By The Way...

Wednesday, May 11, 2005
9:35:00 AM EDT
Hearing Situation -- Yaz(oo)
Via Metafilter, I hear of a new crossword-like puzzle called "Sudoku," which sounds fairly insidious: you're presented with a 9x9 grid which is further chopped up into 9 3x3 boxes, and there are some numbers seemingly randomly positioned within the grid. Using those as  a guide, you fill in the puzzle so that every up and down row, every side-to-side row and every 3x3 box features all the numbers between 1 and 9. Apparently, all of Britain is going insane for it:

The game has stealthily taken a grip on the UK over the past few months, turning previously normal people with active social lives into hermits who would rather stay at home and stare down at a little grid scattered with numbers. Commuters who once ranted at ticket collectors now patiently hope their trains will be late so they can complete a challenge. Bored office workers are quietly logging off their computers and returning to pencils and paper. Classrooms full of teenagers have gone eerily quiet.

All they are trying to do is fill out rows and boxes with the figures one through to nine without duplicating them. But it seems that the task is both cryptic and highly addictive. The thinking person's crack cocaine has arrived on our shores. A desperate need for a daily fix is met by newspapers such as The Independent, but some people are still not getting enough.

I'm not going to attempt it, myself: Crosswords drive me batty, and the idea of a crossword mated with algebra sounds like my idea of purgatory. But it might be a brand of insanity which appeals to you, so allow me to pass it on to you with this archive of Suduko puzzles. Have fun. And if it does drive you completely nuts: Sorry.


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This entry has 1 comments: (Add your own)

• #1 Comment from valphish 
  5/11/05 10:35 AM | Permalink

  Oh my gosh, this looks like so much fun!  I am gonna download some!  Cool!
  http://journals.aol.com/valphish/ValsThoughts