Subject: ackanomic digest V3 #283
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest       Tuesday, August 25 1998       Volume 03 : Number 283

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 02:11:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Church

On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

> I leave the Church/Cult of Seleya and the Church/Cult of Markovian Dream. I
> then most humbly request entrance into the most holy Churches of Azpiazu
> and Odo on the Wormhole.
> 
> MTM.

I accept MTM as a member of the Church of Odo on the Worm Hole
Niccolo Flychuck
Founder of the Church of Odo on the Worm Hole

> 
> 
> - -- 
> Tom Walmsley [email-masked]
> http://website.lineone.net/~t.walmsley/index.html
> AIM: TGW666 ICQ 2925739
> Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston, lausajne estas rano en mia bideo.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 04:28:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 646 (FALSE)

JT has judged this one FALSE.

Call for Judgement 646 - August 24, 1998
Subject: Location of the Chartreuse Goose
Initiator: Tom Walmsley (sent 24 August 1998 16:22 Acka)
Judge: JT (selected 24 August 1998 17:06 Acka)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:
The Chartreuse Goose is Somewhere Else.

Initiator's Reasoning:
Essentially I'm not sure where it is. The recent events that could have
caused it to be transferred are (I think):

MTM having a PWCFJ ruled FALSE by Vynd.
Rex Mundi got the ancient one result on the Ackanomicon.
/dev/joe had a CWCFJ ruled FALSE
/dev/joe's CFJ was overturned to TRUE.

Where the Goose is therefore depends on which of the first three events
happened most recently. I don't know which one it was and I leave that up
to the judge to research. The reason I am calling this is that last time I
looked Alfvaen and K 2 were disagreeing as to who had the Goose, and we
probably ought to make certain.

Judge's Reasoning:
Looking through the archives, provides the following information.
On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 02:41:40 -0400 (EDT), Alfvaen returned the judgement
of FALSE on CFJ 630, giving the Chartreuse Goose to /dev/joe.
On Fri, 17 Jul 1998 19:43:47 -0400 (EDT), Rex Mundi read from the
Ackanomicon and read the page 'Ancient One' which gave him the Goose.

According to rule 620, the second condition upon which the goose would be
transferred Somewhere Else reads as:

>2) Upon a verdict on a Winning Condition CFJ being overturned to TRUE,
>   the Goose goes Somewhere Else, if and only if the player possessing it
>   was the initiator of the CFJ in question. If this judgement is not
>   overruled, then the player who called for judgement is declared the
>   winner of the cycle; the win occurring at the time it becomes illegal
>   to appeal the CFJ under the current rules. 

Since Rex Mundi (and not /dev/joe) possessed the Goose at the time CFJ 630
was overturned, the Goose remains in eir possession and thus is not
transferred Somewhere Else.

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 04:28:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CSR 149

On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Matt Miller wrote:

> I object to this CSR.

Even though by now it is an empty gesture, I object to CSR 149.

Yours,
Slakko
who voted for all six debunk proposals.
- -- 
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
Ackanomic - Web-Harfer, CotC, ChessUmpire, Map-Harfer, Senator

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 06:27:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Walmsley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Stuff

I convert 4 swingpoints into a bonus vote. I offer to trade 5 of my
swingpoints for anyone else's bonus vote. This offer is valid for the first
two people to take me up on it. I then go the Ackanomic institute of
genetic replication.

MTM.

- -- 
Tom Walmsley [email-masked]
http://website.lineone.net/~t.walmsley/index.html
AIM: TGW666 ICQ 2925739
Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston, lausajne estas rano en mia bideo.

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 10:18:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (John Bollinger)
Subject: Acka: No Justice

I give up ownership of The Entity Formerly Known as the Supreme Court.  I
resign as Justice.  I place myself on the CFJ ineligibility list.

Being a Justice has been great fun, and breadbox made a fantastic partner.
I find, however, that I cannot adequately discharge the duties of that
office, and I do not forsee a time in the near future when I will be able
to do so.

Citizen ThinMan
Last player to receive a presidential appointment to the Supreme Court

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 11:48:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Rushing off quickly

I go to the Ackanomic Institute of Genetic Replication.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 12:16:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Curious.

I go to the Ackanomic Institute of Genetic Replication.

IB

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 12:44:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Gavin M. Doig" <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka: Bandwagon

I go to the Ackanomic Institute of Genetic Replication.

Rex Mundi.

