Tag: Issue in a modern remote work setting crossword clue

Bill’s time: 10m 08s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A ___ Plateau, home to the tomb of King Khufu : GIZA

Giza is located on the west bank of the Nile, about 20 km southwest of Cairo. The nearby Giza Plateau is home to some of the most amazing ancient monuments on the planet, including the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx.

Cheops is the name used by the Greeks for the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu. It was Cheops who had the Great Pyramid of Giza constructed.

15A “Dios mío!” : AY CARAMBA!

“Caramba” is an oath uttered in Spanish. Apparently, it’s a softer version of a more vulgar word.

18A Mounted warrior skilled in martial arts : SAMURAI

Samurai were noble military officers in medieval and early-modern Japan who served particular clans and lords. Originally known as “bushi” in Japanese, the term “samurai” was introduced into the English language in the early part of the 18th century.

20A Retired pro wrestler Flair : RIC

Wrestler Ric Flair’s real name is Richard Fliehr. Perhaps following the lead of his compatriot Jesse Ventura, Flair explored the possibility of running for governor of the state of North Carolina.

22A Guard for some time? : RENT-A-COP

“Rent-a-cop” is a derogatory term for a security guard. The phrase was used in 1988 as the title for a much-panned comedy-action film starring Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli. Minnelli was named Worst Actress at the 1988 Golden Raspberry Awards for her performance in “Rent-A-Cop”, and also for “Arthur 2: On the Rocks” that came out the same year.

27A Unit whose name derives from the Latin word for “heat” : CALORIE

I wish we’d stop using the term “calorie”, because it is so confusing. In terms of physics, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius (at one atmosphere of pressure). The so-called “food calorie” is one thousand times as large, as it is defined in terms of kilograms instead of grams. In attempts to differentiate between these two definitions, the former is sometimes referred to as the “small calorie” and is given the symbol “cal”. The latter is referred to as the “large calorie” and given the symbol “Cal”, with a capital C. If only we’d use the SI system of units, we’d be thinking in just joules, instead of large and small and food calories.

38A Rock musician Bob : SEGER

Bob Seger struggled as a performing artist right through the sixties and early seventies before becoming a commercial success in 1976 with the release of his album “Night Moves”. Since then, Seger has recorded songs that have become classics like “We’ve Got Tonight”, “Like a Rock” and “Old Time Rock & Roll”.

42A England’s George V vis-à-vis Russia’s Nicholas II : COUSIN

King George V was ruler of the United Kingdom during WWI. It was George V who changed the Royal Family’s name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, creating the House of Windsor in 1917. He did this in response to anti-German feeling in Britain during the war.

The last ruler of Imperial Russia was Tsar Nicholas II (of the House of Romanov). Famously, the Tsar and his family were murdered in 1918 in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg, Russia by members of the Bolshevik secret police. The Tsar’s youngest daughter was 17-year-old Anastasia and rumors of her escape have persisted for years. The rumors grew with the help of numerous women who claimed to be Anastasia. In 2009, DNA testing finally proved that the remains of all of the Tsar’s immediate family, including Anastasia, have been found and identified.

44A Good places for a deep dive into research? : SEALABS

SEALAB I, II and II were man-made habitats built by the US Navy designed to advance the technology needed for humans to live and work underwater for extended periods. SEALAB I was lowered to a depth of just under 200 feet off the coast of Bermuda in 1964. Four divers (“aquanauts”) stayed in SEALAB for 11 days, before the experiment was halted due to the approach of a tropical storm.

46A Recollection, say : ANECDOTE

An anecdote is a short account of an event, usually something amusing. The term “anecdote” ultimately derives from the Greek “anekdota” meaning “things unpublished”, or more literally “things not given out”.

48A Primates found only in and around Madagascar : LEMURS

Lemurs are unusual-looking creatures that are native to the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa. With their white fur and dark eyes that are very reflective at night, they have a “ghostly” appearance. Indeed, the animals take their name from Roman mythology in which “lemures” were spirits of the restless dead.

Madagascar is a large island nation lying off the southeast coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The main island of Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo).

51A Explode, as a paintball : GO SPLAT

The “paint” in paintball isn’t actually paint, but rather a mix of gelatin and food coloring.

58A Excessively greedy : RAPACIOUS

The adjective “rapacious”, meaning “predatory”, derives from the Latin “rapere” (to seize).

59A Berkshire town : ETON

Berkshire is a county in England that is referred to as one of the “home counties”. The home counties are those that surround the city of London, outside of London itself. “Home county” is not an official designation but has been in popular use since the 1800s. The list of home counties usually comprises Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

61A Spanish muralist José María ___ : SERT

José María Sert was a painter of murals from Barcelona. He was a good friend of fellow-artist Salvador Dalí.

