Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #156
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest         Sunday, June 22 1997         Volume 02 : Number 156

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:06:17 -0500 (CDT)
From: Mitchell Harding <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Missing Proposals 

Am I the only one who is missing the results of Proposals 2081-2094? I only
ask because the results for Proposals 2095 and above have been posted.

Confused,
Robert Sevin

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 18:14:23 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC 2

> Let me know if there are too many bad effects, too many good effects,
> if any of this would be too much work for too little harf, where 
> I've made things last too long or not long enough, etc.  My new 
> rule is "Don't retract anything that's been RFCed".

I'll admit that I do not read RFCs with the same scrutiny as proposals.
Thats just the reality of the RL we live in.  Since I'm here though,
I'll make some comments.  I would also give at least 24 hours between
RFC and submission.  I remember you RFCed your second submission to
that Library thing in the day, and submitted that same day.  I do not
check this account during the day, for example.

> (And if this does get submitted, I'd be obliged if Malenkai would
> retract this repealment of this Rule.

I'd actually prefer that your proposal be conditioned on whether or
not mine passed.  I think the current rule has poor game balance,
and want it removed, because it is not very fun, IMO.  I do not want
that coupled to your proposal; I'd like Acka to decide both issues
seperately.

My first comment is that we have the Ackanomician, which is already
a list of random things that can happen.  Perhaps you should add your
ideas to that, or have the AG transport them to that room in the
library.  Boons of the Ancients is similar, although that is a prize
structure, and should be decoupled from this.  My suggestion is, if
we *must* have an AG, is to make one bad option to replace the current
one, and add this stuff, where it is cool, to the Ackanomician.
This thing is gonna look the the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide someday :)

> 7) Energy Spike:  If the player has any Proposals in the queue,

I personally do not like this use of the term 'proposal queue', but I
guess game custom has allowed it into the rules with the intended
meaning.  I guess thats just me.

> 8) Electromagnetic Pulse:  The player's name is scrambled into an anagram
> of itself; another player is chosen at random to determine the particular
> anagrammatic form it takes.  The name may not be changed back for seven
> days.

This will not work.  Also, anagramming someone elses name is obnoxious
and a PITA for the officers.

Malenkai

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 18:44:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: acka: Proposal 2095

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Uri Bruck wrote:

> 
> Proposal 2095 made some welcome changes to Ad Hoc Comittees. Specifically
> section 5 which made provisions for a kind of Ad Hoc comittees not
> originaly forseen.  I think there was one provision which didn't really
> add much work and was optional, that being the provision that allowed the
> sppecific rule which empowers an Ad Hoc Committee to specify a selection
> criteria for up to two members.
> I'd like to have Ad Hoc Committees that deal with foreign relation have
> someone appointed by the ambassador, or Ad Hoc Committees that deal with
> finances have someone appointed by the Financier, etc.
> 
> If there's no overwheming objection for putting that provision back in,
> I'll propose the appropriate ammendemnt.
> 
> Niccolo Flychcuk
> 

This seems quite reasonable to me.  Of course, I kind of liked the old,
goofy, complicated system.  It seemed more realistic. =)

                                 - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:51:25 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Mysteriously missing Proposals

The missing proposals were part of a huge batch sent at 3:00
A.M. Saturday morning.  The bot's "private log" shows that it sent
them all out (it shows subject lines) but of course they never got
here.

The results shall be sent as soon as possible.  My apologies for the
Malpractice.

[The way the bot works, it only checks for timed events-- like
proposal finalization-- (a) when it receives mail, after processing;
and (b) at the beginning of the day when cron starts it.  Otherwise it
would have to load the database every 15 minutes or whatever, and I
don't see a good reason... but that's why the bot send proposal
results in big bunches in case you wondered.  You can flush the
proposal queue any time by sending the bot two messages, five minutes
apart.]

It is possible odin is malconfigured in such a way that it allows user
processes to run while the backup is being performed Saturday morning
but won't allow user logins and disables the mailer daemon or
otherwise causes the bot mail to go undelivered.  I'm sadly
unexperienced with Unix; is this plausible?  Anyway, I'll go through
the bot log to see if it ever tried to send mail at 3:00 Saturday
before.

- -- 
Mohammed
A rude taxi driver, a silly Russian from Juneau, and a Russian joined
forces to fight six forgetful extravagant slow Russians from Canada.

