skip to main |
skip to sidebar
To set the scene; it was evening, somewhat dark. I was wearing dark pants, a dark jacket and dark shoes. So if you didn't look at my face it would be fair to say I was somewhat difficult to see.
Anyhow, I was walking along the sidewalk thinking about nothing and everything and began to cross the street. The street I was crossing was a side street, stop signs but no traffic lights. I did the usual left right check for cars and started across.
All was well until about two-thirds of the way across. Apparently someone was in a bit of a rush and decided to cut the left turn onto the street I was walking across. With it being dark and me staring straight ahead, or maybe the van had been moving quite quickly, I didn't see it coming until the last second.
Very quickly I was able to determine that it was not in fact going to stop and that I better get the hell out of the way. With a hop skip and a jump I leapt to the other side of the sidewalk just barely making it out of the way. It was a little like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR8913v_WCE but not quite as cool.
Safely on the other side I turned around to see the car stopped just past the stop sign (apparently he had seen me too). I gave a little wave, turned around and kept walking. No harm no foul I suppose. It got the blood pumping a little bit and I was a bit more cautious and aware at the subsequent intersections.
Below is an artist's rendition from a bird's eye view:
PS: I wouldn't have told a certain someone if I had broken my leg.
As of course everyone knows, today is Minesweeper Awareness Day. It's a shame how so few people actually know how to play the game of minesweeper when it can be found on nearly everyone's computer. Though I don't claim to be an expert, a short tutorial is in order to get you started.
Start with the beginner size if it's your first time. Click on any square and a number will appear on it indicating the number of mines that are located on the eight squares surrounding it. If you happened to click on a square with no mines around it a larger section may be uncovered.
The goal is to uncover every square that does not contain a mine. As said before the number on a square indicates how many nearby squares contain a mine. So if there is a 1 square that is not currently beside any mines and there is only one uncovered square touching it, we can know for sure that it is a mine. Mark the mine with a flag by right-clicking it.
This may then allow us to uncover other squares because we can eliminate them as mines. For example in the picture we can click on the square three from the top left because the square right above it is already beside one mine. Marking one spot as a mine then uncovering new squares often allows you to uncover many safe squares in a row.
Once you're unable to uncover any more spaces safely, look for numbered squares that have the same number of uncovered spaces beside them as the number of unknown mines around them. For example the 3 in the third row and third column. It is beside one known mine and two uncovered squares so the two squares must be mines.
Now that we've done this the 2 is beside two mines so we can safely uncover some more squares. Try to keep following this pattern. Look for squares where the number of unknown mines beside it is the same as the number of uncovered squares beside it. Then look for squares where the number is the same as number of known mines beside it.
In beginner games using this strategy should usually be enough to complete it, but if you try intermediate or expert games sometimes you can get stuck. It may hurt your brain a bit, but most of the time you can use logic to mark or uncover certain squares that may help you. For example, even though this shouldn't be necessary in the beginner game, what if we were stuck and had to continue on the left hand side.
There are two open spaces below the 2. Since the 2 is already beside a mine we know that only of the two spaces will have a mine. The 3 beside it is already beside two mines so we know that only of the three spaces beside it will have a mine. We can then determine that the square to the bottom right of the 3 is not a mine because the 3 is beside the two spaces in which one must be a mine because of the 2. Simple enough right? So don't give up if you seem to get stuck, look for patterns like this!
Keep going until all the squares that are not mines are uncovered. Then go do it again faster or try the harder difficulties. One other tip for uncovering squares faster; If you have marked the same number of mines around a square as it says there are you can double click on that square to uncover all the adjacent squares simultaneously. Saves you a few clicks when you already know where the mine is beside a 1 and there are four uncovered squares beside it.
If you actually read all the way to the end, well congratulations, there probably aren't many of you. Go play some games of minesweeper and spread the word! I also challenge you to beat it on expert. It may be frustrating but it feels fantastic when you finally win.
