For some reason I thought this might be related to Neal Stephenson's book Anathem, which has monk like characters who lock themselves away for 1000 years. The

For some reason I thought this might be related to Neal Stephenson's book Anathem, which has monk like characters who lock themselves away for 1000 years. The article is a great read though, reminds me of a childhood friend who tried to build a light operated solenoid to beat fruit-machines on their stop the trail features. Long story short, it didn't work because the people who build fruit-machines were smart enough to randomise the latency of the button push.