[EM] Kristofer, April 3, '12, Approval vs Condorcet

[robert bristow-johnson]

On 5/19/12 5:51 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> On 05/15/2012 10:11 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
>> Or dither if you want to, but don't blame it on the voting system.
>
> I think you have misunderstood some key concepts I have been using. 
> Let me try to make them more clear.
>
> When I talked about "dithering", I did not mean it in the sense of 
> "hesitating, worrying, being uncertain" (although there can be 
> elements of that in Approval strategy). I was instead making an 
> analogy, which I think was quite appropriate, to the "dithering" of 
> the graphics world. This is why I also referred to grayscale and 
> black-and-white.

dithering is the processing of adding a random number (with some 
well-chosen properties) to a continuous quantity before it is quantized 
to a discrete quantity.  in the present context, i could imagine a 
simulation where, for a bunch of voters that are undecided, but are 
"leaning" toward Candidate A more than Candidate B, dither is added to 
their continuous "leaning" position, and then their vote is "quantized" 
(they have to make up their mind and vote) and it comes out as a vote 
for A or for B.  if they are leaning A, then, if the dither has no bias 
(the p.d.f. is symmetrical and centered about zero) then more of these 
simulated voters will come down on A than they will on B.  but some of 
these A-leaning voters *will* come down on B, just not as many as on A.

we use dithering in audio, also.  if you've ever listened to a CD, 
you've been hearing dithered audio because the CD is mastered with 
16-bit words, but the music was recorded and mixed and processed with 
larger words, typically 24-bit or 32-bit words.

-- 

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."