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Silicon Valley
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Silicon Valley
Quibble and warning: NEVER put gas cans in your trunk. Very bad idea. I can't believe they clued it that way. You will be inhaling dangerous fumes when driving. And a lot of cars have a light in their trunk. Granted, modern LEDs are not as dangerous as old filament bulbs, but still a chance of a spark & a car-b-q.
@Steve L self driving cars do not respond correctly to bicycles. I have had 3 very close calls where SDC's ignored my presence, and one almost hit me. This is over the last 5 years. And none of those times did the driver stop to see if I was OK. In the save time, I've only had 2 close calls with human drivers. But they were driving Mercedes. And they didn't stop either.
What a treat! I'm watching the 5 hour replay of stage 10, and the ALPS show up in my puzzle! After stage 10, I'm up to #49,075 in the fantasy race, but that won't last. Cheers to the 3 USA riders: Neilson Powless, Matteo Jorgenson, and first timer Sean Quinn. Hoping Sepp Kuss recovers and enjoys the Olympics
@DIVAS IVLIVS Only if you are in a car and can outrun them. They are much more dangerous if you are on a bike - I had one turn left in front of me, and twice had them pull into the bike lane in front of me & STOP, I had to swerve into traffic to miss them.
Enjoyed the puzzle! My giveaway was Tuxedo. Mike Ellison: my Mom did the NYT and SF Chron Merl puzzles in ink. She passed on in 2018, and since then my bro & I & his wife have started doing them. New favorite clue: "bumpy ride". I drive a Jeep!
Got a ! out of the puzzle. First encountered BANG for ! in Dorothy Sayers' novel,"Murrder Must Advertise" It was used as the printer's name for the symbol.
Fun! My work iMac is officially named 'Big Apple' on the network. It was the first 27" iMac. I couldn't believe it mad it into a puzzle!
@Shimmer I took it as a shortcut to the phrase "lend an air of..." to something. It's a stretch.
This was hard! 20 min over my average. I had ore, then fry then roe. Easy for me: slam bid (Mom was a contract bridge maven), and No Trace since I'm a camper. There were so many clues I changed several times. But fun! No filler claws except ante, but it was matched with anti!
Loved the tricky hidden trick, although I got it sideways and kept the downs straight and zigged the acrosses. Still worked - just didn't solve! Clue of the day: Karl the Fog!
@Cat Lady Margaret having fostered a number of older cats, I appreciate forever homes. I used to grade them by how long they stayed "under the bed". Worst was Tigger, who was 2 months. She was a calico, completely feral, and named for her temperament. Eventually I just kept her.
@Bill pretty much everyone I know who does Wordle has a starting word they use. There is a set of good starting words that's fairly well known. So, an Ace would only happen if the puzzle makers chose one of those words. OTOH, back when NYT first purchased Wordle, one of my friends had a 5 day streak of Aces. Knowing that he is a brilliant programmer, we all knew he had hacked the game. Sure enough, he posted hat he had figured out he to get the days answer from the puzzle page. He also wrote a solution to the problem and sent it to te NYT.
Loved the puzzle and theme. Fast time, but good tricky clews. BUT, Shouldn't Moriarty be a professor of MATHs? I think (but did not research) he is called a "Professor of Mathematics" in the Canon.
Could not figure out what PADRES had to do with dogs or teeth, but when Kamehameha filled in so cleanly, I stared at the clue and got it. Fell asleep, so super long solving time. 😀 Fun, but I so agree with soo...
@Liz B. How many different versions of the phrase are there? I learned it as "Gung Hei Fat Choi " from the local restaurant. Happy Lunar New Year to all! Peace and prosperity.
@Dan Williams I think they were referring to the Guinness Book of World Records, originally compiled by Mr. Guinness to prevent bar fights. I don't recall Sir Alec ever playing Dracula (didn't check).
I loved the waves between the stacks. Intimidating, but pretty layout. I got 1A & 2D easily because I work in travel, and they are destinations. 10 minutes slower than my fastest Satuday, but way below my average. I just worked the downs and it all came together. JEANS was my favorite clue. I can remember the novelty of an informal president making the news. My Mom was horrified.
Way faster than most Thursdays, and easier than yesterday. Enjoyable. Got a good time even 'tho I fell asleep partway through. Thankfully, the app pauses when the screen sleeps.
Loved the zebracolts, and the picture hint that also included the theme! Very easy & fast. Still cringing from GoHAM. While I appreciate the physique of the gentleman who remove 100+ pounds of weights from an exercise machine so I could use it, I'm a bit too "polite" for that.
Usual app problem with Rebus. Finish in an hour, spend another tweaking until it accepts it as done. I should just leave them all blank 'til the end. Easy trick & fun solve. But frustrating tech glitch.
Faster than average, but really fun solve with very few "well known" pop singers or athletes. The clues were obscure, but then funny when I got them. Northern Hemisphere was fantastic. The theme was roundly entertaining, but did not give any additional letters away. For the crosser. I started with white line fever, then highway narcosis, before filling hypnosis from the crosses. Never heard that term before.
@Scott I've been a font addict since 1984 Mac and its many fonts. Papyrus has its place. But Albertus is my first love. Helvetica & Times are so boring. Is it wrong to have over 250 fonts on my Mac?
