The Big White Gazette

"Wasting Bandwidth Longer Than Any Other Ackanomic Paper Still In Existence"

With the recent crisis in Ackanomic caused by Malenkai's attempted(failed?) depature, the possible conflicts this may have created with the Vulcan Coup's legacy of Rule 1, bringing about confusion as to who held the offices of Speaker and Clerk of the Court, not to mention Slakko's possibly controversial agenda-hat win, The Big White Gazette is proud, as we enter into Ackanomic's second year, to bring to you, in addition to this long run-on sentence...Magic Potato Stats!

Magic Potato Stats

The Magic Potato was created very early in the history of Ackanomic, by Proposal 306(the seventh proposal ever submitted). So it has also been in existence for almost two years. The Gazette's researchers, in their slapdash investigation, only have data on the Potato's disposition from the beginning of the Ackanomic digest list in May 1996. (Though the first few messages there indicate that the Potato may have been neglected for a few weeks by that point.) Still, from that period, a few interesting facts about the Potato:

Niccolo Flychuck found the Potato the most times, a total of seven times--July 8, 1996, November 8, 1996, January 20, 1997, May 5, 1997, May 19, 1997, June 23, 1997, and September 22, 1997. And, in the possible thread where Malenkai remained Speaker after eir attempted departure, e also found it on January 12, 1998, for a total of eight. Runner-up is Malenkai emself, with a total of six times.

On the other hand, the current player who has gone the longest without finding the Potato even once is Vynd, who has been a player since February 28, 1997, close to eleven months, and hasn't found it yet.

Four players have found the Potato twice in successive weeks: Mr. Lunatic Fringe(then known as snowgod)found it October 21 and 28, 1996; AZTEC GOD found it June 30 and July 7, 1997; Karma found it November 3 and 10, 1997; and Bill the pirate king found it January 19 and 26, 1998. (Since the Great Tuba was not yet in existence in October 1996, Niccolo Flychuck also attained the distinction of being the first player to hold the Great Tuba two weeks in a row.)

ThinMan has found it the most frequently in a short period, three times in five weeks from September 1 to 29, 1997(and since e did not find it twice in a row from the above, you can figure out the dates). Furthermore, e also found it on August 4, for four times in two calendar months.

The longest period the Potato has gone without being found twice by the same player is 13 weeks, from July 22 to October 14, 1996, when it was found by Techno(now Crackfoo), Simon Marty Harriman, Brinjal, Wayne, snowgod(now Mr. Lunatic Fringe), Robin Hood, Pascal, this is not a name, Malenkai, mr cwm, breadbox, Uncle Sam, and Bascule, before being found by snowgod again. There was a string of eleven unique finders from February to May of 1997, but nothing longer than ten since.

The Gazette's researchers would have liked to also have stats on who has held the Potato the greatest percentage of eir time in Acka, but getting good information on the "lifespans" of all relevant players is difficult, and time constraints force us to put out this article without this information. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Treasure Update

One of Alfvaen's treasures, the "your useless head" one, has been found by Slakko, apparently entirely by accident. "E had me convinced," claims Alfvaen. "I'd intended to be sure that you had not only created a palindromic entity, but had done so specifically to find the treasure. I'd forgotten about the Agenda Hat, and so when Slakko went out of eir way to call it to my attention(as I'd done myself more than once while treasure-hunting), I leapt to a conclusion. Ah, well."

When pressed for treasure hints, Alfvaen said, "Obviously, any references to '7/8' were hints for the 'useless head' treasure. Look for hints anywhere in BWG articles(I haven't put all of them on my web pages due to lack of space, unfortunately), in trinket descriptions(one in particular, that I can't say that I actually created), etc. And it might not hurt to have a browse through a codes and ciphers book or two. I recommend one called Code Games by Norvin Pallas, although Andrew Pennycook's Codes And Ciphers is also worth a look."

Go to Alfvaen's Ackanomic page.

The Den of Ubiquity / Aaron V. Humphrey / alfvaen@telusplanet.net