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The Man Who Knew Too Much
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.')"
Oh lord, I hope they don't make a movie about this guy forty years from now and expose him as some kind of patsy in an elaborate scheme to sell more vitamin juice for old people.
I also reply below your current threshold.
If Jennings were on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, he could already have more money by now (and it wouldn't take him a month to do it).
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.
Personally, I thought it was wonderful when Jennings announced that his good luck charm was a stuffed Totoro doll from Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro), a Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki animated film. (See nausicaa.net for more)
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
Not only does Ken know a lot, he's got his "signalling button fu" working. He's going to be hard to beat as a result of that alone, as we've seen. But even when he guesses, he seems to guess correctly, so there's no doubt about the breadth of his knowledge. Go Ken!
...and bow before him for he is the Alpha-Nerd!
>> Practice Safe Hex
I had only heard about him until two days ago when he won his 25th in a row, and his winnings for that day were only $14,000, which was his lowest in all 25 games.
I've watched a few of his shows, and I have to say, he is definitely a learner. On the rare occasions that he misses a response, I've never seen him say "Oh, I knew that". Instead, he has this intense look, as if he's going to remember it for next time. If he's been doing that his whole life, then it's no wonder he has such a knowledge base.
Based on myself, and some others that read here, I suspect a lot of the Slashdot community is the same way. How else could we recall so much about Linux, servers, PC upkeep, and any number of topics that appear here on a regular basis?
I wish Ken the best of luck, and maybe we'll be able to talk to him here, at some point.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Can you imagine what a Beowolf cluster of KenJens would be like?
People being celebrated for their intelligence and wit, and not their looks or physical attributes. Are we still in America? What happened here?
:D
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
Wow, this article is lacking something... content maybe? Someone who has seen the show maybe?
Note his systematic habit of moving down the categories vertically, one by one, rather than skipping around the board.
Everyone does this.
His nearly preternatural ability to land on the hidden Daily Doubles.
The odds are much more in your favor for hitting the DD if you answer the most questions.
Sounds like Dana Stevens watched one episode and thought she understood. 2/3rds of the article isn't even about Jeopardy! or Ken. It's really amazing these kinds of journalists can get a job.
This is the Internet. You can say "fuck" here. - AC
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.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
And he'd give it all up for a kiss from a girl :(...
"Here's a spoiler: You're will die alone."-Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
If our culture is headed down the path of having high esteem for people who appear and do successfully on game shows--boy are we screwed.
Yeah, we need to get back to the traditional values of throwing a ball and running fast.
Suck it, Trebek! - as Sean Connery on SNL Celebrity Jeopardy
This is the Internet. You can say "fuck" here. - AC
Was it recently? For a while that kept the max pretty low (since, well, the best anyone could do was be on less than a fifth the shows Jennings has been on. Also might explain why his winnings are about five times as high).
On a related note: I liked Tony Kornheiser on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption talking about auditioning for Jeopardy where he got some pretty high marks but chose a less skilled contestant because Mr Tony wasn't "telegenic enough" (ironic since he cohosts PTI, is a guest on another weekly DC sports show and the Sports Reporters). I guess criteron might be out the window too.
What is music when you despise all sound?
"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
Underholdning.info
No, there's no coaching whatsoever. After the great gameshow debacle in the 50's (there's a movie by -- not starring -- Robert Redford about this, which I can't remember the name of), this stuff was clamped down on BIG time. A friend of mine -- super-duper smart -- was on Jeopardy!, and wrote up an article about it at the time. For one, they do it in batches; IIRC, they knock off three shows in one day, and show them MUCH later. (Lots of NDA signage re: the results occurs when you get selected.) While they foster the illusion that it's live, it's not. In addition, while they're friendly with Alex during the game, there's essentially NO mingling at any other time -- no sense of impropriety is wanted or allowed. Etc. Honestly, from his article, it sounded a lot less chummy to be a Jeopardy! participant than it looks like from watching the show.
These games arent even close... last night he had 40k at the end, the next closest was like 4 or 5k. The night before that he had over 25k, both of the other people were in the red, for nearly the entire show. It's one thing to win 25 closely contested shows, its quite another to win by the impressive margins that he does every night.
Firstly, I don't think he's cheating. People we're speculating on it the last time he was /.'d but he's just under too much scrutiny. The elimination of the five win rule set the stage for this new form of Jeopardy and I can't see how it can change from here unless the reinstate the rule. Ken will stay on top until someone like Ken but better comes along, and it stands to reason that whoever can beat him will remain unbeatable for a long run until some equally rare triv-master knocks them out. I noticed that last night when he referred to himself as a 'nerd' Trebek quickly insisted he was anything but; He used to seem more antagonistic to him. It's like Alex has Stockholm syndrome now that his show has been taken hostage by Ken. I wonder if the people who select the questions will deliberately start stacking the questions to exploit his weakspots or maybe they won't given the ratings boost he's bringing them.
