Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #71
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest          Friday, May 2 1997          Volume 02 : Number 071

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 00:26:13 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Treasure 118 found

Alfvaen has found treasure 118, containing the Exquisite Dead Guy, by
sending me a message with the headers quoted below.

Forwarded message:
> From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Fibonacci
> To: [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 22:53:56 -0600 (MDT)

The decoded map to this treasure read:

> 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.

The map was encoded by taking the Fibonacci sequence and adding the ascii
values of the characters in the map, and taking the result mod 256 and
writing it in hexadecimal.

I thought I had left plenty of clues on this one; I don't know if people
had simply stopped trying, or if it was that tough; Malenkai had collected
the three relevant clues on his web page -- my March and April prayers of
deliverance (hmm, time for another prayer, I'll have to bury another
treasure) and a phoebe post.  I'll let the lucky new owner of the Dead Guy
explain what the clues meant, and the meanings of the two "spoken in
tongues" lines in those prayers.

/dev/joe
Founder of the Church of Seleya
Has no treasures buried now

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 01:55:48 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Treasure + Prayer for Deliverance

Even after the amnesty period in which I destroyed half a dozen trinkets,
there was still too much stuff cluttering my house.  I called over my
faithful servant Gimli, and handed him some of the lesser of the remaining
trinkets, and asked him to bury them somewhere safe, and to return here
with a written map to the treasure.  Gimli took the Secret Decoder Ring,
the No Tea, and Fibber the Low-Grade Brass-Painted Cheapo Plastic Flea,
and went off deep into the rain forest to bury them.

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).

/dev/joe

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

Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 23:32:18 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure + Prayer for Deliverance 

I'm assuming that the uu encoded file in this message is an actual .gif, if
not, please forgive my ignorance. When I tried to decode the file and view
it, I was told that it is not a valid image file or is corrupted.  Anyone
else havce a similar problem?

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 12:19:49 +0000
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: Creating a new game

I am creating 5 almost identical Trinkets worth each each A$ 1000 called 
"The Rule Book of Rings (copy 1)"
"The Rule Book of Rings (copy 2)",
"The Rule Book of Rings (copy 3)",
"The Rule Book of Rings (copy 4)" and
"The Rule Book of Rings (copy 5)"
described identical as Trinket named "The Rule Book of Rings".

#trinket CarsesraC: The Rule Book of Rings (copy 1) : 1000 :
#trinket CarsesraC: The Rule Book of Rings (copy 2) : 1000 :
#trinket CarsesraC: The Rule Book of Rings (copy 3) : 1000 :
#trinket CarsesraC: The Rule Book of Rings (copy 4) : 1000 :
#trinket CarsesraC: The Rule Book of Rings (copy 5) : 1000 :

CarsesraC 
- --
CarsesraC, expert on Viruses

Buy the PFCarser at a sheap price of A$1.00 a piece

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

Date: Fri, 02 May 1997 08:20:40 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure + Prayer for Deliverance

snowgod wrote:
 
> I'm assuming that the uu encoded file in this message is an actual .gif, if
> not, please forgive my ignorance. When I tried to decode the file and view
> it, I was told that it is not a valid image file or is corrupted.  Anyone
> else havce a similar problem?

It looks like a uuencoded gif, and I had no problems with it.  I will
try to put it on my web page this evening as a straight gif.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 07:29:32 -0500 (CDT)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Creating a new game

On Fri, 2 May 1997 [email-masked] wrote:

> I am creating 5 almost identical Trinkets worth each each A$ 1000 called 

While Carserac has fixed the identical names problem, he still does not 
have enough cash, so this naturally does not happen.

GF

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 08:45:41 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure 118 found

Well, now that I have the Exquisite Dead Guy...I guess Tamson House has
some furniture!  He'd make a great end table, or maybe just one of those
beanbag chairs.

> The map was encoded by taking the Fibonacci sequence and adding the ascii
> values of the characters in the map, and taking the result mod 256 and
> writing it in hexadecimal.
> 
> I thought I had left plenty of clues on this one; I don't know if people
> had simply stopped trying, or if it was that tough; Malenkai had collected
> the three relevant clues on his web page -- my March and April prayers of
> deliverance (hmm, time for another prayer, I'll have to bury another
> treasure) and a phoebe post.  I'll let the lucky new owner of the Dead Guy
> explain what the clues meant, and the meanings of the two "spoken in
> tongues" lines in those prayers.

