Thursday 13 December 2012

No.10643, Thursday 13 Dec 12, Neyartha

Once again an excellent puzzle from Neyartha even if his substitution clues aren't woven tightly. I thought he was after inert gases, but a couple of others were present too.

Note: Starred clues have no direct definition, but share some property in common

ACROSS
1 Kind of rubber prepared by Oriental with raw material for chips initially (8) SILICONE (SILICON + E)
5 Pull and grasp raincoat’s contents (6) SPRAIN (T)
9* Democrat leader’s new toothpaste ingredient (8) FLUORINE (FLUORId(+N)E)
10* Husband and priest meet the westbound Greek character (6) HELIUM (H + ELI + MU<=)
11 Working outside in the peak summer days may lead to this (4,10) HEAT, EXHAUSTION (CD)
14 Sounds like the fraudulent manipulator will get an American trial (5) RIGOR (~ RIGGER)
16 Ore crusher kept inactive and covered in the morning and afternoon (5,4) STAMP, MILL (STILL outside AM/PM)
17 Cleaning agent’s work in retreat area cut short by some melodramatic fare (4,5) SOAP, OPERA (SOAP + OP + AREa<=)
19 *Deck’s king misplaced (5) RADON (ADORN with R moving to the front)
20 Venerable public servant deletes mantras by mistake (5,9) ELDER, STATESMAN (DELETES MANTRAS)*
23 Winter crop from the east includes note about a meteorological line (6) ISOBAR (RABI<= outside SO)
24 *Go around to get admitted by the awkward intern (8) NITROGEN (GO<= inside INTERN*)
25 Torment, a result of being culturally affected in Mauritania (6) MARTYR (ARTY inside MR)
26 It was a nightmarish tenure in Ohio when looking back to this matter (8) HEREUNTO (TENURE* inside OH<=)

DOWN
1 Strain to study (4) SIFT (DD)
2 Student gets rid of the male rodent and the insect (5) LOUSE ((+L)mOUSE)
3 Copper and critic in conversation with a museum employee (7) CURATOR (CU + ~RATER)
4 Imagined a noble gas rising up in an Iceland camp (3-8) NON-EXISTENT (XENON<= + IS + TENT)
6 Israel censored the upset suppliersgymnastic exercise (5-2) PRESS-UP (SUPPliERS)*
7 Alternative caddie I employed in the event of being made sour (9) ACIDIFIED (CADDIE I* outside IF)
8 New Zealand’s status before 1250 AD? (2,4,4) NO, MAN'S, LAND (CD)
12 Daring Thane airman became immortal (11) AMARANTHINE (THANE AIRMAN)*
13 Miners’ coup depicted in the forestage (10) PROSCENIUM (MINERS COUP)*
15 A big sightseeing trip where we ignored the groundwater treated by … (5,4) GRAND, TOUR (GROUNDwATeR)*
18… Mary for the Roman Catholics? (3,4) OUR, LADY (CD)
19 Delay in supply (7) RESERVE (DD)
21* Start off with buzz words (5) ARGON (jARGON)
22 Privy to some letters from Edmonton (4) ONTO (T)

93 comments:

  1. Its rather elementary or gassy I thought!

    If yesterday was 123=1728, today is 1729, the famous Hardy –Ramanujan taxi cab number

    1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_%28number%29

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    Replies
    1. Pardon me, the superscript seems to have got dropped when publishing the above. I restate it using another method:

      If yesterday was 12^3=1728, today is 1729, the famous Hardy –Ramanujan taxi cab number

      1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 = 9^3 + 10^3

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_%28number%29

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  2. A joke from FB I thought I should share:

    A businessman arriving in Boston for a convention found that his first evening was free, and he decided to go find a good seafood restaurant that served scrod, a Massachusetts specialty. Getting into a taxi, he asked the cab driver, who happened to be an MIT student doing a part-time job, "Do you know where I can get scrod around here?" "Sure," said the cabdriver. "I know a few places... but I can tell you it's not often I hear someone use the verb in the third-person pluperfect indicative any more!"

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    1. I don't get it :(

      Tried to figure out what "third-person pluperfect indicative" meant by googling it, but had to give up after reading the first few words. It was too much to take.

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  3. wow. kishore, nice trivia.

    wondering what would happen to THC after 21/12/12.

    good day all

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    Replies
    1. If a major change does happen on that day, I hope people see eye to eye, Doctor.

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    2. Hopefully we will continue doing what we do here wherever we are!

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    3. Even if everything ends, I am sure Jobs will be selling Apples in the hereafter.

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    4. Steve was always an odd job man

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  4. I had the privilege of attending a book release yesterday. The book 'Legends in Law - Our Great Forebears' by my good friend V Sudhish Pai gives biographical accounts of 42 legal luminaries. I had the chance to hear Mr Venkatachaliah, former CJI, speak on the occasion. Judges, by the way, are men of conviction.

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    Replies
    1. Yup, they always end their judgements with a sentence.

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    2. Do the guilty feel penned?

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    3. Sometimes their sentences may be left hanging...

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    4. ... in mid air ...

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    5. My comment and a response that I inadvertently deleted

      Me - And the sentence is followed by a period.

      Kishore - Bravo! Though not always. Sometimes it's just fine.

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    6. To hark back to the classic, no noose is good news...

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    7. To 'noose' or not to 'noose' is the current topic.

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    8. Some people like take the noose to get the hang of it or to know the ropes...

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    9. I know knot what you say, Richard.

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    10. You got to be knotty to understand it...

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    11. Sometimes I can be snotty. Especially when I have a cold.

