Subject: ackanomic digest V3 #262
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest       Thursday, August 6 1998       Volume 03 : Number 262

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 00:18:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Scoring

Okay.  For now I am going to consider that Rule 106 works as it was
_intended_ to work, with any vote(YES, NO, or BAA)on a Proposal garnering
one point for that voter.  I don't necessarily believe this to be the case,
but this way it will be easier to change it back if we decide that it
really was only a one-time effect--deleting rather than having to go and
generate all the pointlog entries.  Especially if I'm not going to be
Scorekeeper any more--wouldn't want to dump that on the next one.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Julee Cruise:The Voice of Love
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:Shadow's End
"I am lonely, and I am growing very small."

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 00:23:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Electroluxes

> I believe the electrolux rule (594.22) should have been repealed already
> since we had a tornado on the Summer Solstice (June 21st if I recall)
> and the rule states

> >In addition, if a Tornado should occur, all Electroluxes shall be
> >destroyed and this rule shall repeal itself.

> I noticed it during a random walk through the rules and thought I should
> point this out to the rule harfer and everyone else as well so that they 
> don't bother with it in the Great Debunk. :)

Oops.  I intended that with the original Rule, but not when I redid it as
a Discovery.  I donate A$1 to the Twits.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Julee Cruise:The Voice of Love
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:Shadow's End
Please, no deja vu; I don't want to go through that again

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 00:27:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: In General

I'm probably not going to vote in favour of any major changes to the
Rules.  I feel they should probably be snuck up on, one or two Rules at
a time, or something.  And I'm still a pro-Points person, even if anti-
voting has gone.  <Sniff!>  (Not to say it won't return, of course...
All it takes is a single Proposal.)

But hey, I can adapt.  I'm starting to feel better about Scorekeepering
now, and will probably revolunteer for the Office...

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Julee Cruise:The Voice of Love
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:Shadow's End
In one ear and gone tomorrow.

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 01:34:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: AWOL

I am notifying myself (as required by rule 257) that it appears that
Zaknafien Dourden, Goldenmean, and Koxvolio have apparently gone AWOL and
that an AWOL message should be sent to them.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ 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, 06 Aug 1998 01:36:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Scoring

> Okay.  For now I am going to consider that Rule 106 works as it was
> _intended_ to work, with any vote(YES, NO, or BAA)on a Proposal garnering
> one point for that voter.

Oh, you know what Rule I meant.  Don't be so picky!

("Who is he talking to?" "Beats me.")

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Julee Cruise:The Voice of Love
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:Shadow's End
Don't you dare skid on my rainbow paper!

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 01:36:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Big White Gazette

The Big White Gazette
"See?  Here's a full issue!  This is sort of last month's wasted bandwidth,
but hey, nobody'll notice it now since everybody's so busy talking about
repealing points and A$."

BWG Exclusive: Secret Treasure Hints!!!

[ The following is a secret transcript of a fragment of a conversation
between two unknown persons, recorded by confidential means and delivered
to the Gazette offices clandestinely.  Its veracity is unknown. ]

1: I think I've finally figured them out.

2: [unintelligible]

1: You know, Alfvaen's treasures.

2: Well, even I could solve the division puzzles, but what you get after
that is just a jumbled mess.  I tried doing it as a cryptogram, but just
got garbage.

1: Okay, so assume that it's not a cryptogram, but something more
sophisticated.  About the next level of complexity up would be something
multialphabetic, like the visionaire[?].  On a hunch I checked out some
of the "spoken in tongues" bits from back when e had to do Prayers of
Deliverance, and they were done that way, with "Azpiazu" as a key.

2: So?  That doesn't help unless we have a hint at the key.  We could
try all the other names e's invented...

