  We introduce a new local search algorithm for satisfiability problems. Usual
approaches focus uniformly on unsatisfied clauses. The new method works by
picking uniformly random variables in unsatisfied clauses. A Variable-based
Focused Metropolis Search (V-FMS) is then applied to random 3-SAT. We show that
it is quite comparable in performance to the clause-based FMS. Consequences for
algorithmic design are discussed.
