Ponturo: More Obsessable Than Sudoku

I was up late last night blasting through 100 Ponturo puzzles from Mind Candy (this was half obsessive puzzle trance and half me thinking that they would at some point end). There’s numbers and logic and something about Japan, so the obvious comparison must be made to Sudoku:

Ponturo is like Sudoku crossed with NP-complete*

I’m drawn to Ponturo because it’s quick and fresh, and there’s a boardgameish appeal to its archipelago presentation. Also it requires less focused concentration than Sudoku, so it pairs well with television watching.

Play puzzles for free on the Ponturo page of We Love Puzzles. There are also instructions. And the tempting allure of many more Japanese puzzle games.

* = Though Ponturo itself is, I believe, solvable in polynomial time. It just has an NP feel.

Adium Installation Instructions

How to install Adium, the open source chat client for Mac OS X:


The feathers are a nice touch.

Official Google Blog: Personality goes a long way

Official Google Blog: Personality goes a long way: "Today we're releasing six themes for the personalized homepage that try to solve these challenges: a city, a teahouse (super cute -- this one is my favorite), a winter scene, a sky, a beach and a bus stop. All of our themes are dynamic: they change with your own local time of day, current weather conditions or season."

I'm all about the teahouse. Happy watercolorish animals drinking tea and eating sushi. It's also refreshing to see warmth and friendly aesthetics on a Google page.