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 12:55:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: No Justice

On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, John Bollinger wrote:

> 
> I give up ownership of The Entity Formerly Known as the Supreme Court.  I
> resign as Justice.  I place myself on the CFJ ineligibility list.
> 
> Being a Justice has been great fun, and breadbox made a fantastic partner.
> I find, however, that I cannot adequately discharge the duties of that
> office, and I do not forsee a time in the near future when I will be able
> to do so.
> 

If breadbox thinks he can handle me, I would be interested in joining The
Entity Formerly Known as the Supreme Court.

Vynd

[email-masked]

> 
> Citizen ThinMan
> Last player to receive a presidential appointment to the Supreme Court
> 

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 13:02:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Phoebe

AsI was walking down the trail to the Institute for Genetic Replication, I
came across a small matchbox lying on the ground in front of me.
Immediately suspcious, I picked it up and was about to shake it, when I
heard a small voice coming from inside.  I, having heard this voice
before, and having a wonderful memory, immediately recognized Phoebe and
opened the matchbox to let her out.

"Well, it's about time someone found me who was ready to listen," she
said.

Knowing better than to get on the bad side of any flea, much less Phoebe,
I merely nodded and continued along the path as she and I talked.

"So Phoebe," I asked, "Just what color are Mr. Tambourine Man's shoes".

"Blue" she replied, "but as for why, you'll have to figure it out for
yourself.  I'll only tell you to look carefully at the clues he's
provided."

With that, she folded her matchbox down to a tiny carryable size and
hopped off my shoulder (where she had been sitting to talk), and
disappeared into the grass along the side of the road.

When I got to the Institute, I thought long and hard about what Pheobe had
said, and then sent a runner to the Ackanomic Printing Guild to provide me
with copies of archived mail, a set of rules, and the recent archive of
songs that had played on the Ackanomic jukebox.  I figured that since I'd
be here for a few days, I might as well make myself useful.

Looking at the recent play list, I immediately saw how the most recent
songs related to Blue, and in fact Blue Suede Shoes, and therefore Elvis.
That only left me to figure out how Elvis related to They Might Be Giants
and being vindicated.

Fortunately for me, the archives distributed by the printing guild are
VERY well indexed and it took me only a few moments to find the references
I needed.

Back in April of 1997, /dev/joe had created a large number of prosthetic
foreheads, 2 of which were of elvis and the 2 immediately following were
the musicians of They Might be Giants.   A short time thereafter, the
elvis (old elvis specifically) forehead was brought before a forehead
tribunal along with two other foreheads (in different tribunals).  In the
end, of those three, only the elvis forehead was vindicated, and thus this
link to blue suede shoes.

Content with my detective work, I sent another runner off to deliver this
reasoning to Mr. Tambourine Man.

- --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: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 13:06:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Public Notice

I believe that my duel with else...if is now, in fact, completed.
Amazingly enough, I'm still the winner.  Just making sure anyone who has
to care about these things knows. :)

Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 13:12:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Phoebe (Alfvaen)

Alfvaen has found Phoebe.

- --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: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 14:15:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Phoebe

While I still don't know if my guess at MTM's treasure is correct or not,
I do want to thank /dev/joe for his help in finding various bits from the
archives of mail and helping me to discover the link between TMBG and
elvis :) (and also since it was his foreheads this puzzle was based on if
I'm correct :))

Therefore, I gift him A$10.

- --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: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 15:37:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexandre Owen Muniz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: acka: Bandwagon

On Tue, 25 Aug 1998 09:44:15 Gavin M. Doig wrote:
> I go to the Ackanomic Institute of Genetic Replication.
> 
> Rex Mundi.
> 

I do this also.

**two-star

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:25:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Walmsley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: The Gingham Telegraph

This month we bring you some leaked documents form Mr. Tambourine Mans house:

>While I still don't know if my guess at MTM's treasure is correct or not,
>I do want to thank /dev/joe for his help in finding various bits from the
>archives of mail and helping me to discover the link between TMBG and
>elvis :) (and also since it was his foreheads this puzzle was based on if
>I'm correct :))

Well, it looks as if the combination of Acka IRC's host and it's permanent
resident has struck again!

JT has found treasure number [whatever my last treasure was]. The map was
as follows:

This treasure shall be found by whoever tells MTM that his shoes were blue
and explains why to his satisfaction.

The logic to the clue was as follows:

Particle, universe, triangle and person were a reference to Particle Man by
They Might Be Giants. Adding two means to look two tracks after this song
which is We Want a Rock on the album Flood. This isalmost certainly the
source of inspiration for the Ackanomic Prosthetic Forehead (although to be
certain you'd have to ask the author of them who I believe is /dev/joe).
Even if it wasn't then with the addition of rocks to wind strings around
the link is fairly secure. Using the results to your own ends was
/dev/joe's museum win where he donated 500 prosthetic foreheads in one go.
I can't remember the next clue but it should have led to snowgod calling
forehead tribunals on three of these (Simon Marty Hariman, mr cwm and old
Elvis). The first two were deemed to be copies (and I believe that I am
currently wearing the original mr cwm forehead) but the old Elvis was
judged unique. This was the vindication.

