Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #38
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest         Sunday, June 9 1996         Volume 01 : Number 038

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

Date: Sat, 08 Jun 1996 01:26:11 -0700
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Ackanomic: Golden Frog

By R115 I claim to have found the Golden Frog, which has spoken thusly
to me:

Its a Tullism. An expression I have always used for ambigious modifiers.
From Jethro Tull, Aqualung:

"Sitting on a park bench. Eyeing little girls with bad intent."

Who has the bad intent? Aqualung on the bench towards the girls, or 
the girls towards Aqualung eyeing them?

From R115:

"What is not explicitly prohibited or regulated...". 

Does "explicitly" apply just to "prohibited", or to "regulated" as well.
Its an ambigious modifier, and if I had a better command of English
perhaps I'd know, because "explicitly regulated" is a different ballgame
from "regulated". The answer could vaporize CFJ 113 in some crucial
cirumstances, because rules always have preference over CFJ's, by R215.

I'm fishing for something at the edge of my mind that I cannot quite
bring into focus. I do concur that CFJ 113's days may be numbered, and
woe be to Ackanomicans who do not heed the warning...

Thus spoke the Golden Frog.

Malenkai
Bearer of the Golden Frog
For sale, 5 Ackadollars

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 96 12:34:14 BST
From: R Shaw <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: RFC Appendices 

 Appendices will give greater structure to the rule set. 
For example card games can be created by a single resolution
' There exists an appendix with the attached text'.
All the rules of the game will go in the appendix, and stay together
even if revised.
I suggest:

1/ There may only be one rule regulating appendices
[ so they all obey the same rule for simplicity]
2/ Every appendix shall consist of a collection of bylaws.
3/ Bylaws are not rules.
4/ Appendices to the rules shall be named A,B...Z,AA,AB... etc 
in order of creation
5/ If any appendix has a subappendices they shall be named
(appendix name )/A in order of creation. 
e.g AB  D/A E/A and CS/M/AS shall all be valid names.
Appendices to the rules are first order,
Appendices to first order appendices are second order etc.
6/ Bylaws shall be numbered in order of creation
within each appendix [ so A/1 A/2 etc]
7/ Appendices can only manipulate objects, entities
etc defined by them or their sub-appendices. 
8/ This rule requires all players to act in accordance
with all legal bylaws if the appendix they are in states
it is binding on them. They are always binding on the
treasury.
9/ If the bylaws require a player bound by them to pay a fine 
or transfer points/currency/land  this rule creates a contract 
to do so. If an appendix says it creates an office that office 
is actually created by this rule as described in the appendix.
10/ When an appendix is created it must contain at least
one bylaw.
11/ Rules/bylaws regulating permissible bylaws take precedence
as follows:
 a/ bylaws in the same appendix
 b/ Rules/bylaws regulating only that appendix
b'/ Rules/ "   "   "    "    "    "   "    "    and one other etc.
c/ Rules/bylaws regulating all appendices.
d/ The remaining rules, ordered by creation times within each class.
[appendices can be ammended like the rule set unless they say otherwise]

I think this covers everything. Power could be problematic, but if this
rule gets power .9+ and appendices infinitesimal power, they can't be
altered except according to this rule section 11 without a 90% majority
but can't influence other rules as in 7 
  
The card game rules would go
An appendix is hereby created.

This appendix is only binding on players who volunteer to play cards
The rules of elesius are immutable
The various card rules.

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:27:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Spickes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Clerk of the Courts

	I hereby volunteer for the office of Clerk of the Courts.

	De'ghew
- -- 
  John Spickes - Undergraduate - UMCP - http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jspickes
   PGP encrypted email preferred - finger [email-masked] for key

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:00:49 -0700
From: [email-masked] (Randy Hall)
Subject: Ackanomic: RFC Power

I apologize if this objection to the power scheme has been addressed. I
have mail on the server I cannot get to now.

I am concerned with any rule requiring 90% voting to be repealed. If
there is a loophole, 2 or 3 people could gain control of the game
if the loophole is powerful enough, and could act as a very small
voting bloc to prevent the rule's repeal.

Immutable -> Mutable
Mutable -> Repealed

at 67%, seems safer, because a much larger bloc is required. I shall
study the power system carefully, if it comes to vote, but I must
oppose it if what I have stated above is possible.

