Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Completing a Jigsaw Puzzle

Why waste your time using your brain to complete a jigsaw puzzle? I propose a speedier automated approach. The only requirements are electronic scales and a jigsaw database. Then do this:

1. Weigh to the microgram every single piece in your puzzle, and write the weight on the back. 
2. Go to an online jigsaw database* that stores for each puzzle a list of pieces and their weights and their position (e.g. weight = 1.5423g, position = row 16, column 84).
3. Use the weights of your pieces to match pieces in the database, and  place them one by one starting from the top left corner working through the rows till it's complete.


*Such a database does not yet exist, but given that Microsoft management read this blog, they'll soon be starting this project. (Compiling such a database is the type of ill-fated and idiotic project that they typically embark upon only to abandon it after a year or two). 


So your days of having to use your own brain's in-built pattern recognition algorithms will soon be over.

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