[seanmcdirmid]

Usually the idea is bunk and they are trying to obscure that, more often than that the idea is great and they are trying to protect their IP for a startup.

If you know something is possible, then it is not impossible to replicate results even with obscure directions about it. Except for Paxos, you really need good instructions at that point (that guy should get an award).

[striking]

Hah. I'm pretty dumb myself. That'll teach me. (I'm leaving the link, though. Great paper.)

[1]: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/p...

[tokenrove]

Leslie Lamport is a man. You could argue something about Barbara Liskov's Viewstamped Replication, though, I guess.

[striking]

Whoops. Thanks, I messed up pretty badly, didn't I.

[tokenrove]

It's an easy mistake to make. It's interesting, though, because there are at least three important women who were involved in related work at the same time -- I'm thinking of Liskov, Dwork, and Lynch.