1: Let's look at it another way.  For the division puzzle, you have to
have ten unique letters in a row.  So that puts constraints on the
message--whatever it was before, it has to have sequences of ten unique
letters after it's encrypted.  A substitution cipher would preserve the
same pattern of letters as the ciphertext.  And I think the odds that any
given keyword would satisfy that condition would be small--there might
not even be one that's an English word.  So one would have to be generated
specifically.

2: Great.  And where would we get this key?

1: E'd have to hide it somewhere it would be possible to find.  Maybe
some of eir other clues give some idea.

2: Okay, so what about the other one?

1: Well, it's a bunch of hexadecimal digits, right?  But they're too
scattered and varied for letters from any character set.  I'm sure there's
all sorts of encoding schemes that could have been done.

2: The Fibonacci thing was hard enough.

1: But there's some clues there, too.  I mean, when Alfvaen originally
buried the Treasure, e mistyped "Ackadollars" for "Ackapennies", and
insisted that the text be left to stand as it was.  So that implies that
that text is important in some way to decoding the map, doesn't it?

2: Hang on a sec, I've got to...

[ Here the transcript ends. ]

BWG Useless Statistics: The Ackanomicon
by Alfvaen, former Officer in Charge of Random Things

(All information in this article is based on BWG information that does
not include the last visit or two, so keep this in mind when demanding
retractions.)

Just a few minor statistical anomalies I noticed.  Not that I'm doubting
the randomness of the Random Dice Server, but the statistically expected
distribution never quite comes out until you've got a bunch of data
points, and so I was curious as to how things seemed to be skewed at
the moment.

What I found most interesting was that "Brie Clump", the most frequent
visitor to *that* room with 7 visits(compared to 5 by JT, the next highest),
has read a page of Vile Prophecies an inordinate number of times, 4 out of
eir seven visits.

I had also noticed that while Arcane Trivia was supposed to be a
substantial chunk of the pages, it didn't seem to be turning up that
often.  In fact, out of 46 visits, Vile Prophecies came out 9 times
and Arcane Lore 8, while Arcane Trivia, three times as probable as
either, came up 7.  (I should note that I myself have only managed
to find Arcane Trivia in the Ackanomicon, on both of my visits...)
However, I'm sure a chi-square test would find this within reasonable
variance, as well as the other anomaly--"Ancient One" coming up three
times, when its odds are technically only 1 in 50.  Everything else is
reasonable close to its expected value...

Here are the actual numbers(and names)if you want to investigate
further:

  7:
Brie Clump: Vile Prophecies (4), Arcane Lore (2), Ancient One

  5:
JT: Inner Workings, Forbidden Fruit, Not So Forbidden Fruit, Doomsday, Arcane Trivia

  4:
K 2: Not So Forbidden Fruit, Arcane Trivia (2), Arcane Lore
Rex Mundi: Inner Workings, Ancient One, Mutation, Arcane Lore
Vynd: Arcane Lore, Ancient One, Vile Prophecies, Ancient Artifact

  3:
Wild Card: Not So Forbidden Fruit, Terrorizing Pages, Arcane Lore
Small Mew Toy: Inner Workings, Dark Domain, Vile Prophecies

  2:
Alfvaen: Arcane Trivia (2)
Attila the Pun: Arcane Trivia, Vile Prophecies
rufus: Not So Forbidden Fruit, Mutation
two-star: Catastrophe, Terrorizing Pages

  1:
Ayla: Inner Workings
Calvin N Hobbes: Arcane Lore
Fortunato: Vile Prophecies
IdiotBoy: Arcane Trivia
Joe Java: Inner Workings
Koxvolio: Vile Prophecies
Slakko: The Secret
ThinMan: Arcane Lore

