Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #400
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest       Friday, December 13 1996       Volume 01 : Number 400

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:02:54 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Official (Inventor)

> Point well taken, especially in light of last night's Hubert rush.  A 
> totally private system, however, seems a bit hush-hush to me.  Perhaps if 
> auctions were public for the first two days to let everyone get an idea 
> of what the going rate might turn out to be, and then send bets to the 
> Auctioneer for the last 24 hours?  I dunno.
	When I first proposed the Gadget rules, there were no binding 
rules for Auctions.  All auctions were held by the Inventor, and if he 
was found guilty of Abominable Auctioneering Practices, he would suffer 
some forfeit; I forget what it was.  Anyway, that proposal failed.
	The next proposal set up an auctioneering system a lot smaller 
than what we have today; it was somewhere between public and private 
auctions, in that the Inventor (it wasn't "Auctioneer" in those days) was 
allowed to reveal the current high bid, etc., whenever he wanted.
	That seemed to work fine; since then, like everything else, 
the auction rules have popcorned into a hulking juggernaut of 
incomprehensibility (is that really a word?  yow.)
	Anyway.  Kicking around ideas.

	We could have Auctions be like CFJs.  When something is up for 
Auction, the Clerk of the Courts appoints a Chief Cheese, and away we 
go.  The Chief Cheese may hold the Auction *any way e wants to*, as long 
as it's over within a week.  Holding a discriminatory Auction would be a 
Crime, a Felony.  This has the advantages of (a) cutting *pages* of rules 
and (b) being extraordinarily dangerous, but unfortunately it could be 
slow from time to time.

- --Mohammed
up too late
Chief Cheese, now pushing one (1) Orbital Mind Control Laser
trying to sort out gnu's harfy megafeatures from standard C++
caffiene-free for 5 hours now

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:06:10 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Official (Inventor)

> A public auction ends 3 days after it is called, or three hours after the
> last bid, whichever is later.  Bids must always exceed the previous
> publically knowable bid.
> 
> Any comments?
	Someone once said the game should be playable by anyone who checks
their mail once every three days.  (Everyone agreed.)
	Make it 12 or maybe 18 hours after the last bid, at least.  There 
are a lot of people who are often in positions where it's completely, 
insanely impossible to get to a terminal once every three hours.  (Once a 
week this semester, I had a solid six-hour block of classes.)

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:53:00 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Official (Inventor)

On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Malenkai wrote:
> 
> That is the way it used to be, basically.  My new idea is the following:
> 
> A public auction ends 3 days after it is called, or three hours after the
> last bid, whichever is later.  Bids must always exceed the previous
> publically knowable bid.
> 
> Any comments?
> 
> Malenkai

Last bid should be better defined,  or I can bid a week later and claim
the Auctioned entity.
Niccolo Flychuck

> 

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:43:07 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposals 1554-1563 

>If e-mail volume is a problem, we should look at that issue on whole,
>rather than a partial fix like this, which could make more work for the
>functional officers, or give problems to those which are low on memory.
>I remember when snowgod said he could not distribute "Entities" with its
>voting results due to limited memory in his e-mail client.
>
>Malenkai

That has proplem has been fixed with my new email client.  In addition, I
can now send batched results out in the right order! Yaaaahoooo!  Would you
believe that I switched from an older commercial version of Eudora 2.1.4 to
the freeware light version 3.0.1 without losing any features I need?

Makes me wonder if Eudora Pro 3.0 would be worth my money, which is most
likely the desired effect of releasing such a wonderful freeware mailer!

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:50:51 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Web Page 

I'de like to congratulate /dev/joe for the Web page overhaul....

I really like the new orginaztion.

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 00:56:57 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Inquistion 

In accordance with Rule 1112.3 (Let those who are without Harf cast the
first stone) I am calling for an Inquistition against Robert Sevin.  I
believe that he is hogging the Harf, and currently has intention of
designating any proposals as harfy.

Send your votes to Malenkai <[email-masked]>.  Valid responses are No!
He's going to share the Harf!" or "Yes! He is Hogging the Harf!".

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 01:21:49 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring 

/dev/joe has fullfilled the confitions of the treasure map to the Secret
Decoder Ring, and has found said trinket.  It was a close race, with Guy
Fawkes coming in a close second (near as I can tell, guy missed it by three
minutes).  Mohammed and ThinMan also came close, but neither finished the
quest after the third consecutive Hubert by both /dev and Guy.

