1014-23 NY Times Crossword 14 Oct 23, Saturday

Constructed by: Byron Walden
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: Mid-Aughts

Themed answers each include a synonym of “AUGHT” as a hidden word, right in the MIDDLE:

  • 60A Part of the George W. Bush era … or a hint to part of 18-, 26-, 38- and 46-Across : MID-AUGHTS
  • 18A Almond confections : MARZIPANS (mid-ZIP)
  • 26A Fried turnovers from southern Italy : PANZEROTTI (mid-ZERO)
  • 38A Champaign region : EASTERN ILLINOIS (mid-NIL)
  • 46A Oscar winner for “The Accidental Tourist” (1988) : GEENA DAVIS (mid-NADA)

Bill’s time: 15m 55s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Residence for a parson : MANSE

A manse is a minister’s home in various Christian traditions. “Manse” derives from “mansus”, the Latin for “dwelling”. The term can also be used for any stately residence.

6 Fictional character who cries “I am madness maddened!” : AHAB

Captain Ahab is the obsessed and far from friendly captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”. The role of Captain Ahab was played by Gregory Peck in the 1956 John Huston film adaptation. Patrick Stewart played Ahab in a 1998 miniseries in which Peck made another appearance, as Father Mapple.

14 Single source? : ALBUM

The Latin word “album” translates as “white”. Back in the 17th century, public notices and lists of names were written on a board painted white, or in a souvenir book with white pages known as an “albo” (from “album”). Over time, the term “album” came to be used in English for a blank book created to collect signatures or other mementos. By the end of the 19th century, albums were used to collect photographs. The term “album” was applied to long-playing gramophone records in the early 1950s, because the record sleeves resembled large photographic albums.

17 Animal with fused toes on each hind paw, used for grooming its coat : KOALA

Koalas are not bears, but are marsupials, which means they carry their young in a pouch.They are known for their diet of eucalyptus leaves, which are toxic to most other animals. To cope with this, koalas have a special digestive system that allows them to break down the toxins and extract the nutrients from the leaves. Koalas are one of the sleepiest animals in the world, sleeping up to 20 hours a day. This is because eucalyptus leaves provide very little energy.

18 Almond confections : MARZIPANS

Marzipan is a scrumptious confection made from almond meal sweetened with sugar or honey. The former English name was “marchpane” meaning “March bread”. We now use the term “marzipan”, which is the German name.

21 Chain with a mansard roof in its logo : PIZZA HUT

Pizza Hut started out as a single location in Wichita, Kansas in 1958 and is now the world’s largest pizza franchise. Pizza Hut claims to be the world’s largest user of cheese, consuming 300 million pounds every year. The chain buys 3% of the cheese produced in the US, which means that 170,000 American cows are producing milk for Pizza Hut alone.

A mansard roof is a type of hip roof with two slopes on each side. The lower part of the roof has the steepest slope and is penetrated by several dormer windows. The style of roof takes its name from the French Baroque architect François Mansart.

22 Auto-correction? : UEY

Hang a “uey” or “uie”, make a u-turn, make a 180.

23 Cooper’s product : KEG

A cooper is a craftsman who makes wooden vessels, such as barrels. The term “cooper” ultimately derives from the Latin “cupa” meaning “barrel”.

35 “Round cleans better” sloganeer : ORAL-B

The Oral-B toothbrush was introduced to the world in 1950, designed by a California periodontist. The first “model” was the Oral-B 60, a name given to reflect the 60 tufts in the brush. In 1969, the Oral-B was the first toothbrush to get to the moon as it was the toothbrush of choice for the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

38 Champaign region : EASTERN ILLINOIS

The Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area is located in Illinois, southwest of Chicago. Champaign-Urbana is home to the flagship campus of the University of Illinois.

43 Shiraz and others : REDS

The Iranian city of Shiraz has long been associated with wine, but there is no proven link between the city and the wine/grape we know today as “Shiraz” (also called “Syrah”). Having said that, some clay jars were found just outside of the city of Shiraz that contained wine; wine that was 7,000 years old!

44 Home to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s “Talk to the People” program : WNYC

There are two WNYC radio stations, both of which are based in New York City. Both stations (one AM, and one FM) are in the National Public Radio family.

