I know this is wildly off-topic, but the parent reminded me of a story my professor told me...
A student had handed in a paper for an exam and passed with a decent grade. Next year another student handed in the same paper, which he'd "borrowed" from the first student -- this time it was graded a bit higher than the first time though. Third year, yet another student handed in the exact same paper and it was returned to him with an even higher mark than the previous two and with a remark from the professor: "Now I've read this paper 3 times and it just keeps getting better every time I read it."
Oh yeah, sure, let's pull quotes out of context...
I said that you were probably right about a Futurama episode lasting ~30 minutes if you include teasers/commercials... I then said: "But since the length of commercials/teasers may vary (...), you can't really use that for comparison.". Hence, you argument about comparing the running times of the two series (which I wasn't even doing in the first place!) was flawed and poorly thought out.
Anyhow, unless you put forward another attitude to this discussion you'll see nothing more from me. You seem to be just looking for a discussion - any discussion - but don't really care to actually read or think before you answer. Right now you're just wasting my time.
I didn't compare them - I merely stated that a Futurama ep lasted ~22 minutes and not ~30 as claimed.
Sure, if you include commercials, teasers for other programs and stuff, then you're probably right. But since the length of commercials/teasers may vary (e.g. here in Denmark Futurama was aired without commercials, so the running time was closer to 20 minutes than it was to 30), you can't really use that for comparison.
Again, I didn't try to compare anything, I just stated that the running time of a Futurama ep was ~22 minutes. I never compared it to the running time of Firefly (including or excluding commercials)... And I never intended to.
I was only talking about Futurama. I've never seen Firefly (or even heard of it before). I just wanted to correct the claim that a Futurama ep was ~30 minutes.
Not exactly... I know I'm being pedantic, but the Futurama eps are approx. 22 minutes each, so more like 24 1-hour eps.
But yeah, Futurama is popular and I really hope that Fox will soon get their heads out of their asses and realize that one of their biggest mistakes (next to that of their existance and probably some others I don't know about) was to cancel Futurama.
It's ridiculous that a show can be held hostage in such a manner. I'm sure some other network would have loved having the Futurama crew on board.
And, let me just point out that for the first time ever, my sig is actually on-topic!:-)
... run on Lin---Wait, no, apparently not - yet. Guess I'll have to wait until the beginning of 2006 to see what all the fuzz is about.:-(
How come everybody is promising Linux and MacOS X support later (cf. Google Talk)? Why not actually launch when it's ready for all 3 major OSes? (I know, "release early, release often", I've read The Cathedral and the Bazaar too, but it doesn't say that you shouldn't try to release for all OSes around the same time.) This really annoys me more than when no Linux/MacOS X support is promised at all.
I'll register the domain 'com'. Then I can start shelling out subdomains like 'microsoft.com', 'ibm.com', 'apple.com'... I think I'll take 'gov', 'net', 'biz' and 'info' too...
[...] I mean, you don't actually *need* one, now do you? It's kind of like your appendix -- I mean, what's it actually *for* ?
Now, what if James Brown had said that?:-p
Nice Bedazzled reference though.:)
If I may then stray back to the topic. This is what we all (or at least many of us) have been bitching about during the whole Massachusetts/Open Document Format dealy. Of course MS don't want this to become a wide-spread phenomenon, so they do the only sensible thing and really open up their formats. Even though I'm a fanatic Linux-user (borderline zealot, some might say), I think this is a step in the right direction. It may be a small one, but at least it's a step.
Yeah, I know. MS offered the other fonts for download for free, which is what the msttcorefonts package utilizes, but Tahoma requires a Windows license IIRC. I didn't mean to imply that anyone hated Tahoma or didn't want to use it.:-)
I have to copy them from Windows make my environment look good. The Tahoma font itself is very small 252 kb I wonder why no one on the Linux world have created a look-alike.
It's not necessary to do either. You could just install the MS fonts. They're in the package "msttcorefonts". I'm not sure whether it's located in the universe or multiverse repository (I'm booted in Agnula atm), but it's definitely there.
I'll answer this in random order, since I can't seem to get my head straight today.
Would you say you had an easy choice in the matter to stop?
