Web site helps you split almost anything fairly

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But how can this site take into account just how much (more) I deserve?

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The ā€œI cut, you chooseā€ method was the classic way to divide a weed bag fairly and ensure everyone got the same amount of herb. You know, back when it was illegal. Oh, itā€™s still illegal in your state? Iā€™m so sorry to hear that.

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No, but this site can. :wink:

I joke, I jokeā€¦

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This looks like they took the general ideas of the estate division chapter of Neal Stephensonā€™s Cryptonomicon and ran with it into a fully operational system.

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https://www.math.hmc.edu/~su/fairdivision/calc/

Atoms?

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Krypton will always be envious of Barium

Many think the source of the word ā€˜atomā€™ is ā€œnot divisibleā€, but scholars of ancient Greek agree that in contemporary contexts, it meant ā€œnot divisible fairlyā€.

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Decorations are an interesting question, but my favorite scales-to-any-number-of-people solution to cake cutting it in http://www.amazon.com/How-Cut-Cake-Mathematical-Conundrums/dp/0199205906

  1. Make a single cut.
  2. Life the knife and slowly rotate clockwise.
  3. At any time, anyone may say ā€œCut.ā€
  4. When they do, make a cut, and that person who spoke gets the piece.

At the end, anyone who thinks their piece is too small must think someone elseā€™s is too large, so they could have said ā€œcutā€ before it got that large. Or, they think there wasnā€™t enough cake in the first place, which is not a problem that any division method can solve.

I was thinking just that. Although itā€™s a little more complicated for the cases with both benefit and cost (they only show that as ā€œSplitting Rentā€, but it could be generalized to many more things), because instead of just saying how much you want something, you say how much youā€™d be willing to pay for it. So itā€™s maximizing two variables, your desire and the amount of money you ultimately end up spending.

That seems a much better method than the generalized n>2 method I always heard for cutting cake fairly.

The method I heard was that person A cuts a slice. Then person B either cuts a new slice, or cuts a slice out of Aā€™s. Each person moving forward can cut a slice from the cake or from anyone elseā€™s slice.

The problem with this method that I never saw mentioned is that it doesnā€™t solve the problem of being a dick. To wit: Person A precisely cuts a 1/nth piece, and then Person B cuts himself 99% of Aā€™s slice just to be a dick.

You solution doesnā€™t seem to allow that.

(Perhaps my version could be amended by allowing multiple rounds until it all settles. But I think the existence of the dick may preclude the possibility of settling.)

Cupcakes.

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