Found Treasure Archive

I am burying this Treasure as well, somewhere very safe.

Found When:

The Map was:

Any player who possesses the Jade Key of Yara and The Map of Jara, and is either Enlightened or has (or has had) published in any Acka newspaper the words "The earth is round" (capitalization not important) shall find the Treasure of Jara (T 107).

This was based on treasures 105 and 106, and a Phoebe Post

I am burying my Whamiol and creating the following treasure map:

For to see his Whamiol again,
and hold it near his score,
Habeous Corpus must transfer some cash,
A$500 to be exact,
to snowgod, the would be extortionist.

Do this and the Whamiols is buried no more.

Found When

The Map was:

Habeous Corpus's trqansfer of A$500 to my account fulfilled the conditions of the map, and the map that I reported was the actual map. He has found his whamiol

Found When:

The Map was:

Found When:

Mohammed Posted:

/dev/joe sent me a program that demolished me in a game of Scrabble. This was fascinating, in its own horrific way, and would almost certainly be delightful for anyone with an ego less easily bruised than mine. :o) /dev/joe sent me the program more than a month ago, and since then I've been incrementally approaching an actual game.

The Map was:

I am creating a treasure thaqt consists of the Secret Decoder Ring, and burying it.

The map to the treasure reads in full:

496E206F72646572746F2066696E642074686520536563726574204465636F6465722052696E 672C796F75206D75737420706F73742061206D65737361676520636F6E7461696E696E672074 68652073696E676C6520776F72642022487562657274222077697468206E6F206578706C696E 6174696F6E20617320746F20796F757220616374696F6E73206F6E6365206576657279206461 7920666F7220746872656520636F6E736563757469766520646179732E202041667465722074 686520746869726420636F6E736563757469766520706F7374696E672C207468652053656372 6574204465636F6465722052696E672077696C6C20626520666F756E642E

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

I am making a treasure out of [No Tea] (inasmuch as this is possible), and digging hundreds of miles down, almost to the center of the earth, to bury it.

At the same time, writing with a quill pen held between my teeth, I am scrawling the following map on the back of a passing maniac:

[Click here for map.txt]

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

But, y'know, I'd really rather not have a dead guy around, no matter how exquisite he may be. (If I had a high-rise apartment, I would hang him from a skyhook. But I don't, so I can't.) And yet, I can't get rid of him directly without raising the ire of the Arts Community. So I'm going to bury him instead. (I mean, what else do you with a corpse?) But if anyone else would like to have such an object, I made a map of how to obtain him, and all are invited to give it a shot.

I won't post the map to the list, because it's kind of big (over 8K, in fact), what with all this recent discussion about large files breaking people's mailboxes. Instead, the map can be found at

edg-map.txt

I hope everyone who pursued snowgod's Decoder Ring will give this one a shot. If you get stuck, I might be persuaded to let a few hints drop, but I'm guessing that won't actually be necessary.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

my treasure shall be found by the first player to visit breadbox's house

I am burying the Golden Frinking Straw as Treasure. I am not releasing any part of the treasure map at this time, although the following interesting sequence of characters may be somehow related to it.

4F 3D 22 42 25 06 74 14 7A 63 51 35 55 49 31 16 36 7D 6C 58 3C 21 0F 2F 75 67 50 3E 29 12 00 67 07 5A 4E 40 21 18 38 27 15 01 7A 1A 7C 75 15 05 7A 5C 48 31 14 75 61 4D 46 66 56 45 38 2C 15 03 6A 0A 6B 0B 77 60 4D 32 24 0D 70 5B 7B 5E 4D 3B 2F 10 79 67 50 3E 25 45 39 21 06 26 1D 0C 7E 60 53 73 15 05 6A 58 3F 34 1D 0B 37 59 79 1B 09 78 67 4B 37 1C 48 6A 0A 6B 59 3D 5D 7F 59 3A 28 22 0B 6D 4E 40 6E

Malenkai became a Map Custodian for this Treasure on December 19th, 1996

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

I am making a treasure out of the Interpol Mug and burying it.

I am writing a map that reads: "All the stuff anyone on a UNIX box will need to make interpol-- the C++ source, documentation, and a makefile-- are available by request from Mohammed. The first player who sends me a self-printing interpol program will find the Mug."

I may have to go find it myself. The reason I'm posting this right now without first doing any of a dozen things to make the contest more appealing (such as porting interpol to C) is that I hadn't thought of the problem until just this instant and I wouldn't want anyone to sneer too badly when I dig the Mug up. Remember, I don't have too much of a head start here.

Be forewarned: interpol is an utterly disgusting little language. I can't think of any redeeming features it has, off the top of my head. But if you can stomach it... be my guest...

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

I make a Treasure of the Interpol Crime-Pounding Nightstick, and bury it. I write the following map.

This treasure map leads to the Interpol Crime-Pounding Nightstick. The Nightstick will be found by the first player to send to Mohammed a self-printing interpol program that meets these restrictions. First, it can't use interpol's script-printing mechanism. In addition, the program must not depend on any user input, and the stack must be empty when it finishes. Have a nice day!

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

Prize  Model of what might have been Jmmer's Butler
Treasure Map
IO

Found When:

During an expedition when rule 1217 said it was.

The Map was:

Unknown.

Since the treasures have been piling up in my house, I've decided to take one of the larger ones out and bury it in a safe place. I've chosen the one that was made to be buried, the Exquisite Dead Guy.

Here is the map to the Exquisite Dead Guy treasure #2:

4A 6F 22 72 77 6C 72 87 42 AB
C8 B0 4F E2 D0 3F 5D 8C BD D2
E2 74 69 91 86 9A B5 DC 29 8D
FD 49 47 48 2D D0 C0 9E 1B F7
8D AB 0A 4B E6 7F 10 A4 86 D7
B1 4D D4 AD CD 56 C2 04 9E 43
7C 3A 49 20 A7 BB 64 BB B6 F0
3A CE 9A FF 29 73 7E D6 9D 59
CA AC C9 63 0E EB 8C 10 30 EC
65 29 6B 2D 26 A0 B5 29 67 E3
33 E9 BA 3A 42 66 7F 30 9D A1
C7 BB 70 FD 06 A2 27 5D 14 05
71 5A B0 A9 E4 14 93 2A 46 C7
F2 9E C3 5D 0A F0 4D 1D 53 00
F1 83 0A 2E C8 41 F1 09 45 3C
55 1E 15 77 66 B1 B9 C7 EC


This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

In order to find the Exquisite Dead Guy, send /dev/joe a message containing in the subject line the name of the sequence involved in the encoding of this map.

I am burying the Golden Frinking Straw (value A$100) as a treasure, with the following map:

The player who sends /dev/joe the highest-scoring valid Pythoncross score record for the game defined by the Pythoncross data file between the "---" lines below by February 1 at noon, CST shall find this treasure. If no valid score records are received by that date, the first player to send /dev/joe a valid Pythoncross score record shall find the treasure. Valid score records must follow all the rules of the game, include all the information requested (see below), and use only words from the second Official Ackanomic Dictionary (the Marldoom link on the main Ackanomic web page).

---
/dev/joe's Treasure Map Special #1
hrmoetrtisentoplditeimelaezsipeoumkaqehyowbarenamotmestagrsp
2 2 4 3 7 4 6 9
---

Found When:

The Map was:

Treasure 120 (Malenkai, Jan 21, 1997):

Found by /dev/joe (Jan 21, 1997)

Announcement

I am creating a treasure that consists of 10 processing chips, and burying it (don't laugh, I have another treasure in mind that will make them useful).

The Treasure will be found by the first player to send me a gif of a ruby slipper for the players page that meets all of the following conditions:

1. It looks like a ruby slipper and I use it on the page
   
2. It is 54x54 with a transparent background
   
3. It is non-copyrighted material (or at least its sender assures me that it is)

Found When:

/dev/joe sent a qualifying gif to Malenkai.

The Map was:

Identical to the one above.

---

• Codex of Jara
• The Golden Frog
• An Automatic Sculpture
• Prophet of the Golden Frog Prosthetic Forehead

I will reveal a portion of the map shortly, and reveal other fragments to players who express an interest in a manner which should become apparent soon. The Gingham Wearer was Map Custodian

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

I am creating a treasure out of the The statue of snowgod made entirely of Blue Jello and burying it under the floor of my house with the following map:

Rosebud

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

rosebud

{{or so it would appear at first glance, but rosebud is nothing but a throwback to the Steal Flea Gazette year end predicition issue. The treasure will be found by the player who

1. Finds (or places) a statue of Elvis in the Monument to Futility
2. Does a Song and Dance (elvis will tell you how)
3. Amuses me in the process of
4. digging in my floor}}

T ei l wu htarsabhnnehsshyeodo eutae   tt r lrfib rfepl osya
lh anohAsBreatgfom ae  ie  btnalSorageoadown nor nyci w e ta
 maeeat uoTen nistbrrsdc n hldes opiaeiseatnon  c  ghtsgpw "
J  .tm" ,oa"""aett"knvC hmho  eih ,br au,neR"eolnp"eee rwod!

This treasure has some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

The treasure shall be found by the first player who is not already a Swinger who goes to the location of an Amber Banana Tree and then posts a public message containing the words "Jane," "Cheetah," "throw," and "vine."

In the spirit of keeping these trinkets in circulation, I am burying another treasure. This treasure consists of the No Tea.

