Too many names. And Names should NOT cross with names.
@Alex I agree. It says explicitly in the NYT rules for crossword creation that proper names should NEVER cross. This whole puzzle felt like a cheat to me, with all the proper names (and so many were vague unknowns), and the nice long spans were too easy, more of a Monday level. Meh. I’m not a fan.
Editors - The answer key link goes to a puzzle from 2018.
An alternate answer key was posted in the comments last night. Here it is again. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=11/15/2024" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=11/15/2024</a>
Good one. Some of the longer entries have a similar in-your-face, faintly antagonistic tone that might be the result of Ms. Abidi's recent move to New York: I can see you / Ever heard of it? / You're not wrong / Don't tell me -- the sort of tete-a-tetes New Yorkers enjoy with a bit of mano a mano. According to xwordinfo, before going to the Big Apple, Abidi worked here in Pittsburgh at Duolingo, a language-training software company based here that is very successful, especially, I understand, in helping people become proficient in French, which may explain the presence of tete-a-tetes, oiseau, tres, genre, soupcons, ogre, and (with a bit of stretching) the expatriates associated with Paris, Anais NIN and GERTRUDE Stein (who was as fluent in French as in English) along with native Francoise SAGAN, whose "Bonjour Tristesse" is smashing. Ever heard of it? Maybe I have to move to New York, too, get a thicker skin: EARLY VOTER actually made me REACT. Why, oh why did he have to RERUN?
@john ezra Regarding your last paragraph... Bonjour tristesse: never have two words been more à propos.
@john ezra (2nd attempt) Regarding your last paragraph... Bonjour tristesse: never have two words been more à propos. . . . . . .
@john ezra There is a movie of that title (David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Jean Seberg) .... very well done, but tragic.
The conversational phrases were my favorite part of the puzzle. They made it feel comfy. And, it turns out, they gave it pop, as four of them – EVER HEARD OF IT, I CAN SEE YOU, I’VE GOTTA GO, and YOU’RE NOT WRONG, have never appeared in the NYT crossword before. It’s sweet when just one chatty debut appears in a grid, but four? Alina has a talent for this. A pair of happy PINGs were triggered by answers. • When I filled in ICE BOX, I instantly flashed on my great-grandma Ethel, who never said “refrigerator”; it was always ICEBOX. I adored Grandma Ethel, so my heart melted when this answer showed up. • IDEMPOTENT drew out another mathy word that has slumbered in my memory for decades – “asymptote” – a word that made me smile when I met it in high school because it looked and sounded cool, and it made me smile again today. Lovely PuzzPair© in OISEAU and UP IN THE AIR. I also liked seeing the mini-word-ladder of LACE / LUCE / LUTE. So, coziness, warmth and pleasure abounded in the box today, and I’m filled with gratitude for this puzzle of yours, Alina. Thank you!
@Lewis - Yes, ICEBOX was known to me, too, because, like you I'm old. But it's even worse in my case. If there was an actual ICEBOX that morphed into a refrigerator during my childhood, I never noticed the difference. My parents always said "It's in the ICEBOX", so that's what I've always said too. Both in 1950 and maybe as late as 2000. I said it until someone corrected me at some point, I don't remember when. But I wish they hadn't. "Refrigerator" takes too long to say and "Fridge" makes me cringe. I hate it just as much as I would hate "telly" and "brolly" if I were a Brit. "Fridge" somehow sounds subliterate to me. But ICEBOX -- now there's a strong, simple, beautiful word that says it all -- even if it isn't quite accurate. It's a BOX of sorts and it contains ICE. That's close enough for me.
I might buy a helium balloon. It's up in the air. (What's the burst that could happen?)
Half the time people complain when a US-based puzzle is too US-centric. Now someone experiments with the use of a first-month-of-class French noun and everyone loses their minds. There’s no pleasing this comment section at all. Cheers to anyone trying to make a crossword puzzle these days.
I agree with you. I have crocheted for 50 years. I’ve even made lace once. It is NOT an intermediate skill. It’s really advanced and hard.
@Virg I've never crocheted in my life. It sounded wrong to me too. :) Lace just SOUNDS difficult on the face of it, and by appearance. Seems obviously hard. ___________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Just a few words of praise for the Customer Care Team, the folks (mentioned atop this comments column) who to contact if you're having a technical or other issue regarding the NYT puzzles. Twice now they've restored my streak, when for good reason I couldn't solve the puzzle digitally on the app for a period of days (but solved it in another way). Not only did they restore the streak, but they were kind and personable in our conversations. It's a good group.
