Thursday, July 15

Winning Streak Propels 'Jeopardy' Ratings

Ken Jennings, a software developer from Salt Lake City, has been walloping the competition in Jeopardy. Last night he won his thirty-first game, and his streak is inspiring a following that has increased the ratings of the always-popular trivia quiz show. Since the shows were filmed back in February and March he's back at home already, but because of non-disclosure agreements he can't let anyone know how long he lasted or how much money he eventually earned.

I've been watching Jeopardy! pretty consistently since he started playing, and all I can say is that I'm amazed at this guy who has such immense knowledge over such a broad range of subjects. Part of it is his strategy, though. If he is familiar with the category, he will buzz in almost immediately every time. Then he does his thinking during the few seconds he has to come up with his question.

I can't wait to see how far he goes, but I'll be incredibly disappointed when he loses.

5 comments:

Harry J. Sachz said...

well he came pretty close last night.. only picking up a mere $17,500... speaking of which.. i think i may try out for the pre-teen edition of jeopardy...

augmentedfourth said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
augmentedfourth said...

But, as Alex pointed out (though not in so many words), he was safe because his last answer in Double Jeopardy! brought him to a total more than double that of his nearest contender. He doesn't have to win a lot of money... he just has to get more than the people he's playing against.

BTW, I was just told who you are, "Harry." Welcome to my blog. What was your site URL again? I know it's at servebeer.com, but I can't remember the subdomain.

Harry J. Sachz said...

ha.. i doubt you would like my place on the web... but it's http://sachz.servebeer.com ... oh, and btw, i like how faithful you are to this page, with the constant updates and all...

augmentedfourth said...

Actually, I thought that was really interesting... especially the walkthrough of the NES-computer you built. I'd love to do that, but all the mucking about with individual cables in the hardware just isn't my thing.

Also, I liked the built-in emulator you've got going (at least I assume that's how you did it). I was never a gaming freak at the time all of that stuff was out, but in college I was into retro-gaming and all that. Not so much now that I'm married, though. My favorite games are Chronotrigger and the SNES Zelda. I also have a soft spot for the Atari Lynx... in my opinion, it's the best portable gaming console there ever was. Of course, I'm biased because it's the only console (portable or otherwise) I ever actually owned.

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