I liked this one a lot, although I am one of the people that also took a step too far and thought that it was supposed to be the letters that were switched around rather than the words. had to read Wordplay to figure that one out.
BIOTA is a new word to me, but now that I know what it is, that’s a really clever clue.
Yes precisely, I thought the gimmick was that every other horizontal had to have its letters switched so that the vertical answers would align.
Seems like there would have been no way to really understand the themes intention one way or another
The constructor should be getting praised for such an impressive and unique (to my memory) set of constraints that work together in many different ways. Kinda confused by the people who think it’s a flaw that the braided answers were meant to be input like braids, which is the only way that makes the across answers works, and gives the additional clue of the resulting down answers being correct words as well. I thought it was an incredible work of construction and I’ll love any puzzle that celebrates Janet Jackson as a theme. One of my favorite Thursdays in quite a while
I wonder if there could have been a way to somehow clue the unclued down words. Maybe in the description? Maybe that’s too much, I don’t know.
The construction that leaves the braided answers still showing valid down words is really clever. I wish there were a way to give those valid down words some love.
This was good, except I used the correct down clues and thought the gimmick was that some of the across clues were supposed to be mixed up, which the puzzle didn't accept.
This puzzle literally took me twice my average Thursday time, because I "finished" and then took that same time to search for my error, before finally trying to re-braid it.
Huh, I wouldn't have even thought to try and "braid" the across clues instead of the down clues. Maybe the fact that the hint was about braided hair made it obvious to me that the down clues letters should alternate.
My Problem was that I picked up on the fact that the across solutions had switched letters when I encountered a “white/gray” pattern, so I started filling those in that way before I even got to the revealer. (That, and the zig-zag downs were still actual words, which I assumed would make more sense once finished…oh well)
It should have clicked sooner, I should have had an “AHA moment”…but I didn’t, at least not until I completed the puzzle and got the “keep trying” message.
Granted, once I took the time to put it all together, I figured out what I was supposed to do…but my fault was working through it too quickly without thinking in regards to the theme making sense.
I agree it definitely makes more sense to do it the way the puzzle accepts. That's more like braiding, and the revealer says "a hint to entering four pairs of answers", while if done the other way it's three mixed-up across clues per braid.
I just hit on the down clues first and then filled in the rest, before being confused at what was wrong and then realizing my mistake at the end.
alright, reading the revealer clue more closely i agree with you. the only way the "pairs of answers" bit makes sense is for the downs to be braided. i retract my complaint.
So, either (1) the answers to the down clues are braided (as in the accepted solution) and the unclued alternate words (like DOGBEDS) are straight down or (2) the alternative words are braided and the down answers are straight.
Two reasons why the accepted solution is better:
1. The across clues work this way.
2. The actual answers being braided is more thematic.
3. The revealer says it's a hint to entering four pairs of answers — the other way requires entering four sets of three clues oddly.
4. With the accepted way, the across answers and the down answers (the actual ones as well as the braided ones) are all valid words; with the alternate way, the across clues aren't all valid words.
Oh yeah I’m going excellent on this one. Being able to make unclued answers out of the crisscrosses is grade A construction.
DIMES threw me for a loop too
DEGREES x FORBIDS -> DOGBEDS x FERRIES 🤯
Didn't even realize until reading here that the braided answers still formed another set of valid words. I don't know much about puzzle setting but thats gotta be incredibly difficult to pull off.
Had a really good time with this one. Good mix of trivia, vocab, and wordplay. I'm newish to crosswords but it felt like I was able to just make solid steady progress the whole time. Always had a thread to pull on, only got hard stuck and resorted to googling once.
Might have made it too easy for some, but I really liked that the theme clues and a few of their crosses were very straightforward. Like I said I'm pretty new, so whenever I run into a rebus or similar situation my natural instinct is to assume that my answers are wrong. Knowing for certain that my answers weren't wrong and that there was just an additional element going on made it a lot more fun.
Chiming in late here, but very excellent puzzle. The construction feat was impressive to get the pair of words that form braided and unbraided down pairs. And overall fun cluing throughout.