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 19:27:14 -0400
From: Dan Knapp (A.K.A. TheWiz) <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re:Acka: Phoebe 

  As I was sitting in the Hay Loft, reading the RSA spec, I came to a
curious passage:

  "It is an error if a small blue-and-red matchbox is on this document."

  Somewhat startled, I looked, and indeed it was.  It then popped open, and
I, recognizing others' descriptions, immediately supposed that this must in
fact
be Phoebe, about who I had heard so much, but who I had never actually seen
before.

  I looked closely at the tiny, intricate form.  "What wisdom do you have
for me, Phoebe?"  I asked.  "Why do you come to my home at this time?"

  "That should be 'whom', not 'who'," she said, in a small tinny voice.
"But at least you're describing this in proper past-tense story form; I so
hate it when somebody only gives me a few lines.  But use less
self-reference next time; everyone's seen it before, anyway, and it just
makes you look silly."

  "Ah, so,"  I said.

  For a few seconds there was silence.  Then we both tried to talk at once:

  "Is-"
  "But-"

  There was another second or so of silence.

  "You fir-"
  "I'll go-"

  Phoebe looked mildly reproving.  With a click of the tongue I motioned
her to continue; shortly she did so.

  "But that's not why I'm here.  There's a couple of things that have been
coming up lately.  I'll answer your question, however, before I get called
away."

  "Will do," said I, "you actually get called away, then?  And what
determines the events, what happens or how I describe it?  And how can they
be happening concurrently?"

  Phoebe assumed a lecturer's pose and made reply, speaking as one making
that perfectly clear to oneself clear also to others, to one's mild
pleasure:
  "The events don't actually happen within the framework of time, at all.
The orderly progression of time is unregulated, therefore anything can
happen.  The description has final authority, but it cannot contradict the
events themselves.  Now, had you chosen to write in first-person
perspective, the situation would have been slightly different.  In that
case, my referral to your grammar wouldn't actually have been
contratemporal at all" - I smiled as she used my word - "... at least, if
you were writing as I spoke.  But we both know that if you did that, nobody
could ever read it.  Your handwriting is not what it will had used to been.
Then, too, my observations have given me a good deal of foreknowledge -
more, even, than Malenkai - and I don't really have to obey causality at
all, you know."

  "So, then, you're a bit like Merlin, aren't you?  Living outside of time?"

  "No, that's not it at all.  I'm cliched old and wise.  Acka simply
wouldn't be complete if I couldn't bend the rules, a bit."

  She paused, then continued:  "I see you've developed a spontaneous
nosebleed.  I'll wait."

  "Thank you for being so patient," I told her, upon my return (not wanting
to share the details of my ignominy with the rest of Acka).  "I have no
idea why I get them."

  "It's a small eddy in the fabric of the universe, caught in your nose,"
she replied, astonishing me.  "Every so often, the other end drifts a bit,
and a capillary becomes congruent to the rest of space.  And, then, too,
the other end can wander quite far.  When you sleep with your nose pointing
off the bed, things sometimes disappear off the floor."

  "I've always maintained that was a black hole, myself."  I interjected.

  "No, it's just a discontinuity."  I thought she might say more, but she
didn't.

  There was a brief lull, but this time I waited.

  "At any rate, I digress.  I have come to tell you - beware of the color
yellow!  Rishonomic is suffused with it, and in a quantum state.  Do not
let this menace spread to fair Acka!"

  This moved me almost to composing a poem on the spot, but Phoebe gave me
a look that implied I had better not.

  "What can we do about this yellow menace?"  I asked.

  "You must alert Acka!  None of the other players that commute to Rishon
have done anything.  You must warn them to*@&SYSTEM FAILURE" - and Phoebe
disappeard in a flash of bits, her matchbox with her.  This seemed to me an
ignominous departure; surely better timing would have been possible.

  But at least I had managed to get some good metaphysorical information
out of Phoebe.  Still, though, I thought, I never did get to ask her why
she keeps meeting with misfortune.

