The Puzzler with A.J. JacobsHello, 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.
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"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.
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast. The Yellow crest atop your puzzle cockatoo. I am aj Jacobs, and I am here with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska. Here's a little puzzle to start things off. What is the largest city named after a US president? And we're talking by population, largest pace, And I'll give you a hint. It is not the town of Adams, North Dakota, population one hundred and twenty seven. It is bigger than Adams, North Dakota. What is the most populous city named after a US president? The answer and lots of other puzzling goodness after the break. Welcome back to the Puzzler Podcast.
Greg.
Before the break, we asked the question, what is the city with the biggest population named after US.
I love this question. Well, I you know, I thought I'll tell you some things. I thought. I kind of Cleave in Ohio, Right, okay, right, I'm not even sure if it's named after Grover Cleveland, but it shares his name, so I would I would guess it's not right.
It is not. I checked. It's named after a general. It was General Moses Cleveland.
Then there's oh yes, of course Washington d C. There's right, Jacksonville might not be named for Andrew Jackson. Jefferson in city, yup, yup, all those. But then I thought of Monrovia, the oh my god, Uria, and I thought, that's why he's Bison, and you know, maybe it's.
There, not just maybe it is. Well, yes, that is the trick answer. Now, I would accept Washington, d C. Which is the biggest in the United States, six hundred and seventy nine thousand, bigger than Madison, Wisconsin, which is two hundred and eighty thousand bigger than Lincoln, Nebraska. But as you say, mon named after James Monroe, capital of Liberia in Africa one point eight million. So it's a very tricky one to start. And it was because it was founded by former enslaved people around the time of Monroe, so it was called Monrovia. Well, there you go. At night. I thought I might trick you, but I didn't. Nicely done, Greg.
I love that question. I love things like that where you're like, oh, there's so many options, and you know, how do you figure that out? Good? Good.
I was very excited when I came up with it. I was so excited. I didn't want to Google to make to see if other people had come up with it, which they probably have, but I'm going to pretend I was.
You were the first one to notice this.
That's right, God. But today we're going inside the puzzle lab to see where the puzzle magic happens. We've got a listener feedback counter, we've got the breaking Puzzle news corner with Greg, and then we've got the workbench puzzle work bench where all the puzzles are created. But let's start with listener feedback today because and by the way, please send us more feedback at the puzzler dot com website or on Instagram at Hello Puzzlers. This week we have a letter from Steve Baggish and Judy Pike from Massachusetts.
Oh great.
They noted that President's Day is coming up, hence the intro, and it's this Monday, just in a few days. And Steve and Judy were inspired by our podcast to create a puzzle about President's Day. So we are very honored. And I thought I could give that puzzle to Greg an associate puzzler Andrea S. Schomberg since they have not seen it and the puzzle is it's very clever. They have assembled a list of people and things with the initials p D as in President's Day, and I'm going to give a clue or that they wrote. So, for instance, if the clue were pioneering daytime TV talk show hosts, the answer would be Phil Phil Donahue. That's right.
I like him. I like it. This puzzle is a puzzler's delight. I'm so glad they did.
Thank you to, by the way, who Steve and Judy. We're at the Mohunk Wonderful Weekend.
I always wonderful World of Words weekends, Mohunk Mountain House.
Yes, are you ready, Andrea and Gres Yes? PD Modeling modeling material for young children Plato. Plato is correct.
I immediately thought of young child models. I was what do they wear when they do that? Okay, good catching up? All right?
Small plates used to grow bacterial cultures.
Oh, I like this one?
You got this one?
Greg pe Tree dishes, p Tree dishes.
Right name for Petrie.
Julius Petrie. I was gonna guess Jacomo Petrie. I have no idea.
Not Alexander Petrie, who's a very funny writer.
Oh god, she's so funny.
I love her all right? Actor who starred in one of the most successful TV shows of all time, which aired in the twenty tens. That's a tough one, so I'm going to add that it was a show that co star dragons.
Oh okay, yes, I got it too. I needed the dragon hit. Did you have it before the dragon? Hen? No, I know it was way. You brought a clue exactly, two brought a search space, but the dragon.
I love this actor. He's fantastic.
Peter dinglih erecked Andrea. All right, A couple more we got subject of a revised nineteen ninety seven Candle in the Wind recording by Elton.
Oh Elton John's Candle in the Wind dedicated to Lady Die Princess.
Dies exactly, not Elk, Dennis Spencer, and not d Yes, but yes, Princess Diana. How about a pioneer comedian and I actually I looked up some of her lines and this one was one of my favorite. She said, you know you're old. If they have discontinued your blood type, you know you're old. So it's a comedian who lived a long time.