Well, since you asked...

The first poem, which was apparently a bizarre conversation between Spock
and Kirk where Spock lasped into Vulcan at the end, actually concealed the
word "Fibonacci" in its first letters; the last line was a simple-
substitution-cipher encoded form of "The answer is in the first letters".

The second poem was a bit more misleading, IMHO...the last line was a
simple Caesar-cipher encoded form of "Look at treasure one fourteen".  That
treasure's encoding scheme was a _little_ close to the one /dev/joe used,
in the sense that each hex-pair had something subtracted from it, but it
left me chasing down blind alleys for quite a while.  An hour or two, at
least.  (Incidentally, I have a Caesar's Cipher Cerver on my Web page, at
http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/rotform.html , which is what I used for
this clue.  I tried it on the first one, but it didn't work.)

The Phoebe conversation did provide a couple of important clues, once I
figured them out:  'the map has something extra added to it' meant that I
had to subtract something from the encoded map, and 'that extra thing is
also the answer the map requires' might, in hindsight, have led me to guess
'Fibonacci' as what I was supposed to send /dev/joe...  (There's also a
reference to "Fibber's baggie" as a 'cheap imitation', which is a sort of
'soundalike' clue...)

And I would have had the answer several hours sooner, but the Perl script I
hacked up to generate Fibonacci numbers(mod 128) somehow went "65, 0, 1"
instead of "65, 0, 65" like it should have, so I was convinced /dev/joe had
thrown an extra layer of encryption at me(since this occurred right after
"send /dev/joe a message containing in the subject line...").

Whee!  That was fun.  Maybe I'll try Red Barn's treasure now!

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--Elvis Costello:The Comedians
Current Book--Alistair MacLean:Where Eagles Dare
I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 08:01:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure 118 found

> The second poem was a bit more misleading, IMHO...the last line was
> a simple Caesar-cipher encoded form of "Look at treasure one
> fourteen".  That treasure's encoding scheme was a _little_ close to
> the one /dev/joe used, in the sense that each hex-pair had something
> subtracted from it, but it left me chasing down blind alleys for
> quite a while.  An hour or two, at least.

That one also left me chasing down blind alleys. Unfortunately, that's
where it left me to stay.

> The first poem, which was apparently a bizarre conversation between
> Spock and Kirk where Spock lasped into Vulcan at the end, actually
> concealed the word "Fibonacci" in its first letters; the last line
> was a simple- substitution-cipher encoded form of "The answer is in
> the first letters".

For some reason, I didn't pay attention to that prayer when /dev/joe
first posted it, and it never occurred to me to check Malenkai's page
to see if I had missed anything.

Next time.

breadbox

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 12:00:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Creating a new game

On Fri, 2 May 1997, Guy Fawkes wrote:

> 
> 
> On Fri, 2 May 1997 [email-masked] wrote:
> 
> > I am creating 5 almost identical Trinkets worth each each A$ 1000 called 
> 
> While Carserac has fixed the identical names problem, he still does not 
> have enough cash, so this naturally does not happen.
> 
> GF
> 

Yeah.  CarseraC, when you make a trinket, you're taking some of YOUR
money, and converting it into an itme.  To make a trinkey worth A$ 1000,
you'd have to have A$ 1000 yourself.  5 such trinkets is, I think, beyond
anyone's capabilities at the moment =)

                               - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 11:38:14 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: My treasure map

If you have trouble decoding my treasure map, you can point your web
browser at http://wilma.che.utexas.edu/~devjoe/acka/images/djmap.gif
to see the picture.  It is a 175x220 1-bit (black and white) gif.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 13:01:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Thinking.

If today were the third (or is it the first?), perhaps this would be more
apropos. But I just realized that when you add a couple things together
you can sometimes make it come out to 847.  

Like so: x + y = 847

The problem is choosing the correct numbers to use for x and y.  I managed
to pick a couple that actually worked.  Kinda neat.

IB
bwg

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 13:24:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: One off errors.

No telling.  It might be my fault.  Maybe it's 848.  But that would use
different numbers.  And it all depends on who your trust.

IB

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 13:03:17 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: IdiotBoy

Curse you, IdiotBoy. :-)
I will bet IB did not bury a treasure at all.
He probably buried a traseure instead.
Somebody needs to buy that boy a spell-checker,
a word-counter, or some such thing!

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 15:09:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Treasure Found!

