Subject: ackanomic digest V3 #215
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest        Tuesday, June 30 1998        Volume 03 : Number 215

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 04:34:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Happy Swingpoints

On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Duncan Richer wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Uri Bruck wrote:
> 
> > I think the conversion to point should be removed. It was really only put
> > there so that there will be some sort of conversion until we come up with
> > other conversion types.
> 
> If you remove points, then the choice becomes Bonus Votes or Chess-related
> items.  Given the ability of players to earn Swingpoints without being the
> least bit involved in Chess, I don't see Bonus Votes alone as a suitable
> non-Chess-alternative.

Then I guess we just need more alternatives.

Niccolo Flychuck

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 07:31:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Ian K." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Happy Swingpoints

> > > I think the conversion to point should be removed. It was really only put
> > > there so that there will be some sort of conversion until we come up with
> > > other conversion types.

I like the convertability to points. 

> > If you remove points, then the choice becomes Bonus Votes or Chess-related
> > items.  Given the ability of players to earn Swingpoints without being the
> > least bit involved in Chess, I don't see Bonus Votes alone as a suitable
> > non-Chess-alternative.

I agree, but I couldn't think of alternatives? Perhaps conversion of a
larger number of swingpoints for a Boon of the Ancients? This is still no
good for non-swingers though, who will find it very difficult to amass the
larger number of swingpoints required.

Koxvolio

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:08:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Note in a Bottle

I am (once again) alive.

My apologies to everyone in the game.

I experienced a series of mishaps last week that left me without
network access from home, and without my usual secondary methods of
access to muppetlabs.com. (The main mishap being the disconnection of
my phone line because of overdue bills, which I wasn't quite able to
correct by Friday. It's all kind of embarrassing, actually.)

Unfortunately, I'm not quite out of the woods yet. This situation has
also left me way behind schedule on my current contract, and I
*really* need to rectify that first. I'm hoping to have all of my
messes cleaned up by tomorrow morning (we'll see how realistic that
is).

I have something like 400 unread Acka-emails ... I'll try to start
sorting through them sometime today. In the meantime, if there's
anything I should know or do immediately, perhaps someone can send me
private email - without "Acka" in the subject line, so it won't get
filed with the other 400 messages. (And maybe also let me know if I've
been Impeached yet, although I suppose I'll find out soon enough.)

(This summer has been a rotten time for technical failures so far,
hasn't it? On the upside, though, I can report that, as of about a
week ago, we finished the rebuilding of muppetlabs.com's original
setup, and were able to remove the interim ad-hoc one we had been
using since the break-in. So everything is pretty much back to normal
there.)

Once again, I apologize for whatever messes I have undoubtedly caused
with my absence. I look forward to returning to my usual position in
the game as soon as possible....

breadbox
humble and frantic at the same time

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:27:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Welcome back

Vynd just sent me the following ...

> If you have the time, I imagine the things people here would most like to
> know are:
> 
> Do you think you'll be back to normal soon?

God, I hope so. That depends mainly on how well my upcoming all-day
hacking run goes, I guess.

> Do you want to keep all of your offices?

Absolutely.

> If so, what are the results of all the proposals that are presumably
> sitting in your mailbox?

I presume this refers to the proposals whose voting periods expired
about a week ago? (And all the others, for that matter.) I'll get to
them as soon as I can, truly.

Oh yeah - and thanks to JT for trying to call me. (I just got the
message. There are advantages to having a listed number, I suppose. I
only wish I had been able to receive it.)

b

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 12:58:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Praetor

The nomination period for Praetor is over and Alfvaen was the only nominee so
e once again becomes Praetor.

MTM.

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:57:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Word List stuff

The ENABLE word list available at http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/
may be a suitable replacement for the Marldoom list, if players would prefer
that the official word list be downloadable.  This list also is not truncated
at 15 letter words like Marldoom's list is.  The thing comes packed as a zip
file downloadable from the URL above, which includes a README telling about
all the ways this is better than any other publicly available list, details
which most Ackans could probably care less about.

The list is intended to contain exactly the words which are legal in North
American Scrabble tournaments today, including words which would be legal
but cannot be played because they are too long to fit on the board, or
because the letter set (including blanks) is deficient in some letter
(as with razzmatazz), except that it includes 500 additional words of more
than 8 letters which are not found in Merriam-Webster's 10th ed. but are
found in other standard word sources. (A separate file listing these words
is included, for those who wish to delete them from the list.  I see no
reason why we should do so.)

There is also a supplementary file, which contains an OSW supplement (the
words from the (British) Official Scrabble Words list which do not
already appear in the ENABLE list) and a few other lists of words either
included or excluded from the main ENABLE list with commentary.

A game I have been playing online (not Marldoom, which I have not been
playing lately) recently changed to use the ENABLE list plus the
OSW supplement.

I note that none of the lists in ENABLE or its supplement include "ing",
so players may wish to retain the other list we use.

/dev/joe

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:37:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka; Museum donation

I donate my (still gyrating, and unbroken until Wednesday) Pyraic
Frobnotzer to the museum.

- --JT

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

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:46:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Truthseeker.

I spend A$196 and play my Otzma Card Truthseeker. (this should give me 7
words, yes?)

- --JT

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

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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 23:54:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Ping?

It is my guess that the truth of the machine is 

IF AND ONLY IF today the date in Texas is the sum of three United States
coins, THEN the Machine That Goes *ping* shall go *ping*.

- --JT

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

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End of ackanomic digest V3 #215
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