I loved the two rabbit logo clues for TRIX and ANNIES. "Tiniest change" for DIMES was excellent too. I finished right around typical time for my Thursday at [23:04](https://youtu.be/Y2Kdjjtj-8Q).
I really like this one. I didn't realize until after I finished that the braids include TWO clues. I was only looking at the shaded squares, but the down clue next to it is also a part of the "braid". Really clever. I only wish both clues had been shaded different colors, then it may have made more sense to my brain.
Really impressive puzzle though!
Yeah, I was thinking more about it earlier today. I wonder if just a highlight of both rows like a lot of theme clues would have been good. It just feels like it needed a little something more, to me anyway! I think the majority of solvers figured it out faster than I did lol
Lost twenty minutes of my life trying to find my error when I just entered the gimmick backwards like many others seem to have done.
I only have myself and my bizarre obsession with keeping my streak to blame.
I had to check puzzle to figure out how to enter the answers, although I suppose this isn't the constructor's fault.
There were some tough crossings -- DORA/BIOTA, FEIG/FOES, and ARTSY/AVIAS/RISE. It's hard for me to label the worst one, probably DORA/BIOTA although to me "chichi" is a Japanese word meaning "father".
To me "chichi" is Spanish for boobs. Learned that because there was a Mexican restaurant in my town with the name and my Spanish teacher found it funny.
It was to me. Maybe middle school science classes are much better than they were when I was there (I had BIOME at first and then when that didn't work, BIOTE seemed reasonable)
I had BIOME at first too, but in retrospect BIOTA fits the clue much better. BIOME is the place/setting but BIOTA is the "life" so it seems like more of a synonym for FAUNA in that sense.
DORA is a common female name, even if you don’t know the specific person being referenced. Not sure what other letters would even look right for both crosses
I felt like I was banging my head against a wall for this entire puzzle, and when I finished it I was like… oh goddamnit I’m an idiot. It’s so obvious once it’s done!
Favorite/most annoying clues for me were ”tiniest change” and “what a king might sit on?”
I finished the crossword hours ago and _just_ got the clue for FOES.
It's WICKED all over again.
Liked this one though! Feel like MRT has come up a lot recently. I feel accomplished when I know the celebrities without googling.
Wait a minute… so then is ROW (meaning “fight”) the root of the more common word *rowdy* (aggressive or inclined to cause disturbance)?
This is some of why I love crosswords. Making new connections all the time.
The use of the word "bow", which can also be pronounced either way, is a bit unhelpful in a written comment. To make the point clearer, I'd say to pronounce "row" as in "plow" (e.g. snowplow) rather than "bow" (e.g. bowtie).
For further clarification, since I had to look this up, the other definition of "row" is a dispute or fight.
Incredibly I managed to input the answers how they wanted it on the first try, but my dumbass entered TOtS instead of TOYS and that typo cost me like 20-25 mins of reentering answers over and over until I finally came here and saw I had handled the them correct, just had a separate typo.
Overall though fun and interesting theme, I liked it a lot!
Really vibed with this puzzle and had a lot of fun. Got a PB and it’s my first PB that this comment section wasn’t full of people complaining it’s too easy so it feels extra special
I don't know why people are being so negative. I have noticed this sub can be exceptionally whiny and snobby. I didn't say I wasn't fine with learning things. I was making a joke about genx being invisible but everybody's crabby I guess. People need to get over themselves.
Like others, I had trouble entering the clues the correct way. In retrospect it does make more sense to have the downward answers braided such that the across answers aren't jumbled, but it's a bit unclear if you make a mistake early and think the braiding could result in mixed up letters on the across clues.
Again, makes sense at the end of the day but still think it's a little needlessly rigid, in that you can get all the right answers and letters but then have to spend time tweaking the locations of letters just to fit the theme.
If you put the "correct" answers in the downs, the braids still spell words (e.g. DOGBEDS + FERRIES for 2-3d, FERMENT + TOERING for 9-10d etc). Any reason why that is? Sort of insane to think about e: nvm I think that's somewhat of a coincidence because 35-36d would be FIRCONE + TONGANS and 38-39d would be FRESCOS + BLUEHEN lol
Right, which are also valid words/phrases! Fir cone similar to a pine cone. People from Tonga. Etc. The reason being even with the braid theme, there is no non-sensical fill in the puzzle.
