I wanna rock! No, scissors!

Sorry I haven't been posting, end of semester, blah blah blah.

I've been trying to keep up to date with current events regarding the federal judiciary, including the ongoing Tom DeLay fit, negotiations over Senate confirmation votes and the Court's decisions and oral arguments, but haven't had any time to put thoughts in writing. I'll get back to it.

Just spotted this, though, and thought it was worth a minute. The article describes how Christie's acquired the sale of an art collection worth more than $20 million (estimated) by winning a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors against Sotheby's. Christie's went with a strategy devised by the 11-year old daughters of the director of their Impressionist and modern art department.

The story reminded me of a paper I read a few years ago using RPS to demonstrate the unlikelihood of learning mixed-strategy Nash equilibria in chaotic games. The paper is mentioned in this Forbes article and you can download it (I think) here (pdf).

Tiny Douglas Adams spoiler after the jump.

Well, it's a tiny spoiler about a Douglas Adams novel, not a spoiler about a tiny Douglas Adams... oh nevermind.

This RPS episode also reminded me of a bit from Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, probably my favorite Adams book. Gently can't figure out how a certain magic trick (circumstantially central to the plot, as it turns out) is done and eventually asks a child, who replies (correctly, of course): "It's bleedin' obvious, innit, he must've 'ad a bleedin' time machine."