Sunday, 8/19/12

Add your times here.


Link to the Post Puzzler - thanks, Doug!

8 comments:

Jeanie said...

I love a diagramless puzzle! But how do you know where to start without cheating?
While I'm at it, how do you guys feel about crossword dictionaries?

Jeanie said...

(That is, are they a waste, is there a "best" one, etc.)

Dan said...

Crossword dictionaries are a waste of space. If you want to look something up, why not use the internet and learn more about the word?

With a diagramless, I always look at the starting square hint. That could be considered very mild cheating, but it saves time and assures that my puzzle will fit in the grid.

Jeanie said...

Thanks. I guess I was thinking of something faster and portable. Also something I could browse if I thought I just needed to study.
So if we look at the starting square hint, do we need to put an asterisk by our time?

Al Sanders said...

I solve diagramlesses on graph paper that's at least 35 squares wide. I start 1A in the middle, and once my grid expands to 17 (or whatever) squares wide, I can then lock in the grid for the puzzle and start applying symmetry, if it's a standard symmetry puzzle. To me, figuring out the starting square and type of symmetry is half the fun of the diagramless, but that's just my preference, YMMV.

BTW, I hate, hate, hate the hoops that we now have to jump through to get a printout of the Post Sunday Puzzler.

Dan said...

Al, I never look at the symmetry hint if I can avoid it (and I've gotten good at avoiding it with the NYT -- not that the NYT has published an interesting diagramless in several years).

Wow - not even for Patrick Berry am I going to watch a 30-second ad, make several clicks, and print in an annoying format. The CrosSynergy permalink doesn't seem to be affected.

Jeanie: No, you don't.
Also: There may be dictionaries that fit your needs, but this is really the wrong place to look for guidance. Most of us started solving crosswords in the internet era, and I'm sure Al hasn't touched a crossword dictionary in years...

Al Sanders said...

We're getting to ready to put our house on the market and are in the process of getting rid of lots of stuff that has accumulated over the years. The crossword dictionary went in the trash :-)

Jeff D said...

Re: Washington Post Puzzler: I don't know how long this will continue to work, but it looks like if you go directly to this URL:

http://cdn.games.arkadiumhosted.com/washingtonpost/puzzler/puzzle_120819.xml

(that's YYMMDD format at the end)

Save it locally and you can open it with Puzzle Solver - it's a .jpz format puzzle. Note that the solution grid appears if you visit that link in your browser, albeit in a pretty hard to read format, so you might want to save it without looking at the contents. Or else write a script to download it like I have :)