November 1, 2024 • 24 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: our very own Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska.
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast The Glowing Teacher
recommendation in your Puzzle College application. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and I'm here, of course, with Chief Puzzle
Officer Greg Kliska, and we are delighted that you, the listeners,
can join us for Friday farrago.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Ah, Happy Friday.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Happy Friday. And this is, as always on Friday, an
episode packed with nutritious puzzle goodness. We've got listener letters,
we've got lukewarm off the Press's puzzle news. But let's
start with some bonus nuggets from this week's puzzles.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Some clues that.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Were too hot to handle. And Greg, we had, as
you know, the great comedian Jordan Carlos, and we gave
him a One of them was a river themed puzzle,
so rhyme me a river. So it was two words
that rhymed. A large reptile from Egypt's major river was nile, crocodile.
(01:07):
So I only have two leftover clues, but I heard
a rumor you the overtiever, have written some more, so
let me give a couple.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, I got a couple of tough ones that were
too hot to handle.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
But you'll get them. I'm sure too.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Clever by half the other we also call them all right, Well,
this one was let me give you one of the leftover.
This is the New York City version of the Lochness Monster.
It lives in one of Manhattan's rivers.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So we had the Hudson River and the East River
and the Harlem River, so it's going to be the
East Beast.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You got it? Yeah, exactly, all right. The next one
is a triple so it's got three words, all rhyming.
This is the oil that Erno Rubik uses on his invention,
and Rubic, as you might know, lives in Hungary. Yes,
when the river goes through.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
It's the Danube cbe Blube.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It is the Danube Cu cube lube. And I only
bring it up because there is actual cube blube, as
we know from from the from the puzzler. These modern cubers,
Uh yeah, they put on like lube to make it
make it faster.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Uh So it's really rub it's Roubq blue because that's truly, truly,
that's the nickname for a rubek, Yes, exactly, rob Cue
blue from the Danube.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's what the kids call it.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Does he come in a jar or does it come
in a tube?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I think it is a jar.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh, a tube would be nice, right, danube roup CB
blue tube.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I'm not even gonna try. There's another word that comes
to mind, but yeah, let's keep it PG. All right.
So but you have some for me, I believe.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah. I have a couple that I think are fun.
I have a musical instrument that you'd play on kinshasas.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
River, kinshasas River. Okay, this I'm already in a little.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Bit of trouble in Africa.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's okay, Africa.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
There are two countries in Africa that share this name.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, I'm thinking, yeah, it's not the Nile, because we
already did that in the Congo. Congo's bongos Congo. All right, nice, thanks.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And this is a board game. Let's stay in Africa.
A board game you might play on the river that
leads to Victoria Falls.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Oh wow, okay, so that is not the Congo or
the Nile. I'm not sure I know the river.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
It's a very long river. It starts with a Z.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
The well is near zam Zambia's well.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Zambia is I think derived from a similar term because
it starts with the same four.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Letters zam bony No, maybe you know.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
This is a board game where you you your pieces
move around the board and at the end they have
to come up the center and back to home.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh so parchies not sorry, but part Parchie so Zambizy Parcheesi.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yes, Zambezi parcheesi.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Very right, not very good, but something pretty good. It
was a good clue, It was not My solving was
not not over the top.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Now this one is both a little macabre and definitely
I think the hardest of.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The lot, harder than the Zambizi.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Okay, yeah, these are the finger bones found in the
waters of India's most sacred river.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
All right, well I do know the second part. I
feel pretty confident that's the Ganges angies. I'm just thinking
the carpool stuff, isn't there. Yeah no, now I'm thinking
it is something like flangies, flandies, got it, you got it,
you got it?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
All right?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That is falange. Yeah, they're not a lot of rhymes
with angies, but you found one. Nicely done.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Gangie's flanges.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
We also gave Jordan a puzzle because his podcast that
he co hosts is called Adulting and so you created
a puzzle about sort of twenty tens neologisms. So did
you have some extras?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, there are a few that we didn't use.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That are words that either were, you know, coined in
the twenty tens or came into common use with a
new usage in the twenty tens. One was one clue
is I'm so exhausted after my two week cation in
Monte Carlo, which is an example of this oxymoronic mashup.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I like that. I like that, I know it because
I'm looking at the script. But I do like this phrase,
which is humble brag, a humble brag exactly which people
did on like Twitter and things like that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
This is a sexy picture of yourself that you post online,
but in an early usage it described being lured by
your own body into believing you had had enough to drink.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Interesting, I knew the first part sexy picture of yourself
is I believe the kids used to call it thirst
traps trap, But the second part I had no idea
was an actual phrase.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It turns out.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Florence Griffith Joiner wrote a book called Running for Dummies
where she talks about this phenomenon of your body convincing
you that you've had enough to drink, when in fact
you need to keep drinking. So, in her usage, your
thirst trap is something bad. You're you know, doing a
long run, and your body says you don't need more water.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
That's a thirst trap. You do need more water right now?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
What if flow Joe posted a sexy picture online? That
would be.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Very first trap thirst trap?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
The first trap coiners thirst trap. Well, that's great and
educational as well as fun. We I believe are ready
to segue to segment number two. Listener Mail Seging two
Andrea Schoenberg, our associate puzzler, who is our official mail
opener and reader. Andrea, what do we got today?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, today we have a letter from Sammy Casanova and
it's got two parts. So first she asks if we
will accept an alternate answer for our musician name puzzle.