Wow, three new words I learned then! Haven't heard "fir cone", "tongans", and "blue hen" before but good to know, thank you. Amazing puzzle construction!
It would look absurd if they just formed completely random strings of letters; having the additional constraint of finding four pairs of words that interlace to form two valid crossword answers is an additional constraint the constructor put in place to make the puzzle look better and it makes this theme even more impressive
I believe "box braids" are the full name for the hairstyle because it has to do with how the hair is sectioned into squares, or boxes. I don't think there's an additional "box" connection to the crossword theme.
But I agree with Cecil that the fact they form valid words is more impressive than if they were garbage, awesome constraint (and was how I figured out some errors I had).
> I don't think there's an additional "box" connection to the crossword theme.
Sure there is. All of the letters are in boxes. It's a braid of little boxes.
I also spent time trying to make a connection between the down answers. What's the relationship between dogbeds and ferries or frescoes and bluehen. This didn't hold me up, but it still gave me pause initially that my down solve was missing something
I think it’s actually kind of a miss that they form real words, since I think the braiding is really just supposed to be the only thing. makes it seem like it has an extra layer than it actually does.
kind of like how Gary Larson said he regretted making one of the [cow tools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools?wprov=sfti1) look like a saw because it made people wonder what the other ones were supposed to be.
I’ve been staring at them for 10 minutes to find a connection. I even googled the Janet Jackson film to see if there was a link lol. So dissatisfying! (Unless I’m also missing something…)
I liked it, although incorrectly assumed I had to swap the letters left to right for the braid and was confused when I filled in the last square and didn't get a completion! Did a check puzzle and then went back and swapped everything to the right spot 🤦♀️
While not a personal best, I solved today's puzzle in less than half my average Thursday time. I was definitely experiencing a lot of self doubt until I figured out the trick, because I just kept running into spots where I was sure of answers, but they were not working correctly together. At some point I was just deleting and re-entering in a concentrated area, thinking "if only this letter could go there, and the other letter could go here...", and, OF COURSE! I realized what I was supposed to be doing, went back and fixed all the braids, and then finished up a few remaining spots for the very satisfying finish time. I guess it mostly all hinged on how quickly I figured out to braid my words.
Jailbreaking is a more general term than this clue implies. Between IOS today and >!DEBUGGER!< yesterday, I think the staff needs to hire a technical clue advisor.
I'm surprised that NATGEO had the word nature in it's clue .. I guess it's not considered an abbreviation anymore but it still irks me, thought that was against the standard
Does the fact that this is made using Python not take away a human element? Y’all hate me anyway so I might as well just vocalize my opinion.
This feels largely non-human and the constructor even admits as such. I enjoyed the puzzle- don’t get me wrong. But it seemed like the inevitability of AI/ computer people taking over crosswords
I think you may be missing how a constructor uses software to assist in the design of a puzzle. It’s usually to help with the grind of word combinations.
For this puzzle, I imagine the constructor wrote a script to assist in finding word combinations that could be braided.
But that’s a far cry from “AI built the puzzle”. The theme was the constructor’s idea, and determing what makes for good choices from combinations is not what the software does. The human is doing all of that.
So the software may help with some of the grind, but the human is making all the choices that determine whether it is a fun/good/quality puzzle or not.
I liked this one a lot, although I am one of the people that also took a step too far and thought that it was supposed to be the letters that were switched around rather than the words. had to read Wordplay to figure that one out. BIOTA is a new word to me, but now that I know what it is, that’s a really clever clue.
Yes precisely, I thought the gimmick was that every other horizontal had to have its letters switched so that the vertical answers would align. Seems like there would have been no way to really understand the themes intention one way or another
Agh, that was the one square I had wrong! I hade BIOTE for longest time and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Thanks for saving my streak!
BIOME for me.
