Puzzle Description:

#1: Jan Wolter (jan) on Dec 29, 2008 [HINT]

The computer had marked this as logically solvable, so that means it must have been able to solve it by line logic alone. But I couldn't do that, and the helper was helpless to solve it. I needed to use a bit of edge logic to solve it, which is fun, but I'm still surprised that the checker solved it without that.

Quite a challenging puzzle for so small a one.

By the way, it looks almost as much like a pelican as a musical note.

Jan, I was able to solve it with logic (I think).

The two columns of 4 on the left... after you done most of the obvious logic, you get to a point where you realize they can't both be on th top half, because that would screw up the 1 3 in the 4th row, and since you can't have a break in the 6's on the 8th and 9th row, you know where one of the 4s have to end up, and from there it's pretty easy.

Right, but that is edge logic, which the checker doesn't know how to do. So what I'm wondering about is how the checker solved the thing.

Oh, I thought it was only edge logic if it was on an edge. I'm a little slow on the uptake, though.

I believe the checker took a holiday! I had not idea or way to solve this and then I read the title and guessed ... I was right, no logic involved in me being right (my husband's favorite phrase).

I sort of used Twillis' logic in #3 as to the placement of the two 4s.

Sad part is, as a former music student who had to study sofage, I was looking for an image of the sun, not the fifth note of the scale ...

Phbbt.

Shay, are you sure this is Sol? It looks more like Fa to me. That was a very challenging puzzle.

Jan, I saw the pelican too! Doesn't your checker do a guessing routine after the line solving routine? I thought I read that in your explanation of how the solver program works.

Byrdie, I was looking for the sun also. Tell me, what is sofage?

I did some offline checking of this puzzle on the checker, and it is not rating it logically solvable. It does have a backtracking phase that runs if it can't solve a puzzle with line solving, but it only marks it as logically solvable if it doesn't need to fire up the backtracking logic.

Nor did it do so in this case. Looking back at the logs, I see that one person did say it needed guessing after it was published. That person was mistaken, but the fact that they were able to make that rating means that it was not already rated as definitely logically solvable at publication time. So I have no idea how this puzzle got it's "definitely logically solvable" rating. That's the correct rating, but it troubles me a little not to know where it came from.

Probably the webpbn server is developing sapience and is starting to solve puzzles on it's own. Soon it will take over the world and force the human race into bondage. Mankind will be eternally condemned to producing PBN puzzle by the billions to feed the unceasing hunger for puzzles to solve of the tyrannical webpbn server.

I apologize to you and all your descendants for starting this, but, well, you know, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.

We'll be the pioneers ! Yeah !

No worries, Jan. We'll be happier than we've ever been, in the end. It will be bliss.

Theresa: I think he meant "Solfège"

Aha. I looked it up on wiki. Just like The Sound of Music! Here's another song to get stuck in your head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7_hTOYZp38&feature=related

Teresa - thanks for saving me the answer! lol. Sofage is the way we spelled it when I was in college. Maybe it was a simplification. Anyway, for those who haven't looked it up, it's note singing using the "do, a deer" method (for the "Sound of Music" fans) where "do" is the tonic and octave of the scale, sol the fifth, etc. Doesn't matter what key you are in. We used it for sight reading and had to be able to do it instantly. I've forgotten them since but we even had to learn the half-tones. I can still sound out a tune from sheet music by using it but am pretty rusty.

I used edge logic on the 4 at the bottom, and by ruling out only 1 space, it was easily solvable after that.

Very nice puzzle!

Maybe we're already in the pbn-matrix, and we just don't know it yet! How else do you explain why you can't stop doing "just one more" puzzle?

Wait, so WebPBN is the new Skynet?

OMG! Arduinna, could it be true? The created puzzles are reality and we are mere pixels in a giant grid? Yikes! Am I green, or blue, or black? Or just a dot? Wait - dots are very integral to the entire puzzle. I like being a dot. I connect all the colors. Wheeeeeeeee.

I know that I am a dot, as the nickname for people who live in my county is "dotte".

I would have to ditto twillis here. I figured I'd be a dot, but I didn't come up with the logic to properly follow it through. :D

Didja hafta ditto da dotte?

I did! We dottes stick together!

I think I'm the red ball... What does that mean?

Red ball, hmmmm, I'll have to think on that one!

Teresa, you are that special dot that always leads us to the next puzzle!

I am a dot somewhere along the perimeter, seemingly insignificant, but without which (or whom), the whole thing would just never get done!

Think about how important one single dot can be: a star in the sky, a window in a building, an eye that watches silently from the puzzle. Perhaps it is that single pixel eye that connects puzzlers to the webpbn matrix!

Edge logic on column 1 used to solve.

love me some two-way logic: whether C3R10 or C5R10 is black, C3R7 is black.

Lmao #9

I'm laughing at #21!

Goto next topic

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