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Prelude to bandwidth throttling / WED 3-29-23 / Ernst who studied sonic booms / Thai dish that translates as fried with soy sauce / Yogi's balancing stance with arms overhead / Specialized tableware for serving some Mexican food
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Constructor: Ben Zoon
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- DOOR LATCHES (17A: Fasteners near hasps ... and an anagram of 11-Down)
- TRADE SCHOOL (11D: Vocational training provider ... and an anagram of 55-Across)
- RED HOT COALS (55A: Challenge for a fire-walker ... and an anagram of 25-Down)
- TACO HOLDERS (25D: Specialized tableware for serving some Mexican food ... and an anagram of 17-Across)
Pad see ew (phat si-io or pad siew, Thai: ผัดซีอิ๊ว, RTGS: phat si-io, pronounced [pʰàt sīːʔíw]) is a stir-fried noodle dish that is commonly eaten in Thailand. It can be found easily among street food vendors and is also quite popular in Thai restaurants around the world. The origins of the dish can be traced to China from where the noodle stir-frying technique was brought.
The dish is prepared in a wok which allows the black soy sauce added at the end of the cooking process to stick to the noodles for an exaggerated caramelizing and charring effect. The dish may look a little burnt, but the charred smoky flavor is the defining feature of the dish.
The name of the dish translates to "fried with soy sauce". (wikipedia)
• • •
As an easy themeless puzzle, which basically this is, this one is fine. Clean overall with a few nice bright spots. PAD SEE EW is delicious and looks great in the grid (three "E"s in a row! Not sure why that excites me ... FREE ENTERPRISE wouldn't excite me ... but then again, I can't eat FREE ENTERPRISE, so maybe tasty food gets more leeway). I did TREE POSE just yesterday—a staple of many yoga practices (39D: Yogi's balancing stance with arms overhead). It's a good one for not getting too attached to *success* because you can feel yourself wanting to really nail it (i.e. not fall), but then you're all clenched and goal-oriented and if you fall out of the pose you feel like you haven't "done it right," which is counterproductive and NO FUN, so I like to do variations that make it increasingly likely that I *will* fall (start with hands in prayer, then hands overheard, then you can arch back and look up, and then maybe close your eyes if you haven't fallen already ...). Build failure into the practice, it's fun!
 |
| [she looks amazing! you will never look like this! embrace it!] |
It's harder to be excited about something like DATACAP, one of those "original" answers that makes me think "but why?" (23A: Prelude to bandwidth throttling).Everyone out here trying to "debut" answers without thinking if they should, sigh (actually, this is the second appearance for DATACAP, which debuted four years ago, so let's all blame Pete Wentz for this one. Boo, Pete! (Pete is a great constructor, btw, which is why I feel comfortable doing my facetious booing here)). Hardly anyone carries FUEL CANs so that Tesla clue is weird (42D: Something a Tesla driver doesn't need to carry). I do get it, but pfft. Screw that Tesla guy, no way I'm using his car in a clue if I don't have to (and this one really didn't have to). I don't really get CHEAPIES as clued (9D: Bargain bin finds). CHEAPIES is a generic term that really only makes sense if you know the specific thing involved. I would say yes you find "cheap things" in bargain bins, and yes, CHEAPIES means cheap versions of things, but somehow ... you wouldn't say that you find CHEAPIES in bargain bins. Just rings wrong.
No real struggles today. I had MAA for MOO (2D: Ranch sound) and KWS for KWH (note to self: for the billionth time, actually read the clue!) (40A: E.V. battery capacity unit). Didn't know RIDES, but it was easy to infer (32A: Snowboards, in lingo). Is KNELT not a word? I wrote in KNEELED wondering "is this how I say it?" (50A: Prepared to pop the question, say) That's all I got. See you tomorrow.
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91 comments:
My only trouble spot was at 27A, where I read the clue as "INSECTS used in orthodontics." Do orthodontists use leeCheS? I removed that and worked on the crosses until it became obvious that the answer was SPACERS, at which point I reread the clue. PAD SEE EW was a WOE (I think my local Thai place writes it as "phat si-io").
I liked the puzzle more than @Rex did; finding four more-or-less in-the-language 11s that are anagrams of each other is an admirable accomplishment.
Yet another underwhelming theme where my solving experience was saved by the fact that I’m not a theme guy. I will say that I thought the rotational aspect of the placement of anagrams was fun.
I enjoyed the fill, and the gently clever cluing - “groundbreakers” followed by “groundbreaker” was cute. That said, the wheelhouse is about as far from my preferred ground as one can get while presumably being a younger constructor, so it didn’t really have that whooshy sparkle of recognition for me. I found myself missing nature clues, for example, with none to be found unless you count ECO, MOO, or STY, the latter two of which I would argue are anti-nature. My kingdom for an EEL! Anyway, that’s fine, of course, and ymmv; I just won’t be found driving my TESLA to the DBACKs game anytime soon.
