Puzzling With Some Very Important Puzzlers

Hello, puzzlers. Let's start with a quick introductory puzzle. I'm going to give you two short

lists. And my challenge is what is the difference between these two lists? Two groups of things,

and there is a fundamental conceptual difference between them that I would be delighted if you

could identify. So group A is second-minute-hour-week. Group B is day, month, year, plank-unit

of time. To clarify, that's the plank-unit of time PLA and CK. And that is a super short

amount of time. Smaller than a nanosecond. Time it takes light to travel a plank unit of

length, which is very small. Let me just tell you, it's very like one with forty-three zeroes

after it of a second. So what is the major difference between group A and group B? It's

not word plank. It's conceptual, but I thought it was very interesting. Again, it's second-minute-hour-week

is group A, group B, day, month, year, plank unit of time. It helps to think of how did people

come up with those units of time. The answer, and more puzzling goodness, in a few thousand

plank units of time.

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Hello, folks. Welcome back to the Hello Puzzlers Podcast, the Graff Diamond's hallucination

watch in your Puzzle wristwatch collection. That's a $55 million watch FYI. If you didn't know,

in case you don't own one. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs. I'm here, of course, with Chief Puzzle Officer

Gregg Pliska and Gregg. Before the break, I gave two short lists. And my challenge was, what is the

difference between these two lists? Two groups of things, and there's a fundamental conceptual

difference. Group A is second-minute-hour-week. Group B is day-month-year-plank-unit-of-time.

Plank-unit-of-time, right? Yes, which I'm always talking about, definitely. I'll see you in a few

plank units of time. I'm additionally curious how you, what made you think of this? Because it's

so interesting, I think. I think it's interesting, too. Thank you for saying so. And it reminds me of

a thing I saw on social media. It was on Blue Sky or Threads or one of those where

somebody had posted if the universe was created in a sudden explosion, right, without the intervention

of a divine being. Why is it there exactly 24 hours in every day?

Right. Or whatever, something like that. And the point, of course, being that the day,

right, we built the way we described the day around the fact that we were dividing up the time it

took for the Earth to rotate on its axis. Right, so the day, all of the second group is all things

based upon natural phenomena. The day is the Earth around its axis. The month is the lunar cycle

and the year is how long the Earth goes around the sun. And the plank-unit-of-time is based upon

like the decay of an atom or something like that. It's the light. It's something, yeah. There's

the speed of light, basically. Right. Whereas the other group seconds, minutes, hours,

week, those are artificially constructed by humans to organize a day. A day goes, you know,

is how long it takes the Earth to rotate to divide it into 24 was something the Sumerians did, right?

Yeah, the Babylonians, I believe. Yeah. Same thing. The nailed it. You nailed it. And I guess I came

up with it because I just love examples of things that we assume are natural and are just

completely arbitrary. And in this case, based on the Babylonian and Egyptian mathematical system

of base 60, where 60 seconds and 60 minutes, that's a big thing. And it divides it to 12 and 24.

I'm not saying it isn't, we're still using Babylonian man. Could we do metric time where there are

10, you know, desert terms in a day. Right. That would make more sense.

100 mini desert terms. And we just, you know, be so much easier. It might be, but yeah,

we are stuck with these. And maybe we should learn to love them. Maybe we should learn to loan.

I don't know. You remind me of another related thing, which I'll share. The question is,

what continent has the most time zones? Oh, well, I immediately went to Asia, but maybe that's wrong.

Well, that is, so that, that is, in fact, the correct answer, but also the one people go to

right away. This is a longer story. That would be the kind of, oh, yeah, it's Asia, because that's

the largest continent covers the most. And then the clever answer that somebody, you know, that you

were meant to give was, oh, no, wait a minute, it's Antarctica. Oh, very good. Because it covers the

entire circumference of the planet, just in a very small area. But what that misunderstands is

that time zones are artificial. There is nothing natural about a time zone. Right. It's a political

boundary. Right. China has one time zone. China is big, but everybody on Chinese is on the same

time as Beijing. Wow. That's interesting. I didn't know that. Right. It's political. Well, I know there

are movements, not very powerful movements, but to turn everything, everyone is on the same time

zone. So you would say, I'll call you at one, and everyone knows what that means, but around the

whole world, like, but, but how we behave at one PM is different for each of us. Right. One PM

might be our four AM. Sleeping time. Right. Right. Got it. Got it. Well, when this question came

up, I was in a trivia thing I did. I responded to Antarctica is, you know, political, not, doesn't

cover all the time zones. And then I did a deep dive into how they different determined time in