Fiorello La Guardia was the Mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945, racking up three full terms in office. The famous airport that bears La Guardia’s name was built at his urging, stemming from an incident that took place while he was in office. He was taking a TWA flight to “New York” and was outraged when the plane landed at Newark Airport, in the state of New Jersey. The Mayor demanded that the flight take off again and land at a small airport in Brooklyn. A gaggle of press reporters joined him on the short hop and he gave them a story, urging New Yorkers to support the construction of a new commercial airport within the city’s limits. The new airport, in Queens, opened in 1939 as New York Municipal, often called “LaGuardia” as a nickname. The airport was officially relabeled as “LaGuardia” (LGA) in 1947.

46 Oscar winner for “The Accidental Tourist” (1988) : GEENA DAVIS

Hollywood actress Geena Davis established the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004 after noticing the lack of female characters on television shows while watching with her young daughter. According to Davis:

The fact is women are seriously underrepresented in nearly all sectors of society across the globe, not just on screen, but, for the most part, we are simply not aware to this reality, and media images exert a powerful influence in perpetuating our unconscious bias.

“The Accidental Tourist” is a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler. The book was famously adapted into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance).

51 This might come with breakfast in bed, in brief : TLC

Tender loving care (TLC)

52 Brisbane-to-Sydney dir. : SSW

Brisbane is the capital city of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is named for the Brisbane River, which flows through the city. The river in turn is named for Scotsman Sir Thomas Brisbane who was the Governor of New South Wales in the 1820s. General Douglas MacArthur made Brisbane his headquarters after being forced out of the Philippines during WWII.

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia. People from Sydney are known as “Sydneysiders”.

60 Part of the George W. Bush era … or a hint to part of 18-, 26-, 38- and 46-Across : MID-AUGHTS

An “aught” is a zero. The term can be used in the context of dates as in “the aughts”, the years 2000-2009. I’ve also heard those years referred to as “the noughties”.

63 Slangy “treatment” for a disturbing visual : EYE BLEACH

“Eye bleach” is a slang phrase often used in online forums and chat rooms for images or videos that are intended to cleanse the mind of something unpleasant that has been seen. The term can be used to describe a wide variety of content, such as cute animals, funny memes and nature scenes.

64 Singer Cleo with Grammy nominations in jazz, pop and classical : LAINE

Cleo Laine is a jazz singer from England who is noted for her remarkable range of nearly four octaves. Laine is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in each of the classical, jazz and popular music categories. My favorite of her recordings is “He Was Beautiful”, which is also known as “Cavatina” and is a version of the theme from the film “The Deer Hunter”.

66 World capital where Al Jazeera is headquartered : DOHA

Doha is the capital city of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The name “Doha” translates from Arabic as “the big tree”.

Al Jazeera is an independent news service owned by the state of Qatar. Since 2006, Al Jazeera has been broadcasting an English language channel, hiring many top journalists from American news outlets. “Al jazeera” is Arabic for “the island”.

Down

10 Main ingredient in a Thai som tam salad : PAPAYA

The papaya (also “papaw”) tropical fruit is native to Mexico and South America. When cultivating papaya trees, only female plants are used. Female plants produce just one, high-quality fruit per tree. Male plants produce several fruit per tree, but they are very poor quality.

The dish usually listed as green papaya salad on menus in Thai restaurants in North America is referred to as “som tam” in Thailand. Som tam really goes for all of one’s taste buds, as it includes sour lime, hot chili, savory fish sauce and palm sugar for sweetness.

13 Sibilant summons : PSST!

“Sibilant” is a lovely word that describes a sound of speech, i.e. the sound of an “s” or “z”, a hissing sound. The word “sissies”, for example, has three sibilant sounds.

16 Name at the heart of civilization? : LIZA

The name “Liza” is found at the heart of the word “civilization”.

24 “Club” member in a hit 1985 adventure comedy : GOONIE

“The Goonies” is a 1985 movie based on a story written by Steven Spielberg. It is an adventure film, with the title characters being a group of young treasure hunters from the fictional Goon Docks neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon (hence the movie’s title). I haven’t seen this one …

29 Roster for William Morris or Creative Artists : TALENT

William Morris was a German immigrant who started out in business in New York City as a Vaudeville Agent. He grew his business by encouraging his clients to branch into the up-and-coming media of silent movies and radio. The William Morris Agency represented many of the great stars of the day, including Al Jolson, the Marx Brothers, Mae West and Charlie Chaplin.

