FG: Mafia 23: Diary of a Madman

[Kassiopeia]

Have there ever been ties of over two people in the past? If so, how have they been solved? Write down a number from 1 to 3, load it up in a password protected zip file, and the one to call the number is the unlucky loser?

[Tassadar500]

That iswas the way I, le Roi, beat the other loser.

[SnowFire]

Too much work, too slow a response time. Just assign everybody a number from 1 to n, then do a Google search on the next topic title to be posted in the OT. Then take the number of results returned modulo n to determine who dies. That's darn near random, and easily checked for fairness.

[Whoha]

Kass look at ADG's vote, its a 3 way tie.

[Sparrowhawk]

or perhaps one of those online who have not yet voted (Boshko for instance) could be persuaded to vote (maybe the mafia could "persuade" them )

[Kassiopeia]

Adagio has voted? Must have missed that. Thanks for pointing that out.

Okay, so it's a three way tie between Whoha, Joncha and Adagio, all at three votes. Seven votes have not been cast yet, so no one's safe.

Originally posted by SnowFire
Too much work, too slow a response time. Just assign everybody a number from 1 to n, then do a Google search on the next topic title to be posted in the OT. Then take the number of results returned modulo n to determine who dies. That's darn near random, and easily checked for fairness.

Lost you on "modulo". It would vastly improve response time though. Whatever that means.

[FlameFlash]

I agree with Kass, though I'm interested in figuring the rest of it out, it does sound like a decent random number generator.

[Skanky Burns]

I'd just roll an n-sided dice. Assigning people numbers before rolling, of course.

[FlameFlash]

Also good... I know I have plenty of those.

[SnowFire]

I'm sure you know modulo, although probably in Finnish. All modulo arithmatic is, is normal arithmatic that "loops." You can think of it as dividing by the number, and then taking the remainder. You can also imagine it as taking the number line as some really long ruler, chopping it off at n, and then bending it so that n connected to the beginning. That way, when you keep on adding 1 to some number, after it hits n, it "loops" back to 0.

As an example-

Normal	Mod 3	Mod 4
0	0	0
1	1	1
2	2	2
3	0	3
4	1	0
5	2	1
6	0	2
7	1	3
8	2	0
9	0	1

So, basically, you can take any number and turn it into a number from 1 to n (or 0 to n-1, as I've done above).

Example:
Adagio is 1
Whoha is 2
Joncha is 3

The next topic in the Apolyton OT is "Dinosaur Vampires: Did they have Rabies?" Googling it gives 59 matches. 59/3= 19.666, or in other words, 19 with a remainder of 2. So Whoha would die. If there had been 60 matches, you can clearly see that's exactly divisible by 3, so it would give a modulo result of 3 or 0, meaning Joncha would die.

Since Google doesn't update THAT often, it's easily checked to see it really was a random number generated by searching on the string yourself (unless, of course, the poster was Kassipoeia.). If you want to be paranoid, then Kass can post which personality is which number in a sealed ZIP file, so no one can influence it by posting a topic themselves.

Skanky: The problem with n-sided dice is that Kass could be evil and roll the dice until he came up with the solution he wanted.

[Kassiopeia]

Yeah, I must not have any affect whatsoever on the result. That's why we've used passworded zips.

I get the concept of modulo, but I have no idea what it's called in Finnish. In fact, a brief googling would show that it's called exactly the same in Finnish. For the record, I'm studying "short" math, i.e. the least possible amount of math on my level of study.

In any case, I'll give it a try if we end up with a >2-way tie.

[Skanky Burns]

Well, going further, he could just say what number he rolled and pick the solution he wanted. I guess verifiable results are good for the game, though.

[Sparrowhawk]

Regardless which method of selection is used, how long do we give the remaining people to cast their votes before the next round?

[Kassiopeia]

Roughly twelve hours' worth of voting time left. Not enough time for a write-up before the bed beckons.

[Whoha]

Ok, nobody post "Dinosaur Vampires: Did they have Rabies?"