My Hexodoku Programming Contest is live: the challenge is to generate 16 x 16 Sudoku grids. If multiple entries can consistently beat 1 second, the winner will be the program with best Big O behavior as the order of the grid scales (4\^4, 5\^4, 6\^4, etc.). The prize is this year's Jolt Awards Finalists in the "General Books" Tags:
"Prefactoring," by Ken Pugh (winner)
"The Art of Project Management," by Scott Berkun
"Ambient Findability," by Peter Morville
"Producing Open Source Software," by Karl Fogel
"The Best Software Writing I," selected by Joel Spolsky
"Innovation Happens Elsewhere," by Ron Goldman and Richard Gabriel
Contest runs until May 1 2006 or, if I don't have 4 entries by then, until I either receive 4 entries or June 1.
Programs can be in any language that runs in an Windows XP Pro Virtual PC.