Subject: ackanomic digest V2 #252
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest       Thursday, August 14 1997       Volume 02 : Number 252

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

Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 22:12:35 -0600 (MDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka:  Oops!

> > > I thought the Acka:  at the beginning of the subjects was automatic!  :-(
> > 
> > No, it isn't. Although admittedly there's no reason why it couldn't
> > be. Or is there?

> I guess I'm OK with it.  You'll have to deal with the fact that'll I'll be
> tossing another Acka: in without thinking about it for awhile, but you
> people seem to ahve gotten used to my unique spelling problems, so I
> imagine we'll get by.

I believe that majordomo can be set up so that it will add "Acka:" if
and only if "Acka:" is not already in the subject line.  (I've done the
same thing with other lists, with the most recent version of majordomo,
anyway...)  So no major changes in thinking should be necessary.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Shriekback:Sacred City
Current Book--Steven Brust & Megan Lindholm:The Gypsy
I wasn't ranting at you, I was ranting _near_ you.

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 01:02:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: YAHA RFC: Responses and refinements

On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, **Alexandre Muniz wrote:

> I meant to send this off a while back when my Yet Another Hidden Agenda=
=20
> RFC was still fresh in people=92s minds, but I put it off a bit. Luckily=
=20
> this isn=92t a CFJ or Phoebe. : ) Anyway, thanks for the responses; I thi=
nk=20
> that I will start a playtest submission and bidding process shortly, afte=
r=20
> I put the RFC back together a little closer to proposal format. (I suspec=
t=20
> this will be fairly Grandiose by the time I get done with it.)
>=20
>=20
> Vynd wrote:
>=20
> "Well, one problem is that we really would need something to hold out
> elements that are just ridiculously easy."
>=20
> I have to assume that players will act in their own self interest when=20
> bidding for nemesis elements. Remember that the score requirements for=20
> agenda elements are based on bids for NE's; higher bids (on difficult=20
> conditions) will cause the score requirement for the associated AE to be=
=20
> lower.   An AE with a trivially easy condition should then have a score=
=20
> requirement equal to 1/3 of the magic number, (because players would avoi=
d=20

I must have forgotten about the score requirements thing, forgive me, the
RFC was very detailed after all.  How exactly were the score requirements
for the various elements going to be determined though?

>=20
>  "The fact that you aren't allowed to get your own elements back will=20
> help, but there are still going
> to be groups of people who decide to cooperate to give one of them an
> excellent, call it hand, of conditions."
>=20
> I have given my reasoning for believing that the elements should be fairl=
y=20
> well balanced. But even if some are particularly easy, (due to poor=20
> nemesis bidding,) why would anyone cooperate to help another player=20
> without receiving a benefit to eirself? (And if the benefit is to receive=
=20
> something nice in trade, well, that=92s part of the game.)
> If any player wanted to help another player win the cycle while decreasin=
g=20
> eir own chances of winning, they could issue duel challenges and=20
> immediately forfeit them. (of course they couldn't do it too often.) Sinc=
e=20
> they do not do that now, I do not think that they will do so with hidden=
=20
> agendas.

Heh, suffice it to say that I disagree with your assesment of how much
cooperation goes on, when it comes to these matters.

>=20
>  "Otherwise how will anyone know which nemsis to bid on?  Auctioning
> might be more than a little bit awkward, for that matter.  We could easil=
y
> have 30 some things up for bidding, it's inevitable that some are going t=
o
> attract lots of attention while others will get no bids at all.  Perhaps
> something more akin to a draft should take place.  I don't know exactly
> how you coudl go about deciding who gets to choose first though, and this
> method would probably be even more time consuming than an auction
> (especially if some players don't bother to respond right away when it is
> there turn).  I think that while this is a very good framework for an ide=
a
> most everyone seems to be interested in, that the distribution of the
> nemesis thiniges is going to take some serious work."
>=20
> My idea for the bidding system is this:
> Each player will privately send one message to the HA-harfer, with eir bi=
d=20
> for each NE in agenda credits on it. Something like:
>=20
> Subject: Acka: NE bid
>=20
> NE1: 25
> NE3: 5
> NE4: 75
> NE5: 20
> NE7: 30
> . . .=20
> NE15: 8
>=20
> The HA harfer will then determine the distribution of NE=92s as follows: =
the=20
> NE with the highest bid will be awarded to its highest bidder, then NE=92=
s=20
> with the next highest bid in turn will be awarded to their highest=20
> bidders, with the caveat that bids that would cause a player to have more=
=20
> than 3 NE=92s or to run out of agenda credits would be ignored. Any NE=92=
s=20
> that remain unbid on will be randomly distributed to players who do not=
=20
> yet have NE's. Any ties will be broken randomly by the HA harfer. When th=
e=20
> AE weights are determined from the NE bids, perhaps the second highest bi=
d=20
> should be used so that extremely high bids by players who misunderstand a=
=20
> condition=92s difficulty will not make the associated AE too easy. I dunn=
o.

