Internet Explorer is for Dummies
At least, according to this research. From calcudoku.org:
We analyzed usage data of the www.calcudoku.org number puzzle website for the years 2010 and 2011, consisting of over 1 million solved puzzles, attempting to determine the numerical intelligence of users of Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, and Chrome (insufficient data was available for users of other browsers).
Based on the fact that Chrome users solve Calcudoku number puzzles the fastest, and that IE users give up on solving them the most, it appears that Chrome users have the highest numerical intelligence, followed by Firefox users, then by Internet Explorer users.
Okay, okay. They soft-pedal it a bit:
Note that it does not follow that using Chrome makes you smarter, for example ("correlation does not imply causation"). Also, we can only speculate about the causes of the differences: perhaps Chrome is the browser of choice for more technically inclined people, who tend to have better number skills. And maybe because IE is the default browser for Windows, people who do not choose a different browser possibly are less technically skilled.
And full disclosure: I use Chrome, but know for certain that I'd give up on a math puzzle in an instant. I'd even go so far as to predict that I'd give up on a math problem the moment I recognize it as a math problem.
Still: what browser do you use? And what does it say about you?
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Oct '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Safari. And I am, modesty aside, pretty good at puzzles - but word ones, not math - and sudoku is not math.
May '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Firefox on PC, Safari on iPad/iPhone. I've used Firefox ever since it was first introduced.
Dec '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Firefox. I refuse to give google any more money than absolutely necessary because Gore gets some of it. Of course, I'm required to use IE at work as it is the approved program. I have the letter of reprimand to prove that installing Firefox and changing the name of the executable to get around the block is bad.
Nov '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I use Firefox, mainly for the "Delicious" plug in that keeps track of my bookmarks.
Sep '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Safari or Firefox on the Mac and Safari on the iPhone. When I had a PC at work I used Firefox, because IE had so many security holes.
I'm a mathematics professor, and I never play Sudoku.
Mar '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Firefox, Safari, and Explorer at home, depending on what I'm doing. I've developed code that I've needed to test on all three. I prefer Firefox, and I haven't really played with Chrome yet. Internet Explorer at work, because They Who Decide have so decided.
I don't really do sudoku puzzles much. I prefer double acrostics.
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Safari with Firefox as backup/alternate for different sites.
What does this say about me? Hmm. That I've been using Macs since 1987? That I used to do some IT work on the side? That I’m possessed of a sexual magnetism that overwhelms virtually all women and many men?
Well, a couple of those at least.
Nov '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I used Firefox until December when it suddenly wouldn't work right. Then I downloaded Chrome. I think google sabotaged my Firefox. heh. Kidding....although I am totally google paranoid ².
May '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Two alternative explanations:
IE users have better things to do.
IE hangs up more than either Chrome or Firefox (at least at my house.) So maybe some of those IE users that "gave up" didn't intend to.
Feb '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Chrome on PC and Mac. It says I'm consistent.
Mar '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
It all depends. I'm a PC and Mac user, usually at the same time. On the Mac, it's Safari. Not that I like it. For example, some of the applications in the PGATour.com's ShotTracker don't work. And sometimes, Safari just closes for no reason. And that spinning rainbow pinwheel of death . . .
On the PC, I have IE, Chrome, and Firefox on it. If I could take the best of all 3, I would have an awesome browser. I use Chrome most of the time. It's okay but like Safari, it has problems with Shottracker . . . just as an example. IE is okay but the security on it drives me nuts. It will get any application on any website to work (Shottracker works on it for example) but it will take about 5 clicks of the mouse to do it.
I think what I'm saying--if that survey is correct--is that sometimes I'm smart and sometimes I'm dumb. No surprise there.
Nov '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I use Safari, and I rock at math puzzles, if I say so myself. I like to compose them too. But then I have a PhD in math.
