Ep. 1421: Where we would like to make it a true Daily Double

-What's up everyone? It's Thursday February 6, 2014. This is the 404 Show coming to you from CNET, I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -Welcome to the program. We're back from a little temporary hiatus due to inclement weather. -It was bad. -It was bad. -It's the sheet of ice covering the whole city. -It's just the-- all of it. You couldn't go anywhere. -Yeah, except to the subway station. -Millions of people sliding all over the place, but we're back. What do we have to look forward to on the show today? -We got a lot of good stories in the show today and by lot I mean five decent stories. Now today is good. We're gonna be talking about Flappy Bird, which has been gaining popularity but we haven't actually talked about it on today on the show. -I'm into it. What else? -We're gonna be talking about that. We're gonna be talking about DMX versus George Zimmerman, huge eye rolls going on over there. -Yeah. -We're gonna talk about a man that hacked Jeopardy. -My man. -Or who is hacking Jeopardy now? -Right. -He's gaining a lot of money and just by employing one strategy on Jeopardy and he's killing it on the show. -Cool. -And then we'll talk about celebrities on Twitter. -Okay, I can handle that. All right. And then we have like some maybe an e-mail or two. We'll get to that at the end. -Yup. -Lead us off my man. What are we dealing with right now? -Well, I wanna talk about the Flappy Bird because the other day I get this text message from my friend Matt and he's like, "Have you played Flappy Bird? It's as addictive as Philip Seymour Hoffman's heroin stash and it's way too soon. [unk]. -What the freak kind of joke is that? -Right? I know. Just randomly through a text message. -Did you just do that? -I said it but I'm quoting-- -You said-- oh, you're quoting your-- -my friend. -insensitive a-hole friend. -who sent that to me. I can prove it to you. I swear I didn't say that. -I don't need to see the proof. I don't want you talking to him for six months. -That's messed up. -Dude, I've heard two-- who the hell on Twitter did the tasteless Philip Seymour Hoffman-- it's like Levar Burton. -Oh, the Reading Rainbow guy. -That is not Levar Burton. -Yeah, look it up. Look up with that asshole wrote. -Really? -Is it the Reading Rainbow dude? -Yeah, the freaking Reading Rainbow guy took a low blow. -Yeah. -That is not random. He is always so PC-- -And like buttery and like jolly. -Yeah. -And children probably read his Twitter feed for book recommendations. -Right? I think he wrote some-- look it up. I think he-- this is not a direct quote but I think this mad man-- -Uh-hmm. -said something like, hey, if you ever find me dead, be sure to pull the needle out of my arm or like put my pants on or something. -That's not even a joke. Okay, so here's what he wrote. "Damn, Philip Seymour Hoffman was so talented. However, if you all should find me dead with a needle in my arm in my underwear, please put my pants on." -Don't laugh. You know what the funniest part? The funniest part is that it's coming from Levar Burton. -Right, yeah. -And like Jim Norton or something. -Right. -Where you would like expect a joke like that. -Yeah. -Like, I don't know. Maybe like a comedian like Jim Norton, he's got that reputation where he could get away with that. But Levar Burton dude. The last I saw him he was like rescuing orphans from a fire. And now he's like taking pot shots-- -But don't take my word for it-- do heroin. -on Philip Seymour Hoffman. Dude, there's been nothing but like heroin talk lately. -Oh, man. And then he followed it up by justifying his tweet and he says, "Not cool shooting up when you got kids #areyoukiddingme." That's in response. -Obviously it's not cool but some people have serious problems. -We're gonna talk about addiction-- -We will. -with our buddy pretty soon. -Josh, yeah. -Do we have a date lockdown for that? -We don't have a date but actually I got some e-mails real quick before we hop into the story-- -Let's just air everybody's doing-- -about Flappy Bird. -Oh, that Flappy Bird. -Yeah-- no, no, no, I got an e-mail asking about Josh and his credentials and then Josh, by himself, actually wrote in it's like it's probably a good idea that you guys explain who the hell I am. He is a doctor of psychology. He is a psychologist. You will be getting advice from a real psychologist. He works at the Center for Motivation and Change. -Uh-hmm. -And they use evidence-based treatments to help people build their own motivation to change their unhealthy habits and whatnot. So you are getting like real expert advice from a real psychologist. -Right. -So that-- we just wanna throw that out there. We'll circle back with that at the end of the show, you know, obviously talking about heroin. But heroin's been every-- not like physically been everywhere lately. -Heroin