Web Fed News Yearbooks - August 2002

BEATING THE CASINO

Actually, there is no way to beat the casino on the Moon, but a lot of people think there is. They are convinced they have a system that will let them make loadsagroats. Occasionally, they do make a fortune... but the laws of probability are against them.

In real life, casino owners want to make sure they make a profit - that's what they are in business for. That means that in order for one person to win, another person has to lose. It's never the casino that loses, not in the long run. A real life roulette wheel has an equal number of black and red slots, so there's an equal chance of the ball landing in one of those. But there's also a zero slot, and if the ball lands there, then the house takes all the money (or in some cases, half the money). This happens on average 1 in 37 times, giving the casino a 3 per cent cut.

In Fed, the chance of the wheel coming up red or black is equal, but there is also a small chance that the house will just take the money - the croupier droid pockets the money while your back is turned.

So why do people seem convinced that they have a system to beat the roulette wheel? That's because, in theory, there is a system you can use which will guarantee you will win eventually. The system works on the Fed roulette wheel, on real-life wheels, and on any bet where the odds are evens - there's a 50-50 chance that you will win. In theory, it works, anyway. It is called a martingale, for some obscure reason.

Here's how the system works. Say you want to gamble 100 groats. Place your bet. If you win, congratulations - you have just won 100 groats, so take the win, and stop gambling.

If you lose, then you need to bet again. This time, place a 200 groat bet. If you win, collect the 200 groats and stop gambling. Your winnings are 200 groats for the second game, minus the 100 groats you lost on the first game, so your net profit is 100 groats.

If you lose on that second bet, then you need to double your stake again, this time to 400 groats. And so on... the rule of a martingale bet is that every time you lose, you simply double your stake and bet again. Even if you lose fifty times, if you win the fifty-first time then you end up with a profit of 100 groats.

Wow, a system! It works! Woo-hoo! But before you all rush off to the casino to try this out, in expectation of riches beyond your wildest dreams, remember I said "in theory". In practice, there are a couple of flaws in this system - big flaws, that make it completely unworkable.

The biggest flaw is that casinos and bookmakers have an upper limit on the amount you can place is a single bet. If you are unlucky, and don't get the win before you hit that limit, you have lost... and lost, bigtime! In Fed, that's reflected by the fact that there's a limit to the amount of groats you can use in any transaction - your bank balance of 2.1 gig.

The second flaw is even if you do win before hitting the limit, all you have won is 100 groats. If you lose enough times before you win, you will be betting enormous sums. Remember, the bet doubles each time: 100 groats, 200 groats, 400 groats, 800 groats, etc. The tenth bet would cost 51,200 groats. The fifteenth would be 1,638,400. That's a lot to risk, when you only stand to win 100 groats.

And the final flaw is that there's no guarantee you would win. Just because you lose 20 times in a row, the probability for the next spin of the wheel is still 50-50, because the outcome does not depend at all on what happened in the previous spins.

So there you have it. There is no foolproof way to beat a real life casino, or the casino on the Moon. For everyone who wins a bet there has to be somebody who loses. That's why the betting industry thrives.

IF A TREE FALLS IN A FOREST...

"If a tree falls in a forest," goes the question, "and there is nobody to hear, does it make a sound?" This is a philosophical question that has exercised the minds of intellectuals and thinkers for centuries. Personally, I would have thought setting up a microphone and recorder would answer that question quite easily!

In Fed, a similar question came up a few days ago. "If a rule is broken, but there is no member of staff to see it, does it count?" Thankfully, this is one is much easier to answer than the tree in the forest question!

Answer: Yes. If something is against the rules, then it's against the rules, regardless of whether a staff member actually sees you do it at the time. If you say a rude word on the comms then you have broken a rule.

But actually, I think the person who asked that question was asking the wrong question. The question they really wanted to be answered was not "is it against the rules?" but "will I get in trouble for it?"

A player who sees someone breaking a rule can always send in a capture to feedback@ibgames.com, and report the offender. If, on reading the capture, I think a rule really was broken, then I will probably email the perpetrator and warn him not to do it again. If he continues to do whatever it was, and I keep on getting complaints from players, then I may lock the player out of the game even if I, personally, did not witness the offence.

So yes, if you break the rules, you may well get in trouble, even if no member of staff is watching you at the time.

THE PROBLEMS OF BEING A CYBORG

There's lots of droids in Fed - waitdroids, newsdroids, cleaning robots, not to mention Nightdroid. But one thing you hardly ever see is a cyborg. Cyborgs are a hybrid of man and machine - like the Borg from Star Trek. People with implants that give them extra capabilities - like the Bionic Man.

Cyborgs have been popular in science fiction for a while. In real life, the technology is just starting to be used. Well, in a way you could say that anybody with a pacemaker is really a cyborg, but that's not generally what is meant by the term.

In the UK, Professor Kevin Warwick (nick-named Captain Cyborg) from Reading University has implanted a computer chip into his arm in a "ground-breaking attempt to create the world's first integrated data link between man and computer." Professor Warwick comes across as a slightly crazed evangelist for technological implants, and is given to making alaramist predictions in the press about how cyborgs are going to take over the world.

In Canada, Professor Steve Mann from the University of Toronto also calls himself a cyborg. He's been wearing a computer system for the past 20 years. Earlier this year, he started legal action to sue Air Canada who refused to let him board a flight and damaged his equipment when they strip searched him.

And recently, British engineers said they had invented a revolutionary tooth implant that works like a mobile phone. The tooth phone consists of a tiny vibrator and a radio wave receiver. Sounds like it belongs in a James Bond movie, but this too could be seen to be a step towards cyborgery.

So in the future, can we really expect to see machinery grafted onto the human body? There would definitely be a benefit. Builders, engineers or maintenance men could dispense with their toolboxes. Flex your wrist and have a screwdriver pop out of the end of one finger; twist it the other way and you have a hammer. A sort of Swiss Army Arm.

Implant a wireless connector and you could be permanently logged on to the Internet. Add some memory chips and you'd never forget anything. The possibilities are endless.

Of course, given what the most popular pastime on the Internet is today - looking at smutty pictures - it's entirely possible that the most popular form of cyborg implant would be intended to enhance your love-life.

But let's not overlook the practicalities. Even if it becomes possible to meld flesh with silicon, remember that computer chips need software to control them. And then think how reliable most software is.

Would you really feel happy having your head controlled by something written by Microsoft? Buggy software could mean your whole body crashes - it would bring a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death! That would be just about bearable if your body automatically rebooted, but what if it just froze up? You'd be stuck until somebody came along and pressed the reset button behind your ear.

The simplest tasks would be riddled with problems caused by buggy software. And what about the danger of viruses? You wouldn't just worry about getting flu in the winter, you would be in danger of your brain catching a virus that garbles everything you say, or makes you walk everywhere backwards.

Worst of all would be the risk of hackers seizing control of your body. Apart from playing practical jokes by making you do ridiculous and embarrassing things, criminals could hi-jack you, use you to rob a bank or murder somebody, then leave you to take the rap.

How would you get out of that one?

TECHONOLOGY ETIQUETTE

When you get to the exalted rank of Baron, you get the chance the build yourself some pretty exciting items of technology. A teleporter means you can teleport yourself instantly from place to place, and a time machine lets you warp yourself and your friends back to a bygone age. Powerful stuff!

There are a few dos and don'ts when using both these items of technology, that can get a bit forgotten in the first heady rush of experimentation.

With a teleporter, it's fun to flit in and out of rooms... but if you keep appearing then vanishing again in the same room, it is really annoying to anyone else in the room. Doing it with a teleporter is just as irritating as someone walking in and out of a room over and over again. It causes scroll, which is Not A Good Thing. So be mindful of other people, and don't port in and out of a room so much that it affects them.

A time machine has even greater potential to annoy others! When you timewarp, anyone in the same room as you gets sucked into the field and warped back with you. Which is fine if they know what you are doing, but not fine at all if it happens unexpectedly. If you warp with people who were not expecting it, you are kidnapping them. Make sure before you use your time machine that everyone in the room with you is happy to be dragged through time. In fact, far better would be to issue an invitation and tell anyone who wants to go with you to meet you outside the room... that way, only those that actively make the effort will be caught up in the time field.

Powerful tools, both of them... just don't abuse them.