Down

1D Kitchen brand inspired by 18-Across : GINSU
18A Mounted warrior skilled in martial arts : SAMURAI

Ginsu knives are more famous for their hard-sell television ads than they are for their efficacy in the kitchen. The Ginsu phenomenon took off in the seventies when two brothers found a set of knives called “Eversharp” that were being manufactured in Ohio. The brothers changed the brand name to something more exotic, and Japanese in particular (Ginsu), and then produced ads that made references to Japanese martial arts. I think they made a fortune …

5D Garment worn with a bodice called a choli : SARI

A choli is a blouse worn by women in the Indian subcontinent. It is a relatively short garment, and is usually worn along with a sari.

6D 365th out of 365, in brief : NYE

New Year’s Eve (NYE)

9D Honey is high in this : FRUCTOSE

Fructose is also known as “fruit sugar”. It is commonly found in plants, and is the most water-soluble of all sugars. Many of us consume a lot of “high-fructose corn syrup”. This is a sweetener made from corn starch that is a mixture of glucose and fructose. The natural ratio of fructose to glucose is altered to produce a sweeter syrup by chemically converting much of the naturally occurring glucose into fructose.

11D Yogis’ utterances : OMS

“Om” is a sacred mystic word from the Hindu tradition. It is sometimes used as a mantra, a focus for the mind in meditation.

12D Purple drink ingredient at a boba tea shop : UBE

Ube is a species of yam that is purple in color. I’m a big fan of ube ice cream. Yam-flavored ice cream; what’s not to like?!

Bubble tea, sometimes called “boba tea”, is a tea-based drink from Taiwan. The “bubbles” are chewy tapioca balls that are usually added to the drink.

19D Animated 2011 film set in Brazil : RIO

“Rio” is a 2011 animated movie about a male blue macaw (Blu) that is brought to mate with a female blue macaw (Jewel) in Rio de Janeiro, hence the movie’s title. Fans can also see “Rio 2”, which was released in 2014.

23D Wong of Netflix’s “Beef” : ALI

Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian from San Francisco who is a protégé of Chris Rock. She made two very successful Netflix stand-up specials “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife”, and also worked as a writer for the hit sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat”.

24D Shoot the breeze : CONFABULATE

“Confab”, meaning “chat”, is a shortened form of “confabulation”. The word “confabulation” derives from the Latin “com” (together) and “fabula” (a tale). “Fabula” is also the root of our word “fable”.

25D Philosophy of “Keep things simple,” in a sense : OCCAM’S RAZOR

Occam’s Razor, properly attributed to William of Ockham, has roots in earlier philosophical thought. The principle, which states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected, can be traced back to Aristotle’s “Physics”, in which he writes “Nature operates in the shortest way possible”.

30D “Julius Caesar” role : CASCA

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the 15th (the ides) of March, 44 BC. He was attacked by a group of sixty people in the Roman Senate, and was stabbed 23 times. The first to strike a blow was Servilius Casca, who attacked Caesar from behind and stabbed him in the neck. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Casca utters the words “Speak, hands, for me!” just before making the fatal blow. The following line, uttered by Caesar, is more famous though: “Et tu, Brute?”

35D Shimmer colorfully : IRIDESCE

Something that is iridescent like an opal (i.e. opaline), has a lot of lustrous colors. “Iridescent” comes from the Latin word “iris” (“iridis” in the genitive case), the word for “rainbow”.

36D Hello or goodbye, abroad : SHALOM

“Shalom” is a Hebrew word meaning “peace” that is also used to mean “hello” and “goodbye”.

45D ___ Bleus, nickname for France’s World Cup team : LES

The French national soccer team usually wear red, white and blue colors, a nod to the nation’s tricolor flag. The team’s nickname is “les Bleus” (the Blues). Fans are often heard chanting “Allez les Bleus!” meaning “Go Blues!”.

49D What might go straight to the heart? : STENT

In the world of surgical medicine, a stent is an artificial tube inserted inside a vessel in the body, say an artery, in order to reduce the effects of a local restriction in the body’s conduit.

52D Monodrama that debuted in 1989 : TRU

“Tru” was written by Jay Presson Allen and is a one-man play about Truman Capote that premiered in 1989. There is a classic anachronism in the piece. It is set in Capote’s New York City apartment at Christmas 1975. At one point the Capote character talks about suicide, saying that he has enough pills to stage his own Jonestown Massacre. The Jonestown Massacre didn’t happen until three years later, in 1978.

53D Country ___ : HAM

Country ham is a variety of cured and smoked ham produced in parts of the Southeast, the most famous of which is probably Virginia ham, with Smithfield ham being a premium variety from the town of Smithfield in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. The Virginia General Assembly passed a statute in 1926 defining a “Genuine Smithfield Ham” as one processed, treated, smoked, and cured exclusively within the corporate limits of Smithfield for a minimum of six months.