"Factored Out" March 29, 2024

[Sleepy]

Did I miss it? Anyone win a mug this week?

[OohLaAHA]

Kas 5 for me.

I tried many things looking at it off and on over the weekend, but I had problems understanding the instruction in 34A. I was unable to grasp how eliminating everything else that was not prime, could somehow not be equivalent to keeping everything that was prime. So even when the solution was published, eliminating all the letters in 1A, wiping out the first letters of 2D and 3D, just felt wrong.

I was also disturbed by the hint wording “is certain property”. It sounds a little like Tarzan-speak to me, as opposed to “a certain property”. But then, when the answer turns out to be plural, “a” would make it mismatch.

This was one of only a few rare occasions since 2015 when I could not even muster up a suitable wild guess, so did not submit any answer this week.

I am impressed with the final solution, I’m sorry I couldn’t see it. Getting the MMMM fairly quickly yesterday made me feel better, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s WSJ contest puzzle!

Just one of those weeks where I keep re-reading the hints brings to mind the following quote.

———————-

 “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
 “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
 “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”

Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass

My sentiments exactly! Thanks for expressing them so eloquently. This is my first time on any message board, and you all have seemed so supportive of each other that I was surprised to feel a lack of sympathy for those of us who couldn't quite wrap our heads around this one at first. (I finally figured out how to attach this.)

[mconte.wsj]

Hi all, Mike Miller is out on vacation this week, so I'm here to share the good news. Congrats to this week's winner, Joe Maher from Grand Rapids, MN!

[Joe Ross]

I didn't notice anyone with a lack of sympathy for non-solvers.

If it has ever happened, it's very rare.

[Bob cruise director]

Hi all, Mike Miller is out on vacation this week, so I'm here to share the good news. Congrats to this week's winner, Joe Maher from Grand Rapids, MN!

Could you get us the statistics? Last time Mike went on vacation, the statistics were lost. Number of submissions and percentage correct.

Some of us are nerds keeping track of such things

[Tom Shea]

I didn't notice anyone with a lack of sympathy for non-solvers.

If it has ever happened, it's very rare.

As one of those [all too frequent] non-solvers, I must concur.

This is definitely a place where people are sympathetic/empathetic for fellow travelers.

For the record, I was hopelessly lost on this one.

Also, I never begrudge anyone for getting the answers I would never be able to find. (looking at you, Mr. Grandmarshall of the parade )

[flyingMoose]

Hi all, Mike Miller is out on vacation this week, so I'm here to share the good news. Congrats to this week's winner, Joe Maher from Grand Rapids, MN!

Number of submissions and percentage correct.

Or number of submissions and number of correct submissions even. We can figure out the percentage.

[Merry Potter]

Hi all, Mike Miller is out on vacation this week, so I'm here to share the good news. Congrats to this week's winner, Joe Maher from Grand Rapids, MN!

The conspiracy deepens: another winner from MN! M is the 13th letter- a prime number!

[OohLaAHA]

I didn't notice anyone with a lack of sympathy for non-solvers.

If it has ever happened, it's very rare.

I realize I didn't express myself very well. I didn't mean sympathy for non-solvers, I meant sympathy (or empathy) for the struggle of trying to understand the solution, especially as published in the WSJ. I was one of the people who could only make sense of the solution by figuring out the intersection of the prime-clued entries. Later, I was able to understand the crossing out of the non-prime entries first. Understanding the solution did not come easily to me at all. Oh, well, on to the next one.

[Susan Goldberg]

So, is it just me or does it seem that 2024 seems to have ushered in a raft of more challenging puzzles. Did these guys get together and decide they had made things too easy for us? Anyway, I’m still at the bar…

I rate each on a difficulty from 1 to 4, just because I really love data, haha. Average rating for 2023 is 2.3 (roughly 2.2 for Gaffney, 2.4 for Shenk). I have an average of 2.7 for Q1 in 2024. I make these ratings somewhat arbitrarily, so nothing is official, but what you said seems that way a bit thus far!

Aha! At least I feel a little less crazy!

[BarbaraK]

Hi all, Mike Miller is out on vacation this week, so I'm here to share the good news. Congrats to this week's winner, Joe Maher from Grand Rapids, MN!

Could you get us the statistics? Last time Mike went on vacation, the statistics were lost. Number of submissions and percentage correct.

Some of us are nerds keeping track of such things

I asked Mike, and he said

“we had 524 entries, 70% correct”

So no ugly hole in our spreadsheets