So this is when we played a sound related to
a band or artist name and solve her had to
guess the musician. So the clue we played a sound
(08:03):
of the barking of a dog, and the answer we
were looking for was pitbull. But Sammy asked if we
would accept three dog night as an answer because it
was exactly three barks.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And she was, well, she was listening in the evening,
so I think it's a last.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Exactly. I think that is okay. Yeah, I think anything
in the I mean that was I think you pulled
that clip and it was an actual pit bull. So
if you know your barks, then then you might have
gotten pit bull. But I think we would accept any canine.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
So three times and it was at night. It's a
three dog night for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Free dog knight.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
There you go, I will say full disclosure. Sammy is
also on my Mystery Team on which now night as well.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, oh I love it. Well, you said that she
had two parts to her letter, Andrea, please what is
the second part?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
So Sammy also took up the challenge to write her
own clue for one of our other puzzlers. This was
our Trios puzzle, which is when we gave three parts
of a famous trio and then you had to guess
what the trio.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Was, right, and that was your What was an example
of that, Greg? You gave that one?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So yeah, the trio puzzle, we gave clues to three
parts of a trio might have been like pots, silent
and cool, and then you would realize that's actually anagrams
of stop, look and listen or something like that.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But it was always the you know, oblique clues to.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Three things that are part of a trio, Faith, hope,
and charity. I think was the original one. Faith, Saley, Bob,
Hope and charity bono. No, that's chastity bono. Anyway, that's
the idea clues to three things that belong together. So
Sammy gave us one, right, Yes.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
She came up with her own. So the and sam
is cleared. The trio is Incas, a Cretan king, and Frederica.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Och oh, you got the pronunciation.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
H O s C h E d E Frederic host.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Or full disclosure. I needed to google two of the
three of those.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And one I only go So between us we only
had to google one. We've already gotten spread, but we
didn't we did. We needed help get in the final answer. Yeah,
so which one did you know without googling.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
A Cretan king?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I did know that a Cretan king. Okay, I knew
that one too, and I knew Incas also, right, I
don't had to look up Frederic.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And I will say that even when we those words,
I still needed help. So I emailed Sammy and she
told us that there's another step to the puzzle, that
it is anagrams, that these are all anagrams of a trio.
So we thought we would leave it unsolved for you,
(11:18):
and if you solve it, please send us your answer
at info at the puzzler dot com. And we're going
to take all the correct answers and we're gonna do
a little lottery and one lucky listener will receive an
autographed copy of a new book by friends of ours,
Stuart Gibbs and Jeff Chen. It's called Spy School Entrance
(11:41):
Exam and it is a lovely They're both wonderful people.
And I will say non humble brag. I was the
Yenta who brought Stuart and Jeff together because Stuart said
he loves crosswords and Jeff is one of his favorite constructors,
and I said, I know Jeff. So there you go.
