You might have read in my previous blog posts that I’m currently on a mission to lose some weight, keeping my calories down to 1500 a day. It seems to be working well, but it also means that I’m reading more about the subject too. I came across a great post that talks about why Weight Watchers is so successful, it turns the whole process of weight loss into the equivalent of an RPG.

Here’s how Clive (the post author) describes what he observed:

When you first log in to Weight Watchers, it determines how much food you’ll be allowed to eat that day, expressed as a number of “points.” My friend gets 23 points per day. Each time she eats a piece of food, she enters it into the online database, and it calculates how many points she’s used. A small apple is one point; a piece of fried chicken is seven points.

When she first started the program, she was stunned at how quickly she burned through her daily points. A single bagel was six points — more than 25 percent of her daily quota. “How the hell am I going to do this without starving?” she wondered.

But pretty soon she learned to hack her daily eating to suit the system. She snacked on vegetables that took zero points — like bell peppers — or only one or two points, like a tasty brand of microwave popcorn. Then she’d save up the big points for a really decent dinner. Better yet, Weight Watchers assigns her an extra 35 bonus points per week that she can use if she goes over her daily limit. Or she can bank them for a big blowout restaurant meal on the weekend.

What makes this point-counting possible is Weight Watchers’ elegant online tool. Type in any food you can think of — including brand-name snacks or boxed meals — and Weight Watchers has already calculated the points for you. If she makes a special sandwich at home, she can calculate the ingredients, save it with a custom name, and then drag and drop it into her day every time she eats one.

As I watched her poke around on the screen, managing inventory, calculating points, staying within her range, it hit me:

Weight Watchers is an RPG.

Intrigued? Read the whole thing here

Looking forward to a quiet weekend? Got some time on your hands? Well, here’s a game I can recommend that’s bound to keep you up till 3:00am. It’s a pretty simple game based on matching 3 tiles and collecting stars. However, as with all simple games, it can be pretty addictive.

I’ve spent ages trying to beat the high score. I can get a pretty decent score, but topping the guy at the top is proving to be extremely elusive. Anyway, when you have time, check out ZTar.

Anyway .. try an online version .. here

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The image is all about their newest promotion, which as you can see revolves around a Monster Truck which I presume they will use to tour around the US. Unfortunately I’m across the pond from the, so won’t be able to meet up personally. Unless they send me an airline ticket that is .. who knows ….

And if you want all the pieces: PayPerPost.rar (312.7 KB)

0) First, for each blank cell on the grid, determine all the possible values the cell can have. This can be done by looking at the seed values in all other cells of the associated groups (row, column, and 3×3 square).

1) Whenever the value of a cell is known, that value can be eliminated from the list of possible values for all other cells of the associated groups.

2) Look for an unsolved cell that has just one possible value. That becomes the value of the cell. Then apply rule 1.

3) Look through all the unsolved cells of a group looking for a possible value that exists only in one cell. That value now becomes the value of that cell. Then apply rule 1.

Repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 until either all cells are solved or you reach an impasse. If the puzzle is not yet completely solved, then you need to use the advanced techniques.

With a bit of practice, for most puzzles, you don’t actually have to list out all possibilities for the unsolved cells. When starting to solve a puzzle, you can often easily spot several cells where the value is obvious. For some puzzles then, the challenge is to write down the solution in pen without jotting down any notes. But for many puzzles, at least some annotation is needed to keep track of possibilities.

Enjoy!