I loved this puzzle! My view of crossword puzzles: everyone has a different wheelhouse. When a puzzle contains a bunch of things I don't know, I try to learn those things. Sometimes I have to look a thing up (and learn even more about it) to solve the puzzle. This is all good. The point of Friday and Saturday puzzles is to challenge solvers, even long-time solvers. So thank you, Alina Abidi, for teaching us a few things from your wheelhouse!
@JR - I think some people are offended if the puzzle includes anything they didn't already know. Some even insist that anything they didn't already know is simply wrong AND that nobody else knows it, either, even if other commenters point out that this is something they've known for years. These complainers should probably stick to Mondays. I think some other people's joy comes from ripping the puzzle and the constructors and editors to shreds. They are very disappointed if they cannot find some ridiculous thing to complain about (even if their complaint, 99% of the times, is invalid). They also get VERY upset if you dare to point out how ridiculous their complaint is. It's a bit like those folks who can now be found just about everywhere, especially online, who accuse you, if you criticize what they say, of "violating their First-Amendment right to free speech." They seem to think the first amendment guarantees that their speech will be immune from criticism. Comments made here are as open to criticism as the puzzle is. Many people don't seem to understand that.
@JR Honestly, while I do not know much about pop culture post, say, 1995, I am actually glad there are such clues since it means that the CW might continue to draw younger users, which also means the CW will be around for a long while. If it was all stuff that I knew, not only would it not be a challenge but it also could lead the Times to decide to let it die off. I know, the chances of it happening are slim -- but not that long ago the idea of a good-sized city not having a daily newspaper seemed slim, too, but here we are.
@JR I’m new to crosswords and this is the first time I’ve read comments about any crossword. I had no idea how much whining people did. lol. I don’t mind looking things up, “checking” the puzzle, and even sometimes having squares revealed. I like learning words I’ve never read before, learning fun facts, and especially being exposed to all the various clever constructions of the puzzles. It can be frustrating but I reckon it’s all part of the learning process. Crosswords are their own language in a way. As long as the clues and answers make sense, I’m content with it.
Cache eviction and idempotency in the same puzzle? Nice. It almost makes up for "teraflop" (different constructor) from a while back. Remember: there are only two difficult problems in computer science: naming things, knowing when to clear the cache, and fencepost errors. As an avid thrower it's always nice to see yoyo in the grid too!
@Bunny “fencepost error” is a term I had somehow never heard! I’ve always heard/used “off-by-one errors” to close out that joke (which is an absolute classic, btw). Anyway: 👋from another member of the crowd for whom EVICTS and IDEMPOTENT were total freebies.
@Bunny As indicated by Man and 2 dogs, this was a new term for me as well. TIL, it relates to the problem of, “If you build a straight fence 30 feet long with posts spaced 3 feet apart, how many posts do you need?” (Answer is 11). Evidently a fence post error occurred with the Julian calendar, originally having a leap year every three years instead of every four. I think programmer Phil Karlton originated the quip about computer science difficulties. Another version of the joke is for the two kinds of problems: 0. cache invalidation 1. naming things 47. asynchronous callbacks 2. off by one errors
I enjoyed the puzzle as it unfolded and the constructor’s comments are delightful! I hope she enjoys her subway riding and finds lots of solvers to surprise.
Ugh. Nasty puzzle today. So much name trivia. And the answer key I get is from 2018.
@Andy Agreed. I think it's bad form to have names (or foreign terms) either adjacent or crossing.
As an algebraist, I was thrilled to see IDEMPOTENT in today’s puzzle! Also enjoyed the other lively entries. A quick solve for a Friday, but very enjoyable!
Interesting puzzle. Usually, I look to easy short fill to set me up for the longer entries. Today, the longer entries came easier than most of the crossing fill. I'll take the BLINI with [caviar].
"The Internet, ...EVERHEARDOFIT?" This was my favorite clue and answer, because it's an expression that is easy and obvious to use, but hard to eloquently define. I'm often trying to explain phrases like this to my friend who is trying to master English. "Facetious question after mentioning something well known," is such a clean, concise, and perfect description. Love it. Excellent Friday.
I didn't have to wrestle with this Friday puzzle, which possibly means that many will have found it straightforward. Is it bad that I would prefer to stoke my own EGO and think I was on the constructor's wavelength? I hope not. Whatever the case may be, I had an enjoyable time, which I like to think is ultimately what really matters. Thank you, Ms. Abidi!