(46)
7--Arcane Trivia: Attila the Pun, K 2 (2), IdiotBoy, Alfvaen (2), JT
9--Vile Prophecies: Brie Clump (4), Attila the Pun, Koxvolio, Fortunato, Vynd, Small Mew Toy
5--Inner Workings: Rex Mundi, JT, Joe Java, Ayla, Small Mew Toy
8--Arcane Lore: Vynd, Wild Card, K 2, ThinMan, Calvin N Hobbes, Brie Clump (2), Rex Mundi
2--Terrorizing Pages: Wild Card, two-star
1--Ancient Artifact: Vynd
2--Mutation: Rex Mundi, rufus
1--Dark Domain: Small Mew Toy
0--Long Lost Treasure
1--(*)The Secret: Slakko
1--(*)Doomsday: JT
1--Forbidden Fruit: JT
1--Catastrophe: two-star
4--Not So Forbidden Fruit: K 2, Wild Card, JT, rufus
3--Ancient One: Rex Mundi, Brie Clump, Vynd

(*) Pages that I believe are no longer in the Book.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Julee Cruise:The Voice of Love
Current Book--Sheri S. Tepper:Shadow's End
"You can't do this to me!  I have a right to free association!"

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 03:11:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Eric Plumb <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: 1024 Words

As you folks may know, I'm not the most diligent of Ackans.  The only
quasi-Functional office I've held for any length of time is DeeJay, and I
managed to screw even that most facile of Offices up remarkably well for
only having held it a month or so.  My reluctance to do anything even
slightly approaching actual work precludes my taking on any kind of Office
that requires such.  (Hence my self-nomination for Senator.)

In any case, I was recently reminded (much to my surprise) by newcomer Piz
that I actually am curator of the Ackanomic Portrait Gallery.  I urge all
of you, especially those new to this game, to check it out (it's at
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~plumb/acka/gallery/gallery.html) and submit to me
a picture if you'd like.  Also, if you have a home page you'd like me to
link to from your picture, please send me the address.

I've pretty much given up on the idea of having some sort of bio along
with the picture.  I received only one serious (and several facetious)
responses to the RFC, and with that kind of lackluster support, I don't
really think it's worth it.  Plus I'm just plain lazy.

- - 867-5309

For Sale: French Rifles: Never fired, only dropped once. 

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 06:35:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Vynd

It is given to me (as second of the Wronged Party) to inform the most
evil overlord of Ackanomic (retried), who's recent Draconian Land Reform
proposal caused a Really Bad Earthquake (incidentally ending Tamson
House's temporal anomaly), that the most honourable and enlightened
worshipper of the Book of Chorg and True Prophet of Ackanomic (formerly
of the Ackan Reserve) is still annoyed at him for whatever it was he was
annoyed at him for before.

Vynd you are hereby summoned to the field of honour to meet else...if,
that you may be thoroughly trounced and bits of your entity scattered to
the eight corners of the world.

I am told, "There can be only one".

K 2
Second to else...if

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 06:37:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: 4th new player

JT wrote:

> Robert Shaw (email of [email-masked]) has rejoined the game as Robin
> Hood.  As far as I can tell from the rules, he recieves a mentor (K 2 has
> been chosen) and land and A$ just as if he'd never been a player before

Welcome back to The Game. Any questions, feel free to ask :)

K 2

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 08:54:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Walmsley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3324 accepted

>> > {{The Great Debunk hearing is called}}
>> > 
>
>Who, may I ask, is the Hearing Harfer for this?  Or are votes to be cast
>publically?

As Count Tabula I'm the Hearing Harfer I think. I think that the rule
itself called the hearing so you have 3 days from then to respond I guess.
You may reply to this message to send your votes (set to acka-priv).

MTM, Count Tabula.

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:18:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3333 accepted

Aaron V. Humphrey wrote:

> I hereby announce my intention to resign as Scorekeeper.  It won't be
> nearly as fun anymore.
>

Nominations are now open for scorekeeper.
Nominations are still open for Clerk of the Court.

