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168: Tribute to Maki Kaji – “Grandfather of SUDOKU”

Maki Kaji (Pic: Courtesy Legacy.com)

Maki Kaji was the president of a Japanese puzzle manufacturing company (Nikoli Company Ltd). He is widely known as “the father of Sudoku”.

 

Maki Kaji was born on 08 Oct 1951 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. His father worked as an engineer at a telecom company and his mother was employed by a kimono shop.

 

Maki Kaji Kaji attended Shakujii High School in his hometown. He later studied literature at Keio University, but dropped out during his first year.

 

After a succession of jobs including being a roadie, a waiter and a construction worker, he started a publishing.

 

Kaji launched a quarterly puzzle magazine in 1980 together with two friends from his childhood. They called it Nikoli, after a race horse.

 

Three years later, he founded a company under the same name. The magazine, the company’s main product, grew to have 50,000 quarterly readers. The number game Sudoku appeared in early issues of Nikoli.  

 

His interest in the puzzle piqued after encountering it in 1984 under the title “Number Place”. He formulated the name “Sudoku” while he was scrambling to get to a horse race. He shortened it from Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru (“numbers should be single”) at the urging of his fellow workers.

 

After the game spread to Britain and the United States, it became wildly popular.

 

Kaji also invented or introduced various other puzzle games, such as Masyu. He resigned as head of Nikoli in July 2021, one month before his death.

 

Kaji was married to Naomi and they had two children.

 

Kaji died on 10 August 2021 at his home in Tokyo at age 69, from bile duct cancer.

 

Maki Kaji will live on for ever in the hearts of all SUDOKU solvers.

 

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References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maki_Kaji

“‘Father of Sudoku’ puzzles next move”. bbc.co.uk. 13 June 2000.

“Japan’s ‘father of Sudoku’ Maki Kaji dead at 69”. www.thenews.com.pk. 17 August 2021.

 Jump up to:a b c d e f g Albeck-Ripka, Livia; Ueno, Hisako (17 August 2021). “Maki Kaji, ‘Godfather of Sudoku,’ Dies at 69”. The New York Times. New York. Retrieved 17 August 2021.

 Jump up to:a b “Sudoku maker Maki Kaji, who saw life’s joy in puzzles, dies”. AP NEWS. 17 August 2021.

Smith, David (15 May 2005). “So you thought Sudoku came from the Land of the Rising Sun …” The Observer.

 Devlin, Keith (28–29 January 2012). “The Numbers Game (book review of Taking Sudoku Seriously by Jason Rosenhouse et al.)”. The Wall Street Journal. Weekend Edition. p. C5.

Kelly, Tim; Lies, Elaine (16 August 2021). “Japan’s Kaji, the “godfather of Sudoku,” dies at 69″.

“Maki Kaji, the ‘godfather of Sudoku,’ dies at 69”. CNN. 

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167: INTERESTING BYTES

1

Ironies

 

  • Politics divide us, terrorism unite us.

 

  • Everyone is in hurry, but no one reaches in time.

 

  • Actors earn more money playing sportspersons, than the sportspersons earn in their entire career.

 

  • Most people who fight over religious books, have probably never read any of them.

 

  • We spend more on our daughter’s wedding than on her education.

 

  • The shoes that we wear are sold in air conditioned show rooms, the vegetables that we eat are sold on the footpaths.

 

  • Seeing a policeman makes us nervous rather than feeling safe.

 

  • In competitive exams, a person writes a brilliant 1500 words essay about how dowry is a social evil and cracks the exam by impressing everyone. One year later his parents demand a dowry in crores, because he is become an officer.

 

  • We are obsessed with screen guards on their smartphones even though most come with scratch proof gorilla glass but never bother wearing a helmet while riding bikes.

 

  • Artificial lemon flavour is used for “welcome drink” and real lemon is used in “finger bowl”

 

2

Funny

 

– I changed my password to “incorrect” so whenever I forget it the computer will say, “Your password is incorrect.”

 

– Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

 

– I’m great at multi-tasking–I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.

 

– If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

 

– Hospitality is the art of making guests feel like they’re at home when you wish they were.

 

– I bought a vacuum cleaner six months ago and so far all it’s been doing is gathering dust.

 

– Every time someone comes up with a fool proof solution, along comes a more-talented fool.

 

– If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you’ll have trouble putting on your pants.

 

– A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

 

– Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

 

– There may be no excuse for laziness, but I’m still looking.

 

– Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking.

 

– He who laughs last thinks slowest.

 

– Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?

 

– Women sometimes make fools of men, but most guys are the do-it-yourself type.

 

– I was going to give him a nasty look, but he already had one.

 

– The grass may be greener on the other side but at least you don’t have to mow it…

 

3

Low Budget Airlines

 

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166: INTERESTING BYTES: Short Stories

 

Ten short stories with deep meanings.

 

1) She was very excited today, as the school was re-opening after a long summer break. Now, once     again, she could start selling stationery at the traffic signal to feed her family.

 

2) She, a renowned artist and a strict mother, often scolded her 6-year-old son for he could never draw a line straight. As he breathed slowly into the ventilator, she begged him to make one more crooked line on the ECG.

 

3) “Everyone goes with the flow… but the one who goes against it becomes someone remarkable.” Before I could explain this to the traffic police, the man issued me a fine.

 

4) Their love was different. She was happy every time he kicked her in the stomach. Every time he kicked she loved him more. She waited for the time she would hold her baby for the first time.

 

5) All my toys are yours..!  Read her brother’s death note.

 

6) They took his father, and only returned a flag.

 

7) At 25, I became a mother of one; at 27 I became a mother of two; and today, at 55, I have become a mother of three!  My son got married today, and brought home his wife!

 

8) “Born to rich parents, this boy is so lucky,” exclaimed the neighbours! Somewhere in heaven, three unborn sisters cried.

 

9) “You ruined my career, I was supposed to be an Executive Director,” she thought to herself.  The little angel held her finger tightly and she forgot everything; a mother was born.

 

10) Once a 5-year-old boy was standing barefoot in the shallow water of the ocean. He was repeating the same sentence to the waves – “Even if you touch my feet a thousand times, I won’t forgive you for taking my parents away.

 

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