That's kind of his point; or as I believe Terry Pratchett once said, genre fiction is a stew; you add things, you take things out, and the whole mess bubbles on.
That having been said: Harry Potter and Star Wars, a plot synopsis of Star Wars with names/places crossed out and filled in with Harry Potter names/places.
Orson Scott Card is one of the 'working' sci-fi authors; he has a few books that most people will point to as outstanding, and lots of people have their own favourites, but he's been consistantly putting out quality work for decades.
As opposed to, say, Joe Haldeman, who had two or three books that consistantly wind up on the master lists, and several that never seem to garner much attention at all.
And Clancy's a perfectly good writer. You just need to enjoy his genre. Say what you want, the man is excellent at intertwining multiple plot points, and he's usually pretty good at avoiding the deus-ex-machina. If you want depth in a Clancy book, read Without Remorse. Or Red Storm Rising. Or Cardinal of the Kremlin; his characterization of Filitov was excellent.
Personally, though, I think his 'golden years' were the Clark/Chavez stretch; Clear and Present Danger, Sum Of All Fears, Debt of Honor, Executive Decision. In that order.
Finally there was the question of the effect on the potential market. Certainly a lexicon would damage sales of an official Rowling lexicon, but the author felt (and I would agree) that a Rowling original would likely be a bigger draw for readership. Rowling has access to more material than anyone, and her encyclopedia would likely be a better piece of work for a collector. The author figured that Rowling's claim here was weak.
And yet, strangely enough, she's stated that she used this very site as a resource, it's intended purpose, rather than her own notes, or the books themselves.
Had it have remained a non-commercial web site, rather than a published book, how much do you want to bet that she'd have made use of it when creating her own 'lexicon?'
If you do this to somebody dead 50,000 years, it's called paleontology.
If you do this to somebody dead two thousand years, it's called archaeology.
If you do this to somebody dead a hundred years, it's called historical research from primary sources. (Letters to and from dead folks are found and auctioned, or donated to museums or estate, all the time.)
The ethics of the situation are simple. 'Digital' property is the same as all your other property; if you have something specific you want done with it, you'd best have a will, or something similar, that on your death, directs whatever to be done, be done.
Otherwise, it devloves to the executor, or next of kin, or whatever happens with all your other stuff.
"And are you not," said Fook leaning anxiously forward, "a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?"
"A five-week sand blizzard?" said Deep Thought haughtily. "You ask this of me who have contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the Big Bang itself? Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
Yup. Doing evasive things and doing random things, like leaving telltales such as chalk marks, window blinds at certain positions, and so on, are for run-of-the-mill embassy staff and other legals. This ties up the opposition's counter-espionage, provides a nice cover, and hey, you can throw in a legitimate marker or whatever every once in a while.
Having various University Degrees in Law, up to and including J.D., a doctorate, does not confer to you the right to practice law, no. For that, you need to pass an exam from the state Bar, a professional association of other lawyers. This allows you to practice professional law in that state.
Sounds like the plot for a decent little time travel story. Guy travels thirty years back, and writes an innocuous reply to an advertisement for a DEC server. "Hey, everybody, it suddenly occurs to me that there are absolutely NO mechanisms in SMTP to authenticate sender, recipient, blah blah blah. Sure, it's not a problem now, but hey, who knows where this ARPANET thing's going to go...."
What about after you've logged in? The possible keylogger isn't just looking for your UNIX password. Any emails you type (or read; why do people worry about a keylogger, but not, say, a packet capture sitting in front of the Internet uplink?) for example.
The answer of course is that you cannot. It's a public terminal, controlled by somebody else; there's NOTHING you can do to make that secure.
All you'd be able to do is bring your own hardware, and encrypt everything you do over the public Internet, or somebody else's connection.
The 50-100 organisms survived launch, space vacuum, 3 years of radiation exposure, deep-freeze at an average temperature of only 20 degrees above absolute zero, and no nutrient, water or energy source.
As a movie fan, one would expect that you'd understand that there is no One True AR. There are three or four sizes that are more or less 'standard'; 2.35:1, 1.78:1, 1.66:1 come to mind instantly.
I wonder what effect, if any, a 'deterrence' sticker would have. You see them on cars and houses all the time; 'car stereo will cease to operate if removed' or 'this building protected by Pro-Tex-Force(TM!)'.
Would a large, prominant sticker saying 'This laptop is encrypted and password protected. Unauthorized access attempts will delete all data and render the hardware inoperable' help at all?
Also, do we not have a bit of a self-selection problem here? Lets say you hire a scientist, and tell him or her 'Ok, let's discover which gene is responsible for hangnails.'
Should the scientist then reply 'God causes hangnails. I believe they were put in on day 5. Next project?' do you really think he or she will have a long and stirling career in science?
Actually, a very similar system was tried; I don't know if it's still in any sort of wide-spread use (or as wide-spread as it ever got) or not.
Hashcash involved calculating a hash, taking up CPU time, and sticking it in the email header. The recipient could easily verify that you'd spent CPU to send this message, hence, in theory, proving that you're not a spammer.
Scooby-Doo live action was worth it for a) Velma checking out Daphne's rack, and b) Scrappy-Doo's 'And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling sons-a-bi*slamming of a paddy wagon door cuts him off*'.