Antarctica. Oh, and, and basically your time is generally determined by the base from which you

are supplied. Oh, so if you're, so it's not from your home country. So you might be the Norwegian

base in Antarctica, but you get your supplies from Tierra del Fuego from Argentina. Right. Then your

time, you match your time to Argentina's time. All right. Well, this is good information. When I

call someone in Antarctica, you'll know. I will make sure I actually emailed people in Antarctica

when I was researching this and they confirmed I was right. Look at that. All right. More news,

you can go. Yeah. Well, I basically, my, my segue is that this is about time and we are going to

do some time traveling because we did a live stream, another time based on January 29, which is

World Puzzle Day. And we did a Hello Puzzleers YouTube live stream on our YouTube channel, which

you should check out, it's youtube.com slash at sign Hello Puzzleers. And it was a joy. I had a

great time. We loved the audience interaction. And in fact, we had two Patreon VIP members of

the Hello Puzzleers community join us. And they did some great puzzling. So we're going to play

you these two. We're going to start with Shri Kumar. So welcome Shri.

Shri and he brought the, the outfit, the fit, as I could say. So look at that nicely done word,

nerd, crossword, word, nerd, with scrabble tiles, brilliant. This is courtesy of my wife after

I first met John Williams, of course, who wrote the book word nerd. And we should say that

we've met Shri in person. We've had the pleasure because he comes to the wonderful world of words

weekend hosted by Greg Pliska at the Mohunk Mountain House, which is an awesome nerdy delightful weekend.

Every November, gathering of word enthusiasts of all kinds, puzzles, games, great talk about words,

and wonderful guests like Shri. And Shri, you were on my team for that one of the games, the

Script Big Scrabble game we had. Yeah. Scrabble Scramble. Yeah. And after, you know, after being

at WWW, and then being here now, like, this is like, this is like Jay-Z and Beyonce saw me doing

karaoke. And later they were like, why don't you, why don't you go up on stage?

That's all I know is I get to be Beyonce. Okay, fair enough. Right up front.

There you go. All right. I'll let you have it. But Shri, we are delighted to have you.

I'm thrilled and also speechless as you can probably tell. So

now if you're doing great listening to your speech and smooth and fluid. And by the way,

Shri speaking of that, you have a podcast, the B side with Shri Kumar. Is that what it's called?

Yeah, it's just the B side with Shri. And just like the B side of any good album,

you know, we explore sort of those stories that don't get the top line billing, you know,

your story is so fascinating. Greg's story is fascinating, you know, for us to come on,

we just see you as hosts of the puzzler. And that's like, one one millionth of all the things

that you've done. So the podcast is really cool stories. Well, I love being a guest. Maybe Greg

will have the opportunity. But you know, when you wish for, I know it'd be fun. I'd be fun.

But Shri, we also, we know that you not only make puzzles, but you answer them. So I wrote a puzzle

for you. And the puzzle is based on, I was reading my new favorite book, Moby Dick,

which I actually did like, very surprising to me. And there is a scene where the captain,

captain Ahab gets very angry at one of the sailors and calls him a timber head, T-I-M-B-E-R head,

implying that this sailor's head is made of timber, his brain is wooden. And I guess the idea is,

he's not so smart. Now, I had never heard the insult timber head. I don't like that kind of insult,

but you don't like that kind of insult, but we are going to do a whole puzzle of insults. I like it.

Watch this, Greg, because I'm going to take that insult and turn it around to make it a compliment.

Oh, no. See, AJ is the nicest person on the market. There you go. But we still get to say the insults,

don't worry. So, so I realized there are a shocking number of words that are insults for dumb

in the form of blank head, meat head, lung head, cabbage heads and oldie book goodie.

I'm not going to give any other examples, because that's going to be part of the puzzle. But,

as I said, I don't love them being an insult. So I thought we reclaimed them somewhat like how

dead head dead head in the 19th century, that was an insult meant you're dead in the head,

you're dumb. But now a dead head means someone who was a fan of the classic jam band, the grateful dead.

