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The Daily Grind: Are you talkative in random groups?
Final Fantasy XIV's Duty Roulette has had an unusual effect upon me: It's made me more talkative in dungeons. Oh, I've always been happy to talk strategies and let people know what we're doing, but with the added incentive of the commendation system, I'm far more likely to crack jokes, be silly, and generally aim for making the run more pleasant for everyone. As cynical as that may sound, I find that I'm having more fun as a result, even when I'm doing most of the talking. Not everyone likes to be chatty in groups, of course. Some people prefer runs that are silently professional, slicing through content without so much as a "hello." Me, I like to say hello, get to know the people in my group, even if only briefly. What about you? Are you talkative in random groups, or do you generally prefer to let your silent competence (or lack thereof) speak for you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Gaming the system: Edward Thorp and the wearable computer that beat Vegas
"My name is Edward Thorp." "My name is Edward Thorp." "My name is Edward Thorp." It's 1964 and Edward Thorp is on the television game show To Tell The Truth, sitting alongside two other well-dressed men also claiming to be Edward Thorp, a man so adept at card counting that he'd been barred from Las Vegas casinos. Thorp, the quiet man on the right, every bit the mathematics professor with black-rimmed glasses and close-cropped hair, is the real deal. Two years earlier, Thorp's book, Beat the Dealer, was published, explaining the system for winning at blackjack he developed based on the mathematical theory of probability. The system worked so well that Las Vegas casinos actually changed the rules of blackjack to give the dealer an added advantage. Those changes would prove to be short-lived, but Thorp's book would go on to become a massive bestseller, and remains a key guide to the game of blackjack to this day. That all this happened as the computer age was flourishing in the 1960s isn't coincidental. While working to beat the house, Thorp was also working at one of the hotbeds of that revolution: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he had access to two things that would prove invaluable to his research. One was the room-filling IBM 704 computer, without which, he writes in Beat the Dealer, "the analysis on which this book is based would have been impossible."
Moritz Waldemeyer crafts LED-based Pong / roulette tables
We've always said, the more Pong the better, so we're the last folks you'll find knocking Moritz Waldemeyer for upping the ante (quite literally) on the previous iterations. Utilizing a fancy Corian-based table, the savvy designer incorporated a series of "LEDs and touchpad sensors" into the otherwise plainly-styled piece of furniture in order to provide a fresh rendition of a heralded classic. Pushing the technology a bit further, he also crafted a LED-based roulette table, which sports an electroluminescent map and an overhead lamp that work in conjunction to provide the rolling ball action casino dwellers know and love. While there's no official word on when these will land in Harrah's (or ultra-mod game rooms), both designs were recently showcased at the Rabih Hage Gallery in London, and we're told "white 28" was the hot ticket on table number two (pictured after the jump).[Via Techie Diva]
Roulette-cheating gadget may be legal in the UK?
In case that established career of yours isn't working out so well, you may want to consider a move to the United Kingdom, where a new law deregulating the gambling industry may make it much easier to cheat at roulette. A £1,000 ($1,883) device, consisting of a tiny computer that can be embedded inside other electronics is used to calculate deceleration on a roulette wheel that's perceived to favor one section over another; the computer then sends an audio signal to the wearer alerting him/her where to place a bet. The Guardian reports that the legal change requires casinos to police themselves, and that the Gambling Comission is advising British gaming establishments to refuse making pay outs to gamblers caught with the device, forcing upset clientèle to take their grievances to court. Still, it's unclear whether or not the so-called Gambling Act 2005 which goes into effect next year actually prohibits such devices -- although it does create a "criminal offence for cheating at gambling," Europe's only professor of gambling, Mark Griffiths at Nottingham Trent University, argues that neither the roulette computer nor card counting techniques constitute cheating to begin with because both supposedly use "science to give yourself a better advantage." While we'd have to disagree that using a computer inside a casino is the same thing as using your brain, the fact of the matter is that the gambling community as a whole benefits from a stricter interpretation of the law: i.e. if electronic aids become legal, and everyone starts using them and winning, then the casinos will eventually go out of business and there'll be no more gambling at all -- way to ruin everyone's good time, you lousy non-cheaters.[Via The Guardian]