Malenkai

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 13:19:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Postmaster's FTP archive

OK, I've now set up the digest version of the mailing list to archive
its files into the anonymous FTP area.  The thing wants to write them
without world-readable permissions, but I'll work on that.  Anyway,
I've put all the old ones there too.  Copies of all the digests since
the digest version of the list began are available by anonymous FTP
at wilma.che.utexas.edu in /acka/ackanomic-digest

This may help anyone who thinks he may have missed some important
game-related public mail, or who wants to refer back to old mail he
has deleted.

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 12:59:18 -0800
From: [email-masked] (Phil Ackley)
Subject: Ackanomic: Silliness 

I have gone and done something silly (okay, well, it may not officially be
silly since it is not a rule and contains no reference to cows eating
grass, but it is at least kinda-sorta-sillyish).

I've created a web page showing me wearing my shiny new prosthetic
forehead.  I have a terrible feeling that representives from other nomics
are going to look at me quite strangly now, when i visit their lands.
Anyhow, please, please please check out my new prosthethic forhead at
http://www.alaska.net/~snowgod/acka/head.html and let me know what you
think.

snowgod
Ambassador
CSRR
Wearing a Prosthetic Forhead

http://www.alaska.net/~snowgod/acka/head.html

"He belongs to that race of men who are always their adversary's best
champions."

- - Umberto Eco
  The Name of the Rose

Visit http://www.alaska.net/~snowgod for the ultimate source
of Information on Thinumabobs and Whatchamacallits.

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

Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 01:08:52 +0300
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: RFC - Creation of the office of Wizard (2) 

Proposal 
Creation of the office of Wizard
Nicolo Flychuck

1.
a.This rule creates an office known as the Wizard.
b.A Wizard has the power to create Otzma Cards, if such entities exist.
c.A Wizard conduct games of Eleusis, if the game of Eleusis is defined in
Ackanomic.

2.
The office of Wizard is a political office and is filled by elections
according to the rules for electing political officers. All rules that apply
to Political officers apply to the Wizard, with the exception that a player
who holds three or more offices, either political or functional, is not
eligible to be elected for Wizard.
[[This has very little to do with distribution of power, but rather with
distribution or work, a Wizard does have some work to do, no sense of
putting everything on the shoulders of those who already volunteer for
everything]]

3.
a.Whenever a new Wizard is elected, a new pack of playing cards is created.
This pack is owned by the Wizard and is intended to be used for the purpose
of playing the game of Eleusis. While a game of Eleusis is in progress, the
Wizard's pack of playing cards may not be used for any other purpose.

b.The Wizard must always own at least one pack of playing cards. The Wizard
may acquire additional packs of playing cards by any legal means. The Wizard
may also sell, trade or give away packs of playing cards, as long as e
retains ownership of at least one. 

c.If a Wizard is left without a pack of playing cards, e is immediately
impeached, and fined A$50, for negligent use and disregard of official property.

d.The Wizard receives a salary of 5 units of currency a week.

e.A Wizard remains in office until either:
(i). The Wizard resigns, and makes a public anouncement of eir resignation.
(ii).The Wizard is impeached.
(iii) The Wizard has conducted and completed two instances of the game of
Eleusis, and there is no instance of Eleusis is in progress
(iv) if a Wizard has conducted and completed four instances of Eleusis, e
may not start any new instances of the game. Once the currently existing
instances the game are all finished e must resign from the office of Wizard.

When a Wizard finishes eir term in office, as described in either (i) ,
(iii)or (iv), e retains ownership of all the packs of cards e owned as
Wizard, as a reward for a job well done.
A player may run for the office of Wizard as many times as e wishes.

If a Wizard goes on vacation for more than four weeks, e is considered to
have resigned.

f. Should a Wizard leave office while one or more instances of the game
Eleusis are still in progress, e may hand over the management of those
instances to eir successor. 
Game instances 'inherited' in such a way from previous Wizards do not count
towards the total number of instances of games of Eleusis managed and
conducted by a Wizard.

g.In addition this rule creates the following entities:
The Wizard's Pot - the Wizard's Pot is owned by the Wizard. It cannot be
sold, bought, traded or given away. If there is no Wizard, the Wizard's pot
is temporarily dormant.
The Wizard's Shop- the Wizard's Shop is owned by the Wizard. All buisness
conducted by the Wizard take place in eir shop. If there is no Wizard, then
the shop is temporarily closed.

