Puzzle Notes
Dear friends,
Zachary Edward-Brown and Jude White have this week's Classic puzzle, a 17x17 joint called "Not Quite on Top of Things" at 3/5 difficulty. Was lovely to develop this theme and to work with these two. Solve it online
here. Jude and Zachary are high school friends. In addition to solving and constructing crosswords, they both play sports (Zachary, soccer and basketball; Jude, soccer and track) and they enjoy doing Tetris 1v1s against each other (Jude usually wins). Jude is also a cybersecurity whiz, although Zachary thinks he is better than Jude in soccer. They hope everybody enjoys the puzzle!
Meanwhile,
an announcement: we sent out a meta puzzle by Francis Heaney two Fridays ago. The puzzle came with instructions alluding to AVCXbot, our new AI Assistant. You'll be shocked and perhaps delighted to know that there is no AVCXbot! As a matter of fact (and as the solution to the meta ought to make clear), we are pretty firmly opposed to the idea that "AI" is a useful let alone inevitable frontier in puzzle-making.
Instead of announcing any kind of AI initiative, we send you the answer to this meta puzzle alongside the happy news that
all features of the AVCX will receive a raise effective October 1 of this year. Each feature can use the extra money as they see fit, in some cases to raise rates for constructors and in other cases for editors. Regardless, the money will all go to the creative human beings who make your puzzles, as goes basically every dollar you spend on your AVCX subscription. Thank you for making this possible by your support.
By the way, the meta was hard but a great many of you (156 people to be exact) managed to solve it. We're impressed! The solution to the puzzle, including the meta, is attached here. Congratulations to Gideon and Davin, our two randomly chosen winners from among the correct submissions. Each will receive a lovely prize.
Yrs,
Ben and the expanded AVCX crew
avxwords.com // @avcx.bsky.social' // @lilavcx.bsky.social' // @avcxtrivia.bsky.social'
