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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > 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 > _______________________________________________ > Icehouse mailing list > Icehouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://lists.looneylabs.com/mailman/listinfo/icehouse