Oct 04, 2007 Hypercross Puzzle

Never have I been so disinterested in a Hypercross.

I think I have come to one in a while that I want to skip. And I like math.

agree - lots of lookup and tedium, will solve at a later date when I have some extra time...
(sorry John)

First on hard. 11th on easy. Going back to watching the Cleveland Indians kill the dreaded Yankees and skipping this one. And I was a math major.

No, thank you. Same here, [4] (about the math major).

I was told there would be no math. Laters!

Ditto for me....and I'm an engineer. Ain't worth it for the points. Especially the clue:

Anagram of 733771618...

with only 4 crossing numbers. How can that be a unique answer that doesn't require some guessing w/ trial and error?

Wait a minute - the crossing number doesn't even match...I get the theme now....the background image is a clue.

But still a major pain in the a** to take care of, unless I can find a listing on the theme...

Yeah, I love Math, but blech...

I'm guessing the "upside down" calculator clues in to the way to answer the anagram clue uniquely (and the "theme" they're going for). Still a huge pain...

I don't want to do all that for 2 points. Maybe later with some time.

What, am I the only one who thought this was great? I'm surrounded by number-haters!

[11] I have the wrong type of calculator to do this with....

I like the idea of math. Of course the fact that the answers don't seem to fit kinda destroys the fun. Nevermind on this one.

wow this is an awesome puzzle, though the fact that i had 2 calculators handy may have had something to do with me thinking that.

My calculator doesn't go up to a billion. :(

[11],[14] - I'm with you guys, nice puzzle John...

It certainly will help to have an older calculator handy, one of the nicer TI types will end up just giving you a headache. Solve the anagram last. And round down if you find a number with a decimal on the second one across. Fun idea, but very tedious. This reminds me a lot of 3rd grade...

whee

Sorry, John--I was too quick to judge. I actually just finished the puzzle and I thought it was quite fun. I didn't mind all the searching once I figured out what was really going on. And the anagram answer is rather clever; I got it immediately once I had all the crossing letters.

Thanks for a very nice puzzle, and apologies for my earlier negativity. :)

I left this earlier because I didn't want to do all that grunt work. But I came back and finished it and actually ended up enjoying this puzzle!

That was great!

blah. I hate math. Can't even begin to try this one after the wine I just consumed.

This wasnt easy but I eventually got it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much work for only 2 points.
Bleah.

This is probably less work than yesterday's cross...

Sorry, I missed the launch. Thursday is my board game night. :(

I have to agree this is probably too much work for just 2 points. I probably could have gone with about half the answers to reduce the difficulty.

I considered secondary visual clues, but was afraid the math would be completely skipped. I also had a version which required no trivia, but it could be solved in about 60 seconds with a calculator. This was the compromise I went with.

For those who shrugged it off immediately, try a couple easy ones and see if you can figure out the twist -- then decide whether it's worth the 20 minutes of googling to get the other half.

Mostly, I like to see new things -- there's a limit to how many rebuses I can tolerate in a year. :)

Thanks for listening.

I guess it takes a math person to appreciate the beauty of:

1! + 4! + 5! = 145

(duplicate)

Too much work. Pass.

I totally disagree with a lot of comments here - This one was totally my idea of fun. I like the scavenger hunt aspect, and I thought it was very clever, with a concept that took just a little bit of thought to "get" (just enough so you feel kind of smart figuring out what's required, without making you feel like a dope for too long). And as an added bonus, the concept is more or less self-checking, so you know if you've really got the right answers or not.

My only quibble was one or two of the clues were a bit ambiguous (10th digit of pi - include the digit before the decimal or not? and which period of mercury?), but as I said, the self-checking aspect made it relatively easy to know when you hit the right answer, so it wasn't a catastrophic problem...

I agree completely with Tempus42 and others who have defended this one. When I thought it was just googling and calculating, I was a bit grumpy (not because I minded the "work," but because the "work" of using Google and a calcuator didn't involve any actual brainpower), but once I got to my first "impossible" crossing, and figured out what was really going on, I was impressed.

I do agree that the digits of Pi clue was ambiguous (especially since I'd started the puzzle there, and hadn't realized where things were going).

I put this off for a very long time. I love math, but didn't want to push my way through this. I did, but still didn't enjoy it. I like equations for themselves. I don't want to google endlessly to do an equation. Just my two. I finished it because I don't like unfinished.

I actually got the "aha" last night and knew exactly what needed to be done, but still posted what I did because it seemed like way too much searching around different sources for the answers, and I wasn't about to embark on all of that.