I am revealing the following portion of the map:

[This space intentionally left blank]

Pending an agreement with Malenkai, enough information to find the No Tea will soon be published in 'Round the Earth.

The following was published in 'Round the Earth:

To find the No Tea, solve the puzzle below, and publicly announce the name of the location marked with a star. The lack of instructions for the puzzle is intentional, and part of the puzzle.

                                                     1       1
                                       4             1 1   1 1
                       1           1   1             1 1 1 1 1
                       1 3 1   1 1 2 1 1 1           1 1 1 1 1 1
                       3 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 6 1 1   1 1 3 1 3 1 1
                        10 3 3 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 2 1   1 1 1 6 1 1 1   1 1
                    20 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  20 1 1 1 1 1 1  15 1 1
           1 1 1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
           1 1 1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
           1 1 1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
             1 1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
               1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
                  25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
               1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
           1 1 2 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
               4 4 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
         1 1 2 2 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
     1 1 1 1 1 1 5 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
         1 1 4 3 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
       1 1 2 2 1 3 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
       1 1 2 2 1 5 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
           4 3 1 3 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
       4 1 1 1 1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
           2 1 1 3 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
               1 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
                  25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This treasure has some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map was:

To find the No Tea, solve the puzzle below, and publicly announce the name of the location marked with a star. (The location marked with a star is Boardwalk, and the solved puzzle contains the "GO" and "Boardwalk" spaces from a Monopoly board, and parts of the other adjacent spaces.)

                                                      1       1
                                        4             1 1   1 1
                        1           1   1             1 1 1 1 1
                        1 3 1   1 1 2 1 1 1           1 1 1 1 1 1
                        3 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 6 1 1   1 1 3 1 3 1 1
                         10 3 3 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 2 1   1 1 1 6 1 1 1   1 1
                     20 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  20 1 1 1 1 1 1  15 1 1
           1 1 1 1 1 ## .## . . . . . .## .## . .## . . . . . . . . . .
           1 1 1 1 1 ## .## . . . . . .## .## . .## . . . . . . . . . .
           1 1 1 1 1 ## .## . . . . . .## .## . .## . . . . . . . . . .
             1 1 1 1 ## . . . . . . . .## .## . .## . . . . . . . . . .
               1 1 1 ## . . . . . . . . . .## . .## . . . . . . . . . .
                  25 ##################################################
               1 1 1 ## . . . . . . . . . . . . .## . . . . . . .## . .
           1 1 2 1 1 ## .## . . .#### . . . . . .## . . . . . . .## . .
               4 4 9 ######## .######## . . . . .################## . .
         1 1 2 2 1 1 ## .## .#### . .#### . . . .## . . . . . . .## . .
     1 1 1 1 1 1 5 1 ## .## .## . .## . .## . . .## .########## .## . .
         1 1 4 3 1 1 ## .## .######## .###### . .## . . . . . . .## . .
 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 ## .## . .#### .#### .#### .## .## .## .## .## . .
       1 1 2 2 1 3 1 ## .## . . . .#### . .#### .## . .###### . .## . .
       1 1 2 2 1 5 1 ## .## . . . .#### .#### . .## .########## .## . .
           4 3 1 3 1 ######## . . . .###### . . .## . .###### . .## . .
       4 1 1 1 1 1 1 ######## . . . . .## . . . .## .## .## .## .## . .
           2 1 1 3 1 #### .## . . . . . . . . . .## . .###### . .## . .
               1 1 1 ## . . . . . . . . . . . . .## . . . . . . .## . .
                  25 ##################################################

The map for Orion's Crystal is:

When a player publicly posts the location of a GAMES Magazine Hidden Contest which has never been publicly posted before, and does so at least one week before the end (in New York City) of the day entries are due for that contest, e shall find this treasure. Players are asked to put SPOILER warnings in the subject of such messages so that others who haven't yet given up may keep searching.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

I am hereby creating a treasure of my No Tea , my The Sacred Chao , and 5 PFfnord (which still have value as long as those who don't write proposals can still get points, cause I tend to go with the wrong side pretty regularly, even though not intentionally).

I am burying the treasure never to be found again. Unless, of course, someone finds it. I certainly wouldn't let anyone see the secret treasure map I wrote, showing me where it was, because that would give it away. After all, if I show everyone the treasure map

843873A787E94552EF6
86DB984334778752937
867EQ83788684748694
68732635684E7746843
7A6E78B54276789445E
4653464A87465389484
8439673B2A464876263

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

THE TREASURE WILL BE FOUND BY THE FIRST PLAYER TO REQUEST TO VISIT MY HOUSE AND 5 OTHERS IN THE SAME PUBLIC POST WHILE HOLDING A TRINKET WITH THE WORD BAA IN ITS NAME

To keep myself from looking to see if the second year of the Tower of Bandwidth has started appearing yet, I play with my trinkets, Elves, Elvis and Elwes. They start off okay, but it seems that Elwes and Elves just don't go well with Elvis. To prevent any possibility of my trinkets animating when I'm not looking and destroy each other, I decide to separate them. I lift off from the Tower of Bandwidth, and take to the sky again. I swoop past the Monument to Futility, spiralling around it, unable to enter it.

I decide that this would be a good location to Place Elvis. I fly around the outside of the Monument, not having permission to enter it. I fly as close to the door to the vault at the base of the tower, and toss my trinket called Elvis inside, figuring that Placing it there is a good idea.

Flying in such tight circles has gotten me a bit dizzy. I know I put Elves somewhere, I know I buried them as a Treasure, but for the life of me, I can not remember where I put it. I'm sure a Treasure Map for the Elves will show up, or down, eventually. As consolation, I carry Elwes back to my Home.

Found When:

During an expedition when rule 1217 said it was.

The Map Was:

Unknown

It is call the Great Treasure Finder as it has those words inscribed into in in large lettersaround it. It is covered with miniatures of all treasure yet found as well as maps with notes and X's and arrows and 8X10 color clossies of Schiermann excavating Troy and well as a handy secret pocket to hide your treasure.

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

During an expedition when rule 1217 said it was.

The Map Was:

Unknown

I am burying Strider's Presidential Vision as a treasure.

It will be found by the first person to e-mail me privately with a suggestion as to what the *@#$ I should do as President that I agree with. (Yeah, yeah, it sucks as a map, but what the hell.)

Found When:

Be yourself and have fun.

The Map Was:

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

If someone deciphers this text and privately mails me a translation before the crystal chalice is removed from the rule set, e shall find the purple key.

I am burying a Treasure consisting of Strider's Presidential Vision, and 6 Processing Chips.

Fortunately, the Amulet of Saaramaa will allow me to get the information needed to find this thing. For once its a treasure from me that does not depend on another treasure, nor is a dependency for another treasure, nor has interlocking parts, etc. Of course, its also probably pretty hard, but like other of my treasures, a flash of insight will make it easy.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

The first player to bury, as a treasure, or as part of a treasure, an entity called Hubert Feathers shall find this treasure.

I am burying the Tube Top of Kyle Bannor, valued at A$50. May the worthiest soul find it. The following groups of characters and numbers may or may not be a clue to the map:

0E41 6501 4013 3C61 751F 5084 0443 D609
40A4 0060 C403 3054 0D40 1500 0030 A0B1
F2F8 F9F
7137 E753 7EB5 6ABA F4B0 6C66 147D 221A
D7FE 44F2 2457 E6DB 9045 70F3 DC2

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

During an expedition when rule 1217 said it was.

The Map Was:

Unknown

I am creating a trinket, called The Machine That Goes *blurp* , worth A$20.It looks like a metal box that farts occasionally. Inside it is a pile of wooden spoons, the number of which is equal to 1 less than the number of players of Ackanomic. I am burying this trinket as a treasure, and I reveal the following which is vaguely connected with the corresponding map:

IF, AND ONLY IF this cycle *** * ****** **** ** *** *** ******* **** ***, THEN the Player That Is Malenkai shall win the cycle.

Today is Friday, the 21st day of March, in the Year of Our Lord 1997, and the Machine That Goes *blurp* Went *blurp* sometime last week. Since I have been scholar, the Machine has gone *blurp* 5 times.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

The first player to post a public message containing the words "IF, AND ONLY IF this cycle has a number that is odd and greater than one, THEN the Player That Is Malenkai shall win the cycle" shall find the Machine That Goes *blurp*. Unless it was their second try.

• theLittle Bag O' Chips G,
• theThring,
• theFibber the Low-Grade Brass-Painted Cheapo Plastic Flea,
• thePumpkin Patch,and
• TheBagel of Uestiox.

The map is 121k, so I will not send it to the list. If you wish to have a copy of it let me know and I will email it to you.

snowgod later posted the URL of the map: The treasure map I mentioned yesterday can be found at http://www.alaska.net/~snowgod/acka/map.html

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The MapThe Map Was:

Whosoever can take this collection of numbers and convert it from the .pict file it was to the .jpg it wants to be and send me that picture shall find this treasure.

The first deposit consisted of one Lucky Ball and Chain , deposited when I visited snowgod's house. The second was made on my trip to ACME labs, and consisted of five PFTechno, also the fabulous Original Rules Manuscript obtained from the Museum in exchange to save transportation and valued at five hundred Ackadollars. The above is securely packed in iron pots with iron covers. Paper number one describes the exact locality of the vault so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.

The map which describes how to find the treasure has been rent into three pieces. Each paper will lead you to the next. Paper number one, mentioned above, will lead you directly to the treasure.