JT was correct in pointing out that my recent songson the ASS pointed to
Elvis and Blue Suede Shoes. The first words of the song Walking in Memphis
incidentally are "Put on my blue suede shoes". My other song since I
burried was We Want a Rock which was an attempt to point out that that song
was part of the treasure hunt. The only other slight clue given was the
mention of /dev/joe when I buried it since he was pivotal to the central
event in Acka history needed to find this treasure.

I have to say I was surprised at how long it took for this to be found. I
was also surprised that JT and /dev/joe didn't see the link from "We Want a
Rock" to prosthetic Foreheads -  I know they had considered the possibility
that adding two was going two tracks forward on the album "Flood". I was
furthermore shocked at the originality of some of the guesses. I know for a
fact that /dev/joe was searching through the lyrics of songs I hadn't even
heard of looking for the word "shoes". I have to say though that I enjoyed
the treasure and may consider something similar in the future.

- -- 
Tom Walmsley [email-masked]
http://website.lineone.net/~t.walmsley/index.html
AIM: TGW666 ICQ 2925739
Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston, lausajne estas rano en mia bideo.

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 17:22:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFCJ 173 (INVALID)

Call For Criminal Judgement 173 - August 13, 1998
Subject: Hubert's Branch Stacking
Initiator: 867-5309 (sent Thu, 13 Aug 1998 21:03 Acka)
1st Judge: K 2 (selected 15 Aug 1998, 04:19 Acka) (deadbeat)
2nd Judge: Piz (selected 22 Aug 1998, 04:37 Acka) 
Judgement: INVALID

Statement:

On 5 August 1998 the player who is legally able to assume the Ackanomic
name of "Hubert" committed the Crime of Branch-Stacking.

Reasoning:

Rule 1009 states "Being a member of more than one Political Party
simultaneously is the Crime of Branch-Stacking."  The player legally able
to assume the Ackanomic name of Hubert (hereafter referred to as 867-5309)
is a member of the Razor Boomerangs Political Party, and has been pretty
much since joining Ackanomic.

Recently, in response to the proposed formation of the Anti-Voting
Preservation Party (or AVPP), the alleged criminal posted "I join the
AVPP."  I think this can be construed as a statement of intent to join, or
whatever was needed at the time.

Then, on August 5, Ethelred posted the following text:

"I think the AVPP now has enough members to be official. They are:

Idiot Boy
Atilla the Pun
K2
Tom Walmsley

I'm not sure if I need to pay the A$300 as has been suggested, since I'm
not actually transforming a society into a political party, and I
specified from the start that I was forming a political party, not a
society."

(E later corrected the list to include emself.)

Now, one question is: which Tom Walmsley did e mean?  The Org-Harfer seems
to believe that e referred to the player with the Real Life name of Tom
Walmsley, since no player with that Ackanomic name existed at the time.
This is not (exactly) a "867-5309's name used to be Tom Walmsley" CFJ, but
close to it.  (If that can be proven, this CFJ should, barring other
complications, be TRUE as far as I can see.)  But the player with the Real
Life name of Tom Walmsley (hereafter referred to as MTM) could not have
been a member of the AVPP, period.

You see, clause 6 of Rule 1003 explicitly states "No player may become a
member of an Organization without first expressing their consent to
joining it.."  MTM never expressed eir consent to join.  So, regardless of
867-5309's name at the time, MTM could never have been a member.

The reason I believe that 867-5309 *is* a member is a) because I believe
eir name change to "Tom Walmsley" succeeded, and b) because even had it
not succeeded, there was sufficient confusion to that effect at the time
that "Tom Walmsley" could have been accepted as a nickname for 867-5309.
In other words, there was only one player whose name could possibly have
been construed as Tom Walmsley who could legally have been a founding
member.  This is about as unambiguous as it gets.

Anyway,

Recommended Penalty:

An APOLOGY of 10 lines or more.
A DEDUCTION of 25 points from the criminal's score.
EXPULSION from the Anti-Voting Preservationist Party.
The ADMONISHMENT to "Don't do that again.  And we mean it this time."

