Where to begin? I suppose this all started when I received an e-mail from my friend Ed Toutant, asking me if I had heard about Ken Jennings' new book, "Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks". The reason he asked is that he knows that I am an avid geocacher, and it turns out that Jennings' book has a chapter on the subject.
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| Maybe I should step back a bit further and explain how I know Toutant, and how he know Jennings, and how that relates to Watson. My friendship with Ed goes back quite a few years when we met early in my career at IBM. What ties Ed into this story is his interest in trivia and his experience in game shows. He was a winner in Jeopardy! many years ago, but his greatest success occurred on the show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Ed is currently ranked as the fifth biggest game show winner of all time. He was a contestant during progressive jackpot shows in 2001. Ed advanced to a $16,000 question about glowing vegetables which was later revealed to be flawed. He was invited back to continue playing for the jackpot at the same level he was playing for during his original appearance. When he returned, he was able to complete the remaining questions and win a jackpot of $1.86 million. |
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Since his success on Millionaire, Toutant has continued to participate in trivia related events, and competed head-to-head against other big game show winners including Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and Kevin Olmstead. Another former Jeopardy! winner, Bob Harris humorously describes an encounter with Toutant and Jennings at the Game Show Congress. |
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| Ken Jennings, of course, is well known as the biggest game show winner of all time. Notably, he won Jeopardy! 74 consecutive times for a total of $2.52 million. Since then, Jennings continues to compete in various game shows and trivia events, and also has become an author and blogger. Here is a blog in which he mentions the same Game Show Congress competition against Toutant that Bob Harris spoke about. |
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So although Jennings and Toutant had met previously, they were brought together again during the course of IBM's Watson Jeopardy! Challenge. Watson of course was IBM's computer system designed to answer natural language questions. It is well known that Watson defeated Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the two biggest winners in Jeopardy! history. What is less know is that Toutant was a consultant on the Watson project. As Ed describes, he played several practice games against Watson, and he gave a number of suggestions on Watson's Jeopardy! game strategy, including the notable suggestion that Watson make his wagers in Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy using non-round numbers. |
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| Since successfully completing the Jeopardy! Challenge, the Watson technology is now being applied to other real world problems, starting with medicine and financial services. Meanwhile, Jennings has become a successful author, while Toutant continues to participate in trivia events around the world. |
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| Which brings me back to where I began. As you can imagine, I was quite interested in Jennings new book, "Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks", especially the chapter on geocaching. So I purchased a copy and read the book. I found the entire book very interesting, as it covers a wide range of topics based around maps and geography. The chapter on geocaching did a nice job in describing the history of geocaching, along with some interesting stories about some "extreme" geocachers. I was surprised to learn that Jennings became somewhat addicted to the hobby, much like many of us. Here is a video podcast in which Jennings discusses a number of topics from his book, including, among other things, his interest in geocaching. |
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So the end of my story is that I enjoyed the book, and was inspired to create a cache about this whole set of interrelated characters and events. So I did. And now you can solve the puzzle and go find the cache! But first, you'll need to figure out 6 digits to fill in the following
N 30° 25.xxx W 097° 42.xxx, by answering the six questions below. |