PS Reading after penning this, and learning of the real financial picture for the puzzles, I no longer feel like a fooled Fool. It’s been quite a while since I was genuinely April Fooled.Īs such it was, for me, a bona fide, well executed April Fool’s joke and I be the Fool.įorsooth, I do fear I may be the only Fool who actually fell for it, but, by gosh, somebody had to do it. Was it a good puzzle otherwise? Don’t care. Going from OMG! The puzzles WILL END somehow? to laughing at myself a moment later made my day. I’m glad I forgot it was an April 1 puzzle. Then the NYT pop-up popped up with “April Fools,” thus quickly discovering I’d summarily been had, hook, line, and sinker. Filling this in to complete the message, I had a somber moment indeed for a second or two as I filled in the “A” for NARE” to finish. I was thinking it would be shorter, cancelled Saturdays, suspended, or something. However, I did not get the “WILL END” part END. In this all-too-serious mode, I was actually buying into the “message” as it unfolded. However, SEDUCED by the solving challenges, that thought faded completely into the FOGGY reaches of the brain. I did think going into it that there might/could/should be a 4/1 joke.
My first move was a straight diagonal across the grid, from NW to SE: Puzzle wasn't hard, but it played a little choppy, as it's mostly short answers, and I had to run a lot of them before the quotation elements became clear. Since the theme is a made-up quotation, you have to work at it through the crosses, and it took a while for the thing to fill itself in. Solving this puzzle was a weird experience. THE NEW YORK TIMES / CROSSWORD PUZZLE / WILL END when hell freezes over, or Manhattan floats out to sea, whichever comes first. It's also the NYT for running a puzzle that is essentially making fun of the its own stinginess toward crossword constructors. It's the typical constructor who accepts being paid primarily in "prestige" and "cachet" while the NYT profits like mad. claim to pay the most in the business (a claim made most recently here). "Alas! We just can't spare that $300 to pay the crossword constructor!" I love that this puzzle was made by a man whose own puzzle (Fireball Crosswords-subscribe here) pays $301, a fee that is a straight-up middle finger to the NYT and its a. Dead-tree subscriptions would Plummet without the crossword. End the crossword puzzle? It's The Only Part Of The Paper They Sell Separately Because They Can. If you ended the crossword, the paper would take a massive financial hit. The very, very last thing you'd cut is the crossword. The funniest thing about this puzzle is that the crossword is probably the ONLY part of the NYT that is reliably profitable. The absence of the sense of smell from birth is called congenital anosmia. Some people may be anosmic for one particular odor. A related term, hyposmia, refers to a decreased ability to smell, while hyperosmia refers to an increased ability to smell. Using this method of testing each nostril separately will often show a reduced or even completely absent sense of smell in either one nostril or both, something which is often not revealed if both nostrils are simultaneously tested. This type of anosmia is normally only detected if both of the nostrils are tested separately.
Many patients may experience unilateral anosmia, often as a result of minor head trauma. It can be caused by chronic meningitis and neurosyphilis that would increase intracranial pressure over a long period of time, and in some cases by ciliopathy including ciliopathy due to primary ciliary dyskinesia (Kartagener syndrome, Afzelius' syndrome or Siewert's syndrome). Since anosmia causes inflammatory changes in the nasal passageways, it is treated by simply reducing the presence of inflammation. Inflammation is due to chronic mucosa changes in the paranasal sinus lining and the middle and superior turbinates. Anosmia is due to a number of factors, including an inflammation of the nasal mucosa, blockage of nasal passages or a destruction of one temporal lobe. Anosmia may be temporary, but some anosmia (including traumatic anosmia) can be permanent. Anosmia ( / æ n ˈ ɒ z m i ə/) is the inability to perceive odor or a lack of functioning olfaction-the loss of the sense of smell.