Renegator

I'm glad I'm not alone in finding this puzzle too hard. I don't begrudge anyone who aced it, but I finally gave up. I did crack some really tough clues, but the obscure words did me in. What?? Obscure words?? But look at all the gentle crosses!! Yeah. I'm not the most literate or intellectual guy here. That's for sure.

Seems like a lot people here found this quite manageable. I solved it unaided, but it took around 1 hour 45 minutes. I found it incredibly difficult with the crossing of obscure clues and names, but that may just be me. While it felt okay to get the gold star, for me, this was more of a workout than I really wanted. No demands or complaints, I know a lot of you cruise through this sort of thing. Just giving the NYT team some anecdotal feedback.

Yup, I thought there would be a lot of comments, and that is why I popped in. This was tough. Those double letters made me very nervous for a long time, and I unentered a number of correct answers because of them. But having some experience here, I was on the look out for a revealer or some other clue that there was a trick. Also, I have heard a bunch of times here that when things just won't fit, look for something, like a rebus maybe. It took me a long time to catch on. But after seeing a large number of double letters in a variety of places, I started to look at that angle, and sure enough, it all fell into place. My time was 57:50. I am a mid-tier solver here, I believe. Many of my recent Thursday puzzle solves have been in the mid-30-minute range. Oh yeah. I thought this was a very good puzzle, but I understand how some of the newer solvers found it to be over the top. Still, I don't think the constructor was showing off. I think they were just practicing their craft, and boy are they good at it.

I just wanted to say that the suggestion yesterday that soon we will have an entry so niche that it will be the constructor's mother's social security number was outrageous. This is a crossword puzzle after all. Not a sudoku (sp?). But I think it would be great if it turned out one of the niche entries was the constructor's mother's maiden name. [But I have to admit that I thought the comment was hilarious.]

I thought the Ts were in the black squares and wondered what was up with up. Wow, just wow. That must have made this even more challenging to construct. Very impressive. I'll amscray now.

I'm a mid tier solver here, and I figured out the braided answers after 20 minutes or so. But biota, bets, and Dora together threw me for a loop. Biome was the best I could do. And not having heard of box braids added to my pain. So this was clearly unfair, unjust, and probably some sort of deep state cultural misappropriation. I demand a prorated refund of my subscription. Or a package of Oreos.

I had to dive fairly deep into the comments to find someone who also found this puzzle to be a Wednesday and a half. Hey, I'm just talking about me here... I got BBC America because I had some dim memory of it and it made more sense than NBC America, but the wicked witch of the west was almost my undoing, which I suppose is appropriate. Crossing the witch with the paint I last used in second grade and a foreign word for "drink up" made for a very tough ending. I had to run the alphabet to get the "P." Nothing else seemed to be the problem, but I couldn't tell where my error(s) was/were and was contemplating my next step if the alphabet run didn't yield the gold star. But the funny thing here is, as usual, one person's blind spot is another person's gimme.

Wicked hard but very satisfying. No look ups, which was a shock. I spent the first half hour looking at a mostly empty grid thinking I was toast.

This started out tough and was fairly daunting. As most of the cultural stuff was unknown to me, I didn't have any real gimmes. I got Micky Mantle's entry only because of the number of squares. I eat chocolate and read ingredients on the stuff I eat, so that got me three letters with no effort. And then Enya and Eke showed up, what a surprise! :-D But by playing detective I slowly gained toeholds that then cascaded into significant fills. So for an unhip, culturally clueless, previous generation guy who knows a bit about linguistics and likes to puzzle things out, this took about 25 minutes. I doubt that is brag-worthy, but that's not my point. As a data/analysis guy, I figure the construction team might appreciate some anecdotal information on how the puzzle worked.

Aww c'mon! I wanted rebuses! What a rip off!! Haha, just kidding. Fun puzzle, though a bit quick for Thursday.

I just want to point out that if you don't get the theme, then obviously you are pronouncing these words incorrectly. I'll see myself ooot now.

Fun puzzle that was fairly challenging for me but not grueling. My time came in around 38 minutes with no look ups. By the way, I sometimes mention my time so the constructor can see how long it took for a doofus like me. I have truble spellling and don't watch TV or go to the movies. Likewise, I'm ignorant of most authors writing after Saul Bellow and John Updike. Luckily, I know some Spanish, play video games, and studied linguistics for several years.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about solve time (below). To be honest, although I try to do the right thing generally, this was not a moral issue but more an analytic question, something like "In that circumstance, what is my true solve time?" And Oikofuge... the button to hide comments about streaks is right next to the button to hide puzzles with rebuses. Haven't you seen it?

