Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #74
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest          Monday, May 5 1997          Volume 02 : Number 074

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Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 21:50:32 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Godfather 

>Malenkai wrote:
>>
>> In accordance with rule 1060, I am publically stating that I am
>> the Godfather.
>>
>> Malenkai
>
>And I will confirm that Malenkai was indeed a member of the Narfalones
>
>Narf

And I am attempting to overthrow the Godfather, who was a lowly foot
soldier, compared to my consigliereness.

snowgod

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

Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 21:49:09 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Treasure 132 found 

>Literally it comes out to "frog gold-the[ergative case] Basque speak can?",
>or at least thats the way I figured it.  Basque has an SOV grammar, and
>the adjectives follow the nouns, the the articles follow the noun
>phrases.  The dictionary I found on the web did not list parts of speech
>with the vocabulary, so I'm not sure if gold(n) and gold(adj) are the
>same word, as they are in English, so that part may be completely wrong.
>
>Malenkai
>figured it would be too easy if I used French or Spanish

You really ought to use Eldurian...

snowgod

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 01:52:04 -0500
From: Mitchell Harding <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Prayer for Deliverance 

At 10:05 PM 5/3/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Astronautically speaking,
>"laki atino makini lorhoho"
>Is neither aerodynamical
>Nor really astrobiologic.
>
>CnH

Very familiar. I believe this priest has lost that flare for originality
that has been a hallmark of the Church of the Markovian Dream...

Robert Sevin

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

Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 21:56:22 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: IRC 

Otay, Here's the deal...

If you are online right now (11:00 in alaska) log onto IRC.

snowgod
that is all

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

Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 22:03:34 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Registrarness 

Citizens of Ackanomic, drop what you are doing and listen to that little
voice in side your head!  The government is your friend.  The registrar
knows whats best.

We have a new observer in Ackanomic.  His name is Phil Bordelon and his
email address is [email-masked].  The registrar kindly requests that you
welcome him to Ackanomic.

That is all.

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

Date: Sun, 04 May 1997 00:09:04 -0700
From: Joshua Nave <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Godfather

Phil Ackley wrote:
> 
> >Malenkai wrote:
> >>
> >> In accordance with rule 1060, I am publically stating that I am
> >> the Godfather.
> >>
> >> Malenkai
> >
> >And I will confirm that Malenkai was indeed a member of the Narfalones
> >
> >Narf
> 
> And I am attempting to overthrow the Godfather, who was a lowly foot
> soldier, compared to my consigliereness.
> 
> snowgod

And I will confirm that Snowgod was in fact a Narfalone.  However, and
this may require a CFJ... I believe that when Malenkai legaly took over
the reins of power, old memberships were erased, and new members must
apply via Malenkai.

Narf

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 12:18:42 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka : A time for change

Citizens of Ackanomic, hark,

For a long time I have been a member of the Vulcan Party, a most
successful Party which has succeeded in fulfilling its charter. 
However, in the current state of Acka I feel that there are more urgent
issues to be addresses. Acka has reached a sort of a status quo, a
stability, a resistance to change. I find that those are things that could
prove terminal to any nomic.

As of now I am leaving the Vulcan Party, since change must start within
oneself. 

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 10:10:42 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Vulcan

I am volunteering to become Vulcan Swinger.

If any player would like to join the Vulcan party, so that we can
once again get unity votes, contact me or ThinMan.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 16:39:37 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Vacant Offices?

In an effort to figure out who's doing what in this crazy game, I was going
through the list of offices in section 400 of the Rules, and comparing them
to the listed positions of each player on the PE page, and I discovered a
few discrepancies.

There were a few of the Overseer positions that seem to be empty--
Undead-Harfer, Entity-Harfer, and Trinket-Harfer.  And considering that the
Financier rules seem to specify that none of these offices can be performed
if they are vacant, I'm somewhat confused.  Have the appropriate rules
governing these areas just not been taken into effect yet(despite having
been passed over a month ago)?  Is it just that nobody has volunteered for
the positions, and that other people are doing the functions by necessity
or out of inertia?

But more importantly, according to the PE page, at least, there is no
President.  Isn't this just a little bit mildly important?

Just trying to make sense of what's going on here...  (And, incidentally, I
wouldn't mind taking on some position or other, just as soon as I get to
full voting player status.  Drat those pesky aliens!)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--Rose Chronicles:Shiver
Current Book--Pat Cadigan:Fools
Each of the supplicants was given his own licorice whip.

