The 2008 U.S. election has finally come and gone. Below, I've posted an electoral state map, with the states whose electoral votes are pledged to John McCain in red, and the states whose electoral votes are pledged to Barack Obama in blue. Yes, this map includes only the continental United States. If you're curious, Alaska went to John McCain (red), and Hawaii went to Barack Obama (blue). I don't have any information on the remaining 8 states (just kidding).

If you click on the map, a window will open and you'll get a 48-piece jigsaw puzzle. Appropriately, each state will be a different piece. Now that the election is over, can you put the continental United States of America back together?

Open the puzzle by clicking here!


Click here to see the rules for this puzzle.

To work on the jigsaw puzzle, click on the above link to open the modal window that contains the puzzle. The clock will start when you use your mouse to pick up the first piece. Move the pieces around by clicking and dargging them with your mouse. You can use this to arrange pieces on the board, and to connect pieces by placing your selected piece close enough to a connecting piece that one piece's nub locks into the other's void. You can close the window by clicking the circular area in the upper right corner of the window.

Let everyone know how you did in the comments!

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If you've been wondering why I haven't been posting recently on Scott's Puzzles, it's because I've been working on getting this puzzle just right! I hope you like it.

This upcoming Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 is election day in the United States. To help garner interest in voting in this year's election, I'm posting this puzzling reminder in red, white and blue!

All you have to do in this particular puzzle is arrange the pieces to read “VOTE THIS TUESDAY”. As you can see by clicking the Original button, the word “TUESDAY” is split up into 2 lines, with the third line reading “TUES” and the 4th line reading “DAY”.

When solved, the top half of the puzzle will will have white letters on a red background, and the bottom half will have blue letters on a white background. The election date will pop up as the missing piece.

Since each piece features a letter, I have turned off the Numbers button (which ordinarily numbers each piece).

When I tested this puzzle on some friends, some found it to be no more difficult than the standard fifteen puzzle. Others claimed it was “tricky”, or even “unsolvable”. To those who think it can't be solved, I say, “Not only can it be solved, but it's a great way to rate your mind, pal!”

Click here to see the rules for this puzzle.

Click on any block next to the empty space, and that block will slide into the empty space. The Shuffle button mixes the pieces, and the Original button shows the finished picture. The clock begins when you move your first piece, and when you solve the puzzle, the empty square will appear.

Let everyone know how you did in the comments!

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Gay Patriot has an excellent state-by-state round up of electoral fraud, and many of the stories involve ACORN. This post is being regularly updated, and a great way to keep up with all the news as it comes in.

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry on ACORN, part of the controversy of ACORN revolves around their close ties to Barack Obama. That inspired the following puzzle:



Click here to see the rules for this puzzle.

The object of this puzzle is to replace each letter with a number so that the equation is true.

The rules are as follows:
• Each letter represents only one digit, 0-9, throughout the problem.
• Different letters represent different digits, and no two letters represent the same digit.
• Any letter that represents the leftmost digit in a number never represents 0.
• When solved, the equation must be true.
• There is only one possible solution.

To start solving the problem, click on any box, and change that box's letter to a number, and then hit the tab key. If that letter appears more than once, the other instances of that same letter will also be changed to that same number. You won't be alerted if you enter the same digit for two different letters, so be careful!

The Hint button will tell you one digit, and which letter represents that digit. The Restore button will set each text box back to its original letter. The Check button will let you know whether your solution is correct.

Let everyone know how you did in the comments!

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There's been plenty of controversy surrounding ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), especially in the past month. Most, but not all, of the attention has focused on the irregularities of their 2008 election voter registration efforts, which have taken place over 18 states.

Many are concerned about possible voter fraud by ACORN, especially considering the large numbers of fraudulent voter forms they've provided (including Mickey Mouse in one case, and one person registering more than 70 times in another). There are also questions over their use of felons (some of whom were jailed for identity theft), and connection to Barack Obama himself.

Just last night, the 6th Circuit Court ruled that Ohio, due to ACORN ballots, must verify voter registrations (overturning a previous decision that said they didn't). As I write this, it's just coming out that more than 200,000 unmatched Ohio voter registrations were concealed from local election boards.

The stories about ACORN really started coming out when ACORN's Las Vegas offices were raided by Nevada state authorities. Because there are so many irregularities coming from so many states and center around so many voter registrations by ACORN, the talk of FBI investigations and possible charges under RICO is growing stronger every day. (Update: This is no longer just talk. The FBI has officially confirmed it is investigating ACORN.)

While we watch the full story develop, you should know that there are 18 states where ACORN has focused their voter registration efforts in 2007 and 2008 (according to ACORN's own site), many of which you've probably heard about on the news. How many of them can you name in 7 minutes?

(I've already mention two of them, so consider those freebies.)

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1 year ago today, on October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) reached a record closing high of 14,164.53, which still stands. Today, the stock market, due to the financial crisis, closed at 8,579.19, a fall of 39.01%! Even worse, this may not be the bottom of the current stock market plunge.

Most of the drop, of course, has taken place in recent days. Over the last 4 days, the market has dropped 17%. If we assume that this rate were to continue steadily, which it won't due to market mechanisms, it would only take another 19-20 days for the DJIA to reach zero. This example isn't mean to scare you or be a prediction, but rather as a dramatization of the scale of the recent drop.

Your challenge is to put the 1-year stock market chart below back together before the real stock market gets put back together. Or, you could simply try and do it as fast as you can, which will still be quicker than the real market gets put back together.

Open the puzzle by clicking here!

Click here to see the rules for this puzzle.

To work on the jigsaw puzzle, click on the above link to open the modal window that contains the puzzle. The clock will start when you use your mouse to pick up the first piece. Move the pieces around by clicking and dargging them with your mouse. You can use this to arrange pieces on the board, and to connect pieces by placing your selected piece close enough to a connecting piece that one piece's nub locks into the other's void. You can close the window by clicking the circular area in the upper right corner of the window.

Let everyone know how you did in the comments!

• 0 comments »