32 “I call dibs” : THIS IS MINE

The phrase “to have dibs on” expresses a claim on something. Apparently, the term “dibs” is a contraction of “dibstone”, which was a knucklebone or jack used in a children’s game.

33 Adoption of the International Radiotelegraph Convention in 1906 : SOS

The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots). That said, in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so “SOS” is really only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are back-formations that were introduced after the SOS signal was adopted.

40 Major PBS funder, for short : NEA

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an agency funded by the federal government that offers support and financing for artistic projects. The NEA was created by an Act of Congress in 1965. Between 1965 and 2008, the NEA awarded over $4 billion to the arts, with Congress authorizing around $170 million annually through the eighties and much of the nineties. That funding was cut to less than $100 million in the late nineties due to pressure from conservatives concerned about the use of funds, but it is now back over the $150 million mark.

45 Wrinkly-skinned fruit : CASABA

A casaba is a type of honeydew melon that ripens relatively late in the season, and so is classed as a winter melon. The casaba takes its name from the Turkish city of Kasaba, from where the fruit was imported into America in the late 1800s.

47 1980s sitcom puppet : ALF

“ALF” is a sitcom that aired in the late eighties. The title character is a hand-puppet, and supposedly an alien named Gordon Shumway from the planet Melmac. The alien crash-landed into the house of amateur radio enthusiast Willie Tanner. Tanner renamed the intruder “ALF”, standing for “alien life form”.

53 Gangbusters, in old slang : T-MEN

A T-man is a law-enforcement agent of the US Treasury (“T” stands for “Treasury”).

55 Shangri-la : EDEN

Shangri-La is the earthly paradise in the mountains of Tibet described by James Hilton in his novel “Lost Horizon”. Shangri-La is “edenic” (perfect, like the Garden of Eden from the Book of Genesis). Frank Capra directed a wonderful screen adaptation of “Lost Horizon” in 1937 starring Ronald Colman.

56 Onetime labor and transportation secretary Elaine : CHAO

When President George W. Bush appointed Elaine Chao as Secretary of Labor, he made a bit of history as Chao became the first Chinese American in history to hold a cabinet post. It turned out that Chao became the only cabinet member to hold her post for President Bush’s full eight years in office. In 1993, Chao married Mitch McConnell, the Republican Leader of the US Senate.

61 With 65-Across, “Born to Hand Jive” group : SHA …
65 See 61-Down : … NA NA

Do you remember the band “Johnny Casino & The Gamblers” in the movie “Grease”? That was actually the real-world group named Sha Na Na. Johnny Casino & the Gamblers sang “Those Magic Changes” at the high school dance, in between “Rock’N Roll Is Here to Stay” and “Hound Dog”. Sha Na Na got together in the sixties, hosted the variety show “Sha Na Na” from 1977 to 1981, and are still performing today.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Residence for a parson : MANSE
6 Fictional character who cries “I am madness maddened!” : AHAB
10 Question persistently : PUMP
14 Single source? : ALBUM
15 Checks or balances, say : REGULATES
17 Animal with fused toes on each hind paw, used for grooming its coat : KOALA
18 Almond confections : MARZIPANS
19 Last : ENDURE
21 Chain with a mansard roof in its logo : PIZZA HUT
22 Auto-correction? : UEY
23 Cooper’s product : KEG
25 Woman’s name that sounds like a letter of the alphabet : KAY
26 Fried turnovers from southern Italy : PANZEROTTI
30 P.R. people: Abbr. : AGTS
34 Walk way? : GAIT
35 “Round cleans better” sloganeer : ORAL-B
37 “Looky here!” : OHO!
38 Champaign region : EASTERN ILLINOIS
41 Punnery, e.g. : WIT
42 Keep cooler? : RE-ICE
43 Shiraz and others : REDS
44 Home to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s “Talk to the People” program : WNYC
46 Oscar winner for “The Accidental Tourist” (1988) : GEENA DAVIS
49 ___ moment : AHA
51 This might come with breakfast in bed, in brief : TLC
52 Brisbane-to-Sydney dir. : SSW
53 What barflies hit : THE SAUCE
58 “Turn around so I can see you” : FACE ME
60 Part of the George W. Bush era … or a hint to part of 18-, 26-, 38- and 46-Across : MID-AUGHTS
62 Synonym for “seeing red” whose name derives from a shade of blue in Latin : LIVID
63 Slangy “treatment” for a disturbing visual : EYE BLEACH
64 Singer Cleo with Grammy nominations in jazz, pop and classical : LAINE
65 See 61-Down : … NA NA
66 World capital where Al Jazeera is headquartered : DOHA
67 Flat bottoms : SOLES