so hot right now. -But it's like very, it's a very hot button issue. Obviously, the Philip Seymour Hoffman thing, you know, helped that a little bit. But I heard someone told me that my high school has like a heroin like issue going on right now. -Really? -And they're not shooting it. They're snorting it. -Oh, it's like an oxycodone type thing. -It's like once you like detach like that sort of, you know, squeezy on very like unglamorous needle thing. -Right. -It makes it more of like a designer thing in the-- I don't know. It's upsetting. -We'll talk more to Josh when he gets here s a guest. -How about this-- what is Flappy Birds have to do with heroin? -Let's-- let's talk more about Flappy Bird because-- -Yeah. -game addiction is actually a real thing and we'll talk to him about that too. -It's serious. -It's not just drug addictions that we're gonna be speaking to him about. -For sure. -But Flappy Bird is getting really, really popular. I don't wanna, sorta down play addiction but we gotta move on. It's not the first person that talked to me about this, my buddy with the tasteless joke. So many people are playing it that it's racked up $50,000 a day in end-game advertisement hits. Do you guys know what Flappy Bird is? I would sort of unfamiliar with it. -Yeah. -Until I finally and reluctantly downloaded and play the other day. -And you-- okay, well I wanna hear if you liked it. I haven't played yet. I am familiar with it. I learned about it only last week though. -Yeah. So, I got-- I'm gonna play a video while I'm talking about it for people that are watching the podcast. But for audio listeners, here's how it works. You basically have this tiny pixilated bird and it's an environment that sort of looks a lot like the original Mario Bros. -I was just gonna say, Nintendo's gonna sue somebody. -Yeah, you've got, you know, that sky blue background. You've got these like bulbs of clouds and bushes and things but, you know, the biggest compares that you can make between the two are these green tubes, these pipes. -Pipes. The pipes that are like-- -The pipes that are coming down vertically from the other side of the screen. -Ripped right out of Mario Bros. -Completely. And so the goal of the game is really simple. You basically try to control this little flappy guy by tapping the screen. And each time you tap, flappy bird jumps up a little bit. And the goal is to encounter these pipes along the way and you navigate in between them. -So you can't hit one is that the thing? -And you-- the rule is yeah, you can't touch any of the pipes. And once you do that, you're dead. One life, one shot kill. And that's it. -And that's it. -That is all. That's the whole point of the game and we're continuing to watch the video. This is two minutes is on playing it. And it looks sort of easy because this guy is good. But download the game once and I guarantee you, it'll take at least 10 tries for you to get through just the few of these pipes. -So I have a question. Is it randomly generated or is each level the same-- like when you die, it's the same level or is it generated random-- -Think that there are-- they're definitely levels. There's a goal in the game but-- -You know-- right. But I'm asking like, okay, you play through it, you die. -Yeah. -Are the pipes in the same location the next time-- -I think so. Yeah, because they start getting tighter and tighter as your levels increased. -Okay. -So that's it. It was developed by this kid Dong Nguyen which, by the way, I think it's really funny that just the reading all these articles. They were describing as Vietnamese game programmer Dong Nguyen, which is true I think the kid is Vietnamese. But I think-- -But if he's American, they wouldn't say-- -Yeah, they wouldn't be like white guy programmer Jeff Bakalar-- it's weird even CNET does this. -I don't know why-- why do we do that? -He's not Vietnam. He's a Vietnamese-American kid and he's just-- oh, by the way he's a Vietnamese. -Oh, he's not even in Vietnam. -Yeah, he's not even in Vietnam. -That's strange. Why do we need to call attention to that? -Very weird. I don't know. -Shockingly short program developer. -Yeah. -Like what? It's weird, right? -Yeah, it's really hungry too but we don't say that. -What the freak is that? -I don't know. Well, anyways, there's a lot of speculation about why this game is gone so popular $50,000 a day from in-app ads. You know, some people say that just the reason is because it's really difficult. You know, in a world where Angry Birds and what's it called? What are the other popular games? Cut The Rope-- -Cut The Rope. -Yeah. Cut The Rope. -Cut The Rope is good dude. -Is it good? -Yeah. -Or Jetpack. -Jetpack Joyride is essentially of this game. -It's the same game, yeah. -It's just with like the tapping to move, you know, sort of thing. Jetpack Joyride is randomly generated, that's why I think it's