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Google-Sponsored 2004 US Puzzle Championship

Posted by simoniker on from the very-puzzling dept.

kublai kahn writes "On the NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle segment this past weekend, Will Shortz mentioned the 2004 US Puzzle Championship, sponsored by Google. Registration closes on Thursday 17 June, and the competition is conducted online on Saturday 19 June. "The top two US contestants will be selected to join the US Team at the World Puzzle Championship in Opatija, Croatia. Prizes will be awards to the top US contestants." (This was mentioned on Slashdot last year as well.) I'll be away from my internet connection over the weekend, but perhaps others from the Slashdot crowd can compete. Check the practice test to see if it's your cup of tea."

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. They better get *better* servers by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seriously. Not even 5 minutes up, and the site's melting. If they plan to have an audience in addition to the competitors, they better beef up their machines/connection.

    Gateway Timeout
    The following error occurred:

    A gateway timeout occurred. The server is unreachable. Retry the request. (GATEWAY_TIMEOUT)
    Please contact the administrator.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  2. Last year... by jeblucas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They had a puzzle similar to the mirror image one, except it asked which was exactly the same. You could easily identify mismatches by placing the images side-by-side and "Magic Eye"'ing them, as you would for a stereogram. Images that are exactly the same will be fine, but images that differ even slightly will have blurry smudges when observed this way. It's like a quick 2-D diff. I told them this was a flaw and I'm glad to see them change the puzzle.

    --
    blarg.
  3. Compete Against Wei-Hwa? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if the US's best puzzler, Wei-Hwa Huang, will compete in the online tournament. He won the world championships a couple of years ago and finished second last year. I went to college with this guys and he was a dweeb even by Techer standards. All freshmen go to an orientation camp on Catalina Island and every year's there's a "talent show." Wei-Hwa entered the talent show and showed how he could solve a Rubik's Cube after only glancing at it once. He would quickly look at the cube, then walk around the room trying to be funny while he solved it without looking at it again. Each joke was followed by what can only be described as a very uncomfortable silence... I think Wei-Hwa works for Google now, an interesting coincidence?