World Jump Day

Mike showed me this earlier this year. Hmm, don't think it'll work.

The Electronic Scrolling LED Belt Buckle

Wow, now this is pretty cool. Maybe a little too "flashy" for me, though.

All done!

The KHQ story was great! It was fun watching myself on TV. They made me look like such a nerd, which is what I was going for.

I finished my last final, so now the summer begins. I'll miss Pullman, but I'm also ready to leave.

KHQ News

Today I was interviewed by KHQ News (Channel 6, Spokane) about my RPS tournament. They said that the story should air at 5 or 6 o'clock this evening.

Chaos in Learning a Simple Two Person Game

Here's the link to that paper:

Chaos in Learning a Simple Two Person Game

Throwing for The Gold - Forbes.com

"'The mainstream view is that people ought to play the Nash Equilibrium,' says J. Doyne Farmer, McKinsey Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Named after the protagonist of A Beautiful Mind, the Nash Equilibrium is the best possible strategy for any game where both players are completely rational. Nash proved that idealized opponents will eventually play a single best strategy in any game-it's what he won the Nobel Prize for. Pit two non-emotional, omniscient 'people' against each other to play RPS, and they will eventually converge on this best strategy. In the case of Rock, Paper, Scissors, it's simple: Choose each throw randomly, which means playing each throw exactly a third of the time, but without any pattern. In essence, for RPS, the best strategy is no strategy.

Game theorists have long assumed that the lowly human-a less than perfectly rational animal, but one capable of learning-will also settle into this best strategy after a few rounds. But the fact is that if you want to beat someone who isn't perfectly rational, then the strategy that's best against pure rationality is no longer the best strategy. In a paper he co-authored, 'Chaos in Learning a Simple Two-Person Game,' Farmer proves that, rather than lock into some perfect theoretical play, two less than perfectly rational opponents will constantly change their strategy as they begin to detect their opponent's strategy. 'It's as if each player has a biased three-sided coin, but the bias of that coin is tracking around in some slowly changing way.' People don't play RPS randomly (in fact it would be difficult to do so if you wanted to-how would you generate a random decision?), so the random play that was perfect against random play is no longer perfect, Farmer argues."

This is the best discussion of RPS strategy that I've seen yet. I'm really interested in reading this guy's paper.

My Daily Evergreen article was the third hit on Google News for Rock Paper Scissors.

Arizona Daily Wildcat - UA student places 8th in rock, paper, scissors tournament - Tuesday, April 19, 2005

"One player from Washington State University would wear different costumes for every showing, Washut said.

'His face was just blank,' he said. 'He never cracked a smile, nothing.'"

This guy from Arizona was in the RPS tournament. He mentions me in his interview with his school newspaper!

High Stakes 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' in NY

See!? RPS skills are just as important as nunchuck, crossbow, and computer hacking skills.