SolidWorks and the movie "21"

March 25, 2008

Here’s one of those weird Kevin Bacon connection things. What in the world can the movie “21”, set to open this week, have in common with CAD world? The flick is about a group of MIT students who take on the Vegas casinos in the early 1990s and beat the odds, winning millions.

The upcoming movie, which starts Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne, among others, is based on the non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, entitled “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.” The MIT team employed advanced counting techniques, which the casinos didn’t like, but were considered legal.

Anyway, the CAD twist to all of this is that one of the original MIT blackjack team members was no other than Jon Hirschtick, the founder of SolidWorks. Hirschtick used his nearly $1 million winnings to help start the CAD leader, which was founded in 1993 and bought by Dassault Systemes in 1997.

Posted by Beth Stackpole on March 25, 2008 | Comments (3)

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March 27, 2008

In response to: SolidWorks and the movie "21"
Geek commented:

Great article about the MIT card counting team at: www.xconomy.com

March 26, 2008

In response to: SolidWorks and the movie "21"
Vitto commented:

Check out the movies in this blog! Vic Leventhal talks precisely about that to a SolidWorks user group. It's true! designsmarter.typepad.com/gabijack/

March 25, 2008

In response to: SolidWorks and the movie "21"
Reader commented:

Movie "stars" Spacey & Fishburne. Books and movies are "titled," not entitled.

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