So Stewart gives Jeff Chen pick up the book or
(12:04):
get a free copy. Uh, And that's it. That's it
for listener. Veil this time, good man. Yeah, and I
think we're ready for Lukewarm off the presses.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, okay, this this news item is is actually I
think quite current, maybe maybe hot off the presses. You
remember Doctor Phil from the American cross Puzzle Tournament.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Right, not the the talk show host.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
This is doctor F I L L right exactly.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
He is an artificial intelligence, well, a computer program designed
to solve crosswords, and kind of every year at the tournament,
you know, doctor Phil does the you know, solves the puzzle,
and you get Doctor Phil's time compared to the human times.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And and in most of the puzzles, doctor Phil blows
through them because they're you know it just it's got
a huge database of definitions and can just recognize what
words go whar. But the tricky fun crossword clues like
folks like Jeff Channer or Pel David Kwang put in
their puzzles baffle Doctor Phil, and it's totally stumped.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Well, here there was little hope.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
There was a little hope for humans.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
There was hope for humans. But now there's a news
sober on the scene, a program, an AI program called
Crossword Genius, which was invented by William Tunstall Pedo who
it was one of the guys behind Amazon's Alexa, and
he's designed this to solve not regular American crosswords, but
(13:36):
the fiendishly difficult British cryptics.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Which are so crazy hard and we've talked about them
on the show before, but they are so full of
wordplay and puns and anagrams that they are just what
would you call them, not brain teasers but brain mockers.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yes, exactly, and they and they you know, you just
never know what to expect in terms of how they're
going to twist the wordplay.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And what.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Tunstall Pedo has done is created this this app that
understands cryptic clue structure and uses a database of past
puzzles to identify the cryptic clue conventions like anagrams or
puns and abbreviations, and it works, is working, It does
very well. In fact, it is competing this year in
(14:30):
the Times, that's the London Times Cryptic Crossword Competition, which
I think is happening right now or has just happened.
We'll follow up and see if we find out how
the app did, but I will tell you the app
has the avatar of a pug named Ross which is
probably some cross ross pun I don't know, and it
(14:53):
barks every time it solves a clue.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Oh okay okay, which is also a pun because bark
and bark, I get.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, yeah, and would certainly get one of us kicked
out if we were doing that at a cross or tournament.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
But the app is, you know, the Ross is allowed
to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
So they tested it on last year's final puzzle and
it solved twenty three out of thirty clues in twenty
two minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
That's impressive because yeah, yeah for me, like they take
five minutes perfect, which is going to be riveting audio if.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But basically it's twenty two minutes and you hear twenty
three or twenty three barks over the time, and that's
a pencil scratch. But that is slower than last year's champion,
Matthew Marcus, who won by solving the whole puzzle in
the whole puzzle in twenty minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Good Matthew, come on, we're rooting for you this time.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
They did test Ross recently on a hard cryptic from
the Times and it got some of the clues right.
It didn't get all of them, but it got these
clues right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give you the
cl lose and see how chat AJJ does against crossword
genius wrongs.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Okay, I'm very nervous. I'm the John Henry, but I'm
the John Henry who does not men who dies.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Before the canary in the coal mine of the ai.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
All right, here's the clue.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
One wound up in the tower. Perhaps one wound up.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
In the tower.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Wound up in the tower.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's a six letter word and a nine letter word.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Oh it's a phrase. Okay, well, yeah, Usually I just
start spouting anything that comes to mind related to towers.
So the leaning Tower of Pisa.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
The well.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I will also say this clue is given with tower
as a capital letter, but as in the Tower of London.
But that's not helpful. Sorry, okay, but it is. That's
part of the surface sense of this, right, someone one
wound up in the tower, right.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You were well, I was thinking that that the Tower
of London, because well, is big Ben on the Tower
of Line because that is a clock and maybe they
need to windlock.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I like the way you're thinking of different uses of wound,
right or wound.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Maybe there's a wound.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
This is wound, something that's wound up.
Speaker 6 (17:20):
All right.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Picturing sometimes it helps to visualize, so I am picturing.
I did visit the Tower of Pisa. So I went
and I walked, I walked inside the well. That is interesting.