really popular. -Right. But, you know, in a world where those games sort of offer you cheats or like, you can like buy extra lives. They're posting, you know, links on Facebook or things like that. This game doesn't let you do any of that. It's really straight forward but it's also really, really hard, which I think appeals to people because the game looks so simple and it sort of an insult to your skill level if you allow yourself to get beaten by a game that appears at least visibly to be as such a basic game. -I guess. I don't know. Perhaps-- -It's a weird contradiction. -It's weird reading too deep into it. I don't know. I've never played. I'm gonna try that out today. -Well, look. Check it out. I mean like, this is it. Like would you spend several hours playing this game? How do you explain the popularity of it? -No. I don't-- I can't. You know, it's just one of those things like I don't know why Candy Crush Saga is so freaking popular either. That game sucks. -I mean, Candy Crush is even more complicated than this though. I mean there's doughnut that you have to break. It's a strategy game. -Yeah. -This really isn't strategy. It's just-- -I just think it's people-- -pressing your screen. -it's just super accessible. People, you don't need to do anything. It's free also, right? -It's free, yeah. -So that's what it is man. That's why it's so popular. It's the flavor of the month. It'll be gone in three months. -But not before this guy becomes a multi-billionaire. -I don't know if he's making multiple billions of dollars. -We'll see. I don't know. He' making-- -He's making 50 grand a day. It's all right. -It's been on since May 2013. -Right. -Dude, that man-- that's a lot of money. -It's only recently it become so popular. -Yeah. -See, that's what I wanna know. I get like, you know, how games once they're popular they stay popular for a limited amount of time. I wanna know like what circumstances conspired-- -Yeah. -where like the game that's almost a year old all of a sudden blows up. That's what I would like to know. -Yeah, like is there like a leader board or it's just the games. -Yeah, like what happen. -How do you promote the game to be popular-- I have no idea. -How's that happened? -I think something that makes this game really unique just by watching the screen right now, it's kinda mesmerizing. The fact that you can't even look away for a half second. You know, like you can't pause the game, which I think is really unique. See like this guy just failed but that's a high score for him. -I don't know if I'm gonna play this and I'm gonna just, you know. -You can't even raise your head for two seconds. You have to be completely immersed in it. It commands 100 percent of your attention, maybe that's the secret sauce. -I don't know. I don't know. -Among the 20-star-- 25-star-- I'm sorry. Over 205 stars reviews on the app store like people are-- they're kinda funny about their reviews in that they love it but they also hate it at the same time because it basically consumes their existence, right? -Right. -So, some of the headers for the reviews just off of the few that I looked at was the Death of me, the apocalypse, save yourselves, life-destroying and hello darkness my old friend. Kinda like that one. -I like that. -So try it, maybe. -I'm gonna try it. I'll try it. I'll try it and maybe we'll report back tomorrow. -Do you think that someone like you who is obviously well-skilled at console video games who is good at something like this? Do you think you're more adaptive and trained in doing it? -No, not necessarily. -Or maybe better than the average person? -No, I think-- I think that's the beauty of it is that anyone can play a super accessible. -Yeah. -Just anyone with the finger can play this game. -Yeah, right. -So that probably at least into its popularity for sure. -Yeah. -All right, let's move along, time for some really upsetting stuff to talk about. -Yeah. -And get through with this quick as we can. -Oh, man. I want that key in sound board where we can go, "This here is real." 'Cause this is basically a story that it sounds like it's like a South Park episode. -Yeah. -But it's really not. -Well, like you said it's basically the, you know, the idiocracy happening right before our very eyes. -Right, a hundred percent. So, this TMZ article is ridiculous and I'll lead with the headline that the TMZ wrote, "I'll piss on George Zimmerman's face." Just take a second to think about that. This is a quote from DMX, who has challenged George Zimmerman to a celebrity boxing match. -It's not a-- it's just a boxing match. -So, yeah-- -It's not a celebrity boxing match. -We should not say that-- well, it's officially a part of the celebrity boxing match series but, of course George Zimmerman nowhere near a celebrity status. -No. And, I mean, DMX maybe like 15 years ago-- is he like still popular? -DMX? -Yeah. -He got popular from reading like Rudolph the red-nose reindeer and not going about the internet. -And not going about the internet. He is famous for not knowing the internet. -Yeah. He couldn't type and he was frustrated by periods and things like that-- so George Zimmerman, you know, not to remind everybody who that is. -Right, you know. -He recently signed up for a celebrity boxing match, where people would pay-- 'cause, you know, the celebrity boxing match is I believe are only on pay-per-view. -I don't Know [unk] dude. -And online subscription. -Yeah. -So anyway, you know, if you sign up and pay to view this match, you know, portion of your money will be donated to charity and the rest will go to the people who organized the match-- and George Zimmerman, I'm sure. -Yeah, he's still-- -So, if you want to support a murdered, go ahead and buy in to this thing-- -Why is this a thing dude? -It's crazy. I can't believe it. So he agreed to do it. I have no idea why. I figured a guy like this would be really thankful to get out of the public. -Like if I'm him he is just tempting fate here, dude. -Yeah. -What the hell do you think is gonna happen the more you put yourself out there like that? -I know. -Things-- this thing is not gonna end well for you George. -Well, apparently even before this incident happened, he had been boxing and he sort of an MMA enthusiast. So he signed himself up for this and then ask people to submit themselves if they wanted to be his opponent. So, I'm sure that number is rising as we record this podcast. -You know. -But so far 15,000 people have already signed up to try to kick George Zimmerman's ass. -Right. -Plenty of which are rappers, strangely enough. The game has put his-- -Head into the ring. -Yeah, yeah. DMX has also been really vocal about wanting to do this, sort of on the charge that he'll be doing it for quote, "Every black person who has ever been done wrong in the system." He says, "I'm gonna pretty much break every rule in boxing', which is not the right thing to say before a boxing match. -Yes, yeah. -And he's gonna do it for Treyvon Martin's family. -So, all right. So obviously like the big thing here is not-- I think it's more like, wow, this is really what it's come down to. And I think like the fact that we're even entertaining this. In fact, we have been covering this is upsetting me right now as we talked about it. -Yeah. -But it's like, what's the hell is going on with those like-- -I wanna talk about it because I know that some people will probably think this is funny or think-- or maybe even paid to watch something like this. Yeah, I guess, you know, I don't think the 404 is responsible for breaking news like-- -No of course not. -everybody knows about this happening. So it's just more of a discussion topic. But I wanna hear from, you know, the Martin family. I want them to come out and be like, "We do not support this. Don't make this any worst for us than it already has been." -I can imagine them being like fully behind it, right? -Yeah. -For me, and-- you know, if you wanna like separate that whole side of it for a second-- don't you think it just says a lot about us as a society? -Yeah, that we're regressing into a gladiator culture basically. -I just-- I don't-- like, I don't know. When I first about this and the fact that it actually might come to fruition. -Yeah. -It like some sugar down my spine. It really made me think like we're never getting out of this insane culture that we've somehow devolved into. -Right, right. -Like we are out of or freaking minds. -Yeah. That's true. And for someone who potentially is racist and watching this they probably clapping their hands. It is exactly what they wanted. This is basically what I read on Reddit. It was a-- one person was like, "This is a racist fan-fiction basically coming to life." Which is true, right? I mean-- -Kinda is. It's almost like a, it's like a Tarantino fantasy. -Yeah, right. And DMX is making this about racism. I don't wanna get too deep into this but it's not necessarily a racial issue. This is one man who is not even part of the system that DMX is speaking out against. He's not a cop. He's not part of the government. -Right, exactly. -He's not even white, which is what I believe DMX is trying to strike out against. -Yeah. -And he's doing it in a completely backward fashion. This is a Hispanic man who kind of looks white and I think that's probably why DMX sort of feel this way. But he shouldn't make it about race because that allows racist people to look at this with glee. And this is exactly what they want. -Right. And to exploit it for what it's not. -Right. -It's a bad news man. -Yeah. I really hope that this not happen. -So where are we at? Like is it like who's responsible? How can this be legal? -Yeah. -How can this be okay? -Well, it's okay-- -Doesn't have to go through like one person who can make an educated decision against allowing this? -There's nobody educated involved. That's probably part of the problem. -Really? -Something that should be noted though as part of the story. It sort of under publicized is that the fight is being promoted by this guy Damon Feldman, right? And I wish we could pull-- let me pull a photo of this guy. -Okay. -So Damon Feldman organizes a lot of celebrity boxing matches like he organized the Casey Anthony match. I forget who he fought. -She fought somebody? -Yeah, yeah. -Where-- like where is this happening? I didn't hear that. -No? -No, I didn't hear that. -There's-- there's even plenty of these before-- -Is it like on pay-per-view or something? -Yeah. These are on pay-per-view. It's almost like a television series at this point. -This is pretty much the closest to like, you know, snuff films that we have. -Yeah. But it should be noted that this guy Damon Feldman has been charged with fixing celebrity boxing matches. And I wanna read a quote from him. "I classified myself as the WWE of boxing. The bottom line is I give famous people the chance to step in the ring. They're not gonna kill each other. It's 100 percent entertainment." -Okay, so he's coming on same as it's like-- -Fine for fixing it. -Right, well-- -So these are fake. -Well, 'cause people bid on it. -Right. People bid on it and they paid to watch it, a huge amount of that money is going in to this Damon Feldman guys' pocket. So keep that in mind. This isn't gonna be no holds backward. It's not gonna be no holds barred, you know, backyard brawl fighting. This is gonna be a fixed. This is basically a video game or a movie. So, don't-- -I just can't believe ever someone is allowing that to happen. -buy into it. -All right. Well, that's what it is. This is the PSA. -Yeah. -This is PSA 'til not support or anything that gives people like that more attention they deserve. -Right. -This is a PSA, that's how we're gonna spin it. -That is true. -All right. Let's not talk about that ever again. And I wanna talk-- I would switch gears about this Jeopardy dude who is like making headlines left and right. -Yeah, my dude. -He is pissing Jeopardy purists off. -Yeah. -His name is Arthur Chu. And he is currently "hacking Jeopardy". Well, what is that mean? What the hell is hacking Jeopardy mean? First off, obviously everyone knows what the hell Jeopardy is. -Right. -Do you watch Jeopardy a lot? -Yeah. -Or are you a Jeopardy fan? -I watch it when it's on for sure. -It's a classic game show, quiz show. What Mr. Chu is doing, and he's not the first to do it. Someone did it like 30 years ago, also. -Right. -It's a very unorthodox way of playing the game. But just like most smart people, when he found out he was getting the call to be on Jeopardy. He's like, all right, I need a plan. I need a formula. I need a strategy. -Yeah. -And he's been making uses something called the forest bounce, which is actually named after the first guy to start doing this. -Uh-hmm. -Basically, what he does is he puts Jeopardy on its head. When you watch Jeopardy, normally contestants just go right down the column of each category and just wipe it out. -So they'll start with the $200 and they go for-- -Right, and go two, four, six, eight, 2000 in the first round and so on and so forth. -But they'll always stick to the same-- -What this guy does-- usually they stick to the same category. I feel like sometimes, you know, maybe someone would be like, "Oh, you know, I'm cold now. I'm gonna switch to categories." -Right. -What this guy does is the first thing he's really looking for is the Daily Doubles. He's trying to weed those out to take them away from the other contestants. -Or win them himself 'cause a lot of the people that win Jeopardy do it because they bet their entire amounts on Double Jeopardy. -Right, right. And he recognizes and you have to recognize when you look and study Jeopardy as a whole and their sites dedicated to archiving almost every question and answer, every sort of like strategy played. -Uh-hmm. -Basically found out that the Double Jeopardy or the-- what the Daily Double is really like that one sort of thing that can turn the whole game around. -Right. -And if you own that for yourself or at the same time prevent other people from finding it. -Uh-hmm. -You essentially control your fate within the game. -And those archive have also sort of to dos that those Daily Doubles, most of the time not all the time but a majority of it, those are usually found in the bottom two rows-- -Right. -which are the highest value. -Right, exactly. So he just goes right for those first and tries to jump around. He also claims it like, you know, jumping from category to category just disorienting other people and-- -I like that. -it's all designed to confuse and sort of misdirect everyone, which I think is brilliant. It's total sense. -Yes, it's total sense. And