Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #111
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest        Wednesday, June 4 1997        Volume 02 : Number 111

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

Date: 3 Jun 1997 17:14:24 CST/CDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: declining judgment 

I decline judgment on the CFJ (384?) that is currently pending my
acceptance or declination.  I am currently unable to do the research
this CFJ requires, nor do I wish to post a "the verdict returned in the
other thread is sound" reasoning.

If this causes me to be placed on the CFJ ineligibility list, I remove
myself from said list.

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

Date: 3 Jun 1997 17:22:44 CST/CDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: prayer for deliverance 

Pity the Ackapresbytery,
Who monthy says their prayers with 'nary
A word of thanks for that protection
Found in monthly genuflection.

Is lack of thanks for verses sweet
The result of meter imperfect or a slovenly beat?
Or is ingratitude selfsame,
The fruit of an imperfect rhyme?

But plaintive words will not make fly
The pending torrent from our sky,
So I ecclesiastically
The language use gymnastically.

Underhead there lies an ocean,
Forestalled by our priestly devotion.
Combined with polysyllabicism --
In par pluvum, crastus gism.

And once again, the land defended.
Thanks for reading, the prayer is ended.

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 17:44:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: Prayer for Deliverance

/dev/joe, Calvin N Hobbes, Mr. Nacho, You can call me Al, and Guy Fawkes
have posted prayers.  We have yet to hear from Robert Sevin, Niccolo
Flychuck, and Malenkai, with less than 6 hours to go.  I fear the floods.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 00:08:07 +0000
From: "Bascule" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 392 (Antimatter)

/dev/joe wrote:

> > Call For Judgment 392
> > Statement:
> > 
> > For Bascule to give A$10 to Alfvaen is equally legal and illegal.
> 
> > Bascule's Reasoning:
> > 
> > Bascule has two contracts binding his actions. The contracts demand
> > that he gives A$10 to Alfvaen, and that he does not give any A$
> > to Alfvaen. There is no means for deciding precedence between
> > contracts, and therefore the action of giving the A$ is equally legal
> > and illegal.
> 
> > From Rule 1995:"Once a player has signed a contract, that player must
> > obey any restrictions that that contract places on em"
> > 
> > The player _must obey_ any restrictions. This means that if I were to
> > give A$10 to Alfvaen, this would be legal according to the first
> > contract, but illegal according to the second. If I do not give any
> > A$ to Alfvaen, this is illegal according to the first contract, but
> > legal according to the second.
> 
> The contracts do not make anything legal.  All a contract does, by the
> fragment of R1995 (now R517) above, is make it illegal to do other than
> the contract stipulates.  The contract does not guarantee that the
> actions it requires will be legal. By Bascule's reasoning, I could
> sign a contract that says "/dev/joe must take all A$ and PFbonds owned
> by any player or organization" and make it actually happen

Well, no. It would make /dev/joe do so with the precedence of that
rule. For you to do so would violate other rules with higher
precedence, whereas for you not to do so would violate only the
contracts rule. Therefore it would be more illegal to follow the
contract. I agree therefore with /dev/joe's conclusion of what would 
happen in his hypothetical case:

> -- but the rule does not support this.  Signing a contract that
> can't be legally filled is just a way of forcing yourself to commit
> a crime. 

I add that it is a way of forcing yourself to break the rules as well
as commit a crime. 

> As far as what actually happens with Bascule's two contracts, the Crime
> rule tells us that an attempt to commit an "impermissible" action fails.
> Game custom holds (and in cases such as reporting information, must hold)
> that impermissible inaction can occur, however. 

OK. I like this argument. I contest it, because while impermissible 
inaction can and does occur, this does not make impermissible 
inaction any less illegal than impermissible action. Although 
inactivity can be used to break the rules, this doesn't mean that 
this breaking of the rules is more _legal_ than breaking the rules 
through attempting an impermissible action; it means that inactivity 
makes breaking the rules _possible_. 

> So regardless what Bascule attempts, the inaction of not giving
> Alfvaen any A$ will actually occur. Similarly, if the two contracts
> said Bascule must give some unique entity to two different players,
> he couldn't give it to anybody; the inaction, in violation of both
> contracts, would be the only *possible* action.
> 
> /dev/joe

If I follow /dev/joe's argument, it could be written like this: 
"Because a player can break the rules by failing to post information, 
it is more legal for a player to break the rules through inactivity 
than through activity."

