Subject: ackanomic digest V3 #209
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest        Thursday, June 25 1998        Volume 03 : Number 209

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 01:19:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Fortnightly Dividends, Such As They Are

Thanks to the eminent Slakko for making me realize that in the excitement
of the game I had forgotten the Fortnightly Dividends, by posting eir
Swingpoint totals.

However, considering that an entire Cycle took place in the last Fortnight,
and furthermore that the current Cycle, and thus the Virtual Fortnight,
started at 14:02 on the Sunday previous, this one is entirely negligible.

There were _no_ score changes in the 21 hours and 58 minutes of the
Virtual Fortnight ending at noon on Monday, June 22nd.  In fact, nothing
happened until six hours and twenty-four minutes later when the Whamiols
tolled again.

So I don't feel too bad.  :-)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Kim Mitchell:Akimbo Alogo
Current Book--Wild Cards: Card Sharks
Nostalgia--stuffing seaweed cuttings up your nose

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 02:49:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: breadbox?

Anyone know what has happened to breadbox lately?

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Year PhD(Pure Maths), CUDipSoc, CUSFS, CUSTS, CURS etc
Acka - Web-Harfer,RuneMaker,ChessUmpire,Map-Harfer - www.ackanomic.org

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 05:40:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: NOTICE: Wilma is Kaput

As JT and Malenkai already know, wilma had some problems Wednesday night.
I found some severe file system corruption on wilma's /home partition.

For those who don't know, wilma is my own personal computer which is
located in my office in the Chemical Engineering department at the U.
of Texas at Austin with an ethernet connection to the internet.  Wilma
runs the Linux operating system.  Back in the old days, ending almost
a year ago, wilma was the backbone of Acka, with the main mailing list
and web pages running off of it.  I took an internship far from here
last fall, beginning the 1st of August, and since I knew I would be
away from the net and unable to play Acka for a while during the move,
I shed myself of a number of functional offices, which many other
players took on in my stead.

[This is going to ramble on a bit, as I am going to try to summarize both
for myself and for the rest of Acka what I had here that was lost.]

I tried to fix it, running fsck (the file system check/repair program).
This took two hours to run, due to the magnitude of the problems.
Some stuff was lost, but when this finally completed, the file system
still wasn't fixed.  I was trying to check to see what survived (df
reported that about 90% of the file space which had been used previously
was still "used").  However, the file system was swiss cheese.  I quickly
ran into a directory which had no . entry, which pretty much hung up the
system, and forced a hard shutdown and another fsck on reboot, which
revealed the problems the first fsck failed to fix (or caused?).  In
addition, I have failed to mention that a couple fscks crashed while
trying to repair the filesystem, which undoubtedly led to more file
system damage.  When I finally got fsck to run to completion a second
time, there was nothing left on /home.  There were no noticed problems
with the system directories, so most services [that aren't intended to
serve files in /home to people on the net] still operate.

I haven't yet even tried to load up my backups, but I know I lost many
tens of megabytes of files which I didn't care about enough to back up.

There were a few web files with Acka material in them which none of the
succeeding web harfers had yet managed to copy to another site.  I went
through this several months ago, and copied all such files to a geocities
page.  I was pleased to find that only a very few files were still not
incorporated into other players' web sites.  This is at something like:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/2525/
[I'm sure somebody will tell me if this is wrong, and maybe even have
enough info to find the right URL.  For some reason, I think there's
supposed to be one more term in there before TimesSquare but I can't think
of what, but it should be the same thing that all geocities URLs have.]
I was planning on putting *lots* more up there, but I never got around
to it.

The many tens of megabytes of e-mail from the days when wilma ran the
lists, which was stored in the FTP area on wilma is gone.  Did anybody
ever get around to copying this to another site?  Anything that is not
copied in such a way is probably lost.

My even more megabytes of categorized saved mail from Acka, which has
allowed me to find certain bits of Acka history with amazing speed, is
gone.

All my records for the YORL game I was refereeing are gone.  I have
no idea what cards players have in their hands.  If players think I
should do so, I will declare that game moribund, and if not, then
I will otherwise ensure the game ends soon.  The only exception is
that I do remember what 1 card Alfvaen has, which I just dealt to him
a few days ago, and as he's the only player likely to win at this
point, if everybody passes until it gets around to him, and he can
competently finish the story, I will let him do so.

I still remember the truth of the machine, and by the way:

Today is Thursday, the 25th day of June, and the Machine that goes *ping*
has gone *ping* today.  Since I have been scholar, the machine that goes
*ping* has gone *ping* 19 times.

(If 19 is not the correct total, somebody please correct me.  This small
error -- if it is an error -- should not detract from the game, provided
we straighten it out in a reasonable time.)

