With the raw data downloaded, I spent some time cleaning it up until it was in a usable form: Each row includes the year of the puzzle, the day of the week, the clue, the word, the explanation, and the total number of times the word appears in my dataset. A SABLE (Black) is a small, weasel-like animal with dark fur. New York Times Crossword January 26 2022 Answers, New York Times Crossword August 2 2022 Answers, New York Times Mini Crossword August 2 2022 Answers, Portfolio piece for short crossword clue, Vaccine shot in British lingo crossword clue, Survivor locale in the South Pacific crossword clue, City built on 118 small islands crossword clue, Certain tow job informally crossword clue, Org. While I was waiting in line at airport security, listening to a part of the book about information redundancy (about 50% of the way through), I finally realized the parallels. But, of course, right now, Im not trying to optimize for enjoyment (although, it definitely helps as a motivator). Therefore, lets look at yesterdays puzzle and see how much of the grid is represented in my Crossword Trainer dataset (i.e. Packed, like a ship with cargo Crossword Clue, New York Crossword Answers August 2, 2022. Nevertheless, I believe this kind of effort is still feasible for most people: I only spent an average of 2 hours per day over 23 days (mostly spent in two one-hour blocks during my 3 hours of daily commuting). In this way, I was able to memorize the historically most useful word first, followed by the second most useful word second, and so on. 43A. Crosswords are not simply an entertaining hobby activity according to many scientists. In this way, weve been trained in school to overvalue memorization as the meat of education, blinded to the curriculum-building parts of the process. My head was on my pillow and my eyes were closed, but my brain was definitely already on. Im a visiting a friend for the weekend, and then flying back to San Francisco on Sunday night. The information on this website is provided for informational purposes only. easier puzzles) into my training routine. Biggest thanks of all to Will Nediger, whose patient and amazing mentorship is the reason Ive made any halfway decent puzzles. Right here. In my head, I make a note of whether or not I answered correctly, subconsciously tweaking my mental model of letter patterns. Today, I put this idea into practice, while solving a Friday puzzle from 2017. Middle, and 3. clues/answers that occur more frequently), and then memorize/internalize accordingly. This will be a perfect way to start tomorrows Medium post. Beginning, 2. Instead, they borrow heavily from common language learning approaches, effectively treating the crossword lexicon as a new foreign language (as Ive described in previous posts). The ellipsis in the clue Peel or, phonetically, a fruit you might do this to indicates that there is an interesting relationship between the two halves of the clue that the constructor wants to emphasize. Instead, learners are distinguished by their ability to know what they should and should not memorize. So, heres my idea: When I get to the point in a puzzle where Im completely stuck, I should just assume that Ive made some mistake somewhere. Two notably random facts that Ive learned so far include: i), Many of these clues and answers are reused in new puzzles, So, for a given new puzzle, I can easily fill in a large portion of the grid just using memorized answers, With the memorized answers in place, I should have enough. Thus, it seems important that I train my letter statistics abilities in a more deliberate fashion (so I can optimally apply this Expanding & Contracting approach). Im learning to better recognize common types of misdirection; 2. For example, in language learning, most people think that they need to complete years of classroom studies, grammar exercises, online courses, etc. Essentially, creating a clean 15x15 grid of interlocking words requires some reliance on certain patterns of the English language, which forces crossword constructors to lean much more heavily on words better suited to fit into these kinds of grids. I love weird family linguistic quirks that linger across generations. This might sound like a horrible idea, where I end up erasing the entire puzzle, but, despite its counterintuitive nature, it seems to be working. Thus, I will use the 2017 puzzles to fairly assess my progress throughout the rest of the month. Here, PARE means peel, but its also a homophone of pear, a fruit that one might PARE. As I mentioned, when using the Crossword Trainer, Im not trying to actively memorize anything in particular. In other words, whats the best way to actually approach a NYT crossword puzzle? To complete this months challenge, I must fulfill three criteria: During my freshman year of college, I started doing the NYT crossword every Monday (since the newspaper was freely distributed in the student center and dining halls). From past experiences solving (mostly Monday puzzles), Ive noticed that I slowly absorb crossword knowledge over time, as patterns start to emerge. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. This puzzles theme is revealed at 58A (Big times in Silicon Valley or a hint to 17-, 25-, 35- and 49-Across?) with the entry TECH BOOMS. But, Im not holding my breath. This is a very clever clue. There are a lot of fancy ways to do this, but Im pretty inexperienced in this area. but it is a thing. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'nytimesanswers_com-medrectangle-3','ezslot_4',132,'0','0'])};if(typeof __ez_fad_position != 'undefined'){__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-nytimesanswers_com-medrectangle-3-0')};Thanks for visiting our NY Times Crossword Answers page. 38D. Thus, it seems that crossword puzzles are much more finite in scope that I originally thought, which is largely why I was able to improve my solving abilities so quickly. In the beginning of the puzzle, my main objective is to lay down as many high-probability answers as possible based solely on the clues (since the grid is empty, not offering any helping letters for support). Thus, it begs the question Should I even continue training with the Crossword Trainer? Short pants? are TROU, which is short for the type of pants known as TROUsers. Carly Schuna makes their New York Times Crossword debut. Hes also designed his site so that its incredibly searchable/navigable, which makes the next step much easier. Almost one week ago, I built my Crossword Trainer, a computer program that helps me memorize past crossword clues and answers. In total, Ive learned 1,600 out of the 12,000 lines of data (~13%). 25D. My only regret about this grid is that it wouldnt work to have BLOW UP MY PHONE in it! Weve got you covered. At other points in the solve, I reach a near standstill. As I learned more words, my crossword solving abilities noticeably improved. During parts of the solve, I find significant momentum and many answers fall quickly into place. Therefore, in total, I spent 46 hours on this months challenge. The word Mideasterner in the clue Many a Mideasterner sounded to me as though it should refer to a person from a Mid-Atlantic state, a sort of counterpart to Midwesterner. But, in reality, Im using the functionality as a way to invalidate my guesses. I reasoned that every puzzle would contain its own nearly unique set of trivia pulled from some infinite pool of crossword-eligible knowledge. If we add it back in, we get MISS UNIVERSE, which makes a lot more sense. It seems that the constant feeling of struggle this week wasnt actually a bad sign, but instead, an indicator that I was pushing myself to improve. I occasionally tried the Tuesday puzzle, but could never get very far. Today, I experimented with this balance, and was able to cut my solve time to around 20 minutes on average, using a cheat on 27% of the squares (the red triangle means I revealed, and the black triangle means I checked and the previous guess was incorrect). is the crossword clue of the longest answer. As in that other puzzle, this is a wordplay clue, misdirecting toward a treaty signed in Paris but actually referring to a word of agreement in Paris: OUI. Likewise with the second one, TOO BAD FOR YOU (Gloating words of mock consolation), which is so delightfully sassy and mean! If you watch the entire hour-long video, with commentary, youll see me struggle for the first few minutes, and then, all of a sudden, something clicks in my brain and I start performing at the upper boundary of my training. But, this doesnt mean that Im adding 100 new crossword answers at a time. (This step integrates B1, B2, B3, and B4). The program is only 17 lines of Python code, and runs in my computers Terminal. If you landed on this webpage, you definitely need some help with NYT Crossword game. And now, on July 15, I completed 72% of the puzzle (on the right). All four theme entries are technology terms that end with a word that, in another context, might produce a loud BOOM. The math just doesnt work out: The average Saturday puzzle takes me between 2030 minutes to complete, which means Ill only be able to work through ~60 puzzles during the entire month. This Physics of Crossword Puzzles was an idea Ive been thinking about for the past few days (I had planned to write this particular post earlier this week). The Site of a legend isnt where you might find the lost city of Atlantis or a yeti, but rather where you might find a legend explaining the various symbols on a MAP. While this may seem like Im building my skills on a shaky foundation, Id tend to disagree. Instead, I need to optimize for pattern recognition, which lives in the sweet spot between no struggle and all struggle. In other words, I highly valued my ability to parse a clue in isolation. Some answers can be clued in extremely different ways. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. In retrospect, the Crossword Trainer (the computer program I wrote to memorize the 6,000 most popular crossword clues and answers) was hugely important to my success this month. Our website is updated regularly with the latest clues so if you would like to see more from the archive you can browse the calendar or click here for all the clues from January 26, 2022.. No SPAM! And heres the full video, if youre interested in watching me um and hmm my way through the puzzle. 13D. I still wanted to practice in some way though, so I figured that a Monday puzzle (the easiest puzzle of the week) might be a good way to relax while also keeping my momentum moving forward. When you see the squiggle without any context, your brains E pattern recognizer has a pretty high threshold. This is a useful bit of fill that shows up from time to time in crosswords, so I recommend filing it away for future solves: Private eye, in old slang is TEC, short for deTECtive. Upon fixing these squares, all the previously unidentifiable words magically became pretty standard words (i.e. It is a daily puzzle and today like every other day, we published all the solutions of the puzzle for your convenience. This might sound a bit pseudo-scientific and non-trainable, but, in fact, this is exactly analogous to my entire journey learning how to