Little-known secondary meaning of IDEMPOTENT: Unused for decades, yet still available for instant recall when required in a crossword puzzle.
@Cat Lady Margaret Seems like one of those things that always required an explanation that is easier than having used the stupid thing in the first place. Rachael Ray used to say, every time, "EVOO, that's Extra Virgin Olive Oil". Why bother?? A bit too much esoterica in this one, although personally idempotent was the only one I didn't know. Not the worst puzzle, I guess. Maybe could have used some serious re-editing. ___________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Until the link is corrected, you can see the answer key here: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=11/15/2024" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=11/15/2024</a>
Tough one for me and had to cheat a bit to get through it, but some nice 'aha' moments when I finally had enough crosses to work something out. And then... with apologies, this is completely off-topic but something that dawned on me this morning. A movie scene that seems just incredibly appropriate at this moment in time in this country. Let's not give up. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM</a> We'll be back. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Thank you, Rich. Some of the younger solvers may not realize that Casablanca came out while WWII was still blazing, the fall of 1942. Some of the actors in that scene were French refugees, including the tearful 20 year old woman (Yvonne Lebeau) who shouts “Vive La France! Vive La democratie!” at the end. “As it turns out, Lebeau herself had fled Nazi-engulfed Europe with her Jewish husband, Marcel Dalio, who plays Emil the croupier at Rick’s Café and who was already famous in Europe for his winning performances in Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion (Grand Illusion, 1937) and La Règle du jeu (Rules of the Game, 1939). In an ugly turn, close-ups of Dalio, taken from those films, were appropriated on anti-Semitic Vichy propaganda placards. Shortly before the German invasion of Paris, Dalio and Lebeau made their way to Lisbon, that prized destination for languishing refugees in Casablanca, and from there, using forged visas, secured passage on the S.S. Quanza, a Portuguese ship carrying hundreds of émigrés to the New World. Landing in Mexico, they were able to get temporary Canadian visas and, with them in hand, crossed the border to California and eventually to the back lot at Warner Bros.” <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/winter/feature/in-casablanca-madeleine-lebeau-became-forever-the-face-french-resistance" target="_blank">https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/winter/feature/in-casablanca-madeleine-lebeau-became-forever-the-face-french-resistance</a> Thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for the nice background. Who knows if it will survive the upcoming Vichy regime.
This puzzle is terrible. Friday's are usually my favorite. I don't appreciate all of these French terms intersecting with random names and words like idempotent. No one uses the word evict in programming BTW. Do I need to become fluent in other languages to solve these now? Certain other sections were too easy. An unbalanced slog.
@Michael Your post almost reads like parody - French is in the NYT puzzles a LOT - but I agree with some of it. On to better days. Until January at any rate. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Michael I don't know, I feel like I've heard "evict" before. But it was not the first thing that came to mind. I think "oiseau" was a little much as far as French goes. Usually the French/Spanish words are more common words like "to be" "that" etc. I knew almost all the proper nouns and was very pleased with myself but felt while doing it that it would be annoying for many people / if I hadn't happened to have read the books.
@Michael YOU'RE NOT WRONG about OISEAU, but the rest of the puzzle was delightful. TETE A TETE is a well-known phrase in English. As for random names, Donna TARTT is a Pulitzer-winning author, Rooney MARA is a famous actress, and CARL SAGAN an even more famous scientist, author, and television personality. I don't believe it's asking too much of solvers to know any one of these people.
@Michael “No one uses the word evict in programming BTW.” I wonder what could have made you confidently issue that claim…which is 100% incorrect. I’ve heard and used the term “evict” countless times in the context of caching.
@Michael Every caching algorithm I've encountered talks about its eviction strategy?
Obscure proper names? By Christina Iverson “Why do you allow so many obscure proper names? For me, it detracts from the solving experience because it is completely random. I have no problem with popular slang, even if I don’t use it.” — Steve Immelt From Christina: [see my previous comment] A small European town with the population of 2,000 is probably a “who cares,” unless there’s a significant historical event that took place there. The name of an author who won a Pulitzer could be in a puzzle, even if the editors weren’t familiar with it. Similarly, an actor who has been a minor character in five movies doesn’t feel especially important, but someone like AYO EDEBIRI, who had a major breakout role in “The Bear,” feels worth including in a grid. When we allow names that seem on the difficult side, we generally try to make the crossing entries fair. Why do we allow proper names at all? If we limited grids to just words, there are far fewer possible entries to use, and grids would start to feel the same. Allowing constructors to highlight people or places makes puzzles feel more colorful and full of character. They can put references in the grid that reflect their tastes and people or places they care about.
