Tim Smith
United States
United States
@george Apple mobile keyboards do have ‘=‘, but apps can customize the keyboard to add and remove keys and symbols. The Times has done so and did not include it in their custom keyboard.
The clue for 98 down, “Lead-in to Tech” should have been “Lead-in to tech”. The school it is referring to is Caltech, not CalTech or Cal Tech.
I'm not sure the clue for NO TRUE SCOTSMAN (NTS) works. NTS is when someone makes an assertion of the form P->Q, someone else offers an instance of P that is not Q as a counterexample, and the first person claims that p is not really an instance of P. The clue lacks the back and forth between two parties that NTS involves. The two assertions in the clue are of the forms P->Q and !Q->!P respectively. Thats not NTS, nor is it even a fallacy. The second statement is simply the contrapositive of the first, which is logically equivalent. That kind of rewriting a statement in its contrapositive form is very common in mathematical logic.
@Steve L .detpecca eb dluohs tI .elzzup eht ni tniop taht ta gniod era uoy hcihw ,tfel ot thgir gnidaer era uoy nehw noitcerid a si WEST
I didn’t notice the circles. They are very hard to see in dark mode. They should be a lighter color, such as the color of the letters.
Abaci are generally considered to be digital, not analog, because they represent numbers discretely.
I got stuck thinking the clue for 45 down was trying to be clever, and maybe “Down Under band” didn’t necessarily mean a band from Australia. Google informed me that ABBA in 1976 had an iconic TV special titled “Down Under” filmed during a tour of Australia, and I spent approximately forever trying to make that work. Anyone else fall for this?
What the heck is that picture at the top of the column?
I never got the theme because I missed some of the circles. They can be very hard to see in dark mode. Maybe make circles white in dark mode?
Tip for people for whom this puzzle is not showing up in the mobile app: you can get to it from the archives.
I didn’t realize there were circles until reading the column after solving. Night mode makes them hard to see.
No animation for me on iPad. Also the crosswords are still causing a much larger batter drawing than they used to.
@Barry Ancona I think I’m getting good times lately because I really try hard to be fast so I can finish before my iPad gets uncomfortably hot or needs a recharge. I really wish they would fix this. It was fine a few weeks ago.
App no longer crashing for me on iPad, but it is using way more battery than it used to, by a factor of around 2.5 - 3. This is only during crosswords (all sizes, current and archived). Battery usage seemed normal during Sudoku, Pips, and Strands.
I'm not sure Tesla counts as an "automotive giant". In terms of number of cars sold per year they are somewhere around #12-15. In terms of dollar value of cars sold per year they are also not in the top 10. Toyota sells more cars in 2 years in just the US than Tesla has sold worldwide in its entire existence. They do have a best selling model, the Model Y, which is often in the top 2, but that's the only top seller they have whereas that companies in the top 10 in sales all have many models that sell well.
@Ax I can’t love the midi because in the app, at least on iPad, it uses the same interface as the mini instead of the interface of the full size.
@Jac I solve in dark mode which makes the circles very hard to see, and this was one of the slowest Thursdays for me.
@Ian Livengood Sometimes on Pips we are given a tile set that is sorted. Other times it appears random. How do you decide when to give us a sorted set?
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