There is a smudge which obscures one part of the map, I have reproduced the smudge with a **. Treasure seekers may give me one PFBond of their choice and I will reveal what is under the smudge, privily. Fair warning, it's probably not worth it.

1307
Paper Three:
6 4 8 2 23
116 24
92 102 94
6 101 2
34 8 94 148 5 10 101 24
4 166 51 15
36 101 165 111 92 6 **
11 1
12 103
11 101 94 2 23 21 36 112 131 101 92

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When

/dev/joe posted: "I will bet that IdiotBoy did not bury a treasure".

The Map Was

The first player to say "I will bet that IdiotBoy did not bury a treasure" shall find this treasure.

• Secret Decoder Ring,
• theNo Tea, and
• Fibber the Low-Grade Brass-Painted Cheapo Plastic Flea,

Night came and he had not returned. I knew it shouldn't have taken this long for him to do something so simple, and so natural for him. After quite some time waiting for him, I eventually fell asleep. In the morning I was awakened by a clatter on my roof. I went out to see what in was, and found a large eagle perched on the edge of the roof. The bird had a piece of paper in one of its talons; upon seeing me, it dropped that paper to the ground and flew off.

One side of the paper had a rough skull and crossbones filling the entire sheet. This was a symbol we had agreed upon to mean dire trouble. On the other side was a set of scrawls I could not decifer. I assume it is the map to the treasure, but who could read this?

I said a little prayer for the safety of my servant, and this reminded me that I needed also to pray to the weather gods:

Euphemistically speaking,
would an umbrella of Bounty
just fall to pieces
or have superabsorbency?

Deep in the rain forest
of hypervitality
could someone decipher
tel tlria rpb orkbp ifhb qebpb?

Here is the back side of the slip of paper the eagle brought me (note, it is not written with ASCII characters so a picture of the paper is included below).

Found When:

The Map Was:

The approximate decoded text of the map (sorry, the actual text is only on a slip of paper at home, so this is partly based on trying to "read" the runes):

The treasure may be found by publicly posting the name of the hobbit who found the ring after Gollum lost it.

It uses the system of runes that is attributed to the dwarves in the appendices of the last volume of _Lord of the Rings_. It is a phonetic encoding, so some of the substitutions are only approximate. The fact that Gimli (a dwarf in LOTR) wrote the note was a hint. (There was also the encoded line in the prayer, which tried to point at the Gimli reference indirectly.)

I myself did not really create, or bury, the Hubert Feathers. They were hidden by pirates somewhere in Ackanomia, in the long-ago days before we came to this place. In my research I learned of their existence, but have been unable to discover how to find them. By making them into a trinket, I hope to realize their existence in modern Ackanomia, and make them accessible as a Buried Treasure.

Below is the only information I have. It is a portion of a newspaper article (found on the back of a coupon that somebody had clipped out and never used).

"Cavegoers located old sandstone engravings buried under the naturally ossified calcium. In graphics, a remarkable narrative is depicted thereon: a fragmented narrative, more precisely, as the engravings were unearthed in a dozen potsherds. One whole image depicts groups of soldiers standing before their chief, who is selecting the third soldier in each group to form an army. A few of the fragments contain writing of a curious yet tantalizing nature. The following is what has been recovered from these pieces: 'Task the Tenth: at midnight in summer stand waiting by a hollowed-out pool, a sober person at the deasil, and imbibe a spoonful of a mixture of a powder of dried bat ichor in a dram of basic Sauvignon Cabernet, in a bejewelled -- one maculated cattle mooing an offering, with ashes of a tree. -- 131 East Interlake Street, a messy apartment in back of an otherwise neat hole-in-a-wall. The concierge is a degreed anesthesiologist. -- Cast an arm; crack a log; smite an uncle; saw a frog. Be as apropos as it is in Ys. Be as redditive as it is in Ys. Be as inspired as it is in Ys.' The archaeologists were unwilling to comment on the significance of the inscriptions at press time."

Strangely enough, my research indicates that somehow this article explains how the Hubert Feathers may be uncovered. I've stared at it until I'm blind, and found nothing. I now throw it out to all of you. Whoever can figure this puzzle out may claim the Hubert Feathers, and whatever special properties they may or may not bestow, as their own.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

BEGIN AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF COW TOWN HOTEL
PROCEED NORTH A NUMBER OF PACES EQUAL TO THE
YEAR OF THE CONCEPTION OF INTERCAL
INSCRIBE ON THE GROUND THE LAST STATEMENT OF
THE SAMPLE INTERCAL PROGRAM IN SECTION TWO
WITH A STRONG SHOVEL DIG

I am hereby burying the following items: 5 Processing Chips, 10 PFbreadbox, A$20, the Gravitational Monople, and the Trinket known as Little Bag O' Chips I.

The map to this treasure says:

The treasure shall be found by whoever finds the Hubert Feathers.

Found When:

The Map Was:

I am burying the cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor. I wrote the following on the ground near where I buried it, but I can't read it anymore, and I seem to have gotten amnesia. Here is what I can see:

I  y    an rc d this,  c ' e becr pl virg Nctna | tcc nuch.
Donatc  t  o  hc  m  c m.

Found When:

The Map was:

The first player to donate Nethack to the museum will find a cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor.

Well, this lovely and decorative trinket [The Inky Bloater] Can Be Yours if you can answer the following skill-testing question(also known as a Treasure Map):

What book is the name Tamson House from? The first player to correctly identify the book's title and author in a public message(or private message to me)will receive the Inky Bloater.

Found When:

two-star posted the message below to the public forum.

Anyway I found a more helpful De Lint bibliography that lists _Moonheart_ as first in the Tamson House series, and _Spiritwalk_ as second in the Tamson House series.

The Map Was:

I am creating a trinket called Falafel Fallen Off , worth 11 A$. It is made mostly of garbanzo beans and spices and stuff, and it is lying in front of my foot, where I accidently dropped it. It is half covered with a cucumber yogurt sauce.

I am burying it.

The text of the map to this treasure is this post.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

/dev/joe posted this message.

The Map Was:

[assumed] to be included in the above.

I will then immediately bury this treasure [the Manx Cat] , with the following map:

Some of you may have noticed that in my email signature, I include something different every time on the bottom line(which I call a "tagline", from the time spent on Fidonet). These come from a variety of sources--some from my own twisted little brain, some from other people's collections, some from song lyrics, some from books, some from the Net, some from comics. Now they don't all have identifiable sources, but some do.

All you need to do, to discover the Manx Cat, is to identify...well, let's say three of these, for now. I'm looking for the source, specified as explicitly as possible--if it's a song, the title and at least one artist who's recored it. I'll let you know if you've specified it well enough. If I've already attributed it--it's got something like "--billbill" on the end--it doesn't count either. (Most of those are from the good folks on talk.bizarre, with some exceptions.) For your own benefit, send it in a private message to me, because if you spill it publicly, anyone else can send it in, too. You don't need to identify them all at once; I'll keep track of who's sent in how many. (Oh, yeah, they're only eligible if I've posted them in a _public_ message to one of the Acka mailing lists.)

I'll be putting up a list of the taglines at http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/acka/tags.html sometime tonight, and try to keep it up to date, for those people who don't archive all their email like I do. :-) And I will be continuing to post more of them on new messages. I'm genuinely curious to see which ones people will be able to identify, and who will be able to. There may be some clues on my Web page, since for instance I've got my entire album collection up there. I don't care how you get your information, if you've got the right answer.

And if you have an attribution that I don't know about, then you'll have to give me enough information to check on it myself, but if you're right, you get two points for that one.

Good luck to you all!

Found When:

The Map Was

Anyway, Breadbox has already fulfilled the requirements of Treasure 146, by identifying two taglines I didn't have any attributions for, and providing me online references for same. The quotes he identified are:

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it (John Cage)
Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. (Tom Potter)

Now I am burying The White Tent The Raft (don't worry, it won't be any the worse for its inhuming), and will reveal its location to the winner of the Alfvaen Tagline Attribution Quiz, Mark II, whose rules follow(with some repetition, but a few changes):

Some of you may have noticed that in my email signature, I include something different every time on the bottom line(which I call a "tagline", from the time spent on Fidonet). These come from a variety of sources--some from my own twisted little brain, some from other people's collections, some from song lyrics, some from books, some from the Net, some from comics. Now they don't all have identifiable sources, but some do.

I'm looking for the source, specified as explicitly as possible--if it's a song, the title and at least one artist who's recorded it. I'll let you know if you've specified it well enough. If I've already attributed it--it's got something like "--billbill" on the end--it doesn't count either. (Most of those are from the good folks on talk.bizarre, with some exceptions.) And it doesn't count if it was identified in the previous instance of this Quiz, either. :-) For your own benefit, send it in a private message to me, because if you spill it publicly, anyone else can send it in, too. You don't need to identify them all at once; I'll keep track of who's sent in how many. (Oh, yeah, they're only eligible if I've posted them in a _public_ message to one of the Acka mailing lists.)

There is a list of the taglines at http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/acka/tags.html, and I will try to keep it up to date, for those people who don't archive all their email like I do. :-) And I will be continuing to post more of them on new messages. I'm genuinely curious to see which ones people will be able to identify, and who will be able to. There may be some clues on my Web page, since for instance I've got my entire album collection up there. I don't care how you get your information, if you've got the right answer.