One of those lovely puzzles you just work on steadily and it all comes together in one session ... just under 26 mins. Perfect for a Friday, and a great way to start the weekend!
I spent decades in computer programming and never heard "evicts" in reference to a cache. Funny the things you learn doing crosswords.
@Mr Dave Cache Eviction strategies (i.e LRU, MRU etc) is a commonly used terminology.
@Mr Dave -- It was unfamiliar to me, too. Checking Google Scholar, cache eviction apparently came into more common use in the past couple of decades; there are only a few dozen hits before 2000. Technical language changes, I guess.
Thought this was appropriately tough for a Friday, but was surprised to see I’d hit a new personal best when the bell rang! 15 minutes. Others will surely scoff that this is what qualifies as a Friday record, but I’m feeling good.
This gets a big thumbs down from me. Felt like I was breezing through it, 16 minutes with a few squares to go in the SW corner. Another 5 minutes before I had to click Check Puzzle. Using such obtuse cluing for EVICTS crossed with a French word I've never heard of (and I'm very well versed in most French culinary terms), along with two proper nouns, bad news
@Steven M. Over here, learning French is (maybe was) a compulsory subject. OISEAU would have been learned in the first month.
@Steven M. Dude, you give up too easily. Crosswords are a great place to learn foreign words. It seems like just ayer that I learned the Spanish word for yesterday.
@Steven M. @Steve from London I guess the OP is unfamiliar with this delicious veal dish, the recipe for which I have linked below. It is oiseaux sans tetes, usually referred to in English as “little birds without heads”. My French is good enough that this was a complete gimme, but I really think London Steve exaggerates about this being a first-month word in intro French. We were too busy learning things like, “my name is, how are you, I’m fine, what day is it, what time is it, etc etc”. Certainly not this word! See this delicious recipe: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/mrx88s8w" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/mrx88s8w</a>
Mon Dieu! C’était beaucoup de Français! (No complaints.) And here I thought my husband made up the word “automagically”. Hmm. Guess I’ll have to sit in on some of his programmer meetings to see what other cleverness I am mistakenly crediting to him. (On the other hand… programmer meetings? Nah. I’m good.)
I sailed through about 2/3 of this but struggled mightily with the other third. Still, I worked it through with one exception. I finally needed to look up to find why I didn't get the happy music: Tad and dING over in the middle of the right side. Ah, TIP, of course. I must have thought of every alternative except that one. Originally, I'd entered PING, which made me think of Tsp But even though I didn't know the actress's name, I was pretty sure it wasn't sMAN and aMAN sounded reasonable. Ah, well! Still pleased that I worked through a lot of other stuff that I didn't know with patience and crosses. (Every time I hear or think the word patience now, I think of the TV show Ghosts.... And I like to vocalize it. Anyone, anyone? 😂) Enjoyed all the vocalizations and the 9D clue for WASABI and 6D for YOYO were extra great! ☺️ A nice puzzle to pass time on a road trip I don't really want to be on. Cheers to a great weekend! 🍸🍸
IDEMPOTENT is such a good word. A crossword full of tech, math/science, and female authors is about as "in my wheelhouse" as it gets. So much fun to feel like I'm breezing through a Friday, and so many great entries! Thanks Alina, this was my favorite puzzle I've done in a long time!
So I complete the puzzle on my phone an dit doesn't congratulate me. I come back later, it says 100% completed. I check my answers and can't find an issue. Decide to hit the tipping point and peek at the answers. The answers that come us are from August 15, 2018!!! Different puzzle. Now that's puzzling...
@PK I think the tech strike is still going.
Like a typical Friday, the first pass fills in very little, but things slowly fall into place. I finished within seconds of my Friday average. It seems like 25D / 34A is the epitome of a Natick: a crossing two unfamiliar proper names. And 45A will always remind me of Mamet... it's on Netflix for a couple more weeks. Clip NSFW! <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/wn5yyGOZSww?si=Tq4GExbTmgqPOLf_" target="_blank">https://youtube.com/shorts/wn5yyGOZSww?si=Tq4GExbTmgqPOLf_</a>
@Michael Weiland Aaah, Glengarry Glen Ross! I'll have to watch it again as all I remember is having been deeply saddened by the pathos that Jack Lemmon's acting chops brought to his character. Thank you for letting me know it's leaving Netflix soon. I'm on it!