I think /dev/joe's argument confuses legality with possibility.

Bascule

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:28:12 -0800
From: "Ross Morgan-Linial" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Re: Acka: Still more silliness

"Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Techno wrote:
> >  If you distribute these as individual trinkets, and one is destroyed or   
> > cashed in, players cannot be paid in ackapennies and therefore the player   
> > would get A$1 due to rounding.  I see a major scam and a crash to the   
> > acka economy if this happens.  Does anyone else see it this way?

Well, that was the original point, yes.

> Actually, there isn't a problem because the rules are worse than we thought
> about preventing this sort of thing.
> 
> I have already sent out the proposal; I guess I should post my findings
> during the writing of the proposal, now.
> 
> In the "III. Hard Currency" section of R505, there is a statement that
> that rule (the whole rule, not just that paragraph) defers to rules
> concerning the creation and destruction of trinkets.  However, the
> "no ackapennies" ban is in that rule also, so "no ackapennies" never
> takes effect when a trinket is created or destroyed.

I noticed that too, and commented on it in my CFJ; it's unclear to me whether 
the precedence clause prevents the rounding, although it does stop the 
prohibition on fractional A$. It probably also stops the absolute total value 
of A$ provision, too. If it doesn't prevent the rounding, this would allow a 
practically infinite amound of A$ to be created from nowhere at all.

> To discourage creation of odd-sized trinkets, my proposal plans to destroy
> all trinkets with fractional values when I fix the trinket rule to disallow
> them, giving the A$ from them to the treasury.  Considering that the
> A$1 groups of trinkets might not be entirely in the possession of one
> player when the proposal takes effect, I didn't see any better way to do it.

Convert them to A$, then round down?

I plan to destroy the 100 Really Cheap Trinkets anyways.
- -------------------------------
Antimatter * [email-masked]
You have the power of negation.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 18:02:39 -0700
From: **Alexandre Muniz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: P2044, Whither half-a-chip?

Interestingly, P2044 does not cause the destruction of existing 
fractional processing chips, (unlike fractional-valued trinkets.) I 
therefore offer 10 A$ to any player who can offer me a fractional 
processing chip, on the grounds that they may become curious collector's 
items when it is no longer possible to create them.

**two-star

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

Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 02:18:45 +0000
From: "Bascule" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 392 (Antimatter)

[snip - /dev/joe's reasoning]

> This is much the same reasoning that I made in judging Bascule's earlier,
> similar, and now non-existant CFJ.  It's also pretty much what Thinman
> said way back when said CFJ was first released.  To sum up, contracts
> can't make ANYTHING legal.  At most, they can place restrictions on you
> that make it illegal to do something you normaly could ahve done.  In this
> case, Bascuel's first contract does not make it legal for him to give A$10
> Alfvaen, any such reasoning is absurd, because this has always been legal.

Indeed, it always was legal. But Rule 517 does say that the 
signatories to a contract must do what the contract says. It is 
therefore legal to do what the contract says. Just because another 
rule says that it is legal to give money does not make it absurd that 
another rule should say the same thing (albeit indirectly).

> What it does is make it illegal for him NOT to give Alfvaen A$10.

It does this too.

> Similarly, his second contract does not make it legal for him to not give
> Alfvaen A$10, it was legal for him to not do this already.  

Similar to the above, by not giving Alfvaen A$10, I am fulfilling the 
second contract, which I must do. 

> What it does is make it illegal for him to give Alfvaen money.  Not
> only should this CFJ be judged false, but someone should probably
> submit a CFCJ against Bascule, perhaps Alfvaen, since he seems to
> be the injured party. =)

Fair play. I'm sorry Alfvaen :-)

> I'd also recommend that Bascule destroy one or both of the
> contracts, I think it's legal for him to do so. If he doesn't, one
> is faced with the interesting fact that Bascule would be commiting
> a Crime all the time, simply by being in the game, whether or not
> he gives Alfvaen any money.  I don't know if the Crime rule is very
> well equiped to handel this or not, and it certainly points out a
> serioud problem with conflicting contracts...
> 
> 
>                              - Vynd
> 
> [email-masked]

I hadn't thought about that last point; perhaps I'll be popping in 
and out of jail for the rest of my Ackalife.

