Data visualization crossword puzzle

This is fun. Lisa Charlotte Rost made a data visualization crossword puzzle. Print the PDF and win all eternal glory of your household.

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Analysis of representation in crossword puzzles

For The Pudding, Michelle McGhee analyzed representation in crossword puzzles. Some crossword publications do better than others.

As of December 2019, The USA Today puzzle is edited by Erik Agard, a 27-year old crossword champ who told me, “bringing some balance on the representation front is something I actively try to do.” A prominent crossword blogger called USA Today’s puzzle “the most interesting, innovative, and provocative daily crossword” out right now. Let’s take a look at how USA Today, and other publications, are taking a puzzle that’s been called too old, too white, too male, and changing it up.

The story also comes with playable, data-generated puzzles so that you can feel the difference over decades.

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Speedy crossword solvers

Crosswords

Oliver Roeder for FiveThirtyEight covered this year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the battle between Tyler Hinman and Dan Feyer.

Feyer, who has won the tournament every year since 2010, logs his puzzle solve times for the crosswords he solves nearly every day. The above shows his times for New York Times puzzles since 2011, with the easier Monday puzzles on the left and the more difficult Sunday puzzles skewed right.

See the whole thing. It's not nearly as boring as you might think.

And if you're into that, I highly recommend the Wordplay documentary from 2006, before Feyer's dominance.

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