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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."
1. Thanks for telling me AFTER it aired! Now I missed it!
2. Thanks for spoiling! Now I know what happens!
For our fallen nerd hero.
Does anyone else think he just got burned out and decided to be done?
Your ad here.
Those of on the west coast haven't seen this episode yet.
Those of us on the West Coast with TiVo won't see it for hours yet.
Thanks, I've been following this for months, now you spoil it.
Pinheads.
The correct incorrect answer is "Who is FedEx?"
Fear the Swarm!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
When you upgrade overlord speed and allow troop transport, the biggest imbalance in the game occurs.
God spoke to me
Nice job at the first 3rd post ever.
Your ad here.
(imagines Ken being swarmed by thousands of tiny Nancies....)
"...you can steal my woman, but you ain't done nuthin' smart."
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.
...
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
that apparently Ken does his own taxes :)
I'd use UPS from now on if I were him.
Nice round number to throw it at '75' games. It looked like he was faking it.
You've killed Kenny!
sigs, as if you care.
Uh, EST and CST aren't most time zones. You've still got MST and PST, plus Alaska and Hawaii.
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!
Yes we knew it was coming, but didn't know when, or how.
Some kind of spoiler alert would have been nice. Although I'm not sure how to do that. What is the headline? What's the lead paragraph? How do you attract people to the article without letting them know that tonight is the night?
Well, I've got two hours to think about answers to those questions (or is it questions for those answers?) before it airs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't know if he reads Slashdot but it might make for an interesting interview.
For all those who said he got beat bad, 0wn3d, or intentionally lost, you obviously didn't see the show.
He bet big like he usually does on two Daily Doubles, and lost about $6K on each... they both were more difficult than average questions (IMO), and it seemed that he just didn't know them. If he would've bet 1/2 what he did, he would've been statistically unbeatable going into the final jeopardy question.
(He was leading $14,400 to $10,000 going into the final answer)
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
That is the ultimate geek matchup: Ken Jennings vs the Zerg vs 2600.
*******
"What good is science if no one gets hurt?!" - Professor Chromedome
I, for one, welcome our new Zerg overlords.
If anyone has a ReplayTV, missed the episode, and wants it, let me know and I'll send it to you...
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
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!
> Uh, EST and CST aren't most time zones. You've still got MST and PST, plus Alaska and Hawaii.
Note to Americans: there are just a few more zones than that.
I live in Greenwich Mean Time AND my surname is Jennings AND I've never seen Jeopardy. What the hell is going on?
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
As Trebek's common-law husband, Jennings has rights, doesn't he???
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
who was that other guy that was playing? He had like -$3,200 I think... When I saw the scores I had to laugh at that... 14,000 10,000 -3,200 sorry but looking at that was funny...
note to foreigners... if you haven't picked up on America's apathy towards other countries by now then I'd give up :)
Ken Jennings was my roomate freshman year at Brigham Young University.
We had both drank a lot - Ken said on the show he is a teetotaler.
--
I worked for NASA for 8 years straight out of MIT undergrad.
I'm an editor for Tom's Hardware Guide
I worked for a particular company that denied another company a lucrative contract just because that company's CTO had bullied my company's CEO when he was in high school
I have TWO friends who work at Bungie
I work on LAMP software and deploy to customer's websites.
I obtained a preview release [of GIMP 2.0]
I'm sorry, but I've got to call your bluff here. You've claimed to do to much stuff and to know too many people. If all this is true, it's quite impressive and you have a life history to be proud of; if not, you need to stop claiming to be so many different things if you want people to take you seriously.
Besides, unless you're claiming that Ken got more moral after leaving BYU - a Mormon institution - you're attributing behaviors to him that the KenJen of the brief show interviews would not have done.
Ken is smiling down from Slashdot spoiled TV heaven with the Lone Gunmen.
The easy answer? Slashdot simply shouldn't have posted the article until 8:00pm PST.
That's 2.5 million before taxes. Uncle Sam will take about a third. Then Ken being the clean cut Mormon that he is will tithe 10% to the church. Then he will buy his mother a gold cadillac like Elvis did along with other assorted gift giving leaving him with a little over 1 million.
