Tough Sudoku for 12/April/2007

Who is the cute little gumnut?

What is a gumnut?
Is it just me or were the hard and tough puzzles not so hard-tough today?

21:39 Maen. A leisurely tough today... and I agree with Cyndi... what's a 'gumnut'?

Cute picture, but I'm baffled by the caption. Nice day here, weather-wise--overcast, but dry. Not a fan of rain ...
Have a wonderful day/night, everyone.

finished early today good evening every one

Cyndi, Dan, and Cathy: Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are gumnuts. It's an Aussie thing. I'll let one of them explain.

50 Minutes

OK, I guess everyone Down Under has gone to bed, so I'll try to explain gumnuts. 'Snugglepot and Cuddlepie', if memory serves me, is a childrens book written by an author whose name escapes me for the moment. The characters 'S' and 'C' are modeled after the gumnut which is the fruit of the eucalyptus tree. I bet Anne can explain in more detail when she arises in a few hours.

12:24; let me venture a guess - gumnuts are animated characters and this one is an especially sweet combo of snugglepot and cuddlepie?!?!?

I would be greatly in the debt of anyone whom found today's tough relatively easy if they could reveal how they came to solve it.
For me, it is definately a monster!
BTW, after a struggle with it, to check if the mostrous label was deserved, I did submit it also to Andrew Stuart's solver, and it had to resort to Bowmnan's Bingo to solve the puzzle. Generally, when his solver must do that, the puzzle is very difficult.

mAen all

Reached an impasse at 38 filled. This is a candidate for conditional type chains. Any hints out there?

Does Scanraid (AS's solver)use forbidding chains? I tried using his solver for this monster but it seem to go on for ever. Perhaps a few forbid.chs. might have shortened it?

Can you smoke a gumnut? If you can I sure could use one.

May Gibbs wrote stories for children featuring Australian flora. Gum nut is the hard shell of the seed of our 'gum' trees. It is a very small version of the 'hat' the boy is wearing ( they vary from about .5 to 2 cm in diameter). Her best know 'Snugglepot and Cuddlepie' was about gumnut babies(written 1918) 'Nutcote' is the name of May Gibbs home in Sydney which has been preserved and is open to the public

Pardon me if I state the obvious and include too much detail, but here goes...
1) Start at 23 filled.
UP 7's at e7, a3, i1 UP 26
UP 8's at c7, f3 UP 28
2) Locked 1's at a79 forbids a2=1
Locked 2's at bc8 forbids fgh8 = 2
Locked 9's at e13 forbids e57=9
3) 19 pair at i23 forbids g23h2i7=1, g23h2i678=9
4) Naked triple 456 at dei6 forbids bc6=4, h6=5, bc6=6 therefore c6=9 UP 29
5) Locked 6's at bc5 forbids d5=6
6) FC d7=6 == d6=6 -- d6=4 == i6=4 -- i7=4 == i7=3 forbids d7=3
7) Locked 3's at f78 forbids f45=3
8) FC a2=3 == a4=3 -- c5=3 == d5=3 -- e4=3 == e1=3 forbids c1d2=3 therefore c1=2, b8=2 UP 31
9) Locked 9's at a78 forbids a2=9
10) FC a1=6 == a1=3 -- a4=3 == c5=3 -- c5=6 == b5=6 forbids b23=6 therefore b6=6 UP 32
11) Naked pair 19 at b12 forbids b3=19 therefore b3=4, b4=8, b6=7, h6=8, g2=8 UP 37
12) Naked pair 19 at bi2 forbids d2=1
13) Naked pair 34 at cd5 forbids fg5=4 therefore f5=9 UP 38
14) FC d3=1 == d1=1 -- d1=3 == d5=3 -- c5=3 == c2=3 -- c2=5 == c3=5 forbids d3=5
15) FC g3=6 == c3=6 -- c3=5 == e3=5 -- e6=5 == e6=6 -- d6=6 == d7=7 forbids g7=6

Well, this gets to the blockage. Trying i6 as 4 or 5 results in i7=3, f8=3. The puzzle also finishes with i6=5. But the proof? still waiting for the experts :)

Steve,I'm the worlds worst at toughs. No idea about technique, but have to say that I got this one straight out with not even one teeny weeny guess. Maybe missed a probability or something on set up? and it just fell right dunno.

My daughter, Leia, as a gumnut at May Gibb's former Sydney home: Nutcote now preserved as a museum. I guess you could say she's an Australian version of Beatrix Potter in that she wrote and illustrated her books using local flora and fauna - though, in her case, more flora than fauna! I believe Snugglepot and Cuddlepie was written and illustrated in the 1920s though she continued to write and illustrate right up to her death in the 1960s.

And here was I muttering about yesterday's medium photo repeat that I was still waiting for some of mine!

Kate, that is a lovely photo which in the end, has served to spread the word about one small facet of our rich and varied culture. Onya.

Thanks Ian! :-)

I suppose I should do something about becoming a member and getting a real smiley!

The Nutcote website:
http://www.maygibbs.com.au/

Scanraid solver does use forbidding chains. Andrew calls them, as does most of the sudoku world, Alternating Inference Chains. (AIC). However, the flexibility of AIC the way that his solver uses them is limited a tad. Primarily for this reason, I choose the term forbidding chains, to differentiate how I use them from the common uses of most others.
There are those in the sudoku world, however, that view chains essentially the same way that I do.

Jim - thanks for the start. I believe I will blog this one, but it will be a multi-page animal.

Dave - you are certainly correct that conditional chains, or perahps Almost Forbidding Chains nested within Forbidding Chains, are likely required for this one. (Or something of equivalent complexity.)

Finally, my plea to those who found this one easy is primarily an attempt to learn something new that I may be missing.

Kate - go for it!

6.44 mAen all

Kate. Sorry I called your daughter a boy. Guess I should have put my glasses on !

June, not at all. Very hard to tell in this photo with very little of her face showing. The flowery shoes are probably the only giveaway - and you would need your glasses to detect the flowers! I couldn't find a ragged blossom hat for the photo! Just a gumnut hat.

I have blogged this one. For me, the blogging was more difficult than the puzzle - by a large margin.

oh my!done atlast...think my post will be the last!
cheers

Well Friday the 13th ,It seems to have started alright

steve - agreed, the 4/12 tough really was...

Jan. 4, 2008.

SE=8.4

17:29.