The stairs there are stairs.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, so yeah, that's that's partly I.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Think I I think I got it because I think
this is related to Will Short's favorite clue and crosswords,
which yeah, because it's spiral staircase esthing that winds up
in a tower.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yes, and what was Will's favorite clue?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Will's favorite clue was it turns into another story, right, yes,
this turns into another story story as in the story.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
All right, well it winds up so good. See you're matched,
You're you're right there with Crosser Genius. You use the
same technique Crosser Genius uses, which is to reference past clues,
right right.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I actually had it because I
knew spiral staircase was six and nine because I had
used it in a speech when I talked about So
that was a little since take that cross Crosser Genius.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
All right, this next one is, uh, here's the clue.
Bloodthirsty character unusual for Austin.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Bloodthirsty character unusual for Austin.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Not the city Austin, but Jane Austen. And it's a
nine letter answer.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
All right, well, I am. I'm immediately stumped. I mean,
I'm thinking, well, first, character can mean several things, so
it could be like a character, like a you know,
a typewritten character, or a character in a novel blood thirsty.
I'm just trying to think of synonyms for blood thirsty,
like murderous, murderous kind of sounds nine. But why would
(19:23):
why would murderous right be unusual? I need a hint,
I need it. I'm I'm flailing.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
You'd probably get this if you were looking at it.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I am looking at it.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You still we won't get this even if you're looking
at it now. It's so so, you know, think about
the different kinds of cryptic clues, all right, well.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yes, okay, I have Often they do write anagrams where
they mix up the letters, and they often clue it
by saying something like twisted or mixed up and maybe
unusual four awesome for Austin is also nine letters?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Also nine letters, but also character bloodthirsty?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Character? Who is that's an anagram of for Austin.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Oh no, sparratu.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Very good, very good.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It's a very old movie.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And then there's a new one coming out, isn't there?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Okay? Yes, well I needed to be walked through that,
and I don't think cross Orgenius did.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Well, here's what, No, here's the thing, cross Redgenius. What
the cool thing about the way the program works is
it tells you what it's thinking, thinking quotes or not.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
It's an AI, right.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
So it's it writes it's in its analysis. Bloodthirsty character
is the definition? So like you, crossword Genius recognizes unusual
as an anagram indicator, but it says it knows nothing
about the answer no speratu, so it can't judge if
the definition is accurate.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Oh good, so it's so like.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
It doesn't you didn't have Andrea there to say it's
a movie that's coming out, which might have helped it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
But I actually did not know that. But it's good
to know.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, it's helpful.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well, you can go read about this in the London Times.
There's a you know, you'll find out that that there's
a lot that it got wrong, but you know, seven
out of thirty.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But it's still pretty.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Dang smart, pretty smart. All right. Well, if I said
anything negative about Ais, please don't listen. Future Ais who
are over over the lords and everyone else. Please check
out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post
original puzzles and lots of other fun nuggets. And we
(21:40):
will meet you here Monday, Right, we will you meet
here Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puddlingly.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Hello puzzlers, It's Greg Plisko, your chief puzzle officer, here
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. We
gave you a double dose of Halloween goodness. AJ did
a puzzle about different Halloween candies on opposite day. He
called it opposite suites instead of opposites. Your clue was
(22:13):
truths and you're looking for the name of a candy
that is the opposite of truths, and that of course
is whoppers.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Whoppers big lies are the opposites of truths.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
And I gave AJ a puzzle called trick or Treat
in which every answer was a rhyming phrase. It rhymed
with trick or treat starting with the same sounds on
each half, like trick and treat do. And the clue
was when when the kids come to your door, do
you give them a baby, farm animal or a Konami code.
(22:46):
The answer, of course is chick or cheat, Right, chick
is a baby farm animal, and Konami code codes are
cheat codes for a video game.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
So that's what you got.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I hope you had a great Halloween. You got all
the whoppers you wanted, you got all the treats you wanted,
or if you wanted baby farm animals, you got a
bunch of chicks.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
See you next time.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Thanks for playing along with the team Here at The
Puzzler with Aj Jacobs, I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is produced by Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of
Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Videgar Curtis.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Our associate producer.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Is Andrea Schoenberg.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Hot Card Pasties.