So in this puzzle, are you a dead head at all? I'm not, but I am. I'm a classic rock fan. I'm a

fan of music back when it was music. A metalhead. No, anything like the like the Beatles and adjacent

got 50, 60, 70s, a little 80s. And I stopped writing the backstreet boys.

Well, there are no backstreet boy references in this puzzle. But I'm going to give you a clue,

which is taking that insult and turning it into a positive. So if I gave you a clue, such as,

what do you call an aficionado of pork and beef? The answer would be meat head. So you take the

dumb person and they become an aficionado or expert on that. A aficionado of coleslaw and

sauerkraut is a cabbage head, et cetera, et cetera. Are you ready for your heads? Where is

ready as again? All right. Here we go. What do you call an aficionado of femurs, ribs and vertebrae?

Those are all bones in the human body. So I would call them a bonehead. They are a bonehead,

exactly. And they should be proud. How about what do you call a fan of a gas that is 78% nitrogen

and 21% oxygen? It's all around us. I've not done partial pressures recently, but I think that's

about the gas mix in air. I might call them an air head. You got it. You are not an air head. That's

what I love about this puzzle is you are the opposite of a meat head or air head or bone head.

And by the way, did you have partial pressures in your show notes?

I missed them. What about a fan of Legos? What might you call a fan of Legos? Danish.

So I get into fights with my friends about this all the time, but I'm under the distinct

impression that the plural of Lego is Lego. We'll cover that later. We'll cover that later.

I would say that the Lego building blocks a penchant would make someone a blockhead?

A blockhead. That is correct. A blockhead. And I did not know about Lego Lego. That's interesting.

I would think in Italian it would be leggy. I would assume that Legos are getting perfectly fine.

But did I say Legos? Oh, I like it. I like it. I like the tree as is doing a little Greg

Pliska. Yeah. Nice. I'm proud of it. I can you know, we can continue down the

pedantic route here. Lego comes from the Danish word for what does it play play or play well?

So it's actually a verb in Danish. So you wouldn't pluralize it.

Interesting. All right. I think we've exhausted the pluralization of Legos.

So you say we got a whole episode on that next week.

All right. I got a couple more for you, Shri.

Oh, that's very cute. Sammy Casanova said it should be Legos with it.

Love it. All right. What about a fan? Someone who's an expert in finger joints?

Let's see. I would say that's a knucklehead. A knucklehead. That's exactly right.

What about a fan of an aficionado of containers for whiskey, especially moonshine?

I think you used to see these more in the olden days. Now we're on car two.

You used to have a fancy bottle, but it used to come in jugs. Maybe they're a jug head.

They are a jug head, which I was I was wondering about barrel head. Oh,

because whiskey definitely comes in barrels too, but I don't know that you call somebody a barrel

head as an insult. Well, it's funny because every time I thought of a word and I would type it

into Google and I would say insult for stupid person. How many are there?

All right. I'll give you two more. How about someone who's a fan of the paper company featured

in the TV show The Office? A fan of the paper company? The office is one of the only television

shows I watch. Michael Scott and others work at the Dunder Mifflin paper company. You might call

this person a Dunderhead. A Dunderhead, not a Mifflin head, but yes, a Dunderhead.

I got to admit, I'm like Shree. I watch I don't watch a lot of TV or at least not a lot of

comedies for some reason. I watch dark detective dramas and science fiction, but Dunder Mifflin is one

of those things that I feel like has has Oz most into popular culture in a way that I know when

you say the office, the company's Dunder Mifflin. I've never watched the show, but that

fact is just there in my cultural consciousness. Totally. And I see Dunder Mifflin t-shirts everywhere.

That company sells more merch than pretty much any real company. All right. Let's finish with

an aficionado of laughing quietly or a jelly fruit sold at movie theaters, at least back in the day.

I don't know. In the day, so AJ, you've seen me before. You know, I'm no stranger to candy.

I think if you're laughing quietly, you're probably not a giggle head. You might be a chuckle head.

Yeah, chuckle head, that is exactly right. Oh, and we've got a question from the new house.

What is your cultural black hole that are, well, I'm terrible with sports. As we might find out,

we might find out soon. And very soon. And what about? What do I mean? I just admit it, sitcoms

100%. TV generally, but sitcoms in particular, just like not my, not my wheelhouse at all.

And what about you, Sri? Where do you? I don't know anything about like pop culture, like

singers and artists. I because I don't watch TV. I haven't seen that.