Bascule

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:00:44 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Prayer for Deliverance

> /dev/joe, Calvin N Hobbes, Mr. Nacho, You can call me Al, and Guy Fawkes
> have posted prayers.  We have yet to hear from Robert Sevin, Niccolo
> Flychuck, and Malenkai, with less than 6 hours to go.  I fear the floods.

Niccolo Flychuck is a vacationing priest, and I believe he has been on
vacation for all of June so far.  (The last message I have from him is
dated June 1st, but this is three time zones east of Greenwich, so I think
that's still May Ackatime.)

If P2019 had passed earlier, I think there would in fact be a seven-day
extension on the three-day deadline...

In any event, just to be prepared for the worst, I will purchase a Wings
mutation.  Uh...I'm not quite sure how to do that up for Acrobot, I'm
afraid...  Is that considered a "transfer" or an "award"?  (Or a pair of
awards?)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--Manhattan Transfer:Mystery
Current Book--Steven Brust:Five Hundred Years After
Danger, dare to be grand.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 19:07:16 -0700
From: **Alexandre Muniz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: P2044, Whither half-a-chip?

**Alexandre Muniz wrote:
> 
> Interestingly, P2044 does not cause the destruction of existing
> fractional processing chips, (unlike fractional-valued trinkets.) I
> therefore offer 10 A$ to any player who can offer me a fractional
> processing chip, on the grounds that they may become curious collector's
> items when it is no longer possible to create them.
> 
> **two-star

oops,

"All non-A$ fractional entities are destroyed."

I missed that. I withdraw my offer. Although I don't see why a 
half-a-chip could be so harmful. I am voting against this proposal, 
on the basis of its willful and needless destruction of half-chips.

**two-star

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:10:36 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Mad Hatter (CarsesraC)

It has been asserted that it is my duty to select a Mad Hatter for
myself.  I tend to disagree with this, but it is quite a rather 
complicated argument that will probably come down to algebra that I
have neither the time nor the qualifications to sort through in the
waning minutes of the Speed rule, so we will create an SEP field
with a CFJ (and a thread split), and I can get back to watching the
Flyers game :)

In this thread, CarsesraC has been selected as Mad Hatter for Malenkai.

In any case, in this thread anyway:

My Silly Vacation Hat is a most excellent and exquisite piece of 
craftsmanship; the finest example of headwear in all the land (except
of course for those pieces which will help find an ancient map), and
I thank CarsesraC very much for it.

Malenkai
wondering why our Expert on headwear has nothing to say on the issue
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:16:32 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 391 (two-star)

two-star has been selected for CFJ 391.

Clerk of the Courts
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 391
  Subject: Seeing Blue
Initiator: Malenkai
    Judge: Robert Sevin (declined)
2nd Judge: Calvin N Hobbes (declined)
3rd Judge: Techno (declined)
4th Judge: two-star (selected Jun 03, 1997, 22:16h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

The Blueprint for the 'The Really Big Blue Thing That Doesn't Do Too
Much, Really' (Blue Thing) defines behaviour for a Gadget that
could potentially break the rules, or could possibly be used to
break the rules.

Malenkai's Reasoning:

There exists an entity called 'Man Thin'.  The Blue Thing's Blueprint
specifies behaviour that would possibly allow someone to change the name
of our esteemed Senator Melvin to this name, which would be a violation
of rule 348.

Upon a verdict of TRUE, the Blueprint and all extant Blue Things are
destroyed, as described in rule 594 with interpretation clarified
by CFJ 261 (the last paragraph of CFJ 261's reasoning has been
superceeded by rule change; the other relavent rules (viz 594 sec (ii))
and customs remain unsubstantial

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:20:43 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 394 Verdict

CFJ 394 has been judged FALSE.  mr cwm receives the Chartreuse Goose.

Clerk of the Courts
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 394
  Subject: Liar's Paradox Paradox
Initiator: mr cwm
    Judge: Antimatter was Here (declined)
2nd Judge: Alfvaen (selected Jun 02, 1997, 20:18h EDT)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:
          
A Judge delivering a verdict of TRUE on a CFCJ whose
statement was "mr cwm has committed a Crime" is a player
action affecting the game state which appears equally legal and
illegal.
          
mr cwm's Reasoning:
          
>From R601: "It is a Crime for a Player to refuse to publish, in anewspaper he or she owns, a correction of an untrue statement
that previously appeared in that newspaper, after a public request
for such a correction has been made."
          