The complete map to the treasure read:

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

Which can be translate to:

In orderto find the Secret Decoder Ring,you must post a message containing
the single word "Hubert" with no explination as to your actions once every
day for three consecutive days.  After the third consecutive posting, the
Secret Decoder Ring will be found.

I will allow one of the competitors to explain how the translation was
done, if they want to give away trade secrets :)  I'll have to make the
next one much, much harder!

snowgod

BTW, Thanks to breadbox for posting a corrected version of my map :)

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 01:30:53 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Fictionary: Voting Time 

All the Bluffers have submitted their definitions for the Ing word, Xyster.
It is time to cast your votes.  The votes should be cast publicly. No
Bluffer submitted a correct definition for the Ing word.  Here are the
definitions submitted and the real definition, in random order:

1) A mythological beast which combines parts of two or more real animals,
such as a centaur, chimera, or manticore.

2) A highly skilled carpenter or cabinetmaker.

3) An instrument for scraping bones.

4) The short, padded stick used for playing a xylophone.

5) A Greek Orthodox cleric in the second of the major orders.

6) A vein of petrified wood.

7) A mussel-like shellfish found mainly in the waters of the north
Mediteranian.

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 05:16:19 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: Fictionary: Voting Time

I vote for definition #3.

> 3) An instrument for scraping bones.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 06:45:06 EST 
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: Otzma

Habeous Corpus bids A$4 for OCID 107

HC

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 06:45:07 EST 
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: Auction

Habeous Corpus bids A$10 for the OMCL

HC

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 02:51:13 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Otzma 

>Habeous Corpus bids A$4 for OCID 107
>
>HC

snowgod bids A$6 for OCID 107

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 02:51:55 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Laser 

I bid A$25 for the Mind Control Laser

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 03:58:13 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Winning 

>On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, Malenkai wrote:
>
>> The real fun is all the proposals.  I would like to see a more competitive
>> situation where perhaps the Goose is flying around, who knows?
>
>Aww, and the Goose and I are getting so close.
>
>Guy Fawkes

Don't get too close to him Guy!  I have a CFJ I'm working on that would
give me a paradox win!!?!  Of course, knowing my luck, I'll end up with a
big huicy goose instead.

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 04:04:44 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Retracting P1561 

I am retracting P1561 due to an destructive typo.  I will fix it and resubmit.

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 07:09:05 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 1557 correction

On Thu, 12 Dec 1996, David Thomas Fisher wrote:

> 
> When glancing through the proposal docket, I noticed that a couple of lines
> were missing from my proposal, proposal 1557 (email reform), yes, very ironic.
> Anyway, here is the complete text.

What's missing in what you have?  The version that came back to me seems 
identical to this?

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 07:18:44 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposals 1554-1563

On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Malenkai wrote:

> Guy Fawkes wrote:
> > 
> > This docket of proposals is brought to you in the manner with which I
> > could most easily comply with the enclosed Proposal 1557, should it
> > pass.

I am aware of this.  I did it partly as an experiment, both to see what I 
would have to do to comply with this rule and to let everyone else see 
what it would look like.

If anyone cares to know, here is how I handle proposal submissions 
currently:

1) Upon receiving it, I number it, fix the heading if necessary, and toss 
it into a postponed-messages folder.
2) When the stack builds up, I put a time and date on it (which is 
accurate according to my local machine, put is usually a few minutes 
behind the timestamp), and send them all out.

Under the new system, should it pass, this is how I think I would handle 
things (I use Pine 3.91, if anyone thinks they know of an easier way).

1) Upon receiving a proposal, I would number it, fix the heading, and 
export it to a text file.
2) Each successive proposal would get appended to that text file.
3) When the time comes, I would send out the text file as an attachment.

I don't know of a way to do everything simply with cut and paste, using 
my email program.  The message window doesn't actually contain the whole 
message to scroll through: Only what you see on screen is actually in the 
window, and so to do the cut and paste, I would have to do it twenty 
lines at a time.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 07:22:20 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Official (Inventor)

On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Jason Orendorff wrote:

> > Any comments?
> 	Someone once said the game should be playable by anyone who checks
> their mail once every three days.  (Everyone agreed.)
> 	Make it 12 or maybe 18 hours after the last bid, at least.  There 
> are a lot of people who are often in positions where it's completely, 
> insanely impossible to get to a terminal once every three hours.  (Once a 
> week this semester, I had a solid six-hour block of classes.)