A kWh is a unit of energy, not of capacity. A kW is a unit of capacity.
Have fun with your tree pose! Falling is natural -- accept it as part of the practice. 😁
I thought it was interesting that they have a non-theme masquerading as a theme because the NYT has a rule that you have to have a theme, so hopefully this might in some small way be the beginning of the realization that we would be better of without that foolishness- hopping against hope that this might just be the dawn of a new day in that regard.
Ah is a unit of capacity, kW is a unit of power, kWh is energy (but still commonly referred to as capacity, if incorrectly)
Yup. I had KWS because KWH is not a measure of battery capacity.
NO FUN. Yep, that describes the theme pretty well. Monday is shaping up to be POW.
I wrote in FUEL CAN just off the clue, thinking I was being an idiot because no one says that (it's gas can). Then it turned out to be right, which gave me my one chuckle of the day.
TACO HOLDERS. Also not a thing. They are taco stands.
I had to look up PAD SEE EW after I finished the puzzle, to see if they'd made a mistake. I'll try it next time I'm in a Thai restaurant.
I'm kinda with Rex -- maybe if there was a clever revealer, but this isn't a theme.
@Sam -- if you're driving an EV, you want to know how much energy is left in the battery. I've never driven one, but my gas-powered Subaru tells me how many more miles I can go, which is the energy in the gas tank divided by the weight of the car. The capacity of the gas tank is equivalent to the energy the battery can hold when fully charged.
The simple past of KNEEL is KNELT. It's an irregular verb. That's my WTH for the day. And the EEE looked CREEEPY.
I'll see Rex's Ho-Hum response and raise it to a Really Disappointed. Four anagrams with no thematic sizzle or anything else, just a whole lot of letters tossed in four different salads. You may say that that's quite a construction feat, and OK, maybe it is. But as a solver, I didn't get much out of it.
As for the fill, HEAPED UP = "like a laundry pile?" OKAAAAY. So I guess the constructor just throws his dirty clothes on the floor and has never heard of a hamper or laundry basket? "Prelude to bandwidth throttling?" I guess it's my bad for not knowing this tech term, but when I looked up "bandwidth throttling," I found that it's pretty high-techy, and there wasn't a single mention of a prelude to it, so then I had to look up DATA CAP, and, y'know, I don't have a degree from Cal Tech, so I'm just going to stop right there. KNEELED instead of "knelt" has been discussed on this blog before. CHEAPIES and "bargain bin?" Ugh. And please raise your hand if you drive around with a FUEL CAN in your car. Right. Thought so.
I was not AMUSEd and I had NO FUN. Your mileage may vary, which is maybe why you have that FUEL CAN in the car if, in fact, you do.
As a computer engineer I can assert that I have never used the term “data cap”. Bandwidth Throttling is done to slow the rate of data flow, not the amount of data that is throttled. This ensures that no one data flow hogs a channel.
Well I’ve gotten to the point where midsolve all I’m thinking is “Rex is going to obliterate this ‘theme’.”
Well, I'm impressed. Finding four eleven-letter phrases that are all anagrams of each other? All of them well in the language?
And I’m happy. Has the name of my new dog (TEDDY)? Has an answer with three E’s in a row (PADSEEEW)? Has AMUSE over NO FUN? Has a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (TILER)? Has a backward LARA crossing a THEME answer (okay, this is obscure)? Has ARCED to echo CURVE in the mini? Has a word that I will always forget because it puts my brain to sleep (DATACAP), to deliciously toughen the solve?
And I’m dazzled by excquisiteness. Has reason #17 of why I love crosswords (elegant grid – look at that gorgeous spinny arrangement of 12 black squares in the middle)? And reason #19 (gorgeous spinny arrangement of theme answers)?
Hey, I wake up, do the puzzle, and now I’m cracking joyous from experiencing beauty, from things that press my happy button, and from being impressed. Thank you BZ, and congratulations on your lovely NYT puzzle debut. I loved this!
Looks like I'm an outsider today - I liked the anagrams. I thought it was a pretty cool debut. Great gimmick and lots of fun to solve. Congrats, Mr. Zoon!
AARGH!!!! I'm so angry! How dare the NYT waste my morning with this garbage! Not interesting. Not fun. Not amused!!!!
@conrad 5:47 in the olden days maybe finding 4 anagrams was an admirable accomplishment. Now one can plug letters into an online anagram solver.
Actually I liked it. I was impressed enough by the theme to try and see if there was a 5th or 6th anagram sitting there, but only got close - like OTHERLOCADS. To find 4 and arrange them in a grid like that? Pretty cool. PADSEEEW reminded me of some restaurant offering phat phuk night - turns out that was the Hanoi Bike Shop in Glasgow, so the puzzle offered plenty of fun diversion.
