Good point, though there are several other possibilities before you get down to that. Did you ever wonder what impact it would have on the internet culture? I can see several potentially amusing possibilities...
Usenetters will rewrite the netiquette - "remove all irrelevant smells before you post", "never post smells that last for more than 78 seconds", and flame (with fire and brimstone) everybody that use more than 4 smells in the.sig.
IRC'ers start/dcc'ing smell snipets of themselves along with pictures to all their friends, and everybody is waiting for technology like the "aroma AD converter" and "streaming scents" to hit the market.
Crackers start putting smell tags in web-pages on hacked servers: <OBJECT data="c00lsM3LL.pns" type="smell/pns" standby="tHis siTE wAs HaCkEd bY oLfAcTorY OliGaRkZ"> <PARAM name="intensity" value="100%"> <PARAM name="length" value="infinite"> <PARAM name="modulation" value="oscilation"> <PARAM name="frequency" value="1sec"> </OBJECT>
(W3C would ofcourse specify the pns format and add smell support in HTML 5.0. Others have already mentioned the inevitable extensions to css)
We would see book titles like "Smells unleashed" (McGrawHill) and "Smells of a nutshell" (O'Reily). Suggestions for animal to the last book are welcome.
FAST announces a smell indexing engine and sears upwards at NASDAQ. The stock drops some points the day after when a leak reveals that they still got problems with how to present the search result. (Does the word "mixture" mean anything to you?:-)
Cybersquatters start hoarding all domains that "smell".
IETF starts drafting an RFC for signing and encrypting digital smells....
...while Stalman extends GPL to include digital smells with the argument that "all smell should be free". He is promptly supported by the "Society of people with inscestine and digestive disturbances". After half a year of misunderstandings and negative publicity, some people break out to start afresh and founds FFF (Free Fragrance Foundation) to improve their media image.
RIAA and organizations within the Pharmaseutic Industry join forces and start suing everybody that happens to have links pointing to anything that smell like their patented "smell patterns". In 2001 they merger and starts issuing CD's with soothing instrumental music and the smell of painkillers and viagra under the slogan "Music for making love to your wife".
and so on.... The possibilities are endless.
Mnemo
(Actually, this whole thread reminds me in more than one way of some words by Gene Spafford)
Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggeling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.
Slashdot Mirror
A killer, that one.
Mnemo
Usenetters will rewrite the netiquette - "remove all irrelevant smells before you post", "never post smells that last for more than 78 seconds", and flame (with fire and brimstone) everybody that use more than 4 smells in the .sig.
IRC'ers start /dcc'ing smell snipets of themselves along with pictures to all their friends, and everybody is waiting for technology like the "aroma AD converter" and "streaming scents" to hit the market.
Crackers start putting smell tags in web-pages on hacked servers:
<OBJECT data="c00lsM3LL.pns" type="smell/pns" standby="tHis siTE wAs HaCkEd bY oLfAcTorY OliGaRkZ">
<PARAM name="intensity" value="100%">
<PARAM name="length" value="infinite">
<PARAM name="modulation" value="oscilation">
<PARAM name="frequency" value="1sec">
</OBJECT>
(W3C would ofcourse specify the pns format and add smell support in HTML 5.0. Others have already mentioned the inevitable extensions to css)
We would see book titles like "Smells unleashed" (McGrawHill) and "Smells of a nutshell" (O'Reily). Suggestions for animal to the last book are welcome.
FAST announces a smell indexing engine and sears upwards at NASDAQ. The stock drops some points the day after when a leak reveals that they still got problems with how to present the search result. (Does the word "mixture" mean anything to you? :-)
Cybersquatters start hoarding all domains that "smell".
IETF starts drafting an RFC for signing and encrypting digital smells....
RIAA and organizations within the Pharmaseutic Industry join forces and start suing everybody that happens to have links pointing to anything that smell like their patented "smell patterns". In 2001 they merger and starts issuing CD's with soothing instrumental music and the smell of painkillers and viagra under the slogan "Music for making love to your wife".
and so on.... The possibilities are endless.
Mnemo
(Actually, this whole thread reminds me in more than one way of some words by Gene Spafford)