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Spoilers for last night’s finale of the Jeopardy IBM Challenge coming up:
Well, Homo sapiens, it was a great run. Two hundred thousand years! Yes, there was a war here and there and we caused a few extinctions and whatnot. But we developed language and mathematics, left crap on the ground that can be seen from space, and kicked the …
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Spoilers for last night’s Jeopardy IBM Challenge coming up:
We can console ourselves with this: when our new computer masters take over, apparently very soon now, we can be assured that they will comprehend our pathetic natural-language pleas for mercy with a certainty of upward of 90%.
Monday night, Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy-playing …
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Jeopardy spoilers—and boy, is that one phrase I never thought I’d type here—coming up next:
The IBM computer Watson began its brave effort to supersede humanity and thus elevate the level of sentience on Earth last night,* taking on Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in the first night of a three-night Jeopardy competition. And I have to …
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My initial interest in ABC’s summer series Downfall fell when I learned that it was not a spinoff of the online Hitler parody videos. Last night, I finally checked in on the game show, whereupon my interest fell even further. As did the contestants, the prizes and pretty much everything on the show.
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Last week, Robo-James’ time machine looked at the evolution over the decades of Wheel of Fortune. That eternal process continues; the game show starts a new season Monday, with a new twist that—like many in the past—sounds like a needless complication of something that already worked. The “Free Spin” wedge will be replaced by “Free …
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The Tuned In Jrs. have recently become fans of Wheel of Fortune, which addiction we’ve been supplementing by Tivoing reruns of the 1980s episodes currently airing on GSN. Among their discoveries: Vanna White’s job was much more physically taxing. Below, someone’s YouTube tribute to the old puzzleboard, on which she then had to turn the …
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In summer 1999, I had just started writing for Time magazine. A network publicist sent me a tape—we had tapes back then, kids, and a hamburger cost a nickel—for a British game show that ABC was about to air adapt. It was huge in the UK, she assured me. Pffft!, I thought. Like anybody’s going to watch that! And I went off to visit the …
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In the Things You Weren’t Aware You Wanted From TV Dept. this morning: CBS is reviving the game show Password, hosted by Regis Philbin. The new show will be known as Million-Dollar Password, that now being the official sum of primetime reality/game shows and Dr. Evil. (Actually, it’s been the industry standard since around 1999 when …