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

Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 01:08:55 +0300
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: RFC - Creation of Otzma  Cards (2) 

Proposal
Creation of Otzma Cards
Nicolo Flychuck

1.
a. Otzma Cards are Protected
b. Otzma Cards can only created by the Wizard, if such an office exists.
c. Otzma cards can be created and used only according to the rules

2.
a. At any given time there may be no more than 100 Otzma Cards in existence.
b. Any single player may not own more than six Otzma Cards at any given time.
c. Otzma Cards may be bought, sold, traded, or given away, in accordance
with the rules governing transactions.
d. If a player already owns the maximum number of Otzma Cards, and receives
or acquires , by any means another Otzma Card, e must immediately destroy
either the new Otzma Card, or one of eir existing Power Card.
e. If a player recieves or acquires, a Otzma Card, that cannot be owned by
that player simulateneously with other cards owned by that player, then the
player must destory one or more Otzma Cards, until theOtzma Cards e owns
meet all the restriction placed on Otzma Cards
f. When a player destroys a Otzma Card, neither the player nor the Wizard
receive  a refund of any kind

3.
a. A Wizard may create a Otzma Card if at any time the
Approve-Otzma-Count(defined is section 6 of this rule) is greater than
(zero) and the number of Otzma Cards currently Up-For-Sale is less than 4
b. The cost of creating a Power Card is 20 units of currency.
    The cost is payed by the Wizard to the Treasury.
  If a rule called Creation of the Game of Eleusis exists, then this section
deffers to the section entitles Eleusis Prize, of that rule.
If the Power Card type definition rule specifies a different cost, then the
creation cost is the higher of the two numbers.
c.When the Wizard created an Otzma Card e must publically anounce this. E
must also anounce the type of Otzma Card. Every new Otzma card receives a
unique ID, that may be reffered to as the OCID. The OCID of the first Otzma
Card created is 1. The OCID of any other card created is the smallest
integer larger than the OCID of the previous card created.
d.Once the Wizard anounced that e is created a new Otzma Card, it is
Up-For-Sale for a period of 7 days. The Wizard may also announce eir asking
price. The upper bound for the asking price is 200 units of currency or the
Card's creation cost multiplied by 1.5, whichever is higher. Players may
make offers to buy it. All offers mnust identify the desired card by OCID.
If within 7 days no player makes an offer equal to or greater than the
asking price, then the Wizard may
either destroy, and be refunded the creation cost, or place on display at
his shop.
The Wizard has the option of selling of Card for a price lower than eir
asking price.
At any time there may be no more than 4 cards Up-For-Sale
e. There may  no more than 20 Otzma Cards on display at the Wizard's shop at
any given time. If there are 20 cards and the Wizard wishes to add another
one, e must either destroy the new Otzma Card, or destory one of the cards
already on display. In e destroys the new card e is refunded the creation
cost, if e destroys one of the cards on display e is refunded half the
creation cost.
f. The Wizard cannot use any of the Otzma Cards on display
g. The Wizard can sell, trade or give the Otzma Cards on display at any
time, in accordance with the rules governing tranactions. Any currency paid
for the cards of display is paid to the Wizard.
h. When a Wizard leaves office for any reason e may choose to leave all or
some of the Otzma Cards on display.
i. The Wizard can destroy any of the Otzma Cards on display at any time, and
be refunded half the creation cost.
j. When ever any player, including the Wizard, destorys a Otzma Card, e must
announce it publically
k. No Otmza Cards are indestructible

4.
a. The Wizard may only create Otzma Cards of types that have been defined by
Otzma Card definition rules.
b. The Wizard may must abide by the restrictions defined in Otzma Card
definition rules.
c. Otzma Cards may only be defined by Power Card definition rules
d. Otzma Card defition rules are rules that have as part of their title the
words:
"Creation of Otzma Card type..."  followed by the name of the type.
e. Otzma Card types may belong to type-sets.  When a Otzma Card definition
type rule includes the words "This type is a member of type-set...",
followed by a legal ackanomic name, then, if that type-set exists, the new
type is added to that type-set, if the type-set does not exist, it is
immediately created, with the type defined in that rule as its first member.
f.Rules pertaining to a Otzma Card type-set, affect the entire type-set.
g. If a Otzma Card definition rule is repealed, then all Power Cards of the
the type defined by that rule are immediately destroyed.