I agree with Mohammed here, but fear that with 12 or 18 hour bidding 
periods, auctions could literally drag on for weeks if people were 
willing to spend that much.  It's a good idea; I just don't know if it's 
that well suited for the medium.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:22:01 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Harf Inquistion

A hearing has been called in regards as to whether the Harfmeister is
hogging the Harf.  The voting ends 3 days from the date of the post
you are reading.  Send votes to [email-masked].

The valid responses are:

> "No! He's going to share the Harf!" and
> "Yes! He is Hogging the Harf!".

The Harfmeister rules are in the 1112 series.

Count Tabula

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 07:28:02 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring

On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Phil Ackley wrote:

> /dev/joe has fullfilled the confitions of the treasure map to the Secret
> Decoder Ring, and has found said trinket.  It was a close race, with Guy
> Fawkes coming in a close second (near as I can tell, guy missed it by three
> minutes).  Mohammed and ThinMan also came close, but neither finished the
> quest after the third consecutive Hubert by both /dev and Guy.

The timestamp on my post read 23:00:00 CST
/dev/joe's read 23:01:01 CST

How are you figuring I was three minutes later?

Guy Fawkes
confused

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:51:45 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring

snowgod wrote:

>/dev/joe has fullfilled the confitions of the treasure map to the Secret
>Decoder Ring, and has found said trinket.  It was a close race, with Guy
>Fawkes coming in a close second (near as I can tell, guy missed it by three
>minutes).  Mohammed and ThinMan also came close, but neither finished the
>quest after the third consecutive Hubert by both /dev and Guy.

Well, this may be contentious.  /dev/joe's third "Hubert" got to me
first, but Guy Fawkes' was timestamped earlier.  I will leave it to
Guy to CFJ if he so chooses.  Also, I _did_ complete the quest.  My
third "Hubert" was posted just minutes after /dev/joe's and Guy's.
>
[...]

>I will allow one of the competitors to explain how the translation was
>done, if they want to give away trade secrets :)  I'll have to make the
>next one much, much harder!

You have to remember that many of us are computer geeks of one flavor
or another.  As one such, it took me almost no time at all to recognize
that the map was a sequence of hexadecimal digits.  It seemed the
obvious first guess would be that the message consisted of simple ASCII
codes written in hex, which, in fact, it was.  I started to translate
by hand, with an ASCII table, but quickly decided to write a program to
do it for me instead.  Altogether it took me only about fifteen minutes
to decode the map.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 04:51:36 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring 

>On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Phil Ackley wrote:
>
>> /dev/joe has fullfilled the confitions of the treasure map to the Secret
>> Decoder Ring, and has found said trinket.  It was a close race, with Guy
>> Fawkes coming in a close second (near as I can tell, guy missed it by three
>> minutes).  Mohammed and ThinMan also came close, but neither finished the
>> quest after the third consecutive Hubert by both /dev and Guy.
>
>The timestamp on my post read 23:00:00 CST
>/dev/joe's read 23:01:01 CST
>
>How are you figuring I was three minutes later?
>
>Guy Fawkes
>confused

Part of the Header from your post:

Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3)
id XAA00727 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:10 -0600

And from /dev/joe's post:

Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3)
id XAA00672 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:01:04 -0600

I recieved /dev/joe's post a couple of minutes before yours (it was close)
but I noticed that yours had the earliest initial timestamp, so I check the
headers to see which was recieved first by wilma.  I think I was being
fair....  I don't think it takes four minutes for a message to get from
your machine to wilma.

If anyone believes that I did this wrong, please let me.... I'm only trying
to be fair.

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:54:28 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Fictionary: Voting Time

I vote for number (1):

>1) A mythological beast which combines parts of two or more real animals,
>such as a centaur, chimera, or manticore.

ThinMan
Bluffer

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:09:01 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring

On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Phil Ackley wrote:

> I recieved /dev/joe's post a couple of minutes before yours (it was close)
> but I noticed that yours had the earliest initial timestamp, so I check the
> headers to see which was recieved first by wilma.  I think I was being
> fair....  I don't think it takes four minutes for a message to get from
> your machine to wilma.
> 
> If anyone believes that I did this wrong, please let me.... I'm only trying
> to be fair.