Treasure 138 or 139, depending on who you believe, has been found!
Attached is the message which located the treasure.

The revealed map was, as follows:

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

As game custom is, I will allow /dev/joe to recount his hunt for the
treasure, while I look abashed at my typing skills.

For the Financier:
#transfer Buried, /dev/joe : 5 PFTechno, Lucky Ball and Chain, Original \
Rules Manuscript : Treasure found.

- --------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 13:03:17 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Reply-To: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: IdiotBoy

Curse you, IdiotBoy. :-)
I will bet IB did not bury a treasure at all.
He probably buried a traseure instead.
Somebody needs to buy that boy a spell-checker,
a word-counter, or some such thing!

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 15:43:55 -0500 (CDT)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Treasure

Bilbo Baggins

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 17:36:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: ICQ Account <[email-masked]>
Subject: Mitchell Harding <[email-masked]> wishes to contact you on the ICQ Network. 

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 16:41:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: info please

Could I please have the help file for using the entity bot.  It seems 
useful, but was installed before I rejoined the game.

Thanks
Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 16:44:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure Found!

> Treasure 138 or 139, depending on who you believe, has been found!
> Attached is the message which located the treasure.

> As game custom is, I will allow /dev/joe to recount his hunt for the
> treasure, while I look abashed at my typing skills.

I'm quite involved with treasures today, with one of mine having been found,
another buried, and now I've found IdiotBoy's.

The first paper had the number 1307 above it, separated from the assorted
smaller numbers by the header "Paper Three".  I looked at rule 1307 and
proposal 1307, and tried various things with the text of these, with no
success.  Some time later (when IdiotBoy posted a clue pointing to R1307)
I went back to work on this, and finally tried using the first letter of
each word (i.e., the 6 4 8 2 23 = the first letters of the 6th, 4th, 8th,
2nd, and 23rd words) and it decoded to (using * for the smudge which I
never paid off):

OFFER TO GET ONE PFTECHNO FEOM SNTWGO* IT IS INTERESTING

The E in FEOM was from the word "eir"; the T in SNTWGO* was from the
word "to".  These were the highest numbers in the code; apparently
IdiotBoy changed to using last letters on those last few words.

I did so, and IdiotBoy sent me the second paper, and I tested this with
the few rules IdiotBoy had written and found that Controlling Interest
gave a halfway sort of message with that:

VBEW TCE GAO& HOW BPC/WA*D OF FS TO CATE ET  (3 smudges: &, /, and *)

After idiotboy posted a clue pointing at that rule, reminding me of the
treasure hunt, I tried interpreting this as "view the gaol how backward
of us to have it" which required substituting 6 letters which were one
off word away from the given number, and one that was 3 away.  I
viewed the gaol (and half the rest of ackanomia) and idiotboy sent me the
third paper.  He also commented that he skipped section numbers when
doing this, and this accounted for some (not all) of the errors.

This one I had trouble with.  I tried plugging in the gaol rule, as well
as other rules and sufficiently long proposals IdiotBoy had written, in
the same manner, and I tried the Gaol rule with last letters instead of
first letters (going on the "gaol backward" thing from the last paper)
and also the initial rule set (going on the fact that PFTechno and
"Lucky Ball and Chain" [from the foolishness rule] had already been clues
to this hunt, and the Original Rules Manuscript was the third part of the
treasure).  Because this one was longer and had more repeated numbers, I
also tried solving it as a standard cryptogram (but one in which more
than one number can stand for the same letter) and I tried substituting
"treasure" for the first 8 letter word but the other 8 letter word
wasn't making any sense (they were encoded as 38 22 56 51 14 74 1 13
and 38 1 25 53 13 6 1 13, so if the first is treasure, the second is
tr--e-re) so I gave up for a while.  Finally when IdiotBoy posted some
drivel today (which I still don't know the meaning of) I went back and
tried using the last *words* of the gaol rule (backward, i.e., 6 was
the 6th from the last word) and this time it spelled:

THE FIRST PLA-ER TO SA- I WILL BET IB DID NOT BUR- A TREASURE SHALL FIND
THIS TRASEURE 

Thus my comment when I posted my "finding" message.
IdiotBoy buried a traseure. :-)

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 16:55:41 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure

Guy Fawkes wrote:
> Bilbo Baggins

Guy Fawkes has found the treasure including the Secret Decoder Ring,
No Tea, and Fibber.

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.)

