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Christmas and a word query
10 years ago
Christmas was a very quiet time for me, being home alone. My mate 
sussurak was (and still is at time of writing) away for chemotherapy, so I spent most of my day with MacGyver.
Sussurak got me DVD sets of seasons 1 and 2 of MacGyver, and season 1 of Knight Rider, some of the best gifts I've ever received, I think.
Yesterday (26th) I bought myself a new laptop to replace the Acer Aspire I currently have, and which is not powerful enough now to run World of Warcraft since the prepatch for Warlords of Draenor was released. Now I can transfer zones in around 30 seconds or less, compared to over a minute for my Acer. I can also run with a higher graphics setting, though frame rate is always very variable -- I could get 60 FPS in Ironforge, but only 25 in Orgrimmar, for example. It's weird.
Anyway, on another note, I like to do the Target puzzle in the local newspaper. This is a 3x3 grid of letters, containing at least one 9-letter word, and the objective is to make as many 4-letter words as possible, with the restriction of no -s plurals and no proper nouns. The centre letter must be used in all words.
For example, yesterday's one was:
A N A
H C M
R N O
I figured it out in about half a second. It's not a word I can recall using, but it's a word I definitely know all the same.
My question is, is there a word for being able to glance at something like that, and immediately know what the 9-letter word/s is/are? I think I did find a word to describe being able to enumerate a group of objects at a glance (and there's a limit on how many objects there are before we have to actively count them, somewhere around 7-10), but I've no idea what it was now, and I think it was a fancy one.
If anyone has any ideas or clues, let me know! Also, if you can figure out the 9-letter word in my example without cheating, and within about a minute, give yourself a cookie.
sussurak was (and still is at time of writing) away for chemotherapy, so I spent most of my day with MacGyver.Sussurak got me DVD sets of seasons 1 and 2 of MacGyver, and season 1 of Knight Rider, some of the best gifts I've ever received, I think.
Yesterday (26th) I bought myself a new laptop to replace the Acer Aspire I currently have, and which is not powerful enough now to run World of Warcraft since the prepatch for Warlords of Draenor was released. Now I can transfer zones in around 30 seconds or less, compared to over a minute for my Acer. I can also run with a higher graphics setting, though frame rate is always very variable -- I could get 60 FPS in Ironforge, but only 25 in Orgrimmar, for example. It's weird.
Anyway, on another note, I like to do the Target puzzle in the local newspaper. This is a 3x3 grid of letters, containing at least one 9-letter word, and the objective is to make as many 4-letter words as possible, with the restriction of no -s plurals and no proper nouns. The centre letter must be used in all words.
For example, yesterday's one was:
A N A
H C M
R N O
I figured it out in about half a second. It's not a word I can recall using, but it's a word I definitely know all the same.
My question is, is there a word for being able to glance at something like that, and immediately know what the 9-letter word/s is/are? I think I did find a word to describe being able to enumerate a group of objects at a glance (and there's a limit on how many objects there are before we have to actively count them, somewhere around 7-10), but I've no idea what it was now, and I think it was a fancy one.
If anyone has any ideas or clues, let me know! Also, if you can figure out the 9-letter word in my example without cheating, and within about a minute, give yourself a cookie.
On the same page in my newspaper is another 'target' puzzle which has only five letters, either arranged with three up top and two below, or in one line. Yesterday's one I think was D E D I N. The rules are slightly different in that words must be a minimum of 3 letters, but -s plurals are allowed. Proper nouns, however, aren't.