expert... hmmm

yeah, hmmm

Doesn't look like that bad

done!

cheater

cheater

pumpkin eater

O_o

anyways, out peoples

wait, give me the answer first

jk

completely stuck... after filling in 7 numbers

Heh. That's where I am too, but I'm not sure if I'm stuck yet or not.

that means ur really stuck

hey, raggedy

how ya doin?

i'm ok, except that i'm stuck...

ya, i have a feeling ill be there in a bit, i just got here

I don't really see a ready exit now...

now im stuck

well, it's gonna solve itself, I hope :)

done... needed one guess

Done. It was very hard for me.

I had to guess a lot.

*sigh* I have such a busy schedule, it's a wonder i get any time to do the sudokus, lol

example, today, on my to do list is, sudoku, look after baby

I detect a note of sarcasm aki

lol, yup, I've had to stay off work today 'cos baby is sick. so apart from sorting her, the day is my own. She's asleep right now as well, lol

enjoy - and get ready for the coming of the fat man in red...

indeed, all prepared, I've finally got a chance to wrap the wifes prezzies today, simply because she's out of the house at work.

Wow you bought your wife a present??? You shopped??!!! And you are looking after baby!!?? Have you any brothers available....

lmao, no, I've only got a sister. I haven't got her all that much, just a necklace and a couple of books she's been after for a while

as for looking after the baby, she's lucky if she gets a chance to see her when I'm around, I love the little one to bits

I am still impressed. I dont think my other half even knows that I read...and he never realised we had kids...just noticed the faint aroma of dirty nappies or talc....

ah dear, no, I couldn't do that, I always make sure to get something for her, as for baby, it's only when I'm out at work that the wife has to look after her

Finally Ive met one... a real new age man LOL

lol, thank you, I think

It was a real big compliment...men like you are very thin on the ground...like diamonds, precious but rare..

*blushes*

lmao

brb, I think baby wants to help with this one

yup, she does that, which'll mean it takes about 4 times as long, lol

Hell, i rarely finish and I have no excuse at all....

gotta go. Hope the baby makes a speedy recovery and you and yours have a wonderful christmas.

done an expert! had to make a couple of guesses and retry but got there quite quickly.

im starting to go green-crazy at 10 filled... have started 'guessing' for forcing-chains...

congrats linda. one force done... ?? to go?

h, I've gone green crazy at 6 filled, lol, not going anywhere fast though now :(

oops, make that seven filled

hmm there were a couple pairs (on rhs) that got me from 5-ish to 10...

I've got some naked pairs on the rhs, as well as a naked triple, but alas, nothing is coming from them :(

should probably add, at least nothing i can see

bummer - i havent seen the triple...

i rarely see triples until ive started to fill in greens tho...

lol, I always go the grren route on experts from the start, makes things a lot easier, I get fed up of re-starting otherwise

now ive got this weird multi-screen thing going where im following thru on a forcing-chain that didnt fail... i need more colors than red/green tho. :) i vote for purple, blue, yellow, and orange...

lol, i hear you, it'd just get really hard to implement though with more than two colours

lol - tis true... this is the first time ive ever thought (or wanted) more colors tho... i should prolly just fill-in-for-good and see what happens...

lol, I so can't wait until march, i'm getting a pro account for my birthday

lol, how sad, getting exctied about that :)P

oooh - congrats... i keep procrastinating... what? _I_'d be excited too! :)

lol, it's only about £8 I should go for it now really

ooh - i wouldnt know how to get that pound-symbol printed... im a lousy-merican... :)

lol, it's about the 3 on my keyboard

is there one printed beside one of the numbers on your top row?

huh? then what if you write-code and need the # thats on my keyboard?

like the € is beside my 4

lol, this chat box doesn't recognise the euro symbol

whee... thats confusing... do you need something besides shift-key to get them?

yeah, the Alt-Gr key

it's how you get the little accents above the vowels too

like áéíóú

ooohh... shiny... im such an ignorant american... i always (on a real kybd) have to type in the alt-### code...

showoff :)

on this laptop im screwed...

heh, the £ symbol should appear with alt 0163

ooh boy... crap - how do i do that on this dumb laptop?

oh

I don't know, isn't there a number pad thingy? um, short of that, character map works ;)

hmmm - things keep beeping while i experiment... i dont want to lose this screen... :::trying to get back to my guessing::: :)

how difficult is this one, anyway?

lol, i know the feeling, I keep dreading that I'm going to click something on here and it's going to take me away from this part finished

I've been stuck on 7 filled for the past 15 minutes, lol

nah - weve been chatting - not really working... ;)

bet they're the same 7 as mine!

in that case, I think i'll turn in and attack this one in the morning

'night!

i got stuck at 10 before i had to guess/force. which only got me another 3... night.

'tis true h, I haven't been attacking properly for a while, lol

im making progress in my green-guess area now tho... wheee...

