Human vs. Machine on Jeopardy Tonight

Posted on February 14, 2011 at 3:58 pm

Tonight’s the night! IBM’s Watson computer is going to take on two of the all-time greatest “Jeopardy” champions. “Jeopardy” has been on television since 1964. It was created by singer and talk show host Merv Griffin, who wrote that unforgettable Final Jeopardy jingle. It was Griffin’s wife who came up with the idea of giving contestants the answers and having them come up with the questions. Watson will compete against Ken Jennings, the all-time “Jeopardy” champ, whose winning streak lasted for six months and won him more than $2 million, and the runner up, Brad Rutter.

Washington Technology writes:

Watson is powered by 10 racks of IBM Power 750 servers, running Linux. It uses 15 terabytes of RAM and 2,880 processor cores.

To prepare for “Jeopardy!”, it has been loaded with a huge amount of information about books, movies, history, plays, music, current events, and the list goes on.

…

For some questions, one answer will have a high confidence level. This is when Watson is most likely to buzz in. For other questions, none of the answers will have a high confidence level and Watson will not buzz in.

“That’s the interesting thing,” McQueeney said. “The machine knows when it doesn’t know the answer.”

For each question, Watson evaluates information from about 200 million pages of content, or 1 million books.

Unlike Big Blue, Watson’s chess-playing brother, this challenge is about more than simple math. It’s more than simple information. “Jeopardy” questions involve puns and unexpected twists. Contestants must also evaluate their confidence levels with their bets on the Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy. I love computers and am excited to see what the people who created and programmed Watson have accomplished. But I’m rooting for Ken and Brad.

Check out Slate Magazine’s piece on the most frequent Jeopardy categories.

Jeopardy!

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Television

Waiting for ‘Superman’

Posted on February 14, 2011 at 8:00 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some thematic material, mild language, and incidental smoking
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to DVD:	February 15, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003Q6D28C

One of the most acclaimed films of the year is “Waiting for Superman,” by Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth.

America brought the world the idea of free public education and we have more top universities than the rest of the world put together. But this documentary shows that we have fallen far behind when it comes to our children. America has fallen far down the list when it comes to academic achievement and opportunity. This film shows us parents desperate to give their children a chance at education through heart-wrenching lotteries that exclude everyone but the lucky few. It shows us activists like then-Washington DC schools head Michelle Rhee, fighting teachers unions that prize job security over performance. And it shows us the daunting challenges faced by everyone in the system, teachers, principals, parents, and students.

I have five copies of this acclaimed documentary to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Superman” in the subject line and tell me about your favorite teacher. Don’t forget your address! I will select winners at random a week from today.

Nora Ephron’s Valentine Movie List

Posted on February 13, 2011 at 2:00 pm

Nora Ephron (“You’ve Got Mail,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Julie & Julia”) made a list of her top 11 romantic Valentine’s Day movies to the Daily Beast. You can see the inspiration for her witty, sophisticated love stories in the classics she picks, all of which are high on my list, too.
Once you’ve seen all those, check out Matt Zoller Seitz’s “Great Declarations of Love” movie list on Salon. All wonderful.
And one more from me — it’s not a perfect movie by any means but the most deliriously silly bedroom scene I know is in “The Tall Guy,” with Jeff Goldbloom and Emma Thompson — and some singing underpants.

People Who Cry At Airplane Movies

Posted on February 13, 2011 at 8:00 am

I love This American Life. This week’s episode is called “Tough Room,” and it has four stories about people who have to face and try to somehow persuade or ingratiate themselves with highly critical and skeptical crowds.
But the last story of the episode is exactly the opposite. It’s about an audience member who is exceptionally susceptible to what is in front of him. GQ’s Brett Martin tells about his experience as someone who never fails to cry at a movie on an airplane, even those that are dumb, cheesy, or just plain awful. And he finds a group of others who experience the exact same phenomenon.
Most movies are selected by viewers for their entertainment value. The one thing everyone in a movie theater has in common is that everyone wants to be there enough to get out of the house and pay for a ticket. But airplane movies are chosen for a captive audience who have nothing in common except that they all want to go to the same city. And the airline’s primary goal is to keep everyone calm. So they tend to be bland films chosen not for artistic quality but for being as unobjectionable as possible. You generally won’t see heart-rending drama or pulse-pounding thrillers on a plane. You’ll see a comedies and romantic comedies.
And that is why it is fascinating to hear Martin talk about how he cried in “Sweet Home Alabama.” All four times he saw it. It isn’t that he’s a big softie. He doesn’t cry in the circumstances most people do. And he isn’t afraid of flying. There’s just something about being on a plane. He talks to other people who are coping with this newly characterized plane movie crying syndrome, and, because I see so many middle-range movies, I found the list of films that sparked their tears and sometimes sobs very funny.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Young Mr. Lincoln

Posted on February 12, 2011 at 3:59 pm

Abraham Lincoln was born 201 years ago today. This film, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda, is an appealing look at his early law practice and his tragic romance with Ann Rutledge. Particularly exciting and moving are the scenes in the courtroom as Lincoln defends two brothers charged with murder. Both have refused to talk about what happened, each thinking he is protecting the other, and Lincoln has to find a way to prove their innocence.