Maybe just take the next block ID and use the last number, if higher or lower than X the tie goes to one or the other. Same can be done for 3 and 4 way ties breaking up the numbers to 3 and 4 divisions.
That's similar to the mod suggestion. As you described it only works when on item needs to be chosen (A method that generates a permutation could be used for, say, choosing 2 items out of a tie of 4). Anyway, my main point is that I don't want to describe in our bylaws "We will take the block hash and do modular division and X Y Z...", I want to be able to write "We will use the standard blockchain tiebreaking protocol". |
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The following issue is very general, but to spare you the abstractions I will describe it by way of presenting the situation I have at hand.
We at the Israeli Bitcoin Association will soon have our first elections to our board of directors. Many details are TBD but basically, members get to vote and the directors who received the most votes are chosen.
A problem exists if there are ties. Let's say there are 7 members, and the vote counts from high to low are 66, 55, 45, 36, 28, 15, 15, 15, 10, ... . Then places 6-8 are shared by people who got 15 votes, and the method doesn't determine which 2 of them to admit.
Some voting systems resolve this with an additional tiebreaking voting round, but this creates a lot of overhead and is not mathematically elegant. Game-theoretically, a better way is to randomly choose the winners; but then we have a problem of ensuring the random choice was done fairly.
A natural way to resolve this would be to use the blockchain. Hashes of future blocks are more or less random and not easy to manipulate. So we can announce in advance that ties will be broken based on the hash of the first block with a timestamp of at least Nov 30 2014 00:00:00. However, I don't want to reinvent the specific way to use the hash to make the selection.
So my question is - is there some standard, deterministic way to use the blockchain to resolve ties? Is there some website which gives results based on this standard? If not, how do we go about creating such a standard?
Note that to address the general problem, the method needs to return a permutation - since we have a number of results which a priori are all equivalent, and we would like to order them somehow. So basically, the method will accept a date (or block height) designation, and a list of text items, and return a randomly permuted list of the items. Some ideas I had is to take the block hash modulo n! and choose a result from the n! permutations, ordered lexicographically, based on the result. Or to use the hash as a random seed which is input to a simple permutation-finding program.
Optionally, the standard would allow using the hashes of multiple blocks, to make it harder to mine blocks specifically to manipulate the system.
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But M is unknown so how can you tell that N is correct? I'm struggling to think tonight  Edit: Oh I see. I get it now That is a big simplification. I will check which is faster as I don't have to decrement as many times with my method. Your's is infinitely more explainable though. When (if) I finish my article I will credit you Thanks But we still need to verify the NNTZ method works. |
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What I meant with counting downwards:
Let's say N=135. You start with 135/2 = 67. You first try M=67, using the method you get N=138 which is wrong. Then you try M=66, giving N=136. Then you try M=65, this gives N=135 so it is the correct result.
To clarify, I'm not sure my method works, if you post more values using your implementation, I can test out mine.
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Belieave me , there is much more people then that .
I'm sure there are, but what makes you think they want to use this forum? There are thousands of Israeli Bitcoiners but only a handful of them use the Hebrew section here. |
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September 30 (today in my timezone) is the last day for the current pricing tier. If you haven't purchased your ticket yet, now is a good time.
I am a Palestinian. Can you help me get a boarder pass? I have no idea about that, but you can send an email to conference@bitcoin.org.il and we'll see if we can figure something out. |
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September 30 (today in my timezone) is the last day for the current pricing tier. If you haven't purchased your ticket yet, now is a good time.
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If I'm not mistaken, to find the total number of nodes N from the leaf nodes M, you have
N = 2M + number of non-trailing 0's in M's binary representation.
With the only exception is M being a power of 2, in which case N = 2M-1.
For example, if M = 66, the binary expansion is 1000010. It has 1 trailing zero and 4 non-trailing 0's, so you have N = 2M+4 = 136.
To do the reverse, you could just start with N/2 and count downwards (unless a power of 2).
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4) It needs to have the same value everywhere it's used. If you used real estate the values would change by location. 2.5 dunams of land in Tel Aviv is not the same as 2.5 dunams in Jaffa.
Consistent value is a derived property which follows from portability. Anything which is liquid and which can be easily teleported anywhere, without technical or regulatory complications, will have the same value everywhere (though it might be hard to see, as the other things which you would buy with it can have different values). Real estate is an extreme case which has 0 portability. So much so that I'd say it becomes an issue of fungibility. 2.5 dunams of land in Tel Aviv is a fundamentally different thing than 2.5 dunams of land in Jaffa. There is no interchangeable unit "dunam of land", in the same way that an apple is an apple wherever it is. |
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(3) It must be relatively convenient at least for everyday purchases, which is why we don’t use lead or copper.
"Convenient" isn't a fundamental property, it's something that follows from the other required properties, such as portability, divisibility and fungibility. (4) It must be consistent, which is why we don’t use real estate.
What do you mean by that? (5) It must possess value in itself, which is why we don’t use common rocks.
No, money does not need to have value beyond the value it gains by virtue of being a commonly used currency. If a thing satisfies all the requirements for good money, and is therefore used extensively as money, it will automatically gain value. |
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Bitcoin & Cryptography Open Discussion with Adi Shamir has been scheduled for September 30, 19:00, in Google Campus Tel Aviv, Floor 34, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon, Tel Aviv. Gathering at 18:30. Details and registration at http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-il/events/207784082/. |
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Braintree clients each needs to actively create an account with Coinbase to enable Bitcoin payments. Were there any reports on Airbnb planning to do so?
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Good is bitcoin officially accepted around israel?hat language would the film be in?English or native israeli language.Would love to see it if on English language
There are no real guidelines from the government, but they're exploring the issue and regardless Bitcoin is being very actively used. Like the trailer, the film will feature dialogue in both Hebrew and English, and will be available with English subtitles. While we're here, I'll mention that yesterday, the effort to produce the film was covered in a major economics TV show in Israel. The story can be seen (in Hebrew) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GymNQ8CPUmw&index=37&list=PLiOFfTVghPYhGSnmImJBDd7Ul7BqgRkAd. |
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The early bird price will end on Sunday, August 31, and move up to the next level of roughly $200. With the conflict in Israel finally over, now is a great time to sign up to this exciting event. Don't miss out!
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Rather than RIP, I have a feeling Hal would find "Until we meet again" to be more appropriate, being optimistic about his unfreezing of course.
Since I only knew you through your writing, I'm looking forward to meeting you Hal.
Sure, but for now he's resting. Hence I do find "rest in peace" appropriate. |
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Rest in peace, hopefully you will soon be successfully revived.
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