@Michael Weiland Actress Rooney is very well known - to me anyway, so not a natick. But yeah, I wanted Franklin to be Kirk, but knew that couldn't be it.
@Michael Weiland I see the Natick Police 🚓 have arrived, and everything is under control.
My take on proper names. The problem, as ever, is not that there are too many (or too few), it's a case of what one knows and what one doesn't. So, from my perspective, today: CARL SAGAN: too easy for a Friday Kara SWISHER: too obscure, any day of the week (Thank God for crosses) MARA Rooney: Just Right!! (She was in that "Tattoo" movie, wasn't she?) Of course, this is purely *my* take on things today, but I'm curious if others agree.
@The X-Phile I agree. Not the type of proper names but the obscurity and quantity of them. Too many!
@The X-Phile I think this just reveals that proper names’ difficulty will always be subjective. I’d say Kara Swisher is extremely well known, but that’s just because I know her from countless podcast appearance. Whereas every time Anaïs NIN comes up (constructors sure do love her!) I need to rely entirely on crosses. P.S. For me, Rooney MARA is “too easy for a Friday”, and I would have clued it in a way that required more knowledge of her filmography. But others will rightly disagree, because this is all subjective.
@The X-Phile Kara Swisher is a successful, celebrated and award-winning journalist. She is enormously influential in the tech world and had a cameo on the HBO Show Silicon Valley as herself. Obscure to you, but not to the tech, marketing and business worlds. But such is the nature of crossword “obscurity”… it depends on age, interests and profession.
@The X-Phile Kara SWISHER used to write for the NYT -- seems like a perfectly valid entry for a NYT crossword.
Not that I was gonna use it 👀 but the answer key linked in this column is mislinked to a key from August 2018.
I finished this one surprisingly quickly considering that I was watching the Eagles - Commanders game while doing it. Puzzles like this one, with lots of multi-word phrases, are not my favorites, especially if the phrases are relatively vanilla. However, I did like seeing the word SOUPÇONS pop up. It was nice to see ERMA Franklin get a shout out. Toiling her whole career in the shadow of sister Aretha she’s largely overlooked, but was a fine singer in her own right. Adding insult to injury, her best performance, Piece Of My Heart, was overshadowed by Janis Joplin’s powerful cover.
@Marshall Walthew SOUPÇONS is a great word to see in the grid. I don’t know anything about ERMA Franklin’s music, but I almost knew the name. I was positive it was spelled IRMA, because it seems like every time the puzzle has ERMA, the clue is about Ms Bombeck.
@Marshall Walthew I enjoyed the musical history lesson. TIL Aretha had a sister. And Joplin's classic "Piece of My Heart" was a cover. Thanks for the 411!
@Eric Hougland That’s any easy enough mistake to make. I used to confuse Erma Franklin with Irma Thomas, the Soul Queen of New York Orleans.
I love a snarky puzzle I can relate to Oh it's a little thing called __, EVERHEARDOFIT? You can just hear the sarcasm I love how the clue for Donna TARTT referenced The Secret History, my all time favorite book (which has yet to be made into a movie) and not The Goldfinch (which was made into a big movie). All true puzzlers can relate to having said "I can figure it out!" DONTTELLME!
"Answer keys? We don't need no stinkin' answer keys!"
@Barry Ancona The people who don’t get that reference are probably the same people complaining about all the Naticks in this puzzle.
@Barry Ancona Movie night at Rich in Atlanta's?
re. obsolete tv terms. Does any one else remember ‘give it time to warm up’?
Peter G. Nice memory :) “Perfect! Don’t move!” (while holding rabbit ears) (…and the little white dot at the end of the world) .
@Peter G. - I fondly remember the warm smell of old television sets.
@Peter G. I still remember putting tinfoil on the rabbit ears to get better reception. Never worked. I also remember trying to watch soft porn on early cable between the intentional scrambled rolls.
@Peter G. I remember pulling out all the tubes with my Dad and going over to Radio Schack to test them.
@Peter G. I remember the tv repairman who would come to our apartment with a bag that resembled a doctor's bag. (Yes, doctors made house calls.) The bag was full of testers and tubes and was magical to us little ones.