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  5. Missed the samosa due a lack of rigor.
    ABCDE:

    Proper luxury car for Tiger perhaps (7)

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  6. Bhavan's remark about 'inert' reminded me of the following exchange from Yes Minister:

    Sir Humphrey: Metadioxin is an inert compound of Dioxin.
    Joan Littler: What?
    Jim: Yes I think I follow that Humphrey but, er, could you, explain it a little more clearly.
    Sir Humphrey: In what sense Minister?
    Joan Littler: What does inert mean?
    Sir Humphrey: Well it means it's not ... ert.
    Bernard: Wouldn't ert a fly.

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  7. We are likely to hit the 7 digit number today in page visits. Kudos to Col.!!

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    Replies
    1. last 100 or so to go. So who is the Millionth visitor going to be ?

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  8. Kishore,
    Talking of numbers,the Ramanujam no. 1729 is expressed as the least number that can be expressed as the sum of 2 cubes in 2 different ways (as you have indicated) I have heard that Ramanujam expressed this on seeing a taxi no.,right?

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    Replies
    1. Correct. Also 1+7+2+9=19, and 19 x 91< = 1729

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  9. The last mile of this million ! I am sure many are vying to click it

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  10. This is a test message to keep track of the exact time when the counter hits 1 million. My PC clock shows 9:41 am IST.

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    Replies
    1. Fine so my clock tallies with blog time.

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    2. Will it turn to seven digits or start with 000001 all over again, if it is a six-digit counter. Just curiously waiting leaving aside all work.

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    3. The curious cat with a mouse in hand, ready to click !

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  11. Kishore, I expected an elastic comment bouncing from you, when I saw clue 1A.

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    Replies
    1. I did not want to feel silly, conning you

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  12. Ah the last part of the race to 1M ... Awesome.
    Struggled to pick the substitution clues today, just about managed in the end with some help.

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  13. I am the millionth person to visit the site

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  14. So the suspense ends the counter has added the extra digit

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    Replies
    1. I dig it ! Many congratulations, Deepak !

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  15. Hooray! It happened at 10:15 am IST on Dec 13, 2012. (No idea of exact seconds.)

    Congrats to Deepak and all our friends here.

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    Replies
    1. From 999999 it took a paradigm jump. So there could be many claimants to the spot of 1m.

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    2. Wonder how there was discrepancy in time in different bloggers' counters.

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    3. When I entered the blog it was showing 999997 and I refreshed the browser three times to be the millionth man and I was watching the counter increasing by one number everytime i refreshed. So I can confidently boast that I am the millionth visitor

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  16. I have screen shots of both the moments 99999 as well as 100000 so that should put things at rest. My clock at the moment showed 10:12. In any case the counter is not very reliable so how does it matter if it was 10:11 as per Rengaswamy or 10:15 as per Richard. At least I did not have to search for a new counter with 7 digits

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  17. So the next thing to look forward to is 21/12/12 is it?

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    Replies
    1. For now, most of us will be looking forward to a celebration - when and where?

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    2. Richard we need to plan one at Mangalore. Maybe sometime next year.

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  18. Refer my 10:27, the screen shots are uploaded at the THCC families blog

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    Replies
    1. Your screen shot shows 10.14 for 1000000 and 10.22 for 999999? Is it a reversal indicator?

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    2. Both screen shots were taken on different laptops. Ijust checked and found that there is a difference in the clock of the two laptops !

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    3. That shore is a clock up !

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  19. Great milestone ! Once again thanks/kudos to Colonel & Bhavan for making our mornings (rather the whole day !) really interesting with the blog

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  20. Thanks everyone and like I have said earlier, I am only the facilitator, it is the rest of you'll who have made this blog what it is today.

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  21. Hearty congratulations to Colonel and Bhavan.
    Many thanks from me, too, for making our mornings so interesting with this blog. Also, putting us out of our misery when we cannot work out some solutions!
    From the other comments, I can see it's been 'punny' morning - have a great day!

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  22. Wishing you more millions,Col.!!

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    Replies
    1. Congratulations to the bunch of Cruciberbalists.

      Had never heard this word before

      Word of the Day for Tuesday, December 11, 2012

      cruciverbalist \kroo-suh-VUR-buh-list\, noun:

      A designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles.

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  23. Hearty Congrats to Col & Bhavan on the signal achievement.
    May the team cross many more milestones in this combined effort.

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  24. Wow! What a long chain of witty exchanges! Nice wordplays! May long live the blog's camaraderie! I second Nadathur Rajan!

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  25. WOW - completed the puzzle today (of course, after a bit of googling.. Proscenium was a new word). Generally, I don't solve more than half of Neyartha - the moment I see starred clues, my spirit plummets. But as soon as I got Fluorine, the other gases were easy to crack. And also, comparatively fewer starred clues today - only five (For a change, I felt there could have been more starred clues - there are only a few gaseous elements!!)

    And Congratulations Col and Bhavan!

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  26. Congratulations to all the 'Pun'dits!! It's been only a couple of weeks but wonderful experience to go over the blog each day. Thumbs up!

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  27. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  28. Surprised that there wasn't much support for Richard's question @9:53 ;)

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  29. Am vacationing now and if I have time I check the blog late night to catch up on what's been happening. Was very excited when I saw there were 90 comments today. Then found that maybe three of them pertained to the puzzle of the day! Nice forum for some exchange of views.

    Adding my congratulations to the milestone reached. My day somehow doesn't feel complete if I haven't checked in here!

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  30. Yesterdat was mostly dissection of clues. Today ofcours was a milestone day so naturally most comments were about it and a nice puzzle probably got overshadowed ...

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  31. dat=day and ofcourse ofcours=ofcourse

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