"Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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Flamel616
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#361

Post by Flamel616 »

Bob cruise director wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:09 pm
Flamel616 wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:56 pm Should I even bother saying I'm late to the party anymore? Though I'm still on the ship anyway.
Usually I go back on Monday to add in changes after I go to bed
Oh, I just meant that I say that every week, because I'm always working on the meta late Sunday night.
As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all — the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.
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Bird Lives
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#362

Post by Bird Lives »

ImOnToo wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:25 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pm
ImOnToo wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:59 pm

I’m so old that when I was on the “cutting edge” of punch cards in college, I submitted my cards to the ONE center that could run them. And then I waited, sometimes hours, to go back and find out if the program worked or not!
And you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order

Love it
😄 Spot on!
I just had a mini flashback/anxiety attack! 😄
Ditto. I think that even today, the word "job card" would still give me nightmares.
Jay
EmilyW
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#363

Post by EmilyW »

I'm starting to feel a little seasick after spending another week on the ship.
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Bird Lives
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#364

Post by Bird Lives »

Geoduck wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:47 pm
802puzzler wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:05 pm
Geoduck wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 4:31 pm Ashore! I found the first step right away, but it took some time to notice step 2.

I wonder who will be the first to post the obvious music video this one inspires?
You're killing me! I too found the first step right away, but my second step is NOT bringing to mind a music video! LOL
I'll post it if I remember (and am up) at midnight -- unless someone else does so first!
My association to this was literary rather than musical, but still kinda kinky,
Jay
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Bird Lives
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#365

Post by Bird Lives »

LadyBird wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 5:47 pm I bought my first computer in the mid-80's for grad school. I recently found the sales slip in one of my Covid-cleaning forays. Don't remember the specs, but I'm sure it wasn't much. That and B&W monitor and dot matrix printer was almost $2000!

I made it through undergrad with a manual typewriter. Hit the big time senior year when my roommate had an IBM Selectric.
It seemed that every time I'd get a new computer, it would cost $2000. It would be a big improvement over the previous one (higher, faster, stronger or something like that), but the price was the same. The one I remember was an AST. instead of the standard 10K hard drive, I opted for the big 20K. Yes, K. The monitor and CPU weighed about 80 pounds -- not the sort of thing you want to lug on vacation, which is what I had to do. In later decades, I was thankful for laptops, also $2000.
Jay
Schmeel
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#366

Post by Schmeel »

Ashore with a nudge. I practically had to be dragged ashore.
Some you see and some you don't.
Devilbunny
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#367

Post by Devilbunny »

I'm sure I will have a Homer-esque "doh!" moment in a few hours, but count me on the ship.
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BarbaraK
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#368

Post by BarbaraK »

Bob cruise director wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pm
ImOnToo wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:59 pm
whimsy wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:38 pm

In another brief and (in retrospect) aberrant life, right after college I was trained and then used Honeywell Easycoder, by/for a government agency in DC. (I think that was a machine language -- that's how limited my time in that field was!) I did meet my husband there and we returned to our roots in New England after a couple of years where I ended up working with little kids, which was much more "me." Mr. Whimsy (it cracks me up to type that because it's so not him!) remained in tech so I had the "luxury" of doing something I loved without us having to live in the poorhouse!

During that short career we also used punch cards, and now when I've had to ask millennial daughter how to do something on the computer, I remind myself that I was once smart enough to go in and change zeroes to ones and vice-versa! :P
And somewhere in a box of old memorabilia I'm pretty sure I still have a short stack of cards that when "duped" plays "Jingle Bells"! :D
I’m so old that when I was on the “cutting edge” of punch cards in college, I submitted my cards to the ONE center that could run them. And then I waited, sometimes hours, to go back and find out if the program worked or not!
And you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order

Love it
Of course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.
MatthewB
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#369

Post by MatthewB »

With an hour to spare, through roiling waters, I made it to shore. Good one!
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ImOnToo
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#370

Post by ImOnToo »

BarbaraK wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:38 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pm
ImOnToo wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:59 pm

I’m so old that when I was on the “cutting edge” of punch cards in college, I submitted my cards to the ONE center that could run them. And then I waited, sometimes hours, to go back and find out if the program worked or not!
And you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order

Love it
Of course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.
🤯 Where were you when I needed you in 1982?!
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Al Sisti
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#371

Post by Al Sisti »

BarbaraK wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:38 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pm
ImOnToo wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:59 pm

I’m so old that when I was on the “cutting edge” of punch cards in college, I submitted my cards to the ONE center that could run them. And then I waited, sometimes hours, to go back and find out if the program worked or not!
And you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order

Love it
Of course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.
and hopefully you didn't wrap the rubber band so tight it crimped the card(s).
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yungchap
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#372

Post by yungchap »

another week where I feel like I'm SO close, but just missing one crucial piece. again, if anyone cares to PM a nudge my way so I can get the satisfaction of solving before the deadline (no submission), I'd greatly appreciate it!!
SewYoung
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#373

Post by SewYoung »

OGuyDave wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 6:43 pm
MajordomoTom wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:18 pm stressed/desserts is pretty common, but the rest ... blow my mind that it's all fitted together that neatly.

pupils/slipup and diaper/repaid are just ... wowsers.
Reversible words seems to be a pretty sparse population. Here's what I got from a perl script I whipped up:


90 Three-letter words
102 Four-letter words
42 Five-letter words


And race car is race car....
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Tom Shea
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#374

Post by Tom Shea »

Sorry that I didn't read through all of the computerese posts (TLDR) , but did notice not much love for the 8088 machines.

...and fortran was ok for teaching logic, but laughable for computing.

Now I'm having flashbacks to for loops, when it should be Grateful Dead concerts.
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BethA
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#375

Post by BethA »

I used cards for FORTRAN in college. You made your $JOB card once and just reused it for the rest of the term. I misspelled my last name on it (EVENS Instead of EVANS) and finally noticed about 3/4 of the way through. Was having nightmares over it, thought I wouldn’t get credit, but talking with the TA and it turned out OK!

Doh!
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DaveKennison
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#376

Post by DaveKennison »

Hmmm ... I seem to be on the shore list as “Bavid K”, rather than “David K”. Taking an average gives me “Cavid K”, which is uncomfortably close to “Covid K”. Bad omen ... 😳.
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Colin
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#377

Post by Colin »

Fortran and Pascal were my go to languages after the PDP/8. It helps me not one iota in solving this darn meta though... I have a few links missing in my brain.
IF I get it in the next few minutes, THEN I will swim ashore, ELSE I go to bed defeated again!
One world. One planet. One future.
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Joe Ross
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#378

Post by Joe Ross »

20200710 WSJCC Missing Links.gif
Last edited by Joe Ross on Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:19 am, edited 5 times in total.
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MajordomoTom
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#379

Post by MajordomoTom »

On my later review of the grid, I suddenly noted - "there are a LOT of APEs in this grid".

I then went ... how many? 5 - ok, what else? Then saw the "MAN" and went - 5 of them, ok what connects?

And it just fell into place.

EDIT: one of my rabbit holes was looking at numbers in the answers in the grid - ICENINE and others with "TEN" in them ... was a very interesting distraction. Looking at the squares with those numbers in them, trying to spell something ... went nowhere, so I abandoned it. But I could see spending a chunk of time trying to make that work.
Last edited by MajordomoTom on Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
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hcbirker
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#380

Post by hcbirker »

You golf people have to revisit anthropology.
Heidi
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