Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #217
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest         Friday, July 25 1997         Volume 02 : Number 217

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 21:15:12 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Aaron V. Humphrey" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Correction

I believe that Karma's Proposal 2232 was retracted, and thus nobody got
any points for voting for it.  The retraction would have been in the
scorefile for last cycle, I would imagine...

(Just starting to work on the scorefile...)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/ ...for now)
Current Album--Duran Duran:Seven & The Ragged Tiger
Current Book--Joel Rosenberg:The Silver Stone
a^n+b^n=c^n. No solutions for n>2, as can be seen by |#@}NO_CARRI

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 21:35:30 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Aaron V. Humphrey" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P2236 accepted (The Sadness of The Tribe)

> > Proposal 2236
> > The Sadness of The Tribe
> > Alfvaen
> > 
> > Votes cast by active players:  15 / 18 = 83.333333%
> > Yes:  11    No:  4     Present:  0   ...Proposal accepted.
> 
> This was Alfvaen's 30th accepted proposal.
> I am hereby awarding him a silver stripe.

Only the first of many!  I'd like to thank all the people who have voted
for my Proposals.  And, of course, my mentor, Malenkai, and all the little
people who live in my walls.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/ ...for now)
Current Album--Duran Duran:Seven & The Ragged Tiger
Current Book--Joel Rosenberg:The Silver Stone
If the dictionary misspelled a word, how could we tell?

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 23:40:47 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: BWG Laser

> I bid 50 A$ for the BWG Laser.
> 
> Rex Mundi.
> 
> No, I don't _actually_ _have_ any money, but I do have a very good bank...

This bid fails.  The rules require that the money be on hand at the
time of the bid.

Chief Cheese

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 21:40:46 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Aaron V. Humphrey" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: BWG Laser

> > > I am building a BWG Laser.  It will be done in a few days.
> > 
> > This is done.  I am now auctioning it.  I also note that those
> > Otzma auctions are prolly complete.
> > 
> > Chief Cheese.
> 
> I bid 50 A$ for the BWG Laser.
> 
> Rex Mundi.
> 
> 
> No, I don't _actually_ _have_ any money, but I do have a very good bank...

Ha!  This bid is invalid, I'm afraid.

Rule 516 states that "all qualified players are permitted to submit bids
of a positive amount of A$ equal to or less than the amount they possess".
If you wanna bid, you gotta take your money out of the bank.  (And if you
use the Trinket tax shelter, you gotta destroy those first as well.)

I am bidding A$50 for the BWG Laser.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/ ...for now)
Current Album--Duran Duran:Seven & The Ragged Tiger
Current Book--Joel Rosenberg:The Silver Stone
A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 23:45:16 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Praetor

The office of Praetor is vacant.  The nomination starts as of
this message, and lasts for 3 days.  Please note that this office
has eligibility requirements, unlike most offices (described by rule
425).  E-mail me if you wanna run.

Malenkai

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 23:48:41 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 440 (mr cwm)

ThinMan failed to respond in time.  Apparently the confusion over
vacation, or a lost e-mail was the problem, unfortunately. 

mr cwm has been selected.

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

Call For Judgment 440
  Subject: Gadgets
Initiator: Alfvaen
    Judge: ThinMan (failed to respond)
2nd Judge: mr cwm (selected Jul 24, 1997, 23:51h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

Removing Clause (vi) of Rule 595, "Gadgets", will cause many existing
Gadgets to stop working since they will no longer be able to manipulate
entities.

Alfvaen's Reasoning:

I am phrasing it that way because I find it easier than the converse; I
believe that it should be ruled FALSE.

The clause in question is(excluding square-bracketed text which does not
change the effect):

  (vi) A Gadget may create, destroy, or manipulate a Protected entity
       if its Blueprint so specifies.

I have listed in a recent email message the rules which contain the word
"Protected", and they are few.  I do not believe that removing this
restriction will have the effects that Malenkai claims.

Malenkai stated that he beleieves game custom holds that all entities
are "Protected", because of that phrasing in an earlier version of Rule
500.  However, Niccolo Flychuck also stated, in reference to a recent
proposal to amend Rule 1301, that "Protection language is obsolete".  So it
seems to me that no entities are Protected, except perhaps those that
specifically state it in the Rules, and I can't find any real reason why a
Gadget should be able to manipulate those things in the first place.

If what is _meant_ is that Gadgets may manipulate any entity, then perhaps
the CSRR Officer should change Rule 595 to reflect this fact if this CFJ is
judged true.

Malenkai's Bronze Torch Reasoning:

> Alfvaen's Reasoning [quoted]:

> I have listed in a recent email message the rules which contain the word
> "Protected", and they are few.  I do not believe that removing this
> restriction will have the effects that Malenkai claims.

