Gym Genie : An app to tell if the gym is free

astu.co

1 point·ScalaTuts··5 comments

Would you use this app?

But for the most part, isn't it self-defeating (outside of graveyard hours)? If I see that my gym is low-traffic or nearly empty, I'm going to go there. Surely I can't be the only one with that mindset, so suddenly, low-traffic periods are quickly followed by spikes of use. This probably breaks down in the midnight-5am range, but overall, I think it's going to be hard to break past that mindset for an app.

That's the El Farol Bar problem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_Bar_problem ). As an aside, I've been to El Farol - it's indeed small.

If everyone uses the same strategy, then as you say there's no solution. Instead, use a mixed strategy. Not everyone will have this app, and some people's times are more fixed than others, so there will be a mixed strategy at the beginning.

If it gets to be really bad, and everyone uses the same app, then the app might add some artificial biases to smooth things out, or select from a set of user-specified preferences.

Oh wow, I never knew that had a name, thank you for the link!

You're welcome. And I'm excited because it's the first time since I learned about it 10 years ago that I got to use that tidbit of knowledge.

I agree with dalke there can be way to smoothen the spikes.

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