The winner of the Quiz will be the one who first gets 10 points, or the entrant with the highest score at the end of two months from today(May 5, 1997). If there are multiple entrants with the highest score, the contest will be extended until the tie is broken.

Scoring is as follows:

If I myself did not know the original attribution of the quote, then I will award two points to the player who can provide me with a reference(or two, preferably), upon my checking and finding it valid. (If you can find online references, my chances of being able to check it promptly are vastly increased.)

If it is a They Might Be Giants quote, I will award half a point for a correct identification. (I mean, c'mon, I know who I'm dealing with here, and I don't want to make things too easy...) Any other correct identification that is not disqualified by above rules will be worth one point.

As an extra bonus, anyone who can identify the sources of the three trinkets I've created so far( theInky Bloater, the Manx Cat and The White Tent The Raft )will get a point for each of those as well, and for any other trinkets that I create before the end of the contest that I don't specifically disallow.

Good luck!

Found When:

Alfvaen posted the scores below.

/dev/joe finished with a whopping 13 points, many of which he admits to having acquired through doing web searches for lyrics. :-)

Final Scores:

1. /dev/joe: 13 points
2. Red Barn: 8 points
3. fnord: 3.5 points
4. Niccolo Flychuck: 1 point
5. ThinMan: 1 point
6. two-star: 1 point
7. Mohammed: 0.5 points

The Map was:

I am burying repayment

THe map reads:

Repayment will be found by the player other than ThinMan who donated money to snowgod for an earth defense laser when he publically states that he has done so.

Found When:

I am donating "money" to snowgod for an earth defense laser.

I have donated money to snowgod for an earth defense laser.

The Map Was:

Proving once again that it takes money to make money, /dev/joe has found the repayment treasure, though his attempt was outside the intent of the contract.

I am burying snowgod , and revealing no portion of the map to anyone.

Found When:

Alfvaen gave some money to Antimatter.

The Map Was:

snowgod will be found by the first player other than Antimatter, or the player formerly known as such, to pay A$100 to Antimatter (not any player formerly known as Antimatter), with his permission, for the express purpose of retrieving snowgod.

• The Bronze Umbrella
• The Lucky Ball and Chain
• a cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor

Unfortunately I forgot where I buried them. I have a scrap of paper on which I performed some calculations relating to the burial site, but I must have been very confused when I wrote these, because they make no sense to me now.

Anyway, I present this paper here. Maybe somebody else can figure it out.

         NEU        SGSM           MFM             GHG
      ______      ______       _______        ________
 DBP / LENAS  AS / LTNCS  EEH / MFLWHA  UEHH / TTTTTTT
       BPS         EA           WENM            ATMU
       ---         --           ----           -----
        UNA        MGN           FWEH           GSMHT
        DBP        MSD           YEOF           GAMRS
        ---        ---           ----           -----
        NAIS         LC           MNWA           TERGT
        NNPS         EA           WENM            ATMU
        ----         --           ----           -----
         NAS          DS           NYH            GTPH
                      AS
                      --
                      SC

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

Alfvaen posted "So surely, then, Grump had 63 feet." to the public forum.

The Map Was:

Solve the puzzle in my June 1st prayer and post publicly how many feet Grump has.

Then, I bury the contract I just wrote, and the Blarney Stone , as a single Treasure. I write a map to it, of course, and will reveal the following:

To find the treasure, send me the best babble file that I receive in the next 14 days. (A babble file is a text file that can be used with my babble program to generate random output of a certain type. More about my babble program appears below.)

The value judgement implied here will be made by me at the end of that time and that judgement will be final. Entries will be judged on creativity, effectiveness, originality, harf,... just about everything except spacing, which might be tricky for the non-programming-inclined and will thus be ignored. Your file need not simply blather randomly, like my signature file! I'm looking for more creative uses of the program. Check out numbers.txt for one illustrative but very boring example.

Remember, entries must be sent privately. Good luck!

Confused? Please feel free to ask. I want as many people to go after this as possible.

WHERE TO GET THE STUFF:

The "babble" stuff is available through the mail bot for those of you who have a C compiler. Send the bot these commands:

#read file babble.c

#read file babvocab.txt

#read file numbers.txt

Or, if you use a browser for _everything, visit http://www.cbu.edu/~jorendor/acka/babble/ where you will find all the above, plus a Windows-only babbler that you can download, unzip, and run without further ado.

HOW TO USE IT ONCE YOU'VE GOT IT:

• What babble does is read in a bunch of lists from a babble file, then use that information to generate random chunks of text. It prints said random chunks of text on the screen one at a time as you sit there pressing the Enter key. When you tire of this you hit Ctrl-Z and then Enter, and it quits.
• If you use the -ca option, babble will try to catch as many errors in your babble file as it can before it starts. Otherwise, it will be pretty much oblivious to any errors that might be there, until they actually come into play (much like us with our ruleset.)
• When running babble, use the -f option to cause the babbler to load a particular babble file. For example:
• babble -f numbers.txt -ca
• It's not altogether obvious how to stop the babbler once it's running. Under Windows, Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Z will do the trick. (But you may have to hit Enter as well.)
• The executable was compiled using D. J. Delorie's port of the GNU C compiler. Excellent software. Fabulous. Also means it's illegal to sell a stripped executable like babble.exe, so don't. :o) As if.

Found When:

Mohammed said that Alfvaen did.

The Map Was:

This treasure will be found by a player when Mohammed announces that that player has found it.

Only two players played; /dev/joe sent in a file that produces Star Trek plots. He claims it has the worst from 400+ episodes across four series.

During a mission to make first contact with Tuche IV, the last speckled Talaxian from the Delta Quadrant steals Vulcan! Next time on Star Trek: The Next Generation!

During a mission to prevent a natural disaster on Lebi III, dozens of giant Cardassians from Teedias VI kill Troi and impregnate her with an alien child! Next time on Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Alfvaen's winning entry is based on the Zippy the Pinhead quotes "in the 'fortune' database"; I know them from GNU emacs "yow" command.

All I can think of is an army of NYLON OIL WELLS being trampled by a blur of my INK-LING and a bowling average ...

Yow! We THROW OVER a live INK-LING THERE. In 1971 TWO DOZEN CORDOVANS MAIL selling some LIVE ammo in YOUR box of VELVEETA!

What GOOD is a CARDBOARD INK-LING ANYWAY?

ASPARAGUS makes me FESTIVE!!

Both babble files, and the babbler itself, can be found at http://www.cbu.edu/~jorendor/acka/babble/

Map destroyed as a result of P2110

Announcement

I am burying my vending machine as treasure, though I am not revealing any of the map publically.

Destroyed When:

Treasure 155 (Alfvaen, June 9th, 1997):

Found by /dev/joe (7th August, 1998)

Announcement

I am burying the Lucky Ball And Chain.

To make some amends to those whom I didn't leave any chance to work on /dev/joe's last treasure, I am also going to submit some stages of my calculations, in a similar form. I will admit that my calculations were much more complex, though, and I'm curious to see if someone will be able to duplicate my results. :-)

       WUW
   -------
EPE)RDPRUD
    RUKV
    ----
     RGRU
     NDKU
     ----
      RWVD
      RUKV
      ----
        ND


        JZV
    -------
SZRJ)JRFRZF
     JSYW
     ----
       VXZF
       VSXV
       ----
        SOW


       KKQT
   --------
TQT)ECEVOVU
    EDKK
    ----
     EGGO
     EDKK
     ----
      EQDV
      VOUC
      ----
       KKQU
       QCVT
       ----
        TVK


      FGNLN
   --------
LGD)ZFLGGZL
    LGD
    ---
     CNG
     NHZ
     ---
     GJCG
     FONG
     ----
      FGJZ
       OCF
       ---
       GGLL
       FONG
       ----
        GDF


         OZW
    --------
PWQL)PPVLQJP
     PPLPL
     -----
       QFVJ
       FZVJ
       ----
       PPJJP
        VYOJ
        ----
        PPFP


        CDMCD
    ---------
XDEE)DCRXSERG
     CGMM
     ----
      KXDS
      ERDC
      ----
      XXRHE
      XRHKC
      -----
        DCCR
        CGMM
        ----
         KDCG
         ERDC
         ----
         XCSE

This Treasure had some Clues and Guesses

Found When

/dev/joe posted:
Alfvaen played Freddy in Noises Off!

Map Was

The treasure shall be found by the first player, besides Alfvaen, who posts to the public forum that Alfvaen played the part of "Freddy", "Frederick", or "Philip" in "Noises Off".

87CB2E1E995073DFB72F4D1A776741C30ECD3BB272DFB74E30

Slakko Created danced naked on the town hall steps with the description "It is Evesiti."

The Map Was

The treasure shall be found by the first player, besides Alfvaen, to create a new entity which either has a palindromic name, or a description which is entirely palindromic. Rules and Proposals are valid entities for this purpose, and their text counts as a description. I reserve the right to withhold the treasure if I am convinced that the player in question had not intended to find this treasure.

Since Slakko made an effort to privately point out to me that e had created this trinket, I figured e probably knew what e was about. Now perhaps e'd like to share eir technique with us...

Slakko's Corollary

The technique is as follows:

• Realise that there's an easy way to fulfil two Agenda Conditions at once.
• Do it.
• Realise that the Scorekeeper possibly missed it.
• Point it out.
• Fall ass-over-backwards into a Treasure.

I m burying the add-on as treasure, with a map that is unrevealed, but substantially similar to the map to my vending machie.