Remember to specify which you are nominating for, or I get confused and give you both
;)

K 2

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:18:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: AVPP

> else...if ???? wrote:
> > >Moreover, should the concept of anti-voting ever be removed from this fair
> > >game of Ackanomic, the members of AVPP shall be constrained to vote on
> > >each and every proposal, especially those submitted by opponents of
> > >anti-voting, as if they (the members of AVPP) (well, the opponents can
> > >too, I suppose) were anti-voting and would gain points thereby.

I denounce this suggestion.
I suggest the following be apppended to the party manifesto (or whatever):(---
delimited)
- ---
Moreover, should the concept of anti-voting ever be removed from this fair game
of Ackanomic, the members of AVPP shall be constrained to vote on each and every
proposal, especially those submitted by opponents of anti-voting, as if they (the
members of AVPP) (well, the opponents can too, I suppose) were able to gain
points for anti-voting.
- ---

I'm not going to anti-vote on _every_ proposal.

K 2

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:18:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CotC

Tom Walmsley wrote:

> First off, the election for Speaker was won by JT. If anyone's sadistical
> enough to want be to haul through the logs of three different mail programs
> to determine the exact results then I will do.

Congratulations to JT.

> fianlly I am announcing my intent to resign as Clerk of the Court. Like
> Alfvaen's recent resignation from Speakership I feel that you deserve
> someone hwo's going to do a good job. I believe that this means you should
> nominate yourself for that office to K 2 and that after the end of the
> nomination the office goes straight from me to whoever occupies it next
> with no acting officer. Or something like that.

Section vi of rule 403 covers this

Nominations are now open for Clerk of the Court.

K 2

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:18:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Giants

Which reminds me Alfvaen is indeed a member now since the 7 day clause expired
with 2/3 acceptances. Thinman now has 2/4 so e will become a member regrdless,
soon.

Aaron V. Humphrey wrote:

> Um, adopt "Communist Single Player" membership style admission thing.

This could  be fun to see if the sleeping giants actually manage to carry out
an org action, could distroy their image :)

K 2

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:18:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: The Book

JT wrote:

> Oh.. before I forget.  I leave the church of Seleya, and petition for
> re-entry into the Church of the Book of Chorg.

I accept JT back into The Cover of The Book.

I offer my Book (being the appropriate term to refer to The Most Holy Book of
Chorg, blessedbeitsname) to else...if.

K 2

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:31:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: [Fwd: CFJ]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
- --------------3E7F1F6B44F79C10C35337E8
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Not that I'm nervous or anything, but I'm going to snowgod this to the
main list to be sure.

K 2

- --------------3E7F1F6B44F79C10C35337E8
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 05:32:03 +1000
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Reply-To: [email-masked]
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: CotC <[email-masked]>
Subject: CFJ
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

This is a CFJ. Customary Headings have been included as delimiters only.

Statement:
No player of Ackanomic has ever had an Ackanomic name (as distinct from
a real name) of Tom Walmsley.

Reasoning:
When the entity then known as
a-collection-of-numbers-that-I-can-never-remember-which-relate-in-some-manner-to-the-string-"Jenny"
attempted to change eir name the registrar (JT - an altogether easier
name to remember) objected on the grounds of "Malenkai's Loophole". As a
result the change did not occur.

- --------------3E7F1F6B44F79C10C35337E8--

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:32:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: [Fwd: Acka: CFJ637]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
- --------------BF776F6558D28F099DD492C3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Not that I'm nervous or anything, but I'm going to snowgod this to the
main list to be sure.

K 2

- --------------BF776F6558D28F099DD492C3
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 07:02:21 +1000
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Reply-To: [email-masked]
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: CotC <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ637
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

The following is the judgment for CFJ 637. Customary headings have been
included as delimiters only. The CFJ has been judged FALSE.

K 2's Reasoning:
Rule 593 places ..."the single voting player who had the highest score
when the cycle ended, which was both a prime number and not greater than
or equal to the Magic Number at that time, and who is not already a
Scientist other than the Archaeologist." in the office of Archaeologist
at the end of a cycle. Since prime numbers aren't mathematically defined
in the rules, game custom holds that a common english definition be
found to define them. According to the prime research page maintained at
The University of Tennessee
(http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/glossary/Prime.html) a prime number
is defined in the following manner:

"An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only
positive divisors (factors) are one and itself."

Greater than one clearly excludes negative numbers. Game custom supports
this definition since the sentence fragment (in Rule 252) ..."and x is
the smallest prime number"... has always been interpreted as a finite
positive integral number - not an infinitely negative one. Similarly the
sentence fragment ..."the least prime number that would result in a
unique name"... (from rule Rule 594.5) has also been interpreted in the
past as including only positive numbers.

As a result -2, being negative, is not prime, thus Rule 593's "highest
prime" requirement was not met by any player at the end of cycle 22.

This CFJ is ruled FALSE.

- --------------BF776F6558D28F099DD492C3--

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 14:41:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ?

From the judgement on CFJ 637 came the following definition:

"An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only
positive divisors (factors) are one and itself."

Fine.  That does not say, however, that negative numbers cannot be primes.
It merely defines what positive numbers are primes, leaving negatives as a
separate case undefined.

Interestingly, Webster's definition technically admits no primes exist:

having no factor except itself and one

as it conveniently forgets to specify positive factors.

Dammit I'm a mathematician.
- -2 is prime.
So is 1+i.

- -- 
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, 06 Aug 1998 15:02:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Michael Pizolato" <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ?

Slakko wrote:
>>From the judgement on CFJ 637 came the following definition:
>>
>>"An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only
>>positive divisors (factors) are one and itself."
>>
>>Fine.  That does not say, however, that negative numbers cannot be primes.
>>It merely defines what positive numbers are primes, leaving negatives as a
>>separate case undefined.
>>
>>Interestingly, Webster's definition technically admits no primes exist:
>>
>>having no factor except itself and one
>>
>>as it conveniently forgets to specify positive factors.
>>
>>Dammit I'm a mathematician.
>>-2 is prime.
>>So is 1+i.

I'm not a mathematician, so this point may be entirely harfy. However, if
the definition of a prime states that its only *positive* factors are one
and itself, isn't the primitude of -2 indeterminate at best? One (1) is
obviously a positive factor, but "itself" (-2) is not positive, hence cannot
be a "positive factor." Having one as the *only* positive factor seems to
violate the definition (not satisfying the "and itself part), hence no
negative number can be prime.

Piz

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:09:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ?

On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Michael Pizolato wrote:

> Slakko wrote:
> >>From the judgement on CFJ 637 came the following definition:
> >>
> >>"An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only
> >>positive divisors (factors) are one and itself."
> >>
> >>Fine.  That does not say, however, that negative numbers cannot be primes.
> >>It merely defines what positive numbers are primes, leaving negatives as a
> >>separate case undefined.
> >>
> >>Interestingly, Webster's definition technically admits no primes exist:
> >>
> >>having no factor except itself and one
> >>
> >>as it conveniently forgets to specify positive factors.
> >>
> >>Dammit I'm a mathematician.
> >>-2 is prime.
> >>So is 1+i.
> 
> I'm not a mathematician, so this point may be entirely harfy. However, if
> the definition of a prime states that its only *positive* factors are one
> and itself, isn't the primitude of -2 indeterminate at best? One (1) is
> obviously a positive factor, but "itself" (-2) is not positive, hence cannot
> be a "positive factor." Having one as the *only* positive factor seems to
> violate the definition (not satisfying the "and itself part), hence no
> negative number can be prime.

The "only positive factors" definition is the simplistic one.
The mathematical definition of a prime is much more detailed.
An irreducible in a ring is (I hope I got this right) a member of
the ring which cannot be decomposed into two non-unit members of that
ring.

Unless you are dealing with rings of polynomials, generally irreducible
and prime are one and the same.

Units are members of a ring which can be multiplied together to give unity
(i.e. 1).

