Most Imaginative / Craziest / Interesting Thing You've Done With LabVIEW

[Casey]

It seems we are all addicted to gambling: 

I got in a dicussion with a few friends a couple of years ago, one of which claimed to have increased black jack winnings in Vegas by employing a ramping betting strategy.  His strategy was to ramp your bet by one chip everytime you won, and return to a single chip bet when you lost.  There were a few other variations, but that was pretty much it.  So, if you kept winning your betting would look like 1,2,3,4,5, ... and when you lose you go back to 1.

His claim was that he was "always playing with the house's money when on a winning streak" and that with more money on the table he would "win bigger when he doubled down on a strong hand".  I made a simulation comparing the different strategies, and tried to account for probabilities of doubles and such.  5 minutes on the web didn't yield any results for the statistical probabilities of streaks, so I left that out.

The simulations showed that while the eventual outcome of casino gambling is always guarunteed (you lose all of your money), his strategy had higher volatility but didn't last as long as a constant bet.

So, there are 3 ways to win in Vegas:  1.  don't play (easy).  2.  find a way to get drinks and comps faster than you lose your money (not easy) and 3.  count cards (not that hard, but not fun either... and not legal).

Happy Labview gambling,

Casey

[jasonhill]

You left out one.  The surest way to make money in Vegas is to own a casino.

[PJM_Labview]

> count cards (not that hard, but not fun either... and not legal).

I beleive cart counting (at least in Last Vegas) is not illegal (if the casino suspect you of doing so, they can just kick you out). After all, for counting card you are just using your brain. If using your brain in a casino was illegal, this would dramatically limit the choice of games you could play

PJM

[shoneill]

If I remember correctly, I saw an article on a group of MIT students who cracked the blackjack tables in Vegas by counting cards and working in a group.  Each member had a role to play and when the stars aligned (so to speak) the main player would place a huge bet.

They were mathematicians of course, and they were surprised themselves at how quickly and how much money they won.  The method (Although I can't recall the intricate details) seemed surprisingly simple yet complex (A lot of things to track and remember - even though they had simplified things greatly).

They also mentioned a blackjack computer invented before which fitted into the jacket sleeve which more or less guaranteed winnings.I remember they said that THIS was indeed made illegal.  Seeing as the state makes a few cents from the taxes (Backhanders not included).

The only problem is that PROVING someone was card-counting is kinda difficult.  Proving that someone has a blackjack computer in their jacket sleeve is relatively easy, thus making it illegal makes sense.

All in all, these are more or less just uneducated guesses, having enver beein in or near Vegas.

Shane.

[mcsynth]

I'm sure many of you know what's it's like to have a "significant other" who has no clue what you do at work or what planet LabVIEW came from.  My wife

doesn't want to know about the complexities of the large scale RT, cFP, and FPGA automotive apps that occupy my days.

In this case, pure simplicity broke the barrier.  I filled the screen with 3 large color boxes, showed her how to select the 3 colors and press CTRL-P.  No coding was involved.

Now when she wants to re-paint a room, she prints her own custom color sample combinations, tapes them all over the walls, and then brings them to the paint store.  She can use different grades of printer paper to get matte, semi-gloss, and gloss. 

And she's amazed at my programming skill!

McSynth

[Ray.R]

mcsynth,

Now why didn't I think of that???

Fantastic idea...   😄

[10Things_Rob]

I'm in the middle of writing a Horse Calorimetry program.

We put a horse on a treadmill, get it running up to 35 mph, measure the heartbeat, air content on intake, air content on exhale, and use it all to calculate how many calories the horse is burning.

At least that's the idea... the program works, but the system as a whole has some problems, mostly with the air handling system and the O2 and CO2 analyzers.

[jasonhill]

So.... you are measureing horse power?

[RobCole]

"the system as a whole has some problems"

I thought you were going to say, "getting a horse connected to all of that equipment and still be calm enough to not skew the results."

Otherwise, sounds cool.

     Rob

[10Things_Rob]

Yeah, training the horse to cooperate is a pretty important step in the process... unfortuantely, I can't say that LabVIEW is involved there.