The statement in the May 29 issue of is: "In a move believed
unprecedented in the annals of Ackanomian journalism, and with
one eye fixed firmly on the calendar, is today publishes this
statement, which is untrue."
          
It should be easy to verify that both a request for correction and
a refusal have been posted publically.
          
It should (and almost certainly has) been noted that the statement
for which correction has been requested is the Liar's Paradox. If
we assume the statement is untrue (making refusal to correct it a
Crime), then what is untrue is that the statement is untrue,
making it not-untrue (making refusal to correct it not a Crime).
On the other hand (and I'm sure the Judge can see this coming)
if we assume the statement is true (making the refusal to correct
it not a Crime), then what is true is that the statement is untrue
(making the refusal to correct it a Crime). Since assumptions of
non-Criminality lead to Criminality, and assumptions of
Criminality lead to non-Criminality, I contend that the refusal
appears equally Criminal and non-Criminal.
          
Since a Judge must deliver a verdict in accord with the Rules,
and the statement under consideration is "mr cwm has committed
a Crime," a verdict of TRUE would be legal if the action in
question was a Crime, while a verdict of TRUE would be illegal
if the action in question had not been a Crime. Since the action
appears equally a Crime and not a Crime, a verdict of TRUE
appears equally legal and illegal. (In actuality, a Judge would
most likely return a verdict of UNDECIDED in such a CFCJ,
but that does not mean that a verdict of TRUE is not equally
legal and illegal.  Rather, likelihood of such a verdict is more
evidence that a verdict of TRUE is equally legal and illegal,
prompting it to be avoided.)
          
"This is a Paradox Win CFJ."

Alfvaen's Reasoning:

First let's examine whether or not the statement published by "is" is,
in fact, untrue.  The statement claims that it is untrue, but of course a
statement is not necessarily fallible.  Assuming for the moment a statement
consists of an assertion of a single fact, it may be true(if that fact is
indeed correct), or it may be false(if that fact is not correct).  It may
also be knowable or unknowable, depending on whether or not the correctness
or incorrectness of the fact asserted in the statement can be known at the
time the statement's truth value is to be determined.

For instance, a statement that "Alfvaen is President" is false; a statement
that "Alfvaen is AckaPhysicist" is true; but a statement that "Alfvaen will
never be President" is unknowable.  It is possible for a statement in the
latter category to be forever unknowable; if I do become President it
becomes false, but it is possible that it may never become true.  Thus such
a statement cannot be called "untrue" with finality.

Now let us take the statement "This statement is untrue".  It adds a new
dimension to matters, a self-referential one, because the fact it asserts
depends on its own truth value.  I contend that this statement cannot be
untrue.

If we assume that "This statement is untrue", which I will call Statement
P, is untrue, then the fact Statement P asserts becomes correct, and hence
Statement P is true.  This leads to a contradiction, so it cannot be the
case that Statement P is untrue.  (It can be similarly shown that Statement
P is not true, because that also leads to a contradiction, but I leave that
as an exercise to the student.)

If "true" and "untrue" are the only options, then perhaps a CFCJ on a
refusal to retract Statement P's publication cannot be determined with
finality.  However, I contend that Statement P's truth value falls outside
that bipolar range, into the category of "indeterminate".  This may be
included within "unknowable".  In any case, since "indeterminate"
statements cannot be untrue, it cannot be a crime to refuse to retract
them, since that clause of Rule 925 only applies to untrue statements.  And
Statement P, or mr cwm's permutation of it, however much it asserts its own
untruthfulness, cannot in finality be considered "untrue", any more that it
can be "true".

On the bright side, this means that a CFCJ can't be called against mr cwm
anyways; all he gets is the Chartreuse Goose.

{{[End of reasoning]}}

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:25:15 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 395 Verdict

CFJ 395 has been judged FALSE.  Would the Financier please note
the retroactive effect on various entities as a result of this verdict.

Clerk of the Courts
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 395
  Subject: Cheap Trinkets
Initiator: Antimatter was Here
    Judge: You can call me Al (selected Jun 03, 1997, 8:51h EDT)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Antimatter was here spent a total of A$1 creating the 100 Really Cheap
Trinkets.

Antimatter was here's reasoning:

Rule 506 does not prevent the creation of trinkets with a value of less than
A$1. Since I created all of these trinkets simultaneously, the transfer is
obviously made simultaneously. Rule 505 would then round it up, except it is
already exactly A$1.

