Unintended Consequences
Look! What we made ... you do?
It's Thanksgiving here in the U.S., where we're all gathering with family and friends for cozy, harvest-time bonhomie, so if you want to be a little dickens and sit in the corner working on a puzzle no one else in the house is going to understand, you know we're here for you.
Our testers fall on a lot of swords on our solvers' behalf; certainly we are grateful to our stalwarts Andy Stilp and John Sams, and we're extending that squad this month with the inclusion of Dave Sanderman. We know Dave from online solving forums, and there is a certain authenticity in the way he can communicate that he is rolling his eyes at one of our clues without typing <rolls eyes> that commended him to this service. We've very happy to have him onboard — thanks, Dave.
Likewise, we passed into Year 4 of Rackenfracker subscriber puzzles at the end of the summer. Years 1 and 2 were each a 12-puzzle series with a dedicated editor, but we have structured our output differently since then, such that there has been no finale that would provide our editor Andy Yingst a clean getaway. We're very grateful for this as well, especially because Andy decided to start digging their own salt mine as editor and publisher of The Gnomon, which serves up more than a dozen variety cryptics to its subscribers annually. Its fourth issue comes out next week and includes a puzzle by two constructors known to us that sometimes refer to themselves in the third person — it’s a great time to subscribe. It gives us comfort knowing that our solvers are protected from our overreaches by Andy's thoughtful hands. Thanks, pal.
There are a lot of people who don't ever get mentioned in these pages that we rely on tremendously and are also deeply grateful for, and of course there are the solvers, without whom we would genuinely be creating nothing. Thanks for being here, and thanks especially to the subscribers that allow us to compensate editors and host this website.