2005 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship 121
Fortran IV writes "Registration is open for the 2005 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship, Saturday, June 18. Two winners will join Team USA at the 2005 World Puzzle Championship in Eger, Hungary (tourist info here if you read Hungarian). If you're the type who plays 12 simultaneous chess games in your head while debugging code and memorizing logarithm tables, you might have a chance of teaming up with last year's champ Roger Barkan (previous Slashdot coverage). If you just like puzzles, register here for the most intense (and fastest) 2-1/2 hours of the year. For a faint shadow of the real thing, take the practice test, which Barkan can probably complete in about 8 minutes; for a true challenge, the complete 2004 test is still available."
I obviously could never compete. (Score:4, Interesting)
Password:
The test is a PDF/Acrobat 5 file. You must have at least the Adobe Acrobat 4 reader (v5.1 not recommended). Download the latest Acrobat Reader here.
2. Read Preview Instructions Run Acrobat and decrypt the Preview Instructions file using the password shown above. You should print and read the Preview Instructions well in advance
Slashcode deleted the punchline (Score:2)
The test is a PDF/Acrobat 5 file. You must have at least the Adobe Acrobat 4 reader (v5.1 not recommended). Download the latest Acrobat Reader here.
2. Read Preview Instructions Run Acrobat and decrypt the Preview Instructions file using the password shown above. You should print and read the Preview Instructions well in advance
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:5, Informative)
There's a link to the password below.
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:1)
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:1)
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:1)
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:2)
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:1)
Re:I obviously could never compete. (Score:1)
The only one I could have solved was solved in the 'hints' pdf, so ah well --;
*= in this case the time it took me to give up on solving any of the problems...
I took the practice test (Score:5, Funny)
and the answer was 42
Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://users.lk.net/~stepanov/mnemo/kimpeeke.html [lk.net]
Or are idiot savants barred from such competitions?
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2, Informative)
--
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Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
Idiot savants are masters of a certain skills(or more) , yet will seem to have very low inteligence when challanged in areas outside of their experties I belive Kim Peeke was a master of calculations and acruing information , so i dare say logic puzzles would be outside his field .
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
he was skilled in many things.
painting / drawing / sculpture
civil engineering / geology
architecture / mechanical inventions
anatomy
creative writing / story telling
philosophy
journaling / self-promotion
musician / vocalist
He was a thinker and could come up with soloutions to work in the real world , his abstract inteligence was brilliant but it was let out in his creative vive , his painting and music , I do not belive he would have been all that skilled at abstract puzzles
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
Being someone who is living with ADHD i am quite thankfull for the treatment , I more like to think of it as what could da-vinci of achived had he been properly helped with it.
Given rather more focus to his various skills and allowed to fully develop the concepts , rather than having a new thought half way throug
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:2)
But would they have interested him?
Re:Anyone call up Kim Peek? (Score:1)
whew, those are some tough puzzles (Score:5, Funny)
To download the files to disk:
On PC's - Right click on the link and save file to disk
I stopped here. How about you guys?
Re:whew, those are some tough puzzles (Score:1)
have fun, lynx user
Re:whew, those are some tough puzzles (Score:1)
Re:For 2004... (Score:1, Informative)
- instructions: endeavor
- test: xcode6fire
2005:
- instructions: hello
- test: kronos
What puzzles games do you know? (Score:2)
Re:What puzzles games do you know? (Score:1)
Re:What puzzles games do you know? (Score:1)
Re:What puzzles games do you know? (Score:1)
Re:What puzzles games do you know? (Score:1)
Re:What puzzles games do you know? (Score:2)
A Pocket PC port of Vexed. (For all Pocket PC gaming news, check out http://www.pocketgamer.org/ [pocketgamer.org]
Is it all just for fun? (Score:2)
branding (Score:2)
Plus, it's fun and they felt like it. That's how the whole Google thing started in the first place, right?
Re:Is it all just for fun? (Score:3, Informative)
There is a checkmark on the registration page that you check if you would like to receive notices of employment opportunities.
Re:Is it all just for fun? (Score:1)
Re:Is it all just for fun? (Score:2)
Except, the way they want you to submit answers wouldn't tend to reveal anything about the method used to get to those answers...