I have a very easy choice, yes. I don't want to stop, at least not right now, so there's no point in even trying to stop. And it'd make no sense.
have you gone to a hospital with dying lung cancer patients? Actually seen what you're most likely "in for"?
My grandpa died from lung cancer and I saw him the last week of his life. It actually wasn't that bad - he slept most of the time. I like sleeping.:-)
Addiction is not "chosen very carefully", it's a case of "don't have the will power to change".
It's funny - most non-smokers naturally assume that smokers really want to quit but just don't want to admit it. That's not entirely true. Some smokers want to quit and try that with more or less success. I, for one, don't want to quit, so I've never tried. (And don't even think of going "you're so addicted you won't even try quitting" on me.) I know some others who really enjoy smoking - so why quit?
When I started smoking I knew exactly what I did. I'd already seen my grandpa die from it. I was well aware of the hazards from all the campaigns the government had put up in the late 80es/early 90es. So yes, it is carefully chosen - even before I got addicted.
Besides, the social aspect of smoking (e.g. people gathering somewhere to have a cigarette during a break) is something I enjoy. Fx. on my university, all the smokers got together pretty fast and started talking. The non-smokers however took a little more time to "bond", so to speak. (This observasion was made by a non-smoker, mind you.)
Your friends' less than 6 and smoking outside but then inside after that still exposes kids that have no other choice than to put up with the passive smoking.
Ever heard a 6 year-old complaining about smoke being annoying? (I have.) The point is at 6 they don't just put up with it anymore. I know lots of people who have kids and I have 5 nephews and nieces myself (ranging from 2 to 15 years). Each and everyone of them have complained about their moms (my sisters) smoking. Trust me - they don't just put up with it.
I think [...] it is regarded as hypocritical to say one thing and do another.
Yeah, it is. But as I said in an earlier post. I'd never encourage my kids to smoke, but neither would I try to stop them from it. I hope that my kids (when I have some) will be able to be critical of everything - even me. Since it's not a secret that there exists no such thing as perfect parents. It's only when you look as yourself as the perfect role-model that you get the problem mentioned, but why try to teach kids that their parents are perfect, when no one obviously is? I guess this is a very delicate matter, since it touches on the subject of raising children, which is an entirely other discussion only partly related to this.
My apologies for assuming you were going to say that.
Don't worry about it.:-)
Re:We need deadlier cigarettes
on
Safe Cigarettes?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
There might be no real evidence but when non-smokers start waving away the smoke and they start to cough, that's a pretty good sign that it's irritating them. It might or might not give them longue cancer, but that's really not the point. It's annoying them, that's the point. Why annoy other people if they haven't done anything to deserve it?
I get annoyed too by the "smokers are murderers" attitude too and I think it's tidiculous, but I know smoke can be annoying to non-smokers and it doesn't hurt anyone to pay a little respect to others around you.
Well, I'll see if I can have a laptop handy then and reply to your post then - because I don't really know myself. Right now I'm thinking "why not?", but let's just wait and see. If all you non-smokers are right, then I'll probably die from my own smoking (and my own second hand smoke) at age 30 (which is 6 years from now).
You really think I'm addicted to cigarettes? After smoking 1-1½ packs a day for almost 10 years? Noooo...</sarcasm>
It's way more than the nicotine - I can enjoy herbal cigarettes as well, those entirely without any nicotine made for smokers trying to quit. It's the way the cigarette burns and the way the smoke floats around and plays in the light, and the way I tip off the ashes and how it falls in the ashtray. Smoking is much more than nicotine, I'm aware that non-smokers have a hard time understanding that. How would you? You've never tried.
If you've ever tried sitting around a campfire just looking into it and enjoying how the fire plays and the smoke lifts off... I get the same feeling with cigarettes.
Heck, I've tried going an entire day without smoking because I was totally consumed by playing old SNES games and I ran out of smokes, but I'd rather play than get some. It wasn't a big deal because my hands were otherwise occupied. Ex-smokers often say that the biggest problem with quiting is that they don't know what to do with their hands. I'm guessing that's just as much of it.
But hey, I'm glad there's always someone on/. who can tell me stuff I don't know about myself.
And before you start with the "it's my own home" stuff [...]
