"Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

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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Janet P
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#441

Post by Janet P »

Definitely a KAS 5 for me this week.
Saw parapet/papaeete (never noticing APEs) and linked para-K-eet. Spent too much time trying to devise one-letter links between first and last syllables (stressed or not!) of emanate, rosssea, germane, etc.
Also got really hung up after "linking" taco-bell-man and acted-up-on looking for more like that.
Oh, well. There's always Thursday :)
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cbarbee002
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#442

Post by cbarbee002 »

MajordomoTom wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:05 am On my later review of the grid, I suddenly noted - "there are a LOT of APEs in this grid".

I then went ... how many? 5 - ok, what else? Then saw the "MAN" and went - 5 of them, ok what connects?

And it just fell into place.

EDIT: one of my rabbit holes was looking at numbers in the answers in the grid - ICENINE and others with "TEN" in them ... was a very interesting distraction. Looking at the squares with those numbers in them, trying to spell something ... went nowhere, so I abandoned it. But I could see spending a chunk of time trying to make that work.
Here's a similar rabbit hole. I first saw the APE entries (but not the MAN entries), and then noticed the 26D Clue, the answer to which is [Louis] Leakey, or LL. Hence my first thought was LAPEL
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Bird Lives
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#443

Post by Bird Lives »

KayW wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:48 am I was so grateful for that job because I was able to switch from my manual typewriter <snip>
Surely you have seen this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY3QfJ6KHq0
Jay
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OGuyDave
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#444

Post by OGuyDave »

I'm in the "saw the APEs first" contingent. Once I highlighted them, I thought "missing links" so I took APE out of the words that they were in. PART! Yes! PETE! Yes, yes! Then that route fell apart, and it was hours, maybe a day, before I thought to look for MAN.

Super, super puzzle.

Boy do I love this stuff, especially with all the virtual camaraderie. Yep, that's you!
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yourpalsal
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#445

Post by yourpalsal »

MikeMillerwsj wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:10 pm Judging from the response this week, this was a tougher contest than usual. We had 1185 responses, about 87% correct. The others were scattered across a very wide range of guesses, including CHAIN (7), VOWEL (7), CHIMP (3), CANDY, SPORE, DIGIT, TIPPY, THREE, many many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Yve Lepkowski of Teaneck, NJ!Judging from the response this week, this was a tougher contest than usual. We had 1185 responses, about 87% correct. The others were scattered across a very wide range of guesses, including CHAIN (7), VOWEL (7), CHIMP (3), CANDY, SPORE, DIGIT, TIPPY, THREE, many many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Yve Lepkowski of Teaneck, NJ!
Looking forward to see you, my pals, at the muggle meetup: Tues at 4:30p Pacific!
Last week we had 20...
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89184367093

And we would LOOOOOOOOOVE to see you, Mike Shenk, there too!!!
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spotter
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#446

Post by spotter »

I was out of town this weekend and did this one much later than I normally do. Once the grid was solved, the answer was apparent almost immediately to me. I'm surprised to see it proved difficult for a lot of people. I must have just gotten lucky to spot it so quickly!
steveb
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#447

Post by steveb »

Hector wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:42 am
oldjudge wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:11 am Does anyone remember the St James Infirmery, the Oasis, and Rozzotti’s?
Antonio's Nuthouse, The Dutch Goose, Old Pro, Edinburgh Castle . . .
Most of these places are open and still going strong, demonstrating that there's still a little bit of funkiness among the corporatization of Silicon Valley. I live about half a mile from the Dutch Goose, and I've been known to enjoy a burger, a brew and a deviled egg there.

Zott's - real name Alpine Inn - claims to be the second-oldest continually operating tavern in California, dating back to 1852. It was recently acquired by a new ownership group that is admirably dedicated to keeping this local treasure alive. They've upgraded the food and poured a lot of money into repairs to the building without changing the essential character of the place (the hitching post out front still gets used occasionally). With its large outdoor space, it turns out to be ideally suited to pandemic dining.

All of which allows me to show how Zott's has impacted the lives of everyone here more than they ever knew:

Image
Attachments
Zott's Internet plaque.jpg
Andrew Bradburn
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#448

Post by Andrew Bradburn »

Bird Lives wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:58 am I too went down the ONE NINE TEN rabbit hole and also spent some time with entries that shared all but two letters (PARAPET PAPEETE, EMANATE ENAMELS). But the distractor that cost me the most time was the wording of the clues for PAPEETE and ROSSSEA. Both specified that these were “between” two other places— i.e., that they were links between them.
This exactly. What has helped me the most get past rabbit holes and being lost at sea is always, always (always!) going back to the title. Somehow reading 'missing link' again for the umpteenth time allowed me to see the APE and MAN I had not connected before, but seen as part of larger words. The puzzles that frustrate me the most and that I often don't end up solving are the ones where I never can figure out exactly what the title is referring to.
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Al Sisti
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#449

Post by Al Sisti »

femullen wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:34 am Completely lost at sea this week. Was never anywhere close to the solution. Found a bunch of rabbit holes. Heck, I found a whole warren.
Sounds like you need a little warren peace. Okay, I'll leave now.
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Al Sisti
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#450

Post by Al Sisti »

steveb wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:01 pm
Hector wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:42 am
oldjudge wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:11 am Does anyone remember the St James Infirmery, the Oasis, and Rozzotti’s?
Antonio's Nuthouse, The Dutch Goose, Old Pro, Edinburgh Castle . . .
Most of these places are open and still going strong, demonstrating that there's still a little bit of funkiness among the corporatization of Silicon Valley. I live about half a mile from the Dutch Goose, and I've been known to enjoy a burger, a brew and a deviled egg there.