Down

1 Blush, e.g. : MAKEUP
2 1972 Gilbert O’Sullivan hit with the lyric “Left standing in the lurch at a church” : ALONE AGAIN
3 Boston in the ’60s or Chicago in the ’90s, e.g. : NBA DYNASTY
4 Recipient of the first Vulcan nerve pinch on the original “Star Trek” : SULU
5 Professional concerned with search engine optimization : E-MARKETER
6 Word with band or candy : ARM-
7 Supply in abundance : HEAP
8 Business opening? : AGRI-
9 Major downer : BUZZKILL
10 Main ingredient in a Thai som tam salad : PAPAYA
11 “Riders of the Purple Sage” setting : UTAH
12 Course catalog? : MENU
13 Sibilant summons : PSST!
16 Name at the heart of civilization? : LIZA
20 Poetic contraction : E’ER
24 “Club” member in a hit 1985 adventure comedy : GOONIE
27 Minor blemish : ZIT
28 Instant : TRICE
29 Roster for William Morris or Creative Artists : TALENT
31 The ultimate struggle : GOOD VS EVIL
32 “I call dibs” : THIS IS MINE
33 Adoption of the International Radiotelegraph Convention in 1906 : SOS
36 Live tweets? : BIRDCALLS
38 [Gag] : [EWW]
39 Tested, as a cask, to see how much whisky remains : REGAUGED
40 Major PBS funder, for short : NEA
45 Wrinkly-skinned fruit : CASABA
47 1980s sitcom puppet : ALF
48 More than 7% of Minnesotans by ancestry : SWEDES
50 Spoils : HAUL
53 Gangbusters, in old slang : T-MEN
54 “Howdy!” : HIYA!
55 Shangri-la : EDEN
56 Onetime labor and transportation secretary Elaine : CHAO
57 Chisel, in a way : ETCH
59 Analogue of “aloha” and “shalom” : CIAO
61 With 65-Across, “Born to Hand Jive” group : SHA …

26 thoughts on “1014-23 NY Times Crossword 14 Oct 23, Saturday”

  1. Can someone pls explain these connections to me?

    60A Part of the George W. Bush era … or a hint to part of 18-, 26-, 38- and 46-Across : MID-AUGHTS

  2. 27:07 after fixing one of those “meant to take another look at that and forgot” errors that plague my online solves. I used NIT instead of ZIT, giving me PANNEROTTI instead of PANZEROTTI, neither of which rings a bell for me (or for the spell checker here … 🙂); I thought it was somehow off, but forgot about it until a split second after filling the final square. And then I forgot to look up PANZEROTTI, which I was curious about; I’ll do that now. And … I did … and … it’s kind of like a CALZONE. Meh … 🤨.

  3. 30:09, and same as Dave. NIT instead of ZIT. Tough start for me. After a bunch of flailing, finally got a foothold in the SE quadrant. Geez!

  4. 38:27, no errors. MID-AUGHTS is one of those terms which seem to show up only in crosswords.

  5. 55:53, but with the way Saturday puzzles have been going for this month, I’ll take it!!

    Interesting ad inserts in the blog today, had to explain to my spouse that I didn’t search, or click on, “Naughty Weather Girls” 🙂

  6. In the print edition of this puzzle, the clue for 16D was – “Cabaret” name – . Still LIZA, of course. Don’t know if online clues often/ever diverge from clues in the actual paper.
    And Bill, ‘Goonies’ is a terrific movie, though it’s been years since I’ve seen it.

  7. I like today’s puzzle, theme was tasteful and understated, and it was a good mix of words I liked, like ‘manse’ which I haven’t seen in awhile, and I like Geena Davis, Italian food (pizza/panzerotto), and Star Trek. A puzzle that mentions the Vulcan nerve pinch is all right in my book. Not so much a fan of ‘eww’ which I messed up but apparently that is the spelling of that exclamation in the dictionary.
    Also liked Thursday’s puzzle. Friday’s was one of the easier Friday’s though not to say easy.

    May not always post to the blog but will probably continue posting the videos/stats, to my rumble account, except I’ve found it more efficient to post in batches rather than every day.

