Delphi For Fun Newsletter #86

October 6, 2017

There were two major highlights for the third quarter of 2017:

  • DFF moved to a new website host which restored support for the program (FrontPage) used for website maintenance.  Emails for Feedback and Subscribing are again operational.
     

  • The purchase of a new sawmill!  It even has a computer.  Not one that is user programmable except in the sense of remembering choices for a default thickness for each piece of lumber and makes lowering the blade a push button operation.  There is a pretty complete set of controls for easy manipulation of the logs to help convert them into  lumber, but that still leaves plenty of manual labor involved in turning trees into logs and getting the lumber off of the mill and into a drying stack.  

    The primary motivation for the mill is lack of storage space for my "toys" (now including the millJ), the desire to harvest some of the hardwoods on the property for woodworking projects,  and the need for better guest accommodations now that grandchildren with spouses are showing up at the family get-togethers.  Cots and airbeds in the basement no longer seem to be a suitable overflow sleeping space solution.  I'm looking forward to the challenge!   

     
     

Here's the best of the rest for the 3rd quarter:

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July 16, 2017:  We're closing in on the web site move to regain control of Feedback and Newsletter subscription emailing (currently unavailable).   Should happen in  a week.

For today, another Mensa calendar puzzle lead to a small update to BruteForce V5.3.1. It eliminates a "divide by zero" error that occurred when solving this problem:.

I have some coins in my pocket and their average value is 15 cents. If I were to find a dime and put it in my pocket, the average value of the coins in my pocket would be 14 cents. What coins do I have in my pocket? Source: Mensa© Puzzle Calendar entry for July 16, 2017;

 

July 25, 2017:  Starting the site relocation tomorrow.  In theory, nothing will change from the visitors viewpoint until  I verify that all is working on the new site. 

One more program update posted today was to fix a scaling bug in our program which solves problems like this one from my Mensa calendar entry for July 23:.

T O E N A I L
             
N E E D L E D

The challenge is to find a word for the middle row which forms a  three letter word in each of the seven columns.  Program WordGrid_3Letters, Version 2.1 does that in short order.

 

August 1, 2017:  If you're reading this, I'm happy to report that the DFF site has been successfully transferred to the new host.  Feedback and Newsletter Subscription emails are working again and FrontPage can again be used to maintain and publish site changes.  Time will tell if if there are drawbacks as yet undiscovered.  If you encounter problems, please use the feedback to let me know., 

August 19, 2017: It's been a good news-bad news month.  The transfer of DFF from host EasyCgi to Alentus went fairly smoothly with FrontPage support restored, but I'm being swamped by spam emails (~ 50 per day) since Alentus apparently does no screening at the server level L.  Outlook junk screening here at home is by sender address or domain name of which there seems to be an infinite number.  I  may be forced to another mail server if it cannot be fixed. Also thumbs down to EasyCgi for dropping FrontPage support without prior notice and for refusing to credit me for the unused 6 months of prepaid hosting feesL.

On the fun side of the street though, I did manage to crack a fairly complicated word search puzzle solverJ.  The puzzle solution requires forming five 5-letter words by selecting one letter from each row corresponding to the letter position in the word being formed. All letters will be used exactly once.  So the 1st letters of the words will be A, B, G, T, and W.  2nd letters will be chosen from U, A, R, L ,P with each letter appearing in one word, etc.   Word Search By Column has more details and download links for the program. 
 

September 5, 2017:

Here's a puzzle for which I coded a solver several years ago. This one is from a recent page of my  Mensa Page-A-Day Puzzle Calendar.   Stars must be placed on  pre-defined subdivisions of a grid with no duplicate stars in any row, column or adjacent diagonal cell.  Stars On A Grid Version 2 allows users or the program to solve this puzzle  included in the  downloaded samples.  New puzzles can be saved and reloaded.  Some typos and design improvements are included in this version..
 

September 22, 2017: 

Another challenging puzzle from the Mensa Calendar requires you to fill a 5x5 grid with the four letters A,B,C,D when you are given the number of occurrences of each letter in each row and column like this. No adjacent duplicates allowed in any row or column.   

This September 7th puzzle has been added to Mind Your ABCDs, Version2,0.  For user play, letter counts will be updated as letters are entered.  And,  there is a "Solve it for me"  after you give up J.  Check it out!
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Dr. Seuss Quotes for the new sawmill owner and other problem solvers: 

  • “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
     

  • “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting so get on your way!”
     

  • “You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you’re the one who’ll decide where to go.”
     

  • “Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!”
     

  • “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
     

  • “Will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)”
     

  • “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”
     

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