Ok, a TEDDY is not “sleepwear”. Not sure why this upset me so much but it did. A Teddy is used for other purposes like getting your partner excited. Fine, whatevs.
Also don’t throw out the “baby with the bath water”. Teslas are fabulous electric cars. If everyone owned a Tesla (and they are very varied in price, contrary to popular belief), global climate change would be less of a catastrophic apocalypse looming and basically already happening. Just because the company is run by a disturbed person, I mean, so was Apple. Do you have any Apple products? There are many examples, they just don’t make it so obvious.
::Yogi fist bump::
Keep the anagrams out of my puzzle please.
This was NO FUN for me - but follow your ARROW wherever it points I guess.
PADSEEEW is absolutely underrated!
And yea, screw that tesla driving guy a million times over. Get off of my roads, and get out of my xwords!
A nice debut. Thanks
kW is a unit of power: how much the battery can deliver (or is delivering, depending on context) in an instant. @Sam is correct that kWh is a unit of energy, but incorrect in that it is also a unit of capacity. The capacity of a battery is just that: how much energy it has stored up. A small battery may deliver lots of kW but only for a brief time: it has a small capacity.
Back to the puzzle: my last letter entered was the E at the intersection of PIONEER and PADSEEEW and I fully expected to get the "at least one letter is wrong" message.
I always show up to a Mexican restaurant with my own two TACOHOLDERS. They come with prehensile thumbs and can also hold forks and spoons as needed, in case I order enchiladas.
KW are units for power. Capacity isn't wrong in terms of how many miles you can go, but Coulombs are the unit for capacitance.
KNELT, yes. KNEELED, just no. No.
As someone professionally involved in the Internet, I can assure you Data Cap is a real thing, and has been for years. Fortunately, it is slowly disappearing.
I liked the grid design, i.e. the pinwheel effect of the four anagrams. A couple of times they helped me in solving. The first one I got was TACO HOLDERS and when I reached 55A and had RED HOT_____, I realized the end of it had to include C and L and therefore must be COALS. Likewise when DOOR LATCHES was in place and I was trying to figure out what kind of SCHOOL we were talking about in 11D, I grasped that it couldn’t be “night” SCHOOL (my first thought), but must be TRADE SCHOOL. Still, I agree with Rex that this theme is pretty thin soup. I’m more accepting than he that not all themes are going to set off fireworks, but it’s good to have a little more substance than we see today.
I’m with Rex about KNEELED being awkward. It’s been in puzzles twice this month, though (also Mar. 4), so it’s not unknown. It was my only error, as I had oNkneEs to start with, confirmed by GNAT, PENNE and ANTEs, which I thought was a reasonable answer to [Paid tables stakes] – I wasn’t thinking active verb, but of table stakes that are paid. My little impressionable mind was amazed by the triple E in PAD SEE EW. I didn’t know where the word breaks were (or even if there were any) and I was sure I had something wrong. I liked CHEAPIES and thought it was fine in relation to its clue.
UNICLUES:
1. The reason you can no longer get into the garden shed.
2. New wedding day jewelry tradition that’s taken over from gold rings.
3. Conveniences now standard in all 2023 flying saucer models.
4. Tolkien villain coming home after a strenuous day killing hobbits and reflecting on his performance.
5. Small biting insect whose wings and stinger are second-hand.
1. DOOR LATCHES AGE
2. BRACELETS IDOS
3. UFO TACO HOLDERS
4. ORC ACHES, DID OK (~)
5. CHEAPIES GNAT
[SB: yd, -1. Ah well, all good things… Still, I’m happy to have increased my QB streak record from 4 to 6 – although I realize it will now be harder to tie or surpass. Here’s the evil streak killer.]
Well, it's a poor day when you can't learn something, and today's lesson involved something called "bandwidth throttling", which I discover involves a DATACAP and not a DATAGAP. If it weren't for ENLACED I'd still be in the dark.
Add me to the list of people who have never said FUELCAN. If there are any people on the list who do say that at all, I've never met them.
I kept checking the three E's in a row to see what I had wrong. Had to be OK, and it was.
Nice to see my old friend NACHO in a puzzle again. When I told my students that my best friend in Spain was named NACHO, (which is the nickname for "Ignacio"), they thought it was hilarious. I don't think I mentioned that his actual name in English would be "Ignatius".
I like anagrams so this was OK for me and I'll call it a theme. Going from TRADESCHOOL to REDHOTCOALS is the kind of thing that AMUSEs me.
Nice enough Wednesdecito, BZ. Been Zapped enough by others here already, so I'll just say thanks for a fair amount of fun.
Hey All !
Spent quite a few minutes going over PADSEEEW after getting the crossers. "That can't be right, can it?" I kept thinking, but the Downs just couldn't be anything else. Finally resigned to getting the Almost There message, when what to my wondering ears should hear ... the Happy Music! Apparently I don't partake in Thai cuisine. (I don't...)
