MGWCC #763 - "Not for Nothing"

[Katiedid]

Beamed up now. #51 It was more difficult than the WSJ for me. I really liked it.

[Meg]

OK, that was hard! To see. But I have beamed.

[boharr]

Beamed.

[Laura M]

Beamed up, #53! Felt more like a week 3, and definitely harder for me than the WSJCC, but these things are highly subjective of course.

[HunterX]

I'm in the camp of "It's harder than the WSJ," but that's because I solved the WSJ and I haven't gotten past step 1 with the MGWCC.

Lots of ideas (that haven't panned out) though.

[MikeM000]

Nope...WSJ was way easier than this....

[Tina]

Got it, I think. Week 2.5 IMHO. I made an erroneous connection during the solving process that derailed me for a while. I'd be interested to see on Monday if anyone else did this too. Can't say any more now.

[woozy]

Nope...WSJ was way easier than this....

They are both damned hard.

But this one is more frustrating because I can see step one, then two, and step three of this and I can feel clever at that and know with 100% certainty I am correct and then.... get non-sense. And weirdly useless non-sense at that.

With the WSJ one, I can't even get step 1.

[dudeski]

WSJ was easier IMHO

[HoldThatThought]

One of those puzzles where you solve it, and then you say to yourself, "jeez, I've developed some bad solving habits".

(I also made a sloppy scrivener's error that sent me to uh..the wrong place altogether. Nothing more needs to be said about that).

[woozy]

Whoa!

Not a scrivener's error exactly but a knowledge bank missing file and a bad patching job.

Turns out I was right about the mechanism from the beginning. I'd call this a lenient 3 or a pretty hard 2; about a 2.7... had I not made the error.

But with the error.... a week 7.

EDIT: Beamed in at #98

[benchen71]

Confidently waiting for beam up. Nice one!

[schmidzy]

It's nice for a rookie like me to hear that even many of you more experienced solvers are finding this and the WSJ difficult— this weekend is making me feel like I'm losing my touch. I woke up this morning with an epiphany to what I'm certain are the next few steps, but alas, still leading to a brick wall.

[lbray53]

Waiting for beam up but this is a lock. I had a nagging thought floating around in the back of my mind since early yesterday but could not make sense of it. It finally floated into view like the answers in the old "Magic 8 Ball". I really like this puzzle.

EDIT: Beam up confirmed!

[HunterX]

Woke this morning and realized two things:
1. I had too many cocktails last night and wasn’t thinking straight, and
2. I should have seen this one sooner, having made a dumb interpretation previously.

Then, similar to a few of you, I made a scrivener’s error, which was due to a lack of knowledge, and had to back-solve a little.

Live and learn.

And let’s hope that aphorism applies to #1 above as well. (At least on those weekends when I still have a meta-puzzle to solve.)

[HoldThatThought]

Listen and learn from this cautionary tale, boys and girls, lest you find yourself charged with SWI.

Look your bartender straight in the eye, and say "No, thank you. I have a Gaffney to solve."

[Berto]

I feel like the young man in that far side cartoon “School for the gifted.” Fortunately @Wendy Walker pointed out I was pushing when I should be pulling and voilà, everything fell into place.

Now back to the weekend!

[DCBilly]

Thanks to a helpful nudge/confirmation, finally beamed up at #121. Had an error probably similar to previous posters; resolved by backsolving, staring at something, and asking the Internet.

[schmidzy]

D'oh! I nearly had it all along. Awaiting the beam, but certain it's correct. I do have a complaint about a particular red herring I suspect caused many of us some pain, but nonetheless a very satisfying puzzle.

[edestlin]

Confident I'll be beaming up shortly, after a nudge that helped me see step 2.