Customer Reviews

The Eudaemonic Pie

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What this team set out to do was only possible to get away with during a very narrow window in history. Sharp analytical and electronic skills at the dawn of the microelectronic age made it possible, and at a time when casinos weren't paying much attention to the threat posed by this emerging technology. Those days are gone forever. The casinos finally wised up around 1983.

Bass has done a great job of telling the story of how a couple of physics postgraduate students and their friends develop tiny computers controlled by toe switches enable them to achieve an edge over the casino at roulette.

This was particularly poignant for me, because I independently developed similar wheel-clocking methods and verified a 26% advantage over the house on a rented casino quality roulette wheel in 1976. The 'device law', which Nevada passed in the early 80's in response to people attempting to use technology to sack their coffers, largely put an end to concealed computers in casinos. Those to whom a felony rap is no deterrent are presumably still at it, using extremely advanced and difficult-to-detect hardware.

Bass' story is a fascinating read and highly reccommended.

I'll admit it: I'm a geek, and the idea of a bunch of math geniuses using homebuilt computers to beat roulette is right up my alley. The plot does not disappoint, as an eccentric band of high-octane misfits create a commune motivated by discovery, innovation and greed.

Unfortunately, the author's style is often ham-handed, leaving the reader with the unsettling feeling that the story should have been told differently. For one thing, the plot follows the project's timeline with mind-numbing accuracy. It's okay for journalism, but it leaves many of the juiciest details buried amongst mundane activities. In addition, the pacing does not change, giving the book a feel of bloodless efficiency rather than real passion or excitement.

A few years ago I read Paul Hoffman's "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers," the excellent biography of mathemetician Paul Erdos. The whole way through "Eudamonic Pie" I found myself wishing that Thomas Bass had emulated Hoffman's engaging intertwining of Erdos' life, the history of math and the obscure culture and argot of top mathemeticians. Instead, I found this book to be an interesting plot bogged down by a flat and lifeless style.

Sort of like Leonard Nimoy singing "Proud Mary."

- Love this story! There is some validity in the reviews that critique the pace/style of the writing. However, I read it back in the early 90s, and the fact that it is still a vivid recollection counts for something. The advantage of time passage in analysis is better context and objectivity. Of course the disadvantage is that the details are not fresh. Probably I have forgotten minor irritations with style, while the strongly positive impression lingers. I do not give 5 stars lightly; though in this case the rating is more for the intrinsic wonder of the tale more than the technical adeptness in the telling.

- The story is ultimately not about the goal, not about winning or losing or beating the house. Its really about the journeying. A unique shared human experience of some ordinary yet extraordinary people in ordinary yet extraordinary times. The ordinary draws the reader in with a continual reminder that it's a true story, magnifying the extraordinary nature of events. Somehow I found it intensely compelling to follow the characters and realize that in the same month I was, say, starting a newspaper route or trying to make the varsity soccer team, these offbeat-yet-practical, idealistic-yet-enterprising, brilliant-yet-sidetracked, anachronistic hippie-tinged grad students were mathematically modeling a roulette table in their central california bungalow or troubleshooting a shock-giving computer taped to their body in a casino bathroom hoping security won't find them out. Its a human story because its about about creativity, determination, curiosity, fear, motivation, joy, friendship and pain. Its a techno-geek-as-hero story as they blaze trails at the forefront of computer technology before you could even think about buying a TRS-80, much less a Commodore 64. I think Azeel's review quite accurately hints at a successful fusion of eclectic but fascinating elements.

- Is the book too long? Should the pace be quicker? Perhaps, but the bottom line is it works. Some other stories may be generally comparable as far as being in the category of true story of a group on some venture (e.g. Fullness of Wings by Dorsey) but Eudaemonic Pie is different than anything else I've read. Partially this is because the slice of time and place in the silicon valley spanning the era of post Vietnam-disco-hostage crisis-Reaganomics is different. It's not for everyone, if you don't give it a try you may miss out on a flavor not to be served anywhere else.

A group of students and researcher types are hanging out together and generally having a good time. They come up with a project, trying to beat casinos at roulette. After a long time spent on experiments and various methods, they manage to come up with one. It, of course involves various social techniques as well as the scientific ones to prevent them being booted out, as per usual. It is something that won't work today, though.

Others have reviewed the book stylistically and have outlined the plot; I have little to add, except a brief postscript:

The book ends with a major disappointment: The project -- beating roulette with a computer that can predict the outcome with some degree of accuracy -- never really works. As explicated in the book, the protagonists were convinced that their problems revolved around their hardware, which was by no means robust.*

It is quite possible, however, that, had the project succeeded at that time, "The Eudaemonic Pie" might never have been published. And, if that had happened, the next stage of the project would not have taken place.

Tony -- one of the main characters in "The Ultimate Edge" contacted Doyne Farmer -- the driving force behind the roulette project outlined in "The Eudaemonic Pie." As outlined in "The Ultimate Edge," a group of blackjack players had developed very robust hardware for something called "shuffle tracking." Tony figured that, with some minor modifications, the hardware could run a roulette program as readily as it had run the shuffle tracking program and, to make a long story short, he was right.

"The Eudaemonic Pie" literally changed history, in more ways than one. First: in 1985, the Nevada Legislature was reviewing the bill that would become N.R.S. 465.075 (a bill considerately provided to the legistature by the casinos themselves). The law was meant to outlaw "Devices," and the bill actually specified "card games." When the information published in "The Eudaemonic Pie" came to light, someone had the forethought to change the law so it applied to games other than those in which cards were involved. Thanks a lot, Mr. Bass!

