Pictures of Will

Folks over at Slithery D were discussing what Will Baude looks like. Will then revealed a picture of himself that obscures his face.

A cursory Google search turns up a picture (scroll towards bottom) that actually shows his face.

Quiz bowl-ers

As a former quiz bowl person, I was amused to see this article from the Washington Post:

Back in college, Robert Hentzel and his teammates competed at the championship level, but victory always came without fanfare. Or fans, for that matter. As spectator sport, academic quiz bowl was a bit like watching a perpetual IQ test being given out loud, with small teams of students vying to see who could answer the most questions the quickest.

Quiz bowlers didn't merely accumulate knowledge; they stockpiled it. Fact upon fact upon small, obscure fact. Worthless information, outsiders would scoff. But the quiz bowlers' passion ran deep. And their pursuit turned out to be not so trivial.

Over the past five years alone, more than 40 former quiz bowlers have quietly infiltrated the ranks of television game-show contestants, raking in nearly $7 million, primarily from "Jeopardy!" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

Call it the ultimate revenge of the nerds.

"There's definitely a subculture there," acknowledged Michael Davies, executive producer of "Millionaire" and himself a reject from the academic challenge team at the University of Edinburgh. ("I was just useless in classics and the sciences.")

Certainly the most visible member of the underground intelligentsia these days is "Jeopardy!" phenom Ken Jennings, a 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City whose pretaped winning streak is the longest and richest in that show's history, and is rumored to be more than half over. And while "Jeopardy!" questions are less complicated than quiz bowl's elaborate clues, Jennings said he figures that roughly 40 percent of his correct answers on "Jeopardy!" came from knowledge he amassed over the years via quiz bowl.

Excellent article. Read the whole thing.

The people I knew at Quiz Bowl were very into quiz bowl, and I'd always wondered why these people didn't go tear through Jeopardy, because they clearly had the knowledge.

By my own estimation, I'd been very successful at quiz bowl in high school, and I knew from their record that my university's Quiz Bowl team wasn't that good.

I was blown away. These people just went out and memorized trivia for the sake of memorizing trivia. [Aside: there are Scrabble afficianados who memorize every possible 2 or 3 letter word, plus stems and many other obscure words] They could tell you the order of opponents in the original Nintendo version of Mike Tyson's Punchout! They could tell you who was on the cover of Newsweek in the 2nd week of November 1989!

Easy trivia questions like "Who was the only President and Supreme Court Justice?" (Taft -- who supposedly much preferred being Chief Justice) is akin to being asked their multiplication tables.

There were areas in which I could compete -- often based sheerly on speed, or because I could better guess where the question was headed -- but I quickly realized I wasn't going to be a star.

Unless you've witnessed this yourself, it's hard to fathom.

Supreme Court rules for AmEx

The Supreme Court has affirmed lower court decisions that resulted in antitrust judgments against Visa and MasterCard. The decision clears the way for banks that issue Visa or MasterCard to also issue Discover and/or American Express.

Also, interesting facts from the article:

Visa has 323 million accounts, MasterCard has 264 million, Discover has 50 million, and American Express has 37.5 million, according to the companies.

Visa cards are 10 more times likely than AmEx. Huh.

Go Astros!

The 'stros now lead the NL wild card race. They've won 6 games in a row and 17 games in a row at home.

Since the Astros lead, if they lose tomorrow to close the regular season and the Giants win, then they will play a one game playoff in San Fran.

Roger Clemens pitches tomorrow for the Astros on only 3 days rest. Manager Phil Garner decided he wanted to give it his best shot, so he's putting Clemens on the mound.

Personally I'd rather give Clemens the day off and save him for a possible onegame playoff.

Merck

Is Merck a buy right now?

I almost bought Martha Stewart's corporation's stock when it was at its nadir. I was convinced it was a good deal, I just didn't get around to it. After all, the fundamentals of the business were still sound. Her supporters seemed to be rallying around her, unconcerned by the jail sentence. And the jail sentence was only going to be a short time anyway.

Apparently the stock price has since doubled.

I haven't researched Merck's situation yet and I haven't been paying attention to the story. But my initial guess is that the market has probably overreacted, and Merck is at a level worth buying.

Oil makes me nervous

I'm a strong believer that energy prices are a significant influence in economic growth. It makes me nervous to have oil over $50 a barrel. I think low energy prices was one of the most overlooked reasons the economy was so strong in the 90s.

I remember getting gas at 86 cents a gallon, and it's now about $1.90 nationally. That's a huge difference on a micro level, and given the multiplier effect it is no surprise that the economy has not been chugging along as swiftly as it might otherwise, particularly when taxes are cut.

ESPN is pulling an MTV

ESPN appears to be taking a page out of MTV's playbook.

MTV built a brand as an edgy, hip music video brand aimed at the 13-35 demographic. Then they dropped the music video, and just became an edgy, hip brand aimed at 13-35. MTV realized that they had built a brand using the music videos, but they could then leverage the brand into entertainment. Now MTV is almost entirely entertainment, with only lip service to music.

ESPN appears to be going in the same direction. They've ridden the poker wave with their World Series of Poker. Their WSOP shows have done extraordinarily well. They have Dream Job, which must've done well in the ratings, because they're starting several other sports-themed reality tv game shows.

No surprise there. More people will tune in to watch a show like Dream Job, with sports info and a plot then will want to watch a mid-July meaningless baseball game between the Expos and the Brewers.

I'm curious though -- no network has really taken over MTV's former niche of music videos. There are a few networks, but none has hit the same prominence. If ESPN continues to move towards entertainment and away from sports, will other networks fill the void? To some degree, there already are competitors (more so than music video networks) such as Comcast Sports or Fox Sports Network.

Cycles

Seems to me that everything in business runs in cycles.

Forbes is running a series on corporate integrity. About Microsoft they say:

One reason Microsoft gets an A for corporate governance is that Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates, unlike their employees, do not get stock awards.

This amuses me. I wrote previously about not believing the hype around companies, and used Campbells Soup as an example.

Campbells' Board of Directors was given awards for having the best board in America, and one of the reasons -- if I recall correctly -- was that they took the lead in compensating directors in stock options.

Now companies are giving awards for not giving stock options. Figures.

Expos to DC announcement tomorrow?

ESPN.com is reporting that MLB will announce that the Expos are moving to Washington, D.C. tomorrow.

Mayor Anthony Williams said, "I think we'll be in a position where we can have a celebration tomorrow."