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Comment by thecoffman | Hacker News Reader

I was actually surprised at how funny he is - many times I find the personality type that supports being so good at that type of thing tends to be lacking in social skills (broad generalization of course) but he comes off as humble, personable and funny. His answer to the Now do you know how people felt when they were competing against you? question was especially interesting to me.

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Ken is super-great. He was a fun and friendly guy when I met him at a book signing. I've become a regular reader of his blog, where he shares random trivia and his love of cinema, hipster bands and the 1980's era of Games Magazine.

And if you noticed he's a computer programmer and you're wondering, the answer is emacs.

Of course it's emacs. He can actually remember all of the commands, functions, variables, and key bindings.

(Before people get their flamethrowers out, I spend more time in emacs than any other piece of software I own.)

And the rest of your time in a text editor, right?

I spend so much time in it looking for the "optimal" way to do what I'm trying to do. I know there's a command for it somewhere!

That's too bad about emacs. I was really starting to like him. ;-)

> ..and you're wondering, the answer is emacs.

He blog doesn't say anything about him using emacs. Just out of curiosity, can you link to where there's any sort of discussion about his setup?

He mentioned it on his forums once, way back in 2007 when I was preparing to be on the show myself:

http://www.ken-jennings.com/messageboards/viewtopic.php?p=12...

(Tuesday Trivia is his weekly email trivia contest.)

I'll bite: were you on the show?

Yeah; I had a blast. At least that's my excuse for following Ken Jennings' forum so closely.

I ended up 72 victories short of Ken, though.

http://www.j-archive.com/showplayer.php?player_id=3965

For those wondering his blog is at http://ken-jennings.com/blog/

That's ok. I'm sure Watson prefers vi.

Not being from the US (and not getting Jeopardy in my country), i've never heard of this guy. He's incredibly entertaining in this interview, definitely caught me off guard considering how serious and straight-faced he seemed throughout the Watson matches (Thanks, YouTube).

This interview is the funniest thing i've read today (3 hour work commute, I read LOTS.)

Oh, and did anyone else keep wanting to upvote his answers?

Ken Jennings got famous as being the longest-lasting Jeopardy contestant ever. He remained undefeated in Jeopardy for over 70 games, and won over 2 million dollars. He was very likeable on the show as well, especially given that we were able to enjoy so much of the show with him on it, which is unusual for contestants.

He's somewhat notorious in the IT industry because his day job (not sure if he still holds it) was a programmer, which at least endeared him to me.

Notorious?

As in the Duran Duran song

Notorious: publicly or generally known, as for a particular trait

It's an acceptable usage, though I freely concede I overuse it when 'famous' would be more easily understood.

Ah, OK. Given the negative connotation (at least for its more common usage) I was wondering if there was some Ken Jennings backlash out there that I'd missed.

You might be conflating notorious with "nefarious," which is used when someone is notorious for something bad.

I hate to be one that argues about definitions, but:

generally known and talked of; especially : widely and unfavorably known

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/notorious

You don't have to be famous to be nefarious.

flagrantly wicked or impious : evil

Origin: Latin nefarius, from nefas crime

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nefarious

At one point during his winning streak, he purposefully answered incorrectly so he could say "what is a hoe".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKA0K7bf7Rc

Well, I think it was purposefully anyways. (btw, he's a Mormon)

I watched that match back in high school (his streak corresponded with my own academic bowl team's season), and "What is a hoe?" was my response, too.

I'd never heard that semantic sense of "rake" before, and felt somewhat scandalized that "hoe" would be a response on national television (while in high school, I felt great affinity toward the puritans).

I have known that from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rake%27s_Progress

Does anyone else think "hoe" is actually a valid answer there, though? It's hard to tell from Ken's facial expression whether he "purposefully answered incorrectly" or just found himself amused at the situation.

Hoe is not a valid answer because the other word you are looking for is "ho" which is a shortened form of "whore".

Rake, on the other hand, is a homonym.

His Twitter feed is worth a read too, if it's legit (I guess he's not notable enough to rate a checkmark): http://twitter.com/kenjennings

"@IBMWatson, I'm-a let you finish, but homo sapiens is one of the smartest species of all time."

I was curious, and looked through his blog - he references that twitter account as his own here:

http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=2437

That's odd, I've always thought that given its college-bowl atmosphere, Jeopardy! is uniquely poised to attract people who are both erudite and of quick wit.

The guy who hacked Press Your Luck fits more your stereotype; given its flashing lights and general brouhaha, PYL seems more of a magnet for that sort than Jeopardy!. There are also quite a lot of that sort in The Price is Right fandom (yes, it has a fandom!).

He gave an author talk at Google a few years back, and he was surprisingly charismatic and hilarious.

50 minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMRVwdeHB4

If you are trivia geek like me, you should sign up for his Tuesday Trivia emails..

Send an email to tuesdaytrivia@ken-jennings.com to subscribe...

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