[ Figured the NEXTSTEP tie-in with this crowd wouldn't hurt either... :-) ]
2/8/98
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Just got back from the Q2 wrap party in vegas that Activision threw for us.
Having a reasonable grounding in statistics and probability and no belief
in luck, fate, karma, or god(s), the only casino game that interests me
is blackjack.
Playing blackjack properly is a test of personal discipline. It takes a
small amount of skill to know the right plays and count the cards, but the
hard part is making yourself consistantly behave like a robot, rather than
succumbing to your "gut instincts".
I play a basic high/low count, but I scale my bets widely -- up to 20 to 1
in some cases. Its not like I'm trying to make a living at it, so the
chance of getting kicked out doesn't bother me too much.
I won $20,000 at the tables, which I am donating to the Free Software
Foundation. I have been meaning to do something for the FSF for a long
time. Quake was deployed on a dos port of FSF software, and both DOOM and
Quake were developed on NEXTSTEP, which uses many FSF based tools. I
don't subscribe to all the FSF dogma, but I have clearly benefited from
their efforts.
-- John Klassa / Alcatel Telecom / Raleigh, NC, USA <><