I still have the moves from the two players who sent me Viruses moves
already for the current round, though I'll have to retrieve the last
board from somewhere (I think at least one of the two included it in
their mail, so this may be easy).  Several versions of the program I
use for computing generations still exist on my other computer, as the
version I was most recently using was one of my practice programs when
I was learning C.

breadbox, are the recent email archives available now?  I will probably want
to download at least the last week's mail for reference.

Acka IRC is still running on port 9942, though the java client that used to
be on the web page is no more.  This service should remain available through
the middle of August, at which time I expect to be packing everything up
here for good and moving to a real, permanent job, and going on vacation
from Acka for a while.  The bot is not there, for now, but I may have an
older version of the bot still around on my other computer.  If not, the
bot will stay gone forever.

The clues I was assembling for that big treasure are lost, though the main
map still exists on paper.  I will still try to reveal the clues for it,
someday, but it will be a while longer now.

I'm sure there's still more I will think of.  I was going to write a LOT
more, but I will stop now and get some sleep.  It is 4:45 in the morning
here, and I have been up since before 8 yesterday morning.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 08:51:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Randy Hall <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: NOTICE: Wilma is Kaput

> The many tens of megabytes of e-mail from the days when wilma ran the
> lists, which was stored in the FTP area on wilma is gone.  Did anybody
> ever get around to copying this to another site?  Anything that is not
> copied in such a way is probably lost.
> 
> My even more megabytes of categorized saved mail from Acka, which has
> allowed me to find certain bits of Acka history with amazing speed, is
> gone.

I have virtually every e-mail ever sent in acka, except when I deregistered
recently, and some early ones sent before we had a list server, when 
messages were not echoed to the sender.  I believe breadbox does as well.
Perhaps we can reconstruct an archive if were bored in the future...

saaremaa

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 08:56:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Ian K." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Doldrums

> Anyone(who's not on Vacation)want to play a game of something?  Take
> Ayla's place in Eleusis?  Referee one of the Bacon games?  I'm up for
> Double Crash...

I like the idea of Double Crash...

Koxvolio

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:01:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Ian K." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Well, Okay...

The Church to the Evil Ballot Stuffer is beginning construction of a
Scroll of Crumble, to be created in the possession of Koxvolio.

This will take 3 days, and I think that will be in time...

Koxvolio

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:28:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: AARON KEESLER <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Problematic CFJ Question

I am very certain that I did.  If you would like, I can poke back
through the archives and find the exact message...

Fortunato

>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Duncan Richer [SMTP:[email-masked]]
>Sent:	Wednesday, June 24, 1998 2:56 PM
>To:	Ackanomic Main Mailing List
>Subject:	Acka: Problematic CFJ Question
>
>Does anyone know if Vynd and Fortunato took themselves off the CFJ
>Ineligibility List after deadbeating on CFJ 539?
>

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:05:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: NOTICE: Wilma is Kaput

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Joseph W. DeVincentis wrote:
>I still remember the truth of the machine, and by the way:
>
>Today is Thursday, the 25th day of June, and the Machine that goes *ping*
>has gone *ping* today.  Since I have been scholar, the machine that goes
>*ping* has gone *ping* 19 times.
>
>(If 19 is not the correct total, somebody please correct me.  This small
>error -- if it is an error -- should not detract from the game, provided
>we straighten it out in a reasonable time.)

I will verify that 19 is the correct number here.

>I still have the moves from the two players who sent me Viruses moves
>already for the current round, though I'll have to retrieve the last
>board from somewhere (I think at least one of the two included it in
>their mail, so this may be easy).  Several versions of the program I

I included it in my mail, and if I didn't still have it here.

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.                  ]
[ It's hard to seize the day when you must first grapple with the morning ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:33:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Towsner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Apology

Moo! Moo!

An apology?
Do your laws own the apology once I say it?
Can anything own anyone? Or anyone's apology?
Caught in a paradox, I end my apology's ending.
Thank you.
Does the game go on, waiting for my apology?
How can it, without one.
Would a different apology from this one still be an apology?
Would a different apology from this one still be my apology?
UNDECIDED
After this, can it all return to normal!
Thumbs up, I win all apologies
Thumbs down, there are none to win.
No thumbs at all, no apologies to be had.
I resign as Clerk of the Courts.

Quack? Quack?

- --
- -Henry Towsner

	<[email-masked]>

	Success is the child of audacity.
		-Benjamin Disraeli

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:38:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Problematic CFJ Question

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, AARON KEESLER wrote:

> I am very certain that I did.  If you would like, I can poke back
> through the archives and find the exact message...
> 
> Fortunato

I don't even remember going on the list.  How long ago was this?