The strength of this book is weighted heavily toward the "story" side of the spectrum, and not toward the "telling." There are definitely stylistic weaknesses, but it could be argued that in this case, the story itself is so strong that style might have gotten in the way of the telling.

* This is not a criticism by any means -- reality is what it is, and the author should be commended for sticking with the truth. It would have been very easy for Bass to have ended the book with a huge, successful win and a giant party. That he didn't succumb to fiction is to his credit.

The Ultimate Edge

Sometimes the plot of a book outweighs writing that is poor (The Da Vinci Code) or mediocre (Harry Potter Boxset Books 1-7). This book definitely falls into that category - it's a very intriguing story. (The writing is not terrible; just not great.) I would especially recommend this book to anyone who is interested in physics, mathematics or computers.

I read this book before I went to college, and was suitably inspired. It read as a sort of breathless epic tale of high intellectual adventure, pitting a gang of brilliant and idealistic savants against the evil thugs of the gambling industry. This book along with Feynman's shaggy dog stories cast a long shadow on my subsequent career; they taught me that math was fun, and could be used in all kinds of places to outwit the less mathematically nimble. Reading it as a mostly cooked adult with professional training in the subjects covered is a frustrating experience.

For one thing, it bothers me that it took this entire gang of people to essentially accomplish what Shannon and Thorp did in a few months. Oh, sure, Farmer et al. used a digital rather than an analogue computer, and in those days it was horribly painful to hack 6502 in hex. That strikes me as a big part of the problem. Why, for Pete's sake would you use an 8 bit integer machine to calculate floating point arithmetic when one could do the exact same thing in analog, cheaper, faster and from the sounds of things, with a hell of a lot more reliability? There mere knowledge that Shannon and Thorp made progress on this problem in the early 1960s ought to have indicated to them that a more productive path would be analogue computing. Sure, Farmer's team may have come up with a "better" set of equations; that doesn't mean you couldn't code it up in a couple of weeks worth of wiring together some circuitry. Shannon and Thorp used a mere 12 transistors. Farmer and his brobdingnagian team of Bay Area miscreants took *years* and spent thousands upon thousands of dollars. I know exactly what they did, because I have done this myself: they focused on the little stuff. The process. The technology. They focused on everything but solving the problem. This is a great way to avoid the day of reckoning where you find out if you are full of beans or not. You can be all absorbed in the process and feeling great about what a smart little monkey you are, and be completely spinning your wheels. I know: I did this to myself for years. Sad to see Farmer and his team did the same thing. The ultimate cause was probably similar. Creatures of our time: physics as an intellectual effort has generally been doing this for decades now. Why do real, falsifiable physics when you can play make-believe in Cosmology?

The other thing which annoys me as an adult is their Boswell's atrocious run-on-sentence of a writing style. Thomas Bass writing reminds me of one of those giggly E-chomping girls you meet at Burning Man, "like OMG, can you totally believe how smart my friends are, and ooo, look my cat is totally doing this cute thing right now, by the way I firmly believe in macrobiotic wholistic tantric yoga, ooo shiny thing!" Good god, how did the younger me tolerate this? I guess the same way I managed to not light myself on fire like a war-protesting Buddhist monk at Burning Man in despair of all the bad company: poor taste.

None the less, if you are a young person seeking inspiration in the physical sciences, you might be as inspired by this book as the younger me was. I don't recommend it to fully cooked scientists, excepting as a cautionary tale.

A motley bunch of talented individuals driven by a mixture of altruism and selfishness but above all by a challenge simply because it is there, is a setting as old as humanity itself. This book is about one such enterprise. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, free thinking and sheer guts and the inevitable frustration, despondency and dropping out were the more specific components of this episode strung out over several years. For those interested in ~ the sixties era and its fallout into subsequent years ~ chaos theory ~ electronics ~ casino busting ~ aging hippies ~ mad scientists ~ sociology ~ anthropology ~ starting all over, this book is a must read. It is only the vastness of the human dimension where the author, perhaps understandably due to space and market niche considerations, has compromised. It would, otherwise, have been a five star book. (And considering it is out of print in any case, a lesson might be there for those who give disproportionate weight to market niches; When there is a richly textured tale to tell, go ahead and weave the rich tapestry. At the worst one's work might still go prematurely out of print but would leave at least one less unsatisfied reader and at the best....)

A motley bunch of talented individuals driven by a mixture of altruism and selfishness but above all by a challenge simply because it is there, is a setting as old as humanity itself. This book is about one such enterprise. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, free thinking and sheer guts and the inevitable frustration, despondency and dropping out were the more specific components of this episode strung out over several years. For those interested in ~ the sixties era and its fallout into subsequent years ~ chaos theory ~ electronics ~ casino busting ~ aging hippies ~ mad scientists ~ sociology ~ anthropology ~ starting all over, this book is a must read. It is only the vastness of the human dimension where the author, perhaps understandably due to space and market niche considerations, has compromised. It would, otherwise, have been a five star book. (And considering it is out of print in any case, a lesson might be there for those who give disproportionate weight to market niches; When there is a richly textured tale to tell, go ahead and weave the rich tapestry. At the worst one's work might still go prematurely out of print but would leave at least one less unsatisfied reader and at the best....)

hey if you want to read a well written book look somewhere else. I managed to finish this book because I kept in near my bed and it got me to sleep faster. Well not sure how this author got published but you can read the book for yourself if you want to fin d out. If you know what this book is about already then there's really no point in actually reading it. You certainly won't gain any insight into physics or science, the writing only skims the surface and does keeps it relativelly bland. Kindof of like a science fiction movie with computers that flash a bunch of images on computer screens for effects without actually attempting to penetrate the actual science of it all. I could go on and on, but that's what the book already did.