I'm kind of disappointed that you say that and drag the discussion down to the level where we start assuming what others will say. Personally I would never smoke in the same room as a baby - most smokers I know (some of them actually have babies) don't even smoke inside before the child turns 6 or so. That aside, my parents smoked around my siblings and I, and I think we all turned out pretty normal or better. But still, no reason to take the chance - 2nd hand smoke is well known to be highly irritating - and most likely even more so for babies.
I'm even more disappointed that you bring up arguments like "smoking around babies ~= arsenic in their food" and "we learn from our parents". I'm trying to keep the debate on a higher level and that first argument is exactly why I dislike non-smoking as a religion.
Yes, let's assume that we learn what's right and wrong from our parents. You said it yourself... We don't just learn right, but also wrong - and I don't mean by teaching/preaching. If a parent gives her/his child the impression that everything she/he does is absolutely right and on top of that smokes, then yes, then the child will learn that smoking is right. But if the parent can actually teach the child that they don't have to mirror everything they do because it's not always perfectly right (any perfect parents/people around? --- Didn't think so) - then the child has learned an important lesson that extends beyond just smoking.
Which would you prefer? A child with a total lack of backbone that just mirrors what others do or a child capable of making their own decisions and being critical towards the world?
I'm not going to comment on the last couple of clauses in your last sentence, besides that such things annoy me. Why do you feel you have to point that out? Should I feel bad because I smoke? Can you exercise without gasping for breath? (If you can, then maybe you're not exercising hard enough.) Personally I don't have much problems with exercising, climbing the stairs and stuff like that (I'd probably kill myself trying to run a marathon, but I don't think I'll ever need to or feel compelled to). If I continue to smoke 20-30 cigs a day (as I've done since I started almost 10 years ago), that'll probably come, but hey, that's my choice and I've chosen very carefully.
Uhh, hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure it works the same way here, but if it does, then that's definitely possible. (Cheapskate government.)
Re:We need deadlier cigarettes
on
Safe Cigarettes?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Yes, you're right. I was a bit fast on the reply-button there. No, we haven't had any all-out wars between major powers since ww2, but I'm not sure that can be attributed to nukes alone. The way of war has changed a lot too. Wars are now fought more through propaganda than ever before, just look at the media... "Keep the people scared, so they're more easilly convinced that invading every middle-eastern country is a capital idea!":-p (Ok, j/k - at least about the last part of the former sentence.)
You sound like a nice person so I'd rather you didn't die a few years earlier
Why, thank you!:)
[...] I'd ask you to be considerate of where you do smoke. Consider it like talking on your cellphone [...]
That's pretty much exactly what I'm trying to. (Though, some teenagers seem to not get that talking on a cellphone in the theatre is annoying to others.) I'm very well aware that non-smokers are easilly annoyed by my smoking, so I try to only smoke where I'm allowed to. (Of course there are the occasional mishaps, where I have missed a "no smoking" sign - but then I leave or extinguish my smoke when I'm made aware of it.) I'm not trying to irritate anyone by smoking, I'm just trying to smoke for my own sake.
However, places where smoking's allowed get more and more rare around here (Denmark), which kind of annoys me, because I hate being tossed outside when it's freezing and snowing. On the university we used to have some designated smokers' rooms with just a couple of tables, ashtrays, some chairs and a window. Now they've removed those and we're only allowed to smoke outside.:-( I really don't think they removed them because the non-smokers on the university got annoyed by the smokers in there. I mean, non-smokers had absolutely nothing to do there, since the only reason for coming there was smoking. So why did they remove them? Government policy, as far as I understand. Smoking is to be prohibited in all public buildings. It's not like there was any cost in maintaining those rooms, but for some reason they chose to remove them all... Just before the winter kicks in...
The witch-hunt has started and smokers are the prey.:-/
Now, regarding the social acceptability of smoking and won't somebody think of the children...;-p
I don't have any children, but if I did I'd never encourage them to smoke, but neither would I try to stop them if they decided that they wanted to. My parents have always had a strong faith in my siblings and I being capable of making the right choices. I hope that I'll be able to trust my children in the same way. As I said, I have no doubt that I'm happier smoking than I would be not smoking, so for me smoking adds to the quality of my life (yeah, of course not physically, I know).