Under most circumstances, it shouldn't take four minutes for a message to 
get from the uiuc student cluster and wilma.  Depending on server load, 
however, it takes anywhere from seconds (most of the time) to hours 
(really bad nights when the thing is malfunctioning) for a message to leave 
the cluster.  I'm sometimes amused when groups of proposals I send out within 
about two minutes arrive over the course of the next fifteen, and often in a 
completely different order than I sent them.  I don't know if this happens on 
my end or wilma's, or both (or maybe even twice on my end).  

In short, I really can't tell you who wrote the Hubert message first 
(there used to be a rule about this, I think, but i can't find it right 
now).  I am calling a CFJ, and the justice system can decide.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:14:41 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposals 1554-1563

Guy Fawkes wrote:

> Any suggestions are welcome.

I would like to keep it the old way.  The new way will simply be more
work for me, that is my reason, selfish as it appears.  Specifically,
given my antiquated equipment:

1) It will be harder to reply to the proposal and tabulation dockets

2) It will be harder for the speaker and financier to distill out all
of the relavent information when voting results are released.  I have
already given an example for the financier.  For the speaker, if a
particular proposal passes that requiries some action on my part, such
as a new office is created for which I hold a nomination, I drag that
into another folder as a reminder.  With this system, I will have to keep
scanning through the mega-docket, through irrelavent material, about six
times to do my tasks, rather than have the one proposal sitting around
which represents the task I will have to do.

It is much easier for me to see "Acka: P 1454 Passes" in my to do bin
as a reminder; I think of it as a "to do" list.  That efficiency tool 
will be gone.  If it can be done *both* ways, such as "ackanomic", and
"acka-digest", that would be ok.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:23:39 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring

Also, if it makes any difference (I really don't know THAT much about 
networking) I was doing my email off of Netscape instead of using my 
student account on the main cluster like I usually do.  If this would add 
some time (there would be one more computer involved, I think) it might 
explain things.  Still, I have no idea.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:26:34 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring

>

snowgod wrote (to Guy Fawkes):

>Part of the Header from your post:
>
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3)
>id XAA00727 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:10 -0600
>
>And from /dev/joe's post:
>
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3)
>id XAA00672 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:01:04 -0600
>
>I recieved /dev/joe's post a couple of minutes before yours (it was close)
>but I noticed that yours had the earliest initial timestamp, so I check the
>headers to see which was recieved first by wilma.  I think I was being
>fair....  I don't think it takes four minutes for a message to get from
>your machine to wilma.
>
>If anyone believes that I did this wrong, please let me.... I'm only trying
>to be fair.

It is entirely possible that Guy's message _did_ take four minutes to
go from his machine to wilma, be processed by majordomo, and be sent
from there.  One doesn't expect network traffic to be heavy at that
hour, but a network bottleneck anywhere between UIUC and UT could
cause a message to take much longer than four minutes, even, just to
make the trip.  The only way to tell who was first is to directly
compare the local clocks on /dev/joe's and Guy's machines and look at
the initial timestamps.

HOWEVER, if Guy Fawkes' computer's local clock is even one second
fast, then he did not satisfy the conditions of the map.  If /dev/joe's
computer's clock is more than 1:01 fast, then he didn't satisfy the
conditions either.  If my computer's clock is more thN five minutes fast
then neither did I.  This is more of a muddle than the net transit time,
for although rule 1311 defines that the Acka Day is synchronized with
the New York City day, I don't know how to determine definitively
_exactly_ what time that happens, not to mention how to compare any
local computers' clocks to that time.

This becomes quite a mess for something so trivial.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:21:38 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 324 (Malenkai)

Malenkai has been chosen.

Clerk of the Courts
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 324
  Subject: The Hubert Legacy and Treasure Hunt
Initiator: Guy Fawkes
    Judge: Malenkai (selected Dec 13, 1996, 09:24h EST)
Judgement:

Statement:

Guy Fawkes was the first player to fulfill the requirements of
the Treasure Map for Treasure 111.

Guy Fawkes' Reasoning:

Guy Fawkes' initial timestamp is a minute before /dev/joe's.  wilma sent off
/dev/joe's "Hubert" message three or four minutes before Guy Fawkes'.  I
have no crushing need to possess the Secret Decoder Ring at all costs,
but it is of moderate importance to know.  You figure it out.

