"Risky Business" - December 11, 2020

[Bob cruise director]

Ashore. Even more impressed than usual by the construction. This is hard enough to solve but to retrace the steps Mike Shenk must have gone through to create it - keeping within all the norms of symmetry, balance, reasonable cluing, moderate difficulty, avoiding the obscure - I just don't see how they do it. Hats off.

Further, it's funny how a puzzle seems easy when one of your first rabbits is the right one. The right path always seems obvious in hindsight, but when you're lost it just looks impossible. I'd like to see a graph of how the rated difficulty climbs from Thursday to Sunday!

I'd be interested in that graph too. I keep a (Warning: Geek Alert - Continue reading at your own risk) spreadsheet of all the weekly meta puzzles I've done with various stats and calculations, one of which is the Muggle difficulty rating. Clearly those who solve quickly (I'm looking at you Al Sisti) log on to indicate they are done and rate the meta, which, obviously they found easy. So it usually starts at 1. When I first looked Friday evening, it was 1.5. This morning it was 2. Now it's 2.5. (And I revise the spreadsheet yet again.) I wonder if those who don't solve it don't rate it, thus resulting in a bias towards a lower rating.

Okay, I need to stop drinking coffee and go for a walk or something.

Welcome to the muggle nerd club. Entry is a spreadsheet of something related to either your performance or the group performance. Membership is growing - and we have a lot of closet members.

[MaineMarge]

Bob, look for me on a bar stool. Not a clue yet.

Looks like it would have been risky business to go for a walk in the field that day. Hope it’s not a spoiler.

August 2010 photo

[HunterX]

...

...I'd like to see a graph of how the rated difficulty climbs from Thursday to Sunday!

I'd be interested in that graph too. I keep a (Warning: Geek Alert - Continue reading at your own risk) spreadsheet of all the weekly meta puzzles I've done with various stats and calculations, one of which is the Muggle difficulty rating. ...

Welcome to the muggle nerd club. Entry is a spreadsheet of something related to either your performance or the group performance. Membership is growing - and we have a lot of closet members.

Is there an online guide outlining the club's rules and practices? I need to know how many decimal places to use in the pivot table that calculates my success rate percentage for each puzzle creator by construction mechanism category.

[minimuggle]

I'm still way out to sea. No sign of land.

[KayW]

I initially had a quick solve to the Meta that was messy and inelegant but is totally related to this lovely year we call 2020, and by the rules this wrong solution is a very precarious thing to do.

Because it was messy, it clearly was not the right path.

Wondering if this answer makes it into the submissions?

I hope you'll elaborate on Monday!

[Wendy Walker]

Bob, look for me on a bar stool. Not a clue yet.

Looks like it would have been risky business to go for a walk in the field that day. Hope it’s not a spoiler.
F211CC9B-F37D-4D3E-9687-7DA097222115.jpeg
August 2010 photo

Marge, your garden photos are always so amazing! Thank you for sharing!

[debbierudy]

Ashore! I love the elegance and wit in this construction.

[CopperRiver]

Thought grid was tough. Not seeing meta yet. I’m learning some new mixology tricks from Isaac for the holidays.

[RDaleHall]

Done with the grid - tougher than usual. Now on to the meta. Lots of staring going on currently but a few ideas starting to emerge.

[Bob cruise director]

Good Saturday morning muggles

First welcome to Bob Kerfuffle as our newest muggle

an interesting puzzle from Mike. Some are finding the grid easy and some are finding it very hard. Some are finding the meta easy and some are finding it very hard. And it is some of both the rookies and veterans in each group. The result is that we have 16 on the ship and 89 on the shore.

And we had some late entries so the total is now 19 on the ship and 90 on the shore

On the ship are
JRS51
JoePickett
SewYoung
Heidi - and her sick dog
Tom Wi
Mike H
flyingMoose
Flananigans
AnswerPFinder
EVJ
Commodore
Moi
Tom S
ImOnToo
JeanneC
MaineMarge - and is that the flyingMoose in your backyard?
Mwickham
copperriver
and RDaleHall


On the shore are
Al - in close to record time
Wendy
kay
Beth A
Beth T
Beth C
Les
Dannyvee
Jace54
joequavis
Abide
MikeM000
joe
Scott M
Rpardoe
Bob Kerfuffle
hector
amanda Hugginkiss
Laura
Eric P
Homer
tim1217
Andrew B
anita
spotter
meg
Cindy
ladybird
streroto
FKelly
Barbara K
scraps
sharkicicles
Josh
ky-mike
C=64
oldjudge
Tmart
boharr
sanmilton
Omnibus
Tina
damefox
Peter L
Cosmo
hunkra
dudeski
kdubs
Joe R
LittleGood
Toby
Dow Jones
Frank
escapeartist
edot
LizD
MajordomoTom
Rita and George
John B
MatthewB
Glyn
eagle1279
gman
DBMiller
paige11
Softie
dplass
Blair
susieG
dk letter
mattythewsjpuzzler
Mary F
JAQT
cbarbee002
madhatter5
wb93
Jaclyn
CallMeShane
Mmac
arlecchino
Orsys
eric h
fstadler
Ed S
HunterX
Cindy N
Olof
ErikThor
Janet P
and Debbie

A couple have asked if I have been posting the link to here on the WSJ comments page. The same message gets sent in first thing every week. Sometimes it gets posted. Sometimes it gets posted along the way and shows up as the #1 post. Sometimes it does not get posted at all. It has been posited that the problem is that it has a link to another web site but who knows?

And if you missed it before, the contest will happen both the week of Christmas and the week of New Years since both are on Fridays. It will come out on line at the "regular" time on Thursday. I don't know if it will show up in the Saturday print edition or not.

[Susan Goldberg]

Thank goodness I saw this one quickly!
BTW, on our Tuesday call I mentioned what a fun time Mark and I had doing a Zoom scavenger hunt and suggested that others might want to try this with their families. Here are the details (on my blog):
https://unionvilleinthenews.blogspot.co ... -zoom.html

Wendy, This is so great! I am going to use this for an office holiday party on Monday. Thank you!

[CPJohnson]

Haven't read the blog, but I am on the boat, sitting all alone in the back booth, staring at the grid.

[Susan Goldberg]

I am most decidedly on the ship.

[Schmeel]

Ashore. I see I just missed Bob's report...
I have to get back to frying latkes - happy Chanuka all!

[meowmiao71]

After a few successful weeks, I'm sitting on a barstool eating peanuts and knocking back mai tais. Is anyone willing to give me a nudge if I promise not to submit?

[bread-girl]

I finished the grid but no luck on the meta yet. Hopefully my aha moment will come soon!

[jimbo1]

I had to wait for the actual paper since my online solving kept disappearing.
ASHORE!

[burak]

I'm at the worst place possible when solving a meta: I have an idea that partially works. Do I keep trying to fit that glove, or do I just give up? On the other hand, even if I consciously give up I won't be able to rest easy. Hopefully the answer will come to me before it's too late!

[Bob cruise director]

On shore with some pain and suffering

[Janet P]

Made it to the shore
In time for Bob's noon report!
Back to my laundry...

Just for clarification (and my ego), is my report more or less important than your laundry?

My laundry can wait
'Til after I see my name
On Bob's noon report!