Zott's - real name Alpine Inn - claims to be the second-oldest continually operating tavern in California, dating back to 1852. It was recently acquired by a new ownership group that is admirably dedicated to keeping this local treasure alive. They've upgraded the food and poured a lot of money into repairs to the building without changing the essential character of the place (the hitching post out front still gets used occasionally). With its large outdoor space, it turns out to be ideally suited to pandemic dining.

All of which allows me to show how Zott's has impacted the lives of everyone here more than they ever knew:

Image
Here's an ARPANET chart from 1977. Note the RADC node (below the word "March")... that's where I worked for 34 years.
Arpanet_logical_map,_march_1977.png
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TPS
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#451

Post by TPS »

Anyone who is interested in this discussion should definitely watch AMC’s brilliant ensemble drama - Halt & Catch Fire - almost no one watched it and it is one of the best 10 TV shows ever made.
RichA2
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#452

Post by RichA2 »

I spent my time chasing various golf possibilities, never even seeing the apes, or the men.
Teaches me to come back and take a fresh look at the grid when the “obvious” first approach isn’t working. On to next week.
JeanneC
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#453

Post by JeanneC »

I marvel at the analysis done by my fellow muggles. Impressive indeed. I always learn something new to file away for future use.

Onward to Thursday’s puzzle appearance!
“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”. Lillian Hellman
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Bob cruise director
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#454

Post by Bob cruise director »

ImOnToo wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:53 pm
BarbaraK wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:38 pm
Bob cruise director wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pm
And you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order

Love it
Of course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.
🤯 Where were you when I needed you in 1982?!
Running an engineering department where the management thought that 1) Wang word processors were the only way to go and 2) that same management thought that any engineering department only needed two PC's so my engineers bought there own and brought them in. Total incompatabltiy between anything.
Bob Stevens
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Bob cruise director
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#455

Post by Bob cruise director »

DaveKennison wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 11:23 pm Hmmm ... I seem to be on the shore list as “Bavid K”, rather than “David K”. Taking an average gives me “Cavid K”, which is uncomfortably close to “Covid K”. Bad omen ... 😳.
Proof reading is not my forte.
Bob Stevens
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Al Sisti
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#456

Post by Al Sisti »

TPS wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 3:19 pm Anyone who is interested in this discussion should definitely watch AMC’s brilliant ensemble drama - Halt & Catch Fire - almost no one watched it and it is one of the best 10 TV shows ever made.
Excellent series!!
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KscX
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#457

Post by KscX »

Eric Porter wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:16 pm
KayW wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:03 am I got diverted into a rabbit hole trying to "link" several of the 7-letter entries that were anagrams of each other with a two-letter difference:

paRApet - papeEtE
actEDon - tacoMAn
aCTedon - oneadAY
GeRmane - emanATe - enameLS

All of course a side-effect of working so many APE-MANs into close proximity in the grid. What an amazing construction!
This is what got me too. There's also
cROatoan - tacoMan
Capers - Tapers

I'd thought it was words evolving into one another. If there only weren't so many words off by one or two letters I would have probably focused on MAN and then found APE sooner.
I was a victim of too much prescribed North Carolina history in 4th and 8th grades - I couldn’t move away from CROATOAN and saw the similar and odd Tacoman. Good old Virginia Dare and the Lost Colony fascinated all of us 4th graders, year after year.
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whimsy
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#458

Post by whimsy »

Bird Lives wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:11 pm
KayW wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:48 am I was so grateful for that job because I was able to switch from my manual typewriter <snip>
Surely you have seen this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY3QfJ6KHq0
In a similar vein, there's also this:
Capturegrandma.JPG
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Gman
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#459

Post by Gman »

After seeing the 5 occurrences of "MAN" and the Leakey clue, I was convinced that there had to be 5 names of hominids hidden next to the answers that contained MAN. This led to over an hour+ on Wikipedia learning all about the fossil record of missing links. I was even convinced that CROATOAN was somehow a reference to cro-magnon man. Alas, I was definitely over-complicating things. My wife came by and looked at the grid for ten seconds and said, "isn't the link between MAN and APE?" and after recovering from my Homer Simpson "Doh!" head slap, I had it. I never cease to be amazed at how well these puzzles are constructed, and how the answers are usually staring right at you, if only you can clear your mind.
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Streroto
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#460

Post by Streroto »

LesY wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:07 am Love the word PAPEETE so much this one clicked fairly quickly, esp. once I saw the two "APE" words in similar positioning further down. And then I had Southern Cross playing pleasantly in my head for much of the weekend. Win win!

If the Louis Leakey clue was the nudge then the subtlety was excellent.
Love. That. Song.
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