I know who she is. You got her, Andrea, and you know who she is. I don't.
I don't have this.
One before your time. Perhaps this is Phyllis Dillar.
Phillis Dillar. That's correct, all right, Three more, we've got Poppin Fresh. That's the whole, that's the whole, clue Poppin Fresh.
Ah. I know that one kind of related to the Staypuff Marshmallow man, but not right. But that's right because the Staypuff Marshmallow dude is not is fictional, right, whereas this is a real Oh, this was the inspirated thing made out of food product.
I see the Pillsbury dough Boy.
Pillsbury dough boy, got it.
His real name is pop and Fresh.
And do we know, go ahead, you have a fact about the Pillsbury dough I did.
I discovered that there is a little known female companion named Poppy Fresh. But it's debated among fans whether Poppy is Poppins's wife, girlfriend, or sister. So that's a mystery.
I hope they know. I hope they know. I'm just saying, but I was so what I immediately thought was, you know, dough boy was a term for a soldier, right, yeah, so did they call like it was the dough boy invented long enough ago that it was somehow related to the war, or it was you know, well, did he boy made of dough?
Did he in World War One? And in the trench?
It's not clear. I'm looking right here. A history of Pillsbury dough Boy was creative by Rudolph Rudy Purrs, a copywriter for the Pillsbury ad Agency. Oh but it was in nineteen sixty five, so.
That was long enough. Yeah, they might not have thought of that, but I do like the image of him, like being poked by a bayonet in World War One and giggling.
Yeah, the stomach unfazed. He's just a big bundle of dell.
All right, we'll end up with I love this clue. Thank you, Steve and Judy. Famous salivator a famous salivator or famous salvators?
Interesting anyone? Oh?
Okay, yeah, yeah, I got it.
What do you got, Andrea?
Well?
The famous Well, when I think salivate, I think of the pav Lovian experiment, right, So Pavlovian which was dogs. So Pavlovian dogs, Pavlovs doglos direct.
That is it? So? And I'll give one extra credit. Someone with an exaggerated sense of self importance or a literal term for a first lady. So that is a p D for you to think about. And thank you again Steve and Judy, anyone else please. We love to get puzzles, either full puzzles or just additional clues to puzzles you hear on the show. And happy coming up President's Day to Steve, Judy and everyone else. And that concludes segment one. Greg, I believe you are on the next stop on our tour at the Newsticker.
And here's the news. We spotted recently a piece in the New York Times about the financially about the Financial Modeling World Cup, interesting, which is considered the the world championship of Microsoft Excel.
Oh so the.
People go ahead, people compete to solve puzzles in Microsoft Excel.
Oh wow, okay, so it's like who can. So it's a lot about the keyboard, like if you're a cut.
Spreadsheets and how do you get them to do what you want them to do? It started. Competitions like this have been going on for a while since there have been spreadsheet software like VisiCalc or Lotus. But they've amped this thing up into a big sporting event. It's broadcast on ESPN. It is hilarious, lights and bells and whistles, and there's a five thousand dollars prize all right, a wrestling style championship belt and the title of the world's best spreadsheeter.
Hilarious and has this gone? Has it happened yet?
Or it's happened several times? The most recent one I think wrapped up in December twenty twenty four. This is what the Times article was about a guy. The winner was a guy named Michael Jarman, a financial consultant from Toronto.
Congratulations Michael.
And they have all kinds of different rounds. The early rounds included something called isometric Chaos, which looks like a spreadsheet rotated forty five degrees, so it's in Excel, but it's rotated so you have to got to work with it. Another was called Temple of the Golden Idol and involved navigating animals through a labyrinth on a spreadsheet.
That is hilarious. I didn't realize. I thought it was just you have to put in the numbers the quickest, but it's very much more creative.
I admit to not completely understanding it, even though I've watched several videos and I use spreadsheets all the time to organize, but this is they've had this final round. In the past, the final round has been modeled on Tic tac toe or mind Sweeper or Tetris, which all kind of makes sense. They're kind of in grids. This year's final round involved World of Warcraft.
Oh okay, and players had to set up the spreadsheet to track twenty different avatars player avatars and World of Warcraft, and they got data about the avatars leveling up.
But it was apparently very difficult. You can go find it online if you look up the Financial Modeling World Cup. You too can play the challenges. Oh, you can play along the Excel World Championships. Yes, all right, so I wrote you.
A puzzle, an Excel puzzle, all right.
Fortunately you don't You don't have to do any spreadsheeting.
Okay, good, Yes, just like charades we talk about sometimes a little hard to do.
