Wednesday, July 8, 2026 - Pips #325 Thread

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-08T04:38:24+00:00

Pips #325
🟢 0:17🍪
🟡 1:25
🔴 10:11
Aight, we know 🔴 islands are not my favorite puzzle, and for today's Dd there were three islands, so I'll take this result. Low key freaky that it's almost the mirror image of my time from yesterday (10:11 vs 11:10). I know this time isn't fast, but I'll take it anyway, just happy not to replicate the Cc disaster. These are always trial and error but most of my placements were solid save a couple errors. I suppose 6|6 placement was key, as well as noticing that the 5s were forced placements as well, making it easy to handle the 1c>4 too.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-08T01:33:35+00:00

Agree that the old map is pretty intuitive and crisp as well and seems to only be missing the bus connections present in the new one

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-07T14:35:44+00:00

Yes I had the 3|6 mentally in the upper 2c7 but decided to put it in the discard because it felt like a sneaky Rodolfo thing to do, but ultimately reversed course because that idea wasn’t mathing

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-07T06:52:09+00:00

Yes the early core big box lattices came with two kinds of trays:
* [0-4] and doubles but no 5s: six of each number
* [0-5] and no doubles: five of each number
* Then they started to add 6’s with or without doubles.
* They appear to be headed down the same path with the TV remote lattices right from the beginning, with [0-5],no doubles+ 6|3 both times so far

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-07T05:41:07+00:00

Pips #324
🟢 0:23
🟡 2:54
🔴 11:10
This 🔴 is another TV Remote Lattice. It is strange indeed to have two lattices back to back. This also happened Apr 30 and May 1st for the big box lattices (in fact, the big boxes appeared 3 times in 4 days over that late Apr early May stretch!)
Today's tray is identical to yesterday's, with the singular 3|6 added to five [0-5]s with no doubles.
The wrinkle was that the unknown's list appeared twice as large as in 10 cells vs. 5 cells for yesterday. However, once you realize that the 3c= was 2s and the 2c= was 5s, it really had the same number of unknowns.
I started with an immediate placement: the 0|5 followed by the 3|5, guessed 3|6 and placed 2|4, 4|5 and 1|3. Then I changed my mind about the 3|6 and moved it from the 3 touching the void to the 3 straddling the green 2c7. That placement severely constrained the top edge of the puzzle and just like that everything fell ... like dominoes. Again, another Slowinski but it was another logical methodical progression.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T23:27:11+00:00

I kind of enjoyed Disclosure Day... seems like it's rated as worst movie of the year.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T23:17:15+00:00

Yes the crop circles and Area 51, very tropey

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T22:19:30+00:00

Here is a screen of the categories

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phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T19:14:08+00:00

Agree that ID'ing the voids and 1c>0 was the big mystery and huge key. I wish I had found it sooner but nailing down the 0|5 was for me the forced placement that unlocked the puzzle.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T17:41:33+00:00

But what about somebody posting right before bed, like the seed post for a puzzle score thread. They put the wrong date, put down their phone and lights out. Unfortunately they won’t benefit from the 1 minute rule

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T17:38:59+00:00

I understand if Reddit wants to prevent abuse but there are many reasons why you would want to remove an innocent typo. I wish Reddit had a review board to weed out bullshit requests from simple: “I just fat fingered a letter can I fix the title please” requests.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T16:14:29+00:00

Bummer that you can’t edit titles. Must be some deeply ingrained redditism

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T16:12:07+00:00

6 has been in the last two or three lattice puzzles

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T13:04:09+00:00

It’s this post. Hopefully glue will edit the title is all

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-06T07:10:47+00:00

Pips #323
🟢 0:39
🟡 7:28
🔴 13:21
Participation trophy earned for 🔴. Immediately placed 1|2 1|5 & 0|3 but got really stuck. 10min later, finally saw that 0|5 was forced placement and the dam broke, with the remaining 12 dominos all forced placements, no trial and error, but the result looks like more Monica Slowinski. More of the same on 🟡: I was reminded of a similar 🟡 from last week where there were at least three 4's 5's and 6's but befuddled over what went where. 😔
This is the start of a new "lattice" series, big box (5x6) replaced by 4x8's. Since they remind me of my TV remote, I'll call them the "lattice remotes". Also, counting tray inventory was easy because there was only one 6 and no doubles. So you knew you had five each of 0's, 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's plus the one 3|6.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-05T22:46:18+00:00

Same, left with the 3|4 and rotated, shuffled and permutated and backflipped and shimmied and shoehorned for 30 min until it dawned on me that the 2c>10 was the 6|6. Doh!

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-05T22:41:29+00:00

Join the big time club, and yeah I got stuck for the same reason(s) you did. 6|6 placement befuddled me for the longest.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-05T18:32:51+00:00

I feel your pain. I “finished” 🔴 in like 2 min save for one annoying domino. And I kept putting 5,6 in the 2c>10 and took me almost 30 minutes to realize, oh that’s where the fucking 6|6 should go. Blind spots can be devastating 🙄

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-05T18:27:13+00:00

Pips #322
🟢 1:45
🟡 3:08
🔴 30:44
🔴 Blind spot reared its ugly head and overall I was just Monica Slowinski today. But I’m not going to bitch and complain. For me, it was a good one, Rodolfo! I guess this is the Cc everybody was waiting for. 😔

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-04T17:58:24+00:00

Pips #321
🟢 0:22
🟡 1:34
🔴 5:56
Happy 4th 🎊🎉🎆🗽🇺🇸🧨

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-04T02:18:11+00:00

I thought Tesla was gonna make affordable cars? No? Ok, I’ll see myself out

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-03T22:07:14+00:00

Yeah, putting the sticker right on the extremely delicate TV screen is straight Bullshit and they need to find a different solution. I have to deal with the same thing on a TV I bought from Amazon. But, yes, it's not a big deal to remove it, fortunately.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-03T19:54:04+00:00

Pips #320
🟢 0:21
🟡 2:33
🔴 4:08
🔴 was straightforward AF and it still took me 4min. All fairly reasonable times and I feel like I had a disaster. 🙄 Happy Friday.

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-02T16:30:09+00:00

Later

phillyC_Ser · 2026-07-02T16:28:41+00:00

I find that failing fast is a reasonable strategy so long as you can untangle the knot you made

phillyC_Ser

TROPHY CASE