backflip. You have heard this aria if you are an opera fan or an aficionado of late-night K-tel music-compilation commercials from the 1970s. In the past few days, Ive been able to fully solve Saturday puzzles if I allow myself to use checking but not revealing. I thought that the answer to One requested by disgruntled customers: Abbr. might be refund or discount, but I couldnt think of a good abbreviation for either of them. They have there own style of cluing, which is noticeably different from the clueing on Fridays and Saturdays (as well as the Monday-Wednesdays). Ive considered a few other variations of this program (multiple question marks per answer, two answers intersecting at a question mark, etc. Anyway, the point is My Crossword Trainer and Letter Trainer were able to harness this feedback loop and become much more effective training tools than I originally suspected. I had convinced myself that A Saturday puzzle is a hard puzzle. 16A. Today, I decided to start at the beginning with the January 14 puzzle. In other words, it seems that if I finish memorizing all 12,707 clue-answer pairs, I should be able to successfully solve a Saturday NYT crossword puzzle with reasonable ease. He thought this was a Medium-Challenging Friday puzzle (which likely equates to an Easy-Medium Saturday puzzle), so I was pretty happy about that. Yet, after a few days without the Crossword Trainer, my progress flatlined (or perhaps even regressed). Multiple studies have demonstrated the positive effects of playing crosswordson the brain. While I didnt actually feel like I got better this week (in fact, my confidence noticeably dipped), now that Ive compared todays performance to my performances on July 1 and July 8, my progress is undeniable. Schuna on this lively and well-made debut I cant wait to see what they do next! If I do that, heres what the grid looks like. Still, it will be interesting to see if this was just a fluke, or somehow this delete everything until I can make forward progress approach is actually an effective method. Turns out this customer wants to speak to a MGR. Ive also tried the Tuesday and Wednesday puzzles, but I still cant solve them without some help. Im not sure how I know where this sweet spot is. The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.For tips on how to get started, read our series, How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.. (This step integrates B1 and B2). Right now, my feedback loop is a week long, and thats just not good enough if I want to have any control over the outcome of my training. A SOLAR ECLIPSE (split between 30D and 41A) is occurring, which means that the SUN is hiding behind black squares in four places in the puzzle. But, what if, instead, TRE was clued like this: Amount over due?. Youve probably noticed that some of the clues are nothing but dashes, and the entries for those clues are not numbered. Todays puzzle features some sage words from the constructor August Miller, although you may need to solve the puzzle all the way through to uncover what they are. In 28 minutes, I completed the entire puzzle perfectly with the exception of two squares. That entry has been in the New York Times Crossword 226 times and is also known as a needlefish. The longest answer in our database is THEBLAIRSWITCHPROJECT which contains 21 Characters. We saw the clue Paris accord? just last week! My guess is that the app has limitations on how these clues can be presented. My time was allocated across three activities: 1. All three of my ideas are some flavor of the brute force method, which certainly cant be classified as predictable or repeatable. You are welcome to steal it). for unknown), We are in no way affiliated or endorsed by The New York Times Company. Clearly, I dont have much of a plan yet. All intellectual property rights in and to the Crosswords are owned by Los Angeles Times, including copyrighted images and trademarks. Every day, the sites creator, Bill Ernest, publishes the clues and answers to that days NYT crossword puzzle as plain text. This website is for informational purposes only. And this is where the mistake happened. Learning how to identify and interpret the main types of cluing misdirection. As soon as the page loaded, I realized my mistake, but it was too late: The answers to todays Saturday puzzle were rendered right in front of me. For the rest of the night, I attempted and failed to get back into a deep sleep. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Today, after training for a week, I tried to complete the July 8, 2017 Saturday NYT puzzle (which was a more middle of the road puzzle according to Rex Parker), and successfully filled in 47% of the squares a nice improvement of ~57%. That is true for the web version of the puzzle that I solve, but not the app version. As a result, I couldnt fairly solve todays puzzle on video, which is particularly frustrating given that the puzzle is apparently suuuuper-easy. (I may also return to todays July 22 puzzle in a few days, most likely for training purposes, assuming my brain can forget what it has seen). https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2022-01-26.html. I am an old, so I have never texted the word SIKE! to anyone,. Ive also included As Ever and In Toto because these are answers I remember seeing from other crosswords (even though they werent in my dataset). Not only that, but he also selects a number of clue-answer pairs, and provides additional useful information (i.e. Yet another question mark clue! When I first conceptualized the Crossword Trainer, heres how I hoped things would go: In other words, I hope that I can solely use memorized answers to surpass the solve threshold of any given puzzle (where the solve threshold is the percentage of completed grid where, if reached, I would be able to fully complete the rest of the puzzle). in the direction of answer to clue). In other words, the same answer with very different clues is far from being an automatic fill-in. Sipping sake through the hollow stem of a lotus leaf believed to be good for health and longevity. If this is the case, Ill need to resort to a purely brute force method, which is less than ideal. This is because your brain tries to predict the future, which affects the way you see the world. 