You can look at my home page for more information, but the short answer is that I'm a dilettante who likes thinking about a variety of subjects. I like to think of myself as a systems-level thinker, more concerned with the big picture than with the details. Current interests include politics, community formation, and social interface design. Plus books, of course.
Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich
I read a Wired article a couple years ago about the MIT blackjack team, a group of MIT students who used their ability to count cards to beat the system at Vegas and make a lot of money. Millions of dollars allegedly. This intrigued me both because it was about MIT students, but also because it turned out one of the guys I knew at MIT had been on one such team. The Wired article turned out to be a condensed version of a book, Bringing Down the House, which I finally managed to borrow a copy of recently.
The book-length version is also pretty entertaining. It's undoubtedly exaggerated, but it's a good story, and a real page-turner - I read the book in a couple nights, staying up way too late to do so. The explanation of how you can set up a team to beat the system at blackjack is interesting, and the vision of these MIT geeks playing the part of high-rollers in a Vegas casino cracks me up. It's a quick fun read, probably not worth buying unless you see it cheap.
posted at: 02:10 by Eric Nehrlich | path: /books/nonfiction/fun | permanent link to this entry | Comment on livejournal