____________________________________________________________________________
|The Mauve Baron|  Beep  [email-masked] * http://www.bergen.org/~dankna|
|---------------|  Blip  |-------------------------------------------------|
|   Dan Knapp   |  Bonk  |     This notice copyright (C)1997 Dan Knapp     |
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 19:40:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re:Acka: Phoebe

On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Dan Knapp wrote:

>   There was a brief lull, but this time I waited.
> 
>   "At any rate, I digress.  I have come to tell you - beware of the color
> yellow!  Rishonomic is suffused with it, and in a quantum state.  Do not
> let this menace spread to fair Acka!"
> 
>   This moved me almost to composing a poem on the spot, but Phoebe gave me
> a look that implied I had better not.
> 
>   "What can we do about this yellow menace?"  I asked.

That's the Yellow Peril, it was the Red Menace.  I'll forgive you though,
so long as you admit that Black is a color.

                            - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:41:59 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC 2

> > Let me know if there are too many bad effects, too many good effects,
> > if any of this would be too much work for too little harf, where 
> > I've made things last too long or not long enough, etc.  My new 
> > rule is "Don't retract anything that's been RFCed".

> I'll admit that I do not read RFCs with the same scrutiny as proposals.

It's easier to retract RFCs, so I'd rather, if you were to give input at
all, it would be to RFCs rather than Proposals.  Since your advice is that
which I value most highly.  That way you can save time from reading over
my Proposals and just vote for them knowing they're perfect.  :-)

> Thats just the reality of the RL we live in.  Since I'm here though,
> I'll make some comments.  I would also give at least 24 hours between
> RFC and submission.  I remember you RFCed your second submission to
> that Library thing in the day, and submitted that same day.  I do not
> check this account during the day, for example.

Yes, I know, I get impatient.  Bad me.  <thwap>  I might even try for three
days, if I can hold myself back that long.  (If I get a few of these going
at once, though, I can have an RFC queue which feeds into the Proposal
queue...:-)

> > (And if this does get submitted, I'd be obliged if Malenkai would
> > retract this repealment of this Rule.
> 
> I'd actually prefer that your proposal be conditioned on whether or
> not mine passed.  I think the current rule has poor game balance,
> and want it removed, because it is not very fun, IMO.  I do not want
> that coupled to your proposal; I'd like Acka to decide both issues
> seperately.

Fair enough.  Is it kosher to do something like "Unrepeal Rule 906"(or
whatever the number is), or "Create a rule numbered 906, with the same text
as before P2105 passed"?  Or would it be better just to include the
original text?  :-)

> My first comment is that we have the Ackanomician, which is already
> a list of random things that can happen.  Perhaps you should add your
> ideas to that, or have the AG transport them to that room in the
> library.  Boons of the Ancients is similar, although that is a prize
> structure, and should be decoupled from this.  My suggestion is, if
> we *must* have an AG, is to make one bad option to replace the current
> one, and add this stuff, where it is cool, to the Ackanomician.
> This thing is gonna look the the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide someday :)

I can see your point.  On the other hand, I think the two are somewhat
different.  The Ackanomicon is sort of Lovecraftian, whereas the
Anti-Gumball thing is more high-energy-related.  I just can't see how I
could make the Ackanomicon gouge a hole in the surface of Acka, for
instance.  If Ackanomic doesn't want them both, then they won't vote for
mine.  I dunno...we'll see.  As always, I am still volunteering to help out
with any work that I could to defray the extra effort engendered by any of
my Proposals.  :-)

> > 7) Energy Spike:  If the player has any Proposals in the queue,
> 
> I personally do not like this use of the term 'proposal queue', but I
> guess game custom has allowed it into the rules with the intended
> meaning.  I guess thats just me.

I could change it to "that have been submitted and for which the voting
period has not yet ended", which would remove any ambiguity about Proposals
for which the voting period _has_ ended, but for which the results have not
yet been released...

> > 8) Electromagnetic Pulse:  The player's name is scrambled into an anagram
> > of itself; another player is chosen at random to determine the particular
> > anagrammatic form it takes.  The name may not be changed back for seven
> > days.
> 
> This will not work.  Also, anagramming someone elses name is obnoxious
> and a PITA for the officers.

Well, it was just a thought.  (Should there be some rule about "master
names" and "local names" or something?  I mean, I never saw "Mr. Nacho" on
any of the web pages...so should there be some means for a person to change
their "use name" but not their "real name"?  Nah, that's probably too much
effort.)  Anyway, I'll toast the Electromagnetic Pulse; if Mr. Lunatic
Fringe wants it he can Propose it himself.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--Elvis Costello:Less Than Zero
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:King's Blood Four
I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake.