Anyway, here's to Ken!
If our culture is headed down the path of having high esteem for people who appear and do successfully on game shows--boy are we screwed.
This isn't an outback-jack-who-wants-to-marry-a-midget-bachelor type of televised retardation that the reality shows are. You can't fake Jeopardy; either you know it and you're fast enough on the buzzer or you're dead in the water.
Finally someone revered on a gameshow for their mind, not their boobs or conniving.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
http://boards.sonypictures.com/boards/forumdisplay .php?s=50aa46369dcf5a3280b1ed37548dfe79&forumid=34
These are the actual message boards for Jeopardy and Ken Jennings posts there frequently on such topics. They also have running tallies of his scores and precantages. Kinda cool information if you like that kind of stuff. Also I have watched most of Ken's game and this guy is amazing with the amount of trivia he knows.
Actually I am getting sort of tired of watching Ken. I used to watch Jeopardy every evening, but have tunned out lately. He has gotten the signaling button down. Most of the lower value questions are general knowledge and its a matter of who ever signals in first. If you can control the board you can choose the categories and can pic the ones you know more about, also you have a greater chance of getting a daily double. This give an adavantage to those who have been on for a few shows and has gotten used to the timing of the signaling button, regardless of knowledge.
I say bring back the five show rule and get some competition back in the game.
According to this story and countless others, the tapings occurred in February. The next tapings are scheduled for August.
If Ken didn't lose by the end of his season, then he could be back for those tapings. I assume the current season will continue airing even during these tapings, and while Jeopardy has been extremely good at keeping the length of the streak under wraps, I imagine if KJ shows up in August, we're going to hear about it from somebody.
I think the obvious answer is the simplest one:
He is a cybernetic mutant from the future that was programmed to have all of the answers to a series of game show questions so that he could be sent back in time, win the prize money, and then use said money to fund his killing spree which eventually allows the robots to rise up and take over the earth while only a handful of humans remain plotting to overthrow the robot regime and one day reign supreme again.
And hookers. He is going to blow a ton of that cash on whores.
I know I would.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
For the non-US readership: three contestants with a ring-in button. 'Hook' for the show is that you get an 'answer' and have to respond in the form of a question ("The US President who wrote the Declaration of Independence"; "Who is Thomas Jefferson?")
Three rounds: first two consist of six categories of five questions each (game 'board' is six columns of five monitors each). Cash value of questions in first round runs $200-1000. in $200 increments, second round ('Double Jeopardy') runs $400-2000 in $400 jumps. You lose the value of the question on wrong answers, so you can potentially run negative. There are random 'Daily Double' squares (one in first round, two in second), where you can wager some/all of your winnings on getting that item correct, allowing for big shifts in position during the game. Third round ('Final Jeopardy') the players wager some/all of their winnings on a single question/answer; high total wins for the day.
Former rule was five days and you're out (but eligible for the year-end 'Tournament of Champions'); this has been dropped this year allowing for the current streak of said Ken J.
What's astonishing to me is that *nobody* mentions that the only reason he's so far ahead of previous records is that in all previous seasons you were booted after 5 wins. Of *course* someone doing very well is going to beat records by a lot - anyone who did this well on any previous season would have left the show three weeks ago with a paltry 150K or so.
Sure, the guy's good. But there's no way to tell how much better he is than previous 5-day winners, because those previous winners never got the chance to show what they could do.
When I watch Jeopardy!, I childishly yell out "Triple Stumper!" whenever I know the correct response and all three of the contestants either get it wrong or don't respond, and I'll sometimes do a little dance.
And if that happens during Final Jeopardy, I yell out "Final Jeopardy Triple Stumper!" and I'll break into an extended, elaborate dance, not unlike a wide receiver dancing in the endzone after a touchdown. I get maybe one of those every three months. The evening when I performed that dance while watching Jeopardy! with my girlfriend and her parents is particularly memorable.
Then there was a friend of mine who got a "Ultimate Mega Final Jeopardy Triple Stumper," where he correctly guessed the response before the clue was even given, knowing only the category, and all three contestants got it wrong. As I recall, his head exploded. That was quite a day.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I think it may be difficult for many Americans to appreciate what a feat Lance Armstrong has been able to accomplish by winning these past few Tours. I happenly vacationed in Paris last summer around the time the Tour was going on, and let me say that was one insane tour Armstrong had to go through. I'd never seen cycling before then, but I'm now forever hooked. On the first day there was a massive crash among the huge swarm of cyclists in their final dash to the finishing line. Armstrong had also crashed. On the ground with his bike broken, one of his teammates stopped beside him and handed him his own bike so that Armstrong could finish the race. Amazing.
