"Knowledge Base" February 16, 2024

[Joepickett]

Housead sounds like How Sad which crosses with So Sad. That threw me for a bit. Joe Ross, I don't follow your alternative answer.

[HunterX]

I was surprised that my kids didn't get this when we were on our zoom call. My daughter majored in math in college, and my son majored in computer science. (I was a philosophy major.) So when I figured it out yesterday, I was pretty proud of myself. Yes, we had tried labeling the columns and rows with letters and picking out letters from the grid using every possible starting point and direction. But we didn't pick up on the hexadecimal.

It wasn't until Sunday that I realized the letters were hexadecimal. And I actually started looking at the squares with the translated numbers in them: BE=40=H, FE=44=O, etc. For some reason, I didn't remember the X-Y axis of 1D, even though we'd tried them Friday night. Slapped my forehead pretty hard when I did remember.

I texted the kids about the HEX grid entry at 65D, and the fact that the letters only went to F. They got it instantly after that.

But I guess dad, here, was the real nerd this week.

[BarbaraK]

my DH said there’s never been an answer in the grid like that —- is that true?

There have been a couple times when the prompt said the answer was a grid entry or a pair of grid entries, but other than that, no.

In the infamous pageant puzzle (December 29, 2017), BOWL was in the grid, which was a good hint that bowl games was not the answer

[Joe Ross]

Joe Ross, I don't follow your alternative answer.

The five two-word theme entries end in two-lettered words.

Those two-letter words alphabetized:

• AD

• BE

• CD

• _ _

• ED

• FE

What pops, to me:

• a missing entry ending in two-letters begining with D _

• The ending letters of the alphabetized words follow a DE, D _, DE pattern

So, are we seeking an entry ending in DE? If so, 36A Throng - HORDE, which is a group of people, fits.

The glaring problem with this is that 36A Throng - HORDE is not a two-word entry, of which DE should be a word on its own.

[CPJohnson]

For those of you who use Discord, I received an email this morning informing me that I had "to choose a unique username instead of using discriminators in their username". Otherwise, they will assign a username after March 4.

I do not use Discord but I have an account where my user name is Bob Cruise Director

Does anyone know what this is all about and what they want me to change?

Thanks

What is Discord?

[Bonnibel]

I was away all week and weekend with no computer and only using my phone sporadically. I completed the grid on my phone and when I arrived home at 8:45 PST I had 15 minutes to work on the solution.

I noticed the themed answers right away as BE FE AD CD and ED. Quickly thought well these stand for something... not chemical elements, but FE can also mean FOR EXAMPLE, and one of the clues had included eg., so I was off and running toward a first rabbit hole. I was looking for a language based solution.

Glad I didn't have more time to spend on this because it would have made me crazy! I have never heard of the hexadecimal number system. What can I say, I am a Fine Arts major! LOL

That said, after the first rabbit hole it seemed obvious that the column/row thing was a clue. However I didn't get that far.

Congrats to all the muggles who solved this! And I learned something!

[Colin]

Very clever! I was looking for coordinates but missed the hex part. But… maybe it’s just the way I see things, but don’t you think the origin (0,0) should be bottom left, not top left?

Yup! Struggled with that forever. ESPECIALLY since he planted an O in the lower left, the typical position for Origin.

Exactly! Glad I wasn’t the only one!
Wait, why do people say that? Wouldn’t it be nicer to be able to say “Glad I was the only one” or “Pity I’m not the only one”
I would never want anyone to think (and suffer) like me!
Which leads my thoughts to… Should Muggles have a ‘good luck’ saying like that for sailors: “Fair winds” or for golfers: “Tight lies”? Something like… “Break a pencil” or “No whiteouts” or “Quick grids” or “Oreo ho!” or ….

[Memay131]

I liked this one, even though I misinterpreted the coordinates. Starting in the top-left, they kept landing on black squares. Next time!

[BigPear]

On the topic of alternate answers and what to do about “Over it,” I submitted “IT nerds”. I think this answer is just as valid— as far as I’m concerned, the two-letter word at the end of the answer trumps its asymmetric placement in the grid. And it took a particular kind of nerd to solve this meta…

[ship4u]

What is Discord?

A lack of harmony between persons or things....

[boharr]

What is Discord?

A lack of harmony between persons or things.... :)

You wait and see. Discord is going to be the answer to a meta sometime soon.

[Tom Shea]

Count me in the group that would not have got this one given an entire week. Glad I didn't waste any more time on it.

Hexadecimal also gave me unpleasant flashbacks to Rockwell PLC-5 programming. If there's ever a meta that requires me to use the grid as a punchcard, I will not get that one either.

edit:
(Although I *should* have got base sixteen from the title.)

[Abide]

For want of a 65-Down asterisk, a meta was lost.

Sincerely,
a non-nerd

[damefox]

For want of a 65-Down asterisk, a meta was lost.

Sincerely,
a non-nerd

An asterisk was an option, or they could've clued HEX with a reference to hexadecimal code. The clue for ROW was very instructive and actually removed what would've been an irritating guessing game (is it row then column or column then row?) from one of the meta steps, but then the clue for HEX is just [Spell]??? Are you just supposed to know it should be relevant because it's symmetric to ROW?

[The XWord Rabbit]

It appears to your Rabbit that there was …uh, a horde of dissatisfied Muggles regarding this week’s “Knowledge Base” puzzle from Mr. Shenk. You might call them “uncoordinated”, if you were Dr. Tom, but your Rabbit wouldn’t stoop that low.

First of all, please forgive your Rabbit for not explaining the methodology on this one. He is a poor forest animal and in spite of having an engineering degree, he was totally unfamiliar with the hexadecimal system. He might have slept through that class or more than likely, skipped it entirely.

Second of all, he’s ashamed to admit he did not understand some of your stories no matter how hard he tried (Yes, that includes you, girubato1 and woozy.) His head hurts just thinking about it.

Unsurprisingly, he does have a few nominations:

There’s Joe Ross, the strong, silent type who chose to let his graphic do the talking (Post #205) --until he was called on the carpet for it (Post #247). It’s a lovely bit of circuitous logic that brought him right back to the near-center across entry HORDE. That certainly describes a group of people, and that’s good enough for your Rabbit.

And kudos to Sarasota Sun (Post #235) for seeing a connection between 1A. REGALS and 71A WESSEX to get 60 A. MISTER ED, validating an answer out of left field: PRINCE EDWARD. Not a Rabbit hole in the usual sense, but what the hell, knowledge is knowledge.

Alas, your Rabbit could find no appropriate video regarding base 16, but he did find something half as appropriate. It’s Tom Lehrer’s tuneful tutorial on base 8. (Incidentally, Mr. Lehrer turns 96 in April.) Enjoy, and see you next week.

[DBMiller]

My one diversion was the clue for 71A, "Far From the Maddening Crowd" setting.

Was this a hint? I saw the two-letter second words of the five longest answers. The first being PRAISE BE.

Not being familiar with the book/movie, I Googled and found the main character, Bathsheba Everdene. Initials BE, same as in PRAISE BE!

I spent the next two hours speed-reading the book online to see if any other character's initials fit the rest of the secondary words in the themers.

Alas, there was not, and I finally noticed all the 2-letter words were hexadecimal. A mention of 1D gave me the head slap I needed.

[MarkWoychick]

I was sure this was one of those despised "sound alike" metas and that HOUSEAD was supposed to be read HOW SAD.

Turns out it was another sort of despised meta, the x,y coordinate variety.

I have heard of hexadecimal because I have used the hex numbers for color matching on a computer (I'm colorblind so I don't trust what I think the color is on the screen). My laziness got in the way of solving, however. I saw HEX and I saw the row/column clue, and I thought, "surely that's not the path, that's way too complicated." After I got nudged onto the right path, it was quick work .

[Joepickett]

Joe Ross, I don't follow your alternative answer.

The five two-word theme entries end in two-lettered words.

Those two-letter words alphabetized:

• AD

• BE

• CD

• _ _

• ED

• FE

What pops, to me:

• a missing entry ending in two-letters begining with D _

• The ending letters of the alphabetized words follow a DE, D _, DE pattern

So, are we seeking an entry ending in DE? If so, 36A Throng - HORDE, which is a group of people, fits.

The glaring problem with this is that 36A Throng - HORDE is not a two-word entry, of which DE should be a word on its own.

Wow. Ok now I get it.

[KayW]

Unlike all the puzzles involving sports or geography, I finally had a bit of an edge in this week's meta. I had to interpret hexadecimal numbers early and often as an old-timey programmer in a former life. With the assistance of BASE in the title, I picked up on the two-letter endings as possible HEX co-ordinates fairly quickly. Tho I too had some initial confusion as far as where to place the origin.

I might be confused here too, but 1D seemed to me to be stated backwards: (X,Y co-ordinates are usually interpreted as ROW, COLUMN. So wouldn't COLUMN be the the ROW's follower? Or am I reading that clue wrong?)

Overall, I really liked this meta. But I too thought it might be a bit esoteric for a WSJCC puzzle and that many people would hate it.

On another note. Just this past holiday season, I encountered my first milk IN A BAG while visiting some Wisconsin relatives. My 93-year-old aunt kept saying she needed to stop for "a bag of milk". I confess I thought the poor dear was starting to lose it. At her request we stopped at a local gas station and...

[Joe Ross]