Judge's Reasoning:

FORM OF STATEMENT

Rule 710 states:
"3) Its "statement" shall be "X committed the Crime of Y on Z", where X is
replaced with the name of a registered player, Y is replaced by the name of
a Crime as defined in the current ruleset, and Z is replaced by a date
between 0 and 30 days prior to the current date."

The Statement as submitted in the CFJ does not use the form "X committed the
Crime of Y on Z."

PROBLEMS WITH SUGGESTED PENALTIES

Rule 710 also states:

"5) It shall include a "suggested penalty" section, which is a recommended
penalty to be imposed on Player X, should a verdict of TRUE be reached. More
than one class of penalty may be recommended. The valid classes of penalties
are:
a) a DEDUCTION of 0 or more points from Player X's score.
b) a FINE of 1 or more A$ payable by Player X to the Treasury.
c) a SENTENCE in the Gaol of 1 or more days for Player X.
d) the TRANSFERENCE of one or more trinkets, gadgets, or A$ in the
possession of Player X to the initiator of the CFCJ.
e) the EXPULSION of Player X from the game.
f) a PUBLIC APOLOGY of 1 or more lines by Player X.
g) the REMOVAL of Player X from one or more Organizations to which e
currently belongs.
h) The IMPEACHMENT of Player X from a single specific office which e
currently holds."

The suggested penalty, "An APOLOGY of 10 lines or more," should use the term
PUBLIC APOLOGY. According to rule 710, no valid penalty class named APOLOGY
exists.

The suggested penalty, "EXPULSION from the Anti-Voting Preservationist
Party," is invalid. According to Rule 710, EXPULSION is from the game.
REMOVAL would be the correct term to expel a player from an Organization.

The suggested penalty, "The ADMONISHMENT to 'Don't do that again.  And we
mean it this time,'" is invalid, because no valid penalty class named
ADMONISHMENT exists according to Rule 710.

While it is true that these problems with the suggested penalties are not in
and of themselves enough to make the CFCU invalid (as Judge, it is within my
power, according to Rule 710, paragraph 8a, to amend, correct, or even
ignore them), they are, IMNSHO, Bad Form.

SELF-INCRIMINATION

Finally, it's pretty harfy to incriminate yerself. Don't do it again. And I
mean it this time. :-)

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 17:24:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: ACK #9

Today, we present this very special edition of the ACK financed by JT's
auction bid and celebrating the completion of my thesis today and the archive
of the ACK at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/2525/theack.html

                   Ackanomic Cyclopedia of Knowledge
Volume 1 issue 9                                           August 25, 1998
==========================================================================

Treasure Special Extravaganza
- -----------------------------
by /dev/joe

I put all my knowledge about a number of Acka's treasure maps here in one
place, in the hopes that (a) people will find some treasures, (b) more
people will be interested in treasures after reading this, and (c) maybe
somebody who has another bit of a solution to one of these, which I have
missed, but who still can't find the treasure, will work together with me
to find it.

Treasure 121 (buried by Red Barn on January 27, 1997; contains the trinket
Sceptre of Penguin Power worth A$75).  The only clue is a long sequence
(about 1000) hexadecimal digits with a smattering of X's interspersed.
I examined it several times and threw all my common tools at it, but I
could not make any sense out of the hex digits, the X's, or the thing as
a whole.

Here is the clue:

Treasure 135 (buried by Calvin N Hobbes on March 14, 1997; contains the
trinket Alien Shaking Ball worth A$20).  The clue for this one is a long
sequence of numbers, separated by (-) and (+) signs in parentheses as
they are shown here.  The numbers are certainly not random; though they
vary in magnitude from 0 to over 13 billion, there is a lot of repetition
and a lot of common factors, i.e., most of the numbers have 11 as a factor,
many have 101 as well, and some have other interesting factors in the same
vein (i.e., 3*37 = 111, and 41*271 = 11111).

Here is the clue:

1332243(-)831105(+)9509148(+)0(-)17928207(+)1(-)1(+)1332243(+)2(-)4(+)1(-)1(
+)8(-)9509148(+)4444(-)8888(+)88211178(-)8888(-)154(+)17928207(-)88211178(+)
17776(-)8888(+)2222(-)77(+)855547(-)17928207(+)1111(+)4444(-)88211178(+)1(-)
1(+)4(+)831105(-)1111(+)8(-)605(-)16(+)88211178(-)16(-)831105(+)88211178(-)1
7928207(+)4444(-)1(-)4444(+)1111(+)16(-)855547(+)1(-)1(+)1332243(+)16(-)1792
8207(+)2222(-)4(-)77(-)4(+)8(+)4444(+)4(+)4(-)605(-)17776(+)1(+)1(+)855547(+
)77(-)1(-)88211178(+)1332243(+)16(-)17928207(+)2222(-)4(-)77(+)1111(+)17776(
- -)13634115363(+)175322466(-)154(-)4(+)4(+)1(+)605(-)839546037(+)1(+)2222(-)1
54(-)16(+)88211178(-)8888(+)1(+)16(-)154(+)8888(-)17928207

