Should be reasonably easy to handle. Put the real password through a password rating system and then generate alternative passwords with similar rankings.

I'm a "freetard", and I don't pay for software generally anyway

better idea: either go Free (or free, if you must)

Yeah that's definitely going to work out well for the developer :p

It's not a stupid idea, even if a lot of commentators on here can't see past their hatred of anyone requiring anything from them. It has been shown time and again that people don't like paying, even pennies, up front for something but are happy to hand over things worth far more (personal information, viewing time etc) after they have become users. Even though theoretically it would cost them more to provide computing time for bitcoins than just pay you there are many people who won't pay but wouldn't care about compute time (electric costs etc) and no personal details would need to be exchanged.

All that said, it just isn't worth it. The amount you can mine would be comparatively limited and is getting lower as mining kit becomes more advanced; additionally you'd have to handle any issues this causes for users, have people claiming you're stealing and bad press (like here) and the value will continue to fall. Additionally as phones and tablets become more popular the average resources available to mine with have shrunk as well.

Another pretty obvious alternative result would be that companies would increase prices to make up for any tax increase, like they've done with tax increases in the past. You're also missing the point that this would be instead of a tax on profits so if the total amount of money raised was the same then any company which isn't currently avoiding taxation would end up paying less tax. Some issues aren't simple black and white; think a little harder about likely consequences when you think it really is that simple.

The decision is the science...

No it isn't. We've put a two year ban across a vast geographical area that will lead to increased food costs, greater environmental damage as farmers move to older more toxic pesticides and pesticide immunity issues. In return we have done something that there is no real evidence will help bee populations in such a way that we won't even be able to tell if the ban solves it.

Science would have been banning them in a smaller area (for example Britain or Spain/Portugal) and comparing against the rest of the region. What this is, is a massive over-reaction. We may as well try banning 3g masts, they came in around the same time, maybe they are to blame? Surely, by your logic, that would be the 'scientific' thing to do?

Wake up global citizens. Islam is making war on you, *every day*.

No it isn't and you're deluded assertions don't alter that. There doesn't have to be a 'fight to the death' but you, and those like you, who ARE the problem would certainly bring one about if you got the chance.

When the inventor can't easily explain what the best uses for their invention are, it's a safe bet there really aren't any.

Almost the exact opposite you'll hear from anyone doing theoretical research. One of the biggest changes that came with the iPhone wasn't what the device could do but the app infrastructure; that infrastructure meant that what people could do with the iPhone expanded rapidly and well beyond what was initially expected. Sticking with apple there first computers were basically sold on the premise of do what you want with it; they didn't have a list of specific things it would help you do (or at least one that was remotely useful anyway)

There are way, way too many questions about Google Glass to know whether it'll achieve much or not. I have doubts but would love to be proved wrong.

What I'm saying is that Bitcoin is DEFINED to have that value.

If it was then it failed and was always going to. You can't just say something has a value because that's what you want it to be. If I cut my toenails I don't get to define the value as the value of my time used to do it. You can keep putting the word definition in caps as much as you want but it does not mean what you seem to think it means. As others keep pointing out all that is defined about bitcoins that is remotely related is the cost of production.

I'm pretty sure it would be because if I could pay 1,000 bitcoins to have someone mine 1,100 bitcoins then why would I spend bitcoins on anything else until it wasn't possible any more? Also if you had a computing resource capable of producing 1BTC every hour why would you rent it to people for 0.9BTC per hour?

Thank you for the quote ;) I've always got time for a bit of Pratchett.

A billion lightning bolts really doesn't tell us very much and I'd be disinclined to just pretend that 'dark lightning' behaves in the same manner; however if it was, and if it did, then the odds of being hit by lightning ~1/1,000,000, thus odds of 'dark lightning' hitting you is ~1/1,000,000,000. If you're making any kind of decision based on a 1 in 1 billion chance of something happening to you each year then you are wasting your time.

As I said, the research is interesting and I look forward to seeing what they find out; However, one of the least important things about this research is the fact that it may or may not indicate that a tiny number of people are being exposed to radiation. ~24,000 people die each year from the emissions of coal power plants in the US, it would make far more difference to your chances of dying/getting a medical condition if you chose a house ~1% further away from the nearest coal plant than the risk of dark lightning while flying does.

However, because there’s only about one dark lightning occurrence for every thousand visible flashes and because pilots take great pains to avoid thunderstorms, Dwyer says, the risk of injury is quite limited. No one knows for sure if anyone has ever been hit by dark lightning.

It's an interesting claim and I look forward to hearing more about it but there is effectively no risk to people flying being suggested. Unfortunately /. has decided to focus on the non-existent risk rather than the rather interesting properties of 'dark lightning' and what study of it could help us to understand.

No; it's impolite to needlessly criticise people for something you can trivially work around anyway. If I have guests who need to access email/whatever I'm not going to refuse or breathe down their neck; nor am I going to spend ages 'teaching' them how to safely use my PC like some techno-primodonna.

I'll either lend them an old android tablet or put them on a VM session.

Surely the point is equally true in reverse? When using an internationally frequented forum don't assume people are using the US 'definition' of America or that they are obligated to do so to be polite. Your point about German isn't really relevant as we're not speaking 'American' in the USA; we're speaking English on a forum used by people from dozens, or probably hundreds, of countries.

It's not unlike London in WWII (no sky scrapers there) and there was still lots of effect from bombing it.

And London wasn't flattened or even close to flattened. I should know I still have living relatives who were there during the blitz. Your hyperbole betrays your claims to know the facts. There's no reason for NK to start an intensive shelling campaign against SK; they'll give the US/SK an excuse to decimate NK positions 'in defence' and potentially even target their senior military figures without China having any cover to interfere.

NK will keep dicking around at the edges or it will go full in; there's no other option that makes sense (not that those do either mind). It seems the US and SK have finally decided that all the posturing really is a bark without a bite and are willing to ignore it now.