Final Jeopardy: Computers (4-25-14)

The Final Jeopardy question (4/25/2014), in the category “Computers” was:

The creator of this computer command called it “a 5-minute job.” In 2013, Bill Gates called it “a mistake”.

4x champ Julia Collins has won $73,110 so far. Lots of folks are rooting for a 5th win, but these new opponents want to win, too: Hilary Gaughen, from Lakeside, CA; and Aimee Seligstein, originally from Memphis, TN.

Round 1: Aimee found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Product Design” under the $1,000 clue. She was in the lead with $2,000, $3,400 less than Julia’s lead. She made it a true Daily Double and she was RIGHT.

You can scramble the colors on the boxy lamp named for this Hungarian sculptor & toy creator. show

Julia finished in the lead with $9,400. Aimee was second with $4,200 and Hilary was last with minus $200.

Round 2: Aimee found the first Daily Double in “Tough European Capitals” under the $1,600 clue. She was in second place with $5,800, $6,400 behind Julia’s lead. She bet $3,000 and she was RIGHT.

It’s the closest mainland European capital to the United States. show

Aimee got the last Daily Double in “Societies” under the $2,000 clue, last clue on the board. With $16,800, she was still in second place, but now was only $3,800 behind Julia’s lead. She bet $2,000 and took a guess with the Red Cross. That was WRONG.

Seen here, the symbol of this society is called the Sword of Hope. show

Julia finished in the lead with $20,600. Aimee was next with $14,800 and Hilary was in third place with $3,000.

ALL of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS CTRL+ALT+DELETE?

Bill Gates made his “mistake” remark about the keyboard shortcut during a Q&A session at Harvard in 2013 (see the youtube). In 2011, engineer David Bradley, who invented the combination as a shortcut during development, said: “I originally intended for it to be what we would now call an Easter egg — just something we were using in development and it wouldn’t be available elsewhere,” adding that “It was like a five-minute job in doing it. I didn’t realize that I was going to create a cultural icon when I did it.” (CNN.com)



Hilary bet $2,999. She finished with $5,999.

Aimee bet $1,200 and finished with $16,000.

Julia bet $9,100. She won her 5th match with $29,700, her biggest payday of the week ($8,700 more than Tuesday). Her 5-day total is $102,810.

2 years ago:: NONE of the players got this FJ in “Constellations and Myth”

In Greek myth, he became the prey when he was killed by Scorpius; now they’re both in the sky. show

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18 Responses

  1. dennis says:

    Julia Collins is so irritating, the way she throws her head back..almost as irritating as Sandie Baker, I can’t wait till someone takes her down! YUCK!

  2. mike says:

    Julia is definitely the HOTTEST gal to ever play the game YOU GO GIRL!!!

  3. RT says:

    Julia is totally hot. Very brilliant and an awesome smile.

  4. eric steele says:

    Fortunately, it didn’t matter in the end, but I hate to see a player mismanage a chance like Aimee did on the last D.D.
    If there is a chance to take the lead, while still preventing a runaway, it must be taken.
    It’s really just the most basic game theory.

    • William K says:

      As a general rule, I agree –i.e. having the lead for Final is usually crucial. But what if the category on the last Daily Double is an arcane one, and all the clues previously revealed were highly difficult?

      There are situations where it might be better to play for the 2/3 (or 3/2, if in the lead) rule. That is, stay within 2/3 of leader’s total (or go for 3/2 of second place’s total if leading). For a prime example, when 3rd place is out of the game essentially, having at least 2/3 of the leaders total means you can wager nothing and force the leader to get the Final Jeopardy clue correct to beat you when wagering (the normal) aim of double second place, plus a dollar.

      Long story short, I could make a case for Aimee wagering 1800 or less on the last DD in order to make sure she had 11,200 in Final Jeopardy. This would have allowed her to stand pat, and wait for the leader to get an incorrect Final Jeopardy “answer”.

      • William K says:

        Correction to last paragraph (above):

        A case could be made for Aimee making sure she could not fall below 13,800 going into Final, thus maintaining at least 2/3 of Julia’s 20,600. Julia bets 7001 to beat 27,600 (double Aimee), gets the clue incorrect and voila! she falls to 13,599 and Aimee wins by wagering zero.

        • john blahuta says:

          double aimee would be 29.600, so julia’s bet would have had to be 9K (or 9.001) . if wrong= 11.600/11.599.
          then aimee’s bet would/should have been 3.200 for a tie or win by $1.00?
          i am going by the #s here,did not see the show (power outage).

        • William K says:

          Aimee wagered 2000 on the 30th and final clue (the last DD) and got it wrong which left her with 14800. In the hypothetical case (above) I had her wagering 3000 max which would have left her with 13800. The key point being that she would have maintained the requisite 2/3 of the leader’s 20600. This would enable the possibility of letting the leader “fall on her sword” with an incorrect Final wager with Aimee, again hypothetically, wagering zero.

  5. jacobska says:

    Could someone help me? It seems to me tonight’s FJ clue appeared on the board before. Perhaps not as a FJ clue. However, I remember thinking it was easy. It was just worded differently. With Bill Gates name interjected it was easy to figure out.

    • vj says:

      According to the J-Archive, where they make a duplicate of the board and have a search feature, the last time CTRL+ALT+DELETE was the answer to a clue was in July of 2011.

      In Compustuff ($600) — If a program locks up, try hitting this combination of 3 keys at the same time to open the task manager

  6. aaaa says:

    a $6500 wager on the DD on the 30th clue of DJ! would have given Aimee $10300 and probably would have made Julia and Aimee co-champions (assuming Aimee wagered it all and Julia nothing in FJ!, given FJ! was a triple get).

    • William K says:

      Yes! This is a rarely seen, but brilliant move on a 30th clue DD! Has the advantage of going for the lead while leaving a perfectly rational escape route of exactly (EXACTLY being critical) one-half the leader’s total.

  7. john blahuta says:

    1.200…??? am i missing something here? unless aimee felt completely insecure about the category. but julia’s bet of 9K+ was predictable, so why wager anything? or she could have gone for 3.199 in case both were wrong.5.801 would have been another option, in case julia stayed put.
    either way: congratulations again to julia! getting 4 out of 5 FJ, she is batting .800 in baseball terms. not too shabby!!

  8. Nomi says:

    Wow, thanks for the very quick updates, folks. You are doing a great job for us jeopardy fans who do not have cable but need our daily fill of the show.
    Muchos gracias!

    • john blahuta says:

      i totally agree with you,nomi. what vj does in 60 minutes i could not do in 60 hours…..

    • vj says:

      thanks, Nomi and John. I hope you check out the weekly recap of clues, Nomi. I’ve started putting in a short video of one category from the week in there.