A bit boring. I fell asleep. So, my time is long. There should be a way to set a "time out". Like, if nothing happens for 5 minutes assume the puzzle solver hg as taken a nap. Meanwhile: if you give Dole to a baker, you get pineapple upside cake
@M Same. Went to do wordle & keeps asking me to login. Tried to send a bug notice, and it would not work. Looks like a server problem. Hope they don't lose my 330 day streak.
@Eli Edwards For an embarrassing long time. And i love Satie.
@LordBottletop Loved the 8 bit mallet graphic, but it took me straight to Minecraft before I even filled in the letters. I eventually dug out the correct answers.
@Elaine Wilson I had problems last week as well. I had the correct letters everywhere (yes, compared with the key). I had cleared and retyped it. Finally I gave up and autochecked and 2 letters changed as I watched, and were marked wrong! I sent email to the nytimes games and they reset my streak. They also told me that I should never do the same puzzle in 2 access modes. I'd worked on it in the app & on a computer. They also suggested logging out and back in if it happens.
Aidan Deshong, Congratulations on the puzzle, and on getting into Harvey Mudd. I was a Pomonite, but took classes at Mudd and had many Mudder friends (auto-correct had fun with Mudder). I hope you get to enjoy some of the "traditions" we celebrated!
@Steve I also started with the python, and had to change skins to anaconda.
@Andrzej Times tables: multiplication tables memorized by grade school kids b4 calculators OR bus and train schedules, usually publshed in newspapers. Genius Bar: the support section of an Apple computer store, especially pre-net.
@Sam Lyons I am lucky that I live in an area where (unlicensed) street food is common. There's an Elote cart around the corner in fresh corn season, and papusas on Sundays
@Francis Years ago before there were Euros, I traveled through Europe with Mom. Our goal was to collect one of each coin for each country. The hardest (and smallest) was a 10 Lira piece. Worth about half a cent at the time.
@Striker wow, I'm nowhere near that fast on time. I doesn't help that I usually do the puzzles after work, and often fall asleep. While they do close automatically after awhile, the minutes do accrue. Sunday's are almost always a slog unless they have a theme or trick to make it interesting.
@Aidan Deshong For context: I took computer programming, which got me the access code to the computer room. We played Spacewar against JPL across an acoustic coupler.
Really enjoyed this! Fun theme, and almost no proper names. But once again, had to clear & retype the whole puzzle, log out, reboot my phone, and log in for it to realize I had completed the puzzle.
Haven't gotten very far, but my once-over comes up with "Creator of the 1980 video game Adventure". Huh? I played Adventure on my college's mainframe 1979-81 (but only after 11pm). I was told by the computer experts that it was created by DEC as a test program. I have a printout of a game win. On the other hand, it was a text game and did not have graphics. I have a version of it on my phone. xyzzy
@N. Hornblower "cook sets" aka mess kits are very common, but then I do a lot of camping. I started with the wrong one. Ushes? Nope. Don't know it. Neither does my spellchecker.
@RichardZ Also a fav adaptation of mine - partly because of the theme music for the series. The opening credits music, with the violin carrying the tune was always the same. But thanks to PBS, we got to hear the entire end credits. These scores were often customized to the episode, and I loved the variations. So subtle and clever.
@Alex SWAK was easy, but INEEDAHINT on PWNED. I guess I was into computers before rudeness was cryptically encoded. I survived Y2K, but the DOGEy boys are clueless. Just wait until they try to figure out Mac vs Win dates in Excel.
Fast puzzle. It took me an embarasingly long to figure out "green day" Spanish Bear no problem, but Game of Thrones actor was a long shot guess.
@sotto voce Sometimes I miss the old Selectrics with the speedballs. We had one with memory, and it would occasionally just start typing on its own.
@mkrl I use both Chrome & Firefox (when the Chrome AI drives me to distraction). Netscape was my browser of choice, and somewhere I have the disks for vers 1-4.
Fastest Thursday ever. Loved the theme, but it made the solve easy. Can't believe this is the debut of MacGyvered, but maybe the prior one was MacGyverism. Love MacGyver.
@Mishlev Having read a lot of Azimov SciFi, I was astonished that the textbook for High School Physics was written by him. He was a polymath, with over 500 books covering everything including Shakespeare. He was able to make complex ideas understandable. Like "Foundation" Thanks for reminding me! Have to go look that one up.
@Barry Ancona itsy bitsy spiders. And: upsy daisy.
@Hardroch I always do the puzzles at night. I don't have time during the day. Except some weekends. I would feel too stressed to enjoy a puzzle if I had to finish in a couple of hours. PS: I'm firmly in the Rebus dark side - I think it helps solve the puzzle by giving as extra clue and sometimes actual letters. I get some might find that makes puzzles too easy, but I'm not at the stage where any are easy after.
@MP Rogers I SECOND THIS. Black & white text, and larger fonts!
@Kevin Not only were there phonebooks where you could look up addresses and phone numbers, at one time there was the Internet Directory. This was a massive paper book published 4x a year. We used them for monitor stands. Then came Yahoo.
Late to posting, but loved the puzzle. Fast & fun. I was surprised when I finished and it congratulated me on my streak. I thought I was doing a bonus, and it was only 5pm! The puzzle usually drops @7pm. Very puzzled.
@John Daly Kale should never be the base of anything. Certainly not a Caesar, who's heavy dressing requires a crisp stiff romaine. I lost 'cause I could not believe someone would put kale in a Caesar. Could have used a more believable clue, such "decorative garden no-annual now considered edible (by some)" PSA: Kale contains oxalates, and is not good for people with kidney disease. Also toxic for cats except in minute quantities.