Found When:

Mr. Lunatic Fringe announced:

Greetings Little People,

By this message I return to the game of Ackanomic, if only briefly. It seems that in my undead state I rolled over once too often and acidentally poked myself in the back with a treasure that I hid in the hall of elders. The map, you see, read "the bonus vote add-on will be found when the creator of this map says it has been". The very clunkiness of this text is what alerted me to the teasure. You try resting eternally wth something like that in the small of your back.

Anyway, my time here is limited. It don't really need a bonus vote add-on. I don't even really need a bonus vote. I hereby transfer this item to the possesion of K2, who must have done something right. Then I roll over and die, but not before wishing my old Ackanomic Friends a happy festivus.

By this message I deregister from the game of Ackanomic.

The Map Was:

the bonus vote add-on will be found when the creator of this map says it has been

For those of you who have held off on finding the Treasures of Jara, it has paid off. I am upping the ante by burying my Automatic Sculpture as a Treasure.

The gist of the map is (the actual map is a little more legalese like):

The first person to frink Right-Handed Grapefruit Juice from Malenkai's Vase shall find this Treasure.

The Map Was:

Any player who has the Onyx Vase, and some Right-Handed Grapefruit Juice, and announces publically that they are 'frinking the RHG Juice from Malenkai's Vase', or a reasonable paraphrase, shall find this treasure.

I am burying the Exquisite Dead Guy as a treasure. (How comforting it must be for the ground to close over him once again...) The map is as follows: The Exquisite Dead Guy shall be found by the first player who sends to me an Ackanomic-inspired pangram.

An Ackanomic-inspired pangram shall be a true sentence of the following form:

"This Ackanomic-inspired pangram contains one a, twelve b's, six c's, nineteen d's, five e's, zero f's, two g's, seven i's, one j, twenty-seven k's, thirteen l's, ninety-nine m's, three n's, four o's, six p's, twelve q's, four r's, eighteen s's, nine t's, one u, one v, eleven w's, one x, three y's, and twenty-four z's."

The above sentence is not true, since it does not contain the number of letters it specifies. However, if there is at least one true sentence of that form(changing only the specified quantities of each of the letters, and possibly adding or removing "'s"), then that sentence is an Ackanomic-inspired pangram. If you can prove that no such sentence exists, then that'll work too. :-)

Good luck!

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses (and the proof)

Found When:

I am burying 5 PFAntimatter and the Silver Shovel. The following may or may not have anything to do with the map:

seek nodded me at ill atropal not hi smear tot he a row pint the alters annis altar this or neo a fit sheen spills veer rest hi of vie alert urn messy

I hope that's not too hard - but if you don't want to find the Silver Shovel, or even if you do, you may want to skip this puzzle.

Found When:

two-star signed the Silver Shovel Contract.

The Map Was:

The first player who has signed the Silver Shovel Contract to send Antimatter a correct translation of the runes on the Silver Shovel will find this treasure.

Treasure 169 (Alfvaen, June 18th, 1997):

Found by JT (Sept 9th, 1998)

Announcement

Having buried the Exquisite Dead Guy, and finished the Tagline Attribution Quiz, I am now burying the Hubert Feathers and the Five Hundred Misplaced Ackadollars--just cause I got another treasure map idea. I am revealing the following portion of the map:

9D2FAEE4F353B636932019656968F69FE17EB295D007
A68FAEE67C947AC3E5E6DADFBFE089582EDC8E85F127
36BDB4B3D8BBF30EAECA958602ED481195E25D2786C9

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

This Treasure was mentioned in The Ack#9

Found When:

JT posted the following bacon chain:

• Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan in French Kiss (1995)
• Meg Ryan and Dennis Franz in City of Angels (1998)
• Dennis Franz and Sharon Stone in Bay City Blues (1983)

The Map Was:

The treasure shall be found by the first player who publicly posts a Bacon Chain from Sharon Stone to Kevin Kline." (It also includes a definition of Bacon Chain, but since that's in the Rules now I'll just take it as read.) Alfvaen Added:

I had to check on "Bay City Blues", since I'd never heard of it; my chain would have gone through Jamie Lee Curtis("A Fish Called Wanda") to Arnold Schwarzenegger("True Lies") and then to Sharon Stone through "Total Recall". But apparently "Bay City Blues" works... (It's also got Peter Jurasik from Babylon 5, interestingly enough...)

In case anyone's interested, the encryption was done as follows: If you counted spaces, the map I posted was exactly 256 characters long. So if you index those from 00 to FF(hexadecimal)... That's why I had to preserve the typos therein.

And now, I am burying [Beldin's Parka] with the map:

This treasure shall be found by the first person who amends Beldin's Pants to contain the phrase "gains 1 trinket".

Never Buried

Can't imagine why, any one who can may pick a letter in T196

I am burying the repayment, 1 PF/dev/joe, and 5 PFVoting Gnome as a treasure.

I am revealing the following information about the map: The first player to send /dev/joe a set of plays for a valid Tromino Go round leading to a situation where a player can legally pass by Tromino Go's rule 5, or a valid proof that such a pass can never happen in a legal game, shall find this treasure.

Found When:

The Map was:

I am burying the Snail Shell, and revealing the following text, which is substantially similar to the map:

Whoever scores the most points in the Gaolhouse Rock Numbers Contest (GRNC) shall find the Snail Shell. In the event of a tie for most, the player who submitted the first of the tied entries shall win.

The rules of the GNRC are:

1. Entries are via private e-mail to me. Non-private e-mail is not an entry. Entries shall be unambiguously marked as such. [This post was sent to acka-priv].
2. A player may only submit one entry. Entries after their *first* are disqualified.
3. Contest ends Sat, July 12th, 23:59.
4. For each of the numbers in my recent Gaol cell descriptions (requoted below), players may submit one song and the artist who recorded that song. To score, the song must contain, in its lyrics, the number in question. One point is scored if I recognize the song, and can verify the lyric. If this point is scored, another point is scored for this song if the artist mentioned did in fact record the song, and I can verify that. The artist point cannot be scored if the song point is not scored (for a particular number).
5. It is recognized that I may not recognize a legitimate entry. There are many gaps in my musical knowledge. That's the way the bee bumbles, unfortunately. Your best bet is sticking with commercial rock/alternative music, or adding extra material, such as a URL (which I am free to ignore), to bolster your claim.
6. Titles and artists must be reasonably exact (excluding articles, prepositions, punctuation, and the like), as judged by me. For example, "8675309" is wrong. "Artist" means band or performer/solo artist.
7. The decisions of the Judges are final, even if wrong. This clause has precedence over all others in the map. Sorry, I'll try my best. :-)

Antimatter is is cell 1000000000000, its walls are green.

fnord is in cell 8675309, its walls are green.

Guy Fawkes is in cell 4545, its walls are green.

Rex Mundi is in cell 96, its walls are green.

Robert Sevin is in cell 82, its walls are harf.

two star is in cell 66, its walls are wall-coloured.

Found When:

The Map Was:

7) An extra point is awarded for providing *both* "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo" "Echo and the Bunnymen" for "That's the way the bee bumbles".

Alfvaen's responses/solution were:

• Antimatter is is cell 1000000000000, its walls are green.
  Well, it's a bit big for the Barenaked Ladies, and the closest thing I can think of is "How To Be A Millionaire" by ABC, which is probably not it.
  [David Bowie: Panic in Detroit]

  fnord is in cell 8675309, its walls are green.

  Tommy Tutone: 867-5309(Jenny)

  Guy Fawkes is in cell 4545, its walls are green.

  Zager & Evans: In The Year 2525

  Rex Mundi is in cell 96, its walls are green.

  ? & The Mysterians: 96 Tears

  Robert Sevin is in cell 82, its walls are harf.[Asia: Heat of the Moment]

  two star is in cell 66, its walls are wall-coloured.

  Not a clue. (I know there's a "Route 66" song,

  [Depeche Mode: Route 66]

I am burying /dev/joe's Legacy as a treasure. I am revealing the following information related to the map.

1. 26-20-107-100-127-8-84-47-38-145-16-120-5-78-123-154
2. 151-32-136-73
3. 105-148-42
4. 40-152-122
5. 93-138-94-1-27
6. 6-124-134-17-82-74-156-54-24
7. 135-23-36-52-118
8. 79-41-126-81-116
9. 44-7-65-96-149-63
10. 95-131-50-104-133-108-15
11. 9-13-155-64-61-2-125-86
12. 75-3-51-90-21
13. 14-45-137-56-153-143-25-34-110-66
14. 49-142-58-115-89-12-4
15. 139-10-57-29-85-76
16. 37-70-114-11-147-146-150-31-106-111
17. 112-18-98-68-77-129-103
18. 48-28-33-91-72-109-46-101-39
19. 97-60-19-88-53-132-102-121-35-80
20. 43-92-99-119-69-87
21. 55-59-130-117-22-83-141-71
22. 140-30-62
23. 67-128-113-157-144
    1e-2k-3l-4n 5a-6f 7i-8a-9k 10o-11p-12n 13k-14m-15j-16a-17f-18q
    19s-20a-21l-22u-23g-24f-25m 26a-27e-28r 29o-30v-31p-32b-33r-34m-35s-36g
    37p-38a-39r 40d-41h 42c-43t-44i-45m-46r 47a-48r 49n-50j-51l-52g-53s-54f-55u
    56m-57o-58n-59u-60s-61k-62v-63i 64k-65i-66m 67w-68q-69t-70p-71u-72r
    73b-74f-75l-76o-77q-78a 79h-80s 81h-82f-83u 84a-85o-86k-87t-88s
    89n-90l-91r-92t-93e-94e-95j 96i-97s 98q-99t-100a 101r-102s-103q-104j-105c-106p
    107a-108j-109r-110m-111p 112q-113w-114p 115n-116h 117u-118g-119t
    120a-121s-122d 123a-124f-125k 126h-127a-128w-129q-130u-131j-132s 133j-134f
    135g-136b-137m-138e-139o-140v-141u-142n 143m-144w-145a-146p 147p-148c-149i
    150p-151b-152d-153m 154a-155k-156f-157w

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

I am burying the Parka as a treasure. This could be useful depending on how Beldin's Pants is amended.

