Hi, I know this idea is probably going to be shot down within minutes of people reading it. But oh well, I think it's a pretty cool idea.

I think that we should have some kind of lottery for puzzles. The idea would work like this, someone posts whatever puzzle they want to share, and people guess random numbers or something like that. Then next month of so, the winner from the last lottery does the same thing. I'd even be willing to go first I guess. The only thing that I would like to make a restriction on is that no lottery-ing (ehh, couldn't think of a better word) things like 3x3 puzzles, or siamese puzzles or things that can be EASILY bought of made. Also, people should pay for shipping + materials I guess. So all it will cost the person is really their time. Also, a lifetime ban on people that win lotteries and dont then share one of their puzzles.

I think this idea would be good for people like me who dont have alot of money but would still like a chance at getting a cool puzzle. If this idea is recieved well I would be willing to go first with either a master cuboctahedron of a half truncated cube.

Sounds like a good idea, I would be up for it, but I don't make mods, or have the money to make and then send puzzles.

A while back rubiks.com had a contest to see who could send in the lowest number that nobody else sent in.

Do you remember the winning number? I would've tried something negative...

I remember reading something about it. I think some of the winning numbers (they did this as a monthly thing) were as low as 2 and as high as 50 or so.

It also stated in the rules that the number had to be greater than 0.

Well, we can always try it here - just designate a person everyone can pm their chosen number to and give a deadline. It would be interesting to see the results and maybe even how they change on retries.

Sounds interesting... I may be interested in donating a puzzle to this... perhaps a Transformers Junior Magic, or Macross Mini Magic, or even a Create a Double Cube. Perhaps even offer the posibility of all 3, and let the winner decide on which one will be sent off. As for banning people who can't/won't provide puzzles if they win, perhaps that can be alleviated by saying that each person who submits an entry also has to say what puzzle they'll be donating to the contest if they win? Also, instead of making set rules for every round, perhaps we could make it more interesting by saying that the person who is running the current round creates the conditions that need to be met in order to win. Rubik's had the lowest positive number that wasn't guessed by anyone else. Jin had a random draw for all people who provided name and location. Since I'm trying to learn Thistlewaite (at least a modified Heise version of Thistlewaite), I suppose I could say whoever gets closest to a random number chosen from 1 to 3981312 (unless I've miscalculated, that's the number of combinations in the last stage of Thistlewaite, which is solveable by only using half turns), perhaps throwing in a bit of "The Price Is Right" as well, ie. closest to the number without going over. This could be a lot of fun!

I guess I'll go first then in a week or so with a Half Truncated Cube. Unfortunatly I dont have stickers for the triangular faces so i'd have to do it unstickered unless someone else can get stickers for me.

Also, we'll have to come up with some way of verifying that the random number was chosen before the contest is over. I guess we could do that by PM'ing it to Sandy or someone.

wow....

it must be that there is some love in the atmosphere LOL


I was chatting with David about this last week. And I will definitely plan to do so when I receive my magic tiles.

I even had a plan of how to work it around! Here is my idea:

****************************************

To participate, members with a minimum of 50 posts is required.
(unless he is well known... then he may have less!)

Firstly, everyone except five distinguished members, will publically post a two digit number from 00 to 99, e.g. 04, 56, 25, 29, 02, 64, 20, 77, 43, 15.

Then those distinguised members (who must be available for this) will give me (almost simultaneously) five key numbers at a time which will be predefined, and publicly posting the final result will be done immediately!
Say, those key numbers are 23, 48, 99, 08, 33.

I will then take the sum of those three numbers modulo 100, that is:

23 + 48 + 99 + 08 + 33 (modulo 100) = 141 (modulo 100) = 41

Whe winner would be the person who chose 43, as this number is nearer to 41 than all the rest!
Note that, the five distinguished members also participate in the draw with their own key number!

***********************************************


I was (and still am) planning to put in the draw a five tile magic myth.



Pantazis



PS Yes, I love the number "5" LOL

I find your idea about "puzzletrading contest", but I guess there wont be (at least at first) many other than frequent puzzlebuilders who will participate due to the "lifetime ban".
I for one havn't any really rare or hard to get puzzles in the first place, and if I had one I don't think I would be willing to part with it just like that. (I know what I would get insted, and can thereby choose wether I feel it is worth in or not but that is not the point here)
I don't know about you guys but I would only put "own productions" up for contest, since I would be to dearing (what other word to use?) on my bought puzzles to let them go.

Well, then this contest is just another wakeup call for starting to seriously build puzzles

Don't take me wrong Scott, I love your idea, it is just that I had to be frustrated about that I can't participate at the moment

yes, I agree, considering that I don't build puzzles yet. But am approaching the point where I am about to.

I would also be out of this one.

Me too, but then I have been that for some time now

I'm working on my first custom. Its a three layer spongebob puzzle.. WITH PANTS!! AAHHHGGHHHH!!

Hi, there's a difference between lowest and smallest (positive) number. I would have won in both cases however: ( )

Lowest : -10^(+infinity)
Smallest : 1/10^(+infinity)

Cheers!

-Per

Only if you can get everyone to agree that what you wrote is indeed a number Besides, I think the guessing would be limited to positive whole numbers.

(To get technical: when you say +infty and -infty, you are refering to the symbol we add to the reals to have every sequence of real numbers contain a convergent subsequence. Or, if you prefer, to keep computers from crashing when you divide by 0 A topologist might say you make a two point compactification of the real line. My point is, it's is just a symbol, not a real number (pun intended).)

One of my math professors in college said that infinity was a concept, not a number.

Per definition it cannot be a number, since infinity (if we limit the definition to whole numbers) equals one digit bigger than any number you can come up with (say X), and the number bigger than that (X+1) is infinity, but then, X+1 is the biggest number you can come up with, and you have to start over...

Now the fun part is when you get into orders of infinity.

For instance you can prove that there are more numbers using only the digits 7 and 8 between 0 and 1 than there are positive integers. Both are orders of infinity, but the first one is obviously larger because you can always find a number between two of them and you can't with the integers.

Or for an even bigger infinity try the number of possible curves on a plane.

Yay math!

TBTTyler

i think this thread is dead but w/e

or...well this is kinda dumb...

but we could all get a puzzle and send it to someone...like a moderator or someone...

and then that is like buying your lottery ticket...and probaly idk...you could have like


cuben00b-his old crappy rubik's cube

or something, like everyone could have something like that, and the more puzzles you send in, the more chances you have, like buying more tickets, then...someone programmer (a programmer who hasn't entered the contest and has no bias on the people) makes a legit program that doesn't pick certain people (maybe he/she would send out his/her program to other programmers to inspect it) and then it would randomly pick somone! and they would win a boat load of prizes!!!!!!!

I was thinking:

Maybe people could post what items they'd be willing to trade, then have other member's rank the value(s) of the puzzle. Then at the end of the month (or any other time frame), the owners of the puzzles would randomly be selected to trade with other owners of puzzles with the same ranking. That way, everyone gets a puzzle that is worth about the same as the previous. If no puzzles match the value of a certain puzzle, the puzzle will be put on hold for the the next month (or any other time frame), or at the owners decision, be taken off the list.

Just my idea. Of course we could shape this idea into an easier, more effective "random trade game." If we do decide to do this (or something of the sort) I just want to say that I have no idea how we will be able arrange the whole "ranking system" or "list" or "randomly choosing" or...........