Subject: ackanomic Digest V4 #246
From: [email-masked]
To: ackanomic digest users <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 00:00:02 -0400 (EDT)

ackanomic Digest	Sunday, September 12 1999	Volume: 04  Issue: 246

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Subject: Acka: *ping*
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 04:42:05 -0400 (EDT)

Today is Sunday, the 12th day of September, and 
the Machine That Goes *ping* Has Gone *ping* today.
Since I have been scholar, the Machine has gone *ping* 8 times.

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Subject: Acka: Puzzle Treasure Part 2
From: Joseph DeVincentis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 16:31:26 -0400 (EDT)

Here is a second puzzle to add points in your quest for my big treasure.
Several players scored as many as 6 points in the Odd Man Out puzzle
I presented some time ago.

This puzzle, Cutting Squares, is from Puzzle Fun, a newsletter published
in Argentina focused on puzzles of this type.  They're running a contest,
but the prize is just a subscription to the newsletter, so it's mostly
just for fun.

To enter my treasure hunt contest, send solutions to any or all of the
five challenges below.  To score points, you must beat my best solutions
on these puzzles; you score one point for each piece by which you beat
the best solution I know about for that challenge.  Sometime next year,
the newsletter's best received solutions should be revealed; these
automatically become the "best so far" solutions when released, if they
beat any of the ones I already had, and if this contest is still running
then.  I'm not giving out my best scores, because in some cases, knowing
exactly what I scored may help you figure out my solution, but I will
tell you that my best solutions on the five puzzles used a total of 85
pieces.

When you send in an entry, I will respond, letting you know if your
solution was good enough to score any points (and if you do score points,
I will announce the number of points publicly).

Cutting Squares I:
Cut a 10x10 square, an 11x11 square, and a 12x12 square (total area 365)
into as few total pieces as possible so that the pieces can be rearranged
precisely to form a 13x13 square and a 14x14 square with no holes or
overlap.  For example, a simple solution involves using the 11x11 and
12x12 whole, but cutting the 10x10 into 8 1x10 strips and 20 1x1 pieces,
and using these pieces to make 1-unit borders around the other two squares.

All the squares should be separate (no solutions that require the squares
to be adjacent so pieces can be part of 2 different squares).  It is
permissible to make cuts in any direction and position whatsoever
(diagonals, or cutting the unit squares in half, etc.), but my best
solutions so far do not do so.  You may rotate pieces or flip them over
between the two arrangements.  There are no other restrictions on the
shapes of the pieces or cuts you use in this problem.

Communicate your solutions to me in whatever way is convenient (but I
must be able to interpret whatever you send me), but if you stick with
leaving the unit squares whole, it is probably easiest to use ASCII
diagrams (be sure to use a fixed-width font to construct them) to
illustrate the cuts, with different symbols for each piece (with perhaps
one common letter for all the 1x1 pieces), as in this example for
cutting a 3x3 and 4x4 to make a 5x5 (x = 1x1):

AAA CCCC CCCCx
Axx CCCB CCCxx
xxx CCCB CCCxA
    CCBB CCBxA
         BBBAA

Cutting Squares II:
The same dissection is involved here as in Cutting Squares I, but this
time, only two *different* pieces may be used.  Minimize the total number
of pieces such that each piece is a copy of one of two common types.
You may rotate the pieces or flip them over without calling it a different
piece.  For example, the 3,4,5 example above uses three different pieces:
the 1x1 squares, the L-shaped pieces A and B, and the irregular-shaped
piece C.

Cutting Squares III:
Same as Cutting Squares II, but three different pieces may be used.

Cutting Squares IV:
Same as Cutting Squares II, but four different pieces may be used.

Cutting Squares V:
Same as Cutting Squares II, but five different pieces may be used.

/dev/joe

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From: Gabe Drummond-Cole <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: betrayal
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 21:33:07 -0400 (EDT)

Red Mao Gang is *not* my evil twin.

-- Emperor Ai! Pedrito! B(Scam)
DeeJay * Dungeon Master * Herald * Rule-Harfer * Trinket-Harfer
 Crazy French-Scotsman * Student (Scamology)

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End of ackanomic Digest V4 #246
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