It is my deepest, truest, heartfelt hopes that enough information has been provided in the last 9 hours to find the Parka. [Posted July 17th, 02:54]

my parka is lost
in the oddest place i know
it is to be found

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The MapThe Map Was:

The first player to author a qualified public message that changes the game state, as judged by me (eg, proposal, IP, CFJ, YORL play, etc),shall find the Parka. A qualified message isone that contains the word "seven" in any of the these languages: Euskara, Albanian, Welsh, or Lituanian.

Treasure 178 (two-star, July 19th, 1997):

Found by JT (7th September 13, 1998)

Announcement

I am burying the Curious Clock of Uesticlox, 1PF Voting Gnome, and 2A$. (a *composite* number of entities, it should be noted.) Look for some clues about the map in the next exciting edition of The HTML Standard.

Posted a few days later:

We had planned to bring you coverage of the world tromino go
championships and an exclusive look at the map to the Curious Clock of
Uesticlox treasure in this issue. Unfortunately, our computer, which has
been going through a bout of depression due to its impending
obsolescence, somehow got confused and combined the two. In the hopes
that someone may be able to extricate one from the other, we are
publishing the computer's output.


          *G
        *e*L*OCo
  CA    clcNAECf*T
  CHCiAS*c*tAo*Eba*HAy
*E*c*f*tAEBDBhcI*NAE*E
  *rbE*o*GaE*nce*D*T*W
    *TCR*iad*rASAc*c
    aoaSBs*rbubNCECB
    *t*uBIcQce*r*k
  aH*N*aAA*ebLaLaT
  aA*tBAAE  bw*U*V
      BUBg    CACi

$ _

Just as we were going to press, I accidentally spilled some ink on the
strange computer output. I apologize if that inconveniences anybody.

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

This Treasure was mentioned in The Ack#9

Found When:

JT created /dev/joe's watchface valued at A$24.

The Map Was:

This treasure shall be found by the first player to create a forgery with a value of 24 A$

/dev/joe posted a corollary in the ACK

I am burying this Trinket. Square Peg And Round Hole

This Treasure shall be found by the first player to submit a non-recursively defined formula for the nth term in the series whose 1st 13 terms are as follows:

1
2
12
0
-720
0
30240
0
-1209600
0
47900160
0
-1307674368000 / 691 (yes, 691 is prime)

Failing that, this treasure can be found by submitting a non-recursively defined formula for the nth term of the series consisting of the odd-numbered members of the above (720, 30240, 1209600, etc.) although if you can find that, converting it to the first should not be too difficult.

P.S. I have not found a solution myself, although I am confident one exists. I believed at first it was some sort of combination of factorials, and it probably does contain a few, though the last term there utterly bewilders me (I've checked it three times). The binomial series does have _some_ relation to this, though the transformation may be so horribly complex that the binomial series is a bad starting point. If anyone thinks more terms would be useful, I can calculate a few more (I generate them as part of a much larger problem) though I am beginning to run out of digits on my calculator's mantissa :)

Found When:

Guy Fawkes said so:

The Map Was:

/dev/joe's Solution

/dev/joe's Corollary

In any case, if my creation of a Lushrike failed, so did my treasure burial. Like Elric, I tried to get rid of the black sword and failed. :-o So I again bury a treasure, this time consisting only of Stormbringer. The same map (with clues yet to be revealed) applies to this treasure.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

The Map Was:

"Publicly say Mournblade".

I am burying The Public Ally; the portion of the Map I am revealing consists of the third paragraph preceding this one. (Don't worry; if no such word exists that I find acceptable, I have another clause that will keep the Ally from being lost forever.)

Found When:

The Map Was:

Anyone who can present a valid word to Alfvaen such that a) it ends in "ally", b) the rest of the word is a valid adjective, and c) there is no valid word remaining when the "ly" ending is removed, shall find the Public Ally. Alfvaen shall be the sole judge of what is a valid word[although I won't be too picky about this]. If this treasure should remain unfound for too long a time, due to a lack of such words, then the Public Ally shall be found by the person to first find a Treasure buried by Alfvaen after he decides the first part of this map is hopeless.

I am burying the Snail Shell as a Treasure. Since I got no response to my questions about a web-based Treasure, I'll just go ahead and do the thing.

There's this game called Fantasy Billboard which I've been playing for months now. Essentially, what you do is pick ten records(with certain restrictions)from the Billboard Hot 200 album chart(as well as the Heatseeker list, of records outside the Hot 200 that show promise). Then, over the following four weeks, you get points depending on the chart positions of each record, which bonuses for things like a Heatseeker charting, fastest mover, new #1, or entering the top 20/50/100.

So I am revealing the following portion of the Map to the Snail Shell: The first player to get eir "record company" among the top 50 such companies shall win it. In the event that two players get there in the same week, the higher-scoring one will win.

To let me know you're playing, email me the name of the record company, so I can watch for it. This won't be limited to the current week's contest, so you can start later, and play more than one concurrently(starting a new one each week, that is; no more than one record label per player will be "official").

Since the album-choosing page involves frames(and is one of the few that actually makes good use of them, IMHO), anyone whose web browser can't handle them, or who's not on the Web at all: I'll gladly email you a copy of the Rules, and a list of the current 200 albums, on request, and register you myself.

(I've got two record companies on there, Azpiazu Records and Temple of Azpiazu Records, with my old and new email addresses...they won't count in this game, of course, since I don't want the Goose...)

The URL for Fantasy Billboard(which is in my Hotlist on my home page) is http://www.mpn.com/bb-tools/dispatch-meta/fantasy?SRC=index.htm

On October 31st, Alfvaen posed a new URL for the Fantasy Billboard: http://fantasy.billboard.com/

Found When:

The Map Was:

The Treasure shall be found by the player whose Fantasy Billboard record label, as registered with the Map Writer or Custodians, has the highest final four-week ranking in the first week where any player's label is in the top 50 in such rankings. The Map Writer/Custodian(s) is/are excluded from any possibility of winning this contest. Should the Fantasy Billboard contest on the web cease prior to this treasure being found, then another contest designated as 'Fantasy Billboard' by the Map Writer/Custodian shall be used instead.

I am burying the Exquisite Dead Guy as a treasure again.

This treasure will be found by the first player to privately mail me the solution (quotation and word list) to the puzzle below. Be warned that most of the entries have more than one word, and the two clues followed by question marks indicate the crummy phrases I had to use to use of the rest of the letters; most of the others follow a nice theme, though.

1a-2e-3b-4e-5n 6d-7h-8e-9o 10a-11n 12i 13n-14g-15a-16k-17h 18i

19a-20e-21l-22f 23f-24e-25h-26f-27l 28n-29k-30g-31m-32e 33a-34g-35g-36g

37j-38e-39a-40e-41d-42m-43h 44k-45h-46g 47h-48h-49m-50f-51d-52j 53m-54g

55g-56i-57i-58m-59j 60h-61g-62a-63a-64b-65i-66l 67k-68g-69l 70k-71o-72l-73g

74d-75k-76b-77m 78k-79d 80h-81o-82g-83l 84a-85l-86h-87g-88h 89c-90d

91a-92i-93n-94o-95a-96m 97h-98m 99m-100o-101n 102i-103m-104m-105m

106m-107k-108i-109o 110l-111m-112h 113f-114f-115c-116j 117m-118a-119l-120h

121d-122a-123j-124n 125g-126j-127e-128d-129f-130i

131j-132c-133b-134i-135i-136a-137k-138a-139g

140m-141g-142o-143f-144g-145d-146l-147a 148k-149f-150c-151g-152a

153i-154e-155g-156d 157b-158h-159d

1. Full name of the source of the quote 63-136-1-147-84-15-152-118-95-19-122-91-10-39-138-33-62
2. Pink Floyd song 133-64-76-3-157
3. One-named singer 89-150-115-132
4. Cause of muddy carpet? 41-128-159-74-145-121-79-156-6-90-51
5. Rolling Stones song 8-38-154-40-20-32-4-24-2-127
6. Flutelike instruments 50-26-23-114-143-22-129-149-113
7. Movie and TV series set in Miss. 144-151-36-87-141-34-82-35-125-30-54-155-14-46-68-61-139-55-73
8. Cars song 80-158-7-97-86-60-88-43-45-17-47-48-25-112-120
9. Beatles song 92-12-57-135-102-134-153-18-108-65-56-130
10. Yes song 37-126-123-59-116-52-131
11. Queen song 78-148-67-107-70-137-44-75-16-29
12. Loud newspaper? 21-110-85-27-83-69-72-119-146-66
13. Moody Blues song 117-49-42-96-77-104-99-58-98-140-103-105-111-53-106-31
14. Bon Jovi song, or another song from the 60's 124-101-11-93-13-28-5
15. A candy bar 100-71-81-9-94-142-109

Found When:

The Map Was:

The full treasure map was to send me the full text and word list from the acrostic puzzle I posted, which follows the spoiler space below.

