Have you ever heard the “proof” that there are no uninteresting positive integers? It goes something like this: let U be the set of uninteresting positive integers. Now if U is non-empty, it has a smallest element … but that number is then interesting, for being the smallest uninteresting number! Thus U must be empty, so there are no uninteresting numbers.
Well, the proof is silly but the sentiment is true, at least for a mathematician like me. Take today’s number, 72. Why, it’s the smallest number non-trivially representable as xy*yx; specifically, 72=23*32. Not bad, right? Hey, speaking of integer powers, here’s a number puzzle for you – my age is an integer power and so is my wife’s. My wife is four years older than me. How old are we?
Anyway, if you did Matt’s contest last week you probably know why I have this stuff on the brain. Anyway, enjoy today’s puzzle, and we’ll see you Thursday!
Getting inspired to write crosswords is hard. I get inspired to write a crossword about … oh … every month or so. Usually less. And of course, not every crossword I write gets published. Not even close. So you can see why my puzzle output is so low. (Meanwhile there are people like Brendan Quigley and Matt Gaffney who are essentially constantly writing crosswords. How do these people do it?)
Anyway, getting inspired to write Kaidoku is much easier. Just start with a word you really like! At work these days we’re working on a system called PORCUPiNE. So I thought, hey, that would be a good seed for a Kaidoku! (No, not PORCUPINE. You’ll see what word it is when working through today’s puzzle). By the way, I’m pretty happy with the way this one turned out. I think you’ll like it too!
Enjoy the puzzle, and have a great weekend! We’ll see you Monday.
Hey, this Twitter thing might be fun after all. (Yes, it was an obvious prediction to make. Don’t take this away from me!)
Today’s puzzle by Matt is like the last few ones we’ve had from him: a great, fun solve, and relatively accessible too. I think you’ll enjoy it. See you Thursday!
I am late to the game, I know, but I finally got a Twitter account. And you know who convinced me it was a good idea? Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy of ESPN), of all people. Here’s his take on Twitter:
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Facebook is a social network. Twitter is a media/marketing vehicle disguised as a social network. Big difference. And if you don’t think it’s changing the way information is dispersed, for good and bad, you’re insane.
A “good” example: Kevin Love spilling the beans that Kevin McHale wasn’t returning as Timberwolves coach. A watershed moment for sports journalism, in my opinion. We skipped the middleman and went right from the team to the fans for a breaking story. Won’t be the last time.
A “bad” example: Finding out from T.J. Ford’s Twitter feed July 14 that he was “Up early.. Takin a dump then wash my hands brush my grill & off to be the best PG.. Doubt me if u want. Hard work pays off.” You know what, T.J.? I will continue to have my doubts. No offense.
Twitter works when you have something to sell. Twitter kinda sucks when you’re just detailing the boring ins and outs of your everyday life. I was telling this to someone recently and then it dawned on me … hey, I have something to sell! I have a website, and I can announce when I have new crosswords published … etc. I might throw in an occasional one-liner or trivia question to keep things interesting, but it will mostly be updates about my crossword work. So if you want to follow me: http://twitter.com/alexword.
Man, with 67 Kaidoku (and counting!) on this site, it’s getting hard to remember which words I’ve used and which I haven’t. Today’s puzzle has two signature entries – the long across ones. The one on top, I am pretty sure I’ve never used (it wasn’t even in my word list). The one on bottom … couldn’t tell you. I need to start keeping track somehow.
Ugh. That’s parenthood for you. Anyway, we’ll see you Monday.
Friend of the show Joon left an extremely helpful comment on this blog a while back – one that has helped me immensely in solving Kaidoku. So, very belatedly, here it is front-paged:
one thing that really helps in narrowing down vowels is the idea that if there is a double-consonant, there will pretty much always be a vowel right before and right after, unless it’s the middle of a compound word, or a terminal S (e.g. HILLS)*.
*: other exceptions i have found: onomatopoetic words like AARRGHH, BRR, HMM, PSST, PFFT, SHH, and ZZZ; JOHNNY; MARKKA (don’t know this word, but some sort of finnish coin, i’d bet); and BREMSSTRAHLUNG. plus one more that i’m going to put into a kaidoku in the near future, so i won’t spoil it here.
How helpful is this? Ridiculously so. Take today’s grid (which admittedly, is approachable in several different ways). Look for a word with a double letter in it. Look at the two surrounding letters. Do they look like vowels in the rest of the grid? All right, you’ve spotted two vowels. If not, your double letter is probably a vowel, which is helpful too!
I pretty much approach all my crosswords Kaidoku these days with the approach of trying to find the vowels first. This is a great way to get started doing that. So thanks, Joon! Try out this technique on today’s puzzle and see where it gets you. Then we’ll see you Thursday!
Yes, we have a mini-theme today. Sort of. As you know, it’s really hard to get a theme into a Kaidoku, and since you’re limited to just words, the themes aren’t usually that interesting. So here we have two words that fit a pattern, and I’m calling that a mini-theme. Good enough for me.
Matt’s back on Monday. Until then, enjoy this puzzle and the video!
How often do you have a straight gimme in a Kaidoku? Pretty rarely, right? Generally you have to hunt around to try to figure out where something might be a Q, or what might be a vowel. If you have a four-letter palindrome, the middle two letters pretty much have to be OO or EE (can you think of any exceptions?) If your word starts with a double letter, your possibilities are limited, but even then there’s generally more than one option. I can only think of two cases off the top of my head where the letter pattern is such that the word pretty much has to be one thing. One is if you have a six-letter palindrome (what does that force the word to be? Remember, PULL-UP doesn’t work because it’s hyphenated). The other is the situation we have in today’s puzzle. If that weren’t enough, the Q is pretty obvious. Oh, and there’s a word starting with a double letter too. If you haven’t yet dared to try these puzzles out on paper, give this one a go! I bet you’ll be surprised how well you do.
Man, I don’t know how people write themeless puzzles. I remember reading that some people (I think it was Manny Nosowsky) actually prefer writing themeless puzzles to themed ones. Some people think it’s easier! Really? I feel like every bit of fill in a themeless has to be great, and there’s hardly any room to work with, given the constraint on word count. I’ve tried to write a few, but I barely get anywhere before realizing I have no idea what I’m doing. I had some time recently so I tried writing one again and it came out … well, okay. Not great. If it ends up getting published, I suspect the editor will have to work some magic with it.
Okay, why am I bringing this up? Because today’s Kaidoku uses a word that’s never been in a crossword puzzle (as far as I can tell) and so I wanted to use it as a seed for a themeless. Several aborted attempts later, here it is in a Kaidoku. Oh well, maybe some day.
