Subject: Ackanomic Research Digest V2 #90
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Research Digest)
To: acka-research-digest

Ackanomic Research Digest   Wednesday, June 18 1997   Volume 02 : Number 090

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Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 23:28:47 -0700
From: Joshua Nave <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2121

Acrobot wrote:
> 
> Proposal 2121
> Atom-Smashing. Okay.
> two-star

> Any player, excepting any GOD, may place a trinket in the SDSC by
> publicly stating that e is hooking the trinket on the superduper rubber
> band and pulling really hard.  

Is it your intent to allow players to place trinkets that they do not
own on the superduper rubber band?

Narf

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Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 23:46:44 -0700
From: **Alexandre Muniz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2121

Joshua Nave wrote:
> 
> Acrobot wrote:
> >
> > Proposal 2121
> > Atom-Smashing. Okay.
> > two-star
> 
> > Any player, excepting any GOD, may place a trinket in the SDSC by
> > publicly stating that e is hooking the trinket on the superduper rubber
> > band and pulling really hard.
> 
> Is it your intent to allow players to place trinkets that they do not
> own on the superduper rubber band?
> 
> Narf

It is not. Guess I'll have to retract and resubmit again.

**two-star

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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 11:27:57 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2123

This misses the point, because right at the beginning of R597 it says "This
rule takes precedence over all the rules generally governing Blueprints".
So any problems with the Azpiazu Blueprint will not be fixed by amending
R594, since it does not hold sway.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--The Christmas Song
Current Book--Jo Clayton:The Snares of Ibex
Mount Fuji is very old.  Older than very old dirt.

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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 12:42:19 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2123

> This misses the point, because right at the beginning of R597 it says "This
> rule takes precedence over all the rules generally governing Blueprints".
> So any problems with the Azpiazu Blueprint will not be fixed by amending
> R594, since it does not hold sway.

R597 only conflicts with R594 in the area of *creating* blueprints. The
change, if it had been in effect when Azpiazu's blueprint was created,
would have allowed it to be created, but then immediately destroyed the
blueprint, before the monster could be created.

However, the point is not really to prevent another azpiazu, as the change
to the frankenstein monster rule which only allows sentences from rules
does a decent job of fixing that, but to destroy blueprints that get
amended so as to no longer meet the requirements for blueprint creation.
For instance, if a proposal passes to change the blueprint of the whamiol
to "frog", it is destroyed.

/dev/joe

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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 13:34:41 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2122

> Proposal 2122
> two-star

[Proposal 2122, condensed version]
two-star proposes to allow trinkets to own each other after having been
fired from the SDSC, and he also throws two entities called quarks into
the mix which are not trinkets but have the other properties this proposal
bestows on trinkets fired from the SDSC.

These trinkets and quarks are collectively called kleptons, and kleptons
always exist in groups with cyclic ownership of each other (unless something
else interferes with the operation of the rule).  Cycles of 2 kleptons are
called masons, cycles of 3 kleptons are called berryons, and cycles larger
than 3 kleptons are unstable, decaying into a mason and whatever is left
(normally, it will be cycles of 4 kleptons decaying into 2 masons).

The choice of kleptons that stay together during the decay is determined
by comparing the alphabetical order of the names of kleptons.  This is
a problem, since alphabetical order isn't fully defined for all possible
entity names.  Does a trinket named "0b" fall before or after a trinket
named "b"?  How about "Inky Bloater Decoy 99" and "Inky Bloater Decoy 100"?
The " " rule prevents two names from matching exactly, and provides
justification for assuming that all punctuation and spaces should be
ignored in comparing the names, but it allows names which only differ
by a number.  Alternatively to the above, you could use ASCII ordering
for sorting, but this is messy; it causes "aaa" to come after "ZZZ".
This needs to be fixed by fully defining the ordering method used.

When a critical number of berryons exists (initially 5), the one containing
a trinket of highest value (using the alpha order bit to break ties) decays,
and the klepton it owned is transferred to the last player to fire a
trinket into the SDSC.

Then there are some rules regulating what happens when a trinket is fired
from the SDSC.  The trinket becomes owned by the klepton whose name
most immediately alphabetically precedes its own name [or the one whose
name is alpha last, if no klepton's name precedes it], and it takes
ownership of whatever that klepton previously owned.
There are limits on how often the SDSC can be used, once in any
7 day period per player, and trinkets less than 7 days old can't be used.

