Why not learn Sudoku during this lockdown?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve most likely heard of Sudoku. Most of us however just aren’t very good at it. What I discovered recently is undoubtedly the best and most concise Sudoku course on the entire internet and it’s free.

I’ve been playing Sudoku on and off for decades, and yes for the most part I can solve even fairly complex puzzles but at some stage I get stuck and once I’m stuck even after hours of staring at a particular puzzle I just can’t find the solution.

This is really what started my journey. I decided why continue to play this game 1/2 cocked? Surely even the most casual player would benefit by brushing up on the rules, but I’m playing more and more Sudoku these days. Why be satisfied with being stuck in more complex puzzles?

A complete course in how to solve Sudoku

The complete and concise course can be found here : https://sudokuswami.com/

Or the Youtube playlist can be found here : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzg42yqvfiLKESOIrp-NlQ-lgvtuwO5JE

If you’re a hardcore pen and paper type, then he’s got you covered too : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzg42yqvfiLKot17m8XwCfhnzPxqwPzvu

Not like any other

I do have a few favorite Youtubers who also cover Sudoku solving technique, but none of them cover absolutely everything in a progressive way and none of them provide a full blown course.

For example, Simon over at Cracking the Cryptic makes for great entertainment while sipping a coffee, but all his videos comprise a puzzle he’s solving and inadvertently he talks about the solving technique at a higher level. This means you could watch many hours of Simon solving puzzles and unfortunately not gain the deeper knowledge needed to apply those techniques yourself. Just to be clear, this isn’t a criticism per say on Simon directly. He’s a highly skilled problem solver, both him and his crew, however they’re all over the place and cover stuff randomly rather than taking a clean step by step approach to their content.

There are others on Youtube too, who mostly try and cover certain patterns you will encounter, but in my experience they’re just not as good as Jaco from Sudoku Swami. What Jaco has done is provide an academic framework.

What you put in, is what you get out

While going through the course, I very strongly suggest watching EVERYTHING. Even if you think you know what you’re doing, even if you think you can skip ahead, just don’t. There’s a lot of new information, even for seasoned solvers early on.

Don’t try and rush through the content. Watch and rewatch the parts until you really understand it. If you are in a later video and have forgotten a basic principle or just aren’t totally sure, then go back and rewatch the part with the terminology or explanation.

Don’t skip the tips and extended examples. Watch these in their entirety too, once again juicy bits of information can be found there too.

If you’re unsure, ask

I really like that Jaco actually answers your questions and engages with you, and so you get help from a grandmaster, but what I’ve found is the course covers so much that usually most of what you want to ask is already covered in the course.

Have fun solving on your journey to excellence!

AliExpress – Never again.

AliExpress is a cheap site offering an entire world of goods crap that you have to start wondering if you really need.

Are the prices that good?

Yes and no. Yes the prices are cheap, but cheap doesn’t mean good or unbeatable. The vast array of cheap plastics and electronics found on Ali could also be sourced from any local Asian market and then you get the option to at least look at the stuff you’re buying. Also when it comes to things that you want to actually last, then avoid AliExpress. Almost everything you buy from them is going to be inferior quality or a knock off.

Will your goods arrive?

Maybe. It’s a bit of a gamble. The internet is littered with complaints from people who have not received their goods and shit out of luck. On this point there isn’t much you can do without getting into a long drawn out process which may or may not actually work to get you a refund or partial refund.

Scammy and misleading

Often you’ll see stuff labelled as “set” and showing a photo of 2 units. You’ll then be surprised or infuriated to discover only 1 unit arrives and the photo and production description was misleading. This has personally happened to me on my first (and only) order. I went back to the site to check for other examples and within minutes found more.

Conclusion

I don’t have the time to sit and play games when it comes to my online purchases. Either I’m buying something and I expect it to :

• Actually arrive
• Arrive within a reasonable timeframe
• Be the item that I ordered
• Be in the quantity of item(s) that I ordered
• Be of reasonable (and ideally high) quality

AliExpress is an ideal paradise for people who :

• Don’t mind if their goods arrive or not
• Have no issue waiting months for their goods to arrive
• Find it funny when ordering a knife and a spoon arrives
• Think it’s hilarious when only 1 of 2 items arrive
• Don’t really care if the item breaks after one or a few uses

AliExpress might have all the junk in the world with pretty pictures and misleading descriptions but is it really making the world a better place. Are we still so far up the ass of consumerism that we accept all their low quality fake merchandise which mostly just ends up on landfills. Is that really who we are? Well that’s not me.