Liked this puz. I usually like any puz, with the rare exception now and again. Four 11's anagrammed, nice. I will divulge that TACO HOLDERS is a bit iffy. They are TACO SHELLS, yes?
Only 32 Blockers. Only one UP (har). DBACK sounds like something naughty to me. We get a WHEN and a THEN.
PEEPS, one of those words that I say "kids these days". I use it occasionally (usually facetiously.) Speaking of PEEPS, it's their season (the marshmallow things, I hear there's a Watermelon flavor out there, and as sugary as they are, would want to try that one.)
I DID OK today. FAR from NO FUN. MOO. 😁
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This is a fine puzzle. Do not understand the grumbling about it. It's different. Different can be good, and this one is. Someone said that the NYT demands a theme. That is incorrect. Every week there are themeless puzzles. The Thai clue stumped me, but the down answers filled it in.
Amy: liked this puzzle and used the theme to complete/confirm some entries. DBACK is a reminder (should you need one) that baseball starts soon!
Only used the anagram theme once...to pick up the "c" in REDHOTCOALS. Well thought out puzzle, but on the easy side for a Wednesday, I thought.
I'd be interested in hearing from other solvers whether they like KNEELED as opposed to KNELT. It's in the dictionary, but it sounds wrong when said aloud.
Re: Rex’s distaste for Musk:
I was in a conversation once where I had cause to quote Tesla and one of the other participants rolled his eyes. It finally came to light that he’d not heard of the esteemed Mr. Tesla and had instead equated Musk with that name. I sure hope that association doesn’t persist!
DATACAPs are frequently seen when choosing a cell phone plan. Whereas, they used to give you 2GB, say, then charge you exhorbitantly, they now give you that same 2GB, then throttle your usage to lower speeds. You even see this on "unlimited" plans.
Didn't we see the eyebrow arching KNEELED recently? (scrolls comments) Oh, hi Barbara: Mar 4, thx.
@Camilita - yes about anagram solvers (great for cheating at Spelling Bee), but you'd still have to hunt around a lot to find 4 in the language anagrams of this length.
I agree with OFL about CHEAPIES: it really doesn't sound in-the-language.
Played like a perfectly appropriate themeless Wednesday, so the "hmm" eliciting theme was enough.
Wife: Why are you so angry this morning?
Husband: The crossword was too damned easy!
Wife: You're kidding, right?
Calling all etymologists: Sometimes the English language seems inconsistent. The past tense of "feel" is FELT. You can't say you "feeled" something. So why is it OK to say you "kneeled" when KNELT is also in use (and preferred)?
Maybe a tad harder than a typical Wednesday for me, possibly due to unknowns like DATACAP and all the open space (two Wednesdays in a row with "ambitious" grids - a 72-worder last week, and today a 74-worder with just 32 black squares and 90 degree symmetry). Honestly I was expecting worse fill, since in my experience, grids with all Across themers are easier to fill than puzzles like today's with that "pinwheel" layout.
Unrelated to the NYT, but still a classic Rex-ism: Today's Universal has "SEE A SHOW" as an answer. Do any of you think this is EATASANDWICH-level fill?
I solved this the way I bet every last one of you solved it: I ignored the anagrams completely -- except when I wanted to check one letter on my second entry just to make sure that answer was right before writing it in.
So I'd describe this as an anagram puzzle for people who hate anagrams. Which is a lot more people than I ever would have guessed before I first came to this blog.
Like yesterday, I find myself without a lot to say about this puzzle. No junk and a pleasant enough solve -- though not a very challenging one. Last week was much tougher than this one has been so far. Hoping for more challenge tomorrow.
@Roo - taco holders are little metal devices shaped like /\/\/\/\. They are especially handy for an overstuffed flour tortilla.
I’m very familiar with data caps, having paid for many extra gigabytes after our kids would run through our monthly limit.
Thx, Ben; well done! :) (wish I could say the same for myself)
Med+
A super silly dnf for me. :(
Puz solving thinking cap not on this AM. Had DOOR cATCHES / ENcAsED, and took forever to find the gaff.
DATA sAP, DATA gAP, d-oh! :(
Thot my error must be something to do with PADSEEEW. Didn't even think to try to parse it into three words.
Love anagrams per se; just not in xwords. Gave a very token look at the themers, but missed the lack of an 'L' and double 'c' in the 'fasteners'.
Finally concluded that I definitely had the 'Twined together' / 'bandwidth' answers wrong, came up with LATCHES, which led to ENLACED / DATA CAP, and Bob was my uncle. (whew! & phew!)
Enjoyed this adventure (in a strange way). Remains to be seen whether or not I'll ever learn to listen to that spidey sense, e.g., DOOR cATCHES never did ring true, and DATA sAP/gAP didn't either. And, neither ENcAsED nor ENcAgED was synonymous with 'Twined together'.
