MGWCC #768 — “Second Look”

[KayW]

Finally beaming.

Many thanks to discord and @Eckless for extracting me from my rabbit holes.

[Joe Ross]

Brought this home alone.

Pert near wicked & nasty. Chuck another couple of weeks on this meta.

oof

[Bird Lives]

Like Joe -- I can't believe I solo solved it. And in the top 100. What put me on the right path finally was recalling something about Matt's approach to crosswords.

[DrTom]

Like a fair number of our MGWCC regulars, I'm always happy to provide a glimmer in the darkness of puzzle despair, but....

These puzzles are best enjoyed (and appreciated!) like a long-simmered stew or tender-roasted, fall off-the-bone ribs, and not as a three-minute soft-boiled egg. There is an aha! moment, and it won't always come, but the simple exercise of wrestling, for a bit, develops the toolkit, and sharpens the solving skills.

TLDR executive summary: Play with these for a while, put them away, look with fresh eyes, tomorrow. Find a solving buddy, and contribute your efforts to a group solve. If you're going to spend 20 minutes, throw up your hands, and say "please nudge me!", you're cheating yourself of the joy, and, my experience suggests; you're less likely to receive helpful nudges.

Just my opinion. Some (kinder?) contributors here feel differently.

Oh, and I am not addressing this to anyone in particular.

P.S.: I can't recommend buddy solves enough. I get tremendous value from sharing my thoughts with another regular here who really makes the shared deliberations all the more enjoyable!

One of the things that often happens to me is that I get locked into an erroneous assumption and then get "gotta solve it" or "can't solve it" fever. The push to solve outweighs the logical approach to determining what you have been given and how that might lead to a solve. Sometimes you see it immediately, no matter what the difficulty level, and sometimes you do not see it at all no matter how blatant until someone says "LOOK HERE!!!"

I am often in that "gotta solve because everyone else did so it must be that I am an idiot" and stop looking and analyzing. For the current puzzle I had a lot of weird ideas at first and then I looked and said, "OK, what have I been given?". Once I did that I could focus on how to use that. The last week or so I have been pretty lucky finding the mechanism for the majority of metas. I think the difference was that (1) I gave up any thought of being an "early" solver and really just wanted to be "a" solver (2) I did not let a preconceived notion define my attempts after an initial failure. I put the puzzle down and came back to it. I am sure that will not last and I'll find somehting I can't solve and will either need help or resign myself to let it go and try to get the next one. That second mechanism is also very helpful; if you do not let your ability to solve define (in your own mind) your overall worth, then missing one is not a terrible thing, I mean I was a good student but I did not always get 100% of the questions correct.

Now, the other thing is a request for a nudge...most of the seasoned solvers will ignore a general SOS addressed to whomever might be reading the messages. That means we have to PM you and say; "Do you still need help, what have you done so far." Almost none of use will take a general plea and start providing information. We don't know if you are a serious puzzler or just someone trying their luck, A comment like "I've been looking and cannot find the answer" will prompt a "Well look harder". But if you PM us with a list of your failures, the rabbits you have chased and why, we can redirect you to the correct path and perhaps even offer some insight to make you a better solver overall. We take a "what do I have to do to solve the puzzle" much like I used to take a "what do I need to know for the test". Back when I was teaching very competitive medical and pharmacology students my answer was always something like "the accumulation of scientific literature starting from the late 1900's until today". I was much more likely to be of assistance if the question was "I am not sure why non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs affect blood pressure and renal function; I know it involves prostaglandin inhibition but I'm not clear why that affects an individual as it does?". So, make a specific request and be certain to include what you have done and why you think it did not work.

Oh, and as you might have surmised, if you ask me you must often be prepared for a loooong answer.

[Bird Lives]

I am often in that "gotta solve because everyone else did so it must be that I am an idiot"

You mean it's not just me? I guess we're the only ones.

[HoldThatThought]

I respectfully concur in part, dissent in part, and concur in the decision of my honorable colleague, DrTom

[Joe Ross]

I'd like to concur with the party of the fourth part and share a fifth with any party willing.

[Bird Lives]

I'd like to concur with the party of the fourth part and share a fifth with any party willing.

That must be one of those "worth going to" parties that Will referred to in his Sunday puzzle -- a meaning for that three-letter entry that I was totally unaware of.

[Joe Ross]

Hmm... Dare I ask (or solve)?

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

Got first part for sure....confident I will get the rest. Taking DrTom's advice and letting this percolate like an old fashioned coffee pot.

[DrTom]

I'd like to concur with the party of the fourth part and share a fifth with any party willing.

That must be one of those "worth going to" parties that Will referred to in his Sunday puzzle -- a meaning for that three-letter entry that I was totally unaware of.

Yes, my association of that word with parties is entirely different. Perhaps still fun, but different.

[DrTom]

I'd like to concur with the party of the fourth part and share a fifth with any party willing.

Well don't go to a sixth party, or make the mistake I did and go to a sith party, there were unsavory characters darthing all around the place.

[Joe Ross]

Gotch. Naboo est tabou.

[DCBilly]

Beamed up at #104, with a nudge from Sunday Zoom friends, thanks!

[Bird Lives]

Hmm... Dare I ask (or solve)?

I don't want to give away an answer, but it's only three letters
LIT

[MikeyG]

I'd like to concur with the party of the fourth part and share a fifth with any party willing.

That must be one of those "worth going to" parties that Will referred to in his Sunday puzzle -- a meaning for that three-letter entry that I was totally unaware of.

I teach Gen Z, so I did know this, haha.

[lbray53]

Confidently awaiting beam up. Stayed with granddaughters this weekend which forced me to solve on my phone. That process helped me see “the way”. Great puzzle. I can see how someone might get stuck, though.

EDIT: Beam up confirmed at #108.

[Joe Ross]

Confidently awaiting beam up. Stayed with granddaughters this weekend which forced me to solve on my phone. That process helped me see “the way”. Great puzzle. I can see how someone might get stuck, though.

Who is impressed? I am impressed!

[Cinny]

On the board. This was a tough one for me. It was a long journey through many rabbit holes

[rjy]

Ahhh! Had to put this aside repeatedly, but finally got it with fresh eyes and a second (er, fifteenth) look today. Got momentum with a confirming nudge for part of it.

Second week in a row where, after we had a few pieces, my wife guessed what turned out to be the correct answer early and declared victory, leaving me to struggle to the finish line and have to declare that she had it all along. Sheesh.