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 19:49:53 -0400
From: Dan Knapp (A.K.A. TheWiz) <[email-masked]>
Subject: Vacation, C'y'll. 

  I am placing myself on vacation.  I expect to return sometime around
August 28th; I may have the date wrong.  I would hate to have to file a
CFCJ because somebody forgot my hat.

- -Red Barn

____________________________________________________________________________
|The Mauve Baron|  Beep  [email-masked] * http://www.bergen.org/~dankna|
|---------------|  Blip  |-------------------------------------------------|
|   Dan Knapp   |  Bonk  |     This notice copyright (C)1997 Dan Knapp     |
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 19:58:17 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC 2

> Fair enough.  Is it kosher to do something like "Unrepeal Rule 906"(or
> whatever the number is), or "Create a rule numbered 906, with the same text
> as before P2105 passed"?  Or would it be better just to include the
> original text?  :-)

The easiest way is as follows:

repeal 905, "Anti-Gumball" [or whatever the number is]

create a new rule, numbered 905, called "Anti-Gumball", with
the following text:

....

> I could change it to "that have been submitted and for which the voting
> period has not yet ended",

I use the term 'proposals under voting consideration' or the like,
but game custom will contrue 'proposal queue' as inteneded, I'm
sure.  Its just a matter of taste, I suppose, so long as proposals
truly *are* done as a queue.  I think a stack would be cooler, though :)
 
> Well, it was just a thought.  (Should there be some rule about "master
> names" and "local names" or something?

I think that once you choose a name, it should not be changeable
without leaving the game and rejoining.  Its annoying to have someone
change your name; more importantly, its a hardship on the officers who
have to change bots, web pages, etc, for little fun except for perhaps
one of the participants.  Its one of the poorest fun/work ratio parts
of the game, IMO; I guess I don't find lexical warfare all that
fascinating, as others apparently do.

Malenkai

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 18:02:54 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Re: Vacation, C'y'll.

>   I am placing myself on vacation.  I expect to return sometime around
> August 28th; I may have the date wrong.  I would hate to have to file a
> CFCJ because somebody forgot my hat.

Have fun!  Try not to get too much Acka withdrawal!  You probably won't
recognize the ruleset once you get back!

I've started keeping an unofficial list of when SVH's are due, and I will
make sure they get issued on time.  :-)

I believe that 30 days is the maximum vacation time; anyone care to make
that 60?

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--'Til Tuesday:The Other End of The Telescope
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:King's Blood Four
Old immortals never die, they just...don't.

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:08:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC 2

> My first comment is that we have the Ackanomician, which is already
> a list of random things that can happen.

Not to mention a few other such lists (Boon of the Ancients, for
example). I have to say that I'm not big on these kind of randomized
events, particularly when some are good and some are bad. They tend to
lead to people playing with something over and over, in hopes of
shortcutting to a state that would normally be difficult to achieve. I
don't mind a few of them here and there, but for the most part I find
the causal interplay of rules much, much more interesting. This is
Nomic, after all.

b

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 20:05:44 -0400
From: Dan Knapp (A.K.A. TheWiz) <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC 

> Personally, I oppose the idea that the other side of the disc of
> Ackanomic is where other nomics are located, since it's doubtful they share
> enough laws in common to be living in such a similar environment.  Maybe

  Yes, Rishon has its dyson cylinder there.  No, not really.

> two cat-heights larger than the Monument to Futility, there are also two
> hemispheres dangling on immense tethers...where do they fit?  I may have to
> submit a consistent Ackanomian description sometime.

  Well, I don't see a "solidity" rule anywhere... (not even an opaquity).
I think there's great potential to expand Ackanomia.
  And of course, if people had only voted *for* the Flat Earth Preservation
Society, we wouldn't have those forever...

