New Thing #305: Lumosity

One of my favorite podcasts ('Stuff You Should Know') had a new sponsor this week. I don't usually pay attention to the ads on the podcasts for the most part - they mostly become background noise.

But, like when there's silence after a long stretch of noise, or another kind of change in a sound pattern, when there's a change in the ads it catches your attention.

That's how I heard about 'Lumosity'.

The tagline was something like 'Improve your brain performance and live a better life.'

Who can say no to that?

The website, if you sign up for a trial run, gives you a personalized training program.

You answer a number of questions about the type of memory or skills you want to improve - remembering people's names, improving long-term memory, practicing problem-solving skills, improving focus - and then they spit out a few activities that help your brain.

One of the memory activities was like the old Nintendo game 'Duck Hunt'. They flashed a number in the middle of the screen, and then a duck somewhere else. After the number and bird go away you have to click the place where the duck was and then type in the number. As you can probably guess, it gets progressively harder.

The activities are not unlike those brain games you play where you look at a list of colors and you have to tell the color of the words when they spell out a different color. ('Green', written in 'Blue', for example. If you've never done it, it's hard to say the right thing.)

The game pictured above was easy - it just involves quick thinking and arrow-clicking.

But I had trouble with some of the games. There was a pattern game that got very difficult - you were supposed to remember which squares on a grid lit up and re-create the pattern. I did OK on the small grids, but as they got larger it got too hard for me.

I'm always game for activities that make me feel like I'm improving the way I use my brain. That's why I became such a fan of crossword puzzles in recent years.

And there's an iPhone component with Lumosity that I was excited about as well.

But, as I feared, the initial sign-up was just for a trial period. And a subscription is more than I'm willing to pay right now.

So I guess improving my brain with Lumosity is just not in the cards.

New Thing #283: Completing A Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

It's been a while since I sat down to do a puzzle. But when my oldest daughter received a wooden jigsaw puzzle as a birthday gift, my puzzling instincts kicked in - I thought a wooden puzzle sounded really cool.

So I sat down with a cleared table and I started putting it together.

This puzzle was neat - it's by a company called 'Little Liberty', whose catchphrase is "Classic Wooden Jigsaws For Children".

There's a nice classic feel to the puzzle too - not like the cardboard puzzles I'm used to. I've never even seen a wooden puzzle before.

I don't know if this is just a fun twist for kids, or part and parcel of a wooden puzzle, but there were pieces of all shapes and sizes in this puzzle, as you can see:

I especially liked  the animal shapes - in addition to what's pictured there was also a butterfly and a couple of flowers.

For a puzzle aimed at 6-to-9-year-olds (95 pieces), I was surprised at how challenging the puzzle was. It took me about a half-hour, maybe a little more, to finish it...there was a lot of background, which made it hard, and a lot of the piece connections (as you may be able to tell from those pieces shown above) had weird angles that you're not really used to with a puzzle.

But I did it. I finished my first-ever wooden puzzle. And it was challenging enough that I might even do it again.

Maybe next time I'll even let my daughter join me.

New Thing #239: An Anagram Word Puzzle

This is a little more than a week old. In last Sunday's New York Times Magazine (we're talking August 18 here), the non-crossword puzzle (I think they call it a "Variety" puzzle) dealt with anagrams.

(I always love when there's a puzzle like this in the magazine. I do the crossword every week and that never gets old, but usually the Variety puzzle is their 'Diagramless' or their 'Acrostic' and I just don't enjoy those.)

I didn't do great with the anagrams- but I did give it a shot.

First of all, this type of puzzle is right up my alley. I love playing around with words and unscrambling anagrams.

Turns out, though, I'm not as good at it as I figured I'd be.

The puzzle is called 'Set Pieces', by Mike Shenk. It calles for you to unscramble an anagram to come up with a category and then another word that falls into that category. Their example was PATSY CLINE can be unscrambled to give you CITY and then NAPLES. (I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gotten that one.)

They helped out by putting the yet-to-be-unscrambled categories in alphabetical order, which was pretty much my saving grace. (Well, so was the fact that they told you how many letters were in each answer.) At the National Puzzlers' League convention in July, the winner completed the puzzle in 10 minutes, 16 seconds. The average score of the 160 puzzlers at that convention was 19 answers in the 30 minute time slot.

I timed myself. In 30 minutes I was able to answer 10. (And I may or may not have gotten a couple wrong. [May.])

I bet, though, I could create 19 of these in 30 minutes. I think my brain works better that way.

I'll tell you what, though: I can't wait until the next one of these pops up.

New Thing #111: A New Will Shortz Puzzle

A couple of years ago I spent the summer with the New York Times daily crossword. I worked on it every day over the summer, essentially mastering Monday through Wednesday, figuring out the occasional tricky Thursday puzzle, and getting stumped almost every Friday and Saturday.

I achieved my overall goal, which was to put in a good showing on the Sunday puzzle.

Actually, I surpassed my goal - I became quite good at the Sunday puzzle.

Not like tournament-worthy good, but sucessful.

Nowadays I just do the Sunday crossword...but I always scour the Magazine for the secondary ('Variety') puzzle.

Too often it's an acrostic puzzle, and I don't love that one...but every so often you get a surprise new puzzle.

That happened last Sunday.

The puzzle was called "Getting To The Point".

The point (pun intended) was to take the letters given and arrange them in an inverted pyramid so that eight words would be formed beginning in each of the top four squares.

It sounds complicated, and it kind of is.

And it gets harder as you go. The beginning pyramids feature four letters in place already for you (there are 10 available blanks), then there are a couple with three in place, then two, and then one.

I did OK with the 4-letter ones, I got one of the 3-letter ones, and then I took a break.

I'll really try to get the other 3-letter ones. And I'll take a shot at the 2-letter ones. But I won't get my hopes up too much on the 1-letter ones.

If I've learned anything from my practice with the crosswords, it's that success doesn't come from just one puzzle.

I'll save the puzzle, I'll save the answer key.

And I'll wait.

Because the next time Will Shortz publishes a 'Getting To The Point' puzzle, I'll be ready for it.

I'll know how to approach it.

And I'll have one goal: To improve.