Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

NYT’s newest brainteaser, Pips, just got speedrun: a developer used F# and a clever “try it, undo it” method to place dominoes and slice dead ends, solving even hard boards in seconds. Cool math party, right? The comments turned it into a cage match. One tinkerer shared a rival Python take, bragging they chase just one solution while this code hunts them all. Another chimed in with “did this in C#,” fanning the language pride. Meanwhile, the biggest plot twist: an Android subscriber says Pips doesn’t even show up in their NYT app, kicking off “Why is this hiding behind another app?” gripes and platform angst. The meme of the day is “I feel like a human SAT solver” — that’s a logic checker, not the college exam — while puzzle diehards pitch alternatives like SMT (heavy-duty math solvers) and CP (constraint programming) to judge difficulty and maybe beat the clock. There’s even a cheeky wink at the NYT posting puzzle data early if you peek at their JSON, which commenters treated like a secret backdoor. The vibe: half wowed by the engineering flex, half annoyed they can’t even find the game, and everyone itching to automate their late-night frustration.