That being said, it was a clever idea. Finally solved it this morning, and found most of the needed information on Wikipedia. Thanks [17] for the decimal hint... I'd found sources that had it rounded up, and that threw me off for a bit.

Another thing that threw me was the use of 6's. When I'd used my calculator this way in the past, I never considered a 6 to be a viable option, and I still think it's a stretch.

I liked this one, but I have no clue on the Backgammon / Cribbage one. And I'm not sure if I have Mercury's period correct either.

Help?

Oh, and I can't believe 58008 wasn't one of the answers!

OMFG. This was so much work....

[37] google "cribbage score impossible" (1st hit) , and "mercury period" (4th hit). with the quotes. sometimes its best to ask teh internets exactly what you are looking for...

Thanks, that sort of helps.

But there are a lot of impossible cribbage scores, so which do you use?

And what does "starting backgammon pip count" mean? The total pips on the dice you throw? The total number of checkers?

The creator picked the two common games I'm unfamiliar with. :(

Thanks, that sort of helps.

But there are a lot of impossible cribbage scores, so which do you use?

And what does "starting backgammon pip count" mean? The total pips on the dice you throw? The total number of checkers?

The creator picked the two common games I'm unfamiliar with. :(

Thanks, that sort of helps.

But there are a lot of impossible cribbage scores, so which do you use?

And what does "starting backgammon pip count" mean? The total pips on the dice you throw? The total number of checkers?

The creator picked the two common games I'm unfamiliar with. :(

Thanks, that sort of helps.

But there are a lot of impossible cribbage scores, so which do you use?

And what does "starting backgammon pip count" mean? The total pips on the dice you throw? The total number of checkers?

The creator picked the two common games I'm unfamiliar with. :(

Thanks, that sort of helps.

But there are a lot of impossible cribbage scores, so which do you use?

And what does "starting backgammon pip count" mean? The total pips on the dice you throw? The total number of checkers?

The creator picked the two common games I'm unfamiliar with. :(

This will help (and it's really interesting) and addresses the stretch of the 6 and 9 for that matter. I tinyurl'd it so as to not add more salt.

http://tinyurl.com/5uvo5

[45] Yipes. I guess I should be happy that 9 wasn't used. That would sucketh.

I'm stuck on the Mercury one. I can't get it to work out to anything.

Ok guys, geez, settle down on the games question.

I've never heard of pips referring to the dice. I believe they are the checkers pieces.

I skipped this(and I was a physics major) came back to it and loved it. I understand the frustration of some but for others it made up for it. Maybe a great puzzle but certainly different which is why some of us are here

http://www.bkgm.com/gloss/pics/pip_count.gif

The cribbage reference is also slang for a worthless hand.

For Mercury, you should round down to a whole number of days.

[50] My Mercury number doesn't need rounding, but I get nonsense. See my post on BGG and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

OK, got it. the number that comes up on Google varies. You have to dig, and then round down on the number given by the Mariner space craft, which, since it is .646, doesn't really make sense.

[47] jppe5
I had to backsolve for the mercury number...
it is between 50 and 65, and you have to round down...

John - I like many before me, went back to do the puzzle, and had fun. A tremendous amount of work must have gone into making this one to first select all the words, and then make such detailed clues for them.

Thanks!!

Finally got them all! That was a tough, but interesting puzzle. I thought the "score/innings" and the "backgammon" clues were the toughest.

Very cool!

I kind of wish it was a little less salty around here cuz it kind of gave away the "aha," but it was my fault for reading the comments right away. I glanced at the clues and, like many others apparently, thought it looked like too much work and not enough fun. Boy was I wrong! Perhaps the salt could be cleaned up for future solvers, since the hypercross doesn't have a time limit. Just a thought.

Well done though, John. This puzzle is truly a masterful creation!

this puzzles pretty fun--i remember playing with these spellings back in middle school :)

any salt on the score + innings? I'm really lost on that last clue

nm got it by backwards solving. still don't understand score though. I guessed all possible words given the letter i knew and backwards solving the math formula.

[55] [56] I think "score" here is more like "Four score and seven years ago" than anything related to innings. Sort of a clever red herring in that clue, I thought. :)

Finally sat down and finished it. Had nothing to do with the math or the searching. Those don't bother me. Just didn't have the patience until now.

I thought this puzzle was great...once I had time to do it.

The Lost clue I would never, ever, ever have gotten without heavy Salt from Jewelia!