And here is a hint given soon afterward:

There was once a treasure buried
With a map to it both silly and rabid,
That without Robert Sevin's webpage,
And fourteen squared that's not an age
From almighty one we must start
With lonely zero on his own, apart,
Perhaps the lucky one will see
Differences in numbers to his glee 

One of Robert Sevin's web pages is at http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~mitcharf/
but it is not the page that he had when this treasure was buried.

In case anybody can make anything out of these numbers, here are the
factorizations:
0
1 (appears 15 times)
2
4 = 2^2 (appears 8 times)
8 = 2^3 (appears 3 times)
16 = 2^4 (appears 7 times)
77 = 7 * 11 (appears 4 times)
154 = 2 * 7 * 11 (appears 4 times)
605 = 5 * 11^2 (appears 3 times)
1111 = 11 * 101 (appears 4 times)
2222 = 2 * 11 * 101 (appears 4 times)
4444 = 2^2 * 11 * 101 (appears 5 times)
8888 = 2^3 * 11 * 101 (appears 5 times)
17776 = 2^4 * 11 * 101 (appears 3 times)
831105 = 3^2 * 5 * 11 * 23 * 73 (appears 3 times)
855547 = 7 * 11 * 41 * 271 (appears 3 times)
1332243 = 3^2 * 11 * 13457 (appears 4 times)
9509148 = 2^2 * 3^2 * 11^2 * 37 * 59 (appears twice)
17928207 = 3^2 * 11^2 * 101 * 163 (appears 7 times)
88211178 = 2 * 3^2 * 11^2 * 101 * 401 (appears 7 times)
175322466 = 2 * 3^2 * 11^2 * 101 * 797
839546037 = 3^2 * 11^2 * 17 * 101 * 449
13634115363 = 3^2 * 11 * 31 * 4442527

Treasure 147 (buried by Habeous Corpus on May 7, 1997; contains the trinket
Wouf Houng, worth A$1).  The clue for this one is a long sequence of
zeroes, ones, and twos, which I have not been able to decode.

Here is the clue:

This one is quite confounding, as there are exactly 703 digits in
the list, a number which does not factor into anything normal.
If you break it into triples, and assign them as 000=A, 001=B, etc.
you can get a 1-1 assignment into letters, and 222 is the only triple
which does not occur when they are split that way, but there is an
extra 2 left over at the end, and I have made no sense of the
resulting mess.

Treasure 169 (buried by Alfvaen on June 18, 1997; contains two trinkets
worth a total of A$55).  The clue for this one is a string of 132 hex
digits.  Again I have no idea what these mean, but recent messages by
Alfvaen suggest they may be somewhat Vigenere-encoded.  I went through
his remaining prayers for deliverance after solving the Lucky Ball and
Chain treasure recently, and didn't find any hints for this one.

Here is the clue and the burial message:

Having buried the Exquisite Dead Guy, and finished the Tagline Attribution
Quiz, I am now burying the H****t [ed. - I can't seem to get my terminal to
enter this word correctly :-) ] Feathers and the Five Hundred Misplaced
Ackadollars--just cause I got another treasure map idea. I am revealing the
following portion of the map: 

9D2FAEE4F353B636932019656968F69FE17EB295D007
A68FAEE67C947AC3E5E6DADFBFE089582EDC8E85F127
36BDB4B3D8BBF30EAECA958602ED481195E25D2786C9

Here is the recent hint:

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?

Treasure 178 (buried by two-star on July 19, 1997; contains the trinket
Curious Clock of Uesticlox, worth A$65, and A$2, for a total value of A$67).
The clue for this treasure is the following graphic:

          *G
        *e*L*OCo
  CA    clcNAECf*T
  CHCiAS*c*tAo*Eba*HAy
*E*c*f*tAEBDBhcI*NAE*E
  *rbE*o*GaE*nce*D*T*W
    *TCR*iad*rASAc*c
    aoaSBs*rbubNCECB
    *t*uBIcQce*r*k
  aH*N*aAA*ebLaLaT
  aA*tBAAE  bw*U*V
      BUBg    CACi

$ _

Even before two-star gave clues to this effect, I realized that half the
columns in this structure consist of nothing but *'s and tromino go
symbols.

