The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Sue De Coq]

tso - could you publish an anthology of your collected musings? I always enjoy your posts but the comment about Sl Iced Bread represents a new peak. Do you write about anything other than Sudoku elsewhere?

[9X9]

tso - you wrote; "The difference in intrinsic logical ability between the genders is vanishingly small and meaingless (sic) on an individual level".

The October 2005 Mensa Magazine carries a report entitled "Men are more intelligent". Amongst other things the report says, and I quote;

"A study to be published in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests".

"Paul Irwing and Professor Richard Lynn claim the difference grows when the highest IQ levels are considered. Their research was based on IQ tests given to 80,000 people and a further study of 20,000 students."

"There were twice as many men with IQ scores of 125, for example, a level said to correspond with people getting first-class degrees."

"At scores of 155, there were 5.5 men for every woman".

"Dr Irwin told the Times the differences "may go some way to explaining the greater number of men achieving distinctions of various kinds"".

"The paper (the study not the Times .... 9X9) will argue that there is evidence that at the same level of IQ, women are able to achieve more than men "possibly because they are more concientious and better adapted to sustained periods of hard work"".

Believe me, I am in no way a sexist but, from decades of personal observation the results of the study do not surprise me.

[Sue De Coq]

We might have wandered off topic here ...

[lunababy_moonchild]

I think we have. Intrinsic logic ability to IQ level. Interesting but off topic.

Luna *Sl Iced bread. Snappy, very snappy*

PS 9x9, got carried away with my eagerness to find out what went on and what everybody looked like

[lunababy_moonchild]

Here's an on topic one.

Could it be at all possible for even just a few of us to be in a room for the purposes of competition and not nit-pick it (puzzles/rules/whether there's a space in sudoku and whose fault that was etc) to death?

Maybe we should just have a Christmas party instead.

Luna

[Karyobin]

Also at the risk of wandering on-topic, I'd quite like to know opinions as to the last post (?) Unless lack of response = lack of interest.

In which case - hit me, I can take it *sigh*.

[9X9]

Guys - Wondering I'll admit to, "wandering" I eschew. Hence I felt entitled to put tso's claim into perspective for others to "compare and contrast".

To borrow someone else's (possibly Churchill, possibly A N Other?) famous statement; "All that it takes for a tyrant (nothing personal tso) to succeed is for good men (sorry ladies) to say nothing."

As for there being a correlation between intrinsic logical ability and IQ, I'm not a psychologist but I'll happily wager a lunch (Xmas or otherwise) at Simpsons that there is such a link.

[emm]

From a personal point of view, 9x9 - and I wouldn't have raised this but for your last post - I was a little disappointed with your excuses for Sunday - especially after all the hoopla. The average woman would have got the damned computer fixed, driven to Cheltenham, entered the competition, taken 100-odd very interesting photos, posted them on the web and had dinner on the table by 6. And all without complaining about what a hard day it had been. IQ's. Pah! Where are all the much touted multi-tasking post-alpha males? Just another urban myth? (big cheesy grin)

PS : I'd love to come to the Christmas party! (bigger cheesy grin)

[lunababy_moonchild]

Point accepted, but what I'd envisage would be nothing more than the introduction of a few medium-level filtering techniques - the X-wing or Turbot Fish, for example (with explanations). Pencil and paper and candidates are all that's needed to solve them and it invites a wider audience who,

(a) don't buy puzzle magazines because they think they all have happy puppies holding joke telephones on the cover (me, until recently)
(b) aren't averse to using candidates and have developed their approach up to the higher hidden strategies, but rarely get challenged in the paper
(c) people who just might like to know their world is a bit bigger than they thought it was.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not into making anyone feel inadequate, but chess puzzles are invariably from Grand Master games and the Bridge is a bloody foreign langauge. Why are our puzzles dumbed-down to the extent that the only room for improvement is to lower your own time?

And as you say, a speed comeptition would always require the puzzles to be solvable by the speediest and simplest techniques.