18D. To do this, Ill need to start solving some easier puzzles. Weve got two internet/texting initialisms in the puzzle today: Texters Hold that thought and Tweeters alternatively are the clues for BRB (be right back) and OTOH (on the other hand). In other words, according to Shannon, because of the strict structure of the English language, we are just barely able to successfully construct reasonable crossword puzzles. Im learning what the most commonly used answers are, which I still might be able to recognize in the grid, even if the clue doesnt match the clue Ive learned; etc. I encourage new solvers to examine the individual words that make up the longest Across entries. Your email address will not be published. I was wrong, but still I surprised myself once again with this weeks performance. In my head, based on this clue, I update my guess. I spent days trying to create a grid where the SUN rebuses were scattered randomly I even created 16x15 and 16x16 versions, too but ultimately found that a 15x15 grid with symmetrical rebus squares yielded much cleaner results. I had planned this trip three months ago, with little regard for its implications on the M2M project, which was a bit risky: If I hadnt finished this months challenge up until this point, these four days would be particularly valuable. Perhaps, I can build another computer program. I mostly used the Letter Trainer as a twice-daily 15-minute warm-up activity during my last week of training. 27D. So, the puzzle could seem harder than it really is, but Im up for the challenge and so are you. Anyway, this surprise on the Monday puzzle was a nice way to offset my disappointment from my Saturday puzzle regression. Then, hopefully, this manufactured anti-knowledge helps me make forward progress. Im excited for my New York Times Crossword Thursday debut! As much as I can try to optimize each little training exercise, my brains energy level seems to be the most important variable, so Im going to treat it as such. In 20 minutes, I was able to almost completely finish the puzzle, with only a few blemishes in the northwest corner. In other words, it wouldnt materially help me to memorize them. Basically, once I got stuck, I started making a series of low-probability guesses, almost exclusively based on letter statistics and nothing else (i.e. The clue for that supposed three-letter entry is Annual pageant winner. I cant think of a title that is only three letters long. Sometimes crosswordese can help a constructor out of a tight spot, and Im willing to overlook it as long as there is not a lot of it in the grid. On July 1, I completed 30% of the puzzle (on the left). 50A. The first long across entry, THIS ONES ON ME (Have another round my treat!), is a lively entry that gave no hints whatsoever to the nature of the theme. In other words, your interpretation of the world isnt objective instead, your brain is primed in some way or another, skewing your interpretation of the world to more closely match your priming. Max Chen Lauring hides something valuable in his puzzle. But, in fact, this progression most likely isnt ideal Instead, if the goal is to speak the language, then the best path forward is to jump right to that step. Since I havent trained for Thursday puzzles at all, Im completely incapable of casually cracking these new types of clues. This helped me build up the necessary mental anticipation in the direction of clue to answer. Yesterday, I completed the 1/14/17 Saturday NYT puzzle with only two mistakes, so I knew it wouldnt be long before I perfectly cracked one of the 2017 puzzles. Hopefully, Ill get a good night sleep tonight and my brain will have a more normal day tomorrow. This ability to build out answers, not based on clues, but based on likely letter patterns is an ability I want to cultivate further (as its foundational to the E&C technique and how I plan to level up my crossword-solving abilities). Out of habit, I typed rex into my browser, rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com autofilled, and I clicked enter. A subway line might be the A train in New York City, but a Subway line? is the slogan for the sandwich shop Subway: EAT FRESH. Today, I didnt have too much time to train but I was able to sneak in about 20 minutes with the Letter Trainer, and one Wednesday puzzle. The phrase SAY UNCLE, on the other hand, has appeared in the Crossword and other Variety puzzles three times, most recently in 2006. 32D. BLOCK 2: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 101200 of the crossword data. Yesterday, I realized that I wont be able to complete this months challenge if I just use the crossword puzzles themselves as my training tools. For the next few days, Ill proceed with this training method, but Ill need to figure out a better way to quantify my progress moving forward. The solution we have for First part of a message suggested by this puzzles circled letters has a total of 15 letters.