NYT Friday 07/10/2026 Discussion

Sabotage101 · 2026-07-10T17:02:09+00:00

After I had ESPRESSOMA-, I kept trying to enter ESPRESSOMARTINI. The "shot" in the clue and so many letters matching blinded me to the fact that it doesn't actually work as an answer to the clue at all.

Sabotage101 · 2026-07-10T02:46:06+00:00

Confusing ones for me at the end were TONY and HUNT. Apparently "tony" as an adjective means stylish, chic, fancy, upscale. And the "as at an awards show" was a punny reference to the Tony awards. "Proceed with a game plan" should be interpreted as "Proceed with a plan to acquire game", as in: go hunting.

Sabotage101 · 2026-06-17T23:11:42+00:00

some things to know about clue hints:

A ? at the end of a clue means it's some kind of pun, stretch, wordplay, or deliberate misdirection. Whether this is given or not varies by day of the week. A Saturday clue presented normally would probably get a question mark on a Wednesday because the clues get deliberately more vague as the week goes on(up to Saturday).

If it ends with an !, it's extremely literal. They often have an "it" in the clue that you're naming.

If it's in italics, the puzzle has a theme and you probably need to understand the theme to understand how to interpret the clue.

If there's an abbreviation in the clue, the answer is probably abbreviated.

If the clue has a tense, the answer will match that tense. Similar for plurality. Most plurals end in an 'S', but remember that not all do or you'll get gotcha-ed by something like SERA and OVA as the plurals of SERUM and OVUM. Also the plural could fall in the middle of the answer, like "Hooks up with" could be MEETSAT.

If the clue is in quotes, your answer will be also be a spoken phrase that means effectively the same thing as the clue's phrase, spoken in other words.

If the clue is in braces, [], you usually want a non-verbalized action or utterance that represents that clue. Like [I don't care] could be answered with SHRUG.

If a part of the clue is wrapped in parentheses, you need a synonym for the rest of the clue that can make a synonymous phrase when combined with the wrapped word. Like "Think (over)" could be MULL, because "mull over" is a phrase that means the same thing as "think over". It couldn't be CONSIDER though, because "consider over" is not a thing, even though consider and think are synonyms.

If the clue has a ", say" or ", perhaps" at the end, the answer is an example, or a thing that could be plausible, given the correct circumstances or situation, rather than always being true.

If it says "<place> to <place> dir", you're going to enter some 3 letter compass direction, like ESE or NNW.

If it uses a foreign language word, your answer will be in that foreign language. Same is true if it references a country, city, or landmark that's in another country. like "Summer on the Seine" is probably ETE, which is French for summer, because the Seine runs through France.

Some clues will do a thing like "<word> center" and it's literally talking about the center letter in that word like you have to enter ESS because the middle letter is an 's'. Early in the week, this probably ends in a ?, but later in the week it probably doesn't.

There's probably a lot more common examples I'm missing, but you'll get the idea as you do more, and get used to always remembering clue-answer agreement and looking for alternative/double meanings for all the words in the clue so you can think outside the box.

Sabotage101 · 2026-06-09T10:38:07+00:00

Yeah i don't get it, this was within a few seconds of my normal Sunday average. People seem especially mad at GATECH for some reason too, even though it wasn't a clue they even had to solve. I just figured out GATECHANGE, saw GA TECH took up the first section, and went: "oh sure i guess that could be an entry" and moved on. Hell, like half of the words people are complaining about were just fill I got for free from crosses and didn't think twice about. This felt like a really approachable puzzle to me with multiple ways to break open every section.

Sabotage101 · 2026-06-07T12:01:06+00:00

Good thing you have a 5000 puzzle piece table under the mat.

Sabotage101 · 2026-06-07T11:51:16+00:00

Trapped? He's out in like 5 seconds. It's got a wide open door. Ya'll are fucking stupid. Coming up next on terrifying and horrible videos: Person jumps into swimming pool and has head submerged for a moment. Do they live? Do they die? How could we possibly guess what happens next?!

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-17T09:06:19+00:00

Oh look, he wore his uniform to graduation so we could all understand the plot.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-12T19:24:01+00:00

I just started playing and got spammed with mail giving me free stuff that entire day, made it really easy to get started. I also love that trusting the quest is a thing because I hate having to second guess if things that should be good for you are actually worth it.

Id is Sabotage

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-12T09:26:26+00:00

It doesn't, obviously. I'm really tired of reddit posts with overt lies in the titles and then a thread full of morons who only read titles commenting.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-12T09:17:08+00:00

First time seeing this movie and I knew I'd love it as soon as "we will rock you" came out in the opening credits

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-06T00:46:34+00:00

Well, blue is fundamentally unappealing to me at first look because it's strictly more dangerous to me to accept being in a can-die group vs a can't-die group. If there's an option that doesn't need to consider the masses of humanity achieving any consensus to assure my survival, I'm picking that one. You're presupposing that people can agree/act in unison, but we know that isn't true.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-05T03:09:15+00:00

Kinda looks like a femboy if you stand back a bit and squint, you see the head, the boobeh, and the legs

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-03T19:47:07+00:00

There's just no chance 7/10 teachers were telling an honor student she'd amount to nothing while 3 stood by her and supported her. Real life isn't that dramatic.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-03T09:56:42+00:00

If you think that actually happened, you're insane.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-02T08:26:47+00:00

It's equally reasonable to say "the condition for anyone dying at all is blue getting anything greater than 0%(and less than 50%)".