No I Rearrange Those Letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, A
History of Puzzles that.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
The New York Times.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Called fun and funny, it features an original puzzle hunt
by yours truly, and is available wherever you get your
books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit
the puzzler dot Com.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
See you there,
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast The Glowing Teacher
recommendation in your Puzzle College application. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and I'm here, of course, with Chief Puzzle
Officer Greg Kliska, and we are delighted that you, the listeners,
can join us for Friday farrago.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Ah, Happy Friday.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Happy Friday. And this is, as always on Friday, an
episode packed with nutritious puzzle goodness. We've got listener letters,
we've got lukewarm off the Press's puzzle news. But let's
start with some bonus nuggets from this week's puzzles.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Some clues that.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Were too hot to handle. And Greg, we had, as
you know, the great comedian Jordan Carlos, and we gave
him a One of them was a river themed puzzle,
so rhyme me a river. So it was two words
that rhymed. A large reptile from Egypt's major river was nile, crocodile.
(01:07):
So I only have two leftover clues, but I heard
a rumor you the overtiever, have written some more, so
let me give a couple.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, I got a couple of tough ones that were
too hot to handle.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
But you'll get them. I'm sure too.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Clever by half the other we also call them all right, Well,
this one was let me give you one of the leftover.
This is the New York City version of the Lochness Monster.
It lives in one of Manhattan's rivers.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So we had the Hudson River and the East River
and the Harlem River, so it's going to be the
East Beast.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You got it? Yeah, exactly, all right. The next one
is a triple so it's got three words, all rhyming.
This is the oil that Erno Rubik uses on his invention,
and Rubic, as you might know, lives in Hungary. Yes,
when the river goes through.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
It's the Danube cbe Blube.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
It is the Danube Cu cube lube. And I only
bring it up because there is actual cube blube, as
we know from from the from the puzzler. These modern cubers,
Uh yeah, they put on like lube to make it
make it faster.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Uh So it's really rub it's Roubq blue because that's truly, truly,
that's the nickname for a rubek, Yes, exactly, rob Cue
blue from the Danube.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's what the kids call it.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Does he come in a jar or does it come
in a tube?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I think it is a jar.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh, a tube would be nice, right, danube roup CB
blue tube.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I'm not even gonna try. There's another word that comes
to mind, but yeah, let's keep it PG. All right.
So but you have some for me, I believe.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah. I have a couple that I think are fun.
I have a musical instrument that you'd play on kinshasas.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
River, kinshasas River. Okay, this I'm already in a little.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Bit of trouble in Africa.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's okay, Africa.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
There are two countries in Africa that share this name.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, I'm thinking, yeah, it's not the Nile, because we
already did that in the Congo. Congo's bongos Congo. All right, nice, thanks.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And this is a board game. Let's stay in Africa.
A board game you might play on the river that
leads to Victoria Falls.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Oh wow, okay, so that is not the Congo or
the Nile. I'm not sure I know the river.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
It's a very long river. It starts with a Z.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
The well is near zam Zambia's well.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Zambia is I think derived from a similar term because
it starts with the same four.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Letters zam bony No, maybe you know.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
This is a board game where you you your pieces
move around the board and at the end they have
to come up the center and back to home.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh so parchies not sorry, but part Parchie so Zambizy Parcheesi.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yes, Zambezi parcheesi.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Very right, not very good, but something pretty good. It
was a good clue, It was not My solving was
not not over the top.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Now this one is both a little macabre and definitely
I think the hardest of.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The lot, harder than the Zambizi.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Okay, yeah, these are the finger bones found in the
waters of India's most sacred river.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
All right, well I do know the second part. I
feel pretty confident that's the Ganges angies. I'm just thinking
the carpool stuff, isn't there. Yeah no, now I'm thinking
it is something like flangies, flandies, got it, you got it,
you got it?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
All right?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That is falange. Yeah, they're not a lot of rhymes
with angies, but you found one. Nicely done.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Gangie's flanges.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
We also gave Jordan a puzzle because his podcast that
he co hosts is called Adulting and so you created
a puzzle about sort of twenty tens neologisms. So did
you have some extras?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, there are a few that we didn't use.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That are words that either were, you know, coined in
the twenty tens or came into common use with a
new usage in the twenty tens. One was one clue
is I'm so exhausted after my two week cation in
Monte Carlo, which is an example of this oxymoronic mashup.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I like that. I like that, I know it because
I'm looking at the script. But I do like this phrase,
which is humble brag, a humble brag exactly which people
did on like Twitter and things like that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
This is a sexy picture of yourself that you post online,
but in an early usage it described being lured by
your own body into believing you had had enough to drink.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Interesting, I knew the first part sexy picture of yourself
is I believe the kids used to call it thirst
traps trap, But the second part I had no idea
was an actual phrase.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It turns out.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Florence Griffith Joiner wrote a book called Running for Dummies
where she talks about this phenomenon of your body convincing
you that you've had enough to drink, when in fact
you need to keep drinking. So, in her usage, your
thirst trap is something bad. You're you know, doing a
long run, and your body says you don't need more water.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
That's a thirst trap. You do need more water right now?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
What if flow Joe posted a sexy picture online? That
would be.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Very first trap thirst trap?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
The first trap coiners thirst trap. Well, that's great and
educational as well as fun. We I believe are ready
to segue to segment number two. Listener Mail Seging two
Andrea Schoenberg, our associate puzzler, who is our official mail
opener and reader. Andrea, what do we got today?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, today we have a letter from Sammy Casanova and
it's got two parts. So first she asks if we
will accept an alternate answer for our musician name puzzle.
