[Icehouse] RE: Zendo rules question

[kerry_and_ryan at att.net]

I would say it's a technically valid but "dangerous" rule.  The problem is with the "exactly bisects" part of it.  "Exactly" within what tolerance?  If a koan is off by .1mm, is that good enough?  What about 1mm?  1.5mm?  And how can the master know that a koan with two larges that's off by .5mm is ok, while one with two smalls that's off by .4mm (which LOOKS like a bigger error because of the scale of the pieces) is bad?  What's he going to do, get out his micrometer?  Puh-lease.

This type of rule, which relies on fairly precise measurement, has been termed a "protractor rule".  Even though such a rule is allowed by the rules, many people, myself included, think that they are "a bad thing".

Some other examples:
 - AKHTBN iff no two pieces are more than 2" apart.  
   (You could use the width of a large or the height of 
   a small to guage an inch.)
 - AKHTBN iff one piece points at the corner of another piece.
 - AKHTBN iff a piece is "iced" in the Icehouse sense of the word.
   This requires that a certain number of flat pieces be pointing
   at an upright and that they be within their own lengths of the
   upright.

Summary: Valid?  Yes.  Good?  No.

And of course functionally equivalent statements of the rule are perfectly acceptable.  But we already discussed that in the "number of letter in a color" thread.
 
Ryan

  
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: David Artman <david at davidartman.com>
> Similar to the most recent question about "number of letters in top color 
> spelling equals value of all pieces":
> 
> I had a guy last night who's rule was "two pieces make the letter T."
> We eventually had to give, but that's probably more due to beer than difficulty 
> or references to externals being dismissed.
> 
> Bad rule or good? I was inclined to say it was outside reference (and did at the 
> time); but I can imagine someone guessing "two pieces same-size touching, one of 
> which exactly bisects the edge of the other one" and that would be so 
> functionally equivalent to describing how to draw the letter T that the guy 
> would have had to give the win.
> 
> Thoughts?
> David Artman
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