The rest of today will be devoted to bettering my fundamental thinking skills (or lack thereof). 🤔
___
Re: Will Nediger's Mon. New Yorker: med. dif (80 mins); great workout! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Cheapies was my only hang up. Instead of moving on I stared at it far too long trying to discern what the puzzle wanted from me. Oh well. Overall easy and not very satisfying.
FINN WASHOUTS
SWAN THIN UFOS
JET ON BALONEY
THIS WAS NO FUN
Does one need a certain type of brain to look at a phrase and immediately anagram it into another? If so, I need one.
I'm not really good at unscrambling.
I'll move over to the food aisle.
@kitshef, unless you'r being [ahem]cheeky, TACO HOLDERS actually exist. I have a cute little red and green one someone gave me. It beats having to hold the stuff in with toothpicks...keeps the shape so you can dowse the yummies with red or green sauce....
Now I'll move over to that PADSEEEW dish. Hah! I love Thai food names. Have you ever eaten Hoy Dong?
They are picked cockles. Now how could you clue that one? @Gary J or perhaps @egs might have fun.... and don't forget the side of stink beans....
Anyway...the rest of the puzzle moves me down other aisles. I had a mistake... Throttling my bandwidth turned out to be a RATA CAP. My Arizona player was a R (razor?) BACK. I don't know my throttling nor my Arizona snakes.
I got RED HOT COALS because I knew my downs. Then I paused for a sec and wondered why on earth anyone would walk on them. I suppose it's some sort of rite of passage? If you scream louder than everyone else, do you win?...or are you disqualified. I stepped on one little itty bitty COAL once. I was barefoot because I hate shoes. It blew my head off. And to think it anagrams to TACO HOLDERS. My imagination stopped there.
I like CHEAPIES and NACHO. Isn't there a song called NACHO NACHO man? CHEAPIES remind me of little birds singing in the morning. I think I need a life.
Anyway, the puzzle was OK. I can't do a TREE POSE without falling on my fondillo, but I can eat a bowl full of PADSEEW with a side of hoy dong and stink beans.
rad clothing (anagram of 17-Across)
cool threads
Kneeled and knelt are both fine.
"Waiter, were these nachos by any chance heated up?"
"Yes sir, just as you requested."
[flings plate of nachos onto the floor] "That is *not* what I requested. I said I wanted them HEAPED up. Heaped. With a P."
"I am so sorry. Would you like pad see ew instead?"
"No. Why would I want Pat, whoever that is, to see me? You can pick up those nachos and arrange them into a heap. Not too neat, it should look randomly composed. Then put them in a taco holder and I'll think about eating them."
"Sir, we don't have taco holders."
"No taco holders? Do you have red hot coals? Because someone is about to get raked over them!"
It's true: this puzzle might be more interesting if presented as a themeless, with no mention of the anagrams in the clues. Savvy solvers would feel some satisfaction at noticing them on their own. Another example of the editorial staff shooting itself in the foot by giving away TMI.
♪ Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby ♪
Easy-medium. No erasures and PADSEEEW was my only WOE. Not sure I’ve ever heard anyone say FUEL CAN?
I’m not a big fan of anagrams and this set was not particularly scintillating, so I’m kinda with @Rex on this one. Didn’t hate it.
I went fishing for etymologists, but haven't relt any in.
wordsmith.org lists 7,748 anagrams for those letters. Best one I saw was “cool threads.” But after the drudgery today (AND, ARE, EDS, LED, WHEN, THEN) “A Dolt’s Chore” seems more appropriate.
I'll have loads more FUN practicing for this.
Stared at PADSEEEW for two full minutes checking crosses thinking, "That can't possibly be right," and when I didn't get the Congrats sign at the end I went right back to it. I didn't know EW was a separate word. Damn you anglicized Asian cooking ingredients. My actual mistake was crossing HEEPED and CHEEP. My kingdom for an A.
Fun puzzle. I never check anagrams because I feel like I need paper and pencil (which I have forsaken), so I will trust these are what they claim to be.
On a semi-related issue, @Nancy mentioned yesterday how she's just finished a new puzzle and detailed the separation between puzzle building and cluing. I bought that software they use to make a crossword and put together a grid and it filled with some of the dumbest and worst possible words I could imagine. I quickly realized the software would need constant babysitting over the word list, and my respect goes out to those willing to cull those lists. It seems like drudgery. On the other hand, cluing seems to be the place where fun and happiness lives, and so I wondered a bit yesterday: "Why are so many puzzles clued with yawn-inducing beige paint?" I would think Friday and Saturday would be knee-slapper days, rather than "this barely means that" days. On this blog alone we have a dozen hilarious writers, wouldn't it be natural for funny people to write funny clues. I suspect they do, but then I wondered about the editorial process and the corporate oversight at the NYTXW. Does the comedy get lasered out at that level? Maybe the independent puzzles are funnier? Over the years I've worked with a few crummy editors and a few brilliant editors, so I am guessing there's a mix at the Times too.