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 08:27:53 -0600
From: john duncan <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Official (Inventor)

Guy Fawkes wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Jason Orendorff wrote:
> 
> > > Any comments?
> >       Someone once said the game should be playable by anyone who checks
> > their mail once every three days.  (Everyone agreed.)
> >       Make it 12 or maybe 18 hours after the last bid, at least.  There
> > are a lot of people who are often in positions where it's completely,
> > insanely impossible to get to a terminal once every three hours.  (Once a
> > week this semester, I had a solid six-hour block of classes.)
> 
> I agree with Mohammed here, but fear that with 12 or 18 hour bidding
> periods, auctions could literally drag on for weeks if people were
> willing to spend that much.  It's a good idea; I just don't know if it's
> that well suited for the medium.
> 
> Guy Fawkes

Maybe the solution then is to have a sealed bid, where the players
privately send their bid to the auctioneer.

Lestrade

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 10:23:31 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: players RFC 4

>> I thought of this, but conceded the odds were overwhelming of having two 
>> identically named players in Acka.  The problem does exist, though.  I 
>> see a few options...

>	I hereby create a Trinket named "Joe Bollinger" with a value of 
>A$1.  (No offense, /dev/joe.)  What would happen if Mr. /joe left the 
>game?  I can't think of a significant conflict right now, so this won't 
>prevent me from voting for the overhaul.  But I do believe that something 
>that can be broken is inherently less sloppy than something that can't.

Nothing would happen.  I presume that you meant to name your trinket
Joseph DeVincentis, however, in which case there would be a problem.
This could be addressed by amending R703 to prevent anything in Acka
from having a name the same as any player or former player's RL name.
I do, however, still prefer identifying undead by the player's Acka
name.

ThinMan
>

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 10:52:00 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Super-User)
Subject: Acka: *ping* 

Today is Friday, the 13th day of December, in the Year of Our Lord 1996,
and the Machine That Goes *ping* Has Gone *ping* today.
Since I have been scholar, the Machine has gone *ping* 5 times.

Malenkai
Scholar of *ping*

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 11:44:09 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: FW: Acka: Guy v. Mo duel

I thought I had sent this to the list, but in the absence of Guy's
response, I checked and found that I had sent it only to Mohammed.
My most sincere apologies:

>In the Guy Fawkes vs Mohammed duel,
>
>the current ghost word is: ys
>
>and it is Guy Fawkes' turn.
>
>ThinMan
>referee
>
>

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 11:32:48 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: FW: Acka: Guy v. Mo duel

On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Bollinger, John C. wrote:

> >In the Guy Fawkes vs Mohammed duel,
> >
> >the current ghost word is: ys
> >
> >and it is Guy Fawkes' turn.

Gee, and I thought I was about to win by forfeit :)

Anyway, I play ysy.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 11:47:11 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Secret Decoder Ring

> You have to remember that many of us are computer geeks of one flavor
> or another.  As one such, it took me almost no time at all to recognize
> that the map was a sequence of hexadecimal digits.  It seemed the
> obvious first guess would be that the message consisted of simple ASCII
> codes written in hex, which, in fact, it was.  I started to translate
> by hand, with an ASCII table, but quickly decided to write a program to
> do it for me instead.  Altogether it took me only about fifteen minutes
> to decode the map.
	Yep.  I tried to do it in Python, but after about 13 failures 
switched to C; the C program worked perfectly the first time.  It took 
more than 15 minutes, but once I decided to use C it took under a minute.

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 11:52:31 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: players RFC 4

> >	I hereby create a Trinket named "Joe Bollinger" with a value of 
> >A$1.  (No offense, /dev/joe.)  What would happen if Mr. /joe left the 
> 
> Nothing would happen.  I presume that you meant to name your trinket
> Joseph DeVincentis, however, in which case there would be a problem.
	*blink blink*  I see.  *grin*  I destroy "Joe Bollinger" (for cash.)

> I do, however, still prefer identifying undead by the player's Acka
> name.
	Yup.

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 12:51:30 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: players RFC 4

Jason Orendorff wrote:

>         *blink blink*  I see.  *grin*  I destroy "Joe Bollinger" 
> (for cash.)

The Antiquities and Arts communities are officially sneering.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 13:14:15 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Rule 1348.2

I notice that R 1348.2 on the web pages has been updated as if P 1405
was accepted, yet that proposal was retracted.  So the effect, if
you keep a local copy of the ruleset downloaded since P 1405 (Nov 10),
is to delete the last paragraph of R 1348.2.

Malenkai
working on CFJ 324

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 13:30:25 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: FW: Acka: Guy v. Mo duel

In the Guy Fawkes vs Mohammed Duel, the ghost word is: ysy
and it is Mohammed's turn.