SUGAR!!! 3 left and i hit a conflict... sigh...

ah dear, not good

s it the two's in the second line up?

was it*

?? uh no - 2s were fairly done - ive either made a stupid error or really hit a conflict on both-sides of my second forcing-chain...

hold on a sec...

lol, i wouldn't worry about it, it was probably me

yup - a conflict on the last-three squares! crud! :(

ah dear, I had one of those a few weeks ago luckily it was the last seven numbers I'd put in, so it was sorted in a few seconds

yup - thats usually what happens to me - i think i need to wipe and start again... ah well... :-/

whoo hoo - rank me baby! i mustve made a mistake trying to squint at the small numbers...

£ - ooohhh. laptop needs to put it into numlock-mode, then hold alt-key then fcn-key (alt-grey?) and then use the numpad in the jkl-area. ££££ ok - gnite-n-gluck yall.

lol, fair enough, I'm going to swing with a guess i think

sometimes it is easier to apologize, than to ask permission... ;)

indeed, just hope this one pans out, lol, I'm on my fourth attempt already

i think i was on 3rd or 4th screen too. i assume that you have only three choices in bottom-right square? should i hint where to drop the xmas-golden-rings?

whew, got it!

took me a while but thank goodness that is done!

hello world

hoo-ah! Two sets of red numbers had to be backtracked, but at least I didn't have to start over!

glad i slept on this one - making a little more progress this morning

Difficulty score 47. One hidden pair, about 3 forcing chains and 1 guess did it for me.

yuck, that's one of the highest difficulty scores i remember!

oh no, i retract what I said earlier - it wasn't that i was making new progress, it's that i forgot to save a checkpoint when i stopped last night and lost some of my work :(

Yes, I think it is about the 3rd or 4th highest. There have been a few in the 40s, and 2 in the 70s with nothing in between.

weird

how does your program quantify? 47 whats?

Arbitrary points. You could think of it as an estimate of the time it will take to solve it.

Maybe 47 minutes, or 47 seconds or 47 units of time that depend on how good you are at Sudoku.

has anyone done this one without marking?

are certain strategies (forcing chains) worth more points than others when the program is counting?

The program assigns points based on how advanced the techniques are that it uses and how many passes through the data are required.

have you opened that code yet?

I have not posted it anywhere, if that is what you are asking.

what language did you write it in

?

C.

hard core! :)

Yea, and it is a curses based interface that run on Linux.

extremely hard core

I haven't had much success figuring out Windows GUI coding.

honestly, I wouldn't try that kind of stuff. that's hard core in the sense of really bad for your health

I'd sooner use DHTML or do some cross-platform Ruby

Yes, but if I could do Windows GUIs it would be good for the pocket book.

wouldn't Ruby with Tck bindings do? You can call a C library, and re-use all your logic; only using the Ruby for the UI

assuming that will even work on a pocket pc

I am not familiar with Ruby.

I've been working with it now for 8 months; which is a breath of fresh air after Java, PHP, Perl and Python. I've never really touched C or C++

I've touched Perl, but that's about all.

Ruby is both cleaner and more powerful than Perl. Have you touched Lisp or Scheme?

As for Java, I understand it allows you to "write once, debug everywhere" :-).

I saw Lisp many years ago and was not interested. Never heard of Scheme.

Scheme is a variant of Lisp. Ruby is tending towards having that power, but with a cleaner syntax. My Ruby programs are 3-4 times smaller than the equivalent Java, and more readable than the Perl

Perl tends to be a "write only" language.

The ultimate in "write only" languages would be something called Mapper from Sperry/Univac (now Unisys).

Hey Kebek, you still trying to do this without markups?

I have zero patience for that kind of stuff. I was once hired as a junior architect in a Java shop where they re-wrote instead of debugging :(

Sometimes rewriting is good. I can remember coming across some code that I honestly don't know how it ever even appeared to work.

I've required unit testing at my current company; I check coverage regularly

that handles most of the BS errors that can happen

I love unit testing, its the integration testing that I don't enjoy.

yeah, but i think i may give in soon

I only got about 7 or 8 numbers before I got stuck.

kebek, this one is rough :)

I am done, and have to go... cheerio !

yeah, i have 7

i think it's time for green

I didn't get far with the green before I had to guess.

do they make puzzles where you HAVE to guess to solve?

Nobody seems to know if there are techniques to solve every possible puzzle without guessing.

Computer scientists have classified it as an NP complete problem, which means they think you have to guess on some of the puzzles.

k :)

mmmm, chicken salad goldfish craisin sandwich...

hi all!

h'lo

Good one today, DrWho

i've placed 6 numbers so far

that isn't very much :(

3 here... all 2's (but have really splashed around the green...)

i only got 7 before i resorted to green

i haven't greened yet

I have seven...and you're right, it's not.

so i kin get one more, eh?

oh, duh

When I see "expert" as soon as I do the scan-job, I go green

see i try not to let the labels prejudice me

That's very open-minded of you, Hursh. I'm with UDbmas. =)

Oh I am not prejudiced... though I'd rather they be purple...

i like to give my brain a fighting chance

I did... brain lost...

there's a tree in the grand hotel, one in the park as well...

