Occasionally I go into crossword puzzle geekery here in my blog. Here’s some more.

Today’s New York Times crossword had unusually few black squares, and I wondered if it might be a record. So I checked. It turns out that it doesn’t break, but it does tie, the record for fewest black squares used in a typical daily 15×15 grid: 18 black squares. The record was set about two years ago.

Here’s the grid:

On the New York Times crossword blog, puzzle creator Joe Krozel discusses how he created the grid.