So this is when we played a sound related to
a band or artist name and solve her had to
guess the musician. So the clue we played a sound
(08:03):
of the barking of a dog, and the answer we
were looking for was pitbull. But Sammy asked if we
would accept three dog night as an answer because it
was exactly three barks.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And she was, well, she was listening in the evening,
so I think it's a last.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Exactly. I think that is okay. Yeah, I think anything
in the I mean that was I think you pulled
that clip and it was an actual pit bull. So
if you know your barks, then then you might have
gotten pit bull. But I think we would accept any canine.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
So three times and it was at night. It's a
three dog night for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Free dog knight.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
There you go, I will say full disclosure. Sammy is
also on my Mystery Team on which now night as well.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, oh I love it. Well, you said that she
had two parts to her letter, Andrea, please what is
the second part?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
So Sammy also took up the challenge to write her
own clue for one of our other puzzlers. This was
our Trios puzzle, which is when we gave three parts
of a famous trio and then you had to guess
what the trio.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Was, right, and that was your What was an example
of that, Greg? You gave that one?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So yeah, the trio puzzle, we gave clues to three
parts of a trio might have been like pots, silent
and cool, and then you would realize that's actually anagrams
of stop, look and listen or something like that.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But it was always the you know, oblique clues to.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Three things that are part of a trio, Faith, hope,
and charity. I think was the original one. Faith, Saley, Bob,
Hope and charity bono. No, that's chastity bono. Anyway, that's
the idea clues to three things that belong together. So
Sammy gave us one, right, Yes.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
She came up with her own. So the and sam
is cleared. The trio is Incas, a Cretan king, and Frederica.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Och oh, you got the pronunciation.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
H O s C h E d E Frederic host.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Or full disclosure. I needed to google two of the
three of those.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And one I only go So between us we only
had to google one. We've already gotten spread, but we
didn't we did. We needed help get in the final answer. Yeah,
so which one did you know without googling.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
A Cretan king?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I did know that a Cretan king. Okay, I knew
that one too, and I knew Incas also, right, I
don't had to look up Frederic.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And I will say that even when we those words,
I still needed help. So I emailed Sammy and she
told us that there's another step to the puzzle, that
it is anagrams, that these are all anagrams of a trio.
So we thought we would leave it unsolved for you,
(11:18):
and if you solve it, please send us your answer
at info at the puzzler dot com. And we're going
to take all the correct answers and we're gonna do
a little lottery and one lucky listener will receive an
autographed copy of a new book by friends of ours,
Stuart Gibbs and Jeff Chen. It's called Spy School Entrance
(11:41):
Exam and it is a lovely They're both wonderful people.
And I will say non humble brag. I was the
Yenta who brought Stuart and Jeff together because Stuart said
he loves crosswords and Jeff is one of his favorite constructors,
and I said, I know Jeff. So there you go.
