

Flash game illustrating the Gale-Shapley algorithm - john_horton
http://mathsite.math.berkeley.edu/smp/smp.html

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d0m
Wow, that explanation is so well done.. it's a pleasure to learn like this.

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longlistener
Its interesting, and now that I understand the game it makes sense and is
cool.

But it literally took me a few minutes to figure out why male 'C' liked woman
'b' better, and I kept thinking "what am I missing?". Its the order of the
bubbles on the side, and as an educational game it would be useful to describe
this

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wccrawford
That's amazing. I can't believe the algorithm was so simple!

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john_horton
I was impressed by the simplicity as well. I think Gale & Shapley's
intellectual contribution was not so much in proposing the algorithm, but in
proving that a stable match is alway possible (and that this algorithm
generates one such match).

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pokoleo
This algorithm is also used in a certain University in Ontario's Co-op Job
Board.

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Kapelson
Ugh, don't remind me. Now THAT's a student-pessimistic system if I ever saw
one.

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gabaix
very good tutorial - any non technical developer can follow and is still
covering very well the subject. Was it a student project?

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socialist_coder
That algorithm seems super trivial. It's the only logical way to solve the
problem, is it not?

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gwern
Stuff often looks trivial - in retrospect. But it's _not_ the only logical
way, just a good way. It breaks down or does odd things in some cases (this is
why the whole field of 'cooperative game theory' exists, because this sort of
thing is not that easy).

For example, how would you divide up _entropy_ , one of the most fundamental
and scarce resources we possess? Shapley seems to work but there are some
troubling parts:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/12v/fair_division_of_blackhole_negen...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/12v/fair_division_of_blackhole_negentropy_an/)

Does it work with all division problems, such as when agents can inspect each
other's source code/rules? <http://lesswrong.com/lw/13y/freaky_fairness/> and
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/3pv/freaky_unfairness/>

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eru
Trivial correction: It's neg-entropy, not entropy.

And interestingly, in current computers entropy is the valued commodity, while
neg-entropy doesn't cost extra.

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teyc
what happens if they realized they didn't really liked each other after
marriage?

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teeray
paparazzi... and then they wind up on the next season of the
bachelor/bachelorette...

