BGonline.org Forums

120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon

Posted By: Jake Jacobs
Date: Monday, 7 June 2010, at 2:43 a.m.

In Response To: 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon (Stick)

Hi Stick:

I too have smelled a rat with Trammet. I am sure he is a very bright guy, but the puffery has been extraordinary. The 60 Minutes piece had Morley Safer lobbing slow, easy pitches across the plate: "17 times 17 times 17 times 17?" They cut away when he was handed a 20-digit number to memorize, so it made it look like it was instantaneous, but it might have been who knows how long? (Given one minute I used to memorize and recite 30-digit numbers backwards, while drunk, to impress bar girls. One night at Nancy's Thai Bar in Ningbo, China, Nancy and two of her girls did 20 digits, which impressed me!) The same week he was reciting 22,000 digits of pi someone else had just done 100,000.

The learning Icelandic in a week was interesting, but even there I have many questions. Based on the clip I think I might be able to fake it after a week, enough to answer the questions they showed him answering. Sample question: "Was learning Icelandic hard?" Nearly verbatim response by DT: "Yes, but it was very interesting. Iceland is very beautiful and it is great to be here." Keep in mind that if they throw him a few curveballs, e.g. "How would you describe Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Icelandic, and do you think their skill sets would translate to Iceland's political scene?" and he began hemming and hawing, they would have no show. "Talking Dog!" is a headline story. "Dog Doesn't Talk" is not.

Best,

Jake

PS I saw a clip the other day rehashing the old material as though it was brand new. They added cartoon graphics to show how DT's "acrobatic brain" caused projections of equations to dance around his head like the cheesy effects in Little Man Tate.

Messages In This Thread

• World Record?
  Stick -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 12:18 p.m.
  • World Record?
    Leonardo Jerkovic -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 12:40 p.m.
  • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
    Paul Weaver -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 1:55 p.m.
    • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
      Casper van der Tak -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 2:11 p.m.
      • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
        6stones -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 3:37 p.m.
        • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
          Casper van der Tak -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 3:47 p.m.
          • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
            Timothy Chow -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 6:59 p.m.
            • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
              Stick -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 7:02 p.m.
              • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
                Rich Munitz -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 7:13 p.m.
              • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
                Matt Cohn-Geier -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 7:38 p.m.
                • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
                  Daniel Murphy -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 8:14 p.m.
            • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
              Seth -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 10:59 p.m.
              • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
                Stick -- Monday, 7 June 2010, at 1:41 a.m.
                • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
                  Jake Jacobs -- Monday, 7 June 2010, at 2:43 a.m.
    • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
      phil simborg -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 5:27 p.m.
      • 120 Hours of Non-Stop Backgammon
        Joe Russell -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 5:53 p.m.
    • How about a week ?
      neilkaz -- Sunday, 6 June 2010, at 8:02 p.m.
  • You're just envious of his T-shirt *NM*
    Chuck Bower -- Monday, 7 June 2010, at 12:36 a.m.