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Constructor: Hemant Mehta
Relative problem: Simple
THEME: none
Phrase of the Day: MOBIUS STRIPS (8D: One-sided curiosities) —
In arithmetic, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a floor that may be fashioned by attaching the ends of a strip of paper along with a half-twist. As a mathematical object, it was found by Johann Benedict Itemizing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858, but it surely had already appeared in Roman mosaics from the third century CE. The Möbius strip is a non-orientable floor, that means that inside it one can not constantly distinguish clockwise from counterclockwise turns. […] The numerous functions of Möbius strips embody mechanical belts that put on evenly on each side, dual-track curler coasters whose carriages alternate between the 2 tracks, and world maps printed in order that antipodes seem reverse one another. Möbius strips seem in molecules and units with novel electrical and electromechanical properties, and have been used to show impossibility leads to social selection principle. In standard tradition, Möbius strips seem in artworks by M. C. Escher, Max Invoice, and others, and within the design of the recycling image. Many architectural ideas have been impressed by the Möbius strip, together with the constructing design for the NASCAR Corridor of Fame. Performers together with Harry Blackstone Sr. and Thomas Nelson Downs have primarily based stage magic tips on the properties of the Möbius strip. The canons of J. S. Bach have been analyzed utilizing Möbius strips. Many works of speculative fiction characteristic Möbius strips; extra typically, a plot construction primarily based on the Möbius strip, of occasions that repeat with a twist, is frequent in fiction. (wikipedia)
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Actually favored the primary half of this puzzle, so let’s discuss that. The primary half had the whoosh I am all the time on the lookout for on Friday (or any day I can get it), and boy did it come quick. I hadn’t even completed filling in 1A: Presider over weddings, in Greek fable (HERA)—I used to be solely 90% positive she was proper, and so was checking her crosses one after the other—once I hit the “R,” checked out 3D: Widespread receptacle in beer pong, and—
Had a really beer-pongy response to that one—”BRO! Did you see that! Proper within the rattling cup, first shot! [High five!]” (actual-high-five-may-or-may-not-have-happened). Really, my beer-pong response was in all probability slightly delayed, as I needed to examine crosses to ensure RED SOLO CUP was certainly proper. However, YEP, nailed it, and similar to that I used to be off, whooshing by the grid so quick that the following time I had any significant resistance I used to be already right here:
BOAST really took some pondering (40D: “Veni, vidi, vici,” e.g.), as I needed to exclude TOAST (“Did Caesar say ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ at a marriage?”) and ROAST (“Did they’ve ROASTs in historic Rome? Who would dare to roast Caesar? Cicero, perhaps?”). However once I hit on BOAST, that appeared the most suitable choice. After which … caught. Could not transfer by that little bottleneck simply. Had “HO-” and thought 42A: “That’d be good!” was “HOW … one thing!” Like “HOW NICE!,” solely not NICE as a result of NICE was within the clue and likewise did not match. Took one have a look at the “B” at 40A: Cut up (BISECT) and wrote in BEAT IT … then instantly “confirmed” BEAT IT by crossing the second “T” with ODIST (the primary signal the puzzle was taking an unpleasant flip) (28D: Keats of Shelley). So I had a fallacious reply on this (SE) part, and I had ODIST, so … issues not off to a terrific begin (nothing screams “solely in crosswords!” like ODIST). However they instantly obtained worse. I am sorry, “Longtime position on ‘The Younger and the Stressed'”??? Not even the actress, however the *position*!?!? The world cannot be that devoid of TRACIs.
However then got here the actual downer, the reply that almost sucked all of the life out of the puzzle. A low stress system, adopted by … the BLAME STORM, which, so far as I can inform, is a storm despatched to wreck your puzzle with its excessive fictionality (26D: Heated dialogue of who’s liable for a failure). I’ve heard of “the blame recreation” and I’ve heard of a “tweet storm,” however BLAME STORM feels prefer it was coined on the spot. I assume it is a phrase somebody has used at a while or it would not be within the puzzle, however yeeeeeeesh it actually appears like one thing an uncurated wordlist coughed up (is it from the enterprise world??). ODIST TRACI BLAMESTORM! Move x 3.
[21A: Group of bats]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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