This sounds reasonable to me.  Perhaps the elements should be split up
into batches, however, saw of 8 or 10 each (or less, if there aren't many
players).  this would help to avoid circumstances where elements never
recieve bids at all.  It might also lead to more interesting bidding
strategies, especially if you were allowed to use as many of your points
as you want at any time, not some set portion of your total per batch.

>=20
> "So long as I'm here, a few other things that might cause problems.  what
> if someone deliberately creates impossibly hard conditions, since he know=
s
> he won't get them?"
>=20
> Good point. I guess the simplest solution would be to give the HA-harfer=
=20
> the ability to throw these out at eir discretion, with a penalty to be=20
> imposed on the offender. But there is a real grey area between impossibly=
=20
> hard and very difficult. Penalizing the creator of the condition which=20
> gets the highest NE bid is a possibility, but I don=92t think this should=
=20
> occur if the condition is only reasonably difficult, and it might tend to=
=20
> push the difficulty level too far in the other direction. Rewarding=20
> creators of conditions that receive near-median bids, or that are used in=
=20
> AE=92s by the eventual winner are also possibilities.
>=20

I rather like the idea of simply tossing the ones that are too darn hard.
Penalizing authors of hard elements doesn't do anything to help the poor
sod who ends up with the element: "Become the holder of all of Ackanomic's
functional offices."  I realize that making it one man's decision as to
what is or is not too hard has it's own problems, and I would prefer if it
was a group of at least a few people.  Would prefer it, that is, if it
wan't for the fact that the more people that get involved in running
things, the longer it takes just to organize everything, and the fewer
people who can actuallytry to meet their agendas.  A lot of these problems
would go away if we simply allowed the secret agendas to run across cycles
until someone has suceeded, or some set period of time ends.  We don't
stop all of the G&Cs whenever a cycle ends, after all.

>=20
> **two-star
>=20

                                    - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 23:04:45 -0600 (MDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Web-Harfer

Okay, I do sort of have a main Ackanomic Web Page up now.  It's mostly
still linked back to pages at wilma, but it's got a few updated ones.  It's
at http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/acka/ .

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Bach:Brandenburg Concertos
Current Book--Steven Brust & Megan Lindholm:The Gypsy
There should be trembling, there should be sorrow.

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

Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 21:40:41 -0800
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Oops!

>Oh, yeah, breadbox, I wonder if it's necessary to have majordomo set the
>"sender" lines?  When I read my email in Eudora(which is not frequently),
>the mailbox window lists everything as coming from
>"[email-masked]", as opposed to, say, "Malenkai".  The fact that
>this wasn't happening before leads me to believe that it's possible to
>configure it otherwise, but this might have changed between versions or
>something.

Dead guy here.  I haven't noticed any change in the way the mail is
delivered.  My mail is still ocming from whoever the original sender is,
just as it has for the last year or so since /dev/joe changed it.  I use
Eudora, BTW.,  Version 3 for Macintosh.

Mr. Lunatic Fringe

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 01:07:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Oops!

> Oh, yeah, breadbox, I wonder if it's necessary to have majordomo set
> the "sender" lines?  When I read my email in Eudora(which is not
> frequently), the mailbox window lists everything as coming from
> "[email-masked]", as opposed to, say, "Malenkai".  The
> fact that this wasn't happening before leads me to believe that it's
> possible to configure it otherwise, but this might have changed
> between versions or something.

I essentially copied the setup directly from /dev/joe's. There
shouldn't be any change with that. Is it possible you have Eudora
configured differently than you did before?

