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The Man Who Knew Too Much

Posted by simoniker on from the rather-clever dept.

theodp writes "For thrilling competition, Slate says the Tour de France pales next to the 25-game reign of Jeopardy! supercontestant Ken Jennings. The 30-year-old software engineer has won a total of $788,960, beating the previous record-holder by a margin of over $600,000. Watching KenJen play is like witnessing any great athlete in top form: He's the Michael Jordan of trivia, the Seabiscuit of geekdom, and his antics have once again made Jeopardy! required viewing. (Update: 26 wins and $828,960: 'When Jennings ran the Marvel comics category during the second round, host Alex Trebek asked: Have you done anything besides read comics? It pays to be a nerd, Jennings responded.')"

7 of 655 comments (clear)

  1. Proud? by rpbailey1642 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm actually really impressed that this man is getting so much respect (and money!) for how much he knows. Most of it is useless trivia, but to most people, that comes across as intelligence...a man is getting respect for his intelligence, on daytime TV. Awesome.

    1. Re:Proud? by CaseyB · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Most of it is useless trivia, but to most people, that comes across as intelligence...

      Any one fact by itself is "useless trivia". But assorted "useless trivia" questions are just a way of gathering a random sampling of the entire body of knowledge that someone has.

      If you're going to reliably answer a question about who happened to be president in a given year, then you pretty much have to know the entire chronology of the presidency.

    2. Re:Proud? by neuroklinik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Useless trivia? Last I heard, this guy had won over $800,000 because of all this useless trivia. Doesn't seem so useless now, does it?

  2. What a change by Rurik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People being celebrated for their intelligence and wit, and not their looks or physical attributes. Are we still in America? What happened here?

    Anyone remember the episode of Sliders where Quinn (sp) was on the game show of extremely high level math and science questions (while throwing a ball). The perfect world for geeks :D

  3. Re:Culture by Apocalypse111 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not high esteem for a man who does well on a game show.

    This is high esteem for a man who does well on a game show by showing of his gargantuan brain. This is high esteem for a man who has probably forgotten more trivia than most of us currently know. This is high esteem for a geek pressing his advantage in an arena suited to his forte.

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  4. Only in america by Underholdning · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "If his winning streak continues, Jennings could become the most celebrated software engineer in America."
    Engineers can put probes on Mars and take pictures of Jupiter, but if you want to be celebrated, you must go on TV :)

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    Underholdning.info
  5. Re:He's on the wrong show. by Mr.FreakyBig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No. If you watch him play, he gets answers wrong from time to time. In Millionaire, he'd be screwed, and bounce back to $16000 or $32000 for a wrong answer, and he'd be done. In Jeopardy! a wrong answer erases a bit of case, but only small amounts, and he does not get kicked off the show. Instead he get to continue. All he has to do is be better than the other two contestants, and know a bunch of trivia.