Yeah, it would be very boring. Here's I'd send you a spreadsheet and we just hear click click your keyboard. Well you do it. It'd be very exciting. No. No, I've come up with new kinds of spreadsheet programs. Okay, they're more specialized than Excel. But their name's rhyme with excel.
Oh very good. All right, I'm starting to generate rhymes. Alrighty.
So, for example, the spreadsheet program for witches and wizards to keep track of their spells, oh, would be called in sex cell.
Oh very good. Okay, X cell. All right, I'm getting it sort of.
You get the idea, you're just gonna instead of excel at some other X sounding word.
Okay, all right, I'm gonna. I'll do my best.
All right. This is the spreadsheet program for paleontologists.
Pale I owe it, archaeological cell. I'm not. I'm this is I'm not doing well at all.
It's named after one of the big things that they find.
Oh, t Rexel.
T Rexel.
All right, my brain is slowly clicking into place. All right, let's see. Let's see if I can do better.
This is a spreadsheet program you can use on both floors of your apartment.
Okay, this one. I don't have two floors, but if I did, it would be a duplex cell.
You need the duplex cell exactly. How about the spreadsheet program we run in the puzzle lab because it always puzzles the user.
Oh, Andrea, what do you got? I'm stallings.
Vex cel is very good. Yep, that's a good I was thinking of a two syllable word instead of vex, but that works for sure.
Well wait, I was thinking of perplex perplex cell. I think we prefer perplex to vex. We don't want to vex people.
Yeah, vex has a negative connotation.
True. True. Okay, so we're just gonna be thrown out vexxl. It doesn't work anymore. We're using perplex cell from now on. This is the program that Chipotle uses to track its sales.
Oh Chipotle, they sell tex max.
Mel exactly you did.
That's very good, very good.
All right, how about Lady Macbeth's custom made spreadsheet program?
Mmmmm, Lady McBeth. Well, I was thinking I feel they had hexes in that with the witches and all that.
But true true, lady, and death has one particularly famous famous.
Speech out damn spot sell.
The second most famous speech.
Uh, you were in college more recently, Andrea.
What do you Yeah?
But this is where I admit that Shakespeare is such a blind spot for me. I did not get a Shakespeare education.
All right, all right, well I tell you, she says, Okay, you're gonna have she says, come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of dires cruelty.
So it's unsex the unsex cell interesting.
And I believe what she means is in the you know, the stereotype of the day, the woman would be more gentler, right, and she's saying, spirits, remove that from me, move the femininity of my sex because makes me more cruel.
What she really meant was ungender me. So let's go in and change, you know.
Right exactly Shakespeare sh Makespeare.
Uh, oh that is good. No, I didn't know. I knew that. I knew. I can only hold one fact about everything. And Lady Macbeth is washing hands.
That's it.
That's all I got out.
Damn spot. All right, how about a program used to track French diacritics.
All right, I'm gonna go Oh, I got it, thankfully, I've been I've been brushing up on my diacritics for an intro to the puzzler. So I believe it's circumflex cells.
Circumflex cell. Yeah. How about the spreadsheet that was used during the civil rights movement?
Malcolm excel perhaps.
Malcolm excel exactly, very good, and your last one on the spreadsheet program designed for use at Industrial Light and Magic.
Ah, Andrea, Well, first of all, what is Industrial Light and Magic.
That's the key, that's the key thing to know what Industrial ILM is one of the world's leading companies that does a specific thing.
I believe I got it, Andrea.
If you don't, my brother in law actually works there. Really shout out to my brother in law right here. Yeah, very good.
I believe that would be fx cell No, yes, yes.
Or yes. I was thinking special Effects Cell or sfx cell, but fxcel also works. They do the special effects, gotcha for films? Right?
All right? Very good, very good. Well I feel that you've created a lot of potentially very profitable ideas.
All right, So if you have an extra credit, I get an extra credit. Give people plenty to do before tomorrow. This is and this is like a little preview of Valentine's Day. Cinophiles use this program to keep a record of which movies they saw in which theaters.
Excellent, all right, thank you, and come back tomorrow. We have special Valentine's Day puzzles for you. In the meantime, check out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles and other fun stuff. And we'll be here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles. I will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hey puzzlers, it's the Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer from our previous show. AJ played a game with Mike Reese dedicated to Springfield from The Simpsons, where every answer had either Spring or Field in it, and every clue had something to do with the Simpsons TV show. Here's your extra credit. In season fourteen, Bart finds VHS tapes of his forgotten career as a baby actor. This happened when the family was doing this annual tidying up event that of course is spring cleaning. So go do your own spring cleaning, and while you're at it, listen to the puzzler. Thanks for playing along.