Every once in awhile a band comes along that
changes the course of human history, and
that band is They Might Be Giants. If you
hear only one song this year, there's something
terribly wrong with you!

1. They Might Be Giants
2. Money
3. Bono
4. Grubby Shoes
5. China Grove
6. Recorders
7. In The Heat of The Night
8. Tonight She Comes
9. I Am The Walrus
10. Changes
11. I Want It All
12. Noisy Daily
13. Tuesday Afternoon
14. Runaway
15. Oh Henry

The treasure contains a Majik called Big-Nosed Kilroy

The treasure was not in a public message, so the details may or may not be in the ftp archive. Details may also be in CFJ 471.

Alfvaen was made Map Custodian when Red Barn Left

Found When

JT used a Skeleton Key Otzma to travel to Ganymede (a Moon of Acka) on 03 Jun 1998 11:48:23

At 10 Jul 1998 21:50:39 Alfvaen Posted:

I believe that JT's trip to Ganymede via Skeleton Key Otzma Card was the first moon landing, but ICOCBW.

The Map Was

The Big-Nosed Kilroy will be found by the first player to land on a moon of Acka, thereby spoiling the occasion. There was also a condition that players would be given prerefence, in the event of simultaneous occurence, who had signed the eligibility contract (which does not seem to be in the archives).

I am burying the golden glider as a treasure. The map is: Solve puzzle 1, below, and send /dev/joe the answer.

I am burying /dev/joe's Pinwheel of Many Colors. The map is: Solve puzzle 2, below, and send /dev/joe the answer.

Puzzle 1:
Conway called a speed of 1 cell per generation, in either an orthogonal or diagonal direction, "the speed of light", because this is the fastest that any arrangement of cells can grow in any direction under the life rules. He also proved that no arrangement of cells can move (regenerating itself at a new location) faster than 1/4 the speed of light diagonally or 1/2 the speed of light orthogonally (i.e., the glider and spaceships are the fastest "moving" shapes possible). In viruses, player moves make this no longer true. It is easy to find a shape which can move at the speed of light orthogonally with the assistance of one player move before each generation. Find one, and either find a shape which can move faster than the speed of light with the aid of one player move before each generation, or prove the impossibility of such motion.

Puzzle 2:
Many shapes in Life are cyclic -- that is, they repeat the same patterns after some number of generations. The same shapes are of course cyclic in Viruses also, provided no player moves interfere, once the structure has settled to a repeating pattern of viruses as well. Find a cyclic Viruses pattern containing at least two species of virus in which, with no interference from player moves, two or more species switch places after some number of generations, and all species either retain their starting locations or switch places with another species (i.e., if you had virus species A, B, and C, it could reach a pattern where the C viruses are in their starting location and all the A's and B's are swapped, or you could have all the A's go to B's, B's go to C's, and C's go to A's), *or* prove that such a cycle can never exist.

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When

/dev/joe announced it.

The Map Was

Solve the cyclic viruses patterns puzzle I posted, according to /dev/joe's interpretations of the terms it contains, and send /dev/joe the solution.

Solve the faster-than-light viruses puzzle I posted, according to /dev/joe's interpretations of the terms it contains, and send /dev/joe the solution.

Treasure 187 (Rex Mundi, October 30th, 1997):

Found by Weishaupt(7th Setpember, 1997)

Announcement

I am burying the Flora Amanita as treasure, and disclosing the following, which may have something to do with the treasure map:
The first player to post the string *** ****** ***** ******** in a message with the subject "acka: Flora Amanita" will find the Flora Amanita.

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

Weishaupt posted the following in a message with the subject "acka: Flora Amanita":
the future never happened

The Map Was

The first player, other than Rex Mundi, to publicly post the string The future never happened, or any string which varies from that only in capitalisation, in a message with the subject "acka: Flora Amanita" will find the Flora Amanita.

I picked this string more or less at random from the list of alternate song/album titles in the cover of the REM's "Monster".

Rex Mundi Later Revealed

In case anyone was wondering, the clues to this were in the volume and issue numbers of The Rex Times.

The volume number was the place in the string, and the issue number was the place that letter was in the alphabet. The big list of numbers I posted was all the volume and issue numbers concatenated, with the addition of some new letters, and the spaces, with 0 representing a space.

I am burying the Trinket of Awesome, Near-Infinite Possibilities, and the Puzzle Box. I will give out no hints whatsoever, except these hints that are to follow:

1. 2-8-3-28-23-8 1 23-8-23-2-8-53 28-11 58-13-8 1-3-21-1-25-28-23-15-3 55-81-2-12-8-25-15-81-55
2. 13-1-82-8 1 51-53-28-55-58-13-8-58-15-3 "5-28-2-2-55" 13-8-1-5
3. 13-1-82-8 1 55-23-28-21-15-25-12 "11-53-28-51" 51-15-51-8
4. Post a public message with these two attributes:
   1. The body must be an appropriate response to the question, "Are cats on the upgrade?"
   2. The subject must be a proper name that fits the question posed in part i).

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

Alfvaen posted the following message with 'Jethro Tull' in the subject line.

It says here that cats are on the upgrade.

The map to the Puzzle Box and the Trinket of Awesome, Near-Infinite Possibilities:

1. Become a member of the Ackanomic Subgenius.
2. Have a prosthetic "Dobbs" head.
3. Have a smoking "Frop" pipe.
4. Post a public message with these two attributes:
   1. The body must be an appropriate response to the questions, "Are cats on the upgrade?"
   2. The subject must be a proper name that fits the question posed in part i).

******* ******: ******* ******
***** ****: ****** *** *******
****: ********
**** ******: *** *** ***** **** **** ** **
****** ****: ********
**** ******: **********
*********: *** **** *** **** *** ****
**** ******: ****** ******
**** ****: ********
*********: ********* *********
****: ******* *******
****** *: ******** **** ** ********
*** *******: ********
*** ****** *******: ******* ** ******* ** ******** ****
**: **** *** ****** ******
**** *****: *******
*********: *****
*******: *** *********
*** **** *******: ***********
****** *** *********: *** **** ***
********* ******: ******
*** *****: ***********
** *******: ************
** ***: **********
***: *** *** *****
*****: ********* *******
****** *****: ***** ***** *****

This Treasue has had some Clues and Guesses

Found When:

/dev/joe posted 81 point list to the public forum.

The Map Was:

This Treasure will be found by the player who has the most points in my 'Guess My Favorite Album Game' as described, amended, and interpreted by Malenkai, when the game ends.

I am burying the Blarney Stone and The Smoking 'Frop' Pipe as a Treasure, whose map will be revealed shortly.

Okay, that treasure I buried, with the Blarney Stone and the Smoking 'Frop' Pipe, has a map which is substantially similar to Malenkai's map to his most recent treasure. Yes, it sounded like so much fine that I decided I had to try it as well.

The rules are slightly different. Basically: all valid entries should be sent to me privately at alfvaen@telusplanet.net, rather than posted to acka-games; only alphanumeric characters will be *'d out; if you find a typo, send in the correct version and I'll change the master list; Magick Characters may only be guessed once a week; and case doesn't matter. Oh, and there's 100 of them.

The deadline should still be the Winter Solstice, although, like Malenkai, I reserve the right to change the rules at any time. If anyone wants a clarification, let me know.

Oh, and I've temporarily taken down my web pages that would have had tons of juicy information on them. Don't want it to be too easy, after all...

Here they are were:

Found When:

Alfvaen posted the following:

To nobody's surprise, /dev/joe, as the only person who even tried, has found Treasure 190, consisting of the Blarney Stone and the Smoking 'Frop' Pipe.

The Map Was:

The map was basically the following:

The treasure shall be found by the player who has privately emailed to Alfvaen a guess at his 100 favourite albums which scored the highest points, before the Winter Solstice, 1997. Each album guess shall be scored one point for correct artist, and two for correct title if artist is correct.

The list of albums is as follows:

/dev/joe's best guess got eighty bands and seventh-eight album titles correct, for 236 points.

Treasure 195 (The Gingham Wearer, January 15th, 1998):

Found by Alfvaen (24th May 1998)

Announcement:

I am burying a treasure comprising the following:

• 1 Automatic Sculpture
• 1 Otzma card untouch me [Converted to A$5 by proposal 2944]
• 1 Chartreuse goose egg. [Treasure harfers note: This no longer exists]

The following is probably something to do with the treasure, but probably contains several mistakes :-)

• NXKZZZCUUU
• SXXXKZUUU
• SKZUU
• SXXXCUU
• XZZ
• SZXU
• XZZCUU
• XSZXUZ
• XXZZUU
• NZXUUU
• XXKZZUC
• SKZZZU
• XNKZUUU
• XZKU
• UUU
• XXUZ
• XSZZZC
• NCUU
• XNZZC
• SZX
• XXZZZCUU
• SKZZUUU
• SU
• SXXXZZ
• XXZKUUU
• SZZZCU
• NXZKUZ
• NXZKUZ
• NXZXUUU
• ZKC
• XXXZZZU
• XXKZUZ
• SZZZUUU
• NZC
• XNZCUUU
• ZZZUUU
• XXZZUU
• SXXZU
• SXXXZXU
• XXZC
• XNK
• XSZZC
• XXXZZZ
• XNZZZCUU
• SXXKZZZC
• XU
• KZZZUC
• NKC
• XXKZZUC
• XXKZZC
• SXXXZKU
• NX
• XSUZ
• SXKZZCUU
• SKZZCUUU
• XXC
• XNKZCUUU
• XXXCUU
• XNZZZCUU
• SXXZZUUU
• KUUU
• CUUU
• SXXXKZZUZ
• SXXXZZZCUU
• SXZZZUC
• XC
• SZK
• NXKZZZUZ

Found When:

Treasure 195 which contained one automatic sculpture and (I would argue) A$5 has been found by Alfvaen the treasure map was as follows:

Map Was:

This treasure will be found by the first person other than The Gingham Wearer to state that "a new fashion of wearing gingham is sweeping across Acka" in a newspaper (or an a sufficiently good approximation there of as decided by The Gingham Wearer).