Tough but very satisfying. I thought it was sorta easy until I hit the south west. 55m to finish unaided. I enjoyed the clever misdirects. I barely knew the TV boss, so that took a while. Oh well, my lack of desire to watch TV shows means i get more time to puzzle things out, not a bad thing at all.

This was challenging but not very satisfying. Maybe because I had to guess at the many names I didn't know. I managed to complete it without lookups, but it just didn't excite me.

Deb. I cried a little reading your column. What an open and honest description of your experience. My father was a WW2 combat vet, a wonderful yet flawed man who carried serious emotional injury until the day he died. I too was there. I heard someone say that there isn't a man who wouldn't give anything to have 15 minutes more with his father. I see that this applies to woman as well. Not a surprise, but I hadn't thought about it before, focusing on my own loss and desire for a little more time to say how much I love him. Fun puzzle. A bit quick for a Thursday, but that's okay.

I get "radius" and "radii." And I know crosswords needs some flexibility, poetic license. But I just looked up "et alia" at Merriam Websters and Cambridge. I always understood it to mean "and others," and that is what they say it means I plunked in "et alii" easily enough, but it nagged at me. It seems it would have to mean "and multiple groups of others" or something like that. I am not sure what the plural of a plural would be exactly. It may have been discussed elsewhere. I do remember seeing it for the first time a few months ago and there being a bit of a stir in the comments. But I felt like bringing it up. Haha, Dark Shadows. That takes me back. Never watched more than a few minutes. {I think it was considered a soap, and I was busy playing hide and seek or playing army.) But I remember it being a thing.

Is AI scarey? Sure, can be, depending on how it's used. Is it amazing? Yeah, especially if you know something about information processing, cognitive science, etc. Do most people want artists, musicians, photographers, etc. replaced with AI? I doubt it. Does including a clue that refers to A I in the new york times crossword puzzle advance the cause of A I and encourage the replacement of human workers? I'd bet my house and life savings that the answer is no.

Just feel like saying this: Probably all of us are baffled when people can't see what we can see clearly. Funny, though, that we aren't all the same and don't see the same things. I was once told that that was the power of diversity, bringing together different perspectives and making the group/team stronger as a result. p/

Very enjoyable puzzle. Nice challenge for a Tuesday, for me. I enjoyed the theme quite a bit

Phew. That was tough, very tough. But I got it, unaided to boot. Definitely needed to take breaks to let the old subconscious chew on all that gristle. As others have said, for me it was fair and fun.

OMG that was nuts! Might have been the hardest puzzle I have solved in a long while. It was fun but painful. Took me over an hour to get even one quarter of the grid filled in. My final time was 1:39 (and no, I do not report seconds). I thought I would have to give up and accept that this was too tough for me, but it all fell in place with no outside help. My frail ego is still intact.

Had to pause at bosslevel, being an RPG gamer, but yup, they actually put that in an NYT xword puzzle. Nice. :-D Tough for a Wednesday, but generally fun. There were enough proper nouns/terms that I thought I'd never get the gold star, but i managed to get them with a couple of educated guesses.

Like a lot of others, I found this to be challenging but very enjoyable. I had to really work it, but as I slowly filled in the squares, more and more fell into place. For me, this was a top notch puzzle.

This was fairly quick for me for a Friday, and I see I am not alone. The clues were generally clever. I definitely struggled in a few places, but much of the puzzle fell in place as I moved along. With all of the you-know-it-or-don't answers, it was interesting that I often knew them, whether because of true knowledge or by knowing that certain words get a lot of use here. But as my times have gotten faster, I am no longer jealous of the people who report doing a hard puzzle in five or ten minutes. This one took about 22 minutes, and that was plenty fast. Any faster, and I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

Since it came up a few times, I feel like weighing in on the word "volt." Apparently, it is not a measure of power, but instead potential, if I understand the comments below correctly. But for an average Joe like me and some of the others here, it is interpreted as a measure of power. When I buy a battery, the volts are sometimes listed. For example, I have a box of AA batteries that states they are 1.5 volts. And 9 volt batteries are labelled as 9 volts. I think the non-engineers in the world interpret that as being power, as it not intuitive to many of us to look at a battery and think about the potential energy it contains. By the way, I have heard that if you take a hit of acid out in the desert, you can see the cactuses fly around like birds. (Just kidding.)

