Round 125 summary Judge: Jeremy Selengut Wizard: Jesse Welton Theme: The Final Frontier (of sports) Player: Eligibility: Style: *New Players* Ineligible 0.0 Karl Low Ineligible 0.0 Richard Wein Ineligible +0.5 Ed Murphy Ineligible -1.0 Anton Cox Ineligible +1.2 Ronald Kunne Ineligible +1.5 Christian Leonhard Ineligible -0.5 Aron Wall 11-16 16:14:54 +2.0 <- Winner, New Judge and New Wizard!!! The rules: Karl Low wrote: >>>>>Begin 125:1 Due to general relativity, any game played on a galactic level must ensure that the rules are consistent through-out both time and space. In the spirit of this, all rules of this FRC round must apply to all other rules, even those posted previously. As an example, in Black-hole Basketball, a player such as Michael "Jordan" Martian, the number 34 player for the Earth team, often refuses to play on planets with high-gravity, since the regulation basket height becomes impossible for him to reach. As might be expected, this has some disastrous results on the Earth team's performance. End 125:1<<<<< -- Judgement: VALID Style: 0 Eligibility: 1999-11-09 15:33:07 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-02 18:28:14 GMT ************************************************** Richard Wein (Tich) wrote: <<>> All rules except this one must name a sport. <<>> -- Judgement: VALID Style: +0.5 Eligibility: 1999-11-09 15:59:44 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-02 18:29:56 GMT ************************************************** Ed wrote (125:3): In Baseketball, all balls are required to have the same pattern of stitching, regardless of their size. The tailoring industry is almost, but not entirely, unaffected by this requirement. Addendum: All rules in this round are required to either be 125:2 or apply to themselves. -- Rule Date: 1999-11-02 21:15:55 GMT Judgement: VALID Style: -1 Eligibility: 1999-11-09 21:15:55 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-02 21:20:28 GMT ************************************************** Aron Wall wrote (125:4): >>>>>> The first rule of this round shall have mentioned General Relativity. The next three rules after it shall have made their restrictions apply differently to different rules. All future rules, however, shall restrict all other rules equally. That is, they must restrict all rules in such a way that it does not matter for the restriction which order the rules of this round that were restricted came in. Violators of this rule shall, in addition to having their rule declared INVALID, be forced to play a full game of the deadly sport of Basebat. Basebat was invented by the Buman Heings who inhabit the planet Dirt. They are notorious for copying the inhabitants of the planet Earth. They usually get things mixed up though. The rules of Basebat are exactly the same as the rules for Baseball, except that the terms "ball" and "bat" are switched. Imagine trying to deflect a bat traveling toward you at 80 MPH with a baseball... >>>>>> -- Rule Date: 1999-11-03 00:41:56 GMT Judgement: VALID Style: +1 Eligibility: 1999-11-10 00:41:56 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-03 13:54:04 GMT ************************************************** Anton Cox wrote (125:5): >>>>>> It may at first seem surprisingly that all galactic sports appear to be based on one or more games played on planet Earth. However, this is no accident. Indeed, for a time it was thought that the US were trying to take over the galactic sports federation - as only games based on American-dominated sports beginning with the letter B appeared to be being played. On closer inspection, it was discovered that there are in fact many other galactic level games. (One example is Crackit!, a bizarre hybrid of Cricket and Croquet in which teams of mallet-wielding maniacs attempt to prevent small red balls being bowled through hoops.) These sports are little known as they have found no buyer for their TV rights. To prevent boredom, no two rules may refer to the same galactic level sport. >>>>>> -- Rule Date: 1999-11-03 17:32:16 GMT Judgement: VALID Style: +1.2 Eligibility: 1999-11-10 17:32:16 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-03 18:26:02 GMT ************************************************** Ronald Kunne wrote (125:6): >>>> There exist for all galactic sports a system of handicaps, to compensate for the difference in physical properties of the inhabitants of different planets. You don't see why? Imagine for a moment a game of GalactiChess without handicaps between a mouse-size brained Lopotopian and a Brinjol who uses a motorized cart to transport its oversized exo-brain! FRC rules also carry handicaps: it's the first number that appears explicitly in a rule. Except for one exception (denoting "no handicap") these numbers are unique. >>>> -- Rule Date: 1999-11-05 08:03:49 GMT Judgement: VALID Style: +1.5 Eligibility: 1999-11-12 08:03:49 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-05 13:51:59 GMT ************************************************** Christian Leonhard wrote: Rule 125.7 >>>>> Did you know that of the 4,294,967,296 sports incorporated under the Galactic Athletic Charter, no fewer than 4,294,967,295 of them involve the use of balls on one kind or another? It's true! Many, like PanGalactic Ballball, feature little else. Any sport named in a handicapped rule must include at least one "ball" in its name and/or that rule's description of the sport. >>>>> -- Rule Date: 1999-11-05 19:00:22 GMT Judgement: VALID Style: +0.5 Eligibility: 1999-11-12 19:00:22 GMT Notes: It seemed at first that the rule might be INVALID on account of 125:4 which states that "All future rules [...] shall restrict all other rules equally" so that the exception given on account of having a non-handicap handicap would not play. However, Aron