Just to clarify, I didn't do anything but link to what ckwalsh made and posted at I guess a bad time to draw attention. Least here, the reddit discussion seems to be going well.
I suspect the hopping categories was to try and buy time to calculate what sort of questions would be asked in each. But it's first move of getting into the lead (and the daily double) I would say is a combination of good strategy and PSYOP.
Not sure if it does it during the question though. The NOVA documentary on Watson[1] mentions having problems specifically with time phrases like the '20s, and it also has a part on giving Watson text input of the correct answer to improve performance after the question is answered. Nothing on getting every response from the other players.
Well we ran out of 4 billion, and much of the world isn't really online yet. Then factor in having a laptop, a smartphone, gaming console, HPTC, etc. There's more servers and infrastructure too.
It's not that much overkill either, only 4x more bits.
Specifically they got their asses handed to them by the Soviets in human intelligence, and choose to do what they were good at. But why would you need a group like this, with all the problems of privatizing intelligence operations? Would reform be a better choice? Or the acknowledge that the disadvantages of covert operations are great enough to find an alternative (similar to how the disadvantages of conventional warfare lead to covert ops)
You shouldn't regret demonstrating your point. For some reason it is difficult to communicate 'simple' concepts. Only guess I can manage is the simple solution makes sense either after truly understanding the entire problem, or if it's the first thing you're told after the problem.