Re:first question? (Score:1, Informative)
One building a size larger in front of another removes it from view. So to see 3 buildings, possible combinations are:
1243 - 4 blocks 3
1342 - 4 blocks 2
2341 - 4 blocks 1
1324 - 3 blocks 2
2314 - 3 blocks 1
2134 - 2 blocks 1
The "4" requirement makes this one pretty easy, as you can see from the above list that only one possible combination has a "2" in the third slot.
Re:Google goes fishing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this means they are not trying to find people who can come up with algorithmic solutions.
Or maybe they are but they don't want fast
Re:Google goes fishing... (Score:1)
Mind you, these are low probability patterns, and "normal" (the mean of a given social index) people have trouble with identifying low probability relationships between objects.
I love these kinds of tests, but I've always assumed that they represented subconscious abnormality to "tap in" to the human brains raw pattern recognition ability.
Does that mean you can teach yourself to solve problems of
Re:Google goes fishing... (Score:2)
Since they give the directions to the puzzle in advance, most or all of them could also be coded in advance. Also, most of them can be solved fairly easily using brute-force combinatorics. If using a computer was allowed, and a day in advance to read the directions for each puzzle and write some code, I could probably solve every one of those problems very quickly (mostly the time to enter in the specifics of the problem).
Re:Google goes fishing... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh yes? For the 2004 test, what kind of process would you create from the directions, "How many circles are either shown or implied by the diagram?"
Or take number 19, "Corral". From the directions and the example, how would you anticipate that the actual problem used a hex grid instead of a square grid, requiring a very different approach?
And even for the ones where the instructions are fa
To the surprise of nobody... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:To the surprise of nobody... (Score:2)
The trick is to figure out which values each square can NOT be. Once you start doing that, you find that from the ones left, you only get certain answers.
On the one where you see the buildings, you have the whole row that said you could see 4... they could only go 1,2,3,4, going down. You now know that for the other 3 columns, none of the rows can contain another 1,2,3, or 4 (respectively).
So, then look at the 2nd row down, and you have to be ab
Re:To the surprise of nobody... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To the surprise of nobody... (Score:1)
True - but plenty of marginal students finish college.
Typically this is where most people stop their education.
True - but this doesn't imply any specific value to an MBA.
Most MBA schools require a minimum of two years of work experience, so that means they didn't just go to school becuase they couldn't find a job.
Many MBAs I've known got an MBA because they couldn't find a good job with the degree they had. I mea
Re:To the surprise of nobody... (Score:1, Interesting)
And an amazing puzzle solver doesn't strike me as the sort of person I'd want to write computer software alongside. As a secondary strength, sure, but not in the diva "I'm such a genius so I don't need comments, you wouldn't understand my code anyway" sort of way.
Re:Looks like (Score:2)
This is why people like you and me will never be able to succeed in a test like that.
When I read the story and went to the site, I went "great... They advertize a test that happened two days ago. Zonk is starting to become just like the others." and I was trying to find when the submitter submit his news.
I was maybe 20 minutes into the practice test when I thought.. "Hey.. we're saturday. Test couldn't have been may 18th!".
Of course not.. The test is on June 18th. In one month.
Solved! (Score:4, Funny)
Get those brains smoking! (Score:2)
Re:Yeah... (Score:1)
How's everybody doing? (Score:2)
Re:How's everybody doing? (Score:1)
First answer (Score:2)
A) In the column with 4 buildings (top to bottom): 1 2 3 4
B Column with 3 buildings: 1 3 2 4 (number 2 corresponds to A column)
C Column with 2 buildings(bottom to top) : 1 4 3 2
(3 corresponds to B Column)
Mmm... the other numbers you can put whatever you want.
Re:First answer (Score:2)
But the another numbers can't be put any way you want? Remember no repetition?
But once you have the first 3 lines the rest is pretty easy.
Re:First answer (Score:2)
You ARE correct in your listing of the three 'clue' rows/columns. But, if you look at what you have now, you see that for each remaining row or column, there are two blanks that can only be filled with numbers that aren't already in that row or column. For each, there is a right combination and a wrong one, which would result in a duplicate number for another row or
Re:First answer SPOILERS... (Score:2)
You're correct at first, but you can't put the other numbers whereever you want, as you can't repeat them.