                                   - Vynd

[email-masked]

> 
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From:	Duncan Richer [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> >Sent:	Wednesday, June 24, 1998 2:56 PM
> >To:	Ackanomic Main Mailing List
> >Subject:	Acka: Problematic CFJ Question
> >
> >Does anyone know if Vynd and Fortunato took themselves off the CFJ
> >Ineligibility List after deadbeating on CFJ 539?
> >
> 

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:02:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Well, Okay...

Ol' Koxie wrote:
> The Church to the Evil Ballot Stuffer is beginning construction of a
> Scroll of Crumble, to be created in the possession of Koxvolio.
> 
> This will take 3 days, and I think that will be in time...

Hmm, this looks like a challenge!

I suggest Vulcan use its secret lab to create a Scroll of Crumble in
my possession.  [Vynd must approve this before it happens; ThinMan
has his approval proxied.]

/dev/joe

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:51:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Gavin M. Doig" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Well, Okay...

From: Joseph W. DeVincentis <[email-masked]>
>Ol' Koxie wrote:
>> The Church to the Evil Ballot Stuffer is beginning construction of a
>> Scroll of Crumble, to be created in the possession of Koxvolio.
>>
>> This will take 3 days, and I think that will be in time...
>
>Hmm, this looks like a challenge!
>
>I suggest Vulcan use its secret lab to create a Scroll of Crumble in
>my possession.  [Vynd must approve this before it happens; ThinMan
>has his approval proxied.]
>
>/dev/joe
>
I suggest that The Moral Kiosk use its secret lab to create a Scroll of
Crumble in my possession.

Rex Mundi.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 13:27:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Well, Okay...

On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Joseph W. DeVincentis wrote:

> Ol' Koxie wrote:
> > The Church to the Evil Ballot Stuffer is beginning construction of a
> > Scroll of Crumble, to be created in the possession of Koxvolio.
> > 
> > This will take 3 days, and I think that will be in time...
> 
> Hmm, this looks like a challenge!
> 
> I suggest Vulcan use its secret lab to create a Scroll of Crumble in
> my possession.  [Vynd must approve this before it happens; ThinMan
> has his approval proxied.]
> 
> /dev/joe
> 

I approve of this suggestion.
 
                           - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:06:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: AARON KEESLER <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Well, Okay...

Speaking of, I remove my proxy from The Moral Kiosk.  I approve of this
suggestion, if I have not done so (by proxy) already.

>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Gavin M. Doig [SMTP:[email-masked]]
>Sent:	Thursday, June 25, 1998 10:52 AM
>To:	[email-masked]
>Subject:	Re: Acka: Well, Okay...
>
>I suggest that The Moral Kiosk use its secret lab to create a Scroll of
>Crumble in my possession.
>
>Rex Mundi.
>

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 16:37:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Ian K." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Well, Okay...

> I suggest that The Moral Kiosk use its secret lab to create a Scroll of
> Crumble in my possession.

I approve.

Koxvolio

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:23:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Return

I return from vacation. I noticed that you harfed it as if I'd managed to go
on vacation which makes life easy for me. If I have any impending duties then
can someone please tell me about them (I shouldn't but just to be on the safe
side). The reason that I didn't get my friend to send the message on my
behalf straight to the list was that I was unsure if it accepted messages
from none subscribers. (Incidentally the problem was with my monitor.)

Now, onto other things:

1. I thank whoever's been performing my duties in an acting capacity.

2. I accept anyone who has petitioned for membership of the twits but not yet
gained membership into the twits or suggest that they be admitted or whatever
it needs for any such players to become members.

3. I note that checking me whilst on vacation was a very dirty trick.

4. I note that I believe one of the bids for OC acme instant gadget was
invalid.

5. Alfvaen, I particularly like your YORL story. Keep up the good work.

6. I accept Fortunato into GBS if e isn't a member and still wants to join.

7. Why is it that you go away for a few weeks and when you get back Slakko
has won twice? I thought that was saaremaa's trick.

8. Did people vote down P3191 because of the problem with pragmatism saaremaa
pointed out or was there some other reason?

Well, that's as far as I've got at the moment. I'll come back and read the
other 848 Acka message tomorrow along with several hundred none Acka messages
:-). This should include plays in all my subgames.

Mr. Tambourine Man.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:27:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: NOTICE: Wilma is Kaput

> I have virtually every e-mail ever sent in acka, except when I deregistered
> recently, and some early ones sent before we had a list server, when 
> messages were not echoed to the sender.  I believe breadbox does as well.
> Perhaps we can reconstruct an archive if were bored in the future...

I've been subscribed to the digests for several months, and had also
downloaded copies of all the digests up to my arrival(when I was subscribed
to the regular lists)...

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Song In My Head--David Bowie:All The Madmen
Current Book--Steven Brust:Agyar
Bite the bullet that feeds

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:29:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Doldrums

> > I'd certainly play something.

> Same here, but nothing that will take forever (like Eleusis).