    Thursday’s result:
    Boxes: 222/225
    Time: 1:10:46 (3 errors).

    Friday:
    Boxes: 224/225 .
    Time: 17:58 (1 typo).

    Saturday::
    Boxes: 221/225.
    Time: 43:48 (4 errors).

    Stats for the week Oct. 8 – 14.:
    Boxes: 1774/1791. Total time: 3:53:50 (17 errors). 1% error rate.
    Last week Oct. 1 – 7:
    Boxes: 1781/1791. Total time: 3:57:16 (10 errors). 0.6% error rate.
    Higher error rate than usual this week than last but I liked the puzzles.

    1. I’ve found it more efficient to post in batches rather than every day.

      Indeed. I definitely got burned out this week, between most of the puzzles I do being harder than average this week and some other stuff. I did get bored and tried to find some “fringe” stuff like the ACPT and Bosword samples.

      But a lot of it is time it takes to process/upload videos, too. About an hour doing that today for the NYT and the LAT. Probably more efficient for me to do them in batches too, but at the same time it takes so long to do anything with them while I’m doing other stuff on my computer. Then I’d just forget uploading them at all.

      If I ever got where I could get a mic and a good internet connection, I definitely think of just live streaming everything I do every night, but not sure how much is really worth doing, especially since it seems to be easy to hit a personal limit on it. But yeah, the “Is it worth it?” question just keeps coming into my mind…

      1. @Glenn
        Guess you could ask that about a lot of things. “Is life worth living?” LOL. Camus calls that the only serious philosophical question in the The Myth_of_Sisyphus. For that matter doing the crossword is a kind of a Sisyphean, or tedious, task to do day in day out. Is it worth it? Well it’s more enjoyable than pushing a boulder up a hill

        I like having the video recording if nothing else for the heck of it. Also I like the stats and posting them made it easy to enter the numbers on a spreadsheet as I got the idea of doing. Like to see if errors/time reduce over time or not with experience.

        The upload time does not take long but it’s fewer times to click and also I found they can be appended easily in one longer video if desired with a few clicks (much longer for me than you lol). I don’t pretend they have any viewing value just like keeping the record and dumping it.

        On that note I saw an interesting comment on a blog that said the reason the NYT doesn’t have leaderboards is cheating to be in the top scores would be rife and there would be no way to prevent it. Not sure if that’s true not but I just like having a record of every keystroke in the solve, or attempt, which speak for themselves, good, bad or ugly. Not that it matters in the scheme of things how I did on a crossword or anyone else cares.

        I stumbled on those ACPT samples and found them interesting because I thought those tournaments were only done on paper. It was a good experience because although I did the 1st Monday-like one with a few min. to spare, I only got 84-86% of the boxes completed, and correctly, in the time allowed for the other two. So if I was ever wondering at all, which I wasn’t, if I’m at any level to enter one of those, or even close, now I know. I wanted to see though for the heck of it and also how they scored them. I saw your results for that which were awesome.

        I had a heck of a time getting my mic to work but so far haven’t said anything lol. I have nothing to say. Not to give unsollicited advice but I know what made the difference for me (I have an old computer) was finding and installing an upgraded driver for the sound card. Once you do that you may see a device called stereo mix in your control panel sound setting and then you should be in business. If you have a brand name computer you should find the drivers on the company’s website. If you have a clone you may have to go into your device manager and see what sound card you have.

        If you have something to say, who knows? You may have an audience of cruciverbalists who want to hear commentary from an expert. I did watch one once of a guy doing a solve of an NYT puzzle and he had thousands of subscribers.

        1. I think I’m recording for mostly the same reasons as you. I don’t record anything in spreadsheets though, other than certain puzzle sets that are of particular challenges (Andrew Ries or Fireball Crosswords being prime examples). I purchased them, too, so I usually intend on retrying them at certain points so I can compare. Of course, I can get a general idea of where I’m at over the years too. As you’ve gathered, I’ve repeated a few of the NYT freebies and I compare the current ones to my comments on Bill’s blogs then – and get disappointed because it’s no better or even worse. I definitely am reminded that I’m nowhere near “expert”.

          That said, I do think I’m in a place where I could help on an instructional light to those trying to get where they can get better. Slowing down and using a mic would help, but I found mine was broken, so have to wait until I can buy a new one. I will say the videos help me too as I can go back and try to see what I did to make certain errors – whether it was typos/overwrites, or real errors I made.

