Lights On.

So, I've been writing a column for Game Set Watch for a few months now. Yesterday's piece on Lights Out is probably my favorite so far. It was hell to write though. The history of the puzzle had a lot of twists and turns, and I know I wasn't able to run down them all. On the other hand, there was a lot of great information that I found but couldn't quite fit in.

• The mathematics behind Lights Out involve elementary cellular automata. This seemed interesting and important, but I have a hard time understanding what exactly cellular automata are anyway, beyond knowing how Conway's Game of Life works.
  
• The Orbix is Lights Out on a dodecahedron. For some reason, this puzzle never made it into the article.
  
• In Lights Out and many of its variations, the order of the steps of a solution is unimportant.
  
• I went out to toy stores to see if Lights Out was still available, but instead I found a rerelease of Merlin, a predecessor of Lights Out.
  
• Merlin was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 1979.
  
• The sequel to Merlin, Master Merlin, was modified to be used as a prop in the first-aired episode of Firefly.
  
• The holders of the original Lights Out patent were all from Israel.

Back to work tonight. Phooey.

AIM Low.

Incidentally, I suspect that AOL Instant Messenger may be eating my messages. I've recently been hearing the familiar AIM chime, but when I come to the computer, there's no message, or the person who IMed me has signed off. If I haven't been responding to you on AIM, this may be why.