XWord Muggles Forum

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:50 am**

I'm sure this has been brought up before... I'm wondering if there is some right brain/left brain lefthanded/righthanded correlation for how easy or hard a meta is. I'm a lefty, and for me this was the first in a while I was able to figure out without my right-handed husband's help. Has this been the case for any other lefties in the crowd with these more visual metas?

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:56 am**

Hector wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 12:12 am Why is WIRES the answer? I mean, is it the only word that would fit, or is there some other way that it relates to the theme?

Here was my take. Telegraph messages were transmitted over wires strung between poles. Also, telegraph messages themselves were also once actually called wires. As in, "I just got a wire that I'd won a mug."

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:59 am**

I'm relieved when I see the answer and realize I never would have gotten it no matter what.

The problem is that I don't know that before I start and although I no longer spend as much time as I used to, the puzzle still stays somewhere in the background of my mind all weekend and pops up from time to time to taunt me, "Maybe, you should keep trying and you'd figure it out." That is not an enjoyable situation for me.

The metas I really enjoy are the ones that are much more word play than this one. (Not a complaint about the puzzle which was great--just my personal preference) I did get the word play part of coloring in the letters of the word code (pretty obviously spelled out) but not the leap to morse code from there. So, at least I was spared googling to "translate".

I wish there was a way I could know right away if I should let it go or keep on keeping on.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:02 am**

I highlighted the code letters early on, and thought about Morse code, but just didn’t see it. Noticed that there were exactly five “o’s” in the grid, and then went down the rabbit hole of trying to match colors to entries, like “blueprint “ and “red ants”. Finally submitted “paint” as a Hail Mary. First one I’ve missed in a long long time. I am humbled, and kudos to those who got it!

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:13 am**

I colored in the word code in the words diocese and second coming and thought of Morse code right away. But I never made the connection to the other miscellaneous single letters from code having any significance. So close, but so far...

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:15 am**

WOW. Three cheers to those who solved this. The first thing that flashed across my mind when I saw the title was the old resistor code ... and I went downhill fast from there! LOL I colored in 'tint' and there are a lot of tints in this puzzle, too ... very funny, that. But that got me going on sawprint and saintpat being in the mix, which gave me six words, not five, to contend with, and I never included diocese. All I can say is WOW. On to next week, and never say die (or dye).

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:19 am**

Talk about a DOH moment rather than an AHA. While I was struggling with this, I was watching a rerun of Inspector Morse.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:21 am**

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 1:34 pm
Hidden in 3D wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:48 am Can't spend any more time on this one. I'll be in the ship's library proofreading a 35-page document for a fellow board member. I had to put it down yesterday after completing only 3 pages in 2.5.hours. How do I turn a folksy, friendly, rambling, repetitive and grammatically incorrect document into something that, at the very least, represents our group as a professional organization? All that, plus the fact that the author is a dear friend whose feelings I would never, ever hurt intentionally. Yikes! Isaac, put on a fresh pot of coffee, please. I'm gonna' need it!
Welcome to my world. In real life I'm a freelance copy editor and proofreader for college-level books. Fortunately I edit a wide variety of books, and you never know when the info will be useful in solving a puzzle!

Wendy, you have my undying respect and admiration. After my post, I spent the rest of the day on this task and only got through 7 more pages. The good news is that even if I had devoted my editing time to solving the meta yesterday, I doubt that I would have done so.

BTW, loved the photo of you and your parents! I'm guessing you raised a toast to your dad because he taught you Morse Code?...

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:31 am**

SusieG wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 8:44 am What happens frequently with me happened here. I became obsessed with the wrong mechanism. Artists “tint” by mixing with white. I couldn’t figure out how adding WHITE would solve anything.

Yes, I think TINT was a little misleading. At first I took it to mean highlight, as I always do. But one had to COLOR (black out actually) the "key" letters. And not discard them but everything else.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:47 am**

To me, TINT and CODE added up to Code Green (SAINTPAT, PUTT), Code Black (BLACKCATS), etc. But it appears that those codes (other than Code Blue) are not universal. Plus I couldn't tie in the two long clues so I knew I was on the wrong path. Never came close to the right one.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:01 am**

Hidden in 3D wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:21 am
Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 1:34 pm
Hidden in 3D wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:48 am Can't spend any more time on this one. I'll be in the ship's library proofreading a 35-page document for a fellow board member. I had to put it down yesterday after completing only 3 pages in 2.5.hours. How do I turn a folksy, friendly, rambling, repetitive and grammatically incorrect document into something that, at the very least, represents our group as a professional organization? All that, plus the fact that the author is a dear friend whose feelings I would never, ever hurt intentionally. Yikes! Isaac, put on a fresh pot of coffee, please. I'm gonna' need it!
Welcome to my world. In real life I'm a freelance copy editor and proofreader for college-level books. Fortunately I edit a wide variety of books, and you never know when the info will be useful in solving a puzzle!
Wendy, you have my undying respect and admiration. After my post, I spent the rest of the day on this task and only got through 7 more pages. The good news is that even if I had devoted my editing time to solving the meta yesterday, I doubt that I would have done so.

