How IBM Plans To Win Jeopardy! 154
wjousts writes "Technology Review is reporting on IBM's plans to take on Trebek at his own game. The 'Watson' computer system uses natural-language processing techniques to break down questions into their structural components and then search its database for relevant answers. A televised matchup with Trebek is planned for next year. 'David Ferrucci, the IBM computer scientist leading the effort, explains that the system breaks a question into pieces, searches its own databases for "related knowledge," and then finally makes connections to assemble a result. Watson is not designed to search the Web, and IBM's end goal is a system that it can sell to its corporate customers who need to make large quantities of information more accessible.'"
Re:Why is "Watson" such a popular choice of name? (Score:5, Informative)
Because Thomas J. Watson was the man who turned IBM into a global empire, and Thomas J. Watson Jr. brought it into computers. They successively held the top position at IBM for 57 years. So it's a very important name at IBM, and the connection with Sherlock Holmes is serendipitous.
Re:Why is "Watson" such a popular choice of name? (Score:1, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson [wikipedia.org]
Re:Suck it Trebek! (Score:1, Informative)
A: The answer is, what do you call someone who can spell neither penis nor titties.
Q: What is weszz?
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Suck it Trebek! (Score:3, Informative)
Thank Goodness for Hulu [hulu.com] (instead of finding dead Youtube Links)
The wiki entry is also pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Jeopardy!_(Saturday_Night_Live) [wikipedia.org]
"Catch These Men" for "Catch the Semen".
"Things Trebek Sucks" over the actual category, "Potpourri".
Re:Dealing with Layered Problems (Score:5, Informative)
Assume it's a perfect cube.
x^3 is 6 digits, so we're looking at numbers from about 50 to 100.
x^3 = 4XX
6^3 = 216
7^3 = 343
8^3 = 512
70 < x < 80
x^3 ends in an 2, so the cube root must end in an 8.
78.
Seriously though, square roots are easy peasy.
Cube roots let you use the awesome property that:
0 - 0
1 - 1
2 - 8
3 - 7
4 - 4
5 - 5
6 - 6
7 - 3
8 - 2
So you can always figure out the last digit of the cube root of a number VERY easily (no, you don't need to memorize that list).
Then you use the size of the number to get a range, and then estimate. If you're feeling ballsy, you can go for it. Spend the first few seconds (before people buzz in) and get your range down. Then buzz in and spend a couple seconds estimating, then answer (just say "what is..." right when you buzz in). If someone else buzzes in first, more time for you to think.
4th powers are just doing the square root twice.
The list for 5th power roots is neat, too.
0 - 0
1 - 1
2 - 2
3 - 3
4 - 4
5 - 5
6 - 6
7 - 7
8 - 8
9 - 9
0 - 0
Re:Wordplay (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, I used information from outside the original article without a citation. This is from the team's web info [ibm.com]:
... just like human competitors, Watson will not be connected to the Internet or have any other outside assistance.