Also semi-related, @CDilly52 and other late posters, I have become accustomed to the early commenters and could write the post for most of them, but late posters almost always are more fun to read. It's a nice wind-down at the end of a day to read later postings, even if all the flash and glamour happened before noon.
Uniclues:
1 That delightful time in civilization when we became willing to carry keys around in the hope of hanging onto our pots and pans.
2 Hippie wedding accoutrement.
3 Food service items suitable for long distance travel.
4 Crossworders (ya know, since they're the only ones who've ever heard of this sea).
5 Bad guys' injuries rested up after battle with mai tais and mahjong.
1 DOOR LATCHES AGE
2 BRACELET IDOS
3 UFO TACO HOLDERS
4 ARAL PIONEERS
5 ORC ACHES DID OK (~)
Any debut is a good puzzle in My book 🎉 AND Ben was able to AMUSE with DOOR LATCHES HEAPED UP into ARCED double grid symmetry. TACO HOLDERS are a wonderful addition for any fiesta by the way; hard corn shells are no longer my preference since Mme N overruled my skepticism — soft shells cradle the shrimp & avocado so lovingly.
I’m musing about the technology however. If Zoon can write software to uncover endless supplies of anagrams to create this cruciverbal BRACELET, what will we be facing when Chat gpt4 enters the game. Reading Bill Gate’s recent notes on Artificial Intelligence promise/threat was as AMUSing as a classic BEQ grid. Huuuuummmmm?
Well, it had to be PIONEERS, so I put filled that final blank with the middle E of PADSEEEW. I really like Thai food, but have not been around it nearly enough to name and/or spell particular dishes.
Had ANTEs ("Paid table stakes") before ANTED, reacting to the S in stakes instead of the tense of paid.
Having wasp instead of GNAT was also a buzz kill.
@ eaterofsole and others; the answer to 40A is correct. A battery is rated for the amount of energy it can deliver. Electrical energy is the product of power and time, i.e. the amount of power delivered for a specified period of time. KW is a unit of power and H is the time period of one hour.
"The A-Word!"
Actually, M&A dropped a runtpuz right here on the 12th of this March. It had that exact title, and had the same anagram cross-referencin theme as today's NYTPuz theme. Only dif was that the runtpuz's 8-Across answer was ANAGRAM, so all the cross-ref themer clues actually had an extra cross-ref in em; like: {8-Across of 6-Down}, etc. (@kitshef expertly solved it in under 2 minutes, btw.)
Weren't real familiar with today's TACOHOLDERS themer, altho the concept seems reasonable. Kinda like "Shut yer piehole!" vs. "Keep yer TACOHOLDERS offa me!". Or somesuch.
Weren't at all familiar with PADSEEEW. But, then … M&A rarely orders meals off the menu that end with an "EW". Ditto with SOSPADS, btw.
Extra suggested themer that actually has a story behind it that U'all probably wouldn't want M&A to share:
SATCHELODOR.
staff weeject pick: KWH. Stands for Kinda-Whatever-Hour.
Primo weeject stacks in all four puzcorners. The bases were loaded!
fave stuff included: AMUSE & NOFUN combo in the NW. CHEAPIES. TREEPOSE [really wanted a pic of @RP tryin to do it, tho]. ROGUEONE. AUGUR. BRACELET clue.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Zoon dude. And congratz on yer fine debut.
Masked & Anonymo5Us [now anticipatin mucho puz royalties from the NYTPuz Dept.] [har]
**gruntz**
Uniclues:
1) Yes they do! Alas, don't we all?
2) Introducing the newest ridiculously named band
3) A really repulsive mountain, so let's burnish our hiking resume by climbing yet another one
1) DOORLATCHES AGE
2) ARE RED HOT COALS
3) PADS EEEW ALP
Like @Nancy, I find myself struggling to find anything meaningful to comment on when it comes to the themes this week. Monday with the 20 questions and rock bands was a tad annoying; yesterday I didn’t bother at all and today was well, underwhelming. But that said, I think this was the most entertaining and challenging of the three. I’m on the fence about the anagram business. I hate Spelling Bee but don’t mind them in my crosswords every now and then.
PAD SEE EW was a dish I’d never heard of AS YET. I kept trying to make it Chop Suey or something with seaweed but it sure sounds tasty. Is it cooked over RED HOT COALS by chance? I wouldn’t mind trying a plate HEAPED UP with it.
@Whatsername – Pad see ew is my fallback Thai food dish, along with "Drunken noodles", which is basically a spicier (but not too) version of pad see ew. Either is highly recommended.
Ha, spent a bunch of time checking crosses on PAD SEEEW when I should have been looking at 23A. With BACK in place for 23D, I decided the Arizona was a rBACK for razor - looking BACK, I rue that decision because I have heard of the DiamondBACKs but SPACEd it - bandwidth throttling? rATACAP, sure.