(Admittedly, muppetlabs isn't identical to wilma. We have virtualized
domains - that might be having an effect. It seems unlikely, though.)

breadbox

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:56:09 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Elders and stuff and Synod

With Mr. Lunatic Fringe, I become Yor-Delegate. 
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Malenkai wrote:

> 1) I support Mr. Lunatic Fringe into the Hall of Elders.  I count 8 total
> nominations so far (the difference in names doesn't matter, as
> far as I can tell).
> 
> 2) The CoMD is defunct, as far as I can tell.

Wow. This is Ackanomic's oldest Church. Has its membership really dropped
below four. I thought we might finally get to watch how a Church decays
without a Founder, or maybe we have and it just happened too fast.

Niccolo Flychuck

 > 
> 3) I don't believe any attempt to change from non-voting to
> voting will have any effect (or has had any effect) until 8/14 @ 23:54,
> so I have Alfvaen, Malenkai, and Red Barn as the only active players as
> of the time of this post.
> 
> Malenkai
> 
> ------------------------------
> 

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 08:45:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: "A.K.A. TheWiz" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Testing.

  Hmm?

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

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:10:55 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Anti-Spam Software

This was just too rich too pass up.  I got the following unsolicited
e-mail this morning:

> Anti-spam software is now available for you to download. 
> 
> <<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<><<
> This could be the final piece of unsolicited e-mail you recieve!
>                        Http://spamnet.com
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><9><5><3><0>
> 
I don't think they quite get the picture.

ThinMan

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:42:07 -0600 (MDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Elders and stuff and Synod

> > 2) The CoMD is defunct, as far as I can tell.
> 
> Wow. This is Ackanomic's oldest Church. Has its membership really dropped
> below four. I thought we might finally get to watch how a Church decays
> without a Founder, or maybe we have and it just happened too fast.

The Cult of the Markovian Dream's current membership seems to be Calvin N
Hobbes(Priest), Guy Fawkes(Priest), and Red Barn.  Maybe I shouldn't have
left when I formed the Church of Azpiazu; ah, well.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Bach:Brandenburg Concertos
Current Book--Steven Brust & Megan Lindholm:The Gypsy
People tend to blanch when pilloried.

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 14:36:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: mr cwm <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: HoE

I return from vacation for the express purpose of seconding this, and do
so.

- -mr cwm

On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, **Alexandre Muniz wrote:

>I am nominating Mr. Nacho to the hall of elders, unless someone beat me 
>to it, in which case I am seconding the nomination.
>
>**two-star
>
>Damn, but that hall of elders is getting awfully crowded lately.
>

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

Date: 14 Aug 1997 17:13:16 CST/CDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: Backa

Oh, BTW, I couldn't quite follow all the stuff that went on with
officers in my absence.  Who exactly is the Tabulator and Promoter, or
acting in that capacity right now, and what is their email address
(my ISP's email program gives the mailing list's address as the source
of all incoming email).

GF

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

Date: 14 Aug 1997 17:33:42 CST/CDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: Acktions

I am offering any Otzma Cards in my possession to GF Mni-strage, Inc.,
in exchange for any Spell Books of Chorg in possession of that
Organization.  Either number may be zero.

Proposed: that GF Mini-storage, Inc., accept this offer.  Approved,
effected.

I am reading the next page in each of the two Spell Books of Chorg I
own.  (pages 11 and 2, respectively)  They each glow pink before they
vanish.

I am voting PRESENT on all proposals in queue, as a stopgap measure so I
don't get booted away before I come to grips with the gamestate again.

GF

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 19:13:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Anti-Spam Software

On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Bollinger, John C. wrote:

> 
> This was just too rich too pass up.  I got the following unsolicited
> e-mail this morning:
> 
> > Anti-spam software is now available for you to download. 
> > 
> > <<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<><<
> > This could be the final piece of unsolicited e-mail you recieve!
> >                        Http://spamnet.com
> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><9><5><3><0>
> > 
> I don't think they quite get the picture.
> 
> ThinMan
> 

On the contrary, I think this is a brilliant stroke of genius.  By sending
you tons of annoying mail, they force you to buy their product so as to
kill all of the annoying spam mail they send you.  It's guaranteed to get
results too, since you'll at the very least no longer get mail from them.

is this unsolicited mail all that common really?  I just recieved what I
think must be my first piece of spam mail (not counting exploding cows
and the like), although I've certainly noticed it choking the life out of
usenet news for the last year or two.  Of course, now that I am getting
it, I have to wonder how they found out about me.  I'm only on maybe 2 or
3 mailing lists of any kind, and I don't think they got me off the psych
majors at U of M list...  is someone in Acka feeding our addresses out to
the advertising predators (or perhaps scavengers, as they are basicaly
just hoping that you'll become so worn down as to buy their product out of
desperation and fatigue)?