The provision in clause (vi) is a an *enabling provision*, not a
restriction.  The key question here is to ask: What does the word
"Protection" mean as used in clause (vi).  I am going to make a
case that it means "any" or "all" (or is a no-op), whereas the
initiator appears to make a claim that it is an attribute, without
definition, yet with significance (if it has no significance, then it
doesn't really exist, leading to any or all anyway).  I am going to
argue that my construction is supported by game custom, whereas no other
is. (Saying "protected entity" means "all entities" is the same as
saying "protected" is a no-op).
 
> Malenkai stated that he beleieves [sic] game custom holds that all
> entities are "Protected",

I did not say such a thing, and prefer to be quoted directly in the
future, rather than have my quotes misconstrued.  I stated that game
custom gives us the construction of "Protected entity" to mean "any
entity", because that is what it meant from the time Blanket Protection
was added with proposal 986, and continued to mean when its definition
was removed with proposals 1416 and 1539.

The question ramins, then, what does "Protection" mean when its defintion
is removed.  When proposal 986 was accepted, giving all entities
and actions Protection by default, the term became obsolete as an adjective,
yet was not removed from all places as an adjective.  Some entities were
described by the adjective, whereas others were not, yet the idea of
Protection as described in rule 592 applied to everything, hence the
word had no real meaning where it was actually used as an adjective at
that point; it was obsolete, a no-op.

That is when this custom was created, and it applied to clause (vi) at
that time.  It remained defined as a noun in rule 592 for entities and
actions (ie, rule 592 delineated what it meant for an entity to be
Protected).  Entity Protection was removed from rule 592 and moved to
rule 500 by proposal 1416.  Proposal 1416 was a very long proposal which
removed virtually all instances of the word Protection from the rules
where it pertained to entites.  This did not change the customary
meaninglessness of the word.  The fact that it did not remove the
instance in clause (vi) did not remove the custom created by its
obsolecence by proposal 986, and did not change what it *meant* to be
Protected, which for entities, was now described by rule 500, without
use of the actual word.  Proposal 1539 later moved action Protection
into rule 101, strengthened the concept of Protection, and dumped rule
592 altogether.  Again, this did not change the customary null rendering
of the word as used as an adjective.  Clause (vi) meant the same thing,
whether or not proposal 1416 accidently forgot to remove it.  Proposal
1416 did not create this custom because of the oversight, it was *already*
there with 986.

> However, Niccolo Flychuck also stated, in reference to a recent
> proposal to amend Rule 1301, that "Protection language is obsolete".

Niccolo may or may not have said that, but the statement is true, IMO.
As I have stated, it became obsolete by proposal 986, yet game custom
allowed it to exist as a null op in various places, including clause (vi).

The rules are silent on the proper construction of the term "Protected",
therefore the above game custom must be consulted to find the correct
rendering, and since proposal 986, that rendering is a no-op.

Given that, clause (vi) gives Gadgets the ability to manipulate entities
as described in their blueprints.  Without clause (vi), Gadgets have
no rule-based authority to change the game state, hence they cannot,
as rule 101 is clear on the matter of the game state may only be changed
as described in the rules (which, ironically, is part of my half of the
elimination of Protection and CFJ 113 -- proposal 1539).

> seems to me that no entities are Protected, except perhaps those that
> specifically state it in the Rules, and I can't find any real reason why a
> Gadget should be able to manipulate those things in the first place.

To clarify my difference of opinion with the initiator: He appears to
be arguing for Protection to be an attribute of entities, even in the
absense of a definition of the term, and I am arguing that Protection
is an obsolete term whose rendering, in the places it remains, is given
to us by game custom; it is *not* an attribute.  I am *not* arguing
that all entities are *Protected*, but that "Protected" means "any" as
used in clause (vi).  Indeed, game custom itself favors my interpretion
over that of the initiator, because that is how we have been doing it
in the case of clause (vi) since proposal 986, over a year now (gee time
flies...).  If the initiator's apparent interpretation indeed held sway,
then gadgets could *not* manipulate most entities, and the CFJ would
indeed should be judged FALSE for that reason, but that is not the game
custom interpretation of clause (vi).  In any case, I cannot find how
gadgets will manipulate *any* entities, under *either* interpretation,
if clause (vi) is removed (although if the initiator's apparent non-
customary construction is chosen, it doesn't really matter much).
   
> If what is _meant_ is that Gadgets may manipulate any entity, then perhaps
> the CSRR Officer should change Rule 595 to reflect this fact if this CFJ is
> judged true.

Yes, this is a perfect candidate for a CSRR, but the enabling provision
of clause (vi) must remain.  I do not see how the CFJ can be judged other
than TRUE.

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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 22:57:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: CFCJ sentences

Robert Sevin's and Mr. Lunatic Fringe's sentences for CFCJ's 138 and 141
have been carried out.  Mr. Lunatic Fringe lost 92 A$; Robert Sevin lost
317 points (at which time his score became -314, and was raised to 0
by rule 207.2).

/dev/joe

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End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #217
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