0_Wizard
I love crossword puzzles. They are considered a word puzzle that can either be in a form of a squiare or rectabgle
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white-and black-shaded squares.
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Crossword
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white-and black-shaded squares. The game's goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues, which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases. Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines feature solid areas of white squares. Every letter is checked (i.e.
Cryptic crossword
A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, and South Africa. In the United States, cryptics are sometimes known as "British-style" crosswords. Compilers of cryptic crosswords are commonly called "setters" in the UK. Cryptic crossword puzzles come in two main types: the basic cryptic in which each clue answer is entered into the diagram normally, and "themed" or "variety" cryptics, in which some or all of the answers must be altered before entering, usually in accordance with a hidden pattern or rule which must be discovered by the solver.
The New York Times crossword puzzle
"The New York Times" crossword puzzle is a daily puzzle published in "The New York Times", online at the newspaper's website, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals,  and available as mobile apps. The puzzle is created by various freelance constructors and has been edited by Will Shortz since 1993. The puzzle becomes increasingly difficult throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult puzzle on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in "The New York Times Magazine", is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.
Trip Payne
Norman "Trip" Payne is an American professional puzzle maker. He is known by many as a three-time champion of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT). With his first victory in 1993, at the age of 24, Payne became the youngest champion ever in the tournament's history, a record he held until 2005. Payne was born in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He grew up in nearby Spartanburg, attending Spartanburg High School, and has been making puzzles professionally since publication in "Games" in November 1983. He attended Emory University in Atlanta, graduating with a degree in English in 1990. Payne interned at "Games" during his college summer vacations, where one of his pseudonyms was the anagram "Art Pipeny"; he was expected to go on to work there full-time after college, but two days before his graduation, the magazine folded temporarily.
Margaret Farrar
Margaret Petherbridge Farrar (March 23, 1897 – June 11, 1984) was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for "The New York Times" (1942–1968). Creator of many of the rules of modern crossword design, she wrote a long-running series of crossword puzzle books including the first-ever book of any kind published by Simon & Schuster. Margaret Petherbridge was born March 23, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, to Margaret (Furey) and Henry Petherbridge, who owned a licorice factory. A lifelong resident of New York City, she attended Berkeley Institute in Brooklyn and graduated from Smith College in 1919.
Pazurgo
Pazurgo is a word puzzle which normally takes the form of a rectangular grid with white and shaded squares. Pazurgo includes elements from Crossword puzzles and Word Search puzzles, along with the addition of its own unique elements. The goal is to solve each of the clues by finding the solution word in the grid by forming a chain linking the letters of the word together. Once all of the solution word chains have been discovered, the remaining available letters form the solution to the Scramble clue, when those letters are unscrambled in the correct order. The idea for Pazurgo came to Jeremy L Graybill in 2003 while he was playing the piano one day.
Matt Gaffney
Matt Gaffney is a professional crossword puzzle constructor and author who lives in Staunton, Virginia. His puzzles have appeared in Billboard magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Beast, Dell Champion Crossword Puzzles, GAMES magazine, the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, the New York Times, Newsday, The Onion, Slate magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, The Week, and Wine Spectator. Gaffney was thirteen when his first crossword puzzle was published in Dell Champion Crossword Puzzles, and has gone on to create more than 4,000 crossword puzzles over the past 25 years.
1_Apprentice
Same here, I like them a lot.
0_Wizard
It took me awhile to figure out how they worked. Written left-right and from top-bottom
In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom.
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Let's Wait Awhile
"Let's Wait Awhile" is a song by American singer Janet Jackson, released as the fifth single from her third studio album "Control" (1986). It was written and produced by Jackson and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, with Melanie Andrews also serving as co-writer. It is also the first song Jackson co-produced. Inspired by a conversation Melanie Andrews had with a childhood boyfriend, the song speaks of sexual abstinence and postponing intimacy within a relationship. The song received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who praised the track's sweetness and Jackson's tender delivery. It was also praised for its meaningful message, considered to be a teaching tool to encourage sexual abstinence amidst the AIDS crisis at the time.