In the integers, 1, -1 are the only units.
So the primes are all numbers x whose only factors are -1, 1, x, -x.
Being discriminatory to the negative numbers is really just plain signist.

In the ring Z[i], 1, -1, i, -i are the only units.
Mind you, in Z[i], 2 is not prime.
(1+i)(1-i) = 2.

Yours,
Slakko
- -- 
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, 06 Aug 1998 15:20:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Michael Pizolato" <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ?

Slakko wrote:
>>So the primes are all numbers x whose only factors are -1, 1, x, -x.

I thought it might be a matter of an inaccurate definition. In the above you
mean "integers," not "numbers," right?

>>Being discriminatory to the negative numbers is really just plain signist.

Well, the only -ist I'll admit to being is a conspiracy theorist, but I'm
only that for the entertainment value.

Piz

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:22:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Acka: CFJ637]

In a message dated 06/08/98  17:56:37, you write:

> 
>  "An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only
>  positive divisors (factors) are one and itself."
>  
>  Greater than one clearly excludes negative numbers. Game custom supports
>  this definition since the sentence fragment (in Rule 252) ..."and x is
>  the smallest prime number"... has always been interpreted as a finite
>  positive integral number -

This is now game custom, but it isn't in accordance with the full mathematical
definition. Smaller then is sometimes used to mean smaller in magnitude,
i.e nearest zero.

The definition quoted  says nothing about negative numbers, and as it
happens negative numbers are generally defined as prime if and only
if their absolute value is zero.

This is jut an academic point though.

Robin Hood

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:22:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: AVPP

I hereby join the anti-voting preservative party. 
(Its open, so I don't have to ask anyone, right)

We should restore the spirit of antivoting if in
quite the same form.

Robin Hood

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:59:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ?

In a message dated 06/08/98  19:37:30, you write:

> 
>  I'm not a mathematician, so this point may be entirely harfy. However, if
>  the definition of a prime states that its only *positive* factors are one
>  and itself, isn't the primitude of -2 indeterminate at best? 

I am. 
A integer is defined to be a unit if and only if its reciprocal is an integer.
That means just 1 and -1. A number is prime if its only proper divisors
(divisor of smaller magnitude than the number) are units.
For most purposes this just means negative primes are also primes.

This definition does have obvious extensions to complex integers
and more esoteric systems, but we are probably unlikely to start
getting complex points, the game is already complicated enough.

Robin Hood

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:59:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Michael Pizolato" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Which proposal eliminated anti-voting?

I went back through all my Acka mail and couldn't find which proposal it was
that eliminated anti-voting. Which proposal was it?

Thanks,
Piz

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 16:03:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Which proposal eliminated anti-voting?

On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Michael Pizolato wrote:

>I went back through all my Acka mail and couldn't find which proposal it was
>that eliminated anti-voting. Which proposal was it?

it was P3333.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ 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, 06 Aug 1998 16:18:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Potato, Oars and Tuba

IdiotBoy has found the Potato with my apologies for the acting officer not
having distributed it on Sunday as it should have been.

K 2 has thus found the Tuba.

The oars should also have been distributed this past weekend (as far as I
can tell it was the oars and not the raft) and they went to J. M. Bear.

I'm curious as to the actual state of the location of the Raft.  I recall
recieving it (recently), but the PE page doesn't show it anywhere and 
the Holder of Unique Entities page that Slakko maintains shows Goldenmean
holding it, but that page also still shows /dev/joe hlding the *ping*
machine, so it's not up to date.

If it was in fact the oars turn to get distributed then cool, otherwise 
J. M. Bear found the raft.  K 2, can you please verify which item was
actually found so I can do this more effectively?