So the block will look like:
Re:First answer SPOILERS... (Score:1)
Finished (with all correct)... (Score:3, Interesting)
(Just to demonstrate that I have finished--the diagonal sums to 12 for the first one, and to 18 in the second, no hints on the third, the first three blocks sum to the size of the fourth block for number 4, and the diagonal on the last ends with "YES". You can probably get all these answers by pretending to have finished and looking at the answer key, but I haven't bothered trying that again, so I'm not really sure.)
I get the feeling that the "find the image that..." puzzles would be a lot easier if you printed out the document and cut them up. I wonder if that's within the rules?
Re:Finished (with all correct)... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Finished (with all correct)... (Score:4, Informative)
I competed myself last year; I submitted 8 correct answers and no wrong ones, finishing well out of the top 50%; I eventually solved 18 of the 25 puzzles, but only over the course of several days.
I believe that the people who solve these in 2-1/2 hours are doing nearly all the work in their heads, whether it's a rolling block puzzle or a crossword, then simply scribbling down the entire solution at once. A fantastic memory--swift, accurate, and strongly visual--is a definite advantage in this competition (an advantage I don't have).
More than a little mathematical background isn't unhelpful either. For one puzzle I did solve last year, #19 "Point Pairs", it's helpful to know more Pythagorean triplets than 3,4,5. I did it rather quickly (that is, in under an hour) but it was one of the 5 least solved puzzles last year.
What little advice I can offer:
Another hint for numbers 1 and 2 (Score:1)
For the first problem, the sum of each row and column is 10.
For the second problem, the sum of each row, column, white region, and gray region is 28.
Re:Another hint for numbers 1 and 2 (Score:2)
I'm not saying you didn't solve it, but you can come up with that statement simply from the directions.
They say each row/column has a 1,2,3,4. 1+2+3+4 = 10. The trick is knowing what order they go in!
Re:Photoshop (Score:2)
Visual bias (Score:3, Interesting)
However, in most regards I would be considered to have above-average intelligence. Fantastic memory, strong lateral thinking, keen reasoning, etc. So I am continually aware that puzzles, IQ tests, and brain teasers always have a strong visual bias. Perhaps it is just a matter of convenience that visual puzzles are easier to represent on paper. But I wish that puzzles like this could incorporate more aural, kinesthetic, or narrative reasoning skills.
My crosseyedness pays off! (Score:1)
Look for the spot in the two images makes your eyes hurt, and that's what's different about that image.
Repeat until you can match up each of those differences to the main image, and there's your solution.
Unfortunately, this tecnique has the slight side effect of leaving you unable to focus on anything on your monitor, so I cannot be held respponsibl
Re:My crosseyedness pays off! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My crosseyedness pays off! (Score:1)
Corral (Score:1)
Re:Corral (Score:2)
Apostrophe abusive puzzle (Score:1)
On MAC's - Click and hold on the link and save file to disk
I'm already confused. Who is PC? And on PC's what? Right- Click on what?
For that matter, Mac's what? Who is Mac?
Clearly a case of misplaced apostrophes here.
But that's another puzzle, I assume...
Hmmm (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
But it's also sort of specialized to certain kinds of problem-solving ability and appallingly memory-intensive--there's simply not time to solve these problems on paper. I know some very bright people who'd be utterly bumfuzzled by this competition.
But if you like these sorts of puzzles, it's still a ton of fun.
Re:Transhumans beat all. (Score:2, Funny)
Offtopic? (Score:2)
Re:Transhumans beat all. (Score:2)
Re:Transhumans beat all. (Score:1, Interesting)
To be a transhumanist you have to advocate the marriage of machines, technology (nanotech, biotech) with humans. But on the whole the people who advocate such a theory haven't considered the moral, philosophical and even technical implications of transhumanism and tend to be incre
Thank you. (Score:2)
Point by point. (Score:2)
I am so sick of people calling themselves "transhumans" there are *no* transhumans, there are only people who advocate it, aka. transhumanists. (yeah and before you say it some dude with a pacermaker is "transhuman".... right...).
I am not a full transhuman. I would like to be one.
To be a transhumanist you have to advocate the marriage of machines, technology (nanotech, biotech) with humans. But on the whole the peop
Re:PDF? (Score:3, Informative)
Did you not read the bit where it said "Password (see notes below)"?
And below there was a link to follow to get the password. Clever password it was too - very apt for a challenging puzzle; a nice reference to those who came before them.
Re:PDF? (Score:2)
Re:PDF? (Score:1)
a nice reference to those who came before them
Yup! Incredibles!