Oh well.
I like anagrams as much, possibly more, as anybody but I wasn't sure this was a theme worthy of the name. Maybe if I'd looked harder at the four and realized they were all anagrams of each other, but I didn't and...shrug.
But congratulations, Ben Zoon, on your NYT debut!
Back in the days before internet and a computer program for everything, this puzzle would have gone into my theme box called “Constructor Wizardry.” I always appreciate puzzles that show me the constructor(s) had and executed a complicated idea. Even when the idea isn’t particularly exciting or funny, I still appreciate a constructor’s cleverness and ggggggeffort tonk kg gg
In the days before the internet and programs for everything, I would have out this puzzle in the category of “Constructor Wizardry.” Without an “unscrambling” or similar program, finding a phrase with 11 letters that would also “unscramble” into three other 11 letter phrases would have taken a good while. Today, mot so much. That said, I don’t think the actual feat constitutes wizardry, but it’s a solid idea well executed. I get to say “Huh, well how about that.” I always enjoy seeing constructors’ ideas executed completely because construction is well outside my wheelhouse. So kudos to Ben Zoon. Whether you had technological assistance or not, your puzzle was published. It fit the Wednesday mold and had a little crunch.
Does this puzzle work better without calling the theme out? Would anyone notice it? Does it make a difference? With a theme this lousy, are just we being patronized and talked down to by the editor?
I always like it when more uncommon types of wordplay appear in the crossword. After DOOR LATCHES, I enjoyed trying to get the other three answers without any crossing help, and that made the entire solve very satisfying from my point of view. I guess it might not feel as good if the anagrams are something you don't actually use in the solve. Oh well, I thought it was a nice debut!
Here's a tip. Do the TREE POSE and variations thereof in an open doorway. That way you can reach out for support if you start to fall.
Here's another tip. If you are doing anagrams, make sure there is at least one S in them. That way, like here, DOOR LATCH, TACO HOLDER AND RED HOT COAL can get a plural of convenience (POC) letter count boost to match TRADE SCHOOL.
The rest of the grid also leaned heavily on POCs, including four of the ultra helpful two for one POCs, where a Down and an Across both share a final letter count boosting S. The first is where 4D SURFACE and 37A COO need that shared S to fill their slots. The POC Committee, fresh off a week long retreat and in fine form, unanimously gave the grid a POC Marked rating.
I love anagrams, and it's pretty neat that Ben made these 4 pretty decent phrases work. It would have been truly epic if there were also some connection between them! And by the way, anagrams always make me think of this classic Lisa Simpson moment.
Typeovers: FUEL CAP before FUEL CAN, and DATA GAP and DOOR CATCHES crossing ENCAGED.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0 but it wasn't easy. My last 2 words were this 10er and this 8er. @Barbara S when I saw your "-1" I was sure it would be one of them. Sorry your streak is over but congratulations!]
In defense of the constructor - I'd love to see some of the whiners on this site come up with 4 (FOUR!!) 11-letter anagrams of each other that a) were not non-sensical, unrelated words, and 2) fit so snugly in a X-word grid like these did. I'll wait here. . . Well done, Mr. Zoon.
Anagrams? That’s it? Reminds me of the recent recipe puzzles. Hasn’t Shortz reached retirement age?
My last entry was PAD SEE EW, and when I looked at the puzzle, I thought the answer really should have been PAD pEE EW, as in "that pad really stinks". I agree with OFL here. The puzzle is far from first rate, though I knew @Lewis would have nice words for it.
Here in town, we fell in love with a Thai restaurant run by an Anglo couple that had lived in Thailand for a few years and learned how to cook the food. When they closed, we tried a few others, and eventually drifted back to our Chinese and Mexican and Italian favorites.
One of my daughters went through an NSYNC phase. OK, but we were glad when it petered out.
For me the best part of the puzzle was the opening stack, which I took as the constructor's conceding that anagrams are divisive. Ordinarily, I'm on the NO FUN side, but there was something pleasing about DOOR LATCHES, and the others were easy to get with crosses.
@Conrad - I loved the idea of orthodontic leeches! What will fearful practices will dentistry come up with next? :)
@Karl Grouch-I hear you. I even pelt a grape to use for bait, no luck.
I like anagrams as much as the next guy. Unfortunately, I don’t like the next guy. Actually, wordplay and its relatives are all ok by me.
I didn’t rent a Tesla here in Patagonia, and found out the hard way other day that I do need to carry a FUELCAN.
What do Chia Pets have for dessert? CHEAPIES.
The KNEELED/knelt ado got me thinking that Laurel and Hardy might have been able to get some mileage out of this one:
What was that fish I smelled?
Smelt
Don’t go correcting my grammar, just tell me what I smelled.
Smelt.
Why, I oughta ….
