Following up on Jason’s popular How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors post, I did some digging to see how nerdy Rock-Paper-Scissors (”RPS” to professionals) can get.

It turns out, pretty nerdy. Artist David C. Lovelace noted that there was a five-gesture RPS variant in the wild (they add “Lizard” and “Spock”). Five gestures wasn’t enough for Lovelace — he decided to create a seven-gesture variant called RPS-7, which added Fire, Water, Air, and Sponge to the classic game. But things didn’t stop there. Lovelace proceeded to create RPS-9 which added Gun and Human to the mix, creating an immensely complex matrix of solutions.

Yeah, and this being the internet, things did not stop there. Lovelace created an RPS-11 (adding Wolf and Devil), RPS-15 (Lightning, Dragon, Tree, Snake), and then what he terms “the real madness”: RPS-25 (see also the flash game).

But wait, there’s EVEN MORE. From Lovelace’s site:

It took all year, but I went ahead and brought about the entropy of my mind by developing the latest, and I truly hope last, RPS variant. Take a deep breath, set your monitor to its maximum resolution, and prepare to try and absorb the infinitely complex universe-devourer that is RPS-101!

Described as “the most terrifyingly complex game ever,” RPS-101 can be explored using the interactive chart, the 5,050-outcome HTML page, the RPS-101 Outcome Guide (a paperback book describing all the outcomes), or the 23″ x 35″ poster.

From the RPS-101 Outcome Guide: Chainsaw DICES Turnip, Turnip STAINS Cup, Cup HOLDS Beer, Beer AFFECTS Chainsaw USE. Wow.

If you think the greenhouse gas emissions that may raise atmospheric temperatures as much as 11 degrees by the end of this century are an unprecedented global event, think again. About 55 million years ago, according to scientists, there was a massive global warming event that raised temperatures about 10 degrees, and the culprit then — as now — was greenhouse gases. Where’d they come from? Turns out that the same intense volcanic activity that sundered Greenland from the Americas and created Iceland also cooked so much of the Earth’s crust that it released gases previously trapped in decaying, carbon-rich organic sediments. Volcanic vents on the sea floor were to blame as well; they liberated so much methane trapped in icy material on the seabed that for many thousands of years, the land and sea of the North Atlantic region experienced a major “outgassing,” turning the entire landscape into a kind of Hellish, organic smokestack. As bad as that sounds, however, consider this: back then it took about 100,000 years for the atmospheric temperature to rise ten degrees; we, on the other hand, are much more efficient in that regard. For the full story, click here.

Image courtesy USGS.

One of the more popular videos on YouTube features Alanis Morisette covering “My Humps,” by the Black Eyed Peas (video below). In the words of pop culture expert Bill Simmons, Morisette “crushes Fergie and everything she stands for AND manages to be strangely hypnotic. You have to love Canadians. They always deliver the goods .”

This reminded me of one of my all-time favorite mental_floss posts. Last September, our own Ransom Riggs thoroughly examined another Fergie tune, “London Bridge.” Here’s a taste, with the complete Pop Annotation here.

When I come to the club, step aside
Pop the seats, don’t be heavy in the line¹
V.I.P. because you know I gotta shine
I’m Fergie Ferg, and me love you long time²

1. Trans: Allow me ingress to your establishment, fair bouncer, wherein I might shake my humps.
2. Birth name: Stacy Ferguson. Stage name: Fergie, a reference to the notoriously hard-partying Dutchess of York, who made herself a fixture in British tabloids by allegedly loving a number of people “long time” (her husband not necessarily among them).

Many of you might recall last year’s post on mondegreens [misheard song lyrics]. Here’s how it started:

Long before I ever knew what a mondegreen was, I used to think the lyrics of David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” went like this:

Hey man, oh leave me alone, you know
Hey man, oh Henry, get off the phone, I gotta
Hey man, I gotta straighten my face
This malaprop chick’s just put my spine out of place

Of course, now I know the original malaprop chick is actually a “mellow-thighed chick,” and my head hangs low in shame.