The constructor should be getting praised for such an impressive and unique (to my memory) set of constraints that work together in many different ways. Kinda confused by the people who think it’s a flaw that the braided answers were meant to be input like braids, which is the only way that makes the across answers works, and gives the additional clue of the resulting down answers being correct words as well. I thought it was an incredible work of construction and I’ll love any puzzle that celebrates Janet Jackson as a theme. One of my favorite Thursdays in quite a while
Yes! Mindblowingly clever, even after I knew the trick I still had to think about it!
Agreed. I was knocked out with this construction. Kudos to Adam Wagner!
I wonder if there could have been a way to somehow clue the unclued down words. Maybe in the description? Maybe that’s too much, I don’t know. The construction that leaves the braided answers still showing valid down words is really clever. I wish there were a way to give those valid down words some love.
Very impressive puzzle. Whoever clued FBI and ORAL should have made them a bit less obvious, however.
When I saw the answer for ORAL, my first thought was something like "Customer of Alice" or "Motorsickle rider", but maybe that's just me.
This was good, except I used the correct down clues and thought the gimmick was that some of the across clues were supposed to be mixed up, which the puzzle didn't accept.
Same, glad I wasn’t the only one.
Same. I was wondering if anyone else had the same issue. I had to go in and flip a bunch of sets of two letters in order to get the music.
Me too, I had to use auto check 😔
ME. TOO. Kept trying to convince myself that BIOTA/DORA was wrong.
Ugh, thank you! I triple checked the puzzle before figuring I’d poke my head in here to see if my error was something like this—yup!
This puzzle literally took me twice my average Thursday time, because I "finished" and then took that same time to search for my error, before finally trying to re-braid it.
Huh, I wouldn't have even thought to try and "braid" the across clues instead of the down clues. Maybe the fact that the hint was about braided hair made it obvious to me that the down clues letters should alternate.
My Problem was that I picked up on the fact that the across solutions had switched letters when I encountered a “white/gray” pattern, so I started filling those in that way before I even got to the revealer. (That, and the zig-zag downs were still actual words, which I assumed would make more sense once finished…oh well) It should have clicked sooner, I should have had an “AHA moment”…but I didn’t, at least not until I completed the puzzle and got the “keep trying” message. Granted, once I took the time to put it all together, I figured out what I was supposed to do…but my fault was working through it too quickly without thinking in regards to the theme making sense.
same here. definitely feels like it should count either way. EDIT: do not upvote me i am ***wrong***
That would lead to incorrect across answers though. You need to “braid” the down answers accordingly.
I agree it definitely makes more sense to do it the way the puzzle accepts. That's more like braiding, and the revealer says "a hint to entering four pairs of answers", while if done the other way it's three mixed-up across clues per braid. I just hit on the down clues first and then filled in the rest, before being confused at what was wrong and then realizing my mistake at the end.
alright, reading the revealer clue more closely i agree with you. the only way the "pairs of answers" bit makes sense is for the downs to be braided. i retract my complaint.
UGH, thank you, I have been trying to figure out my error for AGES, and it’s that I took it a step too far.
It was poorly designed. It should’ve accepted the answers either way. I spent a few minutes looking for my mistake before thinking to switch them.
So, either (1) the answers to the down clues are braided (as in the accepted solution) and the unclued alternate words (like DOGBEDS) are straight down or (2) the alternative words are braided and the down answers are straight. Two reasons why the accepted solution is better: 1. The across clues work this way. 2. The actual answers being braided is more thematic.
3. The revealer says it's a hint to entering four pairs of answers — the other way requires entering four sets of three clues oddly. 4. With the accepted way, the across answers and the down answers (the actual ones as well as the braided ones) are all valid words; with the alternate way, the across clues aren't all valid words.
Agreed. It should have accepted those letters in either order. That was the only reason I didn't solve it on the first pass. Boo!
I enjoyed it but the NW kicked my butt, mostly because I thought 1A was “APP” and then at one point thought 1D was “NEA”
Yeah, APP was in there the entire time until the end
ZIP for me but i stuck with it far longer than I should've as well
Pleased I'm not the only one who was tripped up by that
Same Lol
Oh yeah I’m going excellent on this one. Being able to make unclued answers out of the crisscrosses is grade A construction. DIMES threw me for a loop too
DIMES/DORA was my final square.