Also, the R506 takes precedence over R505 due to a clause in R505, so it is
possible that no rounding takes place in the creation or destruction of
trinkets anyways.

You can call me Al's Reasoning:

I decided to give this one a shot - it wasn't as user-unfriendly as the
other CFJ's I've been handed lately! :vp But the problem, as AwH states it,
is that there's nothing in the rules that says that decimal values can't be
used. However, rule 505 says (my emphasis):

"IV. No Ackapennies:

     A$ may not be broken into fractional AckaDollars. If the Rules specify
a transfer should be made that
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
includes a fractional reckoning of A$, the transaction will instead be
conducted in an integer number of A$, and the rounding shall be in favor of
the Player or entity receiving A$. "

Also, each entity has to be unique. This creation, as I see it, does not
create a "batch", but 100 unique entities. Each one is a transfer, as I see
it, of A$.01...so it would seem that each one needs to be rounded up to A$1.
If I'm wrong, then so be it. But I'd rather not see the precedent of an
obvious rule break being set. There are no Ackapennies - each Trinket's
price is A$1 or more.

That's it? That's it.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:29:52 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 384 (Atilla the Pun)

CFJ 384 has been reassigned to Atilla the Pun

Clerk of the Courts
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 384
  Subject: Possible Polythiesm
Initiator: Alfvaen
    Judge: Guy Fawkes (declined)
2nd Judge: Atilla the Pun (selected Jun 03, 1997, 22:29h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

A player can be a member of more than one Church at a time.

Alfvaen's Reasoning:

According to Rule 102, "Resolving Conflicts", if two sections of the same
rule conflict, and there is no other section of the rule that resolves the
conflict, then the statement occurring later in the rule takes precedence.
I quote the revelant sections of Rule 1301, "Churches":

(Rule 1301)
      6. A player may not be a member of more than one Church at the same
time.

7. a. Any player may petition the Founder of a Church for membership
in that Church.
b. If Church Policy has nothing to say on accepting new members, then
Church membership will be up to the Founder. However, a Player cannot
become a member of a Church until the Founder of the Church sends a
public announcement to that effect.

So, in essence, clause 6 applies only so long as it does not contradict the
Church Founder's own whims regarding membership of eir Church, whose effect
on Church membership takes precedence by occurring later in the rule.  No
player can belong to more than once Church at a time, unless the founders of
the latterly-joined Churches decide that they are willing to accept the
player.  (Subject to Church Policy, of course, but there is nothing to say
that Church Policy has to reject players who are already members of
Churches, either.)  Clause 6 is thus entirely nullified by Clause 7, since
it can be ignored by Church Founders and makers of Church Policy with
impunity.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:37:22 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 396 (Atilla the Pun)

CFJ 396 has been reassigned to Atilla the Pun (again)

Clerk of the Courts
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 396
  Subject: Trinket Creation
Initiator: Alfvaen
    Judge: Atilla the Pun (selected Jun 03, 1997, 22:36h EDT)
Judgement: 

Statement:

mr cwm did not create the Haddocks' Eyes Locket.

Alfvaen's Reasoning:

The trinket in question was created because mr cwm was granted a Boon of
The Ancients.  Rule 1211 specifies that the player granted the Boon Must
Describe a trinket bestowed thereby.  The trinket's actual creation is the
result of the player's actions--it cannot take place until after the
trinket is described--but nowhere does it state that the player actually
creates the trinket.  The trinket is created with money from the Treasury,
not the player's own money, as it would be if the player had created it.
Nowhere in Rule 1211 or Rule 506 does it specify who, or what, is the
creator of a trinket not created specifically by a player's declaration(as
in the third paragraph of R506).

Therefore, a trinket bestowed by a Boon of The Ancients is not created by
the player who received the Boon, nor in fact by any other player.  In
fact, the term "creator of the Haddocks' Eyes Locket" may well be
meaningless under the current ruleset, or at the very least not correspond
to any existing entity.  (Perhaps Rule 1211 was the creator of the
trinket.)

In any case, if at any time a rule is to specify that "A trinket is
returned to its creator", and this CFJ is judged TRUE, then there should be
some provision for dealing with rule-created trinkets.

