I’m a bad person.
A month ago there was a monster Sudoku in the newspaper with a draw prize for whomever solved it. As previously reported, on September 11th, after solving it I experimented and attempted to write a computer program that could also solve it. It was an interesting intellectual problem.
Two weeks ago there was another monster Sudoku, with a slightly higher difficulty. This time, instead of gas, the prize was a flat screen TV by a brand I’ve never heard of. I was weak, and instead of earning the solution, I plugged it into the program. It didn’t completely solve it. I needed to program a simple trick into it and then it could handle it. In my defense, I manually went through the puzzle with the program to confirm every digit position it gave me.
Of course, I had the solution, and there was a prize involved. So I entered it into the draw.
While I was in Priddis last weekend I cancelled my newspaper for the duration. To my surprise, when I came home I saw a pile of newspapers before my front door. I’ve complained to the Edmonton Journal, but still, I got free newspapers.
And then there was another monster Sudoku in the Sunday one. Great! My descent into hell continues. This time the prize is Safeway gift certificates. And the puzzle was an even higher difficulty rating. My program required another tweak to use actual intelligence to solve the puzzle.
Previously the tricks used to find the solution were brain dead. It didn’t look too deeply at the puzzle. This time, there was a need for actual thought. The trick I programmed in was not an obvious one. So now I feel like I am really cheating. I should be doing the human thought process for that part, but I wimped out and used the power of technology to abuse the system.
It still didn’t stop me from dropping off the solved puzzle at the newspaper.