It will be interesting to see if the NYT tells us the first time they publish a chat bot-generated puzzle, or just wait to see the reaction. I guarantee it will happen within one year.
@egs – Of course Will Shortz will announce when the first chatbot puzzle hits. He can't keep his mouth shut about anything.
kW is not a unit of capacity. kWh on the other hand is totally reasonable as a measure of (energy) capacity and is in fact commonly used to describe EV batteries.
I nearly kelt over when my training-resistant dog helt on first command today.
@Joe (12:07) Thanks for the recommendation. Drunken noodles definitely sounds like a dish I need to try. 😄
Wouldn’t you know that after declaring cheapies not to be in the language, I get some spam in my email advertising exactly that?
@Gary J (11:17) -- I tried to send the following to your email, but I go a failure notice. Here's what I wrote:
Re your comment today: You're right: the fun is in coming up with the theme and in doing the cluing. I've never tried to do anything else and have no desire whatsoever to ever construct a grid.
When I first noticed how many NYT puzzles were now being co-constructed, I asked myself: I wonder if one person constructs the grid so that the other person doesn't have to? I thought to myself: If you can come up with a really good theme, maybe a top-level grid-maker will be willing to work with you.
Software, schmoftware. If grid-construction doesn't float your boat, Gary, come up with a theme you're excited by, clue the theme answers as cleverly as you can, and then reach out to one (or more, if necessary) of puzzledom's experienced grid-making pros -- preferably one who has a history of collaborating. If your idea is good, he or she will be happy to work with you, good ideas being hard to find. I think you're clever and funny and playful enough to pull it off. Not everyone on the blog is, but I think you're one of the people who might have the knack. I think Barbara is another. And Joe D, too. Hope you'll try and that you'll succeed. The more people who can do this amusingly and cleverly, the more solving fun for all of us.
Sounds like Tesla is less well known than he should be., mainly because Edison got most of the credit for Tesla's ideas. That's sad. And being connected to Musk is even worse!
Tesla, immigrant, brilliant scientist, who developed mental illness. Was not good in business but advanced AC current and thereby contributed mightily to electrification. Musk immigrant, brilliant marketer, good businessman until his ego got the better of him and a pretty nasty piece of work. (The older he gets the more Musk acts like Henry Ford as he got older).
My point was (it seems to have gotten lost) that we shouldn't need two separate past tenses of a particular verb.
FEEL...FELT (not feeled)
PEEL..PEELED (PELT is something else)
SMELL...SMELLED (SMELT is something else)
KNEEL...only needs one past tense, not two. KNELT is enough. Why do we also need KNEELED?
The trade school latched the doors until the forging students learned to make taco holders with steel and red hot coals.
See how easy that was?
Fun puzzle today.
Maybe that spam was done by A.I. or someone not a native English speaker? Still doesn't seem in the language. Above someone mentioned the Times may someday soon publish an A.I. crossword puzzle. Probably but ugh!
Question: How does one read the clue 24D? The answer is ARROW, but I don’t know why. I just don’t get it! Feeling stupid. Help?
Glad to read your comments, as I thought this was a really annoying puzzle with weak clues. Thanks.
Why all the hatred for Musk? I thought electric cars were the be-all and end-all for the mindless masses our educational system has spewed out over the past 4 decades.
What was his particular transgression?
Oh, he champions free speech.
'Nuff said...
ACHES CITED
She KNEELED in FRONT of me WHEN
she said, "To AMUSE IDO ONE."
AND DIDOK for me, THEN,
REDHOT she COOS, "Am I NOFUN?"
--- TEDDY PEROT, CPA
@ Anonymous 11:02 PM - Your browser may not have written out arrow symbols. In mine the arrow symbols are diagrammed in the 24D clue so the answer is just the description of the clue.
Puzzle imo was decent. Rex is being a bit harsh.
Anagrams. Yikes.
Wordle birdie.
When I saw those three E's piled up I thought sure I had gone astray somewhere...yet the downs were so solid I couldn't budge any of them. It's a relief to see the dish really is spelled that way--but who, in ANY language, would name a food EW? Oh well, there's Iceland and Greenland, so what's in a name?
I can see an anagram of two phrases/names might be boring, as there must be thousands. But to RE-anagram those same letters twice more? How do people even FIND this stuff? I doff my hat to the constructor who came up with this. Extraordinary. There doesn't HAVE to be a "point," or a relationship to the four phrases. That they exist is enough. Bravo, and a birdie--even if "KNEELED" is only used in crosswords as opposed to "knelt." As we've seen, E's can come in handy.
Wordle birdie, again on not that easy a word. Makes a bloke feel...so proud
The answer ( )OGUEONE had me perplexed for a while - must...get...out...more
Was this written by Anna Grammarian?
And yes, it should be knelt - that's how it's spelt. Or spellt.
Lady Di
@D,LIW, Har. Anna Grammarian. Good one.
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