ThinMan
Referee
>

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 13:33:06 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Laser

I bid $A 35 for the OMCL.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 13:13:23 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: real time

To untangle the Hubert mess, each person (/dev/joe, myself, ThinMan) who 
was involved can go to 

http://www/bldrdoc.gov/doc-tour/atomic_clock.html

That page contains a link to the "real" time, expressed as GMT.  
Naturally, it'll be maybe a second or so slow, because of connection 
times, but hopefully it won't come down to that.

Guy Fawkes
this much trouble for a trinket?

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 13:09:27 -0800 (PST)
From: fnord <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposals 1554-1563

Guy Fawkes spake thusly
> 
> Under the new system, should it pass, this is how I think I would handle 
> things (I use Pine 3.91, if anyone thinks they know of an easier way).
> 
> 1) Upon receiving a proposal, I would number it, fix the heading, and 
> export it to a text file.
> 2) Each successive proposal would get appended to that text file.
> 3) When the time comes, I would send out the text file as an attachment.

I like the idea of packaging the proposals together, but *only* 
because it has the list of proposals all at the beginning, making
it a very helpful reminder to actually *vote*.  However, since the
proposals are being attached, they come  out as a MIME attachment,
which makes it rather difficult and exceedingly annoying to read on my 
mail system.

fnord

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 15:25:22 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: real time

Guy Fawkes wrote:

>To untangle the Hubert mess, each person (/dev/joe, myself, ThinMan) who 
>was involved can go to 
>
>http://www/bldrdoc.gov/doc-tour/atomic_clock.html
>
>That page contains a link to the "real" time, expressed as GMT.  
>Naturally, it'll be maybe a second or so slow, because of connection 
>times, but hopefully it won't come down to that.

My system clock is within three seconds of the time specified by the
atomic clock server.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 15:43:37 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Precise timing issues

I checked the time server at http://www.bldrdoc.gov/doc-tour/atomic_clock.html
and found that wilma's time was about 10 seconds faster than this time.

Below are all the headers with times in them from the three competing
Hubert messages.  Whatever the delay or inconsistency in times between
machines was for Guy's message, it happened between his computer and
his mail server, which stamped 23:05:06 -0600 on his message.

To interpret the headers below:
1. The top "From owner-ackanomic" header on each message is the time the
   message was delivered to my mailbox.
2. The "Received: (from majordom ... by wilma ... for ackanomic-outgoing"
   header is the time majordomo remailed the message to the mailing list.
   (ackanomic-outgoing is the alias that actually sends mail to people
   on the list, while ackanomic is an alias that sends it to the majordomo
   program for processing -- the Reply-to header is added, and it is
   possible to have it reject messages on a variety of criteria.)
3. The "Received: from some.machine ... by wilma ... for ackanomic@wilma"
   header is the time the message first arrived at wilma.
4. Additional "Received:" headers are communication between machines before
   the message reached wilma.
5. The "Date:" header is attached by the sender's mail program, or by the
   first machine to handle the message if for some reason there was no
   "Date:" header.  This is the one that gets messed up if someone's
   computer's clock has the wrong time, or if the software doesn't have
   the right time zone sent, or if their mailer has a bug such that once
   a month it sends out mail with ridiculous time zones (like mine --
   the +1800 time zone deal in the last 6 hours of each month, or +1900 for
   5 hours during DST).

>From owner-ackanomic  Wed Dec 11 23:05:16 1996
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) id XAA00727 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:10 -0600
>Received: from postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu (postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu [128.174.5.11]) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA00724 for <[email-masked]>; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:08 -0600
>Received: from pc21-p (par-p104a-49.urh.uiuc.edu [128.174.164.179]) by postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA213416 for <[email-masked]>; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:06 -0600
>Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:00:00 -0600
>From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>

>From owner-ackanomic  Wed Dec 11 23:01:09 1996
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) id XAA00672 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:01:04 -0600
>Received: (from devjoe@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) id XAA00669 for ackanomic; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:01:01 -0600
>Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:01:01 -0600
>From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>

>From owner-ackanomic  Wed Dec 11 23:05:26 1996
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) id XAA00741 for ackanomic-outgoing; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:20 -0600
>Received: from iumsc4.chem.indiana.edu (iumsc4.chem.indiana.edu [129.79.139.23]) by wilma.che.utexas.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id XAA00737 for <[email-masked]>; Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:05:17 -0600
>Received: by iumsc4.chem.indiana.edu (950511.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH526/931108.SGI.AUTO.ANONFTP)
>        for [email-masked] id AAA09852; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:05:15 -0500
>Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:05:15 -0500
>From: [email-masked] (John Bollinger)