> [It is the Authors intention to establish receiving a Quark, 
> (preferably through Supercritical Berryon Decay,) as a winning 
> condition, but since establishing new winning conditions should not be 
> approached lightly, and since we can have a lot of fun with this anyway, 
>  the rule to make this new winning condition will be submitted in a 
> separate proposal, and every Loophole Surfing Expert shall be consulted 
> to ensure that such a winning condition shall not be easily abusable, 
> but nevertheless easier to achieve than a Chalice Vault win; if 
> receiving a quark is established as a condition for becoming the winner 
> of a cycle, this sentence shall delete itself, (to everyones relief.)]

The problem I see here is that this is a Hubert.  All players are trying
for the same goal -- having the highest-valued klepton own a quark at the
moment the 5th berryon is created.  Until there are 4 berryons and at
least one mason, and either the highest-valued klepton owns a quark, or
a quark is in a mason, so that the new trinket which forms the 5th berryon
can own a quark and be the highest valued klepton, nobody can win win
this way(*).  When the state above is reached, any player (except those
ineligible due to firing trinkets too recently) can fire the trinket needed
to win, and we'll have a Hubert trying to figure out who was first.

(*) Except for the thing about GODs, so that a non-GOD and a GOD can conspire
to let the non-GOD win a cycle, by having the GOD lower the critical berryon
number at the appropriate time.  One player eligible to be a GOD but who has
not yet claimed his GOD status could conceivably do it himself, claiming his
GOD status after firing a trinket.

In any case, I don't see this whole game as interesting or difficult enough
to award a cycle win for, and it's especially bad due to the possible Hubert.

/dev/joe
In Magic: the Gathering, they have to avoid the Hubert problem too, but
since it's a card game, they use the analogy of "Slap" (a.k.a. Slapjack;
"Speed" and "Spoons" are similar games, where being first [not being last]
to do something is the whole point of the game).

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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 22:54:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2123

On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Joseph W. DeVincentis wrote:

> > This misses the point, because right at the beginning of R597 it says "This
> > rule takes precedence over all the rules generally governing Blueprints".
> > So any problems with the Azpiazu Blueprint will not be fixed by amending
> > R594, since it does not hold sway.
> 
> R597 only conflicts with R594 in the area of *creating* blueprints. The
> change, if it had been in effect when Azpiazu's blueprint was created,
> would have allowed it to be created, but then immediately destroyed the
> blueprint, before the monster could be created.
> 
> However, the point is not really to prevent another azpiazu, as the change
> to the frankenstein monster rule which only allows sentences from rules
> does a decent job of fixing that, but to destroy blueprints that get
> amended so as to no longer meet the requirements for blueprint creation.
> For instance, if a proposal passes to change the blueprint of the whamiol
> to "frog", it is destroyed.
> 
> /dev/joe

I think this could be problematic for Frankenstein Monsters, actually.  It
is not at all inconcievable that a Blueprint for a Frankenstein Monster
would be created that doesn't meat these standards.  Personaly, I think
that something like that should just be part of the whole Frankenstein
Monster buisness, and not throw away out of hand.  Part of the fun of
Frankenstein Monsters is that they (presumably, since we've yet to see one
of any lenght) make no sense whatsoever.  I see nothing wrong with this.

                             - Vynd

[email-masked]

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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 22:46:52 -0500 (CDT)
From: Thierry Joffrain <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ reference guide 

I've begun something that's been on my mind for a long time. Whenever a
judge or player is looking for past judgements, reasoning, it's almost
impossible to search through all the CFJs. In the hope of making that task
easier, I've begun creating a CFJ reference guide at:

http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~ifgz711/acka/cfjabstr.html

Only the short format is available (100 CFJs took many hours to compile...
it's only a quarter of the total we have). I'll try and update it whenever I
can. If anyone wants to help out, say by starting from the 400s, then I'd
appreciate it.

CnH

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 21:49:55 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ reference guide

> I've begun something that's been on my mind for a long time. Whenever a
> judge or player is looking for past judgements, reasoning, it's almost
> impossible to search through all the CFJs. In the hope of making that task
> easier, I've begun creating a CFJ reference guide at:
> 
> http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~ifgz711/acka/cfjabstr.html

I applaud your initiative, and think that's a really good idea.

> Only the short format is available (100 CFJs took many hours to compile...
> it's only a quarter of the total we have). I'll try and update it whenever I
> can. If anyone wants to help out, say by starting from the 400s, then I'd
> appreciate it.

I would, but I'm trying to make up a comprehensive trinket-tracking page.
:-)  (What, me a compulsive list-maker?)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--The Offspring:Come Out And Play
Current Book--Jo Clayton:The Snares of Ibex
"No, he almost saw me!"

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End of Ackanomic Research Digest V2 #90
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