Dr Fill Revealed!

On Feb 16, 2011 I wrote a column on Ryan & Brian's bemoresmarter.com site that predicted the appearance of Dr. Fill. Sadly, that site is gone, so I reproduce the column here.

CLUES FIRST #6 - WATSON DOES CROSSWORDS
By now I’m sure you have all seen or heard about “Watson”, the IBM computer that plays
Jeopardy. What you may not know is that part of his programming involved trying
to emulate top Jeopardy player Ken Jennings. When the programmers discovered
that Ken had attended an American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, they decided to
have Watson emulate other top solvers. Unfortunately, the test had several
problems. I have exclusively obtained the top secret test result notes,
describing Watson’s behaviour after simulating several solvers.

Brian Cimmet – Watson stopped solving after seeing “NLER”, deleted the puzzle and
started listening to Sondheim tunes.
Andrea Carla Michaels – Watson demanded a share of the winnings and wanted to rename
itself.
Brendan Emmett Quigley – Watson started listening to obscure bands and pining for
“Grandpa Typewriter”.
Al Sanders – No results. Watson can’t solve exclusively on paper.
Howard Barkin – No noticeable pattern but somehow one of the fastest solves.
Will Shortz – Watson rejected 90% of the puzzles and started plugging a great new
number game.
Ellen Ripstein – Watson started describing the lousy paint job in his lab and wanted
to go off and see obscure movies and plays.
Jeffrey Krasnick – Watson started whining about the Expos moving to Washington DC.
Amanda Yesnowitz – Watson now speaks in clever rhymes.
Matt Gaffney – If you can guess the results, you will get a Watson pen and pencil
set.
Deb Amlen – Watson is now witty but will need to be bleeped around children.
Rex Parker – Watson started critiquing the puzzles. All the other computers started
arguing about Watson’s opinions.
Dan Feyer– Data lost. Watson solving so quickly that the fan blew, shorting the system.
Joon Pahk– Mixed results. Science questions nailed but 80’s music file has been deleted.
Amy Reynaldo – Watson solved and blogged about the puzzles in no time, then started
demanding harder puzzles.
Vic Fleming – Watson is gonna be down as it couldn’t come across.
Kevin Der –Watson now insisting all black squares be removed.
Peter Gordon – Data useless. Nothing can be repeated.
Stan Newman – Watson found Monday to Friday easy as pie but is stumped by Saturday,
muttering “too vague” over and over.
PuzzleGirl – Data incomplete. Watson started playing an Iowa wrestling app.
Jim Horne – Watson stopped solving and is busy playing FreeCell.
Tyler Hinman – Watson solved quickly but then started ranting about public transit
and college hockey officiating.
Anne Erdmann – Watson kept claiming it had no chance to win and then won.
Ryan Hecht – Watson got stuck in a NEAR MISS/NEAR HIT infinite loop.