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

Date: Sun, 04 May 1997 20:43:46 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 376 (ThinMan)

May 04 20:43 EDT: -10 fnord: did not deliver a verdict on CFJ 376

It has been assigned to ThinMan

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

Call For Judgement 376
  Subject: CFJ 364 continued
Initiator: xebra bod
    Judge: fnord (failed to deliver verdict)
2nd Judge: ThinMan (assigned May 04, 1997, 20:43h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

In Round 2 of the current game of Grab-A-Donkey (the results of which
were released by Wrangler snowgod on 24 Mar 1997), ThinMan grabbed
breadbox's donkey.

xebra bod's reasoning:

The Supreme Court's reasoning for its decision on the highly similar
CFJ 364 seemed to hinge upon the question of whether the Little Lamb
was "grabbed before, after, or simultaneously with, the grabbing of
Donkeys". Since the court found no clear answer to this question, it
returned a decision of UNDECIDED. To be specific, it saw the
"simultaneously with" case to be unplayable, but could find no reason
to prefer either "before" or "after".

I wish to argue that the question itself is misguided, which is why
there is no clear answer for it to be found, and that Rule 1213 is not
ambiguous (though perhaps not worded as forcefully as it needs to be),
and that the correct verdict for this CFJ should be TRUE.

Firstly, consider the game of Grab-a-Donkey when the Little Lamb is
not involved. Upon a careful reading, one will notice that the Rule
carefully avoids any situation wherein two or more players could be
grabbing a single donkey (by having all such players automatically
fail), or wherein a player could attempt to grab a donkey that is not
there (by having players without donkeys removed from the GAL before
any further grabs are possible). What this means is that the Wrangler
only needs to know the state of the game at the moment the current
round began, and what every player's move is.

This is important for two reasons. First, at no point does the
Wrangler need to determine the outcome of one player's move before
being able to determine another's. Second, the Wrangler cannot
determine any of the moves' outcomes until every player's move is
known.

Once these conditions are observed, it becomes obvious that this is no
accident. Section E of Rule 1213 states: "At the end of the Round, the
Wrangler will publicly report what each player on the GAL did, and
determine the results." Clearly, the results are not determined before
all the moves have been submitted. We will come back to this.

Grab-a-Donkey is structured similarly to a cellular automaton (such as
Conway's Game of Life), in which, at any given "round", the state of
each cell is dependent upon the states of its neighbors. Like players
in Grab-a-Donkey, a given cell's state at the end of a round is
determined by considering the states of its neighbors at the beginning
of that round. Even though the neighbors are undergoing state changes
of their own, none of these changes can actually affect the cell's
outcome. It is the states of the cells at the beginning of the round
that is used to determine their states at the end. To ask if the cells
all change their states simultaneously, or instantaneously, is to ask
moot questions, as these considerations have no bearing on determining
the outcome of each round. They are non-issues.

Now: with all this in mind, let us take a closer look at what the rule
actually says. The passage under scrutiny is section C. It begins: "If
exactly one player ('A') chose to grab another player's donkey ('B'),
and if B did not Cover their donkey, then B will lose their donkey and
be removed from the GAL at the start of the following Round ..." Note
that it does not say that player B loses their donkey; it says that
player B *will* lose their donkey. (So exactly when does B lose eir
donkey? At the start of the next round? when the Wrangler posts the
results? or maybe an infinitesimal amount of time after the grab?
Again, such questions are moot. They ignore the fact that either way,
the results of the round - and of the following rounds - are exactly
the same.)

The rule then continues: "... unless player B is in possesion [sic] of
the Little Lamb, in which case A will become confused and grab the
lamb by mistake and B will remain in possesion [sic] of his donkey.
(In this situation, possesion [sic] of the Little Lamb will transfer
to player A.)" Without specific wording to the contrary, I argue that
it would be a perverse reading indeed that treated the time referred
to by the clause "the Little Lamb will transfer to player A" as
meaning a significantly different point in the game as that referred
to by the clause "B will lose their donkey", especially considering
that they both appear in the same sentence. In fact, considering the
wording of Section E, I argue that the point in time referred to is
none other than at the end of the round.

