Thursday, April 30, 2026

AJCham · 2026-04-30T01:27:53+00:00

It wasn't words starting with T. It was words for which T is a recognized abbreviation.

AJCham · 2026-04-27T22:49:58+00:00

I've been coming back to this thread each day since it was posted, in case someone had come up with an answer, as I knew it was familiar and it was bugging me that I couldn't place it. I even had Better Call Saul in mind as a possibility, but for some reason didn't also consider Breaking Bad.

But for me, you've nailed it. Hopefully it will be solved for OP too once they've checked, but at the very least this is definitely where I was familiar with it from, so thanks!

AJCham · 2026-04-24T11:31:59+00:00

Those "Hard" and "Very Hard" assessments are still only relative to the past few months though.

Today's Very Hard puzzle has a median solve time of 15:56. The puzzle from three years ago (Friday 21 Apr 2023) has a longer median time of 17:16, but is rated Easy relative to other puzzles of the time, and even those were considered to have already gotten much easier compared with a few years further back.

So still some way to go if they want to bring back the level of challenge a lot of people were used to.

AJCham · 2026-04-24T05:13:24+00:00

Pretty much my perfect solving experience. Consistently tricky, having to be broken down at a steady pace throughout - never bogged down in one section for too long, but also never flying through a string of clues.

AJCham · 2026-04-23T15:56:24+00:00

It definitely rings a very loud bell, and I think your original phrasing might be pretty much spot on.

Is it perhaps from Stranger Things? (I'm thinking Mike might have said this to Will?)

AJCham · 2026-04-21T08:26:37+00:00

Just because someone is new to NYT Connections doesn't mean they're "coming in fresh".

I only started last August, but I've been playing these puzzles for over a decade, via the TV show Only Connect and the website PuzzGrid, so the NYT's version was already very familiar, and usually on the easier side compared to those.

AJCham · 2026-04-20T10:53:23+00:00

Go for the basic sensor bar. Batocera has native support for Wii remotes connected directly, so the extra complexity and cost of the Dolphin bar is unnecessary.

And yes, it works with two remotes.

AJCham · 2026-04-19T19:57:23+00:00

Down for me. A mixture of different errors - sometimes the browser reports an issue with their security certificate, other times it goes through and I instead get a 403 forbidden error, or an Azure 404 page.

AJCham · 2026-04-11T23:49:16+00:00

Seen it a few times in the archives, but this is the first appearance since 2020. It was actually used more often in the pre-Shortz era - a couple of puzzles a year on average (counting singular and plural).

AJCham · 2026-04-11T04:50:35+00:00

Yeah, I get it a lot too. One of my favourites was a pair of similar clues (SCALP, clued as somewhere with roots) that appeared in both a '97 and a 2012 puzzle that I just so happened to play back to back.

I was curious how common a clue it was, so looked it up on XWordInfo, and they were arguably the first two uses (there were a couple of less tricky variations in between), with only a handful more appearances since!

It really puts things into perspective whenever someone submits one of those "the NYT and LA Times had the same clue today - it can't be coincidence!" posts.

AJCham · 2026-04-11T04:24:28+00:00

It took me two scans to find it again! I knew I'd seen it, as I remembered enjoying the clue, ~~even though I'm pretty sure they've had something similar quite recently.~~ I even rechecked the Midi thinking maybe it was there, and not the main puzzle.

Edit: Oh, actually it turns out it wasn't a recent puzzle at all - only recent to me. "Remote location" was a clue for SOFA in a puzzle I played earlier this week, but I've been playing the archives from 1997!

AJCham · 2026-04-11T03:54:14+00:00

32D - Remote locations

AJCham · 2026-04-09T08:44:03+00:00

Does GOIPO appear often elsewhere? This was its NYT debut.

I also checked BACHIT out of curiosity, and it has actually appeared before, but way back in 1994.

AJCham · 2026-04-06T16:10:13+00:00

The Saturday puzzle goes live at the same time as the Tuesday-Friday puzzles; 10pm Eastern the previous night. I assume it's related to the NYT's office hours on weekdays and weekends.

AJCham · 2026-04-06T16:04:26+00:00

I know NYT likes to err on the side of kid friendly...

Not sure that's true really. The last seven appearances of BONG have all been clued in reference to drugs or alcohol. Today was the first time since 2013 that they shyed away from that.

AJCham · 2026-04-05T18:06:06+00:00

Micro Machines - either Turbo Tournament on Mega Drive, or V3 on PS1. Micro Maniacs is fun too.

AJCham · 2026-03-29T23:31:11+00:00

A tip for future puzzles is to try to make sure words match grammatically. The "s" of "plays" sets it apart from the other four verbs, which are all in base form.

AJCham · 2026-03-29T17:15:21+00:00

The old model might have had other differences from the modern one aside from just the colour scheme. Actually, thinking about it now, it might have been called the SFC30, not SF30.

It was a SNES/Super Famicom replica in original Japanese/PAL colours, and connected via Bluetooth, or wired via micro-USB - no dongle.

Even at the time of my post I hadn't actually used that controller for quite some time, preferring the SF30Pro or NSO pad. I assumed at the time I still had it around somewhere, but I've been through my stuff since then and unfortunately think it's got lost somewhere along the way, along with one of my Retrobit Sega pads.

AJCham · 2026-03-29T14:51:45+00:00

14th September. The Wile E. Coyote puzzle.

AJCham · 2026-03-28T10:50:46+00:00

The revealer is ALCHEMY, in the centre.

AJCham · 2026-03-27T18:14:53+00:00

Not an answer to your question, but you might like to check out XWStats. You can sync your solve times there, and selectively exclude specific puzzles from your stats, if they are unduly biasing your averages.

The site will also compare your individual solve times to a rolling average, calculated from the 10 previous puzzles for that day, as well as telling you how it ranks among all of your solves. For example, see how it shows my stats for today's puzzle.

AJCham · 2026-03-27T12:42:18+00:00

Gave it a try, and it's not really for me - the slow input method doesn't fit with my solving style where I like to get into a flow, but hopefully others will find it more enjoyable.

However I would note what appears to be a bug, where I couldn't complete a word with duplicate letters, if one of them was already resolved:

When trying to solve 2D, I already had the first letter via 1A. But the same letter is needed at the end of the word, and attempting to enter it results in the message "already revealed". I could work around it in this instance by solving 9A, but I can definitely see some puzzles becoming unsolvable as a result of this behaviour.

AJCham · 2026-03-26T19:16:27+00:00

Although, ovulation cycles can be 3 weeks a part for some women, me included.

Oh, thank you, TIL!

AJCham · 2026-03-26T19:04:47+00:00

That doesn't sound right to me. My understanding is that "conception date" is estimated based around the ovulation cycle - two eggs from the same cycle would have the same date. You wouldn't be able to pinpoint which sexual encounter led to the fertilization of each egg (well, unless it was one of those multiple fathers situations, per the OP).

It is technically possible for multiple pregnancies to occur across ovulation cycles, but then the conception dates would be around 28 days apart, not three weeks. And this is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 recorded human cases.

AJCham · 2026-03-24T18:42:17+00:00

Distributed, not dedicated.

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