Hangul
Hangul ( ; from Korean "hangeul" ) is the Korean alphabet, which has been used to write the Korean language since its creation in the 15th century by Sejong the Great. It is the official writing system of South Korea and North Korea. It is a co-official writing system in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County in Jilin Province, China. It is also sometimes used to write the Cia-Cia language spoken near the town of Bau-Bau, Indonesia. The alphabet consists of 19 consonants and 21 vowels. Instead of being written sequentially, like the letters of the Latin alphabet, Hangul letters are grouped into syllabic blocks.
Papadic Octoechos
Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: , pronounced in Constantinopolitan: ; from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, "Osmoglasie" from о́смь "eight" and гласъ "voice, sound") is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and Slavic churches since the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today. Until 1204 neither the Hagia Sophia nor any other cathedral of the Byzantine Empire did abandon its habits, and the Hagiopolitan eight mode system came into use not earlier than in the mixed rite of Constantinople, after the patriarchate and the court had returned from their exile in Nikaia in 1261.
Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented in either direction, as they consist mainly of disconnected logographic or syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space, thus allowing for flexibility for which direction texts can be written, be it horizontally from left-to-right, horizontally from right-to-left, vertically from top-to-bottom, and even vertically from bottom-to-top. On the other hand, the traditional Kapampangan script, Mongolian script and its offshoots (like Manchu) are written vertically from top-to-bottom.
Control (Janet Jackson album)
Control is the third studio album by American recording artist Janet Jackson, released on February 4, 1986, by A&M Records. Her collaborations with the songwriters and record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis resulted in an unconventional sound: a fusion of rhythm and blues, rap vocals, funk, disco and synthesized percussion that established Jackson, Jam and Lewis as the leading innovators of contemporary R&B. The album became Jackson's commercial breakthrough and enabled her to transition into the popular music market, with "Control" becoming one of the foremost albums of the 1980s and contemporary music.
Staind
Staind ( ) is an American rock band formed in 1995. The original lineup consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny April, and drummer Jon Wysocki. The lineup has been stable outside of Wysocki's departure in 2011, who was replaced by Sal Giancarelli. The band has recorded seven studio albums: "Tormented" (1996), "Dysfunction" (1999), "Break the Cycle" (2001), "14 Shades of Grey" (2003), "Chapter V" (2005), "The Illusion of Progress" (2008), and "Staind" (2011). The band's activity became more sporadic after their self-titled release; with Lewis pursuing a solo country music career and Mushok subsequently joining the band Saint Asonia, but the band continued to tour off and on in the coming years.
Writing system
A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form of information storage and transfer. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script. Writing is usually recorded onto a durable medium, such as paper or electronic storage, although non-durable methods may also be used, such as writing on a computer display, on a blackboard, in sand, or by skywriting.
1_Apprentice
Yeah they have a bit of a learning curve.
0_Wizard
In the United States the shaded squares in the puzzle are typically limited to about one-sixth of the total puzzle
In such puzzles shaded squares are typically limited to about one-sixth of the total.
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Crossword
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white-and black-shaded squares. The game's goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues, which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases. Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines feature solid areas of white squares. Every letter is checked (i.e.
Magic square
In recreational mathematics, a magic square is a formula_1 square grid (where formula_2 is the number of cells on each side) filled with distinct positive integers in the range formula_3 such that each cell contains a different integer and the sum of the integers in each row, column and diagonal is equal. The sum is called the "magic constant" or "magic sum" of the magic square. A square grid with formula_2 cells on each side is said to have "order n". In regard to magic sum, the problem of magic squares only requires the sum of each row, column and diagonal to be equal, it does not require the sum to be a particular value.
Nonogram
Nonograms, also known as Picross or Griddlers, are picture logic puzzles in which cells in a grid must be colored or left blank according to numbers at the side of the grid to reveal a hidden picture. In this puzzle type, the numbers are a form of discrete tomography that measures how many unbroken lines of filled-in squares there are in any given row or column. For example, a clue of "4 8 3" would mean there are sets of four, eight, and three filled squares, in that order, with at least one blank square between successive groups. These puzzles are often black and white—describing a binary image—but they can also be colored.