Separating these results in the following pair of grids:

     *             G      
    ***C          eLOo    
 C  ccAC*      A  lNEfT   
 CCA**A*b*A    HiSctoEaHy 
****ABBc*A*   EcftEDhINEE 
 *b**a*c***    rEoGEneDTW 
  *C*a*AA*      TRidrScc  
  aaB*bbCC      oSsruNEB  
  **Bcc**       tuIQerk   
 a**A*baa      HNaAeLLT   
 a*BA b**      AtAE wUV   
   BB  CC        Ug  Ai   
                          
$_                        

I assumed that the puzzle was to reconstruct the tromino go game, and the
play of the game determined how the letters in the other grid were to be
read (either in the order pieces were played, or sorted by what letter was
on the corresponding tromino go space, etc.)  However, the info provided
did not seem to be enough to uniquely fill in the grid, and the fills
I finished did not lead to any obvious meaning in the other grid.  I have
since lost this grid to wilma's crash, but I will reconstruct what I can
here.

Note the tromino go rules require that each piece be played adjacent to
at least two units of edge, at least one unit of edge of an opponent's
piece, and not adjacent to any edge of the same letter, except the first
four pieces, where the first obvious has no adjacency requirement, the
second must be adjacent to it, and the third and fourth must be adjacent
to the previous piece without touching that player's own previous piece.
The fourth piece, an 'a', could touch the first piece, an 'A', and this
is the only way that could happen.  Pieces are played in the sequence
A, b, C, a, B, c, repeating until 30 pieces are played (the game has not
reached that number yet -- there are 84 spaces used or 28 pieces in the
grid, so we expect to find 4 c's, 4 B's, and 5 of each other piece, if
there have been no passes).  It is unlikely but possible (especially in a
specially-constructed puzzle) for a player to have no legal play on some
turn, and thus pass, skipping that piece in the sequence.  A round ends
when a piece or connected group of pieces belonging to one player has no
connection to the outside edge.  It is possible that the game has ended,
but if there are multiple enclosed segments, they must all have been
enclosed by a single piece, the last play made.

So first, we notice the piece which extends farthest to the left must fill
those three *'s that are farthest left, and must be an A or a because it
touches a b and a C.  However, there are already parts of 5 distinct A's
in the grid, so it must be an a, unless there have been enough passes to
already create 6 A's -- 3 passes, which is implausible. The next * right
of this piece touches a complete C, a complete a or A, and a single b, so
it can only be another b.

     *             G      
    ***C          eLOo    
 C  ccAC*      A  lNEfT   
 CCA**A*b*A    HiSctoEaHy 
aab*ABBc*A*   EcftEDhINEE 
 ab**a*c***    rEoGEneDTW 
  *C*a*AA*      TRidrScc  
  aaB*bbCC      oSsruNEB  
  **Bcc**       tuIQerk   
 a**A*baa      HNaAeLLT   
 a*BA b**      AtAE wUV   
   BB  CC        Ug  Ai   

The a piece at the lower left must be completed with the one of the two
adjacent *'s.  If the upper one is used, the other * cannot be filled in.
I assume that all the *'s are meant to be filled in with tromino pieces,
since the letter grid has a letter for each of them.  Also, a pair of A's
just right of center can only be completed by one nearby *, so I have
filled that in.  Also, a pair of B's below and left of center can only be
completed on one *, out of 2 adjacent ones, because the other is next to
a b.

     *             G      
    ***C          eLOo    
 C  ccAC*      A  lNEfT   
 CCA**A*b*A    HiSctoEaHy 
aab*ABBc*A*   EcftEDhINEE 
 ab**a*cA**    rEoGEneDTW 
  *C*a*AA*      TRidrScc  
  aaB*bbCC      oSsruNEB  
  *BBcc**       tuIQerk   
 a**A*baa      HNaAeLLT   
 aaBA b**      AtAE wUV   
   BB  CC        Ug  Ai   

Now, the three *'s to the left and below the B tromino we just completed
must be a complete tromino - there is no other way to fill the lower-left-
most of these.  It must be a c or C, and as there are already parts of 5
other C's, it is a c.  This leaves only one way to complete the a and A
trominoes adjacent to this one, which leaves only one way to complete the
b adjacent to that A, and the C at the bottom, and the c above the A.