> > > --The player becomes Radioactive, and may not possess any living entities
> > > (the Chartreuse Goose, Little Lamb, Frankenstein Monsters, something like
> > > that)for thirty days.  (There may be other effects here, too...)
> >
> >   There should at least be a "living" attribute, just as there are
> > "tradeable", "nameable", and so on.
>
> Not a bad idea...  As it is, I can just work it into this clause for
> now, and make up something more general later.
>
> > > Let me know what you think of these, or suggest others...
> >
> >   The player is randomly teleported to a location e couldn't normally go
> > to, and might perhaps have trouble leaving?
>
> I don't think there's that many such places, and that might be a bit cruel.
> I'd like the effects to sort of run the gamut from Thermonuclear
> Annihilation to Quantum Inflation, with most on the bad side so it's still
> risky, but a few other possibly good ones too(like score-changing...)
>
> >   Oh, yes, and on a tangent:  Actions upon entities should only be
> > performable when in the same location as them.  Just a thought.
>
> Most entities don't have defined locations, either.  Which is something
> else that could be fixed.  For instance, owned entities should be either
> "portable" or "non-portable"; in the former case they travel with the
> player, in the latter case they stay at the player's house.  But this means
> more record-keeping for our illustrious Trinket-Harfer...
>
> > > --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
> > > Song In My Head--The Carpenters:Top of The World
> > > Current Book--Jo Clayton:The Snares of Ibex
> > > To know recusion, you must first know recursion.
>
> The Spelling Bee stings my tagline file!
>
> >   Oh, funny.  Of course, I'm re-learning lisp, which probably exaggerated
> > its impact on me.
>
> Tail recursion: If you're not sick of it already, see Tail recursion.

 :-)

____________________________________________________________________________
|The Mauve Baron|  Beep  [email-masked] * http://www.bergen.org/~dankna|
|---------------|  Blip  |-------------------------------------------------|
|   Dan Knapp   |  Bonk  |     This notice copyright (C)1997 Dan Knapp     |
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:12:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC 2

> I use the term 'proposals under voting consideration' or the like,
> but game custom will contrue 'proposal queue' as inteneded, I'm
> sure.  Its just a matter of taste, I suppose, so long as proposals
> truly *are* done as a queue.  I think a stack would be cooler,
> though :)

A proposal *stack*?! You must be joking. At the rate proposals come
in, we'd never pop anything off!

b

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:24:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Alphabetics RFC 2

> 1) The two names are compared word-by-word, where a word is
> considered to be a series of non-whitespace characters delinated by
> whitespace.  Further, each word is considered as if it were all
> lowercase.  An initial "the" or "The" is ignored.

Again, I would be more in favor of removing all articles from
consideration, so as to be consistent with " ".

breadbox

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 20:35:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 414 (Atilla the Pun) 

I accept.

- -Micah Smukler
AtP

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 19:56:00 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Gumball RFC

The following is nothing but one long gripe about Perl.  Feel free to
ignore it....

> Perl 5 seems to be suffering second-system effect.  Perl 4, and the first
> edition of _Programming Perl_, were easy to use and eminently readable,
> respectively.  I haven't made it through the second edition of the Camel
> Book either; they took out all the easy-to-read bits, or most of them.  And
> I've rarely needed to use any of Perl 5's special features in my
> programming; admittedly, I mostly do 20-40-line hacks, and avoid OOP, but I
> just don't find them that indispensible.
	I can't stand Perl's syntax.  It appears to be a random
collection of features that "work the way you expect almost all the
time" (which, I note, is synonymous with "don't work at all the way
you expect about 1% of the time.)  I learned most of python in 4
hours, and since then I've just been picking up the special tricks and
fun stuff.  I've now been learning Perl for several days and I still
am no closer to understanding the actual semantics of the $ @ %
pseudo-operators than I was at the beginning (or, for example, why lc
is fine by itself in some places but an explicit lc($_) is demanded in
others.)

	There are a few features in Perl that I wish python had picked
up (mainly string interpolation and the awesome regular expressions)
(and decent closures, mustn't forget that) but Python also has some
things that I would, if I were Larry Wall, be greatly embarrassed not
to have thought of first (docstrings; multiline strings with triple
quotes; the % operator for strings; etc.) and there are some features
that seem so basic to a functional language as to escape ordinary
thought that Perl totally lacks (formal arguments leap to mind.)

- -- 
Mohammed
I read the 3rd or 4th book of the Homecoming series (forget which)
first, not knowing it was the 3rd in a series.  Typical of me.  :o)

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 21:58:51 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 415 Verdict

CFJ 415 was judged TRUE.

