A fraudster managed to devise a scheme to get famous,probably thinking his new found fame will net him some money.Weird WSJ is promoting this individual and that Magnus accepted his bogus "challenge".
How is he a fraudster? Who is he deceiving? Will any one of us think about him in a month? How exactly does a goal of solving a crossword puzzle fit into trying to get famous after 12 months?
He's got daily posts about this stuff, it's not hard to evaluate his honesty. I was curious how he managed to learn enough Hebrew to converse for 30 minutes on a topic. In the intro post he states: "Like most other challenges, I’m not starting from zero: I studied Hebrew at Brown for a few semesters, and also lived in Tel Aviv for six-months during my junior year of college." That's a huge advantage to have. But he's not being secretive about it. Maybe the inference of not actually starting from scratch is lost when being reported by media, but I'm more likely to blame the media than the individual. It's a fun human interest story and serves as a good reminder that rapid advancement in a skill is possible even when you work full time. Especially when you work full time and can afford to pay for assistance, in fact.