On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 5:09 PM, <gentzel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Just to illustrate how tricky this can get (and to what degree specifying > rules in an unavoidably ambiguous and imprecise language affects the legality > of the rule): > > What about when the bulb burns out? Every bulb has a finite lifetime. And > even if shedding no light, it could still be considered "the only source of > light". Also it was not specified if the bulb was on, or was even connected > to a source of power. > > International foot? Survey foot? > > Rules such as this, even if considered legal by some, require such a detailed > description that there will *always* be amgiguity and uncertainty. As such, > they can always be argued as being illegal under at least some interpretation > of the language and hence are effectively illegal for that reason. If the Master judges the koans consistently, does it matter? What about the slight modification: "akhtbni, given the centroid of the convex hull of the footprint of the Koan C and the point O 3m directly above C, there exists a pyramid A with these three properties: (1) no ray originating at O and passing through A also passes through any other pyramid B after A, (2) the line passing through the tip of A and the O does not pass through any other point of A, and (3) The half-plane bordered by C and O which contains the tip of A also intersects a second pyramid farther from the border of the half-plane than the tip of A" ?