Pirate Question

[Socorro Henson]

Fivepirates (who used to be hedge fund managers before they gave up their life of sin and took up an honest profession) attack and board a ship. While plundering the boat, they uncover a chest filled with 100 identical, indivisible gold coins. Before parting ways, the pirates must decide how to divide the treasure.

Once Pirate #1 submits his proposal, all pirates vote. If a majority, or at least a tie, of the pirates vote in favour, the pirates split the treasure according to the proposal and go their separate ways. Alternately, if a clear majority votes against the proposal, Pirate #1 is thrown overboard to the sharks, and Pirate #2 presents a proposal of his own. And if that proposal fails, it goes to pirate #3, and so on.

Recall that these pirates used to run hedge funds, so they are all very smart (in this domain, anyway) and think rigorously through each proposal. Obviously, they all care more about maximizing their own treasure than about their fellow pirates. But they also abide by pirate code: if a proposal passes voting, they will honour it.

Specifically, in this case, the odd-numbered pirates and the even-numbered pirates are all afraid of each other. If the even-numbered pirates gain control, the odd-numbered pirates all end up with zero coins, and vice versa. So the pirate with all the power is the very first one. (This works for any large number of coins, and any number of pirates.)

The pirate world's rules of distribution say that the most senior pirate first proposes a plan of distribution. The pirates, including the proposer, then vote on whether to accept this distribution. If the majority accepts the plan, the coins are disbursed and the game ends. In case of a tie vote, the proposer has the casting vote. If the majority rejects the plan, the proposer is thrown overboard from the pirate ship and dies, and the next most senior pirate makes a new proposal to begin the system again. The process repeats until a plan is accepted or if there is one pirate left.[1]

To increase the chance of their plan being accepted, one might expect that Pirate A will have to offer the other pirates most of the gold. However, this is far from the theoretical result. When each of the pirates votes, they will not just be thinking about the current proposal, but also other outcomes down the line. In addition, the order of seniority is known in advance so each of them can accurately predict how the others might vote in any scenario. This becomes apparent if we work backwards.

If there are three left (C, D and E), C knows that D will offer E 0 in the next round; therefore, C has to offer E one coin in this round to win E's vote. Therefore, when only three are left the allocation is C:99, D:0, E:1.

(In the previous round, one might consider proposing B:99, C:0, D:0, E:1, as E knows it won't be possible to get more coins, if any, if E throws B overboard. But, as each pirate is eager to throw the others overboard, E would prefer to kill B, to get the same amount of gold from C.)

The solution follows the same general pattern for other numbers of pirates and/or coins. However, the game changes in character when it is extended beyond there being twice as many pirates as there are coins. Ian Stewart wrote about Steve Omohundro's extension to an arbitrary number of pirates in the May 1999 edition of Scientific American and described the rather intricate pattern that emerges in the solution.[2]

I want to try using Pirate Ship for shipping and have a question. As we all know when you use Ebay shipping you choose a service and then a shipping cost will appear in the listing according to the buyers location.

It seems Pirate Ship will only generate a price after the item is sold so is Pirate Ship only used if the seller is paying for shipping? I have integrated Ebay with Pirate ship but it seems items are imported only after the auction/listing ends. I'm I overlooking something.

For calculated shipping, you can only use ebay's calculator based on the service, weight, dimensions, and buyer's Zip Code. Generally Pirate Ship with be equal or less the cost quoted on ebay. However, for USPS there can be some small exceptions depending on, if you have the old TRS plus discounts or a holiday surcharge is being waived. Also Pirate Ship offers cubic rates, which can save cost, and will be good to have when the Regional Boxes disappear.

For UPS, while you may see a cheaper price on ebay, but very often it is not the actual higher price you will end up paying. This generally is not a problem with Pirate Ship, which has a better quoting system. Also Pirate Ship offers USP cubic and flat rate, which can be cheaper.

I am trying to understand something that was asked before but didn't get any responses. Shipping using ebay has gotten too expensive for my buyers, so I signed up for Pirate Ship, which appears to have better rates based on what I need to ship. However, the rates vary considerably (regardless of service) based on where the buyer is located. Since I don't know in advance where the buyer is located and since I am not using ebay to automatically calculate shipping, if I want to use Pirate Ship rates, do I use "fixed shipping" and then pick an "average rate" based on rates across different parts of the country and what I'm comfortable with?

The problem is PirateShip has some lower rate services, like cubic, that ebay doesn't offer, so your buyers won't see the lower cost. However, you can compensate for this by adjusting the package information to fool the ebay calculator into showing something very close.

There is also one other alternative and that is to set up your Shipping Rate Tables for a flat rate appropriate for each shipping zone. This will be closer than just applying a single average flat rate.

If you charge a flat price, then you'll inevitably overcharge some buyers and/or undercharge others. IMHO it's better to set up calculated shipping and charge the buyers the eBay price. Then if the Pirateship price is lower you can either refund a bit of the difference, or just keep it as a handling fee.

AFAIK, the only USPS domestic price which is substantially lower on Pirateship is Priority Cubic which eBay doesn't even offer. Perhaps you can fudge the weight so that the calculator charges a price that's close to the Cubic price.

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I've read some of the documentation that explains how to add a language. I'm not sure if this is the right place or if Pirate English will be allowed as I can't find an ISO code for it. I can't see a problem in translating it though as there is already a well supported international talk like a pirate day!

Adi's suggestion does avoid some technical problems (incomplete variants support, and the fact that we don't support translating to just "English"). But people would have to agree to some extent what the language really is before we could even think about creating it.

Chris, how's things going?

I was asked by users in my LoCo if there's a chance they will be able to translate into Pirate English.

Henning, is there a way to move from the policy sometimes? since Pirate English is not an official language anywhere, but might be seen in many places (and Facebook is translated to Pirate English too for ex.)

The thing with the ISO code is not so simple. I have tried to get a code for a language spoken in our region, but the ISO 639-3 did not accept it because they say that it belongs to an other language, wich is not true. We have a dictionary, a radio and even a tv station in that language! The main problem is, that the SIL has a background of a christian missionary organisation and they mainly only accept languages which are not releated to the european language group and which the holy book is not translated into.

The second problem is, that the approval process goes through an peer review process which are controlled from the universities. So there is no chance to get a code, if you don't have a disertation ready describing the background of that language or are knowing some linguists in a famous university.

I find the requirement of an ISO 639-3 code is not compatible with the open source philosophie, because no one is allowed to officialy translate something, if an aristocratic organisation will not give you an ISO 639 code :-(

Althought, the ISO standard specify a system to specify a variation or dialect of a language which has an ISO 639 code. For pirate english this would be something like en@pirate. The problem is, that canonical don't allow them on launchpad.

Until know, I have fought six year for a way to translate free software in to our language, but we have failed because of the described limitations. Six years ago a group that speaks that language have translatet nearly 50% of the Gnome software, but we where not allowed to commit the translation due the lack of a code :(

That's because languages are not simple. Quite often it is difficult to

tell the boundaries between two separate languages and different

variants of the same one. There are different factors to have into

account: history of the language, of the region where it is (or was)

spoken, historical conflicts, the existence of a linguistic authority

and a formal grammar, etc. And the persons that can best decide on the

matter are the experts on the subject: linguists, philologists and all

those who focus on the study of languages.

Out of curiosity, which language code did you apply for to the standards

organisation, and to which code did they tell you it belonged? Do you

have any references from a public discussion where you applied for the

new code?

> The main problem is, that the SIL has a background of a christian

> missionary organisation and they mainly only accept languages which are

> not releated to the european language group and which the holy book is

> not translated into.

>

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