Wrong solution, please upload correct solution. Thank you,
KB, Nope. Sorry. No correct solution will be uploaded for hours, if ever. Of course if you'd like to see the answer key, just scroll down through the comments. It has been posted many times,
Atypically, I read through and answered some comments before posting this one, and it helped me decide. There is a lot not to like in this puzzle. It relies heavily on niche knowledge, more so than is customary. Most all of it was fine for me as a techie, but I still had only passing familiarity with "evict" for items aging out of a cache, had never ever heard of the long and prominently placed and almost inarguably obscure idempotent, "one might be floated or flirted with" REALLY needs a comma after floated, tres isn't (very) good, while she's been around forever I'd think many people still haven't heard of Kara Swisher, lace isn't a sophomore skill, and Shakespeare's original 1597 quarto uses "A pox o' both your houses!" TWICE. It seems better editing was called for. But not the worst puzzle I've seen here. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
As a programmer in my mid-30s, I’m wondering if any older programmers have heard the term EVICTS used for memory. I definitely have not!
Ashley, Over the past 13 hours, older and younger programmers have reported using and not using the term. Scroll on down!
TIL about IDEMPOTENTS and cache clearing EVICTS. Very cool and a nice lively puzzle.
“Automagically” (from the Constructor Notes) is my new favorite word. Thank you!
Weirdly, the French was the easy part, and my French is for the OISEAU. I was RARINGTOGO, but the proper names? I had nEVERHEARDOF most of them. I asked my husband about the Cornell research institute. He said, "Oh, Cornell. That's CARLSAGAN." Of course I had heard of Carl Sagan, but forgot about Cornell. He swears he could never work a crossword—even so, he's always there when I'm UPINTHEAIR (but I wasn't about that one, once I let go of "committed to." I'm not sure why this puzzle seemed so challenging. The answers seemed quite simple—once I got them. It was the getting that was the problem. Thank you, Alina Abidi! I enjoyed this one immensely, and I totally get it about the subway ride. Years ago, when I had a story published in a "little magazine" and my name was on the cover, I felt exactly the same way.
@dutchiris OISEAUX! (It's always somethin')
@dutchiris it’s “oiseau”, as the clue is “ou” therefore a singular answer. If it was “et” then it would be looking for plural, and would be “oiseaux”.
YES. Was RARING TO GO. C’mon Friday puzzle! Let’s get INTO it! WILD RIDE! Fast and furious, this one. Every thing or name I hasn’t HEARD OF -and it was BRIMming with things and names I didn’t know - were TIPped off by the crosses with their HINTs and wait… DONT TELL ME… Aha! INSIGHT! I have an IDEA! The fun did not LET UP. Alina, I CAN SEE YOU having your subway ride of glory, and good for you! YOURE NOT WRONG, so dive into it! Thanks for a fun solve! Happy Friday all! Hope the weekend is a lovely one.
@nytimes the answer key links to Aug 15 2008
Names of people I haven't heard of, Mara, Erma, Swisher. Otherwise an easyish puzzle for a Friday. I had "got to go" instead of "gotta go" until the very end. I did know Carl Sagan and got the Cornell connection.
@Jonathan I entered CAMI first, then changed the A to O with IVEGOTToGO and thought to myself, well cami isn't right. Until it became obviously right!
@Nora Yep, I had trouble with this block. Gonna say that PING is not a sound so much as a verb. You ping someone or some site, like a submarine does with sonar. The sound itself is a ding or bing, as in “the machine that goes…”
@Jonathan I treated 10D as a kea/loa; i entered IVEGOTT_GO and then looked to the crosses.
Terrible puzzle. I've been working with computers since the 1980s and never heard of cache evicts or eviction. Ludicrous clues and answers.
@S Godwin so one singular answer that you’ve never heard of makes the entire puzzle terrible? That’s a pretty fragile ego there
@S Godwin I am also a software developer and maybe someone has mention evicting cache, but it's for sure not a term.
@S Godwin this comment is not the flex you seem to think it is…the concept of cache eviction is ubiquitous in computing (both in academic computer science and in industry), and has been for at least a couple decades.
I LOVED this puzzle - felt like I was having a conversation with the constructor. I hope Ms Abidi has fun riding the subway today!
I actually found this one to be fairly smooth for a Friday. Finished just shy of two-thirds of my Friday average time. Yes, there were a number of clues I had no idea about but I was able to solve them by the crossing fills and intuition. I will say that I winced at 27D… “One mailing it in” for EARLY VOTER since, well, you know…
I enjoyed getting the long expressions gradually. I also like French entries. I also don’t mind a few look ups; I’m not cheating anyone. This seemed just right for a Friday, nice one Alina.