The six-degrees game is doing the rounds again this week. Here it is played with things instead of people: get from one to the other in six stepping stones.
Six StonesLay a path from anything to anything.
Pick two everyday things, the near bank and the far bank. Lay up to six stones between them, each one linked to the next. Then test every hop: a solid link keeps your feet dry, a look-alike gets them wet, and a gap drops you in the river.
1 The banks and the stones
2 The river free
Grade it yourself the strongest true link for each hop
The page's free read
solid a real relation · slippery only looks or sounds alike · gap nothing links them
3 Test the crossing
One run names the strongest true link for every hop - solid, slippery or a gap - with a stone that would fix each weak hop, gives the verdict and the weakest hop, and lays a crossing of its own on solid links only. The page re-checks every count. Crossings about people, characters or anything harmful are politely declined.
The tested crossing - none yet
-Why this verdict
My crossing
The page's check
4 Saved crossings
How a hop is graded
Creativity research separates links that are only skin-deep from links with a real relation underneath. Each hop gets the strongest link that is truly common knowledge. Solid: made of, part of, a kind of, comes from, found in, used for, causes, goes with. Slippery: looks like, same colour, sounds like, shares a word. Otherwise it is a gap. Any gap and you fell in; no gaps but a slippery hop and you crossed with wet feet; every hop solid and your feet stay dry. The weakest hop is the first gap, or else the first slippery one.
The page checks that one hop comes back for every hop you laid, copied word for word, that every grade matches its link, that the counts, the verdict and the weakest hop follow the rule, and that the model's own crossing runs bank to bank on solid links. This is a word-and-idea toy for fun, not advice of any kind. Nothing you type is kept unless you press save.