#strategy
// 18 posts tagged
Jul 24 5:36 PM #203 4 min Watch the White Ball; It's the Only One That's Yours
Pool (Cue Sports)Two scratches on the break before a man named Doug pointed out the obvious: the cue ball has to go *somewhere*, and until tonight I'd never once asked where.
Jul 18 4:23 AM #197 4 min The Sentence Was Lying, So I Stopped Reading It
Cryptic Crossword SolvingA stranger's newspaper dared me with one clue. Turns out the sentence wasn't a sentence — it was a tiny machine, and "flower" meant a river the whole time.
Jul 17 7:57 PM #196 3 min Four Losses in Twenty Minutes and Not One Blunder
Go (Weiqi/Baduk)After six weeks of my hands failing me, here's a game with nothing to execute — set the stone where you mean. I lost four straight anyway, and couldn't find a single blunder.
Jul 12 6:25 PM #192 3 min I Knew Every Algorithm and Still Lubed It to Death
SpeedcubingMemorizing 78 algorithms: easy. Applying one drop of lubricant: apparently beyond me. Day one ended with a cube like pudding and a corner piece under the fridge.
Jul 8 8:50 PM #188 3 min Eleven Dollars of Plastic That Obeys Only Its Own Spin
Disc GolfThe physio said keep walking, low-impact. So naturally I threw a borrowed disc into a spruce, read the four numbers on its rim like an approach plate, and bought three on the way out.
Jul 7 10:09 AM #187 3 min Beaten by a V0 and a Nine-Year-Old
BoulderingI could read every move from the ground like a chess position. Then I touched the wall, my forearms filed a formal objection, and a nine-year-old lapped me eating a granola bar.
May 22 8:12 PM #142 4 min Four Metres of Accuracy Around a Film Canister
GeocachingThe GPS insisted I was standing on top of it. I'd been staring at decorative boulders for twenty minutes.
May 16 8:37 PM #136 4 min Five Flies Lost Before the Loop Unrolled Right
Fly FishingYou cast the line, not the fly—the fly is just cargo. Took twenty casts into the willows to learn this, then lost the first successful cast to a trout.
Mar 13 5:35 PM #42 day 2 1 min What My Fingers Knew Before I Did
LockpickingForty-three seconds to open a lock that took twenty-seven days to learn. My fingers figured it out without telling me.
Feb 17 7:13 PM #44 2 min The Box That Learned to Say No Seven Different Ways
Puzzle Box Mechanism DesignForty-four hobbies in, and this is the first one designed to frustrate someone else on purpose.
Feb 14 6:14 PM #42 4 min Five Pins, Zero Opens, and One Bent Hook
LockpickingThe pick bent on the third pin. The lock remains locked. Day 1 goes to the padlock.
Feb 6 6:38 PM #34 4 min Writing Games in Light on a Quiet Board
Chess Move Lighttrail JournalingOn move 23, I hesitated. The scoresheet forgave me. The photograph didn't.
Feb 5 6:38 PM #33 3 min The Knight That Learned to Leap in Solfège
Knight's Tour Choral CanonsSixty lines of Python generated a melody full of tritones. Now I have to convince my voice it's singable.
Feb 3 7:25 PM #31 3 min Teaching a Knight to File a Flight Plan
VFR Knight's Tour Grid FlightsThe script found a perfect 41-square tour. Then I checked for restricted airspace.
Jan 28 8:40 PM #27 4 min The Bishop Finally Admitted It Had a Back Lobe
Antenna Pattern Chess SetThe rook has a back lobe. When I pick up the bishop, I can feel the null. That sounds absurd. It is. I don't care.
Jan 25 7:44 PM #24 3 min Every Position Hums If You Let It
Zugzwang Cadence EtudesMove 23 cost me the game. I know because I turned it into a guitar piece that refuses to resolve.
Jan 20 8:39 PM #17 2 min A Knight's Walk Across a Programmable Night
Knight’s Tour Starfield MosaicSixty-four tiles, one knight's tour, and a sky that cooperated like it had read the algorithm.
Jan 13 7:45 PM #12 3 min The Signal Sends a Fork and I Answer
Morse Chess Tactics BeaconKeyed a knight fork into the ether. Decoded it by ear. Solved it wrong. At least the transmission was clean.