Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
36 minutes today. This was my nightmare puzzle, where the across clues are a walk in the park and the down clues tear me apart. Cool theme though! I have two daily puzzles getting ready for submission soon, so hopefully those will meet with approval.
Still on the beach, but there is an idea in the works that may end up coming to fruition soon. . .stay tuned.
Was very good to see everyone for the wife’s birthday last week. . .I miss you all and hope to see you again soon.
Current Mood: 
groggy
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Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Been a while since I’ve been here — been a crazy few weeks.
First of all, a depressing 37 minutes for today’s NY Times puzzle – the theme was a bit unintuitive and some of the cluing was stilted as a result. Good fill overall, but I just didn’t get it until far too late.
I’m unexpectedly out of work, so the past few weeks have been spent job hunting and interviewing extensively. That’s taken up alot of my time and has put an unfortunate damper on Christmas. I plan on making up for it next year.
We got about two feet of snow here yesterday, so this morning was spent plowing and trying to find our dogs in the drifts.
Is anyone else having trouble with the automatic update for WordPress 2.9? I don’t want to have to go through the manual PITA process if I don’t have to.
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Sunday, November 1st, 2009
So a few years back, IBM tried to design a computer that could compete on the same level as a human chess master. Their first attempt, Deep Thought, lost to champ Gary Kasparov in 1996; Deep Blue, an upgraded model, defeated him one year later under controversy as Kasparov claimed humans intervened to help the machine earn its victory.
IBM is trying again – this time, it is constructing a machine to compete against a human on a slightly different playing field: the game show Jeopardy!. Most of you know I competed on the show about three years ago, and recently I was contacted by IBM to assist with the development of their computer contestant by “sparring” with a prototype next month at their facility in upstate New York.
As a tech professional and former Jeopardy champion, this is huge for me. This is right on par with competing in the World Series of Poker last year – me, the geek, gets to visit the mothership and not just play a game against a computer, but ostensibly help Big Blue make their machine better. Far too cool.
I’ll keep everyone posted on progress as the date approaches. In the meantime, check out more info on the project here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/technology/27jeopardy.html
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Sunday, November 1st, 2009
21 minutes this morning. Nifty generic theme – I was hoping for something a bit more Day of the Dead oriented, but I’ll take what I can get.
I finally got my PC laptop back from repair at HP, which means I can start working on my own puzzles again at long last. I owe a few people some personalized stuff; I promise I’ll get them back on track and finished as soon as I can.
Poker’s been streaky for me lately – I need to get back on a regular routine with my game. Hoping to build up some momentum leading into the WSOP Circuit events at Harrah’s in AC next month. Need to get there on an upswing psychologically, I think. It helped in Vegas last year.
Can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. . .
Tags: puzz, Puzzles
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