Or Spades?  :-)  Or is that just a question of getting an IRC or other
Net-client game going?

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Song In My Head--David Bowie:All The Madmen
Current Book--Steven Brust:Agyar
Now is the time for all brown dogs to jump over the lazy lynx.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:35:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Return

Mr. Tambourine Man writes:
> I return from vacation.

Yay!  I was going to start trying to impeach you as soon as we had some
Presidential candidates...

> 5. Alfvaen, I particularly like your YORL story. Keep up the good work.

Thank you.  With any luck I may even get to finish it, although the loss of
the deck with /dev/joe's machine may be a fatal blow.  (I've _got_ to get
that tape backup system working...)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Song In My Head--Queen & David Bowie:Under Pressure
Current Book--Steven Brust:Agyar
Thank you for your cooperation and vice versa.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:59:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Gavin M. Doig" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Well, Okay...

>> I suggest that The Moral Kiosk use its secret lab to create a Scroll of
>> Crumble in my possession.
>
>I approve.
>
>Koxvolio
>
As do I, so it happens, or will do.

Rex Mundi.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 20:30:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Eric Plumb <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Scam, Counterscam

The following FOREHAND-delimited text constitutes a Sin Submission:

FOREHAND
A new Sin has been discovered by the tireless researchers of the Ackanomic
Guild of Indulgences and Other Vices.  This Sin is the horrible one of
Abusing One's Privilege.  This Sin is committed when a player who attempts
to create a new Rule via a Hearing, Discovery, Miscellaneous Submission,
or in another non-Proposal manner includes text in this created Rule which
purports to create, amend, or repeal any Rule other than the one being
created.

{{ Append the sentence "This sentence repeals itself seven seconds after 
it becomes part of a Rule." to the end of Rule 611, "Le Grand Fromage." }}
FOREHAND

A Sinquisition has now been called by Rule 777.  I am the Faerie
Queene; reply privately to me.  Vote "Right up there with Disrespecting
the Harfers" to stop the Frobnotzer or "I'm still looking for the original
sin" to perpetuate the Scroll of Crumble hegemony.

Your ball, JT.

- - 867-5309

Push to test. Release to detonate. 

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:14:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mitchell Harding <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: NOTICE: Wilma is Kaput

At 08:51 AM 6/25/98 -0400, you wrote:
>> The many tens of megabytes of e-mail from the days when wilma ran the
>> lists, which was stored in the FTP area on wilma is gone.  Did anybody
>> ever get around to copying this to another site?  Anything that is not
>> copied in such a way is probably lost.
>> 
>> My even more megabytes of categorized saved mail from Acka, which has
>> allowed me to find certain bits of Acka history with amazing speed, is
>> gone.
>
>I have virtually every e-mail ever sent in acka, except when I deregistered
>recently, and some early ones sent before we had a list server, when 
>messages were not echoed to the sender.  I believe breadbox does as well.
>Perhaps we can reconstruct an archive if were bored in the future...

I, too, have basically every e-mail ever sent. I'll be glad to help out
anyone who wants copies of the e-mail.

Robert Sevin

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 23:42:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: NOTICE: Wilma is Kaput

> I, too, have basically every e-mail ever sent. I'll be glad to help out
> anyone who wants copies of the e-mail.

I would be curious to see the pre-digest email.  On a more practical(?)
level, I did also want to sometime find out the exact times of acceptance of
all Proposals, and while /dev/joe provided me with a lot of information, it's
only from the 500's or so onward...

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Howard Jones:Human's Lib
Current Book--Steven Brust:Agyar
Put your ear to stone and open your heart to the sky

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 23:53:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Treasure

Well, e's done it again:  /dev/joe has won the second Billboard Challenge,
or rather found the corresponding Treasure, as Godel Escher Bach finished
in 21st place.  Congratulations!

I'd like to announce here that I'm going to make this an ongoing thing.
I did already give one trinket to Vynd upon eir label finishing in the
top 50 between official Treasures, and I pledge to do the same to anyone
else who wishes to keep playing.  If anyone new wants to start, let me know.
I would appreciate it vastly if your record label names have "Acka" in them,
but I won't compel it or anything.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--The Damned:The Light At The End of The Tunnel
Current Book--Steven Brust:Agyar
A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard.

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

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 23:55:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Replacing Slakko

If nobody else is willing to do it, I might be able to find some time
and disk space to take over Web-Harfing during the absence Slakko
mentioned a little while ago.  It would be nice if someone else could do
at least part of it, of course.  But I think without Financiering as well,
it might be manageable, on a strictly temporary basis.  No, really, I mean
that.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--The Damned:The Light At The End of The Tunnel
Current Book--Steven Brust:Agyar
You don't make order from order, you make order from chaos.  --discord

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

End of ackanomic digest V3 #209
*******************************