So Beyonce and Jay-Z happen to know that. Yes. So that's only because I heard about Beyonce

in the office when I was. Well, also, but also one would say, I would say Beyonce and Jay-Z are so

huge that even if you've never heard their music, they are pop culture icons. I think it's hard to

avoid. By the way, congrats to all of those who are saying Mark and Laurel and Spire School with

Chucklehead. And I agree, Jay. Sri is a great guest. We are so delighted that you could join us

Sri. By the way, I'll throw this out to the crowd. There is one blank head that is the opposite

of dumb. Maybe there's more, but I could only think of one. So what is a blank head that is someone

who is not dumb at all? I'll leave that to you. But Sri, we loved having you and we can't wait

to see you at Mohunk Mountain House in the next few months. Yeah, I appreciate it. And I can't wait

to do some more listening. And Sri, where can people find your podcast?

You know, so because I'm bad with social media and stuff, I don't know. I think it's on Spotify.

Yeah, I think you have to type in the B side with Sri and it'll come up. So if you're interested

of interesting stories and stuff like that, no one near the level of comedy though that

y'all is the light. It's a delightful show. I highly recommend it.

Even when we listen to your guys' show, even my wife is laughing. And you know, she's like,

she's not a super puzzler. She's just tough. Yeah, the comedy is there.

Love it. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Sri. We appreciate that.

Appreciate you being a member on Patreon. Love having you. And as A.J. said, we look forward

to seeing you at Mohunk soon. Thank you.

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Why does this happen? And what can we do about it? Here from the researchers behind this year's

World Happiness Report on the Happiness Lab. Listen to the Happiness Lab with me, Dr.

Laurie Santos, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello Puzzlers. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we

have some greatest hits from our live stream, our YouTube live stream on January 29th National

Puzzlers Day. And here we have VIP Patreon member, Sammy Casanova. There she is. Hi.

Sammy, one of our very important puzzlers on Patreon, but also someone I know we wrote a mystery hunt

together back in the day. And Sammy Casanova, their last name means New House, Casanova, and our

producer is Adam Newhouse. That's true. So that's important. That's an important piece of

information. I learned I didn't know you'd been on Jeopardy. Yes. How was that? How did that go?

It was a lot of fun. I didn't realize how cold it was going to be in that studio. I thought I was

going to freeze enough. But I mean, I was up against Hannah Wilson, who I think had won like eight

games at that point. And Juvaria, who later won like the invitational tournament. And the,

you know, like I had no chance. So you came in third. That's great. You were three seconds. I

actually came second. Second. Oh, come on. That is great. I was just not good enough on the buzzer.

That's what Ken Jenning says. It's all about the buzzer. It is all about the buzzer. Did you practice

the buzzer at home before? I did. I did. Yeah. That is that is the key. It's like a video game.

I also saw on the internet that your episode had a big controversy that got some of the people

riled up. Do you want to talk about that? Every single one of us rang in on an answer,

a question whose answer was Alexander Solzzynitsyn, which I can pronounce now. Every single one of

us missed pronounced it. And so they didn't accept the mispronunciation. They did not know. I like

how bad was it? Like was it slop a bottle? No, not that bad. I think I said Solzzynitsyn or something

like that. That seems close enough. And then the person after you was said something like Solzzynitsyn

or Solzzynitsyn. I mean, it was close, but very close. I was like, wow. All right. So Sammy, your first

name is spelled S-A-M-I as we see on screen. Now, my first question is, is that short for something?

Is that your... It's short for Samantha. Samantha, but it got shortened to S-A-M-I, which is a

cool spelling. And it made me think I wonder how many words I can find or phrases that have those

letters in order somewhere in them. S-A-M-I. So AJ hasn't seen this puzzle either, so you guys can

play together. So every answer is a word or phrase with S-A-M-I in it in that order somewhere.

So it could be at the end of one word in the beginning of another? Yeah, it could cross over

between words. Okay. It's a minion. Okay. Yeah. It's a minion with the kiss. Nice. Okay.

Exclamation from Gru. It's a minion. Okay. Very good. All right. This is your favorite Dr.

Seuss character, the one who suggests many ways to eat a particular colored dish.

Okay. So I think that's Sam I-A-M from Sam I-A-M. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I'm

cluing all of these, you know, as if they were your favorite thing or related to you in some way.