                                - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 19:41:46 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Anti-Spam Software

> is this unsolicited mail all that common really?  

I get about 15 pieces a *day* at work, if you can believe that.
The reason for that is prolly because I can be reached at the
common names admin@[mydomain], root@[mydomain], and webmaster@[mydomain],
so these can be algorithmically generated.  I receive virtually none at
my acka e-mail address (this one).

I sometimes fight back, too.  If the spam has an 800 number in it, I call
it sometimes.  If the spam is promoting a web site, I send a formal
complaint, including the entire message, to the webmaster and postmaster
of that site, and to the postmaster of the network giving the site
connectivity to the net.  Otherwise, if I can determine from the headers
and a traceroute the ISP providing the sender access to the net, I send a
complaint to that network's postmaster, providing that network has a formal
anti-spam policy (and all the big ones do).  I don't know how much this
helps.  If you do this, you have to be careful, because most of these guys
gizz out the headers or use relay hosts not in their network to send this
stuff, and if you mis-analyize the headers or the network, you end up just
adding to the problem.

If you are receiving spam from Cyber Promotions (I believe they are 
www.cyberpromo.com), you can send mail to their postmaster and they will
remove you from the spam lists, meaning anyone who uses them as a spam 
server will not hit you.  Unfortunately, there are people who sell
cdroms of e-mail address, and bulk e-mail programs (I have actually
written one of these in my life for "legitimate" use), and there is little
you can do about these except complain or use anti-spam software.  From
what I have read about the anti-spam software, though, you have to 
anticipate where the mail is going to come from, so unless they have
improved, they are prolly useless.

Malenkai
Expert in Bandwidth-Wasting Gizz

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 18:28:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Backa

> Oh, BTW, I couldn't quite follow all the stuff that went on with
> officers in my absence.  Who exactly is the Tabulator and Promoter,

Soon I will probably be the Promotor and the Tabulator. Right now
Alfvaen is the Acting Promoter and Malenkai is the Acting Tabulator.

Malenkai has requested, and I will request the same, that we try to
keep submitted proposals to relatively essential stuff until things
have settled down a bit.

> or acting in that capacity right now, and what is their email
> address (my ISP's email program gives the mailing list's address as
> the source of all incoming email).

Really? Erg. Are you using Eudora, by any chance?

breadbox

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:29:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: My house

My house, which I think might actually still be caled Somewhere Else, is,
I guess, in need of reattachment.  I hearby give permission to anyone with
a monopole to use it on my house, or for anyone with wings to visit it if
they want to try and reattach it.  I will remain safely at the Library :)

                               - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 21:41:12 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Acktions

> I am reading the next page in each of the two Spell Books of Chorg I
> own.  (pages 11 and 2, respectively)  They each glow pink before they
> vanish.

I believe I still owe you page 1 of the one, is that correct?

Malenkai

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 18:16:48 -0800
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Anti-Spam Software

>This was just too rich too pass up.  I got the following unsolicited
>e-mail this morning:
>
>> Anti-spam software is now available for you to download.
>>
>> <<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<><<
>> This could be the final piece of unsolicited e-mail you recieve!
>>                        Http://spamnet.com
>> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><9><5><3><0>
>>
>I don't think they quite get the picture.
>
>ThinMan

I got about the same thing a couple of weeks ago.  Cracked me up.

Exquisite Dead Phil

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

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 23:39:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Benjamin Good <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka: proposals

hey kids, i recently saw in the digest that while the bot is down, we
send our votes to malenkai.  but where do we send the proposals? 
malenkai also?  i don't want to send him a bunch of proposals if he's
not supposed to get them, i doubt he needs any more acka mail than he
already gets.
thanks,
ben 

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

End of ackanomic digest V2 #252
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