#590 - "Flights of Fancy" - September 20, 2019

[ChrisKochmanski]

Beam me up!

My answer, which I didn't feel fully confident of, turned out to be correct.

Whew!

[OGuyDave]

I was pretty confident, and my answer turned out to be correct, too. This one was a heap of fun!

[ky-mike]

Done and on the board. This one didn't give me a 100% feel, but the 90% feel turned out to be enough.

[FrankieHeck]

Well I was only 55% sure, and I was wrong. I suspected as much, and have been drowning my sorrows for an hour or so before the leaderboard updated.

[Meg]

Well I was only 55% sure, and I was wrong. I suspected as much, and have been drowning my sorrows for an hour or so before the leaderboard updated.

I’m so sorry. It happens to all of us. Except that guy at the top, who may not be from this planet. Anyway, take heart. You’ll get the next one!

[FrankieHeck]

Well I was only 55% sure, and I was wrong. I suspected as much, and have been drowning my sorrows for an hour or so before the leaderboard updated.

I’m so sorry. It happens to all of us. Except that guy at the top, who may not be from this planet. Anyway, take heart. You’ll get the next one!

I blame my husband, who encouraged me to submit even though I wasn't sure. On the plus side, we got three free fishbowls (plus the ones we paid for) and I am feeling no pain.

[BarbaraK]

I'll be curious to hear what the wrong answers were on Tuesday, especially if they're all the same or all different.

I was pretty confident of mine until I came here and read comments about uncertainty and checked the leaderboard and saw a fair number of wrong answers. Then I worried a bit that I was missing something.

[Hector]

Frankie, I was sure there would be more than one way to make a reasonable distinction among the pieces and was very hesitant submitting. I think a lot of us felt that way. No one has claimed 100% on this.

Three fishbowls! That's a lot of guppies!

[Al Sisti]

Well I was only 55% sure, and I was wrong. I suspected as much, and have been drowning my sorrows for an hour or so before the leaderboard updated.

I stopped my meager streak too. Once again, my zeal to get on the leaderboard early did me in. Haste makes meager streaks come to an end. In retrospect, it seems like the longer the streak being defended, the less you'd care about being high on the leaderboard.... which makes what Jangler does so other-worldly.

[TMart]

The clue as to what to look for was confusing, and it was a very tedious path to get the confirmation. But I came up with only one possible answer following that path, so in that respect, it was a 100%er - I was sure once I found it and in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

[Tina]

Well I was only 55% sure, and I was wrong. I suspected as much, and have been drowning my sorrows for an hour or so before the leaderboard updated.

I’m so sorry. It happens to all of us. Except that guy at the top, who may not be from this planet. Anyway, take heart. You’ll get the next one!

I blame my husband, who encouraged me to submit even though I wasn't sure. On the plus side, we got three free fishbowls (plus the ones we paid for) and I am feeling no pain.

I'm blaming my husband too! He convinced me he had the correct answer because of his knowledge of a certain topic relevant to the meta. My streak, which had been up to 3, is back down to 0.

[Toby]

More than one right answer can be defended here.

[FrankieHeck]

I'm blaming my husband too! He convinced me he had the correct answer because of his knowledge of a certain topic relevant to the meta. My streak, which had been up to 3, is back down to 0.

Yeah, mine had more knowledge of a relevant topic, but not of metas, and I should never have listened. He just didn't want me starting at the puzzle all weekend. My own fault, though. I should never submit unless I hear the click.

[FrankieHeck]

I stopped my meager streak too. Once again, my zeal to get on the leaderboard early did me in. Haste makes meager streaks come to an end. In retrospect, it seems like the longer the streak being defended, the less you'd care about being high on the leaderboard.... which makes what Jangler does so other-worldly.

Seriously. What's the story there? Who or what is this Jangler?

[damefox]

I'm on the board! I'm a little surprised - I was only like 60% on my answer. As others have mentioned, that is perhaps my main issue with this puzzle: usually with metas, I find that once you discover the answer, there is no question that you have discovered the right answer. This one... not so much. The first step was fine, but the second step I'm still not even sure I ever discovered. Could be just dumb luck that I got it right. I'll be interested to see the write-up and the intended reasoning here.

[LesY]

Reading through comments since Friday....I’m starting to feel like I got lucky. Because if the path I took really was the intended path IMO there should have been a confirming nudge somewhere, even in a week 3.

If there is such a nudge (a) I didn’t see it; (b) I take back the critique; and (c) it’s a much better meta.

[Conrad]

Seriously. What's the story there? Who or what is this Jangler?

Matt interviewed him in 2014, he gives some good advice here:

http://xwordcontest.com/2014/08/mgwcc-3 ... -word.html

[hcbirker]

I got the first step, but struggled with the instructions on what to do next. I submitted what I thought was a reasonable answer, but didn't make it to the board. Looking forward to Tuesday to get everyone's thoughts on this one! (Heidi)

[FrankieHeck]

Seriously. What's the story there? Who or what is this Jangler?

Matt interviewed him in 2014, he gives some good advice here:

http://xwordcontest.com/2014/08/mgwcc-3 ... -word.html

Wow!

[Hector]

Interesting link, thanks! The only-solved-by-4-solvers puzzle is available (from the free days) here: http://xwordcontest.com/2014/02/mgwcc- ... x2-x2.html

I gave it a try. The first two steps are fun and not unfairly difficult, though there's one wobbly piece, but the final step (where I soon gave up and read Matt's recap), I think, was "clued" unfairly. Stop reading now to avoid a spoiler if you want to try it as it was presented. If you want to try solving it as a fairer puzzle, I think (and from crosswordfiend comments, so did solvers at the time) that it would be still challenging but fair (maybe even too fair for the week 5 difficulty target) if the title were instead "> 1, x2, 4".