In the interests of staying on topic (Karyobin? on topic? ), I'd just like to point out that this competition was one of the first to be run and the rules and level of puzzles etc has yet to be established in a competition setting. The first to come up with a decent set - of rules/procedures/competition - will probably become the industry standard. Chess and Bridge are well established, sudoku is a fairly new concept in terms of competition, national or otherwise, so we learn as we go.

From a personal point of view, 9x9 - and I wouldn't have raised this but for your last post - I was a little disappointed with your excuses for Sunday - especially after all the hoopla. The average woman would have got the damned computer fixed, driven to Cheltenham, entered the competition, taken 100-odd very interesting photos, posted them on the web and had dinner on the table by 6. And all without complaining about what a hard day it had been. IQ's. Pah! Where are all the much touted multi-tasking post-alpha males? Just another urban myth? (big cheesy grin)

Here, here

To borrow someone else's (possibly Churchill, possibly A N Other?) famous statement; "All that it takes for a tyrant (nothing personal tso) to succeed is for good men (sorry ladies) to say nothing."

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797). Think that's the quote that you were after, but I appreciate the sentiment. As we all know women did not exist in the 18th century.

As for there being a correlation between intrinsic logical ability and IQ, I'm not a psychologist but I'll happily wager a lunch (Xmas or otherwise) at Simpsons that there is such a link.

You'd be surprised. A woman I know has the same IQ as me - we had them measured - and she behaves as if she has no brain attached whatsoever. Not the same as a correlation between logic and IQ but an example that having a high IQ (much higher than average in this example - which isn't difficult!) is not the be all and end all that it was previously held to be.

And it was women who were in the top winning positions in the competition, was it not?

Let's not start a gender war here, I'm as crapppy at solving as the next person, higher than average IQ not withstanding.

Luna *maybe I should start a poll for a Christmas Party*

[9X9]

'Morning em - I was waiting for something like that.

In my case, not only do they have two adult offspring but they are also rearing their second litter (daughter 18 months, son minus 11 weeks and counting) in their mid-sixties, whilst painting, writing, both power-walking four miles and doing an hour of bodywork exercises each day, swimming a kilometre once a week, pursuing a court case and knocking off Pappocom Very Hards in between.

Hence, all the other stuff plus nappy changing and general zooming around playing with, reading to and otherwise happily occupying happy little person etc, whilst also generally helping and supporting ever-bigger big one carrying ever-bigger very little one, as well as maintaining two large houses and gardens (new wife / former wife) and being embroiled in all the "fun" of selling one of them (houses not wives!) and then shortly moving.

Shall we shake hands and call it a draw!?

[Sue De Coq]

A woman I know has the same IQ as me - we had them measured - and she behaves as if she has no brain attached whatsoever.

Luna - perhaps that's because you behave as though you have no brain attached whatsoever!

[lunababy_moonchild]

A woman I know has the same IQ as me - we had them measured - and she behaves as if she has no brain attached whatsoever.

Luna - perhaps that's because you behave as though you have no brain attached whatsoever!

Possibly, but I do know and take for granted that Coronation Street, for example, is a soap opera and, as such, is a work of fiction. This particular woman - not here to defend herself so this is hugely unfair - stunned me by telling me - very seriously - that it was OK for her to do something based on the 'fact' that a character from the aforementioned soap did something similar but worse (and I was accused of being very disapproving and critical when I pointed out that it was a soap opera and as such fictional).

Now we really are off topic!

'Morning em - I was waiting for something like that.

I took em's post to be wholly jocular in tone, which is why I agreed with her.

Luna

[9X9]

Luna - re your reference to em's jocularity, me too! Hence, I joined in the fun.

She and I are "old mates" and I've praised her wit hereabouts.

[Karyobin]

As we now seem to be so far off topic we couldn't find it with a map, here's what happened today...

Driving up the A174 (The Parkway for anyone local - simes?) my car presented me with a strange and unusual question - 'Why is 3rd gear not enough?' As I was unable to find a response with sufficient haste, the car promptly decided all other gears were clearly surplus to requirements and refused access to them. A few phone calls later I limped home. Bit of a bugger when you only get paid if you actually turn up.

[9X9]

em - and yes, it is all true!