{"id":588,"date":"2006-08-25T07:27:44","date_gmt":"2006-08-25T12:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=588"},"modified":"2007-01-01T12:40:39","modified_gmt":"2007-01-01T17:40:39","slug":"mefferts-challenge-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=588","title":{"rendered":"Meffert&#8217;s Challenge, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I realize these puzzle posts are kind of odd:  Not much to discuss here.  However, there is a certain degree of satisfaction derived from conquering one of these things, and that sense of victory is heightened when I can share the moment with someone.  People who know me have already learned to make excuses and leave the room quickly when they see me wandering around with a grin and one of these things in my hand, so I thought I&#8217;d just post my progress here.  At least when you don&#8217;t read it I won&#8217;t know.  See?<\/p>\n<p>Right. Anyway: Victory!<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/meffert_progress2.jpg\" alt=\"Meffert's Challenge, unsolved\"\/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Ahem.  Well.  Almost&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/meffert_progress1.jpg\" alt=\"Meffert's Challenge, unsolved\"\/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Most of my problem has been trying to <em>unlearn<\/em> what I&#8217;d learned about puzzles.  I had to overcome my mental block that was forcing me to think of the ball as a globe with the words at the two poles.  I had to stop trying to figure out which line was the &#8220;equator&#8221;.  I kept trying to impose symetry that wasn&#8217;t there, and it was confusing me.<\/p>\n<p>The puzzle is, as <a href=\"?p=582\">I suspected<\/a>, quite a bit simpler than a Rubik&#8217;s Cube.  At one point I completed a ring and found I&#8217;d completed a second one by <em>accident<\/em>.  There are a lot less combinations, and it&#8217;s probably not that unlikely that someone would solve it by accident.  <em>(At the height of the Rubik&#8217;s craze there was a pyramid shaped puzzle like that:  I never bothered to make a methodical solution because you could solve it easier with just luck.  Just solve one side after another, ignoring the fact that you&#8217;re messing up what you&#8217;ve already done, and you&#8217;ll blunder into the solved state before too long.  This puzzle is more complex and accidental solution isn&#8217;t that easy to come by, but I can see it happening.) <\/em> <\/p>\n<p>This is the most fun I&#8217;ve had with a puzzle in a long time, now that I&#8217;m making progress.  The last couple I&#8217;ve tried were just beyond me, and those are never much fin.  I think this one is within my reach if I just keep at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I realize these puzzle posts are kind of odd: Not much to discuss here. However, there is a certain degree of satisfaction derived from conquering one of these things, and that sense of victory is heightened when I can share the moment with someone. People who know me have already learned to make excuses and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nerd-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}