Busting Vegas (stylized as Busting Vega$) is a 2005 book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters and blackjack players commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team.
 The subtitle of the original, hardcover edition was "The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees", but the subtitle of the subsequent paperback editions was "A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the Odds".
21 is a 2008 American heist drama film directed by Robert Luketic and starring Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, Aaron Yoo, and Kieu Chinh.
 The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in "Bringing Down the House", the best-selling book by Ben Mezrich.
 Despite its largely mixed reviews and controversy over the film's casting choices, "21" was a box office success, and was the number one film in the United States and Canada during its first and second weekends of release.
Mike Aponte, also known as MIT Mike, is a professional blackjack player and a former member of the MIT Blackjack Team.
 Aponte was part of a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students that legally won millions playing blackjack at casinos around the world by counting cards.
 He is the basis for one of the main characters, Jason Fisher, in the book, "Bringing Down the House", by Ben Mezrich, which inspired the motion picture, "21".
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team.
 Though the book is classified as non-fiction, the "Boston Globe" alleges that the book contains significant fictional elements, that many of the key events propelling the drama did not occur in real life, and that others were exaggerated greatly.
David Irvine is an engineer and professional blackjack player and a former member of the MIT Blackjack Team.
 Irvine was a part of the blackjack team featured in the best selling book, "Bringing Down the House", by Ben Mezrich.
 Irvine was one of the members of a team of MIT students that won millions at blackjack tables around the world by counting cards.
 The story of the MIT Blackjack Team was made into a major motion picture, 21, which was released in theaters on March 28, 2008.
 In 2004, Irvine co-founded a company called the Blackjack Institute with business partner Mike Aponte that provides instructional products and services on how to win at blackjack.
 Irvine has spoken at various events describing his experiences with the team, including the Global Gaming Expo Conference in 2007, the Chicago University Private Equity Network in 2006, among other events.
 Irvine is also the co-owner of an engineering consulting company called SBR Technologies, Inc., that focuses on the use of a wastewater treatment process called the sequencing batch reactor.
Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire—and How It All Came Crashing Down is a book by Ben Mezrich.
 The text was published on May 28, 2013 by William Morrow and Company.
 "Straight Flush" tells the story of a group of University of Montana students who turned their weekly poker game into AbsolutePoker.com, one of the largest online gambling companies in the world.
Semyon Dukach (born October 25, 1968) is Managing Director of Techstars in Boston.
 He is also known as a top angel investor, the Chairman of SMTP (company) (NASDAQ: SMTP), and a former professional blackjack player with the MIT Blackjack Team.
 He played with Strategic Investments and later was one of the founding members and team leaders on Amphibian Investments whose exploits were chronicled in Ben Mezrich's "Busting Vegas" and referred to in Mezrich's "Bringing Down the House".
 Dukach was the main character in "Busting Vegas" and the only member of the MIT blackjack team to be referred to by his real name in either book.
The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of students and ex-students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, and other leading colleges who used card counting techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide.
 The team and its successors operated successfully from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century.
 Many other blackjack teams have been formed around the world with the goal of beating the casinos.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's class ring, often called the Brass Rat, is a commemorative ring for the graduating class of students at MIT.
 The ring is redesigned each year by a committee of MIT students.
 The class ring has three main sections: the bezel, containing MIT's mascot, the beaver; the MIT seal (seal shank); and the class year (class shank).
 The side surfaces show the Boston and Cambridge skylines.
 An MIT campus map and the student's name are engraved on the inner surface.
 On earlier versions, the Building 10 facade was featured on each shank, with "MIT" under it on one side and the class year on the other.
The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin.
 Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal", the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits.
 It stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
 Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book.
 The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010.

Question: What year did the group from Ben Mezrich's book, Brining Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, begin to operate successfully?
Answer: 1979