Stats -We had a decent response for “Missing Instructions” with 25 unique submissions for the puzzle. Of those who submitted, 17 got the full grid score of 30 but only 12 people got the maximum possible score of 35. Here’s the Solution grid.
The following questions were asked at the end of the puzzle..
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- What is the search phrase needed – Fill in the blanks (??? ???????? ???????? instructions)
- Solution for the end puzzle (…. this ????: ????? inside.)
The correct answers to these were
(1) X86 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE – Letter shape of NINA is “X” and the NINA, highlighted in green is ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE. The 8 and 6 came from “ExternAL” and “ChorAL”, the two words which had the initials of A(ssembly) L(anguage)
(2) SEAL: INTEL.
There are only four words in the puzzle that do not intersect with the NINA: 15a, 19a, 5d, and 26d. As noted in the puzzle prelude, only three three-letter parts are needed to be picked from the x86 instruction set. These three are: INT (used twice), LEA, LES. See annotations for 15a, 19a, 5d, and 26d below. The letters INT LEA LES can be jumbled to complete the sentence:
Here are the Annotations.
Across:
1 Makes up stuff to say – bald lies! Regularly out of order (2-4) – BALD(-l)I(-e)S*
4 Individual cautious on the phone? (8) – DISCREET homophone.
10 Ghost touched non-violently, actually (2,6,7) – GHOSTTOUCHEDNON*
11 Outgrows one terrible urge (really nasty, sick, twisted, wicked obsession), for starters (5,3) – Acrostic
12 Fold the boring newspaper back (6) – THE in RAG<<
14 Girl had a second piece of bundt cake (6) – G ATE A (-b)U(-ndt)
15 First fix bug! (4) – F (LEA unclued)
19 High class drinks (4) – A (LES unclued)
20 Opening gave Anand minor boost in tournament, at first (6) – Acrostic
24 A system for moving fluids from chest – going through intestine – to the rear (6) – BIN in GUT<<
25 Pig-headed Reverend says, “Vehicle, change direction!” (8) – Spoonerism of BUS TURN
27 “Mecca,” said cleric dramatically, “is where scholars hang out” (8,7) – MECCASAIDCLERIC*
28 Clearness in the sound of a very old woman with a simple song (8) – LUCY DITTY homophone
29 Close my bra, engaging reversed straps (6) – (-m)Y BRA EN(-gaging)<<
Down
1 Dramatises fitting rings: “Do measure in the middle!” (6) – APT around DO, (-mea)S(-ure)
2 Busts of Eros rebuilt in capitals of Libya and Syria (6) – EROS* in L(-ibya) S(-yria)
3 A large body of water (not a lake), but ultimately a second-rate location (8) – B(-l)ACK SEA (-bu)T
5 Essentially not a fan of… (4) – (INT unclued) (-n)O(-t)
6 …of groups singing pieces from Bach or Albinoni (6) – T
7 One may tweet after cracking this case (8) – CD.
8 Superficial kiss pierces forever (8) – X in ETERNAL
9 Scholar climbing step for learning (9) – WONK<< LEDGE
13 Meal of mutton, chicken? Yum! This might make one trim one inch! (5,4) – Composite anagram. MUTTONCHICKENYUM* = TUMMY TUCK ONE INCH
16 Pitch? Flat slab, unfortunately (8) – FLATSLAB*
17 “New Campbell soup lacks a bit of pepper,” he voiced famously (3,5) – NCAM(-p)BELL*
18 Flying robot that can think, delivered in recyclable case (8) – AI, BORN in R(-ecyclabl)E
21 Of course, I needed to heal after losing a partner (6) – I N(-e)EDED*
22 Back leading resident’s angioplasty, limiting likelihood of cardiac arrest (6) – Rev. Acrostic
23 Very worried – last chunk of money has come under an Indian tax (6) – (-mone)Y under AN GST.
26 Hot clue? (4) – H (INT unclued)
Here is the scorecard (sorted by total score and then in the order of submissions received)
Congrats to Ramki who tops the leader board. Also, congrats to all of you who managed to “max” the score.
24 out of the 30 clues got picked at least once among the three favorite clues in the grid. The Top 3 clues, based on the number of votes were 1.”Eggshell” which got 9 votes 2. “Academic Circles” which got 8 votes and 3. “Turns Two’, which got 6 votes.
18 people rated the grid as “Excellent”, 6 rated in “Good” and 1 rated it “Average”.
A big THANK YOU to Gussalufz whose intelligent concepts and grid fills continue to delight out readers.
So, readers.. Did you enjoy the puzzle? Do comment and let us know..
Setter’s notes:
I had created a few grids earlier with ninas running across or down. For this grid, i thought I would do a nina that went diagonally. There are two diagonals, and I then figured I would fill them both with ninas. For a 15×15 grid with the top-left and bottom-left corners not being black, both nina words running diagonally would have 8 letters. I searched for phrases with the enum (8,8), looking for something interesting. I liked ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE when I saw it in the list.
I assembled and filled the grid, with ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE as the nina occupying the X shape made by the diagonals. The phrase “assembly language” and the “X” triggered “X86” for me. I looked at the words starting at the squares numbered 8 and 6 and, by a happy coincidence, both of them ended in AL, the initials of “Assembly Language”.
Greedily, I wanted more masala.
I noticed that the nina touched almost every word in the grid—all but four words, in fact. So, I figured, I could treat these four words in some special way. I don’t remember exactly how the final part came about: I would like to think that at this point I simply came up with the realization that I could use x86 assembly language instructions in these four words. It’s more likely, though, that I had internet-searched “x86 assembly language” for ideas, brought up the instruction set, and then had come up with the idea of leaving three-letter parts unclued in those four words, using the x86 instruction set. I do remember that I had to modify the grid-fill slightly as a couple of those four words did not have three-letter x86 instructions embedded in them. But four-letter words are forgiving and flexible!
I also wanted to “close the loop”—I wanted to create some meta element that would confirm/reinforce the special treatment of the four words. It was natural to try to jumble the three-letter instructions that were the unclued parts. I wanted to get something connected to “x86 assembly language,” and “intel seal” presented itself nicely. It’s not a well-known phrase though, but, luckily, weaving it into a reasonably natural sentence involving the well-known phrase, “intel inside,” was not too hard.
Wow Viresh. Thanks for sharing your thought process and how the NINA and bonus features came about in the puzzle.