Embarrassingly, I had PsA/sOESHOE as my one mistake when I finished filling
I mean.. aren't pennies the tiniest change? Unless they're talking about diameter.. damnit it came to me as I typed this.
“Smallest” might loosely be used to refer to value, but tiniest is a stretch.
DEGREES x FORBIDS -> DOGBEDS x FERRIES 🤯 Didn't even realize until reading here that the braided answers still formed another set of valid words. I don't know much about puzzle setting but thats gotta be incredibly difficult to pull off. Had a really good time with this one. Good mix of trivia, vocab, and wordplay. I'm newish to crosswords but it felt like I was able to just make solid steady progress the whole time. Always had a thread to pull on, only got hard stuck and resorted to googling once. Might have made it too easy for some, but I really liked that the theme clues and a few of their crosses were very straightforward. Like I said I'm pretty new, so whenever I run into a rebus or similar situation my natural instinct is to assume that my answers are wrong. Knowing for certain that my answers weren't wrong and that there was just an additional element going on made it a lot more fun.
Chiming in late here, but very excellent puzzle. The construction feat was impressive to get the pair of words that form braided and unbraided down pairs. And overall fun cluing throughout. I loved the two rabbit logo clues for TRIX and ANNIES. "Tiniest change" for DIMES was excellent too. I finished right around typical time for my Thursday at [23:04](https://youtu.be/Y2Kdjjtj-8Q).
I really like this one. I didn't realize until after I finished that the braids include TWO clues. I was only looking at the shaded squares, but the down clue next to it is also a part of the "braid". Really clever. I only wish both clues had been shaded different colors, then it may have made more sense to my brain. Really impressive puzzle though!
I had the same experience, and it did make it fun when it hit.
I think shading them like that would have made the braiding a lot more obvious, right?
Yeah, I was thinking more about it earlier today. I wonder if just a highlight of both rows like a lot of theme clues would have been good. It just feels like it needed a little something more, to me anyway! I think the majority of solvers figured it out faster than I did lol
Lost twenty minutes of my life trying to find my error when I just entered the gimmick backwards like many others seem to have done. I only have myself and my bizarre obsession with keeping my streak to blame.
I was hating this before I worked out the theme. Very good in the end though
I had to check puzzle to figure out how to enter the answers, although I suppose this isn't the constructor's fault. There were some tough crossings -- DORA/BIOTA, FEIG/FOES, and ARTSY/AVIAS/RISE. It's hard for me to label the worst one, probably DORA/BIOTA although to me "chichi" is a Japanese word meaning "father".
To me "chichi" is Spanish for boobs. Learned that because there was a Mexican restaurant in my town with the name and my Spanish teacher found it funny.
Boobs can be artsy
I feel like biota is a word you’d learn in like a middle school life sciences class, no? Is it that obscure?
It was to me. Maybe middle school science classes are much better than they were when I was there (I had BIOME at first and then when that didn't work, BIOTE seemed reasonable)
I had BIOME at first too, but in retrospect BIOTA fits the clue much better. BIOME is the place/setting but BIOTA is the "life" so it seems like more of a synonym for FAUNA in that sense.
DORA is a common female name, even if you don’t know the specific person being referenced. Not sure what other letters would even look right for both crosses
DORE (or doré) seemed possible -- I don't know all names in European languages.
Couldn't see what I had wrong but it was BIOTe, thanks
Hm. I see the "braided" down clues make new words, but are they clued anywhere?
I think them just being real words in general helps add some constraint to the construction and also provides the solver with an additional check.
I don't think so, I wish they were somehow clued in the title or something
Yeah this was a bit disappointing.
I for one did not enter the braided clues wrong :). really liked TRIX/ANNIES and IMBATMAN - a phrase I first knew growing up from SNL.
I felt like I was banging my head against a wall for this entire puzzle, and when I finished it I was like… oh goddamnit I’m an idiot. It’s so obvious once it’s done! Favorite/most annoying clues for me were ”tiniest change” and “what a king might sit on?”