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 20:53:05 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: My Ackanomic Web pages

I've now sort of organized my Ackanomic web pages, after a fashion--made an
index.html file linking them all and everything, at
http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/acka/ .  (Expect a Quite Garish Tie cgi
script coming real soon.)  More importantly, I have now taken over the
AckaPhysicist page, copied wholesale from Malenkai's site, at
http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/acka/ackakra.html .  Sometime this week I
may get around to adding stuff to it...I've got about three or four ideas
rattling around in my head, and I just need a stretch where I have nothing
else to do.  :-)

Oh, yeah, and a few additional hints on my tags.html page, too.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--The Carpenters:Reminiscing
Current Book--Steven Brust:Five Hundred Years After
I got contact lenses, but I only use them when I read, so I got flipups.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 22:51:30 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 397 (CnH)

CFJ 397 has been assigned to CnH

Clerk of the Courts
may or may not be Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 397
  Subject: The infamous invisible SVH
Initiator: Malenkai
    Judge: Calvin N Hobbes (selected Jun 03, 1997, 22:51h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

When Malenkai returned from his recent vacation, Malenkai did not
have a duty to select a Mad Hatter for Malenkai for that vacation.

Malenkai's Reasoning:

=From R 927:

> Whenever a player has remained on a voluntarily activated vacation for
> a period exceeding 14 days (and is not already wearing a Silly
> Vacation Hat), the Officer in charge of random things shall randomly
> select an active player (hereafter known as a Mad Hatter) to design a
> Silly Vacation Hat for the vacationing player.

After returning, the player is no longer the "vacationing player".  Also,
after returning, the player has not "remained on [...] vacation".  It
seems that there is no duty to assign a Mad Hatter for a player who is
not on vacation.

OTOH, the previous Officer in charge of random things *did* have a duty.
Does said duty remain with the player or the office?  Even if it does
stay with the office, it would seem to be voided by the previous 
paragraph.  It seems like an uncorrectable corruption of the game state
to me, but lets see what the Judge thinks.  I certainly apologize for
not spending the normal of time delving into this (rather interesting,
IMO) issue.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 23:14:21 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Let us Pray

ceremoniously spake in tongues the Golden Frog:

Jut dmptf, cvu op djhbs, up Ivcfsu Gfbuifst (J uijol, bozxbz).
Tpssz, J'n sfbmmz qsfttfe gps ujnf uijt npoui.

unmiraculously treasure not of Jara shall you find
unless misdirectionally led you have been

Malenkai
lame priest
momnb Wearing a Silly Vacation Hat

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:24:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 392 (Antimatter)

On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Bascule wrote:

> [snip - /dev/joe's reasoning]
> 
> > This is much the same reasoning that I made in judging Bascule's earlier,
> > similar, and now non-existant CFJ.  It's also pretty much what Thinman
> > said way back when said CFJ was first released.  To sum up, contracts
> > can't make ANYTHING legal.  At most, they can place restrictions on you
> > that make it illegal to do something you normaly could ahve done.  In this
> > case, Bascuel's first contract does not make it legal for him to give A$10
> > Alfvaen, any such reasoning is absurd, because this has always been legal.
> 
> Indeed, it always was legal. But Rule 517 does say that the 
> signatories to a contract must do what the contract says. It is 
> therefore legal to do what the contract says. Just because another 
> rule says that it is legal to give money does not make it absurd that 
> another rule should say the same thing (albeit indirectly).

I must disagree with the reasoning that because Rule 517 states that
players must obey contracts, it is therefor legal to do so.  This seems to
me to be the focal point of our disagreement over this issue.

If I were to write up a contract which said "I must take three illegal
actions" and sign it, what would happen?  Well, the contract rule says
that I must obey any contract I have signed.  Thus, it would obviously be
illegal for me not to take three illegal actions, because that would be
failing to follow my contract.  Writting and signing such a contract would
not, however, make it legal for me to commit these illegal actions.  Just
because the contract rule says I must honor my contracts does not make it
legal to do so, it merely makes it illegal for me not to do so.

> 
> > What it does is make it illegal for him NOT to give Alfvaen A$10.
> 
> It does this too.
> 
> > Similarly, his second contract does not make it legal for him to not give
> > Alfvaen A$10, it was legal for him to not do this already.  
> 
> Similar to the above, by not giving Alfvaen A$10, I am fulfilling the 
> second contract, which I must do. 

What it all comes down to is, so far as I can tell, there is nothing that
says that if you are required to do something, that thing is by default
legal.  I'm not sure if there was any way to put yourself in a position
where you were legaly required to do something illegal before contracts
came along.  it might hypothetically have been possible to be required to
post more than 3 public messages in a day, while one is in gaol, but I
don't know of a specific example of this.