5.
a.Otzma Cards may only be used according to the rules.
b. Each Otzma Card may only be used once. Once it has been used, and caused
its effect, it no longer exists
c. A player uses a Otzma Power Card by notifying the appropriate officer
that e is
using a Otzma Card, and which card. In addition the player must notify the
Wizard.
d. A player can only use an Otzma Card that e owns
e. In the case of Otzma Cards that affect voting on proposals and its
results, the appropriate officer is the officer in charge of counting the votes.
f. The results of the use of Otzma Cards must be published by the
appropriate officer, along with the name of the player who used the Otzma
Card, and the manner of its use.
g. The Wizard must be notified of all transactions and uses that involve
Otzma Cards, and must keep track of all Otzma Cards in existence.
h. A player may only use one card at a time. For cards that effects voting
and its results, a player can use only one card per proposal.

6.
a. Let there be a counter called Approved-Otzma-Count. 
0<=Approved-Otzma-Count<=100
Initially Approved-Otzma-Count=0
b. If the Total number of Otzma Cards in existence in Ackanomic plus the
Approved-Otzma-Count is less than or equal to 100 then
  (i) When the Total number of Otzma cards in existence is less than 30, the
Approved-Otzma-Count is increased by 1 everytime a proposal either passes or
fails
  (ii) when the Total number of Otzma cards is existence is equal to or
greater than 30 then the Approved-Otzma-Count is increased by 1 everytime a
proposal passes

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

Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 01:08:58 +0300
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka : Wizard & renamed Power Cards (Otzma) 

Here are new version of the Wizard and Power Cards RFCs. I have renamed
Power Cards to Otzma Cards. I am doing out of courtesy to Thinman, who had
just re-incarnated the Power proposals. Although I am not required to do so,
since they're are onjly RFCs, the Power proposals, do have chronological
precedence.
Hence, the Cards in question are now reffered to as Otzma Cards.
There are some other differences.  After I posted the previous RFC, I
noticed that at the rate of a single card per week, it would take a long
time before we have any siginificant number of Cards. I don't think we
should have a hundred Cards (the maximum possible in the proposal) all the
time, but having  enough to go around would be nice. The new proposal allows
an average creation rate of 4 a week.
Consequently, section 4 of the Wizard RFC, was deleted, since its only
purpose was to provide a start up kick to the Card eckonomy. 15 Cards could
be made in four weeks.  There is a further constraint on number of Cards
that can be created. It is defined in section 6 of the RFC. Number of Cards
are constrained by the number of proposal that pass, as soon as their number
exceeds 30.
Currently, this will not be a significant constraint. However there may be a
future time where it woud be useful. I'd especially like some comments on
that last section. There other possible models. I'd like to tie in some sort
of constraint to the numberof proposals passing/failing
I had considered another alternative (let's call it Otzma Creation B, for
refference, and the one in the RFC, Otzma Craation A):
6.
a. Let there be a counter called Approved-Otzma-Count. 
0<=Approved-Otzma-Count<=100
Initially Approved-Otzma-Count=0
b. If the Total number of Otzma Cards in existence in Ackanomic plus the
Approved-Otzma-Count is less than or equal to 100 then
  (i) When the Total number of Otzma cards in existence is less than 30, the
Approved-Otzma-Count is increased by 1 everytime a proposal passes
  (ii) when the Total number of Otzma cards is existence is equal to or
greater than 30 then the Approved-Otzma-Count is increased by 1 everytime
two consecutive proposals pass.
Once a proposal has been considered for consecutive proposal count it cannot
be considered again. So if three consecutive proposal pass, 1 and 2 are
counted as consecutive, 2 and 3 are not counted, because w has already been
counted with 1

RFC

Nicolo Flychuck

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

Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 16:15:28 +0000
From: Matt <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: News

ALLEGATIONS OF VOTE-RIGGING ROCK ACKANOMIA

By Ergates thi ant, Ackanomia correspondent

Doubts were expressed today over the validity of Ackanomia's
recent Presidential election, when Calvin n Hobbes asked,
"What kind of election rigging is this?"

this is not a name, who was inaugurated as President after the
results were announced on Thursday, has already re-opened his
election campaign in anticipation of a second election. His 
campaign team have been targeting those who did not vote in 
the first election.