Another time the tires of a cyclist in front of him exploded and that cyclist went skidding across the pavement. I don't remember how fast they were going (maybe 40-50mph), but Armstrong just barely misses running the guy over but had to swerve off track onto the grass before finally getting back on the road and continuing on. And there was one day when due to perhaps his own mistake, he ran out of water. By the time he finished that day he was completely dehydrated and had lost 1/3 of his body mass. Crazy.
And finally the tour had a thriller of an ending. I think the day before the Tour ended Armstrong was still neck and neck with this closest competitor. Racing through a timed trial in the rain, Armstrong finished a bit slow if I remember correctly, but the other guy ended crashing on the wet road, losing too much time and hence guaranteed Armstrong's victory. A toss-up to the very end. Amazing.
And so while Ken Jennings is certainly impressive with his winnings so far, I'd be hard press to say that the Tour pales in comparison.
Little Bricklets
Basicially this is it in a nutshell.
-Michael Larson at the time was unemployed. He became obsessed with game shows thinking that he could get on one and outsmart the system to win on it.
-He starting watching Press your luck and realized that the pattern was psudorandom and completely reversed engenerred the Random pattern, and even perfected a button pressing method to be as precise as possible
-Mike applied to be a contestant on Press your luck, and eventually got the green light to get on. CBS Producers commented that his demeanor was different from other contestants and they were suspicious of him, but couldn't find anything wrong so he got the go ahead.
-Once on the show, In the beginning, he acted just like any other contestant, and went through the question and answer session pretty unenentfully.
-the spin round, was where it got interesting. The First thing Mike did was get a whammy. It's believed that he did it on purpose to get a feel of the button to the board interaction and also not to look like he was blantently hacking the board.
-after the first whammy, it was all big bucks from there. he would almost always either hit big bucks or another space on the "wheel" that he knew would never popup a whammy. The whole time doing it he was in some sort of trancelike state.
-The second Q&A Session goes underway, already he's won a good amount of money but CBS hasn't seen anything yet. CBS Producers are going nuts in the back, more than aware that he's got the system beat from his first round performance. Peter Tomarken is basicially shocked at this point.
-Second round comes around. Mike basicially spins and never stops, collecting even more spins and more money. it gets to the point that Peter is beyond stunned now and doesn't know how to react to this, CBS is going insane in the back, and the episode is running way out of bounds for it's time.
-Mike breaks the $100,000 barrier. at this point he's won more money than was not only thought possible, but has broke the daytime money winnings record.
-finally, he gets frightened that he's going to screw up and get a whammy, so he passes the spins.
-eventually, some spins he has to take get passed to him. Wins Even more money. until basicially all the spins are gone.
-in the end, CBS "retired" him as champion, and originally would not pay him for cheating. eventually they paid him when their lawyers advised thm that they would lose because their wheel was too predictive. They aired te show as a two day show, because it was so long, they increased the patterns, and added more whammy slots where there originally were none.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
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
Just like if you had a towel then you pretty much have to be in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc.
[spoiler]
Ken wins until July 23rd, the last episode of this season. When the next season airs, he wins the first 10 shows, amassing somewhere in the tune of $1.5 million.
This season stopped taping in February and he can't legally comment on anything related to the show until his reign is over.
[/spoiler]
That said, I don't think this guy is all that special. Who knows how many prior 5 day champs could have done what Ken has.
And don't ask me how I know. Let's just say a little birdie told me.
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet (apparantly). Ken Jennings has a webpage! I'm sorry to report to the /. crowd that it was designed in MS Word. But it seems to be more of a personal checklist (and a window into how he got so much "useless" knowledge) than a page he intended for other people to see.
Assuming that he doesn't just quit first....
The guy is so good, you know that he'll never do anything stupid enough to lose. There have likely been many like him on this show, but they never had this chance (the limit on 5 wins cut them off).
It will take another super-duper geek to beat him. Is this the future of Jeopardy? "Unbeatable" champions that just win for months at a time? Personally, that'll get boring quick. Having a heroic run once in a while is thrilling: having it happen all the time is just dull. Michael Schumacher's dominance has similarly turned me off of F1 racing.
Methinks another rule change may be in the making for next season: a cap on earnings. Maybe $1,000,000 is the right amount.
BTW, I'm REALLY looking forward to a "Tournament of Champions" where he can square off against some of the others that got cut off at 5 wins. I think he'd do well (likely very well), but he'd certainly not be a lock to beat some of the others we've seen on this show in the past.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
"I feel like 'Cactus Gavvy' Cravath. Do you know who that is? Right. Nobody does. He's the guy who had the home run record before Babe Ruth came along." Tom Walsh, of Washington, D.C., who held the record for "Jeopardy" winnings until Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City broke it recently
- Newsweek 7/12/04 issue
And who monitors them? Seriously, these days with all sorts of corruption coming to light in business and government, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that some of these "Standards and Practices guys" have ties to the network execs or show owners.
Perhaps this is a test run, to see what the audience will eat up... a quick search on google turned up nothing on these "standards" guys.