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Comment Re:False assumption (Score 1) 814

This might work in languages where indentation is just for humans. In Python, where indentation matters, tabs are evil (you would need to *know* how wide was a tab in the machine of the guy who wrote the code in order to read or edit it). This information usually is not part of the source (unless the author inserted a file variable (i.e.
"# -*- tab-width: 7 -*-")).

Comment Re:can we try something different? (Score 2, Informative) 243

It doesn't really matter what the west thinks about communism - NK is a theocracy now, with a god-king at the top and a caste system below. They started replacing marxism with the artificial Chuche-religion (more weird than Scientology, and probably as evil) in the seventies.
The only chance for NK is IMHO a internal enlightenment in parts of the leading junta (the only people there who know that there is a different world outside, and probably don't believe in the Chuche crap they made up for the ordinary people). All the world can do is to offer the leaders a retirement without being killed; and an efficient, friendly madhouse for the deprogramming of the population.

Comment Re:Danger vs. Visibility (Score 1) 351

A purely unrealistic idea came after submitting: Instead of illuminating the whole area, illuminate a mm-sized milliwatt-powered spot every meter. Such a spot is visible on the ground even in daylight (laser pointers to exactly that). Unfortunately, the laws of optics get in the way: To get meter-resolution on the ground, we need meter-sized optics in orbit (that's what spy satellites do (to get resolutions in the decimeter range, they fly very low and crash down all the time due to aerobraking)). For mm-resolution, we'd need kilometer-sized satellites.

Comment Danger vs. Visibility (Score 1) 351

IMHO, this cannot work. Sunlight comes with approx. 1kW/m^2, the human eye detect changes in brightness if they exceed 30%, i.e. we'd need 300W/m^2 to be visible at daytime. OTOH, looking directly at the sun is harmful even with the sun having a diameter of 0.5 degrees. A light source with a third of the sun's brightness, but point-like would probably burn a hole right through the retina before the blink reflex can kick in.
Even the discussed 10W/m^2 (absolutely invisible unless one looks directly at the right point in the sky) would be dangerous (the eye's resolution is one angular minute, i.e. light from a point source would cover 1/900 of the sun's image's area, giving a retina burning power density of 9 suns).

Short wording: you can't see it unless it makes you blind.

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