Slashdot Mirror
That's kind of his point; or as I believe Terry Pratchett once said, genre fiction is a stew; you add things, you take things out, and the whole mess bubbles on.
That having been said: Harry Potter and Star Wars, a plot synopsis of Star Wars with names/places crossed out and filled in with Harry Potter names/places.
Orson Scott Card is one of the 'working' sci-fi authors; he has a few books that most people will point to as outstanding, and lots of people have their own favourites, but he's been consistantly putting out quality work for decades.
As opposed to, say, Joe Haldeman, who had two or three books that consistantly wind up on the master lists, and several that never seem to garner much attention at all.
And Clancy's a perfectly good writer. You just need to enjoy his genre. Say what you want, the man is excellent at intertwining multiple plot points, and he's usually pretty good at avoiding the deus-ex-machina. If you want depth in a Clancy book, read Without Remorse. Or Red Storm Rising. Or Cardinal of the Kremlin; his characterization of Filitov was excellent.
Personally, though, I think his 'golden years' were the Clark/Chavez stretch; Clear and Present Danger, Sum Of All Fears, Debt of Honor, Executive Decision. In that order.
And yet, strangely enough, she's stated that she used this very site as a resource, it's intended purpose, rather than her own notes, or the books themselves.
Had it have remained a non-commercial web site, rather than a published book, how much do you want to bet that she'd have made use of it when creating her own 'lexicon?'
Didn't you just re-invent the Itanium? You know, more or less.
Argh, correcting myself. Anthropology, not paleontology.
Wikipedia: The Encyclopedia that anyone* can edit!
that we authorize
If you do this to somebody dead 50,000 years, it's called paleontology.
If you do this to somebody dead two thousand years, it's called archaeology.
If you do this to somebody dead a hundred years, it's called historical research from primary sources. (Letters to and from dead folks are found and auctioned, or donated to museums or estate, all the time.)
The ethics of the situation are simple. 'Digital' property is the same as all your other property; if you have something specific you want done with it, you'd best have a will, or something similar, that on your death, directs whatever to be done, be done.
Otherwise, it devloves to the executor, or next of kin, or whatever happens with all your other stuff.
Yup. Doing evasive things and doing random things, like leaving telltales such as chalk marks, window blinds at certain positions, and so on, are for run-of-the-mill embassy staff and other legals. This ties up the opposition's counter-espionage, provides a nice cover, and hey, you can throw in a legitimate marker or whatever every once in a while.
Yes, I remember that book. The page numbers had C-style comment markers around them, to facilitate scanning.
Having various University Degrees in Law, up to and including J.D., a doctorate, does not confer to you the right to practice law, no. For that, you need to pass an exam from the state Bar, a professional association of other lawyers. This allows you to practice professional law in that state.
Well, a search function isn't going to help you find all references to a person; it might let you find everywhere his name is, though.
Stressful... it's not a contest.
Sounds like the plot for a decent little time travel story. Guy travels thirty years back, and writes an innocuous reply to an advertisement for a DEC server. "Hey, everybody, it suddenly occurs to me that there are absolutely NO mechanisms in SMTP to authenticate sender, recipient, blah blah blah. Sure, it's not a problem now, but hey, who knows where this ARPANET thing's going to go...."
What about after you've logged in? The possible keylogger isn't just looking for your UNIX password. Any emails you type (or read; why do people worry about a keylogger, but not, say, a packet capture sitting in front of the Internet uplink?) for example.
The answer of course is that you cannot. It's a public terminal, controlled by somebody else; there's NOTHING you can do to make that secure.
All you'd be able to do is bring your own hardware, and encrypt everything you do over the public Internet, or somebody else's connection.
TCP Connection Rate Limiting?
If you can do it from 'any plant,' there are tons of fast growing weeds that would help immensely. Kudzu comes to mind.
Sorry, but reality says different.
You say that, but look at pretty much any incident on Earth where a more 'advanced' culture comes across a less 'advanced' culture.
As a movie fan, one would expect that you'd understand that there is no One True AR. There are three or four sizes that are more or less 'standard'; 2.35:1, 1.78:1, 1.66:1 come to mind instantly.
I wonder what effect, if any, a 'deterrence' sticker would have. You see them on cars and houses all the time; 'car stereo will cease to operate if removed' or 'this building protected by Pro-Tex-Force(TM!)'.
Would a large, prominant sticker saying 'This laptop is encrypted and password protected. Unauthorized access attempts will delete all data and render the hardware inoperable' help at all?
Also, do we not have a bit of a self-selection problem here? Lets say you hire a scientist, and tell him or her 'Ok, let's discover which gene is responsible for hangnails.'
Should the scientist then reply 'God causes hangnails. I believe they were put in on day 5. Next project?' do you really think he or she will have a long and stirling career in science?
Actually, a very similar system was tried; I don't know if it's still in any sort of wide-spread use (or as wide-spread as it ever got) or not.
Hashcash involved calculating a hash, taking up CPU time, and sticking it in the email header. The recipient could easily verify that you'd spent CPU to send this message, hence, in theory, proving that you're not a spammer.
Scooby-Doo live action was worth it for a) Velma checking out Daphne's rack, and b) Scrappy-Doo's 'And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling sons-a-bi*slamming of a paddy wagon door cuts him off*'.