*thinking very hard*

is it just me or is dolly parton kind of a dork

double-D dork...?

double-D - more like double-M

LOL

she is HUGE

me too... all over though... and gravity is not a nice thing

aw, but it keeps us from dying

Down with gravity!

=)

lol good one parsec

ahhh... good thought

I guess if it weren't for gravity, then I might suffocate, so hursh is right

oh FINE, i'll GREEN

I'm sorry, hursh. =)

i do tend to be right.

LOL... go GREENIES!

<--has a green icon, so nyah. =)

i like the color, just not the admitting defeat

don't think of it as defeat, just a different way of winning...

merry merry merry merry christmas

Yeah...I usually figure some things out before I get the whole thing hosed down, but not today.

it's a pyrrhic victory

HAIL THE NEW ye lads and lasses!

FA-la-la-la-LA La-la-la LA!!!

:) :)

okay...checkpoint saved... ain't those little greenies just the most precious things?

grandma got run over by a reindeer...

...goin' home from our house Christmas eve...

you can say there's no such thing as Santa

...but as fer me an' Grandpa, we believe!

now i gots a bit of nutcracker, so there's no words

maybe just ...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooowwwwwwwwwwww

uhoh you make the bar appear

sorry...standing in corner...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

go way mr. bar

does it have to get all the way off?

sheesh

doc should really do something about that

keep chatting, folks!

evening hurshy :-)

I promise I won't do that again...

hello, denny, how're the moons over my-hammy?

lol, it's not your fault, UDbmas, doc should fix it

erm don't know - shining?

(it is a dish they serve at denny's restaurants)

the moons are eggs.

oh ok (goes right over my head) :-D so I'm famous over the pond am I?

done!!

done!!

yes, rather

WTG

cool - wonder if I can claim loyalties or something ? :-P

you mean royalties?

i think you may claim any loyalties you like. :)

oops yes royalties!! LOL

HOld on - is this a classy restaurant?

no not especially... kind of diner-y

how many classy restaurants would name something "moons over my-hammy"?

oh, was hoping I could lay claim to being posh! never mind. Quite like to name moons over my-hammy! sounds a bit rude too!

Think of Little Chef but without class!

my-hammy is a play on miami

Little CHef has Class?!!!

Figured that!

Exactly!

speaking of royalties, though, is your prince engaged yet?

which one? Oh Wills? No I'm still waiting for him to pop the question but he has concerns over the age gap!

how much of an age gap is it?

I keep telling him it's only 11 years (I think) but keep it quiet, my husband is just atthe sink doing the washing up - mustn't let him know!!

oh oh, LOL

i've greened all up and it isn't helping, have i got to go to a forcing chain right away????

Best go - kids to bath - not getting very far with this tonight so will give it a miss. Nite all! *coming William*

night denny

Oooh, I found some pairs!

...and they didn't help me. =(

yeah but they don't really help

snap

chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

seven numbers, green, and forcing chain.

really, experts can be the most mindless ones of all.

the bar is gone!

hey hurshy

hey

hhheeeyyyyy!!!!

(sigh)

later

croc-a-gator

Hard to believe that was an Expert...!

is it a bugger today?

Looks like it, but then someone like norinva comes along . . .

oh good, then it's not just me.....

it is so subjective, don't you think? I say ignore the difficulty rating. I think ease or difficulty depends to some extent on where one begins.

and the position of the moon

i'm on my third restart....

first WAG didn't work... second one did. all done for today - have a good one everybody!

cya mama
heya mab

'ello there =)

heya scribble ..

hi scribble, torgone :)

i haven't been here in a while...and of course the day i come back its an expert....*sigh*

The last few days have offered up some easy ones ..

i should probably tackle the archives if this doesnt get anywhere...

scribble, get to work!

yes sir!! *salutes*

awww darn....you made me lose my place...

I have 7 numbers without reds or greens

grrr....i have one...and a bunch of little red numbers

I could mark.... you know Christmas colors of red and green.

I've got 7 and I'm busy forcing chains...

im gonna end up doing that.

hey mom...are we gonna see eragon tonight?

i guess thats a no...

We are giving out food at church and I need to go shopping for the kids so they can see santa. so? we will see.

ooohhhh yeah. i forgot about that. maybe tomorrow then.

you have to give more than one min to type.. Im....s..l..o..w

i k..n..o..w......and yew kant spel gud =)

thats right

aha.

or thats rite

I don't know that I could have done it without forcing chains, but it wasn't that bad.

you found one?

yes

oh yay done filling in.

I can't do this right now I'll be back later.

okey dokey then. see ya later

Oh yeah!!! FINISHED!!! cool beans!! =) =) =)

Boo, it didn't count my completion! Sigh.

go

done

trying again after system crash.... arrrrrgh

holy crap! i made 3 complete guesses once i had the greens... and i was RIGHT!

easiest expert ever :)

go

hi, green!