In the situation that forms the question of this CFJ, the round began
with Malenkai, ThinMan, and breadbox on the GAL (among others), and
with Malenkai possessing the Little Lamb. Malenkai made a move other
than to Cover his Donkey, breadbox attempted to grab Malenkai's
donkey, and ThinMan attempted to grab breadbox's donkey.

For ThinMan to successfully grab the Little Lamb would require
breadbox to be in possession of the Little Lamb. Not to be at some
point soon, but at the time that the results of ThinMan's move is
being determined. Which means that breadbox's move must have already
been completed, and its outcome already determined and enacted, at
some point in time before the results of ThinMan's move is being
determined.

Once again I quote Section E: "At the end of the Round, the Wrangler
will publicly report what each player on the GAL did, and determine
the results." Surely the results of each player's moves cannot be
enacted before they have even been determined? It seems clear that
breadbox cannot possess the Little Lamb any earlier than the end of
the round.

Consider also: what if somebody else had also attempted to grab
Malenkai's donkey? In that case, breadbox's attempt to grab anything
of Malenkai's would fail, and he would not possess the Little Lamb at
any point during that round. breadbox's successful possession of the
Little Lamb is dependent upon the moves of every other player.

I argue that the outcome of one player's move cannot be sensibly
construed as being enacted before the results of every move have been
determined.

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 21:52:58 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Vacant Offices?

> 
> There were a few of the Overseer positions that seem to be empty--
> Undead-Harfer, Entity-Harfer, and Trinket-Harfer.  And considering that the
	Just stopping by.
	Yes, I have no clue what's going on with that.  Perhaps we
have to have a President for the elections to be called to fill those
offices.  I know we have had volunteers.  I need a Trinket-harfer
badly.
	/dev/joe is doing my job (pained expression) but I have a
paper to write so I really shouldn't be here at all.
	Anytime you need someone to add to the confusion, just let me
know!  :oP

- -- 
Mohammed
Jolly mutant ants chased a Russian with a fire hose.

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 21:16:04 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Vacant Offices?

> > There were a few of the Overseer positions that seem to be empty--
> > Undead-Harfer, Entity-Harfer, and Trinket-Harfer.  And considering that the

> 	Yes, I have no clue what's going on with that.  Perhaps we
> have to have a President for the elections to be called to fill those
> offices.  I know we have had volunteers.  I need a Trinket-harfer
> badly.

As far as I can read the Rules(which is admittedly not comprehensively),
there should be no need for a President(and how careless of us not to have
one!)for Harfer positions to be filled.  Of course, on rereading, I'm
somewhat confused as to whether Rule 400, Rule 401, or Rule 403 applies;
the latter does require the president, but that depends on whather an
Overseership is a Functional Office or not.

And as I said, as soon as I lose my Pending status I would love to be
Harfing something or other.  (Catch me while I'm still gung-ho, this
opportunity may not arise again!)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--A-Ha:Stay On These Roads
Current Book--Pat Cadigan:Fools
Harpo, you talk too much.

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

Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 23:42:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Vacant Offices?

On Sun, 4 May 1997, Aaron Humphrey wrote:

> 
> In an effort to figure out who's doing what in this crazy game, I was going
> through the list of offices in section 400 of the Rules, and comparing them
> to the listed positions of each player on the PE page, and I discovered a
> few discrepancies.
> 
> There were a few of the Overseer positions that seem to be empty--
> Undead-Harfer, Entity-Harfer, and Trinket-Harfer.  And considering that the
> Financier rules seem to specify that none of these offices can be performed
> if they are vacant, I'm somewhat confused.  Have the appropriate rules
> governing these areas just not been taken into effect yet(despite having
> been passed over a month ago)?  Is it just that nobody has volunteered for
> the positions, and that other people are doing the functions by necessity
> or out of inertia?

I've been wondering about these myself.  Unlike you, however, I ahve no
intention of filling any of them. =)

> 
> But more importantly, according to the PE page, at least, there is no
> President.  Isn't this just a little bit mildly important?

Hrm, important... well, I suppose it might seem that way.  In any case,
last I heard snowgod was President.  Did he resign?  I know he was
threatening to do so sooner or later.  Interestingly enough, I'm pretty
sure snowgod is the current maintainer of the PE page.  Perhaps he
attempted to resign, but did so imporperly or something, and just *thinks*
he resigned.  Then again, maybe I just missed his resignation or
something.

                           - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #74
******************************