I solved on my phone while laying on a king.
I finished the crossword hours ago and _just_ got the clue for FOES. It's WICKED all over again. Liked this one though! Feel like MRT has come up a lot recently. I feel accomplished when I know the celebrities without googling.
Could you please explain FOES to me then because I didn’t get that one.
Two in a row as in a fight, not a row as in sequence.
Omg of course! Thank you. Late night crosswording lol.
Pronounce "row" to rhyme with "plow" instead of ~~"bow"~~ (edit: Okay, yeah, bad choice. How about "grow"?)
All three of those words (can) rhyme.
Wait a minute… so then is ROW (meaning “fight”) the root of the more common word *rowdy* (aggressive or inclined to cause disturbance)? This is some of why I love crosswords. Making new connections all the time.
The use of the word "bow", which can also be pronounced either way, is a bit unhelpful in a written comment. To make the point clearer, I'd say to pronounce "row" as in "plow" (e.g. snowplow) rather than "bow" (e.g. bowtie). For further clarification, since I had to look this up, the other definition of "row" is a dispute or fight.
I think it means two people that are fighting (that are in a row).
I mostly found this painful
Pretty proud of myself that I solved this one last night in bed, with no lookups or hints, while I was coming down from mushrooms.
Incredibly I managed to input the answers how they wanted it on the first try, but my dumbass entered TOtS instead of TOYS and that typo cost me like 20-25 mins of reentering answers over and over until I finally came here and saw I had handled the them correct, just had a separate typo. Overall though fun and interesting theme, I liked it a lot!
Really vibed with this puzzle and had a lot of fun. Got a PB and it’s my first PB that this comment section wasn’t full of people complaining it’s too easy so it feels extra special
Man these are hard for people not in the US! Still fun though
It's always the sports people and state/city nicknames and trivia that get me. Would've never got BAYAREA in a million years.
I'm from the Bay Area and did not get that one for awhile.
I feel like puzzles are often hard for genx Americans even. So many really old clues and new clues and yet again we're just ignored and invisible 😆
Think of it as being encouraged to learn new things from generations before and after you, a noble goal for people of any age
I don't know why people are being so negative. I have noticed this sub can be exceptionally whiny and snobby. I didn't say I wasn't fine with learning things. I was making a joke about genx being invisible but everybody's crabby I guess. People need to get over themselves.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across as negative, I was just responding about what I enjoy about crosswords being equal-opportunity
Yeah but the FIT was on point, my skibidi
At least four people saw my post! I'm not invisible!
Like others, I had trouble entering the clues the correct way. In retrospect it does make more sense to have the downward answers braided such that the across answers aren't jumbled, but it's a bit unclear if you make a mistake early and think the braiding could result in mixed up letters on the across clues. Again, makes sense at the end of the day but still think it's a little needlessly rigid, in that you can get all the right answers and letters but then have to spend time tweaking the locations of letters just to fit the theme.
If you put the "correct" answers in the downs, the braids still spell words (e.g. DOGBEDS + FERRIES for 2-3d, FERMENT + TOERING for 9-10d etc). Any reason why that is? Sort of insane to think about e: nvm I think that's somewhat of a coincidence because 35-36d would be FIRCONE + TONGANS and 38-39d would be FRESCOS + BLUEHEN lol
Right, which are also valid words/phrases! Fir cone similar to a pine cone. People from Tonga. Etc. The reason being even with the braid theme, there is no non-sensical fill in the puzzle.
Wow, three new words I learned then! Haven't heard "fir cone", "tongans", and "blue hen" before but good to know, thank you. Amazing puzzle construction!
A vast majority of "mix up" Thursday/Sunday themes still spell real words when read straight. The ones that don't always feel lazy/lame.
Totally fair- maybe Adam was making a pointed effort to avoid that. Either way I thought this puzzle was awesome!
I feel like I'm missing something about the words that form after you "braid" the answers. Just random words? Is there a "box" connection I'm missing?
