[...] Just over a week ago, I wrote about the ethical dilemma over the abandoned sale of a house in which three people had been murdered. [...]

Julian, you forget that non-deterministic FSMs equivalent to deterministic FSMs, they just require fewer states. But “God moves more quickly than you’d expect” really doesn’t have the same ring to it… Now if God was a non-deterministic pushdown automaton, then there’s something we could all gather round and offer ritual sacrifices to carve graven images of venerate above all others! Who else could resolve a shift-reduce conflict in your grammar?

Are there laws regulating hauntings, fictional settings aside?

Well, according to the Internet, yes…

In Iceland, there was a law on the statute books for many years that enabled people to legally summons a ghost that had been tormenting them to court and have it bound over to authorities. – Ref

As the publican said to the fox’s ghost, in the old joke, it is illegal to re-tail spirits after midnight.

I suspect the linguistic differences may be even more local than which state your are in.

Odd. I can think of three Sydney-siders, straight off the bat, that I have spoken to about real estate agents, who dropped the word “agent” more often than not. I have heard it more wide-spread than that. Maybe I should be calling their sanity into question!

believing in a “Finite State Machine”

I like this idea! I am trying to imagine what the priesthood would be like if God was represented as a Finite State Machine for your soul. I assume God would no longer move in mysterious ways! … Oh, unless it was non-deterministic.

I also haven’t heard of real estate as the agent.

Also, I kind of want to live in a haunted house. Something with a bit of interest and history. A house with secret passages and things would also be cool. I think if I get into the habit of air-thrusting, people would eventually get disgusted and stop peering in windows.

I think you will find that a desire for privacy is a society-wide one; there are laws about privacy, and stalking, and such. Are there laws regulating hauntings, fictional settings aside?

I’ve lived in NSW all my life and have never heard anyone (except maybe someone whose sanity would be called into question) mention “talking to the real estate”.

I suspect the linguistic differences may be even more local than which state your are in.

As another aside: When I saw you refer to belief in “FSM” I wondered what you meant by believing in a “Finite State Machine” – I’ve been in computing too long, methinks.