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 18:07:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure Found!

IdiotBoy tells the story from his perspective:  

On Fri, 2 May 1997, Joseph W. DeVincentis wrote:

> The first paper had the number 1307 above it, separated from the assorted
> smaller numbers by the header "Paper Three".  I looked at rule 1307 and
> proposal 1307, and tried various things with the text of these, with no
> success.  Some time later (when IdiotBoy posted a clue pointing to R1307)
> I went back to work on this, and finally tried using the first letter of
> each word (i.e., the 6 4 8 2 23 = the first letters of the 6th, 4th, 8th,
> 2nd, and 23rd words) and it decoded to (using * for the smudge which I
> never paid off):
> 

There were actually several cluses which I gave, intended to put treasure
seekers on the right path to solving this thing.  The first is the
description of the treasure.  It is based on the description of the
Treasure known as "Beale's Treasure", which used a similar encoding
scheme.  Other clues included my Foolish proposal "Mr. Beale", and my
"Begin each Ackanomic line easily / 1 2 3 4 5" post. 

> OFFER TO GET ONE PFTECHNO FEOM SNTWGO* IT IS INTERESTING
> 
> The E in FEOM was from the word "eir"; the T in SNTWGO* was from the
> word "to".  These were the highest numbers in the code; apparently
> IdiotBoy changed to using last letters on those last few words.
> 

No, apparently IdiotBoy typoed, much as he did throughout the clues in
the puzzle.  :-)  The only other player to get paper 2 was snowgod, he
made an attempt (and in fact succeeded) to buy PFTechno.  I took no
chances and sent him the second paper.  He's probably still puzzling over
it. :)

> I did so, and IdiotBoy sent me the second paper, and I tested this with
> the few rules IdiotBoy had written and found that Controlling Interest
> gave a halfway sort of message with that:
> 
> VBEW TCE GAO& HOW BPC/WA*D OF FS TO CATE ET  (3 smudges: &, /, and *)
> 
> After idiotboy posted a clue pointing at that rule, reminding me of the
> treasure hunt, I tried interpreting this as "view the gaol how backward
> of us to have it" which required substituting 6 letters which were one
> off word away from the given number, and one that was 3 away.  I
> viewed the gaol (and half the rest of ackanomia) and idiotboy sent me the
> third paper.  He also commented that he skipped section numbers when
> doing this, and this accounted for some (not all) of the errors.

More Typo Stories.  I feel less bad about this now that I know /dev/joe
was using a Python program to try to extract the text.  I had to encode
them by hand for God's sake!

> This one I had trouble with.  I tried plugging in the gaol rule, as well
> as other rules and sufficiently long proposals IdiotBoy had written, in
> the same manner, and I tried the Gaol rule with last letters instead of
> first letters (going on the "gaol backward" thing from the last paper)

FWIW, I tried to encode my last message using this scheme.  There weren't
enough unique letters in the last letters of the words to make any kind of
intelligible message.

> and also the initial rule set (going on the fact that PFTechno and
> "Lucky Ball and Chain" [from the foolishness rule] had already been clues
> to this hunt, and the Original Rules Manuscript was the third part of the
> treasure).  Because this one was longer and had more repeated numbers, I

FWIW, I also considered doing this. :-)

> also tried solving it as a standard cryptogram (but one in which more
> than one number can stand for the same letter) and I tried substituting
> "treasure" for the first 8 letter word but the other 8 letter word
> wasn't making any sense (they were encoded as 38 22 56 51 14 74 1 13
> and 38 1 25 53 13 6 1 13, so if the first is treasure, the second is
> tr--e-re) so I gave up for a while.  Finally when IdiotBoy posted some

Wow, perhaps my typos paid off in slowing down the master for a few days!
I'm not sure how this came to be, but it's just as well.

> drivel today (which I still don't know the meaning of) I went back and

Today's drivel: if you take the rule number of the Gaol rule (709) and add
the Treasure number (138 or 139), you get 847 or 848.  The key was going
to be the x + y thing.  A post was planned for tomorrow called "Why Me?"
(hopefully pointing to the Y) lamenting the fact that my treasure had 2
different numbers on two different pages.

