Comments on: Independent 6743/Dac

By: Quixote

Quixote — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:36:44 +0000

You’re five years behind us, Dac, but heartiest congratulations to you both!

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:41:29 +0000

You’re right Michod, “previous”.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:09:53 +0000

I think the L = live issue came up on this board before. It’s definitely OK, I think, given in Collins (ref:electricity, I guess). The ‘prior’ in that American sense was new to me too, but my COD gives it. While I know it’s not continuous, guys, ‘perimeter’ sounds better than ‘outer unches’ certainly among ladies of my acquaintance anyway.

By: Michod

Michod — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:26:02 +0000

I think we say “‘e’s got previous”, rather than “prior”.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:02:24 +0000

Congrats, Dac, an excellent puzzle as normal – just a little harder cos of the constraints. I spotted the message only very near the end. Though I don’t think Merlin will like globe = o in SAROS.

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:22:03 +0000

Surely “having prior” means the same in the UK these days, (i.e. “having form”) or am I mis-remembering what I hear on the cop shows?

The Saros cycle is well known to us eclipse nuts and worthy of a link – which I would put here but I suspect it is the inclusion of a link that is sending my comment into the spam bucket – I suggest googling “saros” and choosing the NASA pages.

I certainly liked this new Daconian concept – instead of “say it with flowers” – “say it with outer unches”!

By: Michod

Michod — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:17:58 +0000

Congratulations Dac, I’m sure this will mean more than flowers (oh, what – as well as? Of course).
I’d say Castilla is still a region of Spain – possibly two regions, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla-Leon.

By: Ali

Ali — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:12:43 +0000

I found this one a little tricky too, and was eventually defeated by 8D. I never think to look for anything untoward in Dac’s puzzles and completely missed the Nina on my first pass, but it helped with a few missing answers when I eventually spotted it. Congrats to the happy couple.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:50:51 +0000

No, floppy disks really are floppy (at least the bit inside the case is – take one apart and see), in distinction to hard disks. Older readers will remember 5.25 inch floppies, which had a much flimsier sleeve. (Even older readers may remember 8 inch floppies used in what we used to call “minicomputers”. And younger readers may never have seen a floppy disk at all…)

The “flop” in TERAFLOP is unrelated to floppiness, being an abbreviation of FLoating-point OPeration.

By: C G Rishikesh

C G Rishikesh — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:06:17 +0000

Though Chambers (1998) itself does not have l = live, Chambers XWD, A Dictionary of Crossword Abbreviations has it.