Clerk of the Courts
Wearing a Looky at the new tour hats hat
- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 415
  Subject: Revenge of the Thargoids
Initiator: Alfvaen
    Judge: /dev/joe (selected Jun 22, 1997, 14:03h EDT)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Alfvaen's Military laser 1-10 were turned into Pulse lasers.

Alfvaen's Reasoning:

According to Rule 2104, "More Blatant Elitism":

"If a player assumes a title which requires a score higher than their own,
in addition to any penalties required by other rules, that player is deemed
to have been ambushed by Thargoids in hyperspace and blasted into a million
pieces, leading to the replacement of any Military lasers in the player's
possession by Pulse lasers, and the loss of 1 point."

My score was less than 151, the minimum for "Dangerous", and yet I assumed
the title "Dangerous", so I was ambushed by Thargoids.  That out of the
way, the question is whether or not "Military laser 1-10" satisfies the
conditions of the sentence.

Representing them as an "array" is merely a convenience.  I could also
write them "Military laser 1", "Military laser 2", "Military laser 3", etc.
Convention seems to dictate that these sort of trinkets, with a single
"base name" and a numerical index, can be referred to en masse by
pluralizing the base name, as "Inky Bloater Decoys".  Therefore, I did in
fact possess "Military lasers".  As I have pointed out, the word "any" in
front of "Military lasers" in R2104 implies that the phrase _should_ be
considered as a plural, so the parallel between "Military lasers" and
"Beldin's Parka" are weak.  Thus, each of the Military lasers, that is,
each of Military laser 1-10, in my possession, were replaced by Pulse
lasers by R2104.

/dev/joe's Reasoning:

This falls down to a game custom/english-language interpretation argument,
and the situation here is very nearly identical to P2079, where a proposal
operated on "Runestone of Jukkasjarvi Fragments", and everyone seemed to
agree that this meant the trinket 'Runestone of Jukkasjarvi Fragment 1'
and its friends.  Cheap pulse lasers for everyone (good thing they are
expensive to use).

I verified that Alfvaen's score was less than 151 when he wrote the
statement; I found it to be 146 in the no-Azpiazu thread at that time
(and somewhat less in the thread with Azpiazu).

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 22:06:00 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 415 Verdict

> CFJ 415 was judged TRUE.

I intend to appeal this.  Regardless of whether or not this verdict
is upheld, could we please hold off on the Military and Pulse Lasers
until the final verdict is arrived at, to minimize the multi-threaded 
harfing that will result until the final verdict is returned.

Thx,
Malenkai
Speaker

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 20:58:31 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 415 Verdict

> > CFJ 415 was judged TRUE.
> 
> I intend to appeal this.  Regardless of whether or not this verdict
> is upheld, could we please hold off on the Military and Pulse Lasers
> until the final verdict is arrived at, to minimize the multi-threaded 
> harfing that will result until the final verdict is returned.

I'd like to get rid of Pulse Lasers entirely, myself, but I'll wait for the
overworked Supreme Court's decision.  (Have you looked at my "Senate
approval of Blueprints" Proposal yet?  Is it fatally flawed for not having
been RFCed?  :-)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--Prince:Parade
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:King's Blood Four
"I think she might have dropped it out here somewhere!"

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 21:06:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: BWG: Perl

> 	I can't stand Perl's syntax.  It appears to be a random
> collection of features that "work the way you expect almost all the
> time" (which, I note, is synonymous with "don't work at all the way
> you expect about 1% of the time.)  I learned most of python in 4
> hours, and since then I've just been picking up the special tricks and
> fun stuff.  I've now been learning Perl for several days and I still
> am no closer to understanding the actual semantics of the $ @ %
> pseudo-operators than I was at the beginning (or, for example, why lc
> is fine by itself in some places but an explicit lc($_) is demanded in
> others.)

