Hello, Puzzlers! AJ has a new book out! You can order "The Year of Living Constitutionally" right now!.
Puzzling with us today: host of On with Kara Swisher, tech journalist Kara Swisher!
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 Alien Signal during your long night alone at the Puzzle Observatory. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and today our guest is the great Kara Swisher, author of the new book burn Book, A Tech Love Story, also host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher and co host of the Pivot podcast. Welcome Kara, thank you, thank you. We are delighted to have you. Now. I know that you, at least at one point you were a wordler because you covered the acquisition.
Of I do it. I do, Yeah, I do. I do all those things.
I do all of them, like what else?
The connections one I do, the mini puzzle I do daily. I do these daily. And then I sometimes do that weird word thing that I don't like it so much. The thing looks like a flower. I get bored.
The spelling bee letters, yes, spelling bee, Yeah, gotcha.
I don't like that.
I don't like it either, but I still do it every day, and I think that's the time.
I have four children.
Your book, your new book, is called A Tech Love Story, but it is a complicated love story, as.
It is as all love stories are.
As you know, right, you you love tech, you say you breathe tech. But the people in tech they have disappointed you.
Some of them.
Not all of them's good.
Some of them have been have been, and the industry in general, you know, could be a lot better. I think that's if you wanted to come with an overall premise, the directions it's gone in has been.
You know.
The first line of the book is it was capitalism after all, And that's my premise. And they pretended it wasn't, you know, as if you're around those days.
They had it.
They cosplayed heroes, but they're not heroes.
They're just they were saving the world.
Not very nice ones either. Some capitalists are better than others, like myself.
Well, I hope that they earn your love back. Well. This puzzle was inspired by the subtitle of your book, A tech love Story. So these are all We took love stories, famous romance books or movies, and we gave them a little twist, a little tech twist. So it could be a rhyme, it could be a just a little twist on the words. So example, Eithcliff and Catherine exchange units of data against the backdrop of the moors of England. So that would be not wuthering weathering heights, but weathering, but weathering.
Oh, okay, got it, Okay, weathering book.
It's okay, all right, you're in. All right. She bought the premise, people, Uh, this is I did not buy it at the premise. She reluctantly accepts the premise people. This was written by associate puzzler.
You are tough.
You are our toughest guests so far. I love it. Challenge. That's your brand, all right. This was written by associate puzzler Andrea Schomberg. Thank you, Andrea.
All right.
This tech fairytale features Prince Charming looking for the mysterious woman he met at the ball by swiping right on his smartphone. So Prince Charming looking.
For swiping beauty.
No, not the beauty. It's the other one with the shoe and the pumpkin.
Oh, Cinderella.
Okay, exactly, you got it, exactly all right. Next, in this tech romance movie, Rhett Butler tells Scarlett O'Hara, Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn about your Microsoft operating system.
Ah, gone with the.
Yeah, windows, with the windows. You gotta gone with the windows.
All right.
A couple more, Carrie Bradshaw and mister Big engage in an on again, off again love affair on a social media site now owned by Elon Musk, whose official name no one actually uses.
X in the city.
Exactly all right. I think we got one more, maybe too.
I did a great interview with Sarah Jessica Parker recently.
Oh I got on which which is that along? Okay, we're gonna listen, all right. Nia Vardalas plays a nerd who is getting married to this non dweevy guy. Her nerdy family gets involved and turns it into a Star Wars themed ceremony.
My big fat geek wedding.
Exactly all right. Last one is This is a rom com starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, and it asked the question can men and women ever just be Facebook friends or Instagram friends or WhatsApp friends?
Still got you've got mail? I mean what I'd still call it?
Okay, Well you've got email. Yeah you could have done that.
Yeah you got email.
Yeah, but this is Billy. That was Tom Hanks.
Oh Billy Crystal. Oh oh that's oh yeah, you're right, Oh god, that's They're all normal.
Okay.
That was that called that movie? Oh can I hint movie?
Yes?
Well, it starts with when, and then it's the when.
Harry met Sally. Okay, when Harry met Sally? Okay, so so.
But it's not met because it's a company that owns all three When meta? When?
When? Meta? When Harry meta Sally?
Exactly when you did it? You did fantastic. And I'm not going to ask where people can find more of you, because instead I will just say, yeah, follow your book and listened to her podcast book before we wrap up, as always, a extra credit for the Puzzlers of Home. This movie star Julius Stiles and Heath Ledger and it is about the the stuff that they dislike about the operating system developed by Bell Labs and that was big in the nineties. Oh subtle thing. No, you don't have to answer, you can answer in your head. Okay, all right, And everyone tune in tomorrow to get the answer to that extra credit, And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Hello puzzlers. That's a new one, and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello Puzzlers, Greg Pliska hear up from the Puzzle Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous episode, we played Musk's Tusks with Karen Swisher, in which every answer was the name of a tech mogul and a word that rhymes with that person's name. Your extra credit clue was if Bill took up Roller Derby, he might need these pieces of equipment. That, of course is Bill Gates, who needs some skates. Gates skates. Skate on over Next time Puzzlers for more puzzling fun.