I don't think social acceptability is really anything to worry about, unless you want to place smokers in the same semantic category as pedophiles, drug addicts and the lot. I know some already do, but does smoking make anyone a bad person? Has a smoker ever commited a crime to pay for cigarettes? (Not that I know of.) This is directly related to the issue with trusting the children. If you trust that your children are capable of making the right decisions, then you needn't worry about them seeing people smoking. It's not like anyone can hide it completely anyways. At some point they will encounter someone smoking - if they're used to it chances are they'll think "hmm, just another smoker", but if it's something completely new, then they might suddenly get curious and maybe even try it because "it's so mysterious". I guess it can work the other way around too, if they start to smoke they'll be "just another smoker" (no big deal) or they'll be "different" (I guess it can be "different" in both a bad and a cool/good way). The issue of social acceptability of smoking is a delicate one and should be handled with care, but I don't think hiding stuff the way american media does is the way. I say, let people see what people do and let's then hope that everyone is able to make a right decision.
Long rant, sorry... I need a smoke.;-)
Re:We need deadlier cigarettes
on
Safe Cigarettes?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
[...] we simply made war so deadly with nukes that people stopped having them because is was MAD...
Excuse me, stopped having wars?
Seriously though, I'm a smoker and I absolutely love smoking. I can spend 10 minutes doing abosolutely nothing but enjoying a cigarette. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I can find plenty of worse ways to go. Smoking really works for me and I don't mind trading off a few years of my life for it.
I understand and respect how and why non-smokers can be annoyed by smoke, that's fine and understandable, but don't force your tired arguments down our throats. Smoking is a personal choice, so leave it at that, please. I've met one too many non-smokers who's been trying to "save me", which really just annoys me and won't ever work.
Slashdot Mirror
I know this is wildly off-topic, but the parent reminded me of a story my professor told me...
A student had handed in a paper for an exam and passed with a decent grade. Next year another student handed in the same paper, which he'd "borrowed" from the first student -- this time it was graded a bit higher than the first time though. Third year, yet another student handed in the exact same paper and it was returned to him with an even higher mark than the previous two and with a remark from the professor: "Now I've read this paper 3 times and it just keeps getting better every time I read it."
Oh yeah, sure, let's pull quotes out of context...
I said that you were probably right about a Futurama episode lasting ~30 minutes if you include teasers/commercials... I then said: "But since the length of commercials/teasers may vary (...), you can't really use that for comparison.". Hence, you argument about comparing the running times of the two series (which I wasn't even doing in the first place!) was flawed and poorly thought out.
Anyhow, unless you put forward another attitude to this discussion you'll see nothing more from me. You seem to be just looking for a discussion - any discussion - but don't really care to actually read or think before you answer. Right now you're just wasting my time.
*sigh* Sure, whatever...
Interesting though, that you dumped your point about running times but start to focus on metadiscussion. But nevermind...
I didn't compare them - I merely stated that a Futurama ep lasted ~22 minutes and not ~30 as claimed.
Sure, if you include commercials, teasers for other programs and stuff, then you're probably right. But since the length of commercials/teasers may vary (e.g. here in Denmark Futurama was aired without commercials, so the running time was closer to 20 minutes than it was to 30), you can't really use that for comparison.
Again, I didn't try to compare anything, I just stated that the running time of a Futurama ep was ~22 minutes. I never compared it to the running time of Firefly (including or excluding commercials)... And I never intended to.
I was only talking about Futurama. I've never seen Firefly (or even heard of it before). I just wanted to correct the claim that a Futurama ep was ~30 minutes.
Not exactly... I know I'm being pedantic, but the Futurama eps are approx. 22 minutes each, so more like 24 1-hour eps.
But yeah, Futurama is popular and I really hope that Fox will soon get their heads out of their asses and realize that one of their biggest mistakes (next to that of their existance and probably some others I don't know about) was to cancel Futurama.
It's ridiculous that a show can be held hostage in such a manner. I'm sure some other network would have loved having the Futurama crew on board.