Sudoku
Completed games are always a type of Latin square with an additional constraint on the contents of individual regions. For example, the same single integer may not appear twice in the same row, column, or any of the nine 3×3 subregions of the 9x9 playing board. French newspapers featured variations of the puzzles in the 19th century, and the puzzle has appeared since 1979 in puzzle books under the name Number Place. However, the modern Sudoku only started to become mainstream in 1986 by the Japanese puzzle company Nikoli, under the name Sudoku, meaning "single number". It first appeared in a US newspaper and then "The Times" (London) in 2004, from the efforts of Wayne Gould, who devised a computer program to rapidly produce distinct puzzles.
The New York Times crossword puzzle
"The New York Times" crossword puzzle is a daily puzzle published in "The New York Times", online at the newspaper's website, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals,  and available as mobile apps. The puzzle is created by various freelance constructors and has been edited by Will Shortz since 1993. The puzzle becomes increasingly difficult throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult puzzle on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in "The New York Times Magazine", is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.
Rubik's Cube
Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. , 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy. On a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow.
Pazurgo
Pazurgo is a word puzzle which normally takes the form of a rectangular grid with white and shaded squares. Pazurgo includes elements from Crossword puzzles and Word Search puzzles, along with the addition of its own unique elements. The goal is to solve each of the clues by finding the solution word in the grid by forming a chain linking the letters of the word together. Once all of the solution word chains have been discovered, the remaining available letters form the solution to the Scramble clue, when those letters are unscrambled in the correct order. The idea for Pazurgo came to Jeremy L Graybill in 2003 while he was playing the piano one day.
1_Apprentice
Are they different not in the US?
0_Wizard
Yes in Britain, South Africa and India they have a higher percentage about 25 percent
Crossword grids elsewhere, such as in Britain, South Africa, India and Australia, have a lattice-like structure, with a higher percentage of shaded squares (around 25%), leaving about half the letters in an answer unchecked.
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Economic history of India
The economic history of India is the story of India's evolution from a largely agricultural and trading society to a mixed economy of manufacturing and services while the majority still survives on agriculture. Prior to 1947 that history encompasses the economy of the Indian subcontinent, corresponding to the modern nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This history begins with the Indus Valley Civilization (3300–1300 BC), whose economy appears to have depended significantly on trade. Around 600 BC, the Mahajanapadas minted punch-marked silver coins. The period was marked by intensive trade activity and urban development.
History of the United Kingdom
The history of the United Kingdom as a unified sovereign state began in 1707 with the political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, into a united kingdom called Great Britain. Of this new state the historian Simon Schama said: The Act of Union 1800 added the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The first decades were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. In 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the growth of the First British Empire. With the defeat by the United States, France and Spain in the War of American Independence, Britain lost its 13 American colonies and rebuilt its second British Empire based in Asia and Africa.
Higher education in the United States
Higher education in the United States is an optional final stage of formal learning following secondary education. Higher education, also referred to as post-secondary education, third stage, third level, or tertiary education occurs most commonly at one of the 4,726 Title IV degree-granting institutions, either colleges or universities in the country. These may be public universities, private universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. High visibility issues include greater use of the Internet, such as massive open online courses, competency-based education, sexual assault, cutbacks in state and local spending, rapidly rising tuition and increasing student loan debt  According to the National Student Clearinghouse, US college enrollment has declined for five consecutive years and is projected to continue declining for the next two decades.
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War (11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902) was fought between the British Empire and two Boer states, the South African Republic (Republic of Transvaal) and the Orange Free State, over the Empire's influence in South Africa. It is also known variously as the Boer War, Anglo-Boer War, South African War or Anglo-Boer South African War. Initial Boer attacks were successful, and although British reinforcements later reversed these, the war continued for years with Boer guerrilla warfare, until harsh British counter-measures brought them to terms. The war started with the British overconfident and under-prepared.
Health systems by country
This article provides a brief overview of the health systems of the world, sorted by continent. When Algeria gained its independence from France in 1962, there were only around 300 doctors across the whole country and no proper system of healthcare. Over the next few decades, great progress was made in building up the health sector, with the training of doctors and the creation of many health facilities. Today, Algeria has an established network of hospitals (including university hospitals), clinics, medical centres and small health units or dispensaries. While equipment and medicines may not always be the latest available, staffing levels are high and the country has one of the best healthcare systems in Africa.
