"Knowledge Base" February 16, 2024

[Bob Cobb]

This is even worse than the tarot one in terms of niche knowledge.

When multiple nerds post the answer and people still don’t get it, maybe is a sign.

[shays]

We worked much of the weekend graphing (my idea; X,Y Coordinates clue) with my nerdier engineer husband’s knowledge of the base 6 (HEX) whateveryoucallit mumbo jumbo.

My husband hung in there graphing every which way til the bitter end but turns out he labeled the X,Y axis incorrectly and also put (0,0) bottom left and even top right. I gave up, changed directions and landed on HORDE exactly the way Joe Ross displayed so nicely— and I feel like I won something having been so validated . I did not submit HORDE (Def: large group of people) since my DH said there’s never been an answer in the grid like that —- is that true? Anyway, thank you, Joe. Well done, all you horde of superNERDS who solved it (and anyone who got any answer at all ). Thx for listening….

[Joepickett]

For once, I breezed through a puzzle. I'm like a broken calendar; I'm right once a year. I've loved computers and programming since I was a teen so this answer came to me easily. I'll be back to my weekly suffering on Thursday.

[chart]

The 1610 in 23A, a themer no less, may have been a subtle nod to base conversion as well.

[Mirage]

I landed on the correct beach but it was not my first landing. I recognized the importance of BE, FE, etc. and the clue for 1D and found an answer that I had misgivings about. @ship4u confirmed I was on the wrong beach but acknowledged I had the right idea but was missing step 1. I figured step 1 would lead me to the XY coordinate and attempted to find that spot by adding the hidden numbers in the answers, nea(ten), (one)sie, etc., assigning a numerical value to the two-letter clues and adding those up, and even connecting the two-letter clues in the grid with a large X. Nothing I did yielded a possible answer. Finally in desperation, I zeroed in on the SE corner of the grid because it had few black blocks, plugged in ABCDEF down 49D and ran ABCDEF across. Voila, NERDS was spelled out! Even working backwards I couldn't figure out (erroneously) how to find 49 as the XY coordinate. That's when I gave up and submitted NERDS as my answer.
An amazing construction, esoteric knowledge indeed! Kudos to all those who found the answer with the intended method.

[Colin]

I’d like to submit my vote to nominate @debbierudy’s post #222 for best limerick in a Muggle’s role!

[Joe Ross]

I’d like to submit my vote to nominate @debbierudy’s post #222 for best limerick in a Muggle’s role!

It should be framed and given a place of honor at XWord Muggles main entry!

BRAVA!

[Deb F]

I wouldn't have gotten this if I had a month! I applaud all of you who puzzled through and solved. I didn't even get to stage one so to say it was hopeless is an understatement. I don't even have a rabbit hole to submit!

A huge thanks to Don for pushing me to shore when I had given up. Needless to say, I am not in the running for a mug! The odds must be really good for a Muggle to win this week.

Good luck, all you clever Muggles. Have a great week.

[clonefitz]

20240216-WSJCC-GRA-JR-FYC.png

Wow, this looks pretty solid! Nice job! For some reason this got me thinking on a tangent: I wonder if there has ever been a puzzle that was not intentionally created as a meta, but ended up having a solid mechanism resulting in an unintended "answer".

[whimsy]

Huh... So that's all it took...

[JerryF]

Thanks for the explanations. Like others, "hexadecimal" was not included in any of my school studies.

[Katiedid]

I got it, after a slight hint to help me find the themers. I'm embarrassed that I never noticed those were two-word entries with the second word being two letters! Doh! I was just fixated on ABCDEFs in the grid, and couldn't see how to choose the right ones for coordinates. Yikes. I kind of like the meta now. I need to remind myself take notes on pencil and paper every time.

[Joe Ross]

Wow, this looks pretty solid! Nice job! For some reason this got me thinking on a tangent: I wonder if there has ever been a puzzle that was not intentionally created as a meta, but ended up having a solid mechanism resulting in an unintended "answer".

There have been a few - possibly "several" - times that WSJCC (as well as MGWCC & MMMM) has accepted multiple answers. On one MMMM, 3 (not 4) answers were accepted, including the intended.