BTW, loved the photo of you and your parents! I'm guessing you raised a toast to your dad because he taught you Morse Code?...

I used to review/proofread technical articles for conferences I chaired. While I admire students from, let's just say "overseas," for advancing the state of the art in math and computer science, their English left a lot to be desired. I've also always been a stickler for putting the period inside quotation marks at the end of a sentence, and was cursing the author of a journal article... until I realized/realised that the author was British, and "outside the quote marks" is their convention.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:04 am**

It took me a little while to notice that the letters from CODE only existed in the theme answers. What really got me was the symmetry in how they were arranged. They all have an odd number of letters. If you center them all and make a picture, what you get looks kind of like a lower-case GAMMA with some extra dots. Gamma and color codes are used in computer graphics. That was my first guess, which I didn't submit because TPS was nice enough to tell me I was wrong.

I had the realization to use Morse code while I was falling asleep. It's commonly used in puzzles, though I just checked and it's not mentioned in the "Hints for Solving Meta Contests" thread.

I realize that Morse code can be transmitted over telegraph WIRES, but I was expecting something relating to color.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:05 am**

Ha, well, I actually did color those letters in but it did nothing for me. Maybe next week!

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:12 am**

I posted my sour grapes on Fiend, so I won’t reiterate here. No ding on the meta, which is brilliant. Thanks to those fabulous muggles who tried to escort me over the finish line. Y’all are great!

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:19 am**

Eric Porter wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:04 am That was my first guess, which I didn't submit because TPS was nice enough to tell me I was wrong.

I am a little disappointed that you didn’t submit - all I told you was that your answer was wrong and that I didn’t think you should take a nudge because I thought you would get it on your own - which you did!

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:24 am**

Natalie wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:15 am WOW. Three cheers to those who solved this. The first thing that flashed across my mind when I saw the title was the old resistor code ... and I went downhill fast from there! LOL I colored in 'tint' and there are a lot of tints in this puzzle, too ... very funny, that. But that got me going on sawprint and saintpat being in the mix, which gave me six words, not five, to contend with, and I never included diocese. All I can say is WOW. On to next week, and never say die (or dye).

I, too, was on the resistor color code path to doom. I saw BA NANA (yellow?) in the upper left, LAP I S (blue?) in the upper center...nothing could save me after that.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:35 am**

I’ll add one more rabbit hole, I tried coloring the Os and Is i.e. binary, and this sort of got me further down the rabbit hole than I should’ve been because of the unusual distribution of Os in the puzzle which of course was intentional.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:43 am**

Another rabbit hole was hexcode for colors. If the answer had been six letters, I would’ve wrestled that one endlessly. But it was still interesting to learn how color codes in photoshop and other apps work. Base 16 is pretty cool.

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:51 am**

Hidden in 3D wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:21 am
Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 1:34 pm
Hidden in 3D wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:48 am Can't spend any more time on this one. I'll be in the ship's library proofreading a 35-page document for a fellow board member. I had to put it down yesterday after completing only 3 pages in 2.5.hours. How do I turn a folksy, friendly, rambling, repetitive and grammatically incorrect document into something that, at the very least, represents our group as a professional organization? All that, plus the fact that the author is a dear friend whose feelings I would never, ever hurt intentionally. Yikes! Isaac, put on a fresh pot of coffee, please. I'm gonna' need it!
Welcome to my world. In real life I'm a freelance copy editor and proofreader for college-level books. Fortunately I edit a wide variety of books, and you never know when the info will be useful in solving a puzzle!
Wendy, you have my undying respect and admiration. After my post, I spent the rest of the day on this task and only got through 7 more pages. The good news is that even if I had devoted my editing time to solving the meta yesterday, I doubt that I would have done so.

BTW, loved the photo of you and your parents! I'm guessing you raised a toast to your dad because he taught you Morse Code?...

Thank you so much! Have to say, I love that photo too.
Yes, Dad had his private pilot's license and always had tons of technical manuals sitting around, including laminated "cheat sheets" for Morse Code. He told stories about the amazing speed at which good operators could send messages.
Hope to see everyone at Tuesday evening's Zoom meetup! Should be a lively conversation this week!

Posted: **Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:57 am**

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:01 am
Hidden in 3D wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:21 am
Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 1:34 pm

I used to review/proofread technical articles for conferences I chaired. While I admire students from, let's just say "overseas," for advancing the state of the art in math and computer science, their English left a lot to be desired. I've also always been a stickler for putting the period inside quotation marks at the end of a sentence, and was cursing the author of a journal article... until I realized/realised that the author was British, and "outside the quote marks" is their convention.
Al, I run into that ALL THE TIME. It's especially exhausting when I'm doing a project for a British publisher and an American one simultaneously.

XWord Muggles Forum

"Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020

Re: "Color Code" - July 24, 2020