> tried using the last *words* of the gaol rule (backward, i.e., 6 was
> the 6th from the last word) and this time it spelled:
> 
> THE FIRST PLA-ER TO SA- I WILL BET IB DID NOT BUR- A TREASURE SHALL FIND
> THIS TRASEURE 
> 
> Thus my comment when I posted my "finding" message.
> IdiotBoy buried a traseure. :-)
> 
> /dev/joe
> 

My lessons learned:

1) I can't type.
2) I should be more careful.
3) I don't have the patience to carry on a big money long term treasure
   hunt. 

Congratulations, /dev/joe.  Enjoy your treasure.

IB

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

Date: Fri, 02 May 1997 18:15:05 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure Found!

IdiotBoy wrote:

> 3) I don't have the patience to carry on a big money long term treasure
>    hunt.

On the other hand, I probably have too much patience. :-)

Malenkai
wondering if treasure 106 and the one breadbox seems to have figured
out will ever be found

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

Date: Fri, 02 May 1997 18:24:25 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 371 Appeal Verdict

CFJ 371 has been judged FALSE on appeal.

May 02 18:19 EDT: -25 Malenkai: appeal of CFJ 371

I wonder if my score is a record low (do I have the record high?).
In any case, hopefully a Tornado will show up this cycle.

The CFJ was due Apr 25th at 13:43.  It is 7+ days late, indicating
penalties of A$15 apiece.  I believe game custom indicates that the
sitting Justices are penalized, even if one of them did not deliver the
verdict.  Assuming that interpretation is correct:

#award breadbox : -15 A$ : late fees as SC justice
#award mr cwm : -15 A$ : late fees as SC justice

ThinMan and mr cwm were the Justices.

Clerk of the Courts
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgement 371 -
    Subject: Paranormal Paradox
  Initiator: breadbox
      Judge: Calvin N Hobbes (selected Apr 09, 1997, 21:25h EDT)
  Judgement: FALSE at Thu, 17 Apr 1997 21:31:21 -0400
Appealed by: Malenkai at Fri, 18 Apr 1997 13:43:43 -0400
Supreme Court's Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

     If Krycek releases a W-File Case report, AND if there exists more
than one Scientist to whom the clause requiring the writing of a
refuting report applies, THEN it is equally legal and illegal for each
Scientist Scientist to write no such report.

Initiator's Comments:

Rule 261 states:

        At least one Scientist must write a refuting report that should
        contain the phrases 'violates the laws of physics' and 'a claw
        is a claw and nobody has seen a talking claw'.

The use of the word "must" indicates that for this to not happen is a
breaking of the rules.

(It is therefore also a Crime by Rule 713: a Crime, but with no
perpetrator. It would be impossible to convict any of the Scientists,
as a CFCJ requires that a single player be named as having broken the
rules. Note that there is no conflict here, since nowhere do the rules
require someone to be eligible for conviction every time a Crime is
committed. I mention this only to emphasize that this is not the seat
of the paradox.)

Now, suppose that you are one of the Scientists. None of the other
Scientists have written a report refuting Krycek's report. Perhaps the
other Scientists have even publically stated that they will not write
the report. Therefore, if you do not write such a report, the rules get
broken. But did you break the rules? The rules do not require you
personally to write a report. In fact, they do not require any
Scientist, in particular, to write a report.

But they *do* require that at least one Scientist write a report. So
perhaps you did break the rules. Or perhaps one could argue that all of
the Scientists did, as a group: that the "Scientific Community" has
broken the rules. But regardless of such semantic quibbling, all of the
Scientists, at all times, were obeying the rules! Never was it
impermissible for you, or any other Scientist, to choose to not write
that report. It seems that nobody has violated the rule. But the rule
has still been disobeyed, which is impermissible.

If it could be assumed that all but one of the Scientists will not
write a report, then it is clear that the remaining Scientist must
write the report. To do otherwise would be illegal. But that assumption
is not a given, nor does it become one at any time. For any Scientist
to not write a report is always a legal act.

And yet, it is still illegal for all of the Scientists to so act.
Someone must write that damned report.  But how can this be, when it is
never illegal for any player to choose not to?

The situation is such that every player can obey the rules, and yet the
rules are nonetheless broken. In short, the act of not writing a report
- - a report that the rules demand be written - is, for each and every
Scientist, an action that is equally legal and illegal.

As a formality, I note that this is a Paradox Win CFJ, and if judged
True the submitter will win the current Cycle.

Judge's Comments:

     [None were given.]

Malenkai's Appeal Reasoning:

Not that I believe the verdict is incorrect; indeed, I have not even
considered it very thoughfully from the prospective of a Judge.
However, I find it very interesting as an observer, and would like some
reasoning. Moreover, this will be a chance to playtest the judicial
conflict-of-interest amendment.

