I read somewhere that six kids from M.I.T. had recently won four million dollars at various Vegas casinos simply using laws of probability. This weekend some of us decided to put that theory to test.
Location: Roulette Table 6, Turning Stone Casino, Oneida County, New York.
Time: Midnight, Saturday.
Participants: Shraddha Shah (financial officer), Pragyan Pradhan (mathematician extraordinaire!), Amit Desai (El Dhanno) and myself (lurking variable).
Initial capital: $100
Result: Hell yeah! Probability rocks!
After making a heavy kill at the roulette table after two hours, we decided to cash in our chips before we lost it all at the Hold'em tables. It was time to celebrate.
On the way back to college, 2 a.m. in the morning, we suddenly decided that we wanted to eat at Denny's at Albany, a town 90 miles west of where we were. So we did just that.
After an hour and a half of driving, with loud music and ghost stories and a video-taped karoake session, we rolled into Dunkin Donuts at Albany for some coffee.
We walk inside and two of us pretend we can't speak English too well and Pragyan acts as chief translator.
Random Dunkin Donuts dude (DD): What can I get for you guys?
Me (pointing at croissant sandwich picture): What kroi-ssanntts thing?
DD elaborately explains what a croissant is...
Me: No English.
Pragyan: They no understand English. Ve vant four cups of kaafee, please.
Shraddha takes us aside and we start chatting randomly in vernacular.
DD: Will that be all?
Pragyan: Please sir, give us another minute, eh, please, sir.
DD: Yeah dude, whatever, man.
We go back to the service counter.
Pragyan: Ok, that will be all. We've come all the way from Nepal (AN: Pragyan is from Katmandu, Nepal) yeah, to eat here, please make this good, yeah?
DD gives us weird looks as Shraddha, Amit and I talk in vernacular, seemingly fascinated by an automatic ketchup dispenser, and goes to get our coffee. A couple of minutes later our coffee arrive in these cups with special lids which can be opened like soda cans. We all pretend we have no fucking idea how to drink the coffee. So I walk up to the Dunkin Donuts dude.
Me (gesturing): How, drink?
DD very kindly opens the lid for me. I give him fancy smile. He shudders.
We take a center table and begin slurrping our coffee as loudly as we can and talk animatedly in vernacular scandalising the other late night patrons of DD, including a bunch of Union College students! Shraddha dares me to stand on a table and seduce her. I do it atanding on a chair instead, 'cause the tables were too wobbly. People start leaving.
After finishing our coffees we get back into our car and drive around looking for Denny's. We find PriceChopper's, a 24 hour supermarket. We walk in. It's 3:30 in the morning.
Shraddha walks up to random people shelving shampoo.
Location: Roulette Table 6, Turning Stone Casino, Oneida County, New York.
Time: Midnight, Saturday.
Participants: Shraddha Shah (financial officer), Pragyan Pradhan (mathematician extraordinaire!), Amit Desai (El Dhanno) and myself (lurking variable).
Initial capital: $100
Result: Hell yeah! Probability rocks!
After making a heavy kill at the roulette table after two hours, we decided to cash in our chips before we lost it all at the Hold'em tables. It was time to celebrate.
On the way back to college, 2 a.m. in the morning, we suddenly decided that we wanted to eat at Denny's at Albany, a town 90 miles west of where we were. So we did just that.
After an hour and a half of driving, with loud music and ghost stories and a video-taped karoake session, we rolled into Dunkin Donuts at Albany for some coffee.
We walk inside and two of us pretend we can't speak English too well and Pragyan acts as chief translator.
Random Dunkin Donuts dude (DD): What can I get for you guys?
Me (pointing at croissant sandwich picture): What kroi-ssanntts thing?
DD elaborately explains what a croissant is...
Me: No English.
Pragyan: They no understand English. Ve vant four cups of kaafee, please.
Shraddha takes us aside and we start chatting randomly in vernacular.
DD: Will that be all?
Pragyan: Please sir, give us another minute, eh, please, sir.
DD: Yeah dude, whatever, man.
We go back to the service counter.
Pragyan: Ok, that will be all. We've come all the way from Nepal (AN: Pragyan is from Katmandu, Nepal) yeah, to eat here, please make this good, yeah?
DD gives us weird looks as Shraddha, Amit and I talk in vernacular, seemingly fascinated by an automatic ketchup dispenser, and goes to get our coffee. A couple of minutes later our coffee arrive in these cups with special lids which can be opened like soda cans. We all pretend we have no fucking idea how to drink the coffee. So I walk up to the Dunkin Donuts dude.
Me (gesturing): How, drink?
DD very kindly opens the lid for me. I give him fancy smile. He shudders.
We take a center table and begin slurrping our coffee as loudly as we can and talk animatedly in vernacular scandalising the other late night patrons of DD, including a bunch of Union College students! Shraddha dares me to stand on a table and seduce her. I do it atanding on a chair instead, 'cause the tables were too wobbly. People start leaving.
After finishing our coffees we get back into our car and drive around looking for Denny's. We find PriceChopper's, a 24 hour supermarket. We walk in. It's 3:30 in the morning.
Shraddha walks up to random people shelving shampoo.
Shraddha: Do you know where I can get the croysaanuts?
Random guys look at each other in confusion.
1st Random Guy: Could you repeat that a little slowly please?
Shraddha: CROIY-SAA-NUTS?
2nd Random Guy: Ano... could you describe what you want?
Shraddha: gesturing It's the bread that goes round and round...
Both Random Guys: Ahh... croissants. At the bakery section in the back.
Pragyan walks to a some dude carrying a huge hunk of beef and stops him. I'm standing behind him.
Pragyan: Excuj me, excuj me, sir, can I ask a question, eh?
Beef Dude: Yeah man, sure.
Pragyan: gesturing Do I look physically capable of doing hard labour?
Beef Dude: looking confused What kind of labour?
Pragyan: You know, the hard kind...
Beef Dude: Yeah man, sure why not...
Beef dude slinks away when Pragyan is about to ask another question. We look around for another bakra. I find a lady stocking shelves in the toys department.
Maity: Do you know where I can get some paaaint?
Lady: Yes, come I'll show you.
Lady: Yes, come I'll show you.
I follow the lady to the other end of the store to the hardware section. She spends sometime showing me the different paints and textures. I pretend to listen carefully.
Lady: So what kind of paint would you like?
Maity: No, no, I just wanted to look, thank you.
Maity: No, no, I just wanted to look, thank you.
Saying so I walked away.
MORE TO COME...
haha! but i don't get the point of behaving like that. its not like they are gonna dislike us more. how'd the test go?..and my laptop's here!!! it detected some wireless crap but unfornately there was limited connectivity..damn!
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point in bombing the crap out of the Iraqis, it's not like they're going to dislike the US more? These days there's no point in anything anymore. It's like a made in China Holy Grail.
ReplyDeleteThe test was easy, at least I thought so. But I wasn't counting on my latent stupidity. Changed a minus to a plus in the Solow Growth Model and screwed up an important question.
Which laptop did you get? When did Delhi get wireless?