It appears that vital votes may not have been registered,
and that these unregistered votes may have been enough to
tip the balance in favour of the other Presidential candidate,
/dev/joe. 

this is not a name has called for a re-election, however the
Speaker, Mohammed, is trying to ride out the political pressure,
saying "I'm not willing to do that unless I am convinced that
Calvin actually cast his votes during the Election". "I don't
believe myself to have lost anything", he added.

Some commentators observed that /dev/joe may have gained extra
votes from voters confusing him with Michael Dorn, famous for
his role as Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ackanomia
is notorious for it's unsophisticated electorate.

* Ackanomia's new Justice, Bascule, has made a rather pathetic
attempt at winning the current cycle of the game in the past
few days. His performance has been variously described as
"ham-fisted", "inept", and "incompetent". His score has been
at 254, 259, and 256, pretty much anything in fact, except
the magic number 257.

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

Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 16:36:27 +0000
From: Matt <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Official: Retractions

I hereby retract proposal 871
I hereby retract proposal 872

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 96 22:06:45 -0400
From: this is not a name <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: News

Bascule (under the pseudonym of Ergates thi ant) wrote:
>this is not a name has called for a re-election, however the
>Speaker, Mohammed, is trying to ride out the political pressure,
>saying "I'm not willing to do that unless I am convinced that
>Calvin actually cast his votes during the Election". "I don't
>believe myself to have lost anything", he added.

Actually, this is not true. Mohammed called for the new election on his 
own, and I had nothing to do with it.

this is not a name
Possible President
Historian
File Clerk

- --
       Mike Epstein     [email-masked]     Long Island, NY
"There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is
 habitual but indecision."          --William James
http://www.nyiq.net/~epstein/       Finger for PGP 2.6.2 public key

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

Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 18:16:36 -0800
From: [email-masked] (Phil Ackley)
Subject: Re: Acka: News

>
>
>* Ackanomia's new Justice, Bascule, has made a rather pathetic
>attempt at winning the current cycle of the game in the past
>few days. His performance has been variously described as
>"ham-fisted", "inept", and "incompetent". His score has been
>at 254, 259, and 256, pretty much anything in fact, except
>the magic number 257.

Now that was funny.  If there was a rule against one player causing another
to fall out of his chair, I would be sending bascule to the Gaol right
about now.

snowgod
Ambassador
CSRR
Wearing a prosthetic forhead

- -

To see snowgod's new prosthetic forehead visit:
http://www.alaska.net/~snowgod/acka/head.html

To visit the Ambassador's page goto:
http://www.alaska.net/~snowgod/acka/ambas.html

At any time that I am online, you may telnet to my computer by entering
this URL:
telnet://snowgod.alaska.net

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

Date: Sat, 08 Jun 1996 23:12:21 -0700
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: News

this is not a name wrote:
> 
> Bascule (under the pseudonym of Ergates thi ant) wrote:
> >this is not a name has called for a re-election, however the
> >Speaker, Mohammed, is trying to ride out the political pressure,
> >saying "I'm not willing to do that unless I am convinced that
> >Calvin actually cast his votes during the Election". "I don't
> >believe myself to have lost anything", he added.
> 
> Actually, this is not true. Mohammed called for the new election on his
> own, and I had nothing to do with it.

Such is the nature of revisionist history and reporting in the 
"Ackanomic Middle Ages".

Malenkai

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

Date: Sat, 08 Jun 1996 23:18:04 -0700
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Ackanomic: RFC: Pay Cut

Does anyone, office holder or otherwise, care about the salaries
the officers make? I am considering a sweeping Pay Cut proposal which
would blow away all of the salaries (especially since Justices don't
make anything anyway :))

It seems like such a waste of time for the Financier to deal with,
when there is so much *interesting* game play to be done. Is the
FM even functioning anymore? The WWW link is broken.

Anyway, just trying to cut some uninteresting aspect of the game.
Any comments??

Malenkai

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #38
******************************