          Re NYT and leader boards: They do have those for the Mini puzzles, but you have to be subscribed to the app to see it, I think. That said, leader boards are gamed to cheat everywhere, and it’s definitely frustrating to literally ace a game like speed solitaire (best I can tell anyway) and then see I fall about half-way short of what the leader boards are saying. If it’s me, I sure don’t know what I could do to get higher scores, but it is what it is.

          Re ACPT: The real competition is done on paper, but they have the online adjunct for people that want to play along that can’t show up in person. It’s another revenue source they tap into for the entry fee, but they don’t count those against the real contest. Same goes for the “play from home” option, which I did once. Now there’s others that have online parts that actually do count – I actually entered one during COVID. It was fun to do, and I would think showing up in person would be (Bill can tell you more, as he did enter an ACPT once), but I want to be more respectable than I am (think errors, it’s definitely embarrassing in a way with such an environment) before I put in the money/effort to physically attend.

  8. Have to say this was quite a blog read from @nick and @glen. You guys are on a whole different passion level. It’s a little mind boggling for me to think back to the early days of my crossword experience to now.

    For today,.. I persevered. Could not give up on this one. I used my “experience” to guess at points. Well over an hour to finish but I finished… NO ERRORS! WOW!
    All the z’s and even the “aught” reference. I impressed myself… for now. I’ll be humbled soon enough.

    1. 👍
      “I impressed myself… for now. I’ll be humbled soon enough.”
      Well said. I know the feeling.

      1. @Mike To add to your thought, I’m sorta waiting for the Puzzle from Hell, the Mother of All Stumpers, to come along any day and make me quit the habit for good.
        Congrats on your solve.

        1. TBH, I’ve encountered quite a few Mother of all Stumpers, including today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, over my time. But it’s just a reminder I still have a lot of room to improve. But nice in a way to be able to actually stick out something, even if it takes an hour or two of real clock time.

          1. Yeah the Saturday Stumper is in its own category as a skull cracker and makes no bones about being such. I meant more an NYT Puzzle from Hell. That might be less likely since they are designed to be more “solveable” for a wide audience but it could happen, subjectively, and has come close a few times.

          2. @Nick
            You will hit a random NYT Puzzle From Hell every once in a while. Like the Rachel Maddow one I referred to once (which wasn’t the second time I did it), or this one, which was the last of that variety. (Even saved a copy of it to try again one day.)

  10. This may get some attention LOL, and possibly piss some off.

    For laughs I created a demoscoreboard, from available sources, for this weeks’ posted results. Anyone who posted their result anywhere this week even once, is included.
    NOTE: I omitted Sunday due to the anomaly with that one (different puzzle for NYTer’s and syndicated solvers).

    Or if you prefer not to click on a link on a file-sharing site , here’s an image instead.

    Both the image and the file will be deleted in 5 days. This is all based on publicly voluntarily posted info so I considered it fair game. Apologies in advance if I missed anyone’s post or got their results wrong. I also realize some may not have posted yet for today. It’s just a demo.

    On my rumble site I posted a demo of the calculator and there’s an updated link to the demo calculator itself as well there which is good for 5 days as well before getting deleted.

    If there was no mention of errors, it was assumed there were 0 errors, per the definition provided in the calculator I shared last week. That can be referred to as posted a week ago but it included a score of 0 for look-ups or after-the- -fact error corrections. There was one case of an admitted after -the-fact error correction in the results posted, but I scored it as just 1 error to be nice— and it’s just a demo.

  11. Got the ZIP/ZERO/NIL/NADA but couldn’t quite plug it in to 60-A which,
    with a few other blanks, gave me a DNF in the southwest.

  13. Newsday’s “Saturday Stumper”: 2:49:03 (wall-clock time, over breakfast, and including necessary walk-aways), no errors. I would agree with others that the puzzle was very difficult.

    Yesterday’s Tim Croce puzzle: 1:12:28 (again, wall-clock time, including a phone call and necessary walk-aways), no errors. Also difficult (but not like the “Stumper”).

    Having a stubborn streak a mile wide is not always a virtue, but it sometimes pays off … 🙂.

  14. Thanks I hated it
    I am now madness maddened
    SE mistakes “The booze” instead of sauce
    “eye stench” instead of bleach
    And Bush era = mid aughts? Oh please. How about Iraq war or mission accomplished?

Comments are closed.