I am creating a Trinket called Vegetarian Lasagne. It is worth $A 100 and has the following description :

It is a large slab of poorly sliced, half cooked vegtible-like blobs of mush irregularly interspersed with crunchy sheets sheets of what could be cardboard. It is best not to even think about what it may taste like.

I am burying the Vegetarian Lasagne with a couple (2) of Share your income otzma cards and a Skeleton Key Otzma Card.

I imagine someone who does the following will find the treasure

*** **
**** **
** **** ****** ******* **

Found When:

else...if posted the following message:
I'm eating vegetarian lasagna. Just thought you should all know.

The Map Was:

Whoever eats, drinks (or in some manner consumes ) vegetarian lasagne shall find this treasure.

I shall reveal the following portion of the map:

Some of you may have noticed that I like to title my Proposals strange things, and use weird things for the delimiters as well. Basically, email me privately with how you think I came up with them, and I'll decide who's best at it and award the treasure to em. I'm a bit rushed now, but essentially that's it... All rankings will have to be arbitrary, because that's how I like it, and treasure maps can work that way. :-)

Found When:

Alfvaen posted the following:

breadbox has found the Treasure consisting of the Trinket of Awesome, Near-Infinite Possibilities, and an Automatic Sculpture, which instantly turns itself into Sculpture 11. (Calvin N Hobbes is its Mad Sculptor.)

This was my title and delimiter quiz, where I wanted to know if people could figure out how I came up with some of the strange titles and delimiters in my Proposals. The key word here was "some"; several people thought there was some monolithic method I used all the time, but I was curious to see if people could make the individual links between Proposal topic, title, and delimiters.

The Map Was:

"Entries for the Title & Delimiter Quiz may be sent to Alfvaen, and shall be marked entirely subjectively based to how difficult each Title/Delimiter was to guess, and how closely the guesser followed Alfvaen's thought patterns. Furthermore, before the treasure can be found, at least three lengthy entries must be received."

Fortunato had sent in some early guesses, and /dev/joe as well a couple of months back, but breadbox's more recent, and longer, entry was the winner. I'll let em share the details of eir guesses(and my response; since I don't archive outgoing mail I don't have it anymore and I don't want to type it all again)as e wishes.

Treasure 198 (Slakko, Feburary 4th, 1998):

Found by K 2 (4th May 1998)

Announcement:

I am burying the Winning Betting Slip as a Treasure.

That damn Archaeologist better get on with it sometime, otherwise if I leave the game in the far future no-one will ever find this slip.

The Map Was:

This treasure will be found when the results of the first Expedition are publicly knowable. It will be found by the player in the Expedition (excluding Slakko) who finds a Treasure containing the least value in terms of A$ and Trinkets.

E found a Prosthetic Forehead - everyone else found trinkets valued at A$10 or more.

Interesting that the Wouf Houng should remain so stubbornly hidden :-)

• An automatic Sculpture
• A wool sweater
• A swingpoint
• A rock to wind a string around
• The Insert clever name here.

The treasure map is something along the lines of: This treasure will be found by the first player to either privately e-mail a decent map of Lancashire to The Gingham Wearer or tell em of an URL on the web where such a map can be found.

Found When:

My treasure has been found by /dev/joe who posted me the following URL (which should all be combined into one long URL): http://roadmaps.lycos.com:90/cgi-bin/mqcustomconnect?screen=map&l ink=map&height=300&width=400&lat=539299&lng=-29069&style=2&search =%5e%5e%5e%5e%5eEngland%5e0&orig_icon_on=1&orig_search=1&orig_ico nid=2&orig_lat=525981&orig_lng=-14661&orig_name=England&country=E ngland&first=0&mouse_mode=center&event=zoom&level=5&event=zoom

The Map Was:

This treasure shall be found by the player who The Gingham Wearer decides has done enough to deserve finding it. This should be based on providing The Gingham Wearer with a computerised map of Lancashire. Link to the map

Treasure 201 (two-star, 12nd March, 1998):

Found by /dev/joe (May 15th 1998)

Announcement

I am creating a trinket named "Lake Vostok", worth 95 A$, with the description, "Very little is known about Lake Vostok, but it may hold the key to determining whether life can exist on Kansas."

I am burying it as a treasure.

I am revealing the following, which, if it had nothing to do with the map to Lake Vostok, would be very sadistic of me indeed.

In the game of lines of action, pieces move according to the following rules:

A piece may move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally on an 8x8 board. The number of squares that it moves must equal the number of pieces on the line that it moves on.

It may not jump over any piece of the opposite color. It may however jump over pieces of the same color.

It may not move onto a square occupied by a piece of the same color. (If it moves onto a square occupied by a piece of the opposite color, that piece is captured.)

(More information about lines of action is available at David Dyer's lines of action page: http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/loa/loa.html The problem described in this post is mentioned there.)

Ignoring all of the other rules of lines of action for the moment, it is possible to place pieces on the board such that no piece can move. Obviously this is the case if the board is entirely filled. An interesting question is, how few pieces can one place on the board such that no piece can move?

An only slightly less trivial solution is to use a che[ck|qu]ered pattern.This works if all of the pieces are of the same color or if the diagonals are of alternating colors, as below.

x . o . x . o .
. x . o . x . o
o . x . o . x .
. o . x . o . x
x . o . x . o .
. x . o . x . o
o . x . o . x .
. o . x . o . x

I have done a bit of playing around on a go board, but I have not yet found a solution using fewer than thirty-two stones, and I am very curious as to whether such a solution is possible.

Therefore, the map to Lake Vostok is (something like:)

On May 15, 1998, Lake Vostok will be found by the player who has sent two-star a solution to the problem described above using fewer pieces than any other submitted solution. The submission should consist of a representation of an 8x8 board with pieces placed such that no piece could move according to the piece movement rules of lines of action. If there is a tie, two-star will consider the aesthetic merit of the solutions and the timing of their submission in breaking the tie. If any player provides, along with eir solution, a proof that no solution using fewer pieces exists, and two-star is satisfied with this proof, e shall find Lake Vostok immediately.

Empty Boards are Right Out.

**two-star

The Map Was:

This treasure will be found on May 15, 1998 by the player who has sent the writer or custodian of this map a representation of an 8 x 8 board with pieces placed on it such that:

1. ) none can move according to the rules of Lines of Action
2. ) the number of pieces is smaller than the number of pieces in any other submission.

Ties may be broken by the decision of the writer or custodian of this map.

If any player proves to the satisfaction of the writer or custodian of this map that it is impossible to find a solution containing fewer pieces than eir solution, then e wil find this treasure immediately.

/dev/joe's Corollary

Treasure 202 (Hubert, March 23th, 1998):

Found by /dev/joe (May 15th 1998)

Announcement

In any case, I am creating a trinket called "Rhymes With Schubert," with avalue of A$101 and a description of "Abhorrent. Vile. Evil. Totally, completely, and absolutely unmentionable by any sane person. Or even Hoover 2300."

I am burying "Rhymes with Schubert" along with my Otzma Card Grave Robber (more apropos than not, I guess) and submitting the following four portions of an ancient map discovered in the wreckage of my house which might, quite possibly, have something to do with finding the treasure. The first is as follows:

...shall be found on May 15, 1998 by the player who, in Hubert's estimation, has posted the cutest, most creative, or most imaginative nickname for em (for Hubert, not the posting player) since Hubert's name change. Fortunato and /dev/joe are both well on their respective ways...

I am also submitting the following mathematical puzzle, part of the same map, which might also have something to do with the treasure:

There were three geckos standing, nose to tail, in a perfectly straight line. The hindmost gecko suddenly spoke up, saying "Lo! I see a gecko in front of me." Echoed the middle gecko, "Zounds! I, too, see a gecko in front of me." And the frontmost gecko replied, "I, also, see a gecko in front of me."

How could this be?

The following string of nonsense may also have something to do with this treasure (I'm not sure if I translated this correctly):

A-boop boop diddam daddam waddam: choo!

The fourth and final clue that I could make out on the map is that at least two of the clues posted in this message have nothing to do with the treasure, and that might just include this clue.

Guesses should be posted publically for the first clue (the Nickname Game) and the third (the Boop Boop Dupe) but privately to me for the second (Lizard Wizard.)

If you want to make a guess at the fourth, you've had way too much to frink.

-Hubert

The Lottery: a tax for people who can't do the math.

This Treasure has had some Clues and Guesses

Map Was:

Oh, yeah. /dev/joe has found the treasure containing Rhymes with Schubert and the O