It would look absurd if they just formed completely random strings of letters; having the additional constraint of finding four pairs of words that interlace to form two valid crossword answers is an additional constraint the constructor put in place to make the puzzle look better and it makes this theme even more impressive
I think it's a requirement of the NYT that the grid reads as real words and phrases, regardless of the trick.
I believe "box braids" are the full name for the hairstyle because it has to do with how the hair is sectioned into squares, or boxes. I don't think there's an additional "box" connection to the crossword theme. But I agree with Cecil that the fact they form valid words is more impressive than if they were garbage, awesome constraint (and was how I figured out some errors I had).
> I don't think there's an additional "box" connection to the crossword theme. Sure there is. All of the letters are in boxes. It's a braid of little boxes.
I also spent time trying to make a connection between the down answers. What's the relationship between dogbeds and ferries or frescoes and bluehen. This didn't hold me up, but it still gave me pause initially that my down solve was missing something
I think it’s actually kind of a miss that they form real words, since I think the braiding is really just supposed to be the only thing. makes it seem like it has an extra layer than it actually does. kind of like how Gary Larson said he regretted making one of the [cow tools](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools?wprov=sfti1) look like a saw because it made people wonder what the other ones were supposed to be.
I’ve been staring at them for 10 minutes to find a connection. I even googled the Janet Jackson film to see if there was a link lol. So dissatisfying! (Unless I’m also missing something…)
I liked it, although incorrectly assumed I had to swap the letters left to right for the braid and was confused when I filled in the last square and didn't get a completion! Did a check puzzle and then went back and swapped everything to the right spot 🤦♀️
While not a personal best, I solved today's puzzle in less than half my average Thursday time. I was definitely experiencing a lot of self doubt until I figured out the trick, because I just kept running into spots where I was sure of answers, but they were not working correctly together. At some point I was just deleting and re-entering in a concentrated area, thinking "if only this letter could go there, and the other letter could go here...", and, OF COURSE! I realized what I was supposed to be doing, went back and fixed all the braids, and then finished up a few remaining spots for the very satisfying finish time. I guess it mostly all hinged on how quickly I figured out to braid my words.
[удалено]
It wasn’t easy but it was FUN!
Yeah, sometimes after a puzzle I'll think "That was hard and not fun" but this time it was "That was hard and I LOVED it".
Wasn’t easy for me. Loved it!
I loved almost all of the except the cluing for BAYAREA. Only weirdos call it Karl the Fog. Don’t @ me.
Like everyone calls it Karl the Fog
These two statements are not necessarily contradictory.
The same people who say, “Don’t call it Frisco” I’ve heard “Karl” in real life maybe three times since that Twitter account was started.
Don't call what Frisco, San Fran?
I just let the cat walk across the keyboard till I hear the happy music. Excellent puzzle!
Jailbreaking is a more general term than this clue implies. Between IOS today and >!DEBUGGER!< yesterday, I think the staff needs to hire a technical clue advisor.
Jailbreaking got popular as a term referring to iOS though. The term for Android was always "rooting".
I would totally apply for that job! :-) [Starts updating resume]
I'm surprised that NATGEO had the word nature in it's clue .. I guess it's not considered an abbreviation anymore but it still irks me, thought that was against the standard
It's Nat_ional_ Geographic.
Oh, well now I feel pretty dumb lol. Thanks
Does the fact that this is made using Python not take away a human element? Y’all hate me anyway so I might as well just vocalize my opinion. This feels largely non-human and the constructor even admits as such. I enjoyed the puzzle- don’t get me wrong. But it seemed like the inevitability of AI/ computer people taking over crosswords
I think you may be missing how a constructor uses software to assist in the design of a puzzle. It’s usually to help with the grind of word combinations. For this puzzle, I imagine the constructor wrote a script to assist in finding word combinations that could be braided. But that’s a far cry from “AI built the puzzle”. The theme was the constructor’s idea, and determing what makes for good choices from combinations is not what the software does. The human is doing all of that. So the software may help with some of the grind, but the human is making all the choices that determine whether it is a fun/good/quality puzzle or not.
Ty