Your confession, Rob, suggests yet another alternative explanation: Based on this sample of size 1 I infer that Chrome users, as a population, have a tendency to know their limitations and avoid complicated tasks they believe beyond their skill level. Therefore they self-select, and calcudoku only receives data from Chrome users who have the kind of pathetically egomaniacal self-confidence about puzzles that I am exemplifying here.
Aug '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I use Chrome. This allows me to share my bookmarks across all my Chrome-using machines, be they any sort of Windows or my Linux machines. If I had a newer, cooler Android phone, I could have my Chrome bookmarks there, too.
I dev for the web, and I only use IE for two reasons: 1) testing, and 2) downloading better browsers.
Aug '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I want to get a PhD in math (I'm getting at least a MS), but I absolutely hate Sudoku puzzles. I find them too boring to finish. I'd rather do other sorts of puzzles instead. Combinatorial proofs, geometry puzzles... Anything but Sudoku. In fact, I'd rather do crosswords. I may not be much good at them, but at least the answers are unexpected.
I use an outdated version of Firefox: my poor old Mac can't support current software anymore.
I've quit a lot of online "intelligence puzzles" before I was finished because one of the "questions" turned out to be a demand that I subscribe to something or other before finishing the rest of the puzzle. I never thought that subscribing to random things on the internet was a particular sign of intelligence. I so quickly tired of leaving these sorts of puzzles incomplete that I just don't do online puzzles anymore.
I've got plenty of other sources of puzzlement in my life.
Nov '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Au contraire, Xty. As a professor of math who organizes math competitions I have numerous opportunities to address groups of young folk considering what path to take in life, and of course I aggressively recruit for my discipline. The ideas, processes and structures found in Sudoko puzzles are mathematically intoxicating, and great fodder for such presentations.
Just for starters, the structure of a Sudoku array is called a quasigroup, which is an interesting structure. It is also a Latin Square with local constraints. It is exactly the sort of object used to design experiments used in agriculture and industry to test new products and processes. These objects arise in finite geometry, cryptography and combinatorial matrix theory (my field).
Analytic techniques used to solve Sudoku puzzles are the sort used in many kinds of mathematical research. Variants on Sudoku can be strikingly elegant and mathematically informative, and numerous interesting and sometimes even important questions arise out of consideration of the problem itself. Some, to my knowledge, remain unsolved, such as: what is the smallest number of "givens" that permit a unique solution?
Sudoku is math. But then, so is everything.
Dec '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I've gone from IE to Firefox, to Opera (high hopes for that one) back to Firefox. Firefox is big and cumbersome but has a feature set and add-ons not available in other browsers.
That I don't use Chrome probably says a great deal about my budding paranoia on long term browsing records associated with me in a database somewhere.
On my iPhone and iPad, of course, I use Safari. Unfortunately, on Ricochet, using Safari or anything else on iOS is the equivalent of getting a badly botched frontal lobotomy.
Edited on March 6, 2012 at 6:26pmMay '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
I use IE. This says about me that:
Which says about me that:
Also, whenever anyone has tech issues with their latest shiny toys, allows me to say "really? Twitter works fine for me. What's Twitmo again?"
Also, a flipphone, cause who wants the internet on their phone? Such a small screen. That's just not the Dolby experience.
Feb '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
IE because it's the first thing I learned and I don't have time for new things when it isn't necessary.
Ricochet is on Firefox because Ricochet crashes two-three times a week and since it alone is on FF, it doesn't take everything else with it.
Feb '11
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
Kennedy Smith: Also, a flipphone, cause who wants the internet on their phone? Such a small screen. That's just not the Dolby experience.
· 2 minutes ago
What he said.
Dec '10
Re: Internet Explorer is for Dummies
R. Craigen
...
Sudoku is math. But then, so is everything.
Uh, no. Math can be applied to anything. But mathematics is not naturally occurring and had to be invented. And every construct in mathematics that allows it to be applied to some phenomena also had to be invented, sometimes repeatedly.
But other than that, I'm with you. Sudoku is certainly math.