I was watching The Mandalorian the other day when it struck me that I don't know Pedro Pascal, which is, by itself, very tragic.
But maybe I know ...
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That is a title lol
I'm calling It making knowledge accesible - examples shouldn't be boring!
That's fair. Makes it really engaging tbh
I'm here for Pedro Pascal 👀
Aren't we all? 😂
Well @ale3oula did you meet Pedro? 😄
One day Scott, one day!
Finally, a post I can relate to!
Everyone wants to meet pedro!
I love examples like this where an algorithm suddenly stops feeling like computer science and starts feeling like something from real life 😂 The Pedro Pascal example makes BFS levels shortest paths and even the need for visited click instantly. The Dijkstra follow-up was a nice bonus too!
Thank you! CS is as fun as our imagination can make it!
Great explanation with a simple to understand example. Graph relations and Shortest path, pathfinding often get related to games, though their application goes far beyond it. Take A*, essentially, that's what you're doing, you search everyone in a direction, until you hit a dead-end and from that dead-end, you move on to the adjacent person who maybe has a better chance, until you're around the barrier. Barriers in this case being languages, regions, age, etc. None in their own is a hard barrier, but in certain instances, it's what blocks them from knowing Pedro Pascal and in turn, you. What you stated as 'yeah we walked past eachother' vs 'we're having dinner thursday' is a great way to explain nearest neighbor (in a way), the further you are from origin (Perdo), the weaker your relation to him and in turn, the weaker the chance you can act as an intermediate to reach him.
Unfortunately, I dont know him, nor know someone who knows him, etc. (atleast, I think you've got a better chance than I do), if you want to take this thought experiment to the next level, you could look at multi-origin graph traversal? Essentially, make a friend, who has a 'decent' chance of knowing someone and from them, work through to the next person, etc. Think of a teleport that takes a while. You could target him directly and just spam him on socials, though your chance of success is quite low, vs his friends group (also unlikely) vs their friends group (now you got a shot). Essentially if you're trying to get from A-Z, you're better off taking a while to get to K instead of traversing from A-K and K-Z.
This is such a fun way to take the thought experiment one step further! I especially like the idea of introducing barriers such as region or age, because the graph is no longer just about whether an edge exists, but also about how likely that connection is to actually get you closer to Pedro.
And yes, the multi-origin traversal idea is fascinating. It turns the problem into 'find the path with the highest probability of actually leading somewhere' which feels much closer to how real social networks work. I guess the probability for me to meet the actual pedro is pretty low, but maybe it worth the experiment!
Give it a go! Judge a node by it's probability to help you and it's probability to have a connection to Pedro. Eg. Find a person who lives in hollywood and liked a post about The Mandalorian, bonus points if they liked Game of Thrones too, Highest probability, if they like a post on the episodes with him, or mentioned him.
Then you make contact, build relations and search their friends group to see whose in the film industry, or adjacent.
From there on, find someone who worked for/with the same studios where he's worked.
Then from there on to someone who worked on the set when he was there.
Then from there on to any cast member or higher level production crew.
From there, to his PA/Agent/Makeup artist/dresser/etc.
Then you've got a solid contact.
It takes the closest path, to closest point to origin (him) ranked by probability (of talking to you and helping you).
That's imo the fastest way to him, if your goal is to have him like a post, or react on a comment, direct is easiest, but if you want to MEET him, you need a personal connection to intro you.
Essentially, this is how pen testing works, you find the closest vulnerable point, attack it, then work your way to the goal. If it can breach a secured server (like the classic casino attack that went through a fish tank pump), you pick the point of least resistance, closest to the goal, then work from there to the next closest vulnerability.
Thats another great example!