"Aftermath" - September 17, 2021

[katnahat]

I'm new here too. Last week and the week before were easy for me, but this one has me stumped. Worried that my grid is wrong, but everything fits. Maybe it's that I jumped from Algebra in high school to statistics in grad school with nothing in between and am looking for a word I've never seen before. Still totally at sea, but paddling away!

[kimberlysg]

Happy to be on shore on Friday!

[RichA2]

Ashore.

[michaelm]

On shore. Took me back about about 55 years, had to reawaken some quiescent neurons.

After solving the meta, I did have a mini-breakdown sitting and wondering where all that "important" stuff I knew at one time went!

[auee89]

When I was in college, our fraternity was housed in the Keuffel house, of Keuffel and Esser fame. Bob, does that Antikythera mechanism of yours bear a K+E mark?

Most definitely. You had your choice of K&E or Pickett slide rules. Picketts were metal and fell apart in the winters at RPI because the metal shrunk. K&E were made of bamboo and you had to carry around talcum powder because they expanded in the heat of the spring and fall at RPI and you had to keep applying the powder to allow them to slide.

Wait. You mean they didn't have batteries?

Mine did! This was a big expense in the mid-80's and lasted me all through undergrad and grad school. RPN was the best.

[otlaolap]

Okay.... this was even easier than last week.
What's going on?

Every seventh month is reserved for recruitment of new addicts. It's in the FAQ.

I looked through the FAQ but could not find this -- can you please point me properly? If I knew that February weather was regularly scheduled then I would accept it quietly. Thanks.

[FatJack]

beachin'!

[Dplass]

Rita and George

You are only showing your age if you have one of these and used it in college and after. I am sure that there are many here who have no idea what it is.

IMG_2468.jpg

My dad had one of those from studying engineering!

As long as you did not say "your grandfather had one"

Sorry Bob, that's my answer...

[Ffrohbose]

We’re on the beach

[Bill Bovard]

On shore. Easy meta helped me finish the grid. I do have a degree in math but that was over 40 years ago so I don't remember much.
In my college the rich kids had HP-35's, they were about $400. I had a $90 calculator (maybe $750 now?) that just did add, subtract, multiply, divide, and maybe square root.

[mikeB]

I remember a discussion in the college cafeteria about the value of a “math background” (we meant up to calc in HS!) in other majors. Those of us with a math background said no question it was valuable to whatever we were then studying. Those who didn’t made their predictable protestations to the contrary.

I studied math at Berkeley. I considered mechanical engineering -- very interesting curriculum, but the math was way too hard, so I studied math instead.

[Joedbee]

Onshore!

[mitchel674]

On shore. Three weeks in a row for me. These easy ones are giving me a false sense of accomplishment.

[sunnyseattle]

Yay! Love the one-star metas - the only ones I can solve. Ashore!!!!

[mikeB]

Ashore. Seemed somewhat more traditional than last week's. Very fine meta.

Reflecting on my earlier post, I misspoke in using the word “traditional”. First of all, even if there were such a thing as a traditional approach to designing a meta, I would surely lack the insight needed to assess conformance. But more to the point, it seems that a main feature of these puzzles is the many degrees of freedom had by constructors – and the lack of constraints on their designs. This is one of the challenges of solving: Where to look for hints, clues, insinuations, suggestive patterns, suspicious coincidences, and so on, in the pursuit of the answer. I gather from this forum that there may be specific design elements favored by certain constructors, but a “tradition”? I don’t think so – and I hope I’m right.

[bread-girl]

On the shore! Party time!

[pookie]

I'm on the shore.

[SusieG]

I am ashore. Busy week and just had a chance to look at it. Good memories of high school math!

[Geezer Weezer]

I finally got it. I saw 95% of it, but it took me forever to stumble onto the answer. I'm not sure if there was something in the grid/clues that would have showed me the way. I guess I'll find out Monday. Meanwhile...

[John77]

Most definitely. You had your choice of K&E or Pickett slide rules. Picketts were metal and fell apart in the winters at RPI because the metal shrunk. K&E were made of bamboo and you had to carry around talcum powder because they expanded in the heat of the spring and fall at RPI and you had to keep applying the powder to allow them to slide.

Wait. You mean they didn't have batteries?

Mine did! This was a big expense in the mid-80's and lasted me all through undergrad and grad school. RPN was the best.

I gave up my Pickett (and about $100) for one of these: