Slashdot Mirror
MIT Blackjack King Takes SMTP Public
An anonymous reader writes "Semyon Dukach is at it again. Thumbing his nose at the establishment, that is. Dukach, a former leader of the MIT blackjack team, has taken his small company, SMTP, public today in the hopes of overturning the field of e-mail delivery and management. SMTP might sound boring, but it's the latest vehicle in Dukach's quest to 'make a couple billion and then try to help the world' (without the aid of venture capitalists or investment bankers). Given his track record, people might not want to bet against him."
See subject.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Yes.
for these articles that nothing more than paid publicity.
Look at their website. It's a company that helps you send mass e-mails while circumventing spam filters. Awesome. I'm so excited about this interesting opportunity to send "e-mail blasts" to everyone who's ever been foolish enough to leave an address with me, I just wish they had an hour and a half long "webcast" I could watch.
Thanks Slashdot! Without you, I never would have guessed that a former casino scammer (not that there's anything wrong with that) would look to make his next fortune in the spam, er, electronic campaign management business!
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
You have obviously never tried.
It is extremely difficult to get right, which is why a lot of casinos actually encourage you to do it - provided you aren't good at it. The local casinos even gives you a booklet which explains the perfect game; it's good business since most players (as you write) will tend to bias their play on how much money is at stake and their gut feeling.
Wired had a nice bit on it: Hacking Las Vegas (Written by Ben Mezrich, I think it may be an excerpt from his book).
Or if you want a Hollywood Bastardization (Based on the True Story) there's 21
At the time, the casinos made it easy to stay liquid. This was before the era of the CTR — the cash transaction report — which obligates the casinos to report any transaction greater than $10,000. "In the old days," Tay explains, "you'd win a quarter-million dollars, and they'd give it to you in cash. On New Year's 1996, I walked from the Mirage to the MGM Grand with a paper New Year's hat filled with $180,000." Back in Boston, Lewis and his friends kept the money in cash, declaring the winnings in the "other" category on their IRS forms. "You'd find $100 bills all over my apartment. Dig in my laundry, there would be $100,000 under my socks."
They have a name cunningly designed to generate exploitable confusion in PHBs.
PHB: Have you heard of SMTP?
Engineer: Yes, of course.
PHB: Should we use it?
Engineer: We already do. Everybody does.
PHB: Ah, I see. Well, I'll get the new sales/support contracts signed and add it to the budget then.
Engineer: ???