#639 - "Can You Find a Better Example?"

[Hector]

This week’s contest answer sounds like something you’ll want to do after solving this meta.

[Cindy]

Yes I did!

[TMart]

On the board at lucky 13. I seem to have a knack for submitting just after the update.

[Al Sisti]

Yes I did!

Screenshot that Streak board!

[RPardoe]

Wonder if Matt eased up a bit to compensate for last week?
How else to explain a quick solve on my part.

[Cindy]

Yes I did!

Screenshot that Streak board!

I already did!

[Meg]

Al, you are one speedy solver! Oh, I got it, just after you.

[oldjudge]

Think I have it-confirmed. I think that we had a week three and a week four this month, just in reverse order.

[anjhinz]

On the board! Glad to not have to worry about it all weekend (like always)

[Hector]

Gneiss.

[stmv]

I got it (after failing last week), it's nice to see my name on the leaderboard, but there was a part of my solution that I didn't understand, so I look forward to the post-solve explanations.

Edited to add: Oops, now that I take a second look I see that I was looking at the wrong thing for one part of the puzzle, and now I see that it makes total sense after all. I'm glad that I was able to get the right answer despite my mistake.....

[Laura M]

Beam me up! And congrats to all of you with crazy impressive streaks, I'm in awe!

[ky-mike]

Waiting for a leader board update, but I believe that I have it. Almost went with the wrong answer (tbd), but caught myself just before submission.

Edit - Confirmed. On the board.

[paige11]

Beam me up! Almost gave up with my strategy, but came back and found what I needed.

[spotter]

No luck for me still. I've found two exciting things that aren't taking me anywhere so far.

[KayW]

Beam me up.

I think Matt got his weeks mis-sorted this month. For me, this was much easier than last week... which left me x-hausted and c-sick

[Laura M]

Incidentally, I enjoyed last week's writeup where Matt said

The natural thing to do once you notice all of that is map the location of the X’s in the central 5×5 onto the other 5x5s

Um hahahaha apparently the natural thing for ME to do was to obsessively chart the frequency and locations of all of the other letters in the grid*, so you know. Thanks for the confirmation that I'm not normal :-)

*Did you know that in addition to the three Xs, there were also three Bs, Hs, Ms, Us, and Ys, all somewhat localized in the grid? Did you also know that if you open the grid in Paint and try various ways to connect the same letters together, it will completely fail to make an intelligible treasure map? You're welcome for this very useful knowledge.

[ChrisKochmanski]

Beam me up!

[Dplass]

Incidentally, I enjoyed last week's writeup where Matt said

The natural thing to do once you notice all of that is map the location of the X’s in the central 5×5 onto the other 5x5s

Um hahahaha apparently the natural thing for ME to do was to obsessively chart the frequency and locations of all of the other letters in the grid*, so you know. Thanks for the confirmation that I'm not normal

*Did you know that in addition to the three Xs, there were also three Bs, Hs, Ms, Us, and Ys, all somewhat localized in the grid? Did you also know that if you open the grid in Paint and try various ways to connect the same letters together, it will completely fail to make an intelligible treasure map? You're welcome for this very useful knowledge.

This is pretty much how I feel most weeks.

[Hector]

This is pretty much how I feel most weeks.

I DNF not infrequently, and on those occasions feel like I get much more out of the experience than when I luck into the early insight.