Once again my lack of cultural knowledge slowed me down, is what I want to say, but actually it was the misdirects mostly. This took me around 50 minutes, but it was mostly enjoyable. I had to run the alphabet on mochi/mood to get the M, but other than that, I had to use my detective skills most of the time. (Is that why they are called clues?) My deerstalker is off to those who found this fast or even too fast.

This was a fun puzzle (for everyone! -- nah, for me, lol). But I see I was not alone in enjoying it. But as for some others, the crossing of mukbangs and iga was very hard for me. I had to run the alphabet, which is meh. Gotta confess that I also extended the solve by spelling Gandalf as Gandolf, just like I say it.

I don't understand the consternation regarding, ER nurse. I thought the clue was referring to triage, and therefore, ER nurse made perfect sense to me.

Fun puzzle. 26:44 unaided. A bit fast for a Thursday, but not horribly so. I'm glad I'm not the only one who had Not I at first. That was the last to fall for me. Kept wondering what an Acte was.

I liked this quite a bit until I hit the SW. A lot of names/factoids in the puzzle, but they were manageable until the SW. Had to use check puzzle for the last few entries. Never had an incorrect entry, but it dampened my enthusiasm. But of course, what's trivia to me is a gimme to someone else.

I too have been away for a while, mostly catching a Thursday puzzle here and there from a week or two before, so I haven't been checking the comments - it's too hard to get to Wordplay after a week or two, at least with a browser. Yeah, Thursdays have definitely been getting easier for many months if not longer. They are still fun, but like some of the others here, I would like to sweat things out more than I have lately. And I don't think saying so should discourage anyone or make them feel less than. For the past several years I have spent an hour on the Thursday puzzles only to see comments about them taking just 10 or 15 minutes to complete. That just reminded me that it is a big world out there and there are some extremely talented people in every sphere. It makes sense that some incredibly good solvers are going to do the NYT crosswords.

I liked it. Didn't know exactly which shows Simon was on, so no gimmes there. Like some others here, it took me a while to catch onto rebukes, but now I keep an eye out for them. As one person commented a few years back, if you think a word is the answer but it won't fit, keep in mind that there might be a rebus involved.

Tough but doable with no lookups. I never heard of a squircle, and neither has my phone's autocorrect, but it fell in place with some crosses and linguistic logic. This was a fun challenge. The last couple I did required check puzzle to find the 3 or 4 incorrect letters that I couldn't suss out. Those weren't as much fun.

This was devilishly clever and a serious challenge for me, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. My head was spinning as I started to see how things might work. I should have read the revealer more carefully from the get go, as I didn't get the reversal for a while. So things sort of fell in place but were still squirrelly (spelling?). But once I got the trick, it was a lot of fun. I gotta say that the Frank Sinatra clue was really hard to parse for me since I didn't know that particular factoid. (It was fun to learn it.) Now if the NYT website would just stop being so stupid about whether I am logged in and what I should be able to do when I am logged in... Meh. At this point seems like that would be a miracle.

Tough but entertaining puzzle. I like it when the literary answers are well-known enough that my poor little brain can figure them out. I saw one comment about the kitty suggesting it didn't work. I thought it worked. You're looking at the spilled milk by the dish, and you yell bad kitty because now you have to clean it up.

It's been quite a while since I have balked at a clue, but since the puzzle is named "siege deterrents," when I came to the Wordplay column, it reminded me of my niggle. The answer to this clue is not a siege deterrent but actually a siege encourager. Without the answer, a siege would not be as necessary. A siege is basically an encampment, a stationary front so to speak. (Go ahead and correct me, if you wish.) An impediment to entry does not deter a siege, it contributes to the need for a siege. Yes, I know, this is a crossword puzzle, blah, blah, blah (or et cetera, if it pleases you - but not et al!), so I am over it already.

Wow, tough but very satisfying. Didn't know many of the names, but I got them with the not-so-gentle crosses. No look ups or help, which was a bit surprising. One hour (plus) spent very enjoyablely. (Wish I coud spel.)

Oh yeah, I thought the rebuses (or whatever they were) were devilish and very painful to suss out, but in a good way. For a long while, I thought someone had slipped a hit of acid in my coffee, but I finally made sense of them. So count me as one of the ones appreciating them.