So Stewart gives Jeff Chen pick up the book or
(12:04):
get a free copy. Uh, And that's it. That's it
for listener. Veil this time, good man. Yeah, and I
think we're ready for Lukewarm off the presses.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, okay, this this news item is is actually I
think quite current, maybe maybe hot off the presses. You
remember Doctor Phil from the American cross Puzzle Tournament.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Right, not the the talk show host.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
This is doctor F I L L right exactly.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
He is an artificial intelligence, well, a computer program designed
to solve crosswords, and kind of every year at the tournament,
you know, doctor Phil does the you know, solves the puzzle,
and you get Doctor Phil's time compared to the human times.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And and in most of the puzzles, doctor Phil blows
through them because they're you know it just it's got
a huge database of definitions and can just recognize what
words go whar. But the tricky fun crossword clues like
folks like Jeff Channer or Pel David Kwang put in
their puzzles baffle Doctor Phil, and it's totally stumped.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Well, here there was little hope.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
There was a little hope for humans.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
There was hope for humans. But now there's a news
sober on the scene, a program, an AI program called
Crossword Genius, which was invented by William Tunstall Pedo who
it was one of the guys behind Amazon's Alexa, and
he's designed this to solve not regular American crosswords, but
(13:36):
the fiendishly difficult British cryptics.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Which are so crazy hard and we've talked about them
on the show before, but they are so full of
wordplay and puns and anagrams that they are just what
would you call them, not brain teasers but brain mockers.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yes, exactly, and they and they you know, you just
never know what to expect in terms of how they're
going to twist the wordplay.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And what.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Tunstall Pedo has done is created this this app that
understands cryptic clue structure and uses a database of past
puzzles to identify the cryptic clue conventions like anagrams or
puns and abbreviations, and it works, is working, It does
very well. In fact, it is competing this year in
(14:30):
the Times, that's the London Times Cryptic Crossword Competition, which
I think is happening right now or has just happened.
We'll follow up and see if we find out how
the app did, but I will tell you the app
has the avatar of a pug named Ross which is
probably some cross ross pun I don't know, and it
(14:53):
barks every time it solves a clue.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Oh okay okay, which is also a pun because bark
and bark, I get.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, yeah, and would certainly get one of us kicked
out if we were doing that at a cross or tournament.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
But the app is, you know, the Ross is allowed
to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
So they tested it on last year's final puzzle and
it solved twenty three out of thirty clues in twenty
two minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
That's impressive because yeah, yeah for me, like they take
five minutes perfect, which is going to be riveting audio if.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But basically it's twenty two minutes and you hear twenty
three or twenty three barks over the time, and that's
a pencil scratch. But that is slower than last year's champion,
Matthew Marcus, who won by solving the whole puzzle in
the whole puzzle in twenty minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Good Matthew, come on, we're rooting for you this time.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
They did test Ross recently on a hard cryptic from
the Times and it got some of the clues right.
It didn't get all of them, but it got these
clues right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give you the
cl lose and see how chat AJJ does against crossword
genius wrongs.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Okay, I'm very nervous. I'm the John Henry, but I'm
the John Henry who does not men who dies.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Before the canary in the coal mine of the ai.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
All right, here's the clue.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
One wound up in the tower. Perhaps one wound up.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
In the tower.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Wound up in the tower.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's a six letter word and a nine letter word.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Oh it's a phrase. Okay, well, yeah, Usually I just
start spouting anything that comes to mind related to towers.
So the leaning Tower of Pisa.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
The well.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I will also say this clue is given with tower
as a capital letter, but as in the Tower of London.
But that's not helpful. Sorry, okay, but it is. That's
part of the surface sense of this, right, someone one
wound up in the tower, right.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You were well, I was thinking that that the Tower
of London, because well, is big Ben on the Tower
of Line because that is a clock and maybe they
need to windlock.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I like the way you're thinking of different uses of wound,
right or wound.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Maybe there's a wound.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
This is wound, something that's wound up.
Speaker 6 (17:20):
All right.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Picturing sometimes it helps to visualize, so I am picturing.
I did visit the Tower of Pisa. So I went
and I walked, I walked inside the well. That is interesting.