And, let me just point out that for the first time ever, my sig is actually on-topic! :-)
... run on Lin---Wait, no, apparently not - yet. Guess I'll have to wait until the beginning of 2006 to see what all the fuzz is about. :-(
How come everybody is promising Linux and MacOS X support later (cf. Google Talk)? Why not actually launch when it's ready for all 3 major OSes? (I know, "release early, release often", I've read The Cathedral and the Bazaar too, but it doesn't say that you shouldn't try to release for all OSes around the same time.) This really annoys me more than when no Linux/MacOS X support is promised at all.
I'll register the domain 'com'. Then I can start shelling out subdomains like 'microsoft.com', 'ibm.com', 'apple.com'... I think I'll take 'gov', 'net', 'biz' and 'info' too...
That's Star Wars... This is Star Trek.
[...] I mean, you don't actually *need* one, now do you? It's kind of like your appendix -- I mean, what's it actually *for* ?
Now, what if James Brown had said that? :-p
Nice Bedazzled reference though. :)
If I may then stray back to the topic. This is what we all (or at least many of us) have been bitching about during the whole Massachusetts/Open Document Format dealy. Of course MS don't want this to become a wide-spread phenomenon, so they do the only sensible thing and really open up their formats. Even though I'm a fanatic Linux-user (borderline zealot, some might say), I think this is a step in the right direction. It may be a small one, but at least it's a step.
Yeah, I know. MS offered the other fonts for download for free, which is what the msttcorefonts package utilizes, but Tahoma requires a Windows license IIRC. I didn't mean to imply that anyone hated Tahoma or didn't want to use it. :-)
Multiverse apparently, but it seems tahoma isn't there. http://packages.ubuntu.com/breezy/x11/msttcorefont s
I have to copy them from Windows make my environment look good. The Tahoma font itself is very small 252 kb I wonder why no one on the Linux world have created a look-alike.
It's not necessary to do either. You could just install the MS fonts. They're in the package "msttcorefonts". I'm not sure whether it's located in the universe or multiverse repository (I'm booted in Agnula atm), but it's definitely there.
I'll answer this in random order, since I can't seem to get my head straight today.
Would you say you had an easy choice in the matter to stop?
I have a very easy choice, yes. I don't want to stop, at least not right now, so there's no point in even trying to stop. And it'd make no sense.
have you gone to a hospital with dying lung cancer patients? Actually seen what you're most likely "in for"?
My grandpa died from lung cancer and I saw him the last week of his life. It actually wasn't that bad - he slept most of the time. I like sleeping. :-)
Addiction is not "chosen very carefully", it's a case of "don't have the will power to change".
It's funny - most non-smokers naturally assume that smokers really want to quit but just don't want to admit it. That's not entirely true. Some smokers want to quit and try that with more or less success. I, for one, don't want to quit, so I've never tried. (And don't even think of going "you're so addicted you won't even try quitting" on me.) I know some others who really enjoy smoking - so why quit?
When I started smoking I knew exactly what I did. I'd already seen my grandpa die from it. I was well aware of the hazards from all the campaigns the government had put up in the late 80es/early 90es. So yes, it is carefully chosen - even before I got addicted.
Besides, the social aspect of smoking (e.g. people gathering somewhere to have a cigarette during a break) is something I enjoy. Fx. on my university, all the smokers got together pretty fast and started talking. The non-smokers however took a little more time to "bond", so to speak. (This observasion was made by a non-smoker, mind you.)
Your friends' less than 6 and smoking outside but then inside after that still exposes kids that have no other choice than to put up with the passive smoking.
Ever heard a 6 year-old complaining about smoke being annoying? (I have.) The point is at 6 they don't just put up with it anymore. I know lots of people who have kids and I have 5 nephews and nieces myself (ranging from 2 to 15 years). Each and everyone of them have complained about their moms (my sisters) smoking. Trust me - they don't just put up with it.
I think [...] it is regarded as hypocritical to say one thing and do another.
Yeah, it is. But as I said in an earlier post. I'd never encourage my kids to smoke, but neither would I try to stop them from it. I hope that my kids (when I have some) will be able to be critical of everything - even me. Since it's not a secret that there exists no such thing as perfect parents. It's only when you look as yourself as the perfect role-model that you get the problem mentioned, but why try to teach kids that their parents are perfect, when no one obviously is? I guess this is a very delicate matter, since it touches on the subject of raising children, which is an entirely other discussion only partly related to this.
My apologies for assuming you were going to say that.
Don't worry about it. :-)
There might be no real evidence but when non-smokers start waving away the smoke and they start to cough, that's a pretty good sign that it's irritating them. It might or might not give them longue cancer, but that's really not the point. It's annoying them, that's the point. Why annoy other people if they haven't done anything to deserve it?
I get annoyed too by the "smokers are murderers" attitude too and I think it's tidiculous, but I know smoke can be annoying to non-smokers and it doesn't hurt anyone to pay a little respect to others around you.
Well, I'll see if I can have a laptop handy then and reply to your post then - because I don't really know myself. Right now I'm thinking "why not?", but let's just wait and see. If all you non-smokers are right, then I'll probably die from my own smoking (and my own second hand smoke) at age 30 (which is 6 years from now).
You really think I'm addicted to cigarettes? After smoking 1-1½ packs a day for almost 10 years? Noooo...</sarcasm>
It's way more than the nicotine - I can enjoy herbal cigarettes as well, those entirely without any nicotine made for smokers trying to quit. It's the way the cigarette burns and the way the smoke floats around and plays in the light, and the way I tip off the ashes and how it falls in the ashtray. Smoking is much more than nicotine, I'm aware that non-smokers have a hard time understanding that. How would you? You've never tried.
If you've ever tried sitting around a campfire just looking into it and enjoying how the fire plays and the smoke lifts off... I get the same feeling with cigarettes.
Heck, I've tried going an entire day without smoking because I was totally consumed by playing old SNES games and I ran out of smokes, but I'd rather play than get some. It wasn't a big deal because my hands were otherwise occupied. Ex-smokers often say that the biggest problem with quiting is that they don't know what to do with their hands. I'm guessing that's just as much of it.
But hey, I'm glad there's always someone on /. who can tell me stuff I don't know about myself.
And before you start with the "it's my own home" stuff [...]
I'm kind of disappointed that you say that and drag the discussion down to the level where we start assuming what others will say. Personally I would never smoke in the same room as a baby - most smokers I know (some of them actually have babies) don't even smoke inside before the child turns 6 or so. That aside, my parents smoked around my siblings and I, and I think we all turned out pretty normal or better. But still, no reason to take the chance - 2nd hand smoke is well known to be highly irritating - and most likely even more so for babies.
I'm even more disappointed that you bring up arguments like "smoking around babies ~= arsenic in their food" and "we learn from our parents". I'm trying to keep the debate on a higher level and that first argument is exactly why I dislike non-smoking as a religion.
Yes, let's assume that we learn what's right and wrong from our parents. You said it yourself... We don't just learn right, but also wrong - and I don't mean by teaching/preaching. If a parent gives her/his child the impression that everything she/he does is absolutely right and on top of that smokes, then yes, then the child will learn that smoking is right. But if the parent can actually teach the child that they don't have to mirror everything they do because it's not always perfectly right (any perfect parents/people around? --- Didn't think so) - then the child has learned an important lesson that extends beyond just smoking.
Which would you prefer? A child with a total lack of backbone that just mirrors what others do or a child capable of making their own decisions and being critical towards the world?
I'm not going to comment on the last couple of clauses in your last sentence, besides that such things annoy me. Why do you feel you have to point that out? Should I feel bad because I smoke? Can you exercise without gasping for breath? (If you can, then maybe you're not exercising hard enough.) Personally I don't have much problems with exercising, climbing the stairs and stuff like that (I'd probably kill myself trying to run a marathon, but I don't think I'll ever need to or feel compelled to). If I continue to smoke 20-30 cigs a day (as I've done since I started almost 10 years ago), that'll probably come, but hey, that's my choice and I've chosen very carefully.
Uhh, hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure it works the same way here, but if it does, then that's definitely possible. (Cheapskate government.)
Yes, you're right. I was a bit fast on the reply-button there. No, we haven't had any all-out wars between major powers since ww2, but I'm not sure that can be attributed to nukes alone. The way of war has changed a lot too. Wars are now fought more through propaganda than ever before, just look at the media... "Keep the people scared, so they're more easilly convinced that invading every middle-eastern country is a capital idea!" :-p (Ok, j/k - at least about the last part of the former sentence.)