Also, I have asked Alfvaen if he had a list of which pages the various
SBoCs are on, but in case he doesn't could you let myself (and K 2) know.
K 2 has offered to track that information on the PE page and thus wants to
know.  I need it for my duties as OiCoRT.  Thanks.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ 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, 06 Aug 1998 16:22:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Michael Pizolato" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Real-life antivoting

I realize it's moot (for the time being, at least) in Ackanomic, but thought
you'd enjoy hearing about an example of real-life antivoting that I often
encounter. Our local school board does it quite often. Board members vote
against a proposal that they know will pass and that they are actually in
favor of, because they know the majority of their constituents are against
the proposal. By voting against it, they can claim to their constituents
that they had "opposed" the measure.

Only one of the members ever called the others on it, trying to get them to
explain their "opposition" when their words and actions prior to the vote
had been entirely in favor of the proposal. The response was always stony
silence.

Thanks,
Piz

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 16:53:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: The Tater. 

I bake the Magic Potato, cut it wide open ad stuff it with butter, sour
cream, and green onions.  Then I go to The Library, wandering by The Room,
and drop the potato there.

IB
undoubtedly a criminal

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 16:55:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ?

In a message dated 06/08/98  20:19:03, you write:

> 
>  Dammit I'm a mathematician.
>  -2 is prime.
>  So is 1+i.
>  
They can't both be primes, -2=(1+i)(i-1)=i(1+i)(1+i)
- -2 is a prime for the real integers.
1+i is a prime for the gaussian integers, where i is a unit and -2 composite.

Still, while they could be used in ackanomic (real points for proposals
imaginary points for games might be interesting) I suspect most people
would prefer not to.

Robin Hood 

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 16:58:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ?

In a message dated 06/08/98  20:19:03, you write:

> 
>  Dammit I'm a mathematician.
>  -2 is prime.
>  So is 1+i.
>  
They can't both be primes, -2=(1+i)(i-1)=i(1+i)(1+i)
- -2 is a prime for the real integers.
1+i is a prime for the gaussian integers, where i is a unit and -2 composite.

Still, while they could be used in ackanomic (real points for proposals
imaginary points for games might be interesting) I suspect most people
would prefer not to.

Robin Hood 

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 17:10:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: The Tater. 

On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Matt Miller wrote:

>I bake the Magic Potato, cut it wide open ad stuff it with butter, sour
>cream, and green onions.  Then I go to The Library, wandering by The Room,
>and drop the potato there.

If that was in fact a request to go to *that* room, please confirm :)

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ 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, 06 Aug 1998 17:18:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Instance limits of Otzma Cards

When checking things for determining whether or not certain cards could be
given by the book, I encountered the fact that it appears there are 14 Go
Fish cards in circulation.  According to the rules there is a limit of 13
of this type of card and one of them at random must be destructed.

I have asked K 2 to confirm my count of the cards.
However, if e confirms the count, I have determined that the card lost
will be one of the ones in T194.  This determination was made by a private
die roll.

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ 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, 06 Aug 1998 17:20:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: SBoC Random Otzma Card determination (fwd)

I typod the mailing list in the script.  So, I'm forwarding the dice roll
along.

- --JT

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

- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:20:30 -0700
From: Dice server <[email-masked]>
To: JT <[email-masked]>
Cc: ackanomic@#muppetlabs.com
Subject: Acka: SBoC Random Otzma Card determination

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Dice rolls requested by: JT <[email-masked]>
Rolls also sent to:
    ackanomic@#muppetlabs.com

# Player: Attila the Pun
# This is determining the Otzma Card aquired for reading a page in
# A Spellbook of Chorg.
# The determination is made according to the following table
# A value of - means that card cannot be selected for some reason.
#  -    Go Fish                 (at max instance)
#  1    Map Shard
#  -   Summon Tornado           (at max instance)
#  2    Rod & Staff
#  3   Share My Expenses
#  4    Share Your Income
#  -    Swinging Sale           (at max instance)
#  5    Tactical Retreat
#  6    Paratroop
#  -    Foul Fowl               (at max instance)
#  7    Truthseeker
#  -    Fix My Gadget           (at max instance)
#  8    Scientist For a Day
#  9    Art Thief
# 10    Skeleton Key
# 11    Artic Explorer
# 12    Lay Off!
# 13    Founder's Boon
# 14    Shield
# 15    ACME InstaGadget
# 16    Felicitous Populi

No. of sides on every die:     16
No. of dice for every roll:     1
No. of dice rolls requested:    1
No. of rolls per line:          1

     15

Information on the dice server:
   DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE!
   Replies to [email-masked] vanish into a seldom-read mailbox.

