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The New York Times Honors Steve Jobs With a Crossword Puzzle

07 Oct 2011 News
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Kevin Der, an engineer from Quora, the crowd sourced question and answer company, put together a crossword puzzle about Steve Jobs that is running in today's New York Times (a subscription is required). Kevin Der is no stranger to putting together crossword puzzles. He is the reigning record holder for fewest black squares in a New York Times puzzle. In Kevin Der's page on Quora's website he explains the frantic push to create and publish the crossword puzzle as soon as possible:
"Shortly after I heard the news, I created a grid incorporating entries that I thought would best capture the spirit of Steve's impact. And I knew I'd have to submit the grid to Will Shortz quickly for consideration, otherwise the timing would be weaker... Will realized that immediacy was so important that it would be amazing if we could get the puzzle out for Friday's paper. The timing on this was tricky. We only had several hours before the puzzle had to be completely finished, and in that time, I'd have to write the clues, Will would edit and typeset the puzzle, his testers would give the puzzle due diligence, and then all the different formats (print and online) would be prepared. Somehow Will and his amazing team were able to pull this off, all over email... The challenge was compounded by the need for clues of Friday level difficulty, which is always tough. I really felt pressure to produce good clues in order to compensate for the lack of a low word count grid that solvers would be expecting. I hunched over my MacBook Air with my iPhone (how fitting), using both at once to consult online references... Overall, the experience wrapped up the frenzied excitement of rapidly constructing a puzzle that had to be high in quality, with all the various emotions of sadness of the actual news..."
Its really nice to see the different ways people are choosing to express their admiration for Steve Jobs. Can you think of anyone else who has touched so many people so deeply and whose death moves them to honor him or her in such ways? We can't. Quora released a free iPhone app last week. Click here to get it from the App Store. [Source: All Things D]
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