Apartheid
Apartheid (; , lit. "separateness") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination that existed in South Africa between 1948 and 1991. It was based on white supremacy and the repression of the black (African, Coloured and Indian) majority of the population for the benefit of the politically and economically dominant group, Afrikaners, and other Whites. Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into "petty apartheid", which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and "grand apartheid", which dictated housing and employment opportunities by race.
Economic history of Portugal
The economic history of Portugal covers the development of the economy throughout the course of Portuguese history. It has its roots prior to nationality, when Roman occupation developed a thriving economy in Hispania, in the provinces of Lusitania and Gallaecia, as producers and exporters to the Roman Empire. This continued under the Visigoths and then Al-Andalus Moorish rule, until the Kingdom of Portugal was established in 1139. With the end of Portuguese reconquista and integration in the European Middle Age economy, the Portuguese were at the forefront of maritime exploration of the age of discovery, expanding to become the first global empire.
1_Apprentice
Hmm cool, I never knew that before.
0_Wizard
The puzzles also have a 180-degree rotational design. So in otherwords the pattern appears the same if the paper is turned upside down
Another tradition in puzzle design (in North America, India, and Britain particularly) is that the grid should have 180-degree rotational (also known as "radial") symmetry, so that its pattern appears the same if the paper is turned upside down.
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Crossword
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white-and black-shaded squares. The game's goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues, which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases. Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines feature solid areas of white squares. Every letter is checked (i.e.
Mathematics of Sudoku
The class of Sudoku puzzles consists of a partially completed row-column grid of cells partitioned into "N" regions each of size "N" cells, to be filled in ("solved") using a prescribed set of "N" distinct symbols (typically the numbers {1, ..., "N"}), so that each row, column and region contains exactly one of each element of the set. The properties of Sudoku puzzles and their solutions can be investigated using mathematics and computer algorithms. The analysis of Sudoku falls into two main areas: analyzing the properties of (1) completed grids and (2) puzzles. Also studied are computer algorithms to solve Sudokus, and to develop (or search for) new Sudokus.
The New York Times crossword puzzle
"The New York Times" crossword puzzle is a daily puzzle published in "The New York Times", online at the newspaper's website, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals,  and available as mobile apps. The puzzle is created by various freelance constructors and has been edited by Will Shortz since 1993. The puzzle becomes increasingly difficult throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult puzzle on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in "The New York Times Magazine", is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.
Magic square
In recreational mathematics, a magic square is a formula_1 square grid (where formula_2 is the number of cells on each side) filled with distinct positive integers in the range formula_3 such that each cell contains a different integer and the sum of the integers in each row, column and diagonal is equal. The sum is called the "magic constant" or "magic sum" of the magic square. A square grid with formula_2 cells on each side is said to have "order n". In regard to magic sum, the problem of magic squares only requires the sum of each row, column and diagonal to be equal, it does not require the sum to be a particular value.
Wallpaper group
A wallpaper group (or plane symmetry group or plane crystallographic group) is a mathematical classification of a two-dimensional repetitive pattern, based on the symmetries in the pattern. Such patterns occur frequently in architecture and decorative art. There are 17 possible distinct groups. Wallpaper groups are two-dimensional symmetry groups, intermediate in complexity between the simpler frieze groups and the three-dimensional space groups. Wallpaper groups categorize patterns by their symmetries. Subtle differences may place similar patterns in different groups, while patterns that are very different in style, color, scale or orientation may belong to the same group.
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force acting on the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth. The time for one complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period. The period depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing.
Orphan Black (comic book)
Orphan Black is a limited series of comic books based on the television series "Orphan Black", which airs on BBC America in the United States and Space in Canada. The series is written by show creators John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, with Jody Houser serving as co-writer; Szymon Kudranski provides the artwork for issues #1 and #2, while Cat Staggs and Alan Quah share art duties for issues #3-#5. The comic books were part of a limited series consisting of five issues, each focusing on the past and present life of a different clone. The second limited series entitled "Orphan Black: Helsinki" began release in November 2015 and is also set to contain five issues.
1_Apprentice
Really? Huh, you really know a lot about them.