My Wordle Strategy With “M” Words

You might recall that my starting Wordle word is STEAM, that my strategy is to enter guesses that end in Y, and that I like to choose words that contain repeated letters.¹

If the letter M were flagged as correct but in the wrong position (STEAM), my next guess would be MOMMY.  After this, I'd know how many Ms were in the word and where they're located.

But what if M were in the correct position (STEAM)?; Then I'd probably choose OPIUM, which would determine what the vowel(s) would be.  I don't recall this ever happened to me; for this post I've relied on the Word Finder tool at Word Hippo.²

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¹ https://ludditegeek.blogspot.com/2023/11/introducing-my-wordle-strategy.html

² https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/word-finder-unscrambler.html

The Tissue Paper IQ Test

Tissues that come in cube-shaped boxes, “aka “cubes,” cost at least twice as much per tissue than those in the rectangular-shaped boxes. Both boxes cost about the same. But the cubes usually contain less than half the number of tissues as the rectangular-shaped boxes.

And yet my wife insists that I buy cubes. They take up less space on tables and the toilet tank; this is true, I admit. But still, I buy the rectangulars and then transfer the tissues into two empty cubes.

She complains about this and tries to throw away the empty cubes before I can refill them. But I persist.

I just can’t bring myself to buy cubes. I imagine the folks that monitor the security cameras look for people who are too stupid to realize that cubes are a bad deal. And then they post pictures of their subjects on some special website, similar to “People of Walmart.”

Is there a website called “People Who Pay Two Times More Than Necessary For Tissues” out there?  I doubt it, but I’m not taking any chances.

Cybersecurity for Teachers

A kind reader suggested I share this cybersecurity resource for teachers:
https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/teachers-guide-to-cybersecurity/

Here’s a brief overview of the topics it covers:

• How Students Put You in Danger
• The Internet in Your Classroom
• The Hazards of Cyberbullying
• An Educational Solution
• Tips and Lesson Plans for Teachers

Thank you, RM!

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LudditeGeek is not associated with vpnMentor, nor received any compensation for this post.

Excel VBA -- Named Range Automation

A few weeks ago, I was working with an Excel workbook that had 18 sheets that were similar in structure. Half the sheets had names L1_1, L1_2, … L1_9; the other half, R1_1, R1_2, … R1_9. They contained dimensions of structures on the left and right of a substrate.

I wanted to display a summary of a few averages from each sheet on a new sheet. I knew this would involve the tedious process of selecting a range of cells for each average, so I decided I would write VBA code to create a named range for each group of cells that I wanted averaged.

I turned on the Macro Recorder and then manually created the range so I could get some idea of what object and property to set. It recorded this:

    ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "PGC_1”, "=L1_1!$D$3:$D$84"

This told me that the Add method of the Names collection would require the Name and the Address of the desired named range.  And so I wrote this subroutine:

Sub CreateNamedRanges()
Dim objN As Name
Dim i As Integer, s As String

For i = 1 To 9

s = CStr(i)

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "PGC_" & s, "=L1_" & s & "!$D$3:$D$84"

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "PGL_" & s, "=L1_" & s & "!$D$190:$D$376"

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "PTL_" & s, "=L1_" & s & "!$D$101:$D$173"

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "PGR_" & s, "=R1_" & s & "!$D$190:$D$376"

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "PTR_" & s, "=R1_" & s & "!$D$101:$D$173"

Next i

For Each objN In ActiveWorkbook.Names

Debug.Print objN.Name, objN.RefersTo

Next

End Sub

But the code crashed on the fourth Add method; it complained about an invalid address.

It didn’t make sense. I looked carefully at the fourth Add method. There were no illegal characters or trailing whitespace or other pitfalls. I found references to the error online, but none of the content pertained to what I was working on.

Eventually it dawned on me that perhaps Excel was confusing the “=R1_” & s as an R1C1 style address. Perhaps I needed to make sure it knew that “=R1_” & s was a sheet name. And so I placed two single quotes in each address: one right after the equal sign, and one right before the exclamation mark, like this: "=’R1_" & s & "’!$D$190:$D$376"

After this correction, the code ran quickly.