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They Killed Ken!
kwings writes "SF Gate (via the AP) is reporting that your pal, Ken Jennings has been beaten after his 75th(!) game. I fully expect Mr. Trebek to hold a wake, or to keep calling the champion 'Ken' for the rest of the season. :) Since they're only up to airing game 41, it will be an interesting few months (or 34 shows)."
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What's up with this? Why not just start posting all the endings for upcoming movies?
"I'll take 'The Rapists for 500, Trebek!"
I think it'd be cool if the host actually knew all the stuff when interacting with the contestants.
You know, my local radio station's morning guys were reporting that he had lost on like... day 15 of his streak. They obviously were accounting for the pre-taping and all, but I'm glad to see he keeps going.
Jeopardy just won't be as fun to watch after he's gone. Ken's converted Jeopardy from an interesting game-show to a serious spectator sport in my house. It just won't be the same.
Glad I don't watch this show or I would be pissed...
- How to please a woman
- Things to do outside
- Post 1970's pop culture
in all seriousness, i think his run has been great...obviously it's helped jeopardy's ratings...heck, jeopardy has even made it onto my TIVO season pass list, so i can follow the exploits of Ken Jennigs each day...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
If God/Fate/Time/Karma/CoyboyNeal has a sense of humor, it's someone named 'Barbie'.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Could you at least put the subject of the article somewhere in the description?
Sure, I agree with RTFA, if I can determine it is worthwhile...
Jeopardy rules essentially state that if a contestant leaks the results of a match before it has aired, that they forfeit their winnings. While this story may be true, someone's head will roll for it.
Some info here.
Remember when someone "hacked" CBS's website and learned that Gervase was the winner? The next 2 weeks were boring, as we all knew the rest of the game was a foregone conclusion - until Gervase got voted off, and we all realized we'd been had.
Ken's winning streak has been fantastic for Jeopardy's ratings (up 35% from the same time last season, last I heard). This could be just another ploy to try and drive the ratings up even further.
Come on, guys. We're notorious skeptics here on Slashdot. Don't believe everything you read.
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Well, they say (again in the article) that the most recent aired show was his 41st win, and that he had $1,380,661.
Now, if this news is right that his final curtain closes on show 75, its roughly on course.
liqbase
He didn't really lose - they just brought in someone from overseas who agreed to win less money. :-)
[Insert pithy quote here]
Assuming this speculation is true, the real question is "how".
I mean, I'm sure even Ken would/will/did get tired of playing sooner or later. 75 games sounds like a nice round number to stop on; he set the single-game score record with something right around 75,000, as I recall (maybe even 75k even?).
So, it'll be interesting (to me) to see if he more or less quit on purpose - either just not coming back by choice, or obviously throwing the game to lose.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
It should be noted that during the taping of this episode, Jennings said "Mr. Trebek, I don't believe my buzzer is working correctly."
I would really have appreciated not having the content of this on the front page. This kind of ruins the intrigue of watching the show and wondering "I wonder if he'll win again tonight"
I'm not too impressed Michael for revealing this. It just isn't right for folks like me that actually like to watch the show.
No. There are laws regarding this sort of stuff. In Australia I believe it's the lotteries commision. It will be stipulated by the local lotteries and gaming commission of where the event is actually held. The Questions will be picked totally at random. Of course, as we know, with all of these things, they are totally secure, and not open to any form of malicious tampering
> Alex Trebek knows ALL of the answers
Yes, but does he know the questions?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Jeopardy is a tv game show wherein three contestants choose from various categories. Each category has 5 answers. Each choice is actually the answer. The contestant must phrase their answer in the form of a question.
For example, the category might be Space. A contestant chooses the box for $200. The answer as revealed is "The closest natural satellite to Earth". The contestant who buzzes in first would answer, "What is the Moon?" If the contestant is correct they get the money.
Ken has been on Jeopardy since forever (ok, since last season) and has won more money and rounds than any other previous contestant.
However, even though I am from the US I do agree with your sentiment. Who cares? Yes, the guy has an amazing amount of knowledge on a wide range of subjects. Yes, it is a geeky thing to be amazed at this breadth of knowledge. Still, as the local source of trivia in my office I don't care about this guy.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thanks to a tipster, I broke this story on my site yesterday morning...AP and /. have no love for weblogs? ;). This morning, that same tipster has provided the Final Jeopardy question/answer which cost Ken his streak. If you don't mind the spoilers, click through to find out.
Come on guys, I saw this on the local news this morning, hours before I checked Slashdot - so regarless of whether Slasdot posted the story, you were bound to find out about it sooner or later.
The guy was bound to loose sometime, you couldn't be terribly surprised by that! At least we can continue enjoying his run until it ends... it's not like we know what questions bring him down.