Then... if we believe that luck is distributed randomly throughout space and time; Ken has flipped the coin 75 times and it came up heads every time. Now he is in luckdebt. His current wife leaves him taking half of the million he has left. Fedex sues him for defamation and inciting labor unrest which burns up the rest of his winnings on attourney fees. Examination of video footage shows that Ken had a squarish hump in the back of his suit jacket ala George Bush in the first debate which prompts an FCC investigation into gameshow fixing leading to his becoming the most reviled man in America. Desperate for fifteen more minutes in the limelight, Ken drives to LA and mocks Gary Coleman with "Whatchoo talkin bout Willis?" until Gary loses his cool and bitch slaps him. The police refuse to file his complaint and the press ignores the incident leading to his complete mental breakdown and a six week bender on peppermint schnapps and cheap wine ending in Ken waking up signed to a one year merchant marine contract on a supertanker headed for the persian gulf. He jumps ship in Mumbai India and spends the next 5 years writing crappy vbscript for an offshoring firm and trying to save enough money to buy a forged birth certificate and plastic surgery so he can re-enter the U.S. under a fake name. Ken gets his wish at long last but is picked up by the Office of Homeland Security at the border and spends the rest of his life at Guantanamo Bay Cuba refusing to acknowledge his true identity but paradoxically answering everything in the form of a question.
I don't think ANY bookie in his right mind would ever take a bet in which the bettor was a principal capable of affecting the outcome. No FSCKING way.
Enough about the poor unfortunate Mr. Floyd, let's talk about the rich and prosperous Mr. Butch.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Who would admit to being an editor at Toms Hardware?
The person who submitted this doesn't seem to watch much Jeopardy!. Otherwise, it would be clear that "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year" is really the *answer* and not the question.
Ken definitely threw that game. Come on, he had $2.5M and was gonna give half of it away anyway, so he figures that he is only making half of what he will earn anyways. Plus he isn't a greedy guy so he obviously doesn't care for earning insane amounts of money. Personally though, on that one daily double about hats or something, he bet $6200!, when he was only $4000 up on the lady in double Jeopardy! I watched Ken every day on Jeopardy and he is never that reckless! He would have bet $200, usually. He repeated this again, when he bet $4200 on some category about plants or somthing whilst only being $2000 ahead. Although one must admire the delicate planning in leaving the sports category until last against the woman and the man that seemed obviously unintersted in sports (haha). I think Ken knew better on the final Jeopardy too. His response obviously contradicts the obvious fact that FedEx is blue collar, not to mention the fact that they are definitely not seasonal. He definitely threw it.
Also NPR had a small blurb on their Talk of The Nation show about how the stream "may" be over, this was also earlier in the day:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4192614
Am I the only one who saw the odd similarity to the moment when the character played by Ralph Fiennes in the movie "Quiz Show" purposely loses? It is a movie from 1994 so it is easy to rent a copy and it is a terrific movie. It is based on a real event from the 50's.
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.)
Nightline ran a special on Ken's loss tonight and, who should be the sponsor at the first station break? FedEx, of course!
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
They said that its rumoured that Ken Jennings might loose today.
What is an adjective, Alex?
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I do not think that it was rigged. Ken Jennings just had the right stuff for the show, the ability to stay unfazed while his opponents got nervous. Some folks are good at it; he's the top of the curve.
Having seen Nightline last night, which was about Jeopardy, and prepared in advance in secret, to be aired when the show where he lost was aired, I see how secure the questions were. It's highly unlikely that anybody could have been feeding him the questions (not the answers -- it's Jeopardy -- duh!). And given the stakes, it's unlikely that they were cheating at all, even if it were to improve ther ratings and profits. Merv's credibility is on the line, after all.
But Jennings himself explained that much of the trick was in the button. It does not get activated until Alex Trebek is finished giving the "answer", and if you press too soon, you get locked out for a fraction of a second. So there's some logic behind the button mechanism.
I was on a TV quiz show once. I do believe that particular one was rigged. No names -- it was probably before most current Slashdotters were born. It too used a button. And I noticed that one team's buttons -- the designated winners' -- responded differently than my team's. Of course those were the days of mechanical relays; game shows weren't computerized yet. It can be quite subtle, but a fraction of a second in timing can make all the difference.
I just found Ken's observation interesting.