More Puzzling Decryptions

In Jan 2010, I posted about my daily attention to the "cryptoquote" printed in the newspaper. Well, I've kept that activity up, and in true engineering fashion have continued refining my technique to wring out inefficiency.  Last year I eliminated a whole phase of my spreadsheet setup that was intended to keep me from mistakenly double-using letters.

Alas, revisiting the past sometimes means acknowledging mistakes. In my prior post, I listed as "unique letter solution time" a number which actually had to do with spreadsheet setup, not solution. Mea culpa.

In comparing my 2009 full-year results with 2011's:  "unique letter prep" is down 3.1 seconds (25%!) and "unique letter solution" is down 3.9 seconds (13%), so better setup is most of my improvement.

I admit, though, that constantly doing these puzzles is rewiring my brain. This morning, I looked at the character group "ITUIKT" and knew immediately it represented the word "PEOPLE." With 4 unique letter (I, T, U, K)  substitutions already known, I was off to the races!