   For instructions on using the dice server, send a message with
   subject "help" to [email-masked], or see http://www.pbm.com/dice/

   The dice server is provided by:

      Shadow Island Games
      http://www.pbm.com/

=================================================
             ** NewHoo Web Directory **
    An army of editors surfing the web for you!
               http://www.NewHoo.com/
=================================================

Original message follows:
> From [email-masked]  Thu Aug  6 14:20:17 1998
> Received: (from smtp@localhost) by xkey.com
>       id OAA07733 for <[email-masked]>; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:20:17 -0700
> Received: from herne.dragoncat.net(207.54.31.1) by xkey.com via smtp (V1.3)
>       id sma007718; Thu Aug  6 14:20:13 1998
> Received: from localhost (jtraub@localhost)
>       by dragoncat.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA02558
>       for <[email-masked]>; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:20:06 -0700
> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:20:06 -0700 (PDT)
> From: JT <[email-masked]>
> To: Dice Server <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Acka: SBoC OC determination
> Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> #P ackanomic@#muppetlabs.com
> #T Acka: SBoC Random Otzma Card determination
> #S 16
> #D 1
> #R 1
> #L 1
> 
> #C Player: Attila the Pun
> #C This is determining the Otzma Card aquired for reading a page in
> #C A Spellbook of Chorg.
> #C The determination is made according to the following table
> #C A value of - means that card cannot be selected for some reason.
> #C
> #C  - Go Fish                 (at max instance)
> #C  1 Map Shard
> #C  -   Summon Tornado                (at max instance)
> #C  2 Rod & Staff
> #C  3   Share My Expenses
> #C  4 Share Your Income
> #C  - Swinging Sale           (at max instance)
> #C  5 Tactical Retreat
> #C  6 Paratroop
> #C  - Foul Fowl               (at max instance)
> #C  7 Truthseeker
> #C  - Fix My Gadget           (at max instance)
> #C  8 Scientist For a Day
> #C  9 Art Thief
> #C 10 Skeleton Key
> #C 11 Artic Explorer
> #C 12 Lay Off!
> #C 13 Founder's Boon
> #C 14 Shield
> #C 15 ACME InstaGadget
> #C 16 Felicitous Populi
> 
> 
> 

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- -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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

Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 18:04:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3333 accepted

>>> What I'm trying to say is that I only used one vote and I cast it for the
>>> proposal.. I don't know where that 'abstained' vote came from.  Therefore
>>> I believe that only 4 should have been cast, not 5.
>> 
>> Yes, but your attempt to cast it FOR the proposal failed because of the
>> excess, yet the Bonus Vote was still used up.  It had to go somewhere,
>> hence it was registered as an abstention (it had to be used, but the rules
>> prevented it from counting FOR).
> 
> That wounds wrong to me.  The last four bonus votes count, the rest are
> unused and shouldn't count as anything. Not as an abstenation.

Not true; the Bonus Vote rule states that the Bonus Votes are still
used up, whether or not they were successfully counted. Logging it as
an "abstention" may have been unintuitive, granted, but that's how
Tammany is logged when bribed for SILENT.

(I actually had to harf that one by hand. My scripts didn't check for
Bonus Vote "overflow". I've never seen more than two Bonus Votes used
on a single proposal before, that I can remember.)

breadbox

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

End of ackanomic digest V3 #262
*******************************