Author: erty

  • I Made a Crossword! (Tue. Nov 27, 2024)

    This is my favorite one so far! A couple of spots where I couldn’t make a word, but the theme is really strong and I just had so much fun with it. 4.5/5. Crossword 2024-11-26.pdf Check out all of my crosswords here! From Grand Rapids, Erty

  • I Made a Crossword! (Mon. Nov 25, 2024)

    Here’s one of my favorite crosswords so far! It has a strong theme and only a handful of stretch clues (clues ending in “?”). I give this one a 4.5/5! Crossword 2024-11-25.pdf Check out all of my crosswords here! From Grand Rapids, Erty

  • I Made a Crossword! (Fri. Nov 22, 2024)

    Here’s a new crossword! This one has a theme, and I’m pretty happy with the clues! A few “?” words, I’m still trying to figure out how to avoid those – eventually you just end up with one word that doesn’t really fit. Maybe there’s a technique that I don’t know yet for not “crosswording…

  • I Made a Crossword! (Thu. Nov 21, 2024)

    Skipped a few days due to illness in the house, but here we go! This one is themeless (and I think is actually the first one I created when I got the software working recently again? I’ve lost track) There’s a few 1-letter blocks and rough (“?”) clues, so don’t spend too much time on…

  • I Wrote Crossword Software! In Haskell!

    I’ve been posting the crossword puzzles I’ve been making on this blog. A fellow Recurse Center alum asked if I’d blogged about the software I wrote to help make these crosswords and I thought that was an interesting idea, so here we go! I’ll first do a high-level overview, and then we’ll dive into some…

  • I made a Crossword! (Mon. Nov 18, 2024)

    Here’s a new crossword I made! This one has a “mini theme”, which you’ll find out as you solve it. This was one of the first ones I made, so there are a few one-letter clues, but zero “?” clues! I was chatting with my parents (who are crossword aficionados) and they mentioned that most…

  • I Made a Crossword! (Sun. Nov 17, 2024)

    Here’s my first attempt at creating a Sunday style crossword! It’s 17×17, which is larger than I’ve worked on before. Crossword 2024-11-17.pdf I give this one a 4/5! There’s no 1-square answers, and only a handful of “?” clues. (question mark = a real stretch). I’m pretty proud of it. Actually, there won’t be one-square…

  • I Made a Crossword! (Sat. Nov 16, 2024)

    A while ago, I wrote some crossword puzzle creation software, and I had some time recently to create with it. So, here’s my crossword for Saturday, 2024-11-16! Crossword-2024-11-16.pdf I give this one a 3/5. There are a few single-letter clues and three “?” clues (Clues ending in “?” are a real stretch – basically, I…

  • !!Con Mini-Postmortem

    I was recently contacted by a researcher who was interested in studying “alt” events, like !!Con, and I wrote up some answers that I thought might be interesting to folks and worth preserving. Some of the questions are edited for brevity or style. These are also only my opinions and do not necessarily represent the…

  • Aphantasia

    I’m pretty sure I have aphantasia, but I’m not sure that I’ve always had it. Maybe my brain is weird! I’m writing this up just in case it’s interesting or helpful to someone else. If you haven’t heard of it before, aphantasia means the inability to visualize things. If someone presents me with the classic…