     *             G      
    ***C          eLOo    
 C  ccAC*      A  lNEfT   
 CCA**A*b*A    HiSctoEaHy 
aab*ABBc*A*   EcftEDhINEE 
 ab**a*cA**    rEoGEneDTW 
  aC*a*AA*      TRidrScc  
  aaBcbbCC      oSsruNEB  
  cBBcc**       tuIQerk   
 accAAbaa      HNaAeLLT   
 aaBA bbC      AtAE wUV   
   BB  CC        Ug  Ai   

Now, the pair of b's next to the piece we marked x can be completed with
either of two *'s adjacent to it.  If we fill it using the lower one, we
get a chain-reaction forcing everything to be filled as follows:

     B             G      
    BBCC          eLOo    
 C  ccACb      A  lNEfT   
 CCAcBAAbbA    HiSctoEaHy 
aabAABBccAA   EcftEDhINEE 
 abbCaacAbb    rEoGEneDTW 
  aCCabAAb      TRidrScc  
  aaBcbbCC      oSsruNEB  
  cBBccaC       tuIQerk   
 accAAbaa      HNaAeLLT   
 aaBA bbC      AtAE wUV   
   BB  CC        Ug  Ai   

If we fill it with the top *, we get:

     B             G      
    cBBC          eLOo    
 C  ccACC      A  lNEfT   
 CCAABAAbbA    HiSctoEaHy 
aabbABBcbAA   EcftEDhINEE 
 abCCaccAbb    rEoGEneDTW 
  aCaabAAb      TRidrScc  
  aaBcbbCC      oSsruNEB  
  cBBccaC       tuIQerk   
 accAAbaa      HNaAeLLT   
 aaBA bbC      AtAE wUV   
   BB  CC        Ug  Ai   

In one of his clues, two-star says the description of the clock is
important.  That description reads "An ornate antique clock with a brass
casing, the Curious Clock's main claim to curiosity is that while the
short hour hand proceeds clockwise as normal, the larger minute hand moves
counter-clockwise. It does not have a millenium hand or an eon hand.  It
does however have a small grotz counter which allows it to detect if it 
has been buried; while it is buried, it is frozen showing a time that has
something to do with the map according to which it is buried. While it is
not buried it keeps perfect Ackanomic time."

JT, Alfvaen, and Vynd all have received trinkets which are supposed to
be accompanied by private clues to this treasure, but I have not seen
any of them.  Probably one of those combined with my above analysis is
sufficient to decode the map, seeing as two-star claimed they were
individually enough to find the map :-).

Treasure 207 (buried by Attila the Pun on April 5th, 1998; contains the
trinket "The Mu-Cow" worth A$100).  Except for those who joined more
recently than this, there is hardly anybody in Acka who hasn't figured
out the gist of this map by now, even if they haven't figured out the
code.  The clue reads "di,noy s [tp[sds; ejovj trvorbrd mp URD bpyrd smf
fprd mpy gso; wipti, yp gomf yjr <i=Vpe/".  This code, also used for
a couple other treasures around the same time, involves shifting your
hands by one position on a standard U.S. keyboard.  Thus, it says
"sumbit [sic] a propasal [sic] which recieves no YES votes and does not
fail quorum to find the Mu-Cow."

Treasure 212 (buried by The Gingham Wearer (now Mr Tambourine Man) on May 12,
1998; contains the trinket "That quick brown fox" worth A$75).  This asks
players to send TGW a minimized sequential pangram.  A pangram (in generic
terms) is a sentence or other text which contains all the letters of the
alphabet.  Perhaps the best known pangram is "A quick brown fox jumps over
the lazy dog," which, at 33 letters, is quite short -- the only repeated
letters are r and 6 extra vowels.  Shorter yet is "The five boxing wizards
jump quickly," with 30 letters, with 4 extra vowels and no repeated
consonants.  "Waltz, bud nymph, for quick jigs vex," rates just 28 letters,
repeating only the u and i, and is about the shortest possible without
using obscure words.

This treasure asks for something slightly different.  The "sequential"
requirement is that the 26 letters of the alphabet appear in alphabetical
order in the sentence.  Obviously this requires a few extra letters; TGW
suggested it could be done easily in 45 and with some effort in as few as
40.  The rec.puzzles archive is usually an excellent source for answers to
this sort of thing, and after only a minimal amount of work on the puzzle
myself, to beat the 45 mark TGW suggested as a starting point, I looked it
up there.  I found this page:
http://xraysgi.ims.uconn.edu/rpa-output/language/english/sentences/pangram.s
which had lots of pangram-related stuff, but not the answer to this puzzle.
There are many regular pangrams, and there are word lists with all letters
in alpha order, but not *sentences* with the letters in alpha order.