EDIT: I am not suggesting that WSJ accept my answer. The puzzle's intended answer is far too elegant & too many clear directions were given. I offer it to @The XWord Rabbit for consideration for The Golden Rabbit Hole Award. Even there, considering competition, it's fairly weak.

I knew my answer was incorrect when I submitted it, but I was locked-in & couldn't see anything else, once I arrived there.

[rjy]

Very clever! I was looking for coordinates but missed the hex part. But… maybe it’s just the way I see things, but don’t you think the origin (0,0) should be bottom left, not top left?

Yup! Struggled with that forever. ESPECIALLY since he planted an O in the lower left, the typical position for Origin.

[Bob cruise director]

20240216-WSJCC-GRA-JR-FYC.png

Wow, this looks pretty solid! Nice job! For some reason this got me thinking on a tangent: I wonder if there has ever been a puzzle that was not intentionally created as a meta, but ended up having a solid mechanism resulting in an unintended "answer".

@clonefitz and @Joe Ross

On the WSJ metas, the alternate answers come in two forms. One is variants like on November 18, 2022 where the title was Make A Run For It, they accepted 5K or 20K or Half Marathon. Or on February 7, 2020 where the title was Continuing Education and the accepted either Mellon or Carnegie.

And then there is two different answers like July 14, 2023 where the title was Go West and they accepted Chatup or Utah

The first one that I have was June 8, 2018 where the title was Border Crossings and depending on how you did the meta you could reasonably get either the intended answer of Maine or New Mexico.

When the WSJ pulls an answer from the list, they first hope that the answer they got was the answer they intended. This is what happened in the past. When they find the statistics, if they find a large number of submissions were something else, they look into it.

[Bob cruise director]

For those of you who use Discord, I received an email this morning informing me that I had "to choose a unique username instead of using discriminators in their username". Otherwise, they will assign a username after March 4.

I do not use Discord but I have an account where my user name is Bob Cruise Director

Does anyone know what this is all about and what they want me to change?

Thanks

[Flying_Burrito]

I think it was a brilliant metas, one of the best hahas I had in a long time besides the slog through it took. The elegance of the 1D def, leading to 49D and indicating that the answer was included in a pair of x/y axes (either 62A, 68A or 71A from the double repeat of the word ROW) was a masterstroke in confirming the mechanism.

[girubato1]

As a longstanding, card-carrying member of the "solution" group, I caught the "hex" part right off. However, what I did was convert the Hex to Decimal. It gave me 5 numbers - 190,254, 173, 205, 237. Starting at the cell for the first two digits, then counting the 3rd digit number of spaces gives you STATE.
Merriam-Webster says "4a: a body of persons constituting a special class in a society" If STATE isn't a group by that definition, I'll eat my hat!
Ah well, there's always next week.

[woozy]

Did anyone try to convert 1610 to Hex to get 64A and the say "Hey! There's no 64 across!".

11 and 1960 convert to B and 7A8.

Did anyone think that maybe we get some large single multidigit hexadecimal number where each digit represents a square in a column. So for instance if the key were 743829758492754893 you'd convert it to A529D39705343CD and you'd get the answer by labeling the squares in each column from zero to 15 and taking the appropriate square from each column and reading left to right?

Actually in the end this was hardly nerdy at all as we are just continuing past 9 with letters.

[HeyMikey]

So the two-letter IT in OVERIT (14-across) wasn’t one of the themers?

I included OVER IT in my first batch of themers but my puzzle buddy pointed out the symmetrical placement of the other five entries. She also excluded IN A BAG because the 2-letter word was first, not last, and it also had no symmetrically placed counterpart. Thanks Jane.

As a NERD and a retired computer geek I'm a bit ashamed it took me so long to solve this one. In my defense, I discounted 65D HEX because I assumed it was a tribute to recently retired cryptic constructors Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, who go by the pseudonym HEX. I should have known better. The Sunday San Francisco Chronicle includes a 16x16 Sudoku puzzle which uses 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F as the cell entries.