I think $_ was the hardest thing for me to grasp at first, but now it's
second nature.  If by the pseudo-operators you mean those "unnamed" arrays
and hashes, that's a Perl 5 feature that I haven't gotten yet either.  But
the rest of Perl took me very little time.  And as I said, I think the
second-edition Camel Book is not a good place to learn Perl from, like the
first one was.  There's probably a second-edition _Learning Perl_ out
there, which might be better.  But Perl just might not be your language,
which is fine.  I doubt Python is mine.  :-)

I think I'm just doomed as a structured programmer, having been weaned on
Applesoft BASIC.  I can't stand C++, personally.  (And Perl 5 seems to have
imported its worst features.  :-( )

> 	There are a few features in Perl that I wish python had picked
> up (mainly string interpolation and the awesome regular expressions)
> (and decent closures, mustn't forget that) but Python also has some
> things that I would, if I were Larry Wall, be greatly embarrassed not
> to have thought of first (docstrings; multiline strings with triple
> quotes; the % operator for strings; etc.) and there are some features
> that seem so basic to a functional language as to escape ordinary
> thought that Perl totally lacks (formal arguments leap to mind.)

Formal arguments work fine until you want to pass a variable number of
them, like in "printf" or something.  But they can be nice in other
respects as well.

Perl is a mishmash.  But if C is going to ever give way to a successor,
Perl has my bet, I'd have to say.

> I read the 3rd or 4th book of the Homecoming series (forget which)
> first, not knowing it was the 3rd in a series.  Typical of me.  :o)

Haven't done that in years, but I used to all the time.  Having a
1000-book backlog gives one time to accumulate an entire series before
starting it(if one is the kind of person who's extremely unlikely to
refuse to finish anything that's better than the Elenium).

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--Prince:Sometimes It Snows In April
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:King's Blood Four
Uneasy lies the head that wears the clown.  --Scott Ellis

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 23:11:53 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 415 Verdict

> I'd like to get rid of Pulse Lasers entirely, myself, but I'll wait for the
> overworked Supreme Court's decision.  (Have you looked at my "Senate
> approval of Blueprints" Proposal yet?  Is it fatally flawed for not having
> been RFCed?  :-)

Yes, and I'll probably zap it with my Pulse Laser ;-).  I do not think
there is anything wrong with the Pulse Laser itself, given the expense
to use it; it is much more well-balanced than other stuff in this game
like the fact that it will cost me 1 PC to get another one, or the OMCL.

This case is not about Pulse Lasers though, but language, custom, and
lexical loophole surfing, which is much more interesting to me, the
originator of 'Malenkai's Loophole', of which this is a variation.

Malenkai
who doesn't care if you have 50 of them, given their expense of use

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 22:22:37 -0500
From: [email-masked] (John Bollinger)
Subject: Acka: Vacation 

I am being called out of town tomorrow morning because of a family
emergency.  I will be returning Wednesday afternoon, I think.  I
have not had a chance to read much of my mail since Friday afternoon,
but I did peruse some of the subject headers and saw that some CFJs
appear to have been assigned to me.  I hereby decline judgement on
any outstanding CFJs assigned to me, except for CFJ 402.  I expect
that mr cwm will return from vacation and take over on 402, but if
he and breadbox for some reason want me to finish the discussion
that breadbox and I started then I will do so at my earliest
convenience after my return.  I am now going on vacation, expected
duration 3 days.

ThinMan

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 21:34:14 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 415 Verdict

> > I'd like to get rid of Pulse Lasers entirely, myself, but I'll wait for the
> > overworked Supreme Court's decision.  (Have you looked at my "Senate
> > approval of Blueprints" Proposal yet?  Is it fatally flawed for not having
> > been RFCed?  :-)
> 
> Yes, and I'll probably zap it with my Pulse Laser ;-).  I do not think
> there is anything wrong with the Pulse Laser itself, given the expense
> to use it; it is much more well-balanced than other stuff in this game
> like the fact that it will cost me 1 PC to get another one, or the OMCL.

Hmmmm...I guess I didn't do the math before, but Proposal number/13 is a
wee bit o' lolly by this time, innit?  And Otzma cards aren't cheap unless
you get a Boon...  Speaking of which, I'm glad that my "Skeleton Key"
doesn't seem to have been judged Bogus yet.  Probably because I restrained
myself from adding a Chalice Key-related clause to it.

> This case is not about Pulse Lasers though, but language, custom, and
> lexical loophole surfing, which is much more interesting to me, the
> originator of 'Malenkai's Loophole', of which this is a variation.

I'm just sorry I didn't spot this one myself.  :-)

> who doesn't care if you have 50 of them, given their expense of use

I was gonna auction a few off, perhaps.  Bury the rest.  I guess we'll see
sometime if I have 'em at all.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--Alannah Myles:A-Lan-Nah
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:King's Blood Four
Just give Alice some pencils and she will stay busy for hours.

