> blog post typed in a few minutes has a different value then a game that > might have taken month or years to create
I don't know about games specifically but I have seen many works that took months or years to create that were of negative values. One pays for results, not effort.
>...would a laser be defeated if you gave the missile a mirror paint coat?
No. The peak electric field strength is such that electrons are ripped right off the atoms of the target. They then form a plasma which absorbs the radiation, heating and vaporizing the target. In fact a mirror surface would make things worse by doubling the intensity at the surface.
> First, there is NO country on this planet where child porn is legal.
Different governments define it differently. In the USA drawings are never child pornography (though they may be obscenity). In Sweden and several other countries they can be. Thus your tenacle porn hentai may be legal in New York but get you busted in Stockholm.
>...it's valuable enough to threaten the person with the password to divulge > it.
That only works if you have both the computer and the person. Rubber hose cryptography is of little use if you have the laptop because a British cabinet member left it in a taxi.
> What you end up with is no-one having any confidence in the results - as > they have only ever been produced in one way...
Software does not produce results. Experiments produce results. Software assists with the math required to analyze those results. We are asking that you publish all the steps in your analysis. That means publishing the software.
> This raises the question in what programming language the scientific code > should be published.
The one it was written in. What should be published is the exact code that was compiled and run to generate the data. Think of it as similar to making the raw data available.
> What is the point of virtualizing a supercomputer?
They'll be able to reload the image of your stellar evolution simulation in a few seconds after the guy doing nuclear weapons simulations has had his time. Never mind that the two simulations don't even run under the same OS.
Slashdot Mirror
...that Flattr be "regulated as a bank"? After all, we can't have people going around doing things without permission now can we?
> blog post typed in a few minutes has a different value then a game that
> might have taken month or years to create
I don't know about games specifically but I have seen many works that took months or years to create that were of negative values. One pays for results, not effort.
> It's a story about ideas...
"Ideas"? You want the guy to sprain his brain or something?
> Just try to be as faithful to the books as possible...
This is Hollywood we are talking about here.
> ...and try to tell a really good story!
Again, this is _Hollywood_. You know, the people who made the Starship Troopers movie?
Don't worry. The story will be left as a book. What gets made into a movie will have no connection with Asimov's work other than the title.
3. Mount it above eye level and design it so that the beam cannot be deflected below the horizontal.
Amazing honesty.
> ...would a laser be defeated if you gave the missile a mirror paint coat?
No. The peak electric field strength is such that electrons are ripped right off the atoms of the target. They then form a plasma which absorbs the radiation, heating and vaporizing the target. In fact a mirror surface would make things worse by doubling the intensity at the surface.
> First, there is NO country on this planet where child porn is legal.
Different governments define it differently. In the USA drawings are never child pornography (though they may be obscenity). In Sweden and several other countries they can be. Thus your tenacle porn hentai may be legal in New York but get you busted in Stockholm.
How did the USA force you to use the RFID inside Europe?
> The scope of DMCA is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about
> restrictions on access to information.
Please explain in what way the DMCA limits Google's ability to provide access to information.
> Where's the pro-forma jab?
I took care of that. See my comment above.
> Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator.
Microsoft has always been a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator (though I suppose dumpster-diving does require a certain amount of agility).
> Ironically, Xenix was Microsoft's UNIX product...
Which SCO developed for Microsoft.
> It's still too much information on a site which sees me as a commodity...
Any commercial site that you are not paying sees you as a commodity.
> The problem is that if everyone uses the same software they'll never notice
> any systemic failures in the processing it performs.
I'm not suggesting that everyone use the same software. I'm suggesting that everyone have the opportunity to examine everyone else's software.
/dev/random works for me.
> ...it's valuable enough to threaten the person with the password to divulge
> it.
That only works if you have both the computer and the person. Rubber hose cryptography is of little use if you have the laptop because a British cabinet member left it in a taxi.
> What you end up with is no-one having any confidence in the results - as
> they have only ever been produced in one way...
Software does not produce results. Experiments produce results. Software assists with the math required to analyze those results. We are asking that you publish all the steps in your analysis. That means publishing the software.
> So if scientists use MS Excel for part of their data analysis...
Then their results are suspect since Excel is known to be unreliable.
> I use a lot of MATLAB...
Therefor MATLAB being closed-source, all of your software is not available.
> This raises the question in what programming language the scientific code
> should be published.
The one it was written in. What should be published is the exact code that was compiled and run to generate the data. Think of it as similar to making the raw data available.
So she was into string theory, was she?
> What is the point of virtualizing a supercomputer?
They'll be able to reload the image of your stellar evolution simulation in a few seconds after the guy doing nuclear weapons simulations has had his time. Never mind that the two simulations don't even run under the same OS.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster...