Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions: 2022! πŸ˜Š

The race is on to find Jeopardy! champion for 2022! πŸ‘
The Tournament of Champions started on Monday this week, hosted by Ken Jennings. It’s a multiple-week event featuring some of the biggest winners from the previous season. This year the excitement level is even higher as the tournament features many super-champs. Three of them (Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach) with 20+ wins in the regular season got a first-round bye in a nod to their impressive run earlier πŸ‘Œ. The first week couldn’t have had a better ending with Friday winner hitting Daily Double! in Double Jeopardy! round back-to-back, betting it all both times and getting it right! πŸ‘ The first time his score doubled from 5,800 to 11,600. When his next clue selection also happened to be a Daily Double and he announced his intent to make it again a “true daily double” the shock was evident in Ken’s face. By the time I collected my jaw that had dropped to the floor on hearing “true daily double” wager πŸ˜‚ the contestant, Eric Ahasic, got the response right and his score jumped to 23,200! It’s always fun to see contestants bet big, get it right and win big! It’s a tribute to the quality of other two contestants that the game did not turn out to be a runway for the champ before Final Jeopardy! round. πŸ‘
This year’s tournament may very well be historic in that it features a non-binary person, a transgender, a lesbian, a turbaned Sikh. Fun to see diversity when it results from inclusiveness instead of being in-your-face. πŸ‘ Kudos to Ken Jennings for doing good as host. πŸ‘ When he immediately followed as host after the legendary Alex Trebek he appeared stilted and a little awkward and Mayim Bialik appeared more at ease as the host. Some of it may have been due to emotions as he was close to Alex, some of it nerves stepping into the shoes of a legend and rest of it for trying to stick to the Alex way of hosting too much. In contrast Mayim appeared to be more at comfort in front of the camera. At this time Ken is better as host of the show than Mayim IMHO. What has changed? While Mayim appears to be solid professional Ken brings passion to the job. Whether consciously or through feedback from others Ken has been more Ken and less wannabe-Alex! That passion combined with other p’s (product, participants, presentation) combine for a great watch. πŸ‘ When Ken praises a contestant for responding correctly to a difficult clue it appears genuine. Staying true to himself also means he brings in his own sense of humor. Of course, sometimes it may land well, sometimes it may not (I should know that from personal experience 🀣). Also, some attributes that could have been a disadvantage actually turns out to be a blessing. Ken speaks fast which means when he is hosting all clues are covered in a game pretty much always! I am all for no clues left uncovered in a game and maximizing winning for the contestants. Hopefully the rest of the tournament is thrilling too that the participation of super-champs promises, with a memorable ending for the tournament. Can’t wait to see what is in store! πŸ˜ŠπŸ™

WhatsApp: Delete for Everyone πŸ˜§

WhatsApp introduced a ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature few years ago which allowed a person who posted a message to delete it. That feature is useful as it allows the person who posted the message to delete it if it’s posted in the wrong group or if it was meant for one or few members of the group and not for the entire group. Few months ago it appears WhatsApp extended ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature for WhatsApp Group Admins too (I discovered the feature by accident as I had been added as an Admin to a group which I either was not aware of or had forgotten). The feature in itself is not a bad thing. However, the way it’s been implemented is problematic IMHO.πŸ‘ŽWhy do I think so? There are multiple reasons
1) ‘Delete for Everyone’ is the first option when you choose to delete. I don’t know about others but I prefer to delete bigger files like audio, video clips after I am done hearing/viewing to clear space in my phone if I don’t feel the need to retain those files for future use. Would have preferred ‘Delete for Me’ as the first delete option instead
2) If ‘Delete for Everyone’ is chosen the deletion is done silently without confirmation or allowing the Admin to enter text for explanation. 😠 So, there is neither an option to confirm or cancel if ‘Delete for Everyone’ is chosen by mistake nor is there an option to enter text for deletion reason if intent is indeed to delete for everyone
3) To make matters worse it seems all other members of the group get notification that a group Admin has deleted a message while the person who deleted the message is left none the wiser if deletion was done my mistake. 😑This is a recipe for sowing discord or discontent in groups. I can imagine either getting angry reaction from other group members or getting a “silent snub” if a group Admin deletes a post by mistake. πŸ€”
To me it appears the same code that was developed to allow a person to delete his/her own post has been reused without much thought that the context is different if a different person deletes it for entire group πŸ‘Ž
Bottom line: When organizations try to METAmorph to either gain an early mover advantage or to stay relevant they sometimes spread their resources thin and end up not paying attention to detail πŸ™

Favorite bedtime story! πŸ˜Š

When my son was very young, he liked to hear bedtime stories. Wife generally read books or narrated stories. Sometimes the responsibility fell on me. I was too lazy to read and with my limited recollection of full tales my well of stories dried up pretty soon. ☹️ Only options seemed to be to either read a book or try to recollect full stories from my past reading. That would have made for too much effort for me but then I found a simple solution: Tell him his own story! Son warmed up to the idea quickly. πŸ‘
The basic structure of the story always remained the same!
Start with his birth and incorporate different activities into the tale. Activities could include things like reading, writing, math, biking, swimming, sports, music etc. In the tale, in every activity, when he started, he would suck and over time he would get really good at it. In some instances, he would even do well enough to get a prize! πŸ‘To test if he was sleepy, before every activity, I would ask how he did when he started. If he was not sleepy or sleeping yet he would enthusiastically reply “He sucked!”. πŸ˜‚ If I did not get a response it was cue for me to end the storytelling πŸ˜ƒ
The beauty of any solution lies in its simplicity and in this tale, I could add, modify or change elements based on whatever new activities he was currently engaged in or had recently taken part in. After a while whenever he said “Dad, tell me a story!” both of us knew what he wanted to hear πŸ˜‰
My reasoning as to why it always worked
1) It had a ring of familiarity to it πŸ‘
2) It always had a happy ending πŸ₯°
3) Kids (and many grown ups) like to hear their own praise from others! πŸ˜…

Weekend humor: Lane departure warning! πŸ˜‰

It would be nice if human beings had built-in lane departure sensors. Would be even better if the sensors came equipped with steering assist! Imagine a scenario involving a politician spouting off like an expert scientist and the lane departure sensor gets triggered. He/She gets warned by the sensor to stay in their lane to avoid collision with knowledgeable experts. If he/she keeps talking after the warning steering assist should get activated in the form of mild electric shock, with increasing intensity every 30 seconds the warning is ignored, to make it more fun. πŸ˜‚
Lane departure warning would work effectively with other folks like entertainers, businessmen, sportsperson and people from many other professions too to prevent them straying from their lane of expertise! The benefits are endless, what say? 😊
Hey, I am a dreamer πŸ˜ƒπŸ™