It's the weekend, so why don't we enjoy ourselves, forget about politics, and turn to the lighter side of the news?

You may or may not have heard about this, but Apple, Inc. founder and CEO Steve Jobs' death was reported earlier this week. How can I call this the lighter side of the news? It turned out that the reports of Steve Jobs being dead were false.

On it's own, this might have been just a mildly interesting story. Just a few days earlier, though, Dolly Parton's death was also falsely reported!

Yes, many famous people have had premature obituaries printed about them, but two such mistakes happening so closely together is unusual (not counting the CNN.com incident).

While you work on the puzzle below, I'm going to double check the status of Abe Vigoda and Generalissimo Francisco Franco.


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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As of today, it's official! Obama has been designated as the official Democratic Party presidential candidate for the US 2008 election. Since few of us were surprised at the outcome, I've created another alphametic puzzle that will give you something to which you can look forward.

Strangely enough, Barack H. Obama's name works perfectly as an equation. The question, as always, is exactly which equation this represents:


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!

• 0 comments »

Before you ask, NO, I didn't misspell the name of the group Run DMC. The DNC to which I'm referring is the Democratic National Committee, whose convention is being held in Denver, Colorado, this week to officially determine which candidate they will run (granted, few of us are in suspense as to whether Obama will win the nomination of the democrats).

In honor of that, I've created an interesting math problem for my visitors.


Click here to see the rules for this puzzle.

This puzzle is called an alphametic, otherwise known as a cryptarithm (alt. spelling: cryptorithm), or simply cryptarithmetic. The object 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!

• 0 comments »