To add to the list: The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson.

I guess the main benefit of the GP's method is that you won't actually need a "safe" to store your passwords. You can re-generate the same password anytime, anywhere, as long as you remember the master password and "reason."

However, a problem with this implementation is that generated passwords will be hexadecimal only. Not really much entropy per character there (4 bits vs. 6.5x bits for all ASCII printable chars). Just extend the generated password length, I guess.

Personally, I'd use HMAC-SHA-256 or HMAC-SHA-512 or something. Then derive the password from the hash using as many characters as allowed, i.e. alphanumeric or alphanumeric + symbols, etc. I guess something like that might not be easily expressible in a shell script, though. But hey, that's why we have other scripting languages. (Python comes to mind, since hashlib and hmac are part of the base system.)

But yeah, as someone else pointed out, "random" is not the right word for this.

Not the AC either, but Citibank offers such a service. I've used it a few times for those random one-off purchases, especially from stores I will probably never do business with again.

Though, it's probably not very useful for subscription-type services or places you do business with regularly. (Unless you really want to generate a new CC number for each order.) I guess the previous poster's suggestion of having a low-limit card would be helpful in that case, something I plan to look into for myself.

Almost sounds like, aptly enough, Quarantine by Greg Egan. Though I could have sworn there was another novel with a similar premise. (Herbert, perhaps?)

And hey, maybe we'll get to the point where we won't even have to physically leave the Earth's gravity well in order for us to explore space. Send the machines out first. Even if propulsion tech never advances beyond what we have today, who cares how long they take to reach their destinations?

But once they arrive, they point their receivers back to Earth.

Because, after all, what travels as fast as light? Well for one, there's light itself...

Send minds, not bodies.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a Space Nutter crossed with a Singularitarian, twice the loon. Well, either that or a Greg Egan fan. ;)

The majority of the digital copies I've seen are protected by iTunes DRM. At least, they are when you choose to redeem them on a Mac. (On Windows, I suspect it might be the same.) Given that, you can freely copy it and play it back on any iOS device or computer with iTunes. Probably not what you're looking for though, I'm guessing.

Every once in a while I run into a Windows Media-based digital copy. I just avoid those entirely as the DRM is probably much more draconian.

And just to clarify — each format comes on its own disk. Although lately I've been noticing a trend where the digital copy disk is omitted, but you are still provided with a digital copy code or voucher. In other words, you have to download it yourself. Not really great for those of us on less-than-broadband DSL connections...

When I saw the headline, the concept sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it from. GP's and your post jarred my memory on the subject.

The Charles Stross novel is Saturn's Children. Though you might be thinking of something else since Saturn's Children was published in 2008.

In addition to what roju mentioned, Apple's analogue of uPnP is probably more like DAAP. AirTunes/AirPlay strikes me more as "network attached speakers/display."

The "unlock code" could be the public key of an asymmetric encryption algorithm.

Just having that wouldn't necessarily allow you to unlock the CPU since it would probably need to see the correct set of bits signed by the corresponding private key.

Hm, not so sure about that. Up until recently, PLEXes were immovable -- you couldn't undock with one in your hold. However, if you owned a PLEX, you could use it (apply game time to your account) no matter where it was located.

To use your example, all you'd have to do is contract the PLEXes to the other player. Private contracts can be accepted even if both parties are in different regions. The buyer can then use the PLEXes when convenient.

One reason (perhaps the only reason?) to move a PLEX is for arbitrage. Buy cheap in Jita and sell them on the open market in a different region.

Love them or hate them, this is a great feature of Cryptic's games. Every account has a 1:1 mapping to a "handle" (aka "display name" aka "forum name"). When you create a character (for example, "Joe"), in-game, you appear as "Joe," but when you speak in chat, you appear as "Joe@YourHandle." When you right-click or otherwise inspect another character, you also see their handle. And if seeing handles in chat are an immersion-breaker for you, you can easily turn them off -- hovering your mouse over their name in chat will show their full name.

And one of the great things about this system is that when you friend or ignore someone, you do it based on their handle. So ignoring someone will ignore all their alts and likewise, friending someone will show them online no matter what alt they're on. (Though there has been whining about the latter being a breach of privacy...)

Although the primary reason I like this system is that it avoids the name land-rush. I can name my characters any name I want (within the rules :P), regardless if it's a dupe. I wish more MMO companies would adopt something similar. Who knows, maybe Real ID (hopefully sans real names) will get there in the future.

The deadspace scan-dampening effect was actually removed in Apocrypha (the expansion that brought in the new scanning mechanic). Mission runners are just as easy to scan out as someone sitting uncloaked at a "safe" spot.

One only has to run a mission in Dodixie to find out how... :)

But have you seen a Tabula Rasa video like this?

I believe this is what the grandparent post was referring to. It looks nothing like the Tabula Rasa that was actually launched. It was more fantasy and magic back then.

SPIM is a possibility. It was used in a few courses (operating systems, compilers) at UCB some years ago. (Don't know if it's still used.)