Today’s Word Wrap tackles a similar phenomenon, misheard words.

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I’m a lecture junkie. I have previously blogged about Little Gray Books, one of my favorite online lecture series. A new resource for finding online lectures has come to my attention: Listening to Words. The site contains a database of lectures (990 of them), which can be searched, browsed by lecturer, or by lecture location. This is a gold mine of spoken word content, people! Get downloading!

Best bets: The Fog of War: Robert S. McNamara and Errol Morris in Discussion, Bill Bryson at The Royal Society on “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, Jonathan Coulton @ Pop!Tech 2006 (more a series of songs than a lecture…).

Caitlin Berrigan is an artist who’s been receiving a lot of attention for a series called “Sentimental Objects in Attempts to Befriend a Virus.” In one part of the series, “Viral Confections,” she cast chocolate truffles from a mold of a hepatitis C virus (pictured). Caitlin contracted the virus during a blood transfusion she received when she was an infant. On her site she explains:

These designer chocolates illustrate the inventive protein structure of the hepatitis C virus. A plaster model of the virus was printed as a rapid prototype from a 3D illustration of the virus, from which the chocolates were cast. These delicious truffles do not carry hepatitis C. Each one was lovingly handmade from 72% Belgian roasted cocoa in attempt to befriend the virus.

What’s next for Caitlin? A greenhouse built in the shape of the virus…

Because product-liability lawsuits are ever on the rise in the U.S. — as well as the awards given those litigious plaintiffs by juries, which averaged $1.8 million in 2005 — so too do the warning labels on our products grow more absurd. (Remember the iPod Shuffle’s “Do Not Eat” warning? The company still hasn’t admitted it was a joke.) Courtesy Forbes, here are some of the most laughable:

1. “Keep pet birds out of the kitchen when using this product.”
Product: Bialetti Casa Italiana’s nonstick pans

2. “Warning: This costume does not enable flight or super strength.”
Product: Frankel’s Costume Superman costumes

3. “Do not iron clothes on body.”
Product: Rowenta’s irons

Warning: more after the jump!
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If you’ve caught our recent references to The Temptation of St. Anthony and the oeuvre of James Ensor, you’ll know we’ve been on something of a Disturbing Old Paintings kick of late. But Ensor’s dancing skeletons and Anthony’s nightmare creatures have nothing on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Dulle Griet (short for Dulle Griet, Who is Looking at the Mouth of Hell, AKA Mad Meg). Whence this nightmarish vision? Assuming Bruegel wasn’t snacking on tainted rye while painting, he probably took a cue from a traditional Flemish folktale about a peasant woman who leads a female army to plunder Hell. In the painting she wears a soldier’s breastplate over her dress, hair streaming from under a helmet, and runs across a landscape toward the mouth of Hell — emerging grotesquely from the side of a hill — with a sword in one hand and bundles of modest loot — food, iron, pots and pans — in the other.

The whole painting, and some fun context, after the jump:
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Not sure how many of you caught this article in the Quad-City Times (what??? You mean you don’t read it daily???? What’s wrong with you people!), but apparently, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards spent $400 for a haircut recently, which had barbers in Quad-City – where a haircut costs $10 or $12 – in a tizzy. “If I charged $400 for a haircut, they’d come after me with white coats,” said Leo Fier, who has been cutting hair for 49 years at his shop in Dewitt, Iowa.”

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Most people select a hotel based on comfort and convenience, not to mention price. However, you can make your stay an adventure in itself! Here are hotels that are a study in contrasts

The Cold and the Hot

Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, is rebuilt every year, out of ice. The rooms stay at temperatures below freezing, but the bathrooms are heated. You sleep on an ice bed covered with reindeer skins, in a thermal sleeping bag.

Cabañas Copal Hotel Tulum in the Caribbean is warm, rustic, and eco-friendly. There is no electricity, gas, telephones, or water piped in. These are provided by generators at the site; water is brought in by trucks. The palm-roofed cabanas are lit by candles, and there is no air conditioning. From the pictures, I believe I could handle it.

More extreme hotels, after the jump.
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