"AP Chemistry" - July 12, 2019

[Deb F]

I declare "Pageant". I submitted Periodic Table. One less in the hunt for the mug!!

[31 Down]

For those with the chemical placemats - you truly have periodic tables. I have a folding table so I guess that's periodic as well...

[Bob cruise director]

As a note - I have found that sometimes comments don't post (like the one I just did) so it may not be an ID10T error but a glitch in the system somewhere. If someone has posted while you are posting, you get an alert and have to hit submit again but I usually miss that.

I figured out how to adjust the settings so it will no longer show this alert. This should fix the problem of "disappearing" posts.

You are a good man Charlie Brown

[BarbaraK]

I’m surprised there weren’t more accidental spoilers— complaints about not finding the solution, etc. I wonder how many people submitted Periodic Table...they will then know how it feels to be “pageanted”

Someone really clever could probably figure out that the word “solution” was used less than normal this week, especially by those reporting on shore, and so that must be the answer.

[CPJohnson]

I see I'm not the only one who didn't find all of the elements. I really think this puzzle needed to have starred answers or tell us the number of letters in the answer.
On my first pass I only had 6 of the 8 because they were obviously missing a word.
On my next pass I realized that it was "trash heap". The word trash can refer by itself to a pile of garbage, so I'm a little unhappy about that one.
I tried unscrambling, etc, but didn't see anything. I looked at all of the red herrings. Recipe, pasta sauce, & Simpsons are all in an A & D. Tonka is a toy company and intersects that clue.
There are 7 three letter grid entries with duplicate letters.
After going to the MMMM puzzle site, I realized that it must be simply going from element -> atomic number -> grid. I looked again and saw that it looked like solution. I needed an 'S' and saw that 17 had an 'S' and would make 'clap'.
I then realized that it must be "thunder clap" and submitted 'solution'.

I've lived in the US my whole life and I've never heard of "thunder clap" as a metaphor for a shocking surprise. I thought it was simply 'thunder' because "stealing someone's thunder" can mean to spoil a big surprise. Did anyone else miss thunder clap?

I found only six of the elements on the first pass, too, and the only word I could make was "tonsil." So I looked again and found "thunder" and "smear." The missing-an-"ap"-word grid answers were symmetrically placed in the grid, so that helped.

[CPJohnson]

I had considered going to the periodic table, but from the number of comments from early solvers, I figured that no research was required. Big mistake not to consider that original assumption.

Whenever I see "chemistry" in the title or the instructions, I assume the periodic table will be involved.

[Scott M]

I had to google the periodic table to get the numbers.

As did I and (I would assume) the vast majority of us. I don't keep the atomic number for chromium or tin in one of my rapidly diminishing brain cells.

And count me among those that got the "solution" from the anagram rather than seeing it in the grid. If I had seen that, I think it would have eased my mind about the answer being correct. As it was, I thought their might need to be a modifier e.g. "mixed solution" but I couldn't come up with anything that fit. Happy not to be pageanted.

[Inca]

As a note - I have found that sometimes comments don't post (like the one I just did) so it may not be an ID10T error but a glitch in the system somewhere. If someone has posted while you are posting, you get an alert and have to hit submit again but I usually miss that.

I figured out how to adjust the settings so it will no longer show this alert. This should fix the problem of "disappearing" posts.

I discovered that last night when 2 of my posts disappeared and both times someone else had posted in between when I started drafting my post and when I actually hit Submit. But, I did not notice any alert. Where does that alert show up?

[BrianMac]

If someone posts while you are typing a reply, then when you hit "Submit," instead of posting your thread and sending you back to the forum, you get a preview-like page that tells you someone else has posted and asks if you still want to submit. It's very easy to miss this page and just go back to the forum in which case your post will not be published. I'm nearly 100% sure this is the cause of "I thought I posted, but my post didn't show up," especially since these tend to happen during busy times (Thursday afternoon, Friday, Monday morning) when many people are posting at once.

I don't know why it only occurred to me this morning to check whether this might be a feature that could be disabled. Sure enough it can be, and I have now disabled this feature.

So I am hoping that will be the end of "the website ate my post," but please let me know if you experience otherwise.

[Cbakerriver]

Nice one. I made it to the last step but couldn’t get the ‘solution’.

[TMart]

When I think of "grid order", it's usually top to bottom. This was a nice twist, making it left-to-right, and that last step added some confusion for me. I initially anagramed the answer to get "solution", but whenever I have to do that, I feel like I've missed something, as these constructors are so good there always seems to be some sort of grid-order elegance to the answers. So I printed, highlighted, and not only got my confirmation, but also saw the beauty in the construction. Maybe I'm picky, but I think that unless the mechanism relies on anagrams, to have to anagram to get the final step is somewhat less elegant and less of a hard click answer for me.

[Bob cruise director]

As a note - I have found that sometimes comments don't post (like the one I just did) so it may not be an ID10T error but a glitch in the system somewhere. If someone has posted while you are posting, you get an alert and have to hit submit again but I usually miss that.

