Technology makes it so much easier to do a lot of things. (Duh.) At the same time, it's helped place a premium on handmade items. Not that there's anything wrong with mass-produced particleboard furniture from the discount store, but it makes you appreciate the stuff you can buy from an Amish store.
Sometimes knowing that something hasn't been touched by a human takes away some of the charm.
That's one reason I've never been a Sudoku fan. It loses its appeal because the puzzles can easily be created by computer. In fact, most are. Sure, you can find books such as The Original SuDoku, that boast of containing, "Over 300 Hand-Crafted Puzzles!"
It sounds great, but the chance of anyone knowing the difference between a "hand-crafted" Sudoku and one randomly generated is slim.
On the other hand, I liked to think that every crossword I did, online or in a book, was entirely created by a human; that's why they frequently have an author's name. Last Sunday's New York Times Crossword Puzzle, in fact, was written by Cathy Millhauser and President Bill Clinton.
There was some author-related humor, including clues such as "It's nice to be on the receiving end of one" (Ans.: ENDOWER). But Clinton's history turns a standard clue into a bit of risqué humor. Result: fun crossword.
Sticking briefly with President Clinton, he was also connected with another classic crossword puzzle: Jeremiah Farrell's masterpiece that appeared in The New York Times on Tuesday, November 5, 1996 in which the answer the clue "Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper" could have been either "BOBDOLE" or "CLINTON." In a beautiful example of crossword engineering, both answers worked.
The key word is engineering. Humans do it. Computers don't.
With Sudoku, I never find myself saying, "Wow, what a great puzzle," or otherwise enjoying the work of the creator. One reason crosswords appeal to me is the fact that each and every one is created by a person, and it's an incredibly difficult task to come up with a decent crossword, let alone a great one.
That's not to say Sudoku isn't a fine way to kill some time. I just think the human touch makes crosswords more interesting, even if some clues are repeated a bit too often. (Yes, yes, "First lady" is EVE. Got it. Very cute.)
And every crossword is handmade. Or so I thought.
Back in the day, crosswords were entirely created by hand. A constructor would have a sheet of paper and would painstakingly fill in a grid one word at a time, probably wearing out more than a few erasers in the process.
I would have a hard enough time coming up with a five-by-five grid, let alone a complete crossword. (Remember that in a proper puzzle, every letter is used in both an across clue and a down clue — otherwise you end up with a criss-cross or skeleton crossword.)
And once you create a grid, it's not easy to come up with all those clues. Sure, some are obvious; if the word is CAT it's not hard to come up with a clue of "Lion or tiger," but some words and phrases are a lot more difficult.
So it probably shouldn't have surprised me that in this age of computers, technology has changed the way crosswords are made.
First, computers made creating the grids easier. If you want to create a crossword, a piece of software called Crossword Compiler can do the lion's share of the work. You provide the size and basic design of the grid — and a handful of major words (the theme), and it fills in the rest.
You can add words to your own dictionary, tell it not to use certain words, and tweak it a-plenty.
But that still leaves the other tough part — writing the clues — to humans, right? Thanks to the Internet, not necessarily. Specifically, thanks to a site called Cruciverb.com. Its puzzle database is a gold mine for crossword constructors. You can enter a word you need to clue and, if that word has appeared in any major newspapers' crosswords, you can see the clue used. Enter OREO, for instance, and you'll see a lot of instances of "Nabisco treat" along with the trickier "It may be licked."
How the Cruciverb folks got access to all those puzzles, I don't know. But for the $25 a year that a gold membership costs, it's an incredible resource.
Crosswords haven't yet reached the point of Sudoku, where a computer can spit them out dozens at a time, but the technology to do that is certainly available. Just take Crossword Compiler's dictionary, remove any words that don't exist in Cruciverb's database, at some programming to randomize clues, and you can probably turn out at least acceptable puzzles.
There will, I hope, always be a place for the handmade. Technology can turn out decent things quickly, but — I like to think — it takes a human to create something wonderful.
Andrew Kantor is a technology writer, pundit, and know-it-all who covers technology for the Roanoke Times. He's also a former editor for PC Magazine and Internet World. Read more of his work at kantor.com. His column appears Fridays on USATODAY.com.
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