You sound like a nice person so I'd rather you didn't die a few years earlier
Why, thank you! :)
[...] I'd ask you to be considerate of where you do smoke. Consider it like talking on your cellphone [...]
That's pretty much exactly what I'm trying to. (Though, some teenagers seem to not get that talking on a cellphone in the theatre is annoying to others.) I'm very well aware that non-smokers are easilly annoyed by my smoking, so I try to only smoke where I'm allowed to. (Of course there are the occasional mishaps, where I have missed a "no smoking" sign - but then I leave or extinguish my smoke when I'm made aware of it.) I'm not trying to irritate anyone by smoking, I'm just trying to smoke for my own sake.
However, places where smoking's allowed get more and more rare around here (Denmark), which kind of annoys me, because I hate being tossed outside when it's freezing and snowing. On the university we used to have some designated smokers' rooms with just a couple of tables, ashtrays, some chairs and a window. Now they've removed those and we're only allowed to smoke outside. :-( I really don't think they removed them because the non-smokers on the university got annoyed by the smokers in there. I mean, non-smokers had absolutely nothing to do there, since the only reason for coming there was smoking. So why did they remove them? Government policy, as far as I understand. Smoking is to be prohibited in all public buildings. It's not like there was any cost in maintaining those rooms, but for some reason they chose to remove them all... Just before the winter kicks in...
The witch-hunt has started and smokers are the prey. :-/
Now, regarding the social acceptability of smoking and won't somebody think of the children... ;-p
I don't have any children, but if I did I'd never encourage them to smoke, but neither would I try to stop them if they decided that they wanted to. My parents have always had a strong faith in my siblings and I being capable of making the right choices. I hope that I'll be able to trust my children in the same way. As I said, I have no doubt that I'm happier smoking than I would be not smoking, so for me smoking adds to the quality of my life (yeah, of course not physically, I know).
I don't think social acceptability is really anything to worry about, unless you want to place smokers in the same semantic category as pedophiles, drug addicts and the lot. I know some already do, but does smoking make anyone a bad person? Has a smoker ever commited a crime to pay for cigarettes? (Not that I know of.) This is directly related to the issue with trusting the children. If you trust that your children are capable of making the right decisions, then you needn't worry about them seeing people smoking. It's not like anyone can hide it completely anyways. At some point they will encounter someone smoking - if they're used to it chances are they'll think "hmm, just another smoker", but if it's something completely new, then they might suddenly get curious and maybe even try it because "it's so mysterious". I guess it can work the other way around too, if they start to smoke they'll be "just another smoker" (no big deal) or they'll be "different" (I guess it can be "different" in both a bad and a cool/good way). The issue of social acceptability of smoking is a delicate one and should be handled with care, but I don't think hiding stuff the way american media does is the way. I say, let people see what people do and let's then hope that everyone is able to make a right decision.
Long rant, sorry... I need a smoke. ;-)
[...] we simply made war so deadly with nukes that people stopped having them because is was MAD...
Excuse me, stopped having wars?
Seriously though, I'm a smoker and I absolutely love smoking. I can spend 10 minutes doing abosolutely nothing but enjoying a cigarette. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I can find plenty of worse ways to go. Smoking really works for me and I don't mind trading off a few years of my life for it.
I understand and respect how and why non-smokers can be annoyed by smoke, that's fine and understandable, but don't force your tired arguments down our throats. Smoking is a personal choice, so leave it at that, please. I've met one too many non-smokers who's been trying to "save me", which really just annoys me and won't ever work.
[...] just like pizza: do you use to pay for pizza after or before you ate it?
Usually the delivery boy won't let go of the damn box until I hand him the money.
CmTacoDr (circumfix)
TheCmdrTaco is actually just double prefixation. If you want infixation, try 'TaCmdrCo' (treating Taco as a word root). ;-)
Apparently, yes... "Spyridon Stais noticed that one of the pieces of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it." (from wikipedia).
That's KDE, baby! :-p
recursion (n.) See recursion