Beiträge von Billsville Mike

    I really appreciate all of the work that goes into planning and recording the results of the forum. I enjoy participating, and I like to set my own personal challenges, but I'm never in a competitive mood. If others are making tiny puzzles, that is their choice, it doesn't matter to me. The most important thing is the shared experience - I can justify my crazy 15-hour days of puzzling, knowing there are 60 others engaged in the same activity!


    I do have one question: why are the marathon threads viewable only to members? I have some friends on Flickr, and some from my "real life," who are curious and would like to better understand the flavor of the event, if not interested in participating themselves. Could the threads be made publicly viewable (perhaps after the fact)?

    I'm back! Here is my personal challenge for the weekend. In 1973, in the US Milton Bradley introduced his largest puzzle ever, Colossus, with a total of 2,508 pieces. The series consisted of only 4 titles, in circulation from 1973-1977 until Colossus was retired and replaced with the 2,501 piece Grand series. In its time, Colossus was the largest cardboard puzzle available in North America, although in Europe at the same vintage, puzzles with as many as 4,000 pieces were available (including some made by Milton Bradley's European division). I will attempt to finish all 4 over the weekend, in the order of their catalog number (top to bottom, left to right). I suspect that the harbor scenes will be easier than the ones with trees and flowers. If I can finish the harbor scenes in 10 hours or less, each, and the other two in 13 hours each, I should be able to finish; However, if even one of these puzzles takes 15 hours or more to finish, I probably won't reach my goal, since sleep is essential.


    You can learn more about Colossus series here:

    1973 Colossus series (2500 pieces)
    Billsville Mike: 1973 Colossus (2500 pieces) In 1973 Milton Bradley released its largest puzzle size to date, the 2500 piece Colossus series…
    www.flickr.com


    Good luck to everyone and let's break the record again!


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    Silvie - Thank you very much for the offer. First, I should ask another person, who already has some puzzles in storage for me, because they may have access to Landi also. I did purchase a copy of Pilatus at the rare puzzles online store.

    I will reply in this thread very soon if I need to ask for your assistance, thanks again.

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    My theme this year is "turn back the clock." All puzzles are classic Milton Bradley, and all of them older than I am (1974). As I mentioned, I'm not feeling so well and I do not need sleep deprivation this year, so perhaps the smaller Big Ben puzzles will be enough. But I like to have options in case I decide to try a larger puzzle. All of these puzzles are from the late 1960s / early 1970s except for the two Big Bens with tilted photo, which are from early / mid 1960s. I selected mostly sea / harbor scenes to avoid having to work on trees, which are the most difficult part of scenic puzzles besides clear skies.

    I called 'the pyramid': 3 x 1000, 2 x 1500, 1 x 2000, in that order. This year I want to try a different challenge: "the tower". 1 x 500, 1 x 1000, 1 x 1500, 1 x 2000, 1 x 3000, in that order. Same total number of pieces (8000), but more challenging with an average size of 1600 pieces / puzzle instead of 1.333 / puzzle. The final puzzle wants to be the moment of truth! Here are the candidates (subject to hasty revisions):


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    Here is the crux of my difficulties.


    I use a MacBook, a Panasonic point-and-shoot camera, and have an iPhone 6 which is synced to the MacBook.


    Puzzle Forum only accepts photo files of 1mb or less, an unusually small file size for 2017.


    On my MacBook, the operating system changed since last year. Now iPhoto has become Photos, with different features.


    With the old iPhoto, I would import the photos from my camera, then export them to Desktop as a jpeg file. During the export step, I could choose a file size of 'small,' 'medium' or 'large.' By choosing either 'small' or 'medium' I could then export files to the desktop that would need no further changes. But in Photos, there is no option to choose file size when exporting. The only way I can see to change the file size is, opening each jpeg file on the desktop, and using Tools > then manually changing the resolution. Perhaps this is the only way.


    On my camera, I can manually adjust the size of the photo files, but unfortunately in the smaller sizes my only option is 0.3 mp. The next possible size is 5mp, much too large. Perhaps 0.3 mp is the best option.


    According to my research, it is impossible on an iPhone 6 to adjust the file size at all on the camera itself. So those files are also needing to be reduced, in the same way.


    Th uploading procedure on this site seems to also have changed. I remember putting the photos in brackets and cutting and pasting into the space. The upload step seemed more automatic now but I could not figure out how to get the cursor to allow me to write text, in between the photos.

    I am really having a hard time with uploading photos, as is my friend, Maplewood Bob. My computer's operating system changed since last year. Changing the size of a photo file is more difficult. I also had intended to insert some text in between the photos above and was unable to figure out how to do so. I will keep trying. Sorry for the perhaps redundant posts.

    Ok, so that one worked. I did the exact same thing, but one thing I noticed is that, the first two times, when I selected 'Insert into Image' there was a small hiccup and the html added a space or two in the formatting. All I can think of is that I didn't have the cursor blinking the first two times, although I thought I had. This one showed up correctly on the preview.

    Here are this year's 'candidates' for the marathon. Obviously I won't do all of them but I like having choices. I always try to pick images that are colorful, that I like, and that don't have any large areas with the same color.


    1000 pieces Asian theme:



    1000 pieces art:



    1500 pieces art:



    2000 pieces: