"Take Five" - October 15, 2021

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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boharr
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#301

Post by boharr »

Inkwisitif wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:37 pm
PHOFER wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:40 pm In response to questions on the puzzle’s star rating: I would be curious to hear how many rate on the Kas scale rather than on pure difficulty, even though difficulty is the quality we are supposed to rate. Personally I rate based on Kas. Difficulty is part of the Kas analysis, of course, but I find the Kas scale so much more informative than just a rating on difficulty. A 3—the perfect combination of challenge and solvability—is nirvana.
What is Kas scale
The KAS Scale
Report Quote Like #1 Post by Bob cruise director » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:56 am
As we solve (or don't solve) these puzzles, we go through a range of emotions. Kas DeCarvalho created this scale to capture our levels of emotions - repeated verbatim

1. The Metas that yield the A-Ha Moment too early...and I'm irritable about it, because I'm a dork;

2. The Metas that I torture myself over, then the a-ha moment is basically a head-slapping "Oh DUH!! You Eeeediott!!" Those make me laugh, self-deprecation is no problem;

3. The Metas I gut through, *eventually* figure out...and then walk around the rest of the weekend like I just solved The Middle East or learned Sanskrit;

4. The Metas I DON'T get...but *should* have. (It happens. I don't want to talk about it.)

5. The Metas I don't get, and after the answer is revealed I think, "Yeah...that wasn't going to happen." (Those mostly make me want to put out a Mob hit on certain genius MUGgles here...YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Lol!)
michaelm
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#302

Post by michaelm »

ship4u wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:51 pm In my quest to crack the elusive "This puzzle's fives", I spent all of Saturday morning learning to hold the number 5 in deepest respect. We have 5 fingers, 5 toes and 5 senses. Looking at the face of a clock, each numeral represents 5 minutes of time. The list goes on........

Finally, after some guidance by a friendly muggle, I got down to the important business and focused on the grid. Wow, it turned out to be great fun. In retrospect, I am awed by Mr. Berry's ingenuity in creating, what I would call, a 3 tier meta. This was the first time I ever experienced such a journey. The best part was the travel with this group!

Rated a 3????? You gotta' be kiddin'. I'd give it a 6! But, heck, I'm a newbie.
You'd have to give it a 5 this week, I'd think! :D
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LadyBird
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#303

Post by LadyBird »

mheberlingx100 wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:44 pm Not pleading poverty, but some of my coffee mugs are chipped and nasty. Sure would be nice to have a new coffee mug from which to drink…
You need to tag Mike Miller in this post :lol:
Dplass
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#304

Post by Dplass »

ship4u wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:51 pm In my quest to crack the elusive "This puzzle's fives", I spent all of Saturday morning learning to hold the number 5 in deepest respect. We have 5 fingers, 5 toes and 5 senses. Looking at the face of a clock, each numeral represents 5 minutes of time. The list goes on........

Finally, after some guidance by a friendly muggle, I got down to the important business and focused on the grid. Wow, it turned out to be great fun. In retrospect, I am awed by Mr. Berry's ingenuity in creating, what I would call, a 3 tier meta. This was the first time I ever experienced such a journey. The best part was the travel with this group!

Rated a 3????? You gotta' be kiddin'. I'd give it a 6! But, heck, I'm a newbie.
I'm partial to the number 5 too - my 3 names have 5 letters each. As does my spouse and one of our offspring.
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Joe Ross
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#305

Post by Joe Ross »

Inkwisitif wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:37 pm What is Kas scale
FAQs - Community / Solving Resources
VincentM
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#306

Post by VincentM »

Plymouthrock wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:27 am Did anyone else go down a hole with that
Dave Brubeck classic Take Five?
No, but I was playing the song on my computer the whole time I was trying to solve the meta . . . .

It didn't help, unfortunately. But it was great listening nonetheless.
no .sig, no avatar, just puzzlin' fun
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femullen
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#307

Post by femullen »

hoover wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:30 am
femullen wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:34 am
Plymouthrock wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:27 am Won’t you stop and take
A little time out with me…

Did anyone else go down a hole with that
Dave Brubeck classic Take Five? HALT nowhere to be
Found in the song! Good job, to you smarties who got it.
I've heard of Dave Brubeck, but am not familiar with his oeuvre. I have no ear for music and little interest in pop culture, which is an obvious handicap in doing crosswords. (Remember the well-known sci-fi writer? Neither do I.) But the great blessing is that I rarely suffer from earworms.
I would say jazzist Dave Brubeck is orders of magnitude more well known than N. Jemison. You may not recognize the name of the song, but unless you have limited your entire life's musical listening experience to whatever Spotify feeds you, you probably have heard the theme at least once. It's famously in five/four and I'm pretty sure it has been used in more than one TV/radio commercial.

Give a 30-45 second listen to this, or the whole thing if it floats your boat:
Oh, sure, I recognize that. Next question: what's Spotify?
For nudges, feel free to PM me. I won't have a clue how to help you, but you might shove me ashore.
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mntlblok
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#308

Post by mntlblok »

Bob cruise director wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 12:09 pm Good Saturday morning

How many of us have had Dave Brubeck in your ear all weekend so far. Thank you Patrick Berry.

First we welcome our newest muggles - bigtuna (is this Bill Parcells doing metas?), rjy, MDM, and Acari

So far we have 16 on the ship and 104 on the shore with varying degrees of Coast Guard towing.

Keeping Isaac busy are
EVJ
SReh26
MatthewL
CPJohnson
barney
hunkra
lbray
mrmd
Commodore
ImOnToo
ladybird
LivinaDogsLife
Richard
whimsy
Bridget
John M


While enjoying the tiki bar on the shore are
docison
Wendy
Kay
Meg
Cindy
Laura
Georgeall
stmv
Jace54
Zach
mlvilv
joe
architect
Tina
MajorDomoTom
Eric C
rjy
MDM
mattythewsjpuzzler
oldjudge
Chris
Eric P
BEACHEDWHALE
Barbara K
dplass
Heidi
JimJim
Dannyvee
RobM
Bill
sanmilton
SusieG
Anita
Ed S
Beth A
michaelm
Dave C
Carolyn SW
Beth T
David K
boharr
benchen71
darth
TeamDoubleTow
D B Miller
Nadine
Henry Paul
Omnibus
JennyByrd
roberto
Miki
M and M
Acari
meowmiao71
Al
mntlblok
joequavis
Dow Jones
ky-mike
Zagman49
C=64
ZooAnimalsOnWheels
MaineMarge
Gman
Joe R
Les
Schmeel
mbryant
minimuggle
Mike H
escapeartist
RPardoe
LittleGood
Toby
mpmanning
femullen
DrTom
joes
auee89
Janet P
spotter
joevdz
Jean
copperriver
Hamrock
Begbie
Colin
streroto
Cap'n Rick
Ergcat
ALS
JeanneC
Hidden in 3D
diplomatt
Shirley
Susan G
Kas
sharkicicles
HunterX
sruss43484
czeemuggle
bigtuna
Joepickett
Daniel G


Good luck to all and GO SOX (sorry Houston fans)
Had me on the wrong list. No chance I'd have ever gotten this one.
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#309

Post by hoover »

femullen wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:17 pm Next question: what's Spotify?
I've heard it's an app that thinks it knows what you want to listen to, but I've never used it because I don't have a smartphone. (Also I like to choose my own music.)
Franklin.Bluth
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#310

Post by Franklin.Bluth »

hoover wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:47 pm
femullen wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:17 pm Next question: what's Spotify?
I've heard it's an app that thinks it knows what you want to listen to, but I've never used it because I don't have a smartphone. (Also I like to choose my own music.)
You're thinking of Pandora, which builds a virtual "radio station" based on your likes and dislikes. Spotify is a huge library of music and podcasts, but also lets you build your own playlists. At $15 monthly for the ad free version, it's worth every penny and is the only service we subscribe to.
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#311

Post by hoover »

Franklin.Bluth wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 12:18 am
hoover wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:47 pm
femullen wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:17 pm Next question: what's Spotify?
I've heard it's an app that thinks it knows what you want to listen to, but I've never used it because I don't have a smartphone. (Also I like to choose my own music.)
You're thinking of Pandora, which builds a virtual "radio station" based on your likes and dislikes. Spotify is a huge library of music and podcasts, but also lets you build your own playlists. At $15 monthly for the ad free version, it's worth every penny and is the only service we subscribe to.
Hmm, my understanding is that Spotify also has an AI recommendation engine. But, as I said, I don't use it, so YMMV.
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#312

Post by MikeMillerwsj »

The contest answer is HALT. Each of the four longest Across answers contains a string of five consecutive consonants, and each of those strings,with vowels added, is a clue for another answer (DUMBSTRUCK/Mobster, SPENDTHRIFT/In a dither, WENT THROUGH/Untether, PITCHBLACK/Touchable). The first letters of the answers to those clues (HOOD, AGITATED, LOOSE, TACTILE) spell the contest answer.

A big thank you to one of our most brilliant contributors, Patrick Berry, for this week's ingenious puzzle. It stumped more of you than usual--we had 1,128 entries. Of those, about 78% were correct, right in line with our usual rate.

Incorrect answers included a big turnout for REST (88) plus JAZZ (19, cf Brubeck I guess), WISE (3) and a handful of others.

Congrats to this week's winner, Robert Luzar of Huntsville, Ala.!
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#313

Post by SewYoung »

Congrats to this week's winner, Robert Luzar of Huntsville, Ala.!
Getting close to my stomping grounds. In fact this weekend I will be going right past Huntsville. I may just have to stop by and see Mr. Luzar.
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katnahat
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#314

Post by katnahat »

Joe Ross wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 11:38 pm
katnahat wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 11:12 pm last minute arrival on shore. handicapped by arm in sling from rotator cuff surgery (not for sissies) on Tuesday.
Heal soon, please!
Thanks, Joe! I'm working on it!
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HunterX
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#315

Post by HunterX »

PHOFER wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:40 pm In response to questions on the puzzle’s star rating: I would be curious to hear how many rate on the Kas scale rather than on pure difficulty, even though difficulty is the quality we are supposed to rate. Personally I rate based on Kas. Difficulty is part of the Kas analysis, of course, but I find the Kas scale so much more informative than just a rating on difficulty. A 3—the perfect combination of challenge and solvability—is nirvana.
I rate on the difficulty level. The KAS scores are, as boharr pointed out in post 301, your emotional reaction to the puzzle. The KAS scores 4 and 5 only come into play when you don't solve the puzzle and you see the answer after it's been revealed. Then you then judge whether you should have gotten it or would never have gotten it. But a KAS 4 might be a difficulty of 1 or 2 and you just missed it. And a KAS score of 3 could be rated a difficulty of 4 or 5 because you struggled and struggled, then worked laboriously through the various twists and turns. Whether you could solve it is, indeed, based substantially on difficulty, but also on your particular style of solving in relation to the mechanism, your knowledge base in relation to the answer's subject material (assuming the mechanism is easier with said subject material), your mental state when you did the puzzle, how long you have to work on it, and, of course, how many libations Isaac has been willing to serve you before sending you to your stateroom.

I have certainly noted that the score starts out relatively (low most of the time), as the initial solvers got it quickly, and thus probably thought it easy. But some weeks they give it a 3 because it was harder, even though they solved it quickly. The rating then usually migrates upward as those who take longer to solve usually find it more difficult.

And yes, a KAS score of 3 is nirvana.

(Edited for grammar and formatting. Don't want to incur any wrath here...)
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boharr
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#316

Post by boharr »

Agreed. I think the expert solvers generally rate puzzles low. As more mere humans solve, the ratings go up. And I'm not sure all newbies even know they can also rate the puzzles. When they do learn, ratings will skyrocket.
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#317

Post by Glorfindel »

boharr wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:48 pm
Inkwisitif wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:37 pm
PHOFER wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:40 pm In response to questions on the puzzle’s star rating: I would be curious to hear how many rate on the Kas scale rather than on pure difficulty, even though difficulty is the quality we are supposed to rate. Personally I rate based on Kas. Difficulty is part of the Kas analysis, of course, but I find the Kas scale so much more informative than just a rating on difficulty. A 3—the perfect combination of challenge and solvability—is nirvana.
What is Kas scale
[..]

3. The Metas I gut through, *eventually* figure out...and then walk around the rest of the weekend like I just solved The Middle East or learned Sanskrit;

[..]
this may be neither here nor anywhere, but I'd like to observe 'learning Sanskrit' might not be an apt example here... Sanskrit is, much like Latin, a rules based language. *Much* more challenging to really learn English. Okay, my opinion as a non-native speaker of the latter, who had to learn both languages...
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mntlblok
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#318

Post by mntlblok »

Glad I spent no more time on this than I did. Left a bad taste in my mouth. The hints did the opposite of helping. Intentional??
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BethA
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#319

Post by BethA »

mntlblok wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:07 pm Glad I spent no more time on this than I did. Left a bad taste in my mouth. The hints did the opposite of helping. Intentional??
“What’s been taken from this puzzle’s fives” — at first I had the same feeling as from several others, best expressed I think by @Wendy Walker (on a different puzzle awhile back) this is a koan, I keep reading over and over, yet not able to understand. I found it extremely difficult to home in on what “the fives” could be. Finally something clicked.

I don’t know what exactly I want to say, except, don’t feel bad. A lot of us had the same feeling!
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ZooAnimalsOnWheels
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#320

Post by ZooAnimalsOnWheels »

As we wait for Thursday, I'll share my dreamland solution to this week's puzzle for those that might find it amusing: Before I went to bed, I was looking for places that vowels could have been removed without yet homing in on the four long answers. That night, I dreamed I was cribbing in Greek letters into the grid in spaces between normal letters. This isn't entirely original thinking, because I know there has been at least one New York Times puzzle that used Greek letters in some boxes, intending the Roman spelling to complete words. My sleeping mind said, "Oh, that's the trick! Vowels have been removed, but they are Greek vowels, not English vowels." That little not-actual-A-Ha-moment stirred me enough that I started thinking more coherently, "I'm pretty sure there was a BET in the grid." (Narrator v.o. "There wasn't") "If you add Alpha to that, you get ALPHABET!" "What about eta? If there's a SPILL in the grid, you could rearrange the letters to get SPLIT PEA!" (Narrator v.o.: "You can't") "Hmm. The answer is a four-letter word. It must be SOUP!"

By this point I was awake and I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep until I checked the grid and looked up the rest of the Greek vowels, because the only other ones I could think of were Epsilon and Omicron, which weren't going to make any new words, much less soup words. I quickly realized this was all silly when I looked at the puzzle again, and it really had nothing to do with TAKE FIVE, but I had to laugh at the idea of my unconscious mind jumping through weird hoops to come up with SOUP as the answer!
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