This is the crossword puzzle thread

Big fan of the WSJ's monthly cryptic, but it seems to have ceased - nothing since October: https://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/category/cryptic/

It’s still there, WSJ is just bad at labeling. You can find all the links here: http://chall.us/hex/hex_all_wsj.html

Thanks. I often can’t find that as well.

i really liked last saturday’s nyt. extremely tricky and non-obvious

https://studyhall.xyz/how-the-new-york-times-crossword-became-too-big-to-fail/

yes

speaking of recent out-of-touch missteps, “HASHTAG” is not the same thing as the pound/hash symbol 🙄

While I am in broad agreement with the tenor of that piece, I gotta say that this sentence

Born to Arabian horse farmers in Indiana in 1952, crosswords were Shortz’ lifelong passion.

Threw me for a minute until I realized that it was the horses who were Arabian, and the crosswords were the passion.

Does one “farm” horses?

same

speaking of recent out-of-touch missteps, “HASHTAG” is not the same thing as the pound/hash symbol 🙄

This was my first thought too, but I guess people do call the symbol itself a hashtag at this point: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hashtag

Does one “farm” horses?

No, one raises them, and those who did are IIRC called ranchers instead. I had a similar stumble reading that, on top of which I thought it was saying that Shortz was Arab.

Wow, KAC not pulling ANY punches in his constructor notes for today's puzzle (filled grid spoilers on that page of course):

https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/6/2021

And an excellent, smooth solve for the puzzle itself. I'm a little astonished that he's only been in the NYT 15 times, since he's one of my favorite constructors.

A great puzzle with a bunch of surprising answers.

Wow that’s a seriously great essay from Collins

Loved yesterday’s too

i mean, there are many ways you could clue “PORT” - i love it when it’s this chewy

virtual ACPT next weekend - anyone signed up?

https://www.acptonline.com/event-details/43rd-american-crossword-puzzle-tournament-1

Rex Parker OTM about today’s NYT puzzle:

This is a puzzle with a dense, multi-layered, architecturally impressive theme, and I viscerally disliked almost every second of solving it. Torture.

I stopped doing Sunday puzzles a few months ago. It's been a freeing feeling.

Such a slog, even when I got it down to under ten minutes for a while- and still wasn’t competitive!

Rex Parker in hate-solving shocker.

I'm still all about minis/variety puzzles/cryptics, although lately I've been on Nikoli kick.

Heh. Rex Parker a lot nicer in real life but yeah.

I had a tough time but eventually finished. If I'd thought to look at the title I would probably have gotten the theme significantly faster - but then I'm pretty used to solving conventionally before seeing the themey stuff.

Rex isn't my bag at all, so I try to not take too many cues from him. Today WAS tough, but I enjoyed it! I felt like I earned that A-HA. I think Jeff Chen had a good idea about ways that could've improved the execution, though.

I Like Sunday for basically just being 4 Mondays sellotaped together.

Heh. Good description.

The first of the black boxes that I got was FLU, and I thought each one was going to be a different illness for which there's a vaccine. As high concept as the theme was, I was disappointed when that didn't end up being it.

Yeah the theme would definitely have made more sense if I'd known the title beforehand. I had SET, FLU, and RIM and saw nothing that could link them.

In fairness, I don't think I've ever heard of 'set shot' before?

it's a basketball term

I did not like Thursday's, especially since I got stuck and left it and completely forgot to try to finish it, thus ending my nascent streak.

Is today's NYT puzzle a themeless, i.e. not a rebus? I'm getting naticked, AGAIN.

Today has no rebuses, no. The long answers are multi-word, but not unsolvable imo

I didn't know 32A or 56A but the downs worked

I had an error elsewhere yesterday which I finally caught. Streak still intact, with minimal cheating.

Today's another hard one, but I liked the bottom half a lot. The cluing for the NW felt too slippery for me, though.

today's NW featured a word i was wholly unfamiliar with -- which, fine, i learned something new -- and a form of a common word that i don't believe anyone has ever used. all of which really exposed my supernatural-teen-drama-protagonist weakness. probably spent half of my total time in that corner

feel like a real crossword guy now that i've developed a STYE

The clues today are really hard, especially that NW.

When both Jeff Chen and Rex Parker sing the praises of a puzzle, you know you've got a good one. Really good fill and cluing today, if on the easy side (I set a personal best for a Saturday).

So you are saying I should come out of hiding and try to solve

i liked it. many cheesy jokes. 38 down questionable. 22 across ok i’ll allow it. 56 down the kind of boiled down essence of what you’re going for on a saturday, kudos.

12 down was a bit of Leo pointing at the tv

I didn't even know Across Lite and .puz had gone away.

Gone off the internet because of clues.

Hated yesterday's, nearly broke my streak of 200+.

agreed

yeah i didn’t care for it either, lots of annoying fill/cluing. i was particularly annoyed by the clue for 41-across, which i didn’t understand at all. that punny use of “natural” seems pretty obscure to me?

Same here. The entire puzzle is a pile up of obscure cluing and/or answers, NE is absolutely heinous.

So are y'all using the app, web and/or phone? Does it affect your solving speed or do you care?