he says that if you're the one, obviously, this is sort of under handed throw. But if you're the one that's selecting the categories and you have that two seconds to sort of like, you know-- -I know where I'm going. -Right, right. Where everyone else is like, "what's happening? There's too many subjects to think about." -It's kinda brilliant he's been talking to news outlets, people are like harassing him on Twitter. -Yeah. -They think what he's doing is blasphemous to the sanctity of the sport of the game, if you will. -Pressing the button. -It's crazy. He's allowed to do whatever the hell he wants-- -Yeah. -within the rules of the game. And what's really interesting is the way he attacks final Jeopardy as well. So he's using a strategy that basically gives him 66 percent of a chance to move on, right? -Uh-hmm. -So he either-- and so in the one-- and so 2/3 of the time using the strategy he uses he will move on. -So Jeopardy is a round-based game. -Right. -Like each game is one round. I think it's-- how many does it culminate in to? Until you win the entire grand game. -Three? -I think it's three, right? -I don't understand-- -It's like each episode of Jeopardy is one round and then you move on to the next one until you reach. -I think you just come back. -Yeah. -You're just like a returning champion but until you get booted off. -Yeah, is it five? -No. You can't-- like Ken Jennings went like 100 episodes. -Oh, really you could keep going? -Yeah. -Wow. Okay. -He's gonna keep going until he loses. So using the strategy, he has figured out a way where two out of three possible scenarios in final Jeopardy, he can move on. So he can move on if he gets the question right and everyone else gets it wrong, obviously, you have a better, you know, in that situation you're good to go. -Right. -If they both get it wrong-- -Uh-huh. -or if they both get it right. -Right. -He won't win obviously if he gets it wrong and someone else gets it right. -That's the gamble. -That's the gamble. -But it sort of interesting 'cause whereas most people will bet to win. He bets to tie-- -To tie. -which is cool. -'Cause if you tie someone-- -The worst case scenario. -they both go on. -Right, right. -Right. -With the worst case scenario still being that you lose if you got it-- get it wrong the other person gets right. -Right. -So I think that what's really cool is that he's not only smart enough to win the game by his own answers but also smart enough to strategize and win that way as well. -And then there's an example, I'm gonna link to this story in the show. There's an example where he uses the final Jeopardy strategy. He winds up getting it right and wins anyway. But you can see that he uses like an unconventional wager-- -Right. -in the final Jeopardy round. I think this is really cool. I like it. I like a guy, you know, sort of turning the system on its head a little bit. Alex Trebek up there. His head spinning. He doesn't know what to do with the kid. -Right. -It's awesome. -One thing I really like about him and just through watching a few of these episodes just on TV is that, Arthur is smart but he's not-- he's not a genius. -Right. -And I think what's really cool is that he knows when to sort of step down and wager his bets appropriately. Again, one episode he had-- he hit a Daily Double and the Daily Double category was Sports Hall of Fame. -Uh-hmm. -And he came out to Alex right before he made the wager. It's like, "look, I'm not a big sports fan. I'm gonna wage your $5." -Do it. -You know, and that was smart because not only is he doing what we said before, taking that double Jeopardy away from somebody else. He knew that he wasn't gonna get it and he didn't. He didn't even have a guess. -Right. -His answer is I don't know. -Right. -And you know what? It didn't matter because he only had wage it $5 and that's a smart thing to do. -Wait-- it's a super smart thing because the biggest problem with Jeopardy is that you get this people who like, they get into a little bit of a hole and they think they have to make up for lost time and money. -Right. -So they just start buzzing in it and everything. The second you buzz in, you've bet money. -Uh-hmm. -The second you buzz in you bet $800 that you're gonna know the answer. -Right. -If you don't, you'll lose that money. So the fact that he is able to turn and to having to answer a question into a much smaller loss is a huge advantage. -Right. -Huge advantage. And he's also taking away that sports question that possibility to have someone double their money away from the guy or girl next to him that maybe might be a huge sports-- -Right, right. You know what I'd like to see is, I wanna see a graph of how much players have won, you know, just in terms of that correlated with the amount of internet that has taken off in like say the past two decades. And I wanna compare those two to see if the amount has gone up since people have that exposure to the internet, because this guy Arthur Chu, he went and did an interview with Mental Flaws. And Mental Flaws asked him about his preparation tactics and he said the first thing he did was go online. -Right. -Which is where he found out about that strategy to bounce around. But he said he also went on YouTube and watch a bunch of old Jeopardy episodes, which is unique because even ten years ago, there was no way for you to do that because there's never been a way to legally watch Jeopardy episodes online. They don't stream it. There's no archive, you know, if you wanna do it illegally by someone filming their screen, you can watch it that way. -Right. -But there's no sanction to it. -Gotcha. -And then of course, what you mentioned earlier is the archive fan websites, that give you access to every single question, I think that stuff is really interesting too. So, without the internet's help, I mean the web is sort of like a de facto partner for him in like making flash cards and knowing about the game. -Yeah. It's pretty awesome. -Yeah. -So good for you Arthur. -I hope he keeps going. -I don't if he still, you know, I guess he won last night too. -Yeah. -It's going on right now, right? -Yeah. -He did win last night. -Yeah, he's continuing. -So tonight he plays again. -Yup. -Go check it out and watch it. -Jeopardy loves this by the way. -Man, did you know-- -The ratings are like off the hook. -But it's funny because the race is off the hook not because fans like him. I think it's more fans hate him. -Oh, yeah, people wanna see like, I wanna see the cheater. -Right. -I wanna see him cheat. -But he's not cheating. -Of course not. -He's doing exactly, you know, his well within the rules of the game. -Yeah, he's just been labeled that. And the craziest part is that he's not the first guy to do this. -Yeah, right. -He's just the only one that's come out in his Twitter page and talked about it. -And like the first one to do it in like the internet age. -Right, right. -I guess, which is upsetting people. -Yeah. -I mean it's way easier to be upset now than it was 50 years ago I think just because of the internet. -Arthur also in this interview, I thought was really interesting, he talks about buzzing strategy and practicing for the buzzer. -Yeah. -Because that's a huge part of it. -It is. -You could win or lose the game based on how quick you are at pressing that buzzer. -It's on physical element. Yeah. -Apparently, you have to wait until Alex finishes the question before you can hit the button. -Uh-hmm. -If you don't, you're penalize 2/5 of a second after he has finished it. -Oh, is that really a thing? -Yeah. I didn't know that either until reading this. And so, you know, you can't answer for 2/5 of a second which makes a big difference. Doesn't sound like a lot but people really are good at sort of occupying that space between right after you finishes. -Yeah. -And, you know, you have to sort of time it exactly in anticipation of how fast he's reading the question. -It's funny. Ever watched episodes where, like there's always some like, some person who like acts like their buzzer is broken. -Yeah. -Like they're like going so fast on the buzzer. They're like, "What the hell?" Like looking at the producer of the show and they're like, no dude. That's what it is, 2/5 of the second. -Uh-hmm. -They're too triggered happy. -Yeah, they got greedy. -Oh, man. Keep it in your pants. -Yeah, my dude Arthur Chu right here. -Yeah, no. He's-- it's crazy. He's getting so much press right now. -Yeah, and he smug about it too. I love that. -He's not saying no to anyone either. He's really just putting it all out there. There he is. We salute you Mr. Chu. -Let's get him on usher, if he'll do anything. -I guess. All right. Finally, let's finish it up with a little conversation about the celebrity that chooses not to go on Twitter. There's a few of these people still around. George Clooney during his recent promotion of the Monuments Men, which comes out Friday I think. He is very vocal about not being on Twitter and very proud of it as well. He said, "I will never be on Twitter. I will never join Twitter. It sounds like a horrible idea. I don't wanna do it." He says he likes to drink at night and he's afraid that if he drinks and he's allowed a smartphone, he'll somehow spew out a 140 characters of something that will get him casted in a negative light. -Yeah. -What do you think about some celebrities choosing not to go on Twitter? -That's fine. -That's fine. -I think like, you know, tweeting stuff can be therapeutic but it doesn't have to register at George Clooney to do so. He could just be anonymous Twitter if he wants. I don't really care what George Clooney has to say anyways, so-- -You don't? -that's not really-- -You don't care what he says at all. -I mean I like the guy in his movies so I cared about him to that extent. -Right. -But I wouldn't follow him if he joins Twitter -So there's a bunch of like big, big time celebrities that aren't on Twitter. -Yeah. -And I think it's kinda refreshing. -The one that comes to mind that I would probably follow but he-- I know he refuses to is Jerry Seinfeld. -No. I think he is on Twitter. -Is he? -I think he is. -'Cause he makes fun of Twitter a lot about people that are on Twitter. But I don't know if he's actually on it. -I wanna say he is. There is an @JerrySeinfeld and it is-- -It is verified? -it is verified. -Does he tweet on it? -His last tweet was February 3rd. -Did he say funny things? -Not-- I don't know, maybe. I don't think I follow him. -Yeah, I guess he doesn't do that much. -But he is on Twitter. -'Cause I watched an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Tina Fey. -Uh-hmm. -And they're sort of riffing on Twitter a little bit and she talks about how she wants to be in charge of handing out Twitter licenses and how she wants to be that person who takes care of it and people were just submit like 10 samples of what they'd wanna talk about on Twitter and then she would then decide that everybody else needs to hear it. So that was funny. So I guess Tina Fey is on it. Maybe Jerry Seinfeld is. -I think the thing what these all leads to is like, you know, obviously, Twitter is fantastic and awful at the same time, right? It has changed the world for sure. -But people are fantastic and awful. And I think that's why Twitter is sort of like the same thing. -Exactly, you know, absolutely. So if, you know, you sort of just kinda like look at it. I mean, I'm trying to think that you bring up a good question. Who is like the one celebrity that you kinda wish was on there. -Yeah. -I feel like Brad Pitt is not on there. I fell like Matt Damon is not on there, a lot of his cronies. -Yeah. Do you follow any celebrities on Twitter? -I follow a few, sure. -I do not. I follow a lot of them on Instagram but-- -So you just wanna see what they're looking at. -Yeah. -Not what they're saying. You know who was really funny on Twitter? Jason Biggs. -What? -I know. It's weird. But he's super funny on Twitter. -Really? -You'd never expect it 'cause I don't what he's doing. He just sort of like living off American Pie money or-- he's on movies every now and then. -Yeah. -But he happens to be very funny. -Okay. Is it just Jason Biggs? -It's like the one endorsement I'll give for the day. -It's so random. -Right, it's super random. But he's good. I don't know what it is. He just like makes it work. -Yeah. -Yeah. He's just like a kinda like look forward to hearing what he has to say. -'Cause that's the only thing he's doing. -I wish I would felt that way about me. -Yeah. -What about you? -Who is my favorite celebrity Twitter page? -Like who's someone, you know, yeah. Like someone you wish was on there. -Oh, I don't know about wishing but my favorite celebrity Twitter is definitely Rick Ross. -Yeah. -Do you follow him on Twitter Ariel? -No. I don't barely follow anyone on Twitter. -He's so good just because I like to live vicariously through him. He's constantly posting like jewelry photos. -Nice. -So you just wanna be able to eat more is that your thing? -Yeah, I'm hungry. -I feel like he does have a lot of food posts. -Yeah, for sure. -I think I'll follow him. That's fun. All right. So, again, we're collecting questions for our psychologist guest who's gonna be coming probably at the end of the month. His name is Josh. We're gonna call him Doctor Josh. It's all about addiction. He's an addiction specialist. So if you have a question could be personal, could be anonymous, could be someone you know, whatever it is. We wanna help, help you. And don't be afraid. We've already gotten dozens of questions in. Don't be afraid, okay? We can keep it anonymous but we do wanna help you. Everyone always, you know, chimes in when we have sleep doctor on. So now we're gonna offer some more help. That's the kind of service we're providing. -Uh-hmm. -We're a one-stop shop for human health, all right? -And if you want some drugs I'm sure Doctor Josh will prescribe some as well. -Yeah. I don't know if he's gonna like just write up a slip over the internet. -He just gives us a pad and he just like-- -Yeah, he's like, "here's 50 blank sheets, go nuts. Enjoy" Anyway, make sure you write to 404@cnet.com and just put addiction in the headline and that's how we'll get the question to Josh when he comes in towards the end of this month. That's gonna do it for us today. Thank you so much for tuning in. You can e-mail us to 404@cnet.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all that stuff. Tomorrow we'll finish up the week and until then, we'll see you. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nuñez. -This is been The 404 Show, high tech, low brow. We'll see you tomorrow.