A connecting wall
BBC's Only Connect is one of the most amusing gameshows around, mostly because of the great playalong factor. The Wall is its most popular round, where players partition 16 clues into 4 groups of four, then name what links them together. This is a rather nasty example I made some time ago.
Another Lightup
I suspect that for most people, this puzzle will fall through trial and error. There are three small patterns which give exact definition to the larger one, which I suspect is one (or two) too many. (Rules)
An easy Tasquare
Another rare Nikoli type. Paint some empty cells black. Black cells strictly form squares. Unpainted cells are orthogonally contiguous. Clue cells share side(s) with at least one painted square. If the clue contains a number, that is the total area of orthogonally adjacent black squares. (Rules, example here)
From a long long way back
I'm republishing an English word puzzle from a long, long way back. The solution is an object.
EDIT: Fixed typo
+++++++++++++xxxxxxxxxxxxx
x+x+x+x+x+x
EDIT: Fixed typo
A Wheat & Chaff foursome
Wheat and Chaff is one of the many intriguing original types of Inaba Naoki. I came across the English name and rules in Naoki's pages on Otto Janko's site. These puzzles are much easier, and less elegant than, the aforelinked puzzles. So hopefully, I'll make it up through quantity.
If the title sounds somewhat familiar, that's intentional. I suspect the URL of that page (which is different to the title) explains why that is the most visited post on this blog by a factor of seven. So I'm just making sure that foursome isn't the actual SEO honey. If I'm right, then I probably should publish puzzles in groups of three, and grow a bigger, if somewhat frustrated, readership.
Symmetry + Symmetry = Asymmetry
This irregular sudoku is rather difficult. I would be interested in knowing how long it takes to solve. Also, the interactive environment this time is the scanraid solver, so I wonder how many will succumb to temptation.
A brilliant alarm clock
I'd like to take some time today to praise the CASIO DQ-850 alarm clock. Yes, really.
A couple of years ago, I had to buy my parents an alarm clock. Again. New clock springs are made of dry leaves, or so it felt after their OCD cranking busted yet another. Digital clocks seemed to be beyond their device handling skills, resulting in them being afraid to switch it off for the weekend, and needing help to deal with DST. Battery operated clocks with analogue faces proved to be easily susceptible to both normal wear and tear and the occasional drop. Drops were much more common than you'd think, as all such reasonably priced alarm clocks had poorly accessible controls, thus necessitating handling (and fumbling) in the dark.
I found the DQ-850 in the very back of the shop shelf, with tags indicating it had been laying about for a decade, and bought it for a song. And yet, it is superbly designed for the elderly in your life. Since this is a blog filled with problems, take a look at it and see if you can figure out why it's post-worthy - my answer is after the fold :
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