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for those who are addicted to solving all cryptograms, we need a support group to help us get over this addiction. the first step is to admit you have a problem, and I will gladly be the first to confess. To determine how bad the addiction is, we need to identify the symptoms. I have compiled some questions to determine how serious your addiction is. How much time are you willing to spend on a puzzle? Do you quit for the month if you lose your 100% rating? To what lengths have you gone to solve a puzzle? who holds the record for longest time to solve a puzzle? Don't be afraid to comment, confession is part of the healing process.
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Q1: More time than I used to. I never thought I'd get to the point where I would believe I might be able to contend for a 100% solve month. But in August I missed only 3 (out of more than 500 solved), and this month (for the moment) I'm still at 100%.
Q2: No, I don't quit. I've never had a 100% month yet, but I'm starting to believe it could happen.
Q3: To what lengths have I gone...? Waterboarding... Oh wait, I wasn't supposed to admit that to anyone.
Q4: With the new 24 hour time limit to solve, I have solved a few puzzles the following day after having abandoned them in frustration the day before. That jacks up the time solve average, as many of us have experienced. I'm still on the slower side rather than the faster, but (thus far) this month have had no overnighters. -
Wonderful topic, Mike. It will be nice to see into the brain of a "100 percenter".Comment
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thanks Abra, your comment about giving up after 4 minutes got me to thinking. after 4 minutes, i'm just getting warmed up. for me, 100% is not an option, I have to know what that quote says, even though I know it won't be worth the effort. kind of like listening to a long joke just to hear the punchlineComment
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Having always been a bit of a perfectionist (or just plain stubborn), it didn't take very long before I decided I'd go for 100 percent. The time the site crashed and left me with an unsolved puzzle, I experienced some acute anxiety. Thankfully I survived. I still check my solving rate regularly to make sure I haven't accidentally missed any puzzles because of a double load or something.
The last time I had to give up on a puzzle, I took a print screen of it and looked back at it regularly for maybe a month before I finally cracked it. It was "Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces." by Michel de Montaigne. It was too late to salvage my solving percentage, but at least I finally knew what had made me give up in the first place! I'm hoping to get that one quote again some time so that I can see what the solving rate is. In all likelihood it's going to be well over 20% and then I'll feel really stupid...
It took me a really long time to get my all time solving rate rounded up to 100%, but what a great feeling it was when I finally achieved that!Comment
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Lost my 100% due to problem with the site early yesterday....makes me FURIOUS, to be honest! Not the first time, and probably not the last. What drives me to perfect score is simple curiosity to decipher what is being SAID by whoever wrote it! In a perfect world, everything would work perfectly.....unfortunately, this is NOT real life, but just a facsimile of it. So, once again, I need to just accept that things are not always as you want them.
Sorry.....sour grapes of wrath! Got an apology from Admin....still doesn't assuage my anger at them "losing" the quote I missed.Comment
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If you do enough puzzles, can't you make up for one missed one? I know, that you still know you missed one, but can't you get your solving percentage, back to 100%?Comment
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I feel your pain, Gryhnd. I lost my 100% for last month just in the final few minutes of the month. I don't think I even missed one - just didn't retry before it was closed out for the month, so it did not count for that month. I have missed out on several previous occasions because of system errors; I think my lifetime rate would possibly be 100% if not for site problems (it is 99.9% now). But what motivates me is that feeling of just having to know what the solution is. It drives me totally nuts if I can't figure it out - pretty much what Annamariah said. I had one several months ago that I never have figured out, even though I copied it out and still look at it from time to time. Probably it will do me in again at some point in the future!Comment
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You can round up the all time solving rate, yes (like I've managed to do), but I doubt anyone has time to play enough to get a single month's solving rate back to 100% after missing one.Originally posted by abra View Post
Marnita, unless you want to solve that one annoying puzzle all by yourself, you can always post it here. Somone would probably be able to help figuring it out.Comment
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Okay, here it is: TMZ RDJH JMFW RDQB JLPZ EO JMFW YTZLB. I do hope I copied it out correctly. But probably I should post it in the "obnoxiously difficult quotes" forum.
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"lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas"....I THINK that's it!
Also, it is mathematically impossible to play back to 100% once you have missed one. You might eventually get to 99.99%, but you've still missed one! Kinda like trying to "un-say" something you've said already :-DComment
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Thank you, Gryhnd - I think that must be right! What's really funny is that I'm pretty sure I have solved that one at some point. As for the 99.9 percent, I'm sure you are right, mathematically speaking, but I wonder if it wouldn't eventually get rounded up to 100%?Comment
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Greetings all,
This is my first post - I figure I have been around the community long enough to introduce myself.
I have to say I have a great deal of respect for all of the 100%ers out there. Anyone who has seen me on here knows I am quite the opposite. I go for speed and if I think my time is going to be over 35 seconds I usually ditch the puzzle. On some of the hardest - I don't think I've even found a letter. I couldn't imagine the frustration of poring over a puzzle for close to an hour looking for the crack to solve it. Kudos to all of you who do it - it is an admirable goal and I'm always impressed when I see someone achieve it!Comment
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Hi, Zach. Welcome to the show!
The first couple of months I did 100%, my time tanked. But then you're solving puzzles you had been skipping because they took too long when you were only going for speed. The next time you see them, they're not as hard, and you can solve them quickly. Within six months, my time had mostly recovered. Now, I'm only a couple of seconds slower than non-100%. Of course, if I lose it for technical reasons, I speed through the rest of the month, and it's definitely a relief not to have to check my percentage every few puzzles.Comment
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Hi, Zach, welcome to the forum. you're feelings about spending an hour on a single puzzle is how I feel trying to go fast. I have a slow internet provider, and can't type fast even if I wanted to, so trying to go fast frustrates me. not having to worry about my speed frees me up to spend time on solving the difficult quotes. I get a lot of satisfaction when I solve a puzzle with very low solve rate. I guess it boils down to being competitive, I'm not the fastest, don't have the time to have the most points, but nobody can beat 100 %. so, regardless if I solve 50, or 1000 puzzles this month, I have done my best.Comment
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