Incidentally, another page in the rec.puzzles archive, http://xraysgi.ims.
uconn.edu/rpa-output/language/english/self.ref/self.ref.letters.s
(paste together the lines; sorry the URL is so long) lists some solutions
for the other type of pangram referred to in an Ackanomic treasure, the
self-referential one ("This sentence contains two a's, one b, ...").  Note
that it was proven in the solution to that treasure that no pangram could
be formed in the specified form and with the given beginning part of the
sentence; with other forms or sentence beginnings it is possible.

Treasure 218 (buried by the Razor Boomerang Party on May 29, 1998; contains
the trinket A Golden Boomerang Statue worth A$50).  The clue is a series of
numbers of magnitudes from 560 million to 2.06 billion.  Dividing these by
256^3 gives numbers from 33 to 122, so I considered breaking each number
into 4 bytes, and interpreting the bytes as ASCII.  This gives the following
(which should be read as a single string; the returns are only so this
message doesn't break people's mailers or vice versa):

crzwnx-c,u!vzx?rmn-fmc!gzgdzxmwcrzx!pmxdmmgzx!fe-h!fq?rmamxxzacuv,m-c-crz!
f-?zxcmcrz'bz-cnmfi?r!cn-crzmxnenfmwcrzx!pmxdmmgzx!fef!gzoi-r!uuwnfqcrn-cx
z!-bxzjcrz!f-?zxgb-cdz,m-czq,bduna!uuvnf!gz--!ezcncuzqi!ay!.x!pmxdmmgzx!fe
z:a!s!cnmfi!fqcrzcz:cmwcrzgz--!ezgb-camfc!nfz:!acuvcrz?mxq-inlumszl:ki?rzx
z:n-xz,u!azqdvcrz!f-?zxcmcrz!dmsz'bz-cnmfj!,u!vzx?rm,m-c-!fnfamxxzacxz-,mf
- -zn-crzxz!wczxnfzunenduzcmwnfqcrzx!pmxdmmgzx!fecxz!-bxzj

This tricky cryptogram reads (approximately):

thefirstplayerwhoisnotamemberoftherazorboomerangs,andwhocorrectlypoststhea
nswertothequestion'whatistheoriginoftherazorboomerangname?'shallfindthistr
easure.theanswermustbepostedpublicallyinamessagetitled'acka:razorboomerang
excavation'andthetextofthemessagemustcontainexactlythewords'i love x 'wher
exisreplacedbytheanswertotheabovequestion.aplayerwhopostsanincorrectrespon
seisthereafterineligibletofindtherazorboomerangtreasure.

It is not immediately clear which symbols fill in the spaces in the
quotation.  JT hinted to me, upon realizing how far I had gotten, that
all the same symbols were preserved, and only at this point did I
realize the form the cryptogram (solved the hard way, beginning with
finding the sequence for "razor boomerang" in the text repeatedly).

The key is an alphabet shift based on the keyboard again, but trickier
this time.  The keys have been shifted to the left two keys and up one
row, wrapping around, and with a different arrangement of symbols to the
right of the letters than on a US keyboard.  None of the symbols translate
to a symbol, though, so assuming the order is consistent, we can fill in
the missing symbols with ! (encoded as k) and - (encoded as l).

code: qwertyuiop:asdfghjkl'?zxcvbnm,.!-
real: dfghjkl'?zxcvbnm,.!-qwertyuiop:as

Thus, the message says (properly capitalized and with spaces added):

The first player who is not a member of the Razor Boomerangs, and who
correctly posts the answer to the question 'What is the origin of the
Razor Boomerang name?' shall find this treasure.  The answer must be
posted publically in a message titled 'Acka: Razor Boomerang Excavation'
and the text of the message must contain exactly the words 'i-love-x!'
where x is replaced by the answer to the above question. A player who
posts an incorrect response is thereafter ineligible to find the Razor
Boomerang treasure.

I found the source of the Razor Boomerang in a web search as the game
Odyssey.  I posted such, and was called wrong, probably on a
technicality.  The treasure seems to have been made intentially full
of unclear technicalities to make it annoying and hard to find.
Whether the capitalization is an issue, spaces are meant to be added
to the quotation or put in place of the -'s which appear nowhere else
in the code, the quotation marks are supposed to be included in the
text of the message, etc. is unclear.  My message said I-love-Odyssey!
so try some other combination of the answers to the above questions.

Some other treasures are not listed; this means I can't provide any more
info than what is already publicly known and listed on the treasure
harfer's page, except for the Jukkasjarvi treasure, my treasure with the
antiquities in it, and the treasure with my gold bars in it, which are
omitted intentionally.  A couple puzzle-like treasures (the Flora Amanita
and two-star's soot-covered tome are the prime examples) are included in
the ones I have no help to offer on.

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

End of ackanomic digest V3 #283
*******************************