April 24, 2019 - "404: Not Found" - by Maryam Hedayati and Sophia Maymudes

Difficulty ● ● ◐ ○ ○

Puzzle Notes

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour


[and so on and so forthe]

Dear friends, we greet you with the opening words of Chaucer's prologue to The Canterbury Tales celebrating the month of Aprille, with its bursting forth of springtime life, with its whirrs and chirps and cheeps and buzzes and bulbs all abloom.

There are 24 tales in Chaucer's work and 24 puzzles in the Inkubator year (at least for the purposes of our formal parallel). In this analogy, Inkubator #8, a moderately challenging collaboration by Maryam Hedayati and Sophia Maymudes titled '404: Not Found,' would be the counterpart of the Friar's tale or the Summoner's tale (your edition may vary).

Maryam recently graduated from Carleton College where she double-majored in computer science and psychology. She is currently working as a tech consultant and will soon be starting a PhD program in computer science and learning sciences. She is passionate about finding cheap tickets to Broadway shows and drinking hot water.

Sophia is a junior at Carleton College studying computer science and math. Her crosswords have been published twice by the New York Times. She spends her days reading Game of Thrones fan theories and figuring out just how many different meals she can make using the dining hall microwave.

Sophia introduced Maryam to crosswords in December 2017, and got her into constructing through creating this puzzle. The majority of this puzzle was constructed via Google Hangouts screen sharing while its creators were living on separate continents.

When you're done solving, check out Diary of a Crossword Fiend for a write-up and discussion, every Friday after an Inkubator puzzle is published. For general updates, follow us on twitter at @InkubatorXWords, and visit our website. Thanks to all of our subscribers for your continuing support, feedback, and kindness!

Coming up next, on May 9: a spiffy construction by rising talent Helen Verongos.

Wishing you the beste of Springe,
Laura and Tracy