So this is what people say when they are really grateful to you. It's a superlative way of expressing

gratitude. Oh, I got it. I got it. Thanks a million. Thanks a million. Exactly with S-A-M-I right

in the middle. Well done. By the way, important note, I wrote a book called Thanks a Thousand. So

there you go. I tried to put my books in wherever I can. And if your name was Sath, I would have

included Thanks a Thousand. But unfortunately, I couldn't plug that quite. All right. You mentioned

Russia earlier. This is your favorite kind of underground publishing in the Soviet Union.

Oh, and the pronunciations. I might be stuck. Correct. Yeah, this is a less common word.

Ground publishing. It does start with S-A-M-I. Is it Sam is dot? Yes. Okay, Sam is dot.

No, I don't know what it is. But are you ever called Sami's dot? Was that a different thing?

No. I don't know if it kind of, I don't know if that's a compliment or not. I guess it would be good,

right? No, it would be good. Way, way worse than that. Sandwich. Sandwich? My last name,

without the first letter. Oh, there you go. Well, you know, kids are the most clever in that way.

All right. How about the kind of vinegar you like on your salad?

Balsamic. Balsamic. Exactly. Who knew there were so many samis out there.

What if you actually, how about your favorite constellation?

Also known as the Little Dipper. Or some minor. Or some minor. I needed this. There you go.

Your favorite author of historical fiction. He wrote tales of the South Pacific,

Hawaii, Centennial, and many more. That James A. Missionor. Yes. Very good. You got the middle.

I feel like this should be a jeopardy category. I should do this all as jeopardy because they're all

this. I feel like this one might be regional. I'm not sure. This is your favorite place to buy

literature. A chain that competes with Barnes and Noble and Borders. I didn't know there were still

book chains or book chains. I got like Walden's. AJ said the first part of this answer.

Books is how it begins. Oh, it is. I have seen that. But I do feel it's never seen this place.

I feel it's more like, yeah, Southern. You don't see it much. Yeah, no idea. It's again,

it's a big number at the end of this. Is it books a million? Books a million.

Kind of went to the a million. Well twice. Not really fair. How about how you say goodbye to your

friends in Spanish? Adios amigo. Hi. You're killing it. I've got two more. Okay. Your favorite

actress. She was a leader of the Me Too movement and is known for roles in Who's the Boss and Melrose

Place. Listen to Lano. Yes. Very good. That's a clue I would never get. I might have gotten it

through me too, but I don't watch enough TV to know what she was in. And the last one. Your favorite

saying it expresses the idea that failing by a small amount is the same as failing by a long

distance. That's like an eight word phrase. Yes. Something like miss an inch, miss a mile or

something like that. That's right. A miss. A miss is. Yeah, I don't know. I don't. And you have

the end of it. That's it. A miss is a mile. That's very clear. A miss is as good as a mile.

Okay. A miss is as good as a mile. I give her credit. Unlike Jeopardy with air. You get credit.

They would not. Yes. In crap. We get credit. Well done, Sammy. Thank you, Sammy's, but you are

our favorite, Sammy. More than Sammy's dot. And a regular contributor puzzles to the to the

podcast. Yes. Yes. You have contributed some great ones. Well, thank you, Sammy. That

was awesome. Thanks a million. Thanks a million. You are excellent puzzler. You came in first

year, even if you came in second on Jeopardy. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you, Shree. And

thank you, Sammy. And thank you, everyone for listening. And of course, special thanks to

Shree and Sammy for being Patreon VIPs. We have the patreon.com slash hello puzzlers where we do

all sorts of fun things, chats and extra videos, bonus episodes. And as you can see, we have them

on the show sometimes. Well, and part of what we, you know, want to mention about Sammy and Shree

is not only are they VIP members of the community, they have also contributed puzzles that we've

used on the air. So that's the point of the Hello Puzzlers community. We do puzzles. You do

puzzles. We share puzzles. They're puzzling puzzles that puzzle us puzzle. I couldn't have said

it better. I'm just going to leave it there. So come back next time.

Thanks for playing along with the team here at Hello Puzzlers. I'm Greg Pusca, your Chief Puzzle

Officer. Our executive producers are Neely Lohman and Adam Newhouse of Newhouse Ideas. The show

is produced by Claire Bittiger Curtis and our senior puzzler is Andrea Schoenberg.