So how exactly do you tell the difference between “human” and “artificial” sudoku?
Come on. I mean, why has nobody called The Guardian on this? On Monday it belatedly joined the bandwagon (rolling along merrily with the Times, Telegraph, Independent, Mail and Express already on board) and launched its own version.
And portentously announced “Ours is done by humans - not created by computers.” So how do you tell the difference then? It’s laughable. Organic sudoku! No added preservatives! Each digit lovingly hand-picked from the field of integers below 10 and above 0, frozen before the goodness can leak out and hand-placed in the appropriate square by humans! (Janine Gibson at The Guardian is more honest - calling it “broadsheet bingo”.)
I’m just surprised nobody has written a PHP/Javascript program to solve them, but probably I just haven’t looked hard enough. Delightfully, the Indie on Saturday runs a “prize” version which goes up to 16 squares - using hex numbering.
(For those not in the know, sudoku - from the Japanese meaning “excellent way to pass the time while also appearing to be working on something on your desk rather than staring out of the window or at risque sites on the Net” - uses a grid of 9×9, being four grids of 3×3, each with the numbers 1-9. Each number appears only once in each row, column and square. No maths involved, only reasoning.)
And one last thought. Will the Daily Star join the fun with a 4×4 grid?
Update: holy biscuits, even Newsnight is doing an item about it. This clearly means that it’s soooo over. Bets please on which will be the first paper to drop it. (Query: do papers ever drop these things?)
Obnote: watching HHGTTG on TV, post-Newsnight. And there’s Douglas Adams doing a bit part in his own series. Damn. We really need him, more than ever.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Sudoku trivia.. what's the least numbers for a solvable grid without guesses? (17 May 2007; score: 70.49%)
- One good thing I'll say about thelondonpaper: its sudoku ranks (20 November 2006; score: 51.49%)
- Meet the naked triplet and fishy cycles: sadly, they're for solving sudokus (12 December 2007; score: 48.46%)
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May 11th, 2005 at 8:47 am
Someone has written a solver - check out:
http://www.johncollins.org/sudoku.html
May 11th, 2005 at 10:30 am
I can’t see Su Doku replacing the good old Cryptic Crossword as my newspaper puzzle of choice. It’s satisfying enough when you complete it, but a completed su-doku grid has nothing of the symmetrical beauty of a completed crossword grid. And there’s no substitute for a really good crossword clue that you think has defeated you until it comes to you in a moment of illumination and allows you to fill in those last few squares.
Give me letters over digits any day…
May 11th, 2005 at 10:56 am
The Daily Star might not be doing yet..but The Sun is…entitled Sun Doku (see what they have done…clever…).
May 11th, 2005 at 11:33 am
OK, next question - how do some get defined as “easy”, “hard”, and so on?
May 11th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Charles - you should try doing an easy one and compare it to difficult or fiendish. On difficulty level up to about hard, it’s possible to calculate the answer using logic and deduction alone. On hard levels like “fiendish”, you frequently have to take a punt on a range of numbers being the “key”, complete the grid and see whether you’d guessed correctly.
Or at least I do.
May 11th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
I’m glad somoene else is ranting about this hand made v computer generated crap. What a load of nonsense. And as for difficulty levels - either you have all the information you need in which case solving them is entirely mechanical or else you have to guess some and it either works or it doesn’t : where is the pleasure in that? This seems like an astonishingly pointless activity without any of the satisfaction (or education) of doing crosswords. I intend to rip them all out and fill 35mm film canisters with them. (Guardian reader joke only)
May 11th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
According to an article i found on the Times website a couple of weeks ago*, their sudoku setter claims that every grid he sets has only one solution and that no guessing is required. but i assume that this does not necessarily apply to all versions of the puzzle.
* i think it was the Times website but can’t find it now… I was prompted by finding a copy of T2 on the tube, and which someone had already filled in most of the short crossword (with a few errors i might add)and having nothing better to do than try this ‘new’ number puzzle.
May 11th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
is the japanese history and culture a genuine thing? i’m hoping that soduku means something very rude indeed.
May 22nd, 2005 at 7:38 pm
Yet Another Solver - this Java Applet free, online, fast and visually attractive.
June 14th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
Just thought you might like to know that there is a new Sudoku program available for download at www.GoldstoneServices.co.uk
The full product includes 10,000 brand new puzzles; puzzle solver; design mode to create your own puzzles; print option - handy for journeys; puzzle checker to see if you have made any obvious mistakes; Auto Notes so you can see candidate numbers for each square at a glance.
The demo version includes 10 sample puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty so that you can try before you buy. The product is priced at £9.99 which is not bad when you consider that thats for 10,000 puzzles!!!
June 15th, 2005 at 12:39 am
Ooh, son of Mrs Yarnall (to whom the cheques apparently should be made out - I think that must be Colin’s mum, from a
whois goldstoneservices.co.uk), you are so on the edge of being spam, yet aren’t, because it’s appropriate to the post, for anyone sad enough to want their puzzles solved.BUT! Windows only, so hoplessly restricted to that 95%+ of the population. Macheads will have to wait for a Javascript implementation. Or buy a paper.
June 15th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
My solver is web based and free, but I’m not giving out the URL…..
June 29th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
The difference between difficult and fiendish, I think, is the number of numbers you start off with, although in truth I usually find the fiendish one’s easier, probably because I have developed the algorithms to solve the fiendish one’s but I don’t understand the “difficult” algorithms properly.
I did buy a book of the Telegraph su-dokus - they are shite - they actually expect you to take a guess and then extrapolate them, the “harder” ones requiring more guesses. This is completely missing the point of su-dokus (they actually think this is a selling point, but then telegraph readers are probably all a little neurologically challenged anyway). The Times, on the other hand only generate su-dokus which can be solved logically, I have done both Times books and have yet to find one which you need to guess at. Not that I read the Times either. Oh no.
As to the Guardian and their “organic” sudokus - well I never realised they were luddites, wtf do they think computers are for exactly?
July 4th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
Tend to agree with a lot of what is said, about ’sod-u-2′. I can see the point of the ‘difficult’ rated ones, which can be solved by logical progression, but see little point in the ‘diabolical’ rated ones, where you end-up using substitution and guesswork. Might as well just print a grid of 81 blank squares!
Never seen the grid in the Grauniad (terrified that people I know will think I actually buy it!).
Chris.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
if you are into Sudoku you shall check out Kakuro which is a new puzzle game that’s getting popular lately :-)
July 21st, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I believe the puzzles are rated according to how many numbers they start you off with, which is why a medium can actually be easier than an easy and a hard easier than a medium.
Even on the most difficult levels, fiendish and above, there should only be one answer and no guess work required. Honestly, it is possible to beat a fiendish without guess work.