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#1: Norma Dee (norm0908) on Jan 5, 2014

You can say it now, thomas--Pisces.

Norma gets the frozen zodiac

way to go norma, a frozen zodiac :)

Finally! Always wanted one.

My sign

logo for Barbaric Dental Academy.:)

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You're funnier than usual Al!

I'm still drinking from New Years Eve,Jota.:)

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Since no one commented on solvability, what is the moderate lookahead step? I had to resort to guessing because even playing for deep lookahead got me nowhere.

with you in mind Kristen

Of course!

Found to be solvable with deep lookahead by infrapinklizzard.

after line logic,
interior edge logic 10 c5 - it can't go above the 1 in r3 or it would create a block of 1 in c4 or c6. So r3c5 must be white.
ll then finishes the left and most of the upper right.

The top 1 in c14 could be in r2, or it could be in the bottom section. That is the crux of our problem.

If it is placed in the top position, you run into no difficulties for quite a ways. If you say it's in the bottom, you could even sum up the clues that would fit in the bottom square and find it could fit there, too.

So let's instead try placing the bottom 1 in c14. Its possible range is [r11-r15]. Let's assume it's in r11.
It would then extend into c13, then down into r12, etc, in a classic zig-zag until you end up in c10r15. However you end up with only a 1 possible in r15, so this position is impossible. We note this and continue on to r12.

In r12 we must do the zig-zag in both directions. It will still extend into c13, but then it could go either up or down. If we go up, the zig-zag will end in cr11c12 and you will end up with only a 1 in c12, so that's no good. However, we could still go down, and if we do, then you end up with a 1 in in c10, again no good. So we note that position's no good and move on to r13.

The upshot being that all positions for the bottom 1 in c14 run into these roadblocks except for r15. That one can only zig-zag up and it meets the 7 in r9. Since this is the last possible postion for the bottom 1 in c14, we can know that this is the correct position.


NOTE!!! If we had started at the bottom and found this working zig-zag right away and called it solved, then this would not have been a logical solution! We started with an assumption, so this would be a guess.

In order to make it a logical choice, you would then have to note that c14 was a possibility and then continue on to all the other possibilities for that 1 and RULE THEM OUT. **When starting with an assumption, the only valid result is a negative one.** If there's a conflict, then you know that your assumption was wrong.

lol that took 4 years to figure out ... so I guess so :)

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