                              - Vynd

[email-masked]
Go Wings!

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 19:36:12 -0800
From: "Ross Morgan-Linial" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Still more silliness

> I am creating 100 trinkets called "Really Cheap Trinket N", where N is replaced 
> by a number from 1 to 100, worth A$0.01 each (for a total of A$100).

I am destroying those trinkets for A$. Whoever is supposed to do this should 
figure out how much I get back (A$1 or A$100, however much I spent), and enter 
it into the 'bot.
- -------------------------------
Antimatter * [email-masked]
You have the power of negation.

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:59:17 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Quite Garish Ties

I have constructed a CGI script to describe Red Barn's Quite Garish Ties,
just as he specified...in doing so, I've probably revealed some
shortcomings of RB's specification.  But I felt it was not within my
purview to make any changes...  Anyone who wishes to see it can go to
http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/acka/qgt.html .  (That's a "q", then a
"g".)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--Gowan:Awake The Giant
Current Book--Steven Brust:Five Hundred Years After
I'm not a member of the Animal Kingdom.  I'm from the Animal Republic.

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

Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 05:17:11 +0000
From: "Bascule" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 392 (Antimatter)

Vynd wrote:

[snip of some stuff]

> I must disagree with the reasoning that because Rule 517 states
> that players must obey contracts, it is therefor legal to do so. 
> This seems to me to be the focal point of our disagreement over
> this issue.

I agree there.

> If I were to write up a contract which said "I must take three illegal
> actions" and sign it, what would happen?  Well, the contract rule says
> that I must obey any contract I have signed.  Thus, it would obviously be
> illegal for me not to take three illegal actions, because that would be
> failing to follow my contract.  Writting and signing such a contract would
> not, however, make it legal for me to commit these illegal actions. 

I would say that you _had_ to obey your contract, and that it was
illegal to obey your contract at the same time. My interpretation is
of it coming down to precedence. If your illegal actions were be
proscribed by rules with higher precedence than the contracts rule,
then they would fail. If R517 had higher precedence then your
actions would be legal and would succeed. 

> Just because the contract rule says I must honor my contracts does
> not make it legal to do so, it merely makes it illegal for me not
> to do so.

Critical to my reasoning is the "must" bit of R517. If you must do 
something, it is legal to do so with respect to that rule. It 
may be ultimately illegal because of different rules, and that is 
how I interpret your and /dev/joe's examples. In this case, the rule 
that is making it illegal is the same sentence in the same rule, so 
there is no precedence argument.

> What it all comes down to is, so far as I can tell, there is nothing that
> says that if you are required to do something, that thing is by default
> legal. 

OK. I'm splitting it up. I'm saying it is legal with the force of the 
rule telling you to do it, but that that rule may become irrelevant 
if others have higher precedence.

> I'm not sure if there was any way to put yourself in a position
> where you were legaly required to do something illegal before
> contracts came along.  it might hypothetically have been possible
> to be required to post more than 3 public messages in a day, while
> one is in gaol, but I don't know of a specific example of this.
> 
> 
>                               - Vynd
> 
> [email-masked]
> Go Wings!

Bascule 

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:42:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: Prayer for Deliverance

Alfvaen wrote:
> > /dev/joe, Calvin N Hobbes, Mr. Nacho, You can call me Al, and Guy Fawkes
> > have posted prayers.  We have yet to hear from Robert Sevin, Niccolo
> > Flychuck, and Malenkai, with less than 6 hours to go.  I fear the floods.
> 
> Niccolo Flychuck is a vacationing priest, and I believe he has been on
> vacation for all of June so far.

Alfvaen is correct.  Due to being on vacation Niccolo Flychuck is exempt
from that rule.

The time has now expired; it is June 4 Acka time.  Only Robert Sevin
failed to post a prayer, so his house is dangling.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 22:50:19 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Prayer for Deliverance

> The time has now expired; it is June 4 Acka time.  Only Robert Sevin
> failed to post a prayer, so his house is dangling.

As a newly-bewinged player, and a loyal member of Harf, I will gladly help
reattach RS's house, as soon as I get two other avians to help me.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--Kim Wilde:You Keep Me Hanging On
Current Book--Steven Brust:Five Hundred Years After
Full fathom five thy father lies.  I pushed him.  I apologize.

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #111
*******************************