Mizblog

Minesweeper: Advanced Tactics

I like playing Minesweeper. This guy goes into some detailed but not difficult statistics to try to figure out a difficult board position, and the thinking is fascinating, but I would have quickly hit the 50/50 choices (bottom center and top left) and if I survived those, I’d have hit the bottom-right corner square next. It’s got a better than 90% chance to not be a mine, and 60% chance to not be adjacent to a mine (thus opening more free squares and yielding more information about the remaining mine placement).

Of course, if one of those 50/50/90 choices had got me blown up, I’d have just started a new game.

One variant I like to play is where you don’t mark the positions of known mines, leaving them unmarked until the end when you’ve clicked off all the non-mine squares one by one. It’s quite difficult and often slower than the marking method (you can’t use the trick of clicking both buttons to reveal all unmarked adjacent squares) but it sure is a memory challenge. If you like playing minesweeper, you should try it.

We have a chalk board on an easel in our living room. Sangeeta uses it to write words for things that Saranya is familiar with, like yogurt, egg, happy, etc.

The other day, Saranya was rubbing the chalkboard and getting her hand all covered with chalk dust. Then she went to show her hand to mommy. “What’s that on your hand, Saranya?” asked mommy.

“Egg!” explained Saranya.

(She had erased the word “egg” with her fingers!)

xkcd – Windows 7

If I were to ask you for sex, would your answer be the same as the answer to this question?

Atheist Prayer

Our brains, which art in our heads, treasured be thy name. Thy reasoning come. Thy best you can do be done on earth as it is. Give us this day new insight to help us resolve conflicts and ease pain. And lead us not into supernatural explanations, but deliver us from denial of logic. For thine is the kingdom of reason, and even though thy powers are limited, and you’re not always glorious, you are the best evolutionary adaptations we have for helping this earth now and forever and ever. So be it.

So I’ve been listening to some older Loveline archives, from the Adam Carolla days. There’s a site: http://www.lovelinearchive.com where you can grab many older issues.

I used to think Adam was just a jerk, but he’s actually really funny and has some good insights into the human condition.

Adam Carolla on Religion
Adam Carolla on Society and Drugs

I guess this about sums it up.

Savage Chickens: The Meaning Of Life