- CHICAGO – In an unprecedented move, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans representing Connecticut, New York and Missouri have unilaterally declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia care if the surgery or procedure goes beyond an arbitrary time limit, regardless of how long the surgical procedure takes. The American Society of Anesthesiologists calls on Anthem to reverse this proposal immediately.
- Solving the NYTimes Pips puzzle with a constraint solver (righto.com)
The New York Times recently introduced a new daily puzzle called Pips. You place a set of dominoes on a grid, satisfying various conditions. For instance, in the puzzle below, the pips (dots) in the purple squares must sum to 8, there must be fewer than 5 pips in the red square, and the pips in the three green squares must be equal. (It doesn’t take much thought to solve this “easy” puzzle, but the “medium” and “hard” puzzles are more challenging.)