#709 - “Permutation Situation”

[Joe Ross]

Wow - you people and your statistics. I am completely oblivious to all that. Is EVERYONE on this forum an actuary?

Actually? No.

[dsxwa]

Hi everyone! Could any friendly solvers offer a nudge? I appreciate it!

[DrTom]

I can hardly say I solved since it took too big nudges to (1) bring to my consciousness what I had been noticing for days (2) correct my inability to count. So the AHA was muted by my own stupidity, but at least I can now stop looking at this darn grid. Once again, I cannot believe anyone can actually make something like that without the use of alien technology or magic.

[dsxwa]

Huge thank you to the nudges, that was my first solve of a fifth week!

[ColinM]

I found the mechanism right away but I've been stuck for hours. Super frustrating to do all that work with nothing to show for it.

Thanks to the nudges of others, I gained confidence in my answer and submitted correctly. For whatever reason, I didn't find the solution to be very conclusive at all. Perhaps because the mechanism jumped out at me so quickly (for once), I was expecting more. Another possibility is that I am not terribly familiar with this particular "well-known American University". Hopefully there were some clues I missed that would have made me more certain. I'm looking forward to the official explanation.

A big thank you to those who reached out!

[MikeM000]

Submitted and awaiting the update. (Yay! 209.) Thanks to someone who sent me a clever trick for finding the one square I had wrong (hate it when I misspell Swedish women's names!).

[Jeremy Smith]

Beamed up with a boost!

[Dannyvee]

Submitted and awaiting the update. (Yay! 209.) Thanks to someone who sent me a clever trick for finding the one square I had wrong (hate it when I misspell Swedish women's names!).

Pretty sure I had the exact same mistake

[Thurman8er]

Maybe it's because I'm into my third week of vacation, but I had such a wonderful time being able to relax and find my way to the answer to this amazing puzzle.

Energize! (And I actually am energized!)

[Laura M]

Submitted! Board has yet to update. Took me a long time to zero in on the right method for this one.

[bsravanin]

I think I (vaguely) know the first step, but that's about it. Never solved a Week 5 before. Could a kind soul nudge me? Thank you!

[dk letter]

Beam me up! Thanks to a fellow muggle for verifying my solution, of which I was terribly unsure. I was convinced there must be another step to verify the answer, but I never found it.

[MikeM000]

[MikeM000]

2 notes -

Joon's commenters let the cat out of the bag at the Fiend, in case this was open until 3pm.

If I was doing this for the WSJ this week, I would not have been able to use the red bold/italic gimmick for the puzzle title.

[Joe Ross]

2 notes -

Joon's commenters let the cat out of the bag at the Fiend, in case this was open until 3pm.

If I was doing this for the WSJ this week, I would not have been able to use the red bold/italic gimmick for the puzzle title.

Matt hadn't mentioned an extension & closed down submissions at noon, ET.

Meta entry for puzzle # 709
dated: Friday, December 31
Sorry, submissions are now closed.

[BarbaraK]

As I was filling out my list of permutations, I put BLACKFOOTSIOUX in the otsi slot. Then when I got to POTSIE, I briefly wondered what was up before realizing BLACKFOOTSIOUX could (and should) also be the tsio

[MikeM000]

I did not, but I wonder if any other Michiganians sent in "That School Down South" for their answer.

[mindle]

Cool puzzle. I got to I-O-S-T, and thought of OHIO STATE, but it seemed like too much of a leap since I couldn't find anything in the grid to support it. Oh well! I'm honing my meta skills, and will be ready for the next week 5 puzzle in April!
Thank you ColinM for the nudges!

[boharr]

So no math wonder boy here, I spent the first half hour googling and trying to determine how many permutations were possible with the four letters. Factorials, huh? Then my daughter showed me I could solve that problem with one click on my phone's calculator. Who knew?

Then I spent the next year in Excel tediously recoding each permutation I found. When I got to 23, I knew I was almost there.

As for that daughter showing an interest, I gave her an easy-ish Gaffney WSJ -- Seeking Answers. She did use me as her personal Google for a couple of grid answers, but got the meta right away. And then asked if there were any harder metas. Watch out you Page One denizens. It seems there might be a new kid in town.

[MMe]

Damn.

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