moon can be calculated from Kepler’s Laws. We can derive the equation of motion of Kalgash and Kalgash 2 by equating the gravitational force to the centripetal force (we consider M1): Since M1 and M2 orbit around their centre of mass, we can write: We insert this result into (1): We have considered a circular orbit, but the result is also valid for an ellipse. In that case, d is replaced with a, the semi-major axis. If M1 = M2 = M, then we get: Now, we can calculate the angular speed of Kalgash 2, with respect to Kalgash: During the eclipse, Kalgash 2 will cover a total angular distance of: We summarise the results in the following graph (Figure 3) for a Kalgash 2 of Earth-mass. We have a constraint on the size of Kalgash 2 from the stated fact that its angular diameter at the time of eclipse is 7 times that of Dovim. We have already assumed that the mass of the planet and the moon are the same as that of the Earth which thereby sets the diameter of the moon as a function of its density. If this density were the same as that of our own Moon, Kalgash 2 would be relatively small and close to the planet and therefore would move rapidly along its orbit resulting in short eclipses. On the other hand, if the density of Kalgash 2 were closer to that of the gas giants, the radius of the moon would be much larger and thus its distance from Kalgash would be much greater while maintaining the same angular diameter. Then by Kepler’s Third Law, it would move more slowly along its orbit and the eclipse duration would be correspondingly longer. We find that a moon with a density the same as Saturn (~0.7 gm/cm3) (Williams, 2006) would eclipse Dovim for 9 hours, more than enough time to cover the entire planet with darkness. By comparison, the majority of the satellites in our Solar System have densities of 1.5 - 3 gm/cm3 (Williams, 2014)with the least dense large moon being Tethys with a density of 0.9 gm/cm3 (Roatsch, et al., 2009). THE OTHER SUNS ONOS Onos is the parent sun of Kalgash. It gives off a bright yellow light, therefore it must be a Sun-like star. However, it is slightly further away than our own sun, at a distance of 1.2AU. Onos would appear dimmer by a factor of 1.44, or like a bright day in Sao Paulo. TANO-SITHA Tano-Sitha are also a white binary pair, further yet brighter than Trey - Patru. This indicates that they could be massive A-type stars or white dwarves. A-type Stars A-type Stars Since we want to minimise tidal effects, we shall suppose that they are A9V types at a temperature of 7100K, radius of 1.55 solar radii and 1.62 solar masses. This binary is at the edge of the Kalgash universe at a distance of 110 light minutes. It will have an apparent magnitude of -23.7, much brighter than Dovim! But Asimov mentions that they produce light much fainter than Dovim. They cannot be A-type Stars. White Dwarfs White Dwarfs In this case, we suppose the stars are similar to Sirius B. They have a surface temperature of 25200K, a radius similar to that of Earth (6370km) and are at a distance of 110 light minutes. Then the apparent magnitude is -18.09 or about 114 times brighter than the full moon. TREY-PATRU The secondary binary also produces white light. However, it is closer to Onos than Tano-Sitha, but fainter. The only way this is possible is if it is a cool white dwarf, similar to 40 Eridani B. Then the stars will have a temperature of 16500K, a radius of 0.014 Solar radius and a mass of 0.50 solar mass. At a distance of 100 light-minutes, the apparent magnitude of the binary is -17.38, or around 59 times brighter than the moon. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 3.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 3.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

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