XWord Muggles Forum

Really? I wouldn't have gotten this if I had another month. Sigh.

Congrats, Emily! Enjoy!

I remained at sea. I appreciate the nudges from Bohar. I understood the directional concept but kind of fixated on there being two options for each thing (i.e. north/up, etc) and thought I was doing it wrong. I also went flying down a number of rabbit holes. I saw a lot of body parts (eye, knee, glute, tarsal, nose); letters (i.e. 'ems', tees, Essen (s, n); some random things like 'odds' and 'ends', etc. Def not my favorite this week but it's added to the bank of concepts to consider!

I see they give the full name and city of the mug winner.
Might it be better to give, say, the first name and only the first initial of last name, and city?

See where I’m going with this?

Otherwise, for those who wish to remain anonymous, our nom de Mug (or noms des Mugles) will be blown if we announce we’ve won, as many of us, rightfully, live to do.

SReh26 wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 8:27 pm I see they give the full name and city of the mug winner.
Might it be better to give, say, the first name and only the first initial of last name, and city?

See where I’m going with this?

Otherwise, for those who wish to remain anonymous, our nom de Mug (or noms des Mugles) will be blown if we announce we’ve won, as many of us, rightfully, live to do.

I have no problem with it. Then again, I have no mug either.

Tom Shea wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 9:14 pm

SReh26 wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 8:27 pm I see they give the full name and city of the mug winner.
Might it be better to give, say, the first name and only the first initial of last name, and city?

See where I’m going with this?

Otherwise, for those who wish to remain anonymous, our nom de Mug (or noms des Mugles) will be blown if we announce we’ve won, as many of us, rightfully, live to do.

I have no problem with it. Then again, I have no mug either.

I have no mug either. Just anticipating the day. When I can shout it from the rooftops.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 5:43 pm
Well yeah, except nobody bunts any more! A lost art, a forgotten tactic whose life span was shortened by sabermetrics.

Isn't that the truth. I guess advancing one base isn't worth an out.

MaineMarge wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 7:27 pm Ok people, now that we’ve had a chance to test our ability to follow directions, here are some much easier directions for you to follow to see this happen with garlic scapes in your own home.
230D7803-B8D8-4652-BFA7-D9F1553F9A53.jpeg
1. Buy any number of garlic scapes at the market. ( or cut your own)
2. Recut the ends.
3. Place in a vase or container of water
4. For the next 3 weeks watch the intricate ballet as they slowly uncurl UDLR around each other as they lengthen and head skyward.
This is a yearly joy in our house.
An August 8th photo.

Do they produce useable garlic cloves ?

OGuyDave wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 6:17 pm

CallMeShane wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 5:18 am This is a meta that fell pretty quickly if you did a frequency analysis on the theme answers.
...

Yep, I did the frequency analysis:

OGuyDave,
Super interesting. So: Each letter has a known frequency in english words; there are x number of words in the puzzle; that allows us to predict the frequency of each letter in the puzzle. Is that how it works?

What does it mean when the actual deviates from the expected? Can you say something non-random is going on? Like the words were chosen by a human?

Like others here, I tussled with ODDS and ENDS, as well as trying to authenticate cardinal – the intersection of directions with REDNESS was tempting but not sufficient. Meanwhile, even though I had the N-E-W-S-U-D-L-R, I couldn’t figure out where to apply the directions. All of this led to re-examining the clue set for hints, especially for additional redness, or birds, or baseball teams. Out popped 13-D. What made it a head-slapper was the structure of the clue, viz., not just a simple clue for ONE, but an unmistakable piece of advice (start at square one). This illustrates how the journey to the solution can change the solver: Henceforth, I will approach the clue set more mindfully from the outset. I surmise that veterans here saw 13-D immediately for what it was, because they’ve learned from experience to look for such meta-hints in the clue set. To a relative newcomer like me, this learning opportunity makes a well-crafted meta like this one much more enjoyable.

KayW wrote: ↑Wed May 12, 2021 10:07 am Today's National Limerick Day -
@Limerick Savant should come out to play
Often's the time
he creates an apt rhyme
I wonder what he'll say today?

Despite many and varied inspections
This week’s meta evaded detections
Though I’m certain that Kay
Woulda shown me the way
I’m a man! I can’t ask for directions!

My apologies to @KayW for missing her prompt to ply my wares on National Limerick Day. Who knew that there is such a thing? I hope that the above will mitigate my utter unwokeness to my heritage.

My explanation for my lapse is only that it has been a busy, eventful, and somewhat chaotic two weeks in the Savant household and I have barely found time to attend to the necessary grid solving let alone banter with other Muggles. Last week I solved and sent very last minute and this week I finished the grid early but mulled over the meta only sporadically. I first look only for compass points in the starred answers and then later realized that there were grid directions aplenty in them too but didn’t figure that I might have to use both. I also recognized the suggestion in 13D to start with square #1. I was so close but too distracted to take the time to play it all out on the grid. Oh well. C’est la vie.