I figured out how to adjust the settings so it will no longer show this alert. This should fix the problem of "disappearing" posts.

I discovered that last night when 2 of my posts disappeared and both times someone else had posted in between when I started drafting my post and when I actually hit Submit. But, I did not notice any alert. Where does that alert show up?

Freida - before Brian made the change this morning, when you hit "Submit" at the top, it said someone had made a post in case you wanted to change what you said. The way I noticed it was that my posting did not show up. I discovered this a couple of times as I was posting the status. If you don't realize this, your post goes into never, never land at some point.

[Bob cruise director]

If someone posts while you are typing a reply, then when you hit "Submit," instead of posting your thread and sending you back to the forum, you get a preview-like page that tells you someone else has posted and asks if you still want to submit. It's very easy to miss this page and just go back to the forum in which case your post will not be published. I'm nearly 100% sure this is the cause of "I thought I posted, but my post didn't show up," especially since these tend to happen during busy times (Thursday afternoon, Friday, Monday morning) when many people are posting at once.

I don't know why it only occurred to me this morning to check whether this might be a feature that could be disabled. Sure enough it can be, and I have now disabled this feature.

So I am hoping that will be the end of "the website ate my post," but please let me know if you experience otherwise.

Brian - now we don't have the computer to blame for our stupidity. Thanks for the change.

[Bob cruise director]

When I think of "grid order", it's usually top to bottom. This was a nice twist, making it left-to-right, and that last step added some confusion for me. I initially anagramed the answer to get "solution", but whenever I have to do that, I feel like I've missed something, as these constructors are so good there always seems to be some sort of grid-order elegance to the answers. So I printed, highlighted, and not only got my confirmation, but also saw the beauty in the construction. Maybe I'm picky, but I think that unless the mechanism relies on anagrams, to have to anagram to get the final step is somewhat less elegant and less of a hard click answer for me.

I totally agree - anagrams are very rare.

[Wendy Walker]

Having always enjoyed vicarious learning through my [now adult] children's schooling, I had an inkling of the correct path when NAP wasn't there with POWER. I only had a slight snag on "rebound" due to using the basketball term TAP BACK but after actually consulting the periodic table I realized SNAP was called for. Everything else fell into place readily.
When my youngest took AP Chemistry in high school, if the teacher had to be out for a day her sub plans consisted of, "Have Jim teach the class." He was able to quickly confirm that my answer made sense and there didn't seem to be any other suitable solution.

P.S. To Bob, our faithful cruise director: It's been a long time since I heard the old help desk phrase "ID10T error" And, of course, recalling Charlie's adventures is always delightful!

Janet, I followed almost exactly the same path you did, but my first inkling was PINE SAP, followed closely by POWER NAP. And I, too, originally had TAP BACK for rebound!

[Bob cruise director]

Having always enjoyed vicarious learning through my [now adult] children's schooling, I had an inkling of the correct path when NAP wasn't there with POWER. I only had a slight snag on "rebound" due to using the basketball term TAP BACK but after actually consulting the periodic table I realized SNAP was called for. Everything else fell into place readily.
When my youngest took AP Chemistry in high school, if the teacher had to be out for a day her sub plans consisted of, "Have Jim teach the class." He was able to quickly confirm that my answer made sense and there didn't seem to be any other suitable solution.

P.S. To Bob, our faithful cruise director: It's been a long time since I heard the old help desk phrase "ID10T error" And, of course, recalling Charlie's adventures is always delightful!

Janet, I followed almost exactly the same path you did, but my first inkling was PINE SAP, followed closely by POWER NAP. And I, too, originally had TAP BACK for rebound!

Wendy and Janet
You need to watch more basketball - a tap back (or tap in) is what you do with a rebound

Wendy - how much do you pay the constructors to keep using the word Editor in these puzzles? More than Al pays for them to use Utica?

And my wife was watching Rick Steeves show on Greece and they used the word Agora- I got a dirty look when I said "good crossword puzzle word"

[Meg]

I think someone did post early on that they couldn’t find the solution. Funny. Well funny if you had the answer.

[gamera13]

I didn't get it this time. Congratulations to all who did.

[Janet P]

Janet, I followed almost exactly the same path you did, but my first inkling was PINE SAP, followed closely by POWER NAP. And I, too, originally had TAP BACK for rebound!

Wendy and Janet
You need to watch more basketball - a tap back (or tap in) is what you do with a rebound

Bob, I never said it was a correct basketball term... I gave up on the NBA when they gave up the short shorts

[juliet]

I eventually found the elegant solution, but only after a couple of days of tracking chemical symbols in the grid, a molecule (H2O using the "H" in thunder--how clever! how could it not be part of the answer?) and then a number of "ATO"s that, while not molecules, lead me to look for split AT-OMs. After finally going back to look at the awkward grid answers, like a thunder clap, I found the first step. In spite of the struggle, I love everything about this puzzle, including how all the missing -AP words on the left side of the grid are the first words in the two word phrases, and all the missing -AP words on the right side of the grid are the second word in the two word phrases.