"Can YOU solve the 'hardest puzzle in the world'?"

"30,000 people have submitted entries to British intelligence service's Christmas teaser with NO correct answers"

"The Simple Logical Puzzle That Shows How Illogical People Are"

"Wason tells you that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is blue. Which cards must you turn over in order to test the truth of his proposition, without turning over any unnecessary cards? Click on your answer in the interactive video below:"


"If you got it wrong, keep your spirits up: More than 90 percent of Wason’s subjects erred, too, and in quite a systematic way; the mistakes they made followed a pattern. “I feel very unhappy about my original choice,” a subject once told Wason, “but yes, I would still choose the same ones if I had to do the task again.” In that 1968 paper, titled “Reasoning about a Rule,” he wrote that these were “disquieting” results. The reigning assumption was that humans naturally reasoned analytically, but here was Wason’s subject admitting that, if given the choice, he’d be irrational again. It made Wason wonder: Is it the logical structure of the rules that make the puzzle difficult, or are people tripped up merely by the words with which the puzzle is expressed?

NSA tweet

They're trolling.

Trolling as in drop a line with a hook in the water and drag it along to catch something. 

Clues: "@NSACarreers", "#Mission Monday" "#news"

And probably "view translation" if it were clickable.

Ignore spacing because NSA are known bastards. That leaves double letters and frequency. Expect further bastardry like purposefully omitting frequently used lletters.

a  i
b
c  t
d  o
e  h
f   n 
g  d
h  b
i   e
j
k  r
l   k
m g
n  l
o  m
p  a
q  c
r   s
s
t   w
u
v  u
w  y
x  p
y
z  x

Meh. Letter substitution. Missing f (odd, that),  j, q, v,  z 

tpfc cd lfdt tepc ac cplir cd tdkl pc frp? qeiq
want to know what it takes to work at nsa? Chec
i hpql ipqe odfgpw af opw pr ti izxndki qpkii
k back each monday in may as we explore caree
kr irrifcapn c d xkdciqcafm dvk fpcadf
rs essential to protecting our nation

[Want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each Monday in May as we explore careers essential to protecting our nation.]

Got that? Check back each Monday for career spots at NSA. But then you would  be working with proven snoops, compromised types. Maybe you would even be able to check on your x surreptitiously and get away with it.

This trolling reminds me of Henry Hook. Longtime crossword compiler for Boston Globe. Word genius like no other. I mean it, Henry is singular. His puzzles infuriatingly break well-established rules in order to pack them more completely with thematic entries. The rule breaking, misspelling sometimes, is accepted by fans because his entries are so imaginative, so entertaining so vast and and so satisfying when solved, but you do have to allow that extra wiggle room for genius to flourish.

He was banned from annual competition because he reliably wins and because his personality is somewhat difficult. Later welcomed back.

He showed up in comments at NYT crosswords and insulted us all with his baseness that deeply offended the more delicate formal types, other constructors with their own group gravitas, masters who help new constructors along took deep offense and said so. He really was surprisingly vile.

"I for one will not buy another H.H. book until H.H. apologizes." 

And he did! I did not think that maternal chiding would work, but it did work. She spoke directly to him as if he were a child and he responded that day. Apologized immediately. Another surprise. And remained civil thereafter. That was the most interesting thing I saw over there in NYT crossword comments.

I stopped reading comments because they maintained a rule to not discuss puzzles until after noon. A ridiculous rule, I thought, a holdover from print in an internet age. We argued. I lost the argument. The rule-striken martinets reigned supreme. One in particular, a doctor in Florida, who then died, allowing a rule change but by then my interest had waned. Plus Will Shortz bent the difficulty-curve allowing more solvers to a greater audience, dumbed down the beginning week puzzles intolerably. They became more like filling out medical forms.

Henry's start in cryptology is legendary. The old-time NYT crossword editor was quite proud of himself for designing a puzzle with extra panache. Once solved, by reading the letters around the edges as separate sentence, ignoring spaces and providing new spaces, a new message appears:

You have just finished the world's most remarkable crossword

The fourteen-year old Henry was not at all impressed. He wrote his own puzzle with his own message, and did it fast besides,  and sent it to Eugene Maleska, a word-genius in his own right.

What makes you think your puzzle is more remarkable than mine

Now that sort of thing is common. Sadly, puzzle construction is the only thing that Henry can do. He is utterly without skills besides cranking out puzzles. But, man, can he crank them out. His work for a week done on the fly, as you or I would hand-write a note in a few minutes.