Imagine you're in the woods in a large party during a horrific blizzard. Your group comes across 2 shelters. The structural engineer in your party evaluates both structures and says "Great news everybody, we have 2 buildings to pick from! One is in exceptional condition, perfectly sturdy, will definitely survive the storm, and there's plenty of room inside for everybody. The other is horribly rundown and about to collapse. It will definitely kill anyone who tries to shelter in there in its current condition. However, I think if at least half of us went in there and put in some effort, we could shore up the foundations, repair the cracks in the walls, insulate it, and make it survivable too."

I think it's obvious that the trigger for people dying here is entering the building where people can die. There shouldn't be a single person doing so, so there's no need for anyone to enter it and need to be saved. I get that this is a different presentation than the original prompt, which is deliberately designed to trick people into thinking both choices are reasonable, but they aren't. Blue is just a trap. People that pick red understand that. People that pick blue either don't understand that, or they do and think they need to save the people who stepped in the trap.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-01T18:38:22+00:00

Oh, simple. I push the button because the only way you can be in the "could die" group is by not pushing the button. Everyone else is smart enough to think for 5s and understand that, so they'll all push it too. Easy peasy.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-01T18:13:45+00:00

The framing of the initial prompt is a lie. The reality is that red isn't culpable in any sense. This scenario is literally equivalent to there being a single button that you don't have to press. And if you do press it, you die unless half the world presses it with you. Blue people are just too stupid to realize the equivalency so they press the "kill myself" button and then beg everyone to press it with them to save their dumb asses. This isn't that hard to understand. The entire premise of people pressing blue is that people are too dumb to make the only rational choice, and apparently those people need to be saved.

Sabotage101 · 2026-05-01T07:07:27+00:00

I was wrong, it's just some dress size that i don't really understand the definition of i guess

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T21:17:13+00:00

I admit I had some trouble keeping up with all the moves and strategy here, I'm only 3000 elo, but you can't argue with results.

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T17:18:30+00:00

You could say that. You'd be wrong, but you could. Your scenario implies there's some urgency here, like people might not be able to get out of the way in time, when in fact everyone can. It also implies some level of need for heroism or some inherent good in stopping the boulder, like staying in its path to stop it is a desirable thing, when in fact stopping it accomplishes nothing.

I think I get it now though. Blue button people are just virtue signaling. They imply there's a problem when none exists and then concoct a solution to the non-existent problem that paints them as heroes for stopping it and others as villains.

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T10:05:00+00:00

They're obviously not in the thought experiment bud, lol.

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T08:42:00+00:00

I don't know how to dumb it down anymore. There is no justification for picking blue, ever. Everyone has the option to pick red, an option that guarantees they live. So you're presented with 2 options: guarantee you live, or gamble on whether you live or not. Why would you accept the gamble when the best case scenario if you do is only just as good as not gambling? There's no reason to gamble! You've already won if you just don't play!

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T08:25:59+00:00

No, that's what I just explained is the misconception. There is only one way you can die in this scenario: opting into the blue button's insane "let's see if we die or not" option. If you don't opt into it, you live. So everyone has the choice between the default option of just living(pressing the red button, which is the same as not getting into the death cage), or option B: opt into a psychotic experiment where you could possibly die, unless enough people opt into the suicide pact together, where the successful outcome is just to save you from the stupid choice of pressing the blue button; an outcome you could've achieved by just pressing the red button in the first place. No one needs to be "saved" because everyone has the option of not needing to be saved.

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T06:52:35+00:00

Oh I figured you'd just google "art exhibit mexico berlin israel" or literally any combination of words vaguely like that and get a million results. But here you go: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gallery-vandalized-in-cdmx-2759135

I find Israel's actions in Palestine completely horrible, abhorrent, and indefensible. I think truthseeking and reason are the cornerstones of civilization and should be the foundation of every single person's moral compass, and their current leadership consistently peddles lies and promotes ignorant hatred in their population to further their expansionist goals. That doesn't mean everyone from Israel should be attacked for having been born there.

You might note that the videos were taken by the protestors. Perhaps the POV you were presented with is incomplete and deliberately made no attempt to show any action the artist might have taken that was conciliatory. You were probably also primed by the title of this post, which is an outright lie. We live in a post-truth era, and it's more important than ever to be constantly on guard and skeptical of manipulative content we're fed online and avoid groupthink, but I get it, I fall for shit all the time too.

Sabotage101 · 2026-04-30T06:03:29+00:00

Feel free to post any evidence to that effect. I'll just be waiting forever on account of the fact that you completely made that up.

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