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Adieu to Ken Jennings
IllogicalStudent writes "The Toronto Star is reporting that the episode of Jeopardy where Ken Jennings (a.k.a. 'The Jeopardy Guy') finally loses aired this evening. It came down to a 2-person finish (3rd had -2600 at the end of Double Jeopardy, and was eliminated) between Ken and opponent Nancy Zerg, with the final category being Business & Industry. Ken answered 'Fed Ex' to the question 'Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year,' when the correct answer was 'H&R Block.' Ken finished his record-streak with just over $2.5 Million."
During the little Q&A with Alex tonight, Ken said he was going to keep his job as a software engineer -- said he loves the people he works with, will likely work less hours.
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Does anybody know what company Ken works for? Or, what tools he uses? I wonder if he's a Java-guy, a Linux-guy, or what
SLL
Nice round number to throw it at '75' games. It looked like he was faking it.
I downloaded the final Jeopardy! audio clip yesterday from this website, but now the clip has been removed. (Stupid lawyers) Also, good 'ol Wikipedia has a good story, and also had the news/info yesterday somehow.
- Move "Sig". For great justice!
Does this suggest anything?
Is anybody old enough to remember the the "64 Thousand Dollar Question" game show back in the 50s? Remember the isolation booths and the network scandal that resulted after it was discovered that the show was rigged for the ratings? I do!
I doubt he'll do his own taxes any more. In a nice ironic twist. H&R Block offered him free tax and investment services for life. (Maybe they think he hadn't heard of them enough?)
A couple people on the threads have asked this question, and I'm pretty sure the answer is a resounding "no".
First off, how many software engineers do we all know. Most good ones will go to extreme measures, breaking deadlines and spec sometimes, to do the *right* thing, not just to finish the project.
Most (good) programmers want to be badasses. To impress everyone around them with their programming prowess and moxie. Ken Jennings, I believe, is probably a pretty good programmer, one of the reasons being that he is obviously a master of research, and he learns until he *knows* it, not just learning to solve a particular problem and forgetting about it.
I mean, the guy's not stupid. How many of us would sell our souls for a job that paid $150,000 a week to work one (long) day with paid travel and lodging, and the other 6 days off? Even if the job was really difficult, and required constant brainpower, most of us would give up a lot for something like that, even if it was a short term contract.
Nah, I think he would have gone on until he was defeated. I've seen most every episode he was in, and even up to the last one, he attacked the board with the same energy that he always did. The only mistake I think he made was betting bit on that 2nd daily double, when he was pretty far ahead, but he wanted to put the game away. When he didn't, it gave Nancy an opportunity.
Even going into the final, with the two large daily doubles he missed, he still had the lead. The only way to lose was if he missed the question, and she got it right (or they both missed it and she bet weird). And it happened. That situation had come up at least 4 times in the past, and the odds finally caught up with him.
Kudos Ken, you're as good as mascot as Jeopardy could have hoped for. I mean, watch a few episodes, and you can't help but like the guy.
-- Jinsaku
Well, let's see. He beat all the records (64 days on a game show was one. Just over 2 million was another one) that he had wanted to beat (he's talked about it). He had talked with his family about stepping down at some point (I was talking with his dad about this around 1.5mil somewhere). And he likes round sums of money (2.5 mil is about as round as it's going to get, unless he went to 3).
He was tired at game 55. Personally, I think he threw this game. For almost the entire Jeopardy round he seemed to be ringing in slow. Like he was trying to allow the other players to ring in first. But they weren't doing it. Some of the answers, like Bastogne (a Daily Double), I don't believe he didn't know.
And I have an extremely hard time believing he didn't know that Final Jeopardy answer. FedEx doesn't have 70k seasonal employees. If FedEx has a "seasonal" time of year, it would be around Christmas and wouldn't last 4 months. And FedEx employees, at least the ones who would be seasonal (package handlers, drivers, etc.), are not white collar. And everyone that I gave the question to today immediately came up with the right answer.
I just don't buy it. I mean, I don't blame him for wanting to get out. But he also could have just said "I don't want to play tomorrow", and walked away. The rules allow for that.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
My wife threw out an interesting suggestion... perhaps he went with "Fed Ex" on purpose. How much would Fed Ex pay to have Ken Jennings as their front man this holiday season? Can you hear the commercial now?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
15% of all Jennings shows have had one contestant not participate in Final Jeopardy. That's way more than the usual amount which is closer to 5%. It should be noted that the cream rate dropped in Season 2 (remember than first two weeks of season 2 are actually technically taped in Season 1 due to the preproduction wait) as people who knew about Jennings and wondered WTF he was still on decided to play a bit more conservatively. (All episodes after Day 40 are in Season 2.)
A while ago I bought a PDA and it was shipped by Airborne Express. I never received it and the mail order place sent me another one by UPS. A few months later after the snow thawed I found the missing PDA on the driveway. It was buried under the snow all that time.