"Factored Out" March 29, 2024

[Tom Shea]

Late start, late reporting.

Happy Easter (or what's left of it)

On the ship with Isaac. More sushi tonight. With sake.

[ELSavage]

I didn't make it home in time for the Zoom call, but if anyone is still looking for a nudge, you can PM me.

[Laurab]

Ashore!

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 127 on the shore and 19 on the ship.

and welcome to our newest muggle @ArthurD Great to have another muggle.

And for those asking about the hardness of the last several weeks, there are several metrics that I keep that indicate that the metas since August have been, on average harder than in the past.

The WSJ had been averaging about 1800 submissions per week. That has dropped to about 1300 per week.
The number correct on average had been about 1400 per week. That has dropped to about 1000 per week
The percentage correct has not changed very much during that time period

[Deb F]

Count me LAS. Pre-occupied with guests this weekend but doubt I would have succeeded with this meta anyway. Having a glass of wine anyway. Thanks, Isaac.

[LadyBird]

I have been pulled ashore, thanks to the Last Call zoom helpers (so no mug submission this week). After batting zip for the past 3 weeks, I am renaming my ship. The Good Ship Lollipop is now named after another sucker--the Good Ship Dum Dum!

[JRS51]

I was hopeful that I could solve in these last few hours, but so far nothing. And I had been so encouraged by my success with the challenges of the last two weeks. . .

[Katiedid]

Thanks for the late nudge ElSavage. It was a workout, but I'm ashore!

[Libbypibby]

On the boat tonight. Alas.

[hcbirker]

[Bob Cobb]

Got tired of trying to use drawing tools on screenshot on phone to cross out everything. Became a huge mess so gave up. Annoying.

[C=64]

Oh, Mike meant everything else. Darn.

[Flying_Burrito]

Played ad nauseam all sort of prime number games, but never thought about doing the intersections b/n prime number answers. 27A (divide into thirds) also threw me off as I divided the grid into 3 pieces (after all the clue was in a 15 letter answer made of 3 words and there was a 15 in spanish somewhere across).

Kudos to solvers. I think the mechanism was solid and intrinsic enough to throw me off (but not my favorite to be honest) so I am going to live and learn.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

There are two ways to describe the solution:

The easiest way to explain, but the way that takes the most ink and work: Cross out all answers whose clue numbers are not primes.

The way that takes the least work, but is more difficult to explain, and therefore seems somewhat arbitrary: Circle all the grid letters that sit at the intersection of an across and down answer with prime clue numbers.

Yes, we didn't have to do any actual factoring to get the answer. But I interpret the title "Factored Out" as "If the answer has a clue number that can be factored, take it out of the grid".

[mheberlingx100]

I went through various machinations before hitting on the right solution. One was picking the first letters of clues that 1) were primes and 2) had a prime number of letters in the clue. The resultant letters anagrammed into Plant Asset. Intriguing, but not straightforward enough to stop working on it.

[Mister Squawk]

Every time I fail to find the answer I try to analyze why...

This time it was because eliminating all the nonprime-numbered answers is not the same as preserving all the prime-numbered answers.

A reminder that instructions and clues, especially from Mr. Shenk, are typically quite LITERAL.

(Much time spent doing things like taking all of the grid answers with a prime-numbered length (HAL, ARITH, etc) and then computing the prime factors of the answer"s number, then using those as indices into that row's letters.)

[femullen]

Ashore! Only took me two days to realize that the hint meant X' and not X.

Ultimately, a fair and even clever installment, though I don't like the title.

Me neither. The title sent me down the deepest rabbit hole ever. I prime-factored every number in the grid and built groups of letters from composites and their primes. Nada. I convolved groups. Nil. Surely the Lambert W function would do it. Not! Hit the right method by accident and out of desperation. And I was angry that there was no factoring required at all.

[femullen]

I have been enjoying this delightful little book of poems written by our friend @femullen and recommend it to all for a very pleasant read. Keep 'em comin', Frank!


muggle.jpg

@ship4u, I appreciate the plug. You and @Bob cruise director are sympathetic critics. I can only quote from the introductory verse in reply:

The writing gave joy to the poet who will,
If readers enjoy it, be happier still.

Thank you.

[schmidzy]

Every time I fail to find the answer I try to analyze why...

This time it was because eliminating all the nonprime-numbered answers is not the same as preserving all the prime-numbered answers.

A reminder that instructions and clues, especially from Mr. Shenk, are typically quite LITERAL.

...

Your comment is what finally made me understand why this puzzle was fair. I saw way too strong of a nudge on Discord and so didn't submit, but it'd been bothering me all weekend how "take the intersections of the highlighted prime numbered answers" could fit with either the title, prompt, or central clue.

[Joe Ross]

A reminder that instructions and clues, especially from Mr. Shenk, are typically quite LITERAL.

Amen.

I wasn't thinking that Mike Shenk is literal in his metanisms, but I did take this meta's literally.

First, it helped that I solved using the spreadsheet, which allows for quick highlighting & UNhighlighting. It takes me longer to complete the grid on the spreadsheet, but I don't have to refill the grid after solving using PUZ or online forms.

34A's PRIME REAL ESTATE meant the GRID to me, since it involves AREA. I started with the grid squares with prime numbers, only, which yielded gibberish.

Rereading the clue, "(so maybe eliminate everything else)" told me to include all of the squares of the prime numbered entries, so there'd be something to "remove."

Then to "eliminate everything else" meant to me to remove all (everything else) squares within entries without prime numbered clues, both Across and Down.

WOW. So simple, but almost diabolical.

Yet another exceptional puzzle from Grandmaster Mike Shenk! I can see having this concept going in and I know Mike has incredible experience, but how long must it have taken him to make this work? Hopefully, @MikeMillerwsj will report with these details or will convince Grandmaster Shenk to post his process, here.