#641 - "No-Win Situations"

[Hector]

This week’s contest answer is an eight-letter word.

[docison]

Nice grid and meta. Though there's one thing that I found surprising/inelegant.

[RPardoe]

Done and submitted.

@docison - think I see what you mean. PM sent to check.

[Hector]

I think I know what you mean, but it seems more elegant the more I look at it.

[Meg]

Got the meta, but now I have to find the inelegance.

[paige11]

I was worried I was missing something, but looks like I got it!

[Laura M]

Beam me up! Enjoyed it! At least I got this one, I may have to give up on MMM and PGWCC.

I do see a small inelegance, but <shrug>. (Maybe that's why the puzzle was late?)

[pgw]

I think I know what you mean, but it seems more elegant the more I look at it.

I commented to Matt on what I thought was a small inelegance (which didn't bother me anyway) and he pointed out why it was less of an inelegance than I'd realized. Either way, I don't think it makes the solve any less solid.

[stmv]

Got it, on leaderboard. Unsure about inelegance, seemed pretty good to me; indeed, the one part of it that seemed arbitrary to me at first, I now see has a reasonably elegant explanation.

[hcbirker]

Beam me up!

[docison]

Sorry - didn't mean to quibble! Agree with PGW's comment, ultimately the solve wasn't in doubt. It just made me scratch my head for a minute.

[oldjudge]

Nice puzzle-interesting concept

[ky-mike]

Got it. What seemed like an inelegance at first sight really isn't if you think about how this came together and tie back in to the theme.

[Richard B.]

Beam me up. I think there may be several layers of elegance here (which don’t really affect the ultimate answer).

[Cindy]

Solved. Awaiting a board update

[sharkicicles]

On the board!

[Joe Ross]

Hoping others' inelegance is mine & that my submitted will be accepted... Confirmed!

I hate submitting when less than 90% sure. Time for that Evan Williams!

[Edit1: Agree with Hector on being more & more convinced of answer (esp. since it was accepted ), but agreeing with Hector is always the correct thing to do.]

[TMart]

On the board. At first, I thought it was inelegant, and then I saw the elegance when I looked at it differently.

[damefox]

Got it, but I didn't even really understand the answer at the point I figured it out, and at this point I'm in the camp of people who don't see what "elegance" everyone else keeps talking about. It looks a little like a mess to me.

[Jeremy Smith]

On the board! Inelegance? I think not. However way you look at it, it works all the same.