is at pains to point out in that rule that he is specifically referring to discrimination only based on rule order, so its OK. The other issue is Christian's reference to "handicapped" rules in contrast, we assume, to non-handicapped rules. How does that work since all rules have a handicap value (by 125:6). It seems consistent with regard to Ronald's reference to the handicap number which refers to "no handicap" -Judge Jeremy -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-05 20:54:19 GMT ************************************************** Aron Wall wrote (125:8): > >>>>>>>>> >As you can easily see, the handicap numbers have been secretly >introduced into rules in order to have some way of ordering them (as >chronological order is now forbidden in the rules of Nomic-ball). The >handicaps shall be integers that range from 1 to 4,294,967,296. Rules >which have the restriction layed on them that they shall not >descriminate based on rule order may, if they are handicaped, only >restrict rules with a lower, equal, or no handicap. > >>>>>>>>> >-- >Rule Date: 1999-11-09 16:14:54 GMT Judgement: VALID Style: +1 Eligibility: 1999-11-16 16:14:54 GMT -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-09 19:29:47 GMT ************************************************** Christian Leonhard wrote: >Rule 125:9 > >>>>> >Gentlemen, let us of the FRC not forget the sad lesson offered by the >example of HappyFunBall, a once noble sport which has in latter days >degenerated through unchecked rules-tinkering to its current sorry state as >hardly more than a curiosity. It is for precisely this reason that the >number of unhandicapped rules may never equal or exceed the number of >handicapped rules. (Handicap Value: 2) ><<<<< >-- >Rule Date: 1999-11-10 20:16:40 GMT Judgement: INVALID Style: -1.0 Eligibility: 11-11 19:00:22 Reasoning: This rule really puts to the test the interpretation of 125:4's injunction that: "[restrictions] must restrict all rules in such a way that it does not matter for the restriction which order the rules of this round that were restricted came in." Christian's restriction requires the summing up of all the handicapped and non-handicapped rules at all time points along some time frame which is consistent with common sense, the English language and 125:4 (since he used the word "never"). The first factor I will consider is that it must be possible that this rule be consistent with every arbitrary ordering of the present rules of this round. (Note that there is a loophole in 125:4 which states that: "All future rules [...] shall restrict all _other_ rules equally." Since it is not necessary, then, that 125:9's restriction restrict 125:9 in an order-insensitive fashion, we needn't consider orderings which place 125:9 in any other place than last after the current rule set.) The second factor is the time frame into which "never" sits. The most natural time frame of an frc round is linear and punctate - the only times that matter are the times at which a new rule is added to the rule set. At the time 125:1 was submitted there were no handicaps, so one could argue that at that time the number of unhandicapped rules exceeded the number of handicapped rules. Alternatively, and with justification, I think, one could argue that all current restrictions applicable to earlier rules should be considered when determining whether this rule is consistent with those earlier rules, thus we can consider rule 125:1 to have a handicap (of 34). Unfortunately, rule 125:2 must then be considered also to have "no handicap" since it's handicap value is 1. Thus, at that time, the number of handicapped and unhandicapped rules were equal. By these arguments I must conclude that "never" cannot consistently mean "not at any time point at which a new rule is added to the rule set." Is it reasonable to interpret "never" as equivalent to "not now and not any time from now on?" The implication of this is that for the purposes of this restriction, times prior to the submission of this rule do not count. Is this inconsistent with 125:4? Since, thanks to the loophole mentioned above, we can always put this rule last, the rule is insensitive to the order of all the other rules presently in the rule set. Now, as far as linguistics goes, this interpretation is a grammatical stretch. Our convention has been that if a rule refers to "all rules" then it applies equally to past as well as future rules, shouldn't we then regard "never" in the same way? How about looking at it in context of the words around it, does "may never" imply a tense? In English, "has never" means up until now, "will never" means from this time forward, "never again" means it happened at least once before, but will not in the future. To say a thing "may never" be, I think, implies for all time past, present and future. Sorry, Christian, I can find no wiggle room here... -Judge Jeremy -- Judgement Date: 1999-11-11 16:40:03 GMT ************************************************** Ronald Kunne wrote (VOID, arrived after expiration of eligibility by 10 minutes): >>>> At the time the Earth joined the GSF those bi-peds succeeded in getting FBC -a Nomic variation played with a ball that developed out of FRC- validated as a galactic level sport. The found memory of a Round where the word 'never' let two a weeklong discussion seem to be the main argument of acceptance. One lonely historian stick to the theory that the main reason was that after the finishing of the Round the number of handicapped Rules was greater than the number of unhandicapped Rules. >>>> -- Rule Date: 1999-11-12 08:14:55 GMT Note from the webmaster (Andre Engels): There was one overrule proposal, proposal 125:A by Christian proposed to declare 125:9 VALID. FOR: None AGAINST: Aron Wall, Ronald Kunne