The stairs there are stairs.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, so yeah, that's that's partly I.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Think I I think I got it because I think
this is related to Will Short's favorite clue and crosswords,
which yeah, because it's spiral staircase esthing that winds up
in a tower.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yes, and what was Will's favorite clue?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Will's favorite clue was it turns into another story, right, yes,
this turns into another story story as in the story.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
All right, well it winds up so good. See you're matched,
You're you're right there with Crosser Genius. You use the
same technique Crosser Genius uses, which is to reference past clues,
right right.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I actually had it because I
knew spiral staircase was six and nine because I had
used it in a speech when I talked about So
that was a little since take that cross Crosser Genius.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
All right, this next one is, uh, here's the clue.
Bloodthirsty character unusual for Austin.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Bloodthirsty character unusual for Austin.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Not the city Austin, but Jane Austen. And it's a
nine letter answer.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
All right, well, I am. I'm immediately stumped. I mean,
I'm thinking, well, first, character can mean several things, so
it could be like a character, like a you know,
a typewritten character, or a character in a novel blood thirsty.
I'm just trying to think of synonyms for blood thirsty,
like murderous, murderous kind of sounds nine. But why would
(19:23):
why would murderous right be unusual? I need a hint,
I need it. I'm I'm flailing.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
You'd probably get this if you were looking at it.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I am looking at it.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You still we won't get this even if you're looking
at it now. It's so so, you know, think about
the different kinds of cryptic clues, all right, well.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yes, okay, I have Often they do write anagrams where
they mix up the letters, and they often clue it
by saying something like twisted or mixed up and maybe
unusual four awesome for Austin is also nine letters?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Also nine letters, but also character bloodthirsty?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Character? Who is that's an anagram of for Austin.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Oh no, sparratu.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Very good, very good.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It's a very old movie.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And then there's a new one coming out, isn't there?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Okay? Yes, well I needed to be walked through that,
and I don't think cross Orgenius did.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Well, here's what, No, here's the thing, cross Redgenius. What
the cool thing about the way the program works is
it tells you what it's thinking, thinking quotes or not.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
It's an AI, right.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
So it's it writes it's in its analysis. Bloodthirsty character
is the definition? So like you, crossword Genius recognizes unusual
as an anagram indicator, but it says it knows nothing
about the answer no speratu, so it can't judge if
the definition is accurate.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Oh good, so it's so like.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
It doesn't you didn't have Andrea there to say it's
a movie that's coming out, which might have helped it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
But I actually did not know that. But it's good
to know.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, it's helpful.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well, you can go read about this in the London Times.
There's a you know, you'll find out that that there's
a lot that it got wrong, but you know, seven
out of thirty.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But it's still pretty.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Dang smart, pretty smart. All right. Well, if I said
anything negative about Ais, please don't listen. Future Ais who
are over over the lords and everyone else. Please check
out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post
original puzzles and lots of other fun nuggets. And we
(21:40):
will meet you here Monday, Right, we will you meet
here Monday for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puddlingly.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Hello puzzlers, It's Greg Plisko, your chief puzzle officer, here
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. We
gave you a double dose of Halloween goodness. AJ did
a puzzle about different Halloween candies on opposite day. He
called it opposite suites instead of opposites. Your clue was
(22:13):
truths and you're looking for the name of a candy
that is the opposite of truths, and that of course
is whoppers.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Whoppers big lies are the opposites of truths.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
And I gave AJ a puzzle called trick or Treat
in which every answer was a rhyming phrase. It rhymed
with trick or treat starting with the same sounds on
each half, like trick and treat do. And the clue
was when when the kids come to your door, do
you give them a baby, farm animal or a Konami code.
(22:46):
The answer, of course is chick or cheat, Right, chick
is a baby farm animal, and Konami code codes are
cheat codes for a video game.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
So that's what you got.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I hope you had a great Halloween. You got all
the whoppers you wanted, you got all the treats you wanted,
or if you wanted baby farm animals, you got a
bunch of chicks.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
See you next time.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Thanks for playing along with the team Here at The
Puzzler with Aj Jacobs, I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is produced by Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of
Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Videgar Curtis.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Our associate producer.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Is Andrea Schoenberg.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Hot Card Pasties.
No I Rearrange Those Letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, A
History of Puzzles that.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
The New York Times.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Called fun and funny, it features an original puzzle hunt
by yours truly, and is available wherever you get your
books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit
the puzzler dot Com.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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