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

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 23:57:13 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 415 Appeal

CFJ 415 has been appealed by Malenkai.  Sorry for the length, but
this is why I play nomic.

As for the Supreme Court vacancy, I am acting Praetor/Justice for
ThinMan.  I am an interested party in all cases, as are some of the
eligible appointees.  I will wait to see if mr cwm returns before
deciding on what to do about it.  I will act as Praetor where 
disinterested, though.

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

Malenkai's appeal reasoning:

From Alvaen's Reasoning:

> [The] question is whether or not "Military laser 1-10" satisfies the
> conditions of the sentence.

That is indeed the question, and I am going to argue that it does not.
The sentence (actually phrase) in question, from the rule, is:

> leading to the replacement of any Military lasers in the
> player's possession by Pulse lasers

Alfvaen first makes an argument that the fact that he represented them
in an array, for convienence, makes no difference.  That is true.  For
the sake of argument, lets assume he created only a Trinket
named "Military laser 1".

There are only two types of entities that can satisify the term
"Military lasers" in the rule.  Those with actual lexical equivelence,
or those entities that, either by definition in the rules, or by custom,
are in fact a type of laser, specifically, a type of Military laser.

There are no Military lasers defined by the rules, and of course 
"Military laser 1" is not actually a laser, thus we must examine
the cases of lexical equivelence and custom.

First of all, there is [unfortunate] game custom that any noun phrase
in the rules can be "pirated" by creating a Trinket with a lexical 
equivelent name.  In the old days, this was called Malenkai's Loophole,
and done with R115 entities.  The most recent example of this before 
this case was the case of Beldin's Parka, in which a Trinket by 
that name was used to "pirate" the term in the Beldin's Pants rule.
Clearly this custom is well established and generally accepted, but in
all cases, the lexical equivelence was *exact*, and I argue that that
is necessary for this sort of thing to work.  The entity must be called
"Beldin's Parka".  For example, If I created a Trinket called "Beldin's
Green Parka", would that apply in the Beldin's Pants rule?  No, it 
would not, I think the lexical warfare between snowgod and Antimatter
demonstrated that; demonstrated that "Beldin's Parka 1" would not apply
either.
 
That leaves the initator to somehow establish, through custom, 
tradition, or common language usage, that the Trinket "Military 
laser 1" is *also* some sort of Military laser, or, failing that,
something a little more than the lexical string "Military lasers",
at least enough to satisfy the phrase in the rule.

I fail to see how this has been established.  The Trinket is not
a laser, and there is no specific custom or tradition surrounding
lasers or the rule in question.

This leaves the initiator to look for general custom to apply to
the situation, and I believe this is how the first Judge found
TRUE, but I do not believe this is a proper application of custom.

The problem is that rule 2079, cited by the Judge, is the exception,
not the rule.  Given the custom and tradition of the Runestone of 
Jukkasjarvi treasure hunt, we know how to construe "Runestone of 
Jukkasjarvi Fragments" in rule 2079.  Rule 215/101 requires that we
find what was intended in this case.  We know what that *means*.
Custom has given those Trinkets the actual game *concept* of 
RoJ fragments.

The case comes down to then, can we project the specific custom that
applies to the interpretation of rule 2079, to the general case, or
to the specific case "Military lasers" in rule 2104.  Certainly there
is no custom or tradition surrounding the Military lasers of the
rule, no Military lasers warfare or treasure hunt.  Do we know what
"Military lasers" *means*?  Custom and tradition has *not* given any
Trinket that contains "Military laser" the game *concept* of
Military laser.   
 
There is no other rule or custom that would allow the specific custom
of rule 2079 to scope to the general case either, unless we assume,
a priori, that the custom established in that specific case is
automatically general.  I think it comes down to "spirit of the game".
It gives us the right interpretation in the case of rule 2079, but
does spirit of the game give us that any Trinket with the string 
"Military laser" in its name is actually a Military laser?  This is
tantamount to saying that "Beldin's hooded fur pullover" would satisify
the Beldin's Pants rule, and I think its clear that the *general* custom
does *not* extend like this, hence a verdict of FALSE is indicated.

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #156
*******************************