CNN did post a good disclaimer, though:
Editor's Note: CNN picked this story up from The Associated Press, which gives details below. We have no idea as to the status of Ken Jennings' run. If you'd prefer to not know anything, stop reading now.http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/09/tv.jeop ardy.ap/
Perhaps the ./ editors should take their cue, just out of fairness.
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Everyone should RTFA here - big time. This whole thing is based on something that showed up on this 'TV Week' website, and the company is not confirming the story...
My blog
If people are interested enough for Ken Jennings to be news for nerds then they are interested enough to not want it spoiled.
Take this off the main page or modify it immediately.
Idiot.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Well, technically I am one here.
/. postings nowadays.
I have not the slightest clue what you are talking about. It's a game show, that's what I understood so far.
But what the hell is this show about?
Seems I have to move to the U.S. for some weeks each year to be able to understand
The article might be funny for you, but I would like to see at least 1 sentence regarding the backround to give foreigners a chance to get the whole picture without milking google for ages.
Check this out (it's the FAQ): http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850
I don't complain when The Register posts articles about british television shows. And if I did, I would expect people to laugh at me.
Heisenberg might have been here.
From the episode where Cliff made it onto Jeopardy
Alex: "And the categories are, `Civil servants' `Stamps from around the world', `Mothers and sons', `Beer', `Bar trivia' and 'Celibacy'?
Nothing personal intended, but I would not use anybody's weblog for the basis of a story. I would confirm it somewhere else, first. Believe it or not, not everything you read on a blog is true.
This is just a matter of common courtesy. Of course trying to find that on the internet is pretty difficult.
I wouldn't call TV Week the most credible news source in the world; however, I think the more interesting part of this is that it appears TV Week blatantly ripped off the info from this guys blog (while one news source gave him credit, and didn't at all state it as fact). Then the AP and a few other news outlets picked it up from TV Week and it spread like wildfire.
I think TV Week should be called out on this one, because clearly their source is the blog, and the blog's source is a named informer; however, they way their article is written, they make it appear that the source went directly to them. This is good for them, because it makes it look like they have people "on the inside" that are willing to give them information.
When the NY Times can have a plagiarizer on their staff for a long time without knowing it, I do not think I would put such actions behind a much less credible periodical as TV Week.
What?
That's right, Ken--You lost. And let me tell you what you didn't win: a twenty colume set of the Encyclopedia International, a case of Turtle Wax, and a yeard's supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. But that's not all. You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people. You brought shame and disgrace to your family name for generations to come. You don't get to come back tomorrow. You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game. You're a complete loser!
...and that's all there is to it.
This is the final Jeopardy question that ended Ken's streak.
Topic: Life, the Universe, and Everything
Answer: 42
Unfortunatly a freak power outtage stopped the answer from being displayed once they gave their answers but afterwards an odd robot came out and told everyone that they were all simpletons and they along with the show were incredibly dreary and pointless and they all got the question wrong anyway but it didn't really matter because Life, the Universe, and Everything don't matter. The robot then talked to Mr. Jennings for a couple minutes after which Mr. Jennings announced in a depressed sounding voice that he didn't really see any point in going on so he was retiring from the show. A spacecraft then landed and an alien then came out and called Mr. Jennings a nerd then flew away.
Well there ya have it, the end of Ken Jenning's streak.
I stole this Sig
Christ, people, I'm usually the first person to mock the tin foil hat brigade, but don't any of you guys know that the man is employed to write systems for the very quizzes that he's answering questions on? Could that possibly (rather than him being some hero genius to ambition-failing nerds everywhere) explain his winning streak? Isn't this a more reasonable explanation for his fantastic performance than "well, suddenly, this genius just appeared"? Or are dreams nicer to hold on to?
I know you're probably trolling, but: I also have written computer software for a quiz, in my case an Internet pay-to-play one. You don't see me making a fortune off it. Why? Because if I did, I would be scrutinised very closely to ensure I wasn't cheating. If you're right about this contestant (being British, I'd never heard of him until this story -- which I only clicked on because I couldn't work out what it was about), then I doubt he's doing anything even remotely dishonest. In fact, I doubt there is anything dishonest that he could hope to get away with -- someone will almost certainly audit any work he does that ever deals with a live question (or should that be answer?) database.
They only began taping the new season in August. They managed to tape 38 shows already?
I swear there is a conspiracy going around making Americans look stupid.
We aired Baywatch. A show about a beach full of drama, where millions of people drown everyday at the same beach.
We aired Southpark. Enough said.
We aired who wants to be a millionaire. The contestants are absolutely no comparison to Jeopardy contestants.
We aired A-Team. No one can hit a target from 5 feet even though they were all vietnam vets.