There was one comment that I saw go by indicating that *all* the
Scientists broke the rules. That didn't sit well with me on first
reading.

Imagine 4 people on a desert island with a gun. One of them is shot,
and the police (presumably some sort of deep sea desert island police
with jet skis) show up, and no one will confess to the murder (details
ommitted for simplicity). Are they all guilty? This seemed to be the
implication of that statement alluded to in the preceeding paragraph,
but like I said, I did not look into it; it may be a different case.

In any case, *I* find this interesting, and am willing to spend 25
points to see it kicked around more.

Supreme Court's Reasoning:

The question arose during the Court's deliberations as to how to
interpret the CFJ statement's usage of "for each Scientist to write no
such report."  After due consideration, the Court agreed that it was
to determine whether the actions of the Scientists, individually, were
equally legal and illegal.  The question of whether the combined actions
are legal, illegal, or indeterminate, and any bearing that that has on
the legality of the individual Scientists' actions was given the
appropriate consideration, but was not considered to be part of the
central question before the Court.

The first issue that the Court finds relevant to the question at hand
involves the timing.  We agree that the legality of the actions in
question potentially depends on the time at which it is evaluated.

At any time before the R401 deadline, it is legal for each Scientist to
not write a report -- he or another Scientist could write a report
between then and the deadline and thus satisfy R 261.  At any time
after the deadline, it is legal for each Scientist to not write a
report -- the joint effect of rules 261 and 401 is to make a
requirement that a report be written within a fixed time; that has no
applicability to times after the deadline.  The fact that the actions
are legal at almost all times might be sufficient to rule the CFJ
false, but does not answer the central question.  Therefore, we go on
to consider the legality of the Scientists' actions at the exact
deadline.

R 401 says that an officer "[has] 3 days to complete the tasks and
duties they are responsible for."  If we interpret this to require
action _before_ the end of the three days then the exact deadline
itself is the same as any time after the deadline, and the the
Scientists' actions at that time are therefore legal as per above.  Let
us assume, then, that action after exactly three days satisfies R401
(this is probably more reasonable anyway).  If no Scientist has written
a report before the deadline, the the rules require that at least one
write a report _at_ the deadline.  This, then, is the only time at
which any illegality can be assessed.

Suppose that no Scientist has written a report before the deadline.  Is
it legal for a given Scientist, A, to not write a report _at_ the
deadline, supposing that none of the other Scientists does either?  No
rule explicitly allows any Scientist to not write a report, therefore
such (in)action can only be legal if no rule forbids it.  If a rule
does forbid it then it is unambiguously illegal, otherwise it is
unambiguously legal.

The matter is further complicated, however, because it is potentially
unclear whether or not the actions in question are actually forbidden.
According to rule 261, it is illegal for the Scientists, collectively,
to not write a report at the deadline if none has yet been written.
Does that mean that it is illegal for any particular one to not write a
report?  In other words, can we assess individual responsability for an
action required of a group?

If we do assess individual responsability for group-required actions,
then in the absence of other indications the only reasonable course
is to assign equal responsability to each group member.  That would
mean, in this case, that each Scientist is guilty of violating rule
261.  It also indicates a verdict of False -- there is no time at which
the legality of any Scientist not writing a report is indeterminate.

The alternative is to not assess individual responsability to the group
members.  In this situation, the group as a whole has violated the
rules, but the individual members are not culpable.  This may seem odd,
even unpalatable, to some, but there is nothing in the rules to
invalidate it.  Indeed, this situation is comparable to the "limited
liability" enjoyed by shareholders of real-life corporations, as
opposed to the full liability associated with partnerships.  In any
event, this alternative still indicates a verdict of False.

The Court finds nothing in the rules to favor one of these alternatives
over the other, but they are mutually exclusive, and both indicate the
same verdict for CFJ 371: False.  It is therefore not necessary to
know which should hold sway; one does and the other does not, but the
verdict is the same either way.  The actual determination of whether
the actions are legal or illegal can be done by another CFJ.

The Court finds that although there are multiple possible
interpretations of the rules, they all indicate the same verdict for
this CFJ, False, in agreement with that of the original judge.  The
Court therefore upholds the original verdict.

- -25 Malenkai: frivolously bothering the Judges

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End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #71
******************************