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 16:55:15 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Steven A. Swiniarski)
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposals 1554-1563

>
>  This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
>  while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
>  Send mail to [email-masked] for more info.
>
Just so everyone knows, I have a freenet account, so you probably have
no _idea_ what a pain it is to read MIME in my e-mail.  I am tempted to
simply vote against any propsal I haven't recieved in a human readable
form, I would certianly vote against any propsal that would encourage
proposals to be distributed like this---

Though, if it really came down to it, if proposals are submitted in MIME
I would just as likely leave the game.  Having distributions like this
is equivelant to imposing literacy tests to discriminate against those of
use with lowly access to the internet.

This is not directed at anyone, really, it is just a rant venting some extreme
fustration at the prospect of being expected to vote on something I can't
read.

Swann

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 17:02:34 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Steven A. Swiniarski)
Subject: Acka: Otzma

>
>Habeous Corpus bids A$4 for OCID 107
>
>HC
>
>
 I Bid A$7 for OCID 107

Swann

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 17:03:50 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Steven A. Swiniarski)
Subject: Acka: Auction

>
>Habeous Corpus bids A$10 for the OMCL
>
>HC
>
>
I bid A$15 for the OMCL (I play Illuminati :)

Swann

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 17:27:02 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Steven A. Swiniarski)
Subject: Re: Acka: Auction

>I bid A$15 for the OMCL (I play Illuminati :)
>
>Swann
>
>
I up my bid to A$41 for the OMCL

Swann

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 18:02:21 -0500
From: [email-masked] (Steven A. Swiniarski)
Subject: Acka: RFC: Kill the Mime!

RFC on a prospective proposal to create a Rule titled "Kill the Mime!"
 with text delimited by ~'s

~
     Any text shall not be deemed publicly knowable unless it has been 
     provided to all players in a human-readable form.  Encoded text 
     shall be distinct from the text being encoded.  Distributing an 
     encoded text [MIME, ROT13, UUENCOED or otherwise] to all players 
     shall not fulfill any requirements to make the text that was 
     encoded publicly knowable. If it is forbidden to make a text 
     publicly knowable, it is also forbidden to make an encoded version 
     of that text publicly knowable.

     If a Rule requires any officer to provide information to a player, 
     or a player to provide information to any officer, and the Rule 
     does not specify a format for the communication, then the 
     communication shall always be acceptable in plain unencoded 
     English, and it _must_ be in plain unencoded English if either 
     party in the communication requests it to be. [ie. if you want to 
     communicate in uuencoded transmissions, its fine as long as 
     everyone agrees, but everyone has the right to have things in 
     English.]

~

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

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 18:10:54 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: RFC: Kill the Mime!

Steven A. Swiniarski wrote:

Please defer precedence on this to R 1348.2, the treasure hunt
rule, as that rule explicity permits encrypted posts, and UUENCODE
would fall into that category, at least, as well as other potential
"non human readeable forms".

You may also need to defer precedence to rule 1240, the Machine
rule.  Perhaps "and unless explicitly allowed or specified by another
rule" will suffice.

Malenkai
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> RFC on a prospective proposal to create a Rule titled "Kill the Mime!"
>  with text delimited by ~'s
> 
> ~
>      Any text shall not be deemed publicly knowable unless it has been
>      provided to all players in a human-readable form.  Encoded text
>      shall be distinct from the text being encoded.  Distributing an
>      encoded text [MIME, ROT13, UUENCOED or otherwise] to all players
>      shall not fulfill any requirements to make the text that was
>      encoded publicly knowable. If it is forbidden to make a text
>      publicly knowable, it is also forbidden to make an encoded version
>      of that text publicly knowable.
> 
>      If a Rule requires any officer to provide information to a player,
>      or a player to provide information to any officer, and the Rule
>      does not specify a format for the communication, then the
>      communication shall always be acceptable in plain unencoded
>      English, and it _must_ be in plain unencoded English if either
>      party in the communication requests it to be. [ie. if you want to
>      communicate in uuencoded transmissions, its fine as long as
>      everyone agrees, but everyone has the right to have things in
>      English.]
> 
> ~

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #400
*******************************