Very clever puzzle. I enjoyed the challenge.

HunterX wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 1:27 pm

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 1:11 pm

HunterX wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 12:20 pm

By my calculus, too many math puns and you will loose your associative properties. Your friends will be null.

I agree but I'm only rational a fraction of the time and I am constantly inducing variables in my expressions on line. I'll often try to do four at once, though the quadratics always confuse me. But I see your point so I'll try to paly it straight and not be so obtuse next time, right!

While your comments there are integral to the conversation, I'd swear they sound familiar. They are just SO derrivative...

Well I cannot tell a Fibonacci or a Lie, there is probably a finite limit to the originality of these. I suppose Euclid try to hold me at Bayes if Euler wished, but that Conway heavily and might be difficult Fourier. Still you have the Witt to do it and this is certainly Laplace to make it happen, why I'd bet a Hamilton on you ending up being the Weiner of that pursuit. So what the Hecke, lets just raise Einstein of beer and Markov it to experience. Weyl then we could go Turing and find some Newton to visit, or perhaps just sit around and sing home on Lagrange by the campfire? We might even entice the Limerick Savant to help us with the Reimann?

There’s a website that will do the letter frequency analysis in a crossword grid:

https://boisvert42.github.io/mechapuzzle/

It needs a .puz file, which for WSJ, Martin posts:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=671

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 10:50 pm

MaineMarge wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 7:27 pm Ok people, now that we’ve had a chance to test our ability to follow directions, here are some much easier directions for you to follow to see this happen with garlic scapes in your own home.
230D7803-B8D8-4652-BFA7-D9F1553F9A53.jpeg
1. Buy any number of garlic scapes at the market. ( or cut your own)
2. Recut the ends.
3. Place in a vase or container of water
4. For the next 3 weeks watch the intricate ballet as they slowly uncurl UDLR around each other as they lengthen and head skyward.
This is a yearly joy in our house.
An August 8th photo.

Do they produce useable garlic cloves ?

Dr. Tom, I’ve never tried to plant any of the seeds that will be spurted all over the floor as the seed heads mature to that eventually if I’m not tuned in. I just save some of each year’s cloves to plant in the fall.
Why don’t you go for it!!

Well, this broke a pretty nice streak I had going. Back to "square one" this week.

anaerobe wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 11:25 pm

OGuyDave wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 6:17 pm

CallMeShane wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 5:18 am This is a meta that fell pretty quickly if you did a frequency analysis on the theme answers.
...

Yep, I did the frequency analysis:

OGuyDave,
Super interesting. So: Each letter has a known frequency in english words; there are x number of words in the puzzle; that allows us to predict the frequency of each letter in the puzzle. Is that how it works?

What does it mean when the actual deviates from the expected? Can you say something non-random is going on? Like the words were chosen by a human?

Hi anaerobe.

I found a .pdf from a Butler University site that lists the letter frequencies from a very large number of crossword puzzles, and incorporated that into my program. This may differ, but probably only slightly, from the frequency of all words, written and spoken.

Not sure about your second question, but when actual deviates greatly from expected, like it did in this crossword puzzle, it usually means that it was intended by the constructor.

I thought this was an excellent puzzle, and really enjoyed it!

Initially, I was struggling as some others were, too focused on the NSEW directions and unable to see UDLR! Dan gave me a nice hint to free my mind enough to see them. I thought it was pretty good — “how would you explain to someone how to get to the basement bathroom?” Got MEANDERS after a few more tries, unsure about using both sets of directions at once and also not entirely sure of the starting point.

Once I got the answer, I had a strong feeling that it had been the answer to a previous meta puzzle I’d done. Couldn’t come up with it, but the July 2019 MMMM was sort of close. And maybe why I was so locked into NSEW? It was called “Follow the Directions!” and the answer turned out to be: THE WANDERER. Links to the puzzle and the Crossword Fiend write up are below.

https://pmxwords.com/july-mmmm-7/

https://crosswordfiend.com/2019/07/07/m ... ta-july-4/

Looks like I will probably miss tonight's Zoom. I hate to miss two weeks in a row. I will try to get in before the end, but if not, I look forward to seeing y'all next week.

I should know how to find this, but what is the zoom link?

Thanks!

Hector wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 7:19 pm I should know how to find this, but what is the zoom link?

Thanks!

Just type in 891 843 670 93

Password "muggle"

I think the link might be in Come Aboard: YourPalSal's Muggle Meetup - Zoom Tuesday Evenings

hcbirker wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 7:24 pm

Hector wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 7:19 pm I should know how to find this, but what is the zoom link?

Thanks!

Just type in 891 843 670 93

Password "muggle"

I think the link might be in Come Aboard: YourPalSal's Muggle Meetup - Zoom Tuesday Evenings

It's also on our calendar (upper right)...