Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Miracle Sudoku [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 150 posts

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#101

Post by matsemann »

kadoban wrote: post #92
matsemann wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I liked how he realized two possibilities for a number that were next to each other, also meant the box around it could be cleared. I really enjoy finding patterns like these in constraint games. After confirming the pattern for myself a number of times, the brain later just does it on autopilot. If people have tips for similar games I would be happy to try them. Edit, my tips: Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection…

If you're into that feeling, learning a game like go might be something you'd enjoy. There's other parts to the game, but finding clever tactical moves is a huge rush of that. There's also books and sites with "go problems", chosen puzzle positions, for a quick fix (but only after you know the game a bit).

Good suggestion. I already play chess and enjoy solving "tactics".

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#102

Post by thom »

zwegner wrote: post #26

In case anybody sees this comment before the video: I'd highly recommend trying to solve the puzzle yourself. After you see the rules stated in the video, click the link in the info. It took me a bit longer than this guy, but it was a very fun puzzle.

I'd never done sudoku before and was a little disappointed to find it was so mechanistic. I'd sort of expected there to be some degree of exploration and backtracking, or perhaps having to solve multiple digits simultaneously while attempting to keep it all in your head. Is this puzzle representative of normal sudoku puzzles or do the additional constraints change it?

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#103

Post by graywh »

thom wrote: post #102
zwegner wrote: post #26

In case anybody sees this comment before the video: I'd highly recommend trying to solve the puzzle yourself. After you see the rules stated in the video, click the link in the info. It took me a bit longer than this guy, but it was a very fun puzzle.

I'd never done sudoku before and was a little disappointed to find it was so mechanistic. I'd sort of expected there to be some degree of exploration and backtracking, or perhaps having to solve multiple digits simultaneously while attempting to keep it all in your head. Is this puzzle representative of normal sudoku puzzles or do the additional constraints change it?

extensive "exploration and backtracking" (what the community calls bifurcation) is generally avoided when setting puzzles

there are more advanced patterns and techniques that can be used with sudoku, but this puzzle doesn't feature all of them

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#104

Post by rtpg »

thom wrote: post #102
zwegner wrote: post #26

In case anybody sees this comment before the video: I'd highly recommend trying to solve the puzzle yourself. After you see the rules stated in the video, click the link in the info. It took me a bit longer than this guy, but it was a very fun puzzle.

I'd never done sudoku before and was a little disappointed to find it was so mechanistic. I'd sort of expected there to be some degree of exploration and backtracking, or perhaps having to solve multiple digits simultaneously while attempting to keep it all in your head. Is this puzzle representative of normal sudoku puzzles or do the additional constraints change it?

Basically the challenge is in finding the thought process that leads you to an answer.

The kinds of puzzles done on this channel tend to be pretty tough. the designers of the puzzle usually make it so that there's really one good path for solving (and brute forcing _really doesn't work_ relative to thinking hard about the problem).

There's a lot of stuff going on in this puzzle that's not at all present in normal sudoku, and things like "OK let's try and look for where _all the 3s could be at once_" is easier said than done.

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#105

Post by AS126 »

aidos wrote: post #24

I almost didn’t watch that’s because who cares about someone solving a sudoku puzzle, but that was brilliant. That’s one happy solver; it was worth it just for the absolute joy he gets from it. Amazingly quick solving too. Good to watch him develop extra strategies during the process.

Now I have to watch it... God damn it! Because your comment I mean.

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#106

Post by nayuki »

JackDrury wrote: post #29
the_duke wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently started increasing playback speed on many videos I watch. It's really hard at first, but I quickly got used to it, to the point where I now use an addon to increase playback speed to 3-6x where appropriate. When there's something complicated, or something I want to enjoy and savior, I jump back and slow down. This is an incredible time saver. I got inspired to do this by observing a blind programmer use a…

which addon are you using for speedup?

You can control YouTube's playback speed by pressing on the keyboard. The default list of speeds are: 0.25×, 0.50×, 0.75×, 1.00×, 1.25×, 1.50×, 1.75×, 2.00×.

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#107

Post by techslave »

andrelaszlo wrote: post #91
jmiskovic wrote: post #12

The lightning speed of his observing standard rules across the board is impressive but expected after months of practice. The agility with which he picks up new rules and starts working with them is sign of a beautiful mind. This was a pleasure to watch.

It's really impressive to me how clearly he articulates what is going on in his head while solving.

that’s my favorite part. not that he can solve it, but that he articulates the process, seemingly at full speed and totally relaxed.

reminds me of race car drivers that do live narration

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#108

Post by jowiar »

zwegner wrote: post #26

In case anybody sees this comment before the video: I'd highly recommend trying to solve the puzzle yourself. After you see the rules stated in the video, click the link in the info. It took me a bit longer than this guy, but it was a very fun puzzle.

The interesting thing about this puzzle is that it is in some ways easier than many regular sudokus, in that at any given time, you're working with a very narrow space of immediate next actions (and it's rather obvious what they are).

Re: The Miracle Sudoku [video]

#110

Post by jcims »

This is clicking on an existential level for me.

Lex Fridman's podcasts in particular have been sort of forking in two directions lately, one on artificial intelligence, consciousness and just a somewhat muted wonder how the human mind operates and our present lack of understanding of how it comes together systematically to create our experience. The other is about physics and how the experimental and theoretical come together to try to give us a better understanding of the fabric of our universe.

For this video, in the former case it shows how plastic the mind can be. I'm probably about the same age as the guy in the video and honestly have been struggling with an experience of cognitive decline lately. To see how adaptive the brain is to not only develop grooves that accelerate analysis in the long form, but also adapt to new rules and constraints almost as quickly is really quite remarkable (and for me personally, encouraging).

His quick pattern analysis at the end uncovered the second case for me. This is obviously something we've seen in many other situations as well, but how a collection of 'particles' with multi-dimensional constraints can form order and even crystalline structure from almost nothing.

Very fun video to watch. Thanks for sharing.

Post reply on HN