Also in terms of programming a big problem is that of ambiguity. Compilers can't handle it, their syntax and grammar is rigidly defined, as it must be. That's the reason we have programming languages rather than simply programming in a natural language: Natural language is too imprecise, a computer cannot parse it. We need a more rigidly defined language.
Logban disagrees with this, insofar as it is concerned with itself.
You comment that IE8 was slightly faster than FF, but you don't mention which version of FF you were using.
The article is talking about the currently-RC-status 3.5. Were you, by chance, using FF2 or earlier to compare? Earlier versions of Firefox have known issues with memory leaks. Many of these, though not all, have been fixed in the 3.5 version.
If you're going to say that "IE8 is slightly faster than FF" and that it is significantly better on older machines, you really ought to have said which version of Firefox you were using.
Of course, this goes both ways. Saying Firefox 3.5 is lightyears ahead of IE, without mentioning which IE it was being compared with, is utterly useless. Yes, Firefox 3.5 is lightyears ahead of IE5, 5.5, 6, or earlier versions (if they even still exist), but not so much when compared to 7 or 8.
Anecdotal evidence really does need versions along with it to at least look intelligent.
Honestly, we've been having "Google Killers," "Microsoft Killers," "Amazon Killers" and all of their kin-killers for so long now, that I'm surprised news sites aren't completely jaded.
I've been hearing about Wolfram Alpha for about a week now, and it is always the same thing: New site that may give Google a run for its money.
The same was said for... who was it? I can't remember. Let me go Google it.
Oh, that's right: Cuil. I don't have the desire to dredge the graves of all the other "killer" products.
What is with people tossing out all of these "killer" products? If your product is so great, it will generate its own power. When something is put forward so much, proclaimed as a "killer" product, people tend to yawn.
Put the product in the market, and come back in a year before it is so heavily trumpeted. Anything that is unreleased or in limited release that is touted as a "killer" product sounds questionable, at best, especially when the general public has not even heard of it yet. You know, the general public who gives a product its critical mass?
Yeah. When said critical mass is around, then you can call it a killer. Until then, the river flows on.
Yup, speed is everything, all right. Especially when almost all of the instances are less than a second apart. Many are even withing a half second of each other.
I just finished a few of my own (very unscientific) tests, and in all but Adobe and 163, the pages was loaded before I got my mouse from the address bar to the scroller.
Granted, my system isn't exactly "low-end," but it isn't new, either. It is almost three years old, and was fairly high-end when I built it.
Still, looking only at the times MS has, I don't get why they are trumpeting differences that are negligible, at best.
No, wait, let me correct myself.
Looking only at the times that these speed tests that companies are so fond of put out, I don't get why ANYBODY bothers to trumpet differences that are negligible, at best.
Sadly, the lay-man will likely look at these numbers and think they actually mean something.
Anyway, if speed is desired, go with Opera. If Opera were open-source and had viable StumbleUpon support, it would be the perfect browser.
Honestly, this sounds suspect, at best. I can think of numerous reasons why asthma would appear more common in people who watched TV more, including one much more likely "death spiral":
A person who will have asthma likely has it to lesser degrees when they are younger. This makes it more difficult to go out and do activities that would require the body to breath harder.
In turn, this causes said people to find other tasks to occupy their time, of which TV is a very easy solution.
Of course, the more TV you watch, and the less physical activity you have, the worst shape your body will be in. If you are not physically capable of doing active activities (taking asthma out of the equation for the moment) then you are less likely to do said activities.
Again, you then seek other ways to occupy your time, and the cycle repeats.
I could just as easily say that TV is liked with lower IQ (ignoring the fantasy that IQ is) and show a very strong link with it. However, watching TV does not lower a person's intelligence, it just makes them less likely to increase it. Of course, accessibility to learning materials is far more important, so any would-be jokers who want to comment about this being the reason Africa is the leading scientific nation need not respond.
Anybody who designs a website with a main menu that is a drop-down, instead of making the links readily available, cannot be trusted with working on something as complex as a browser.
Without Linux and its kin (BSD and, especially, UNIX), the Internet would be a mere shadow of what it currently is, IF it would even exist at all.
All this talk I always hear about the fabled "Year of Linux" always fails to mention the little fact that, without Linux and Open-Source technology, a lot of the tech we have today would not exist or would be prohibitively expensive.
So enough of this sensationalist hype, OK? The Year of Linux came when the Internet took off, and we've been living in the Year (or years) of Linux ever since. When Microsoft and Apple can compete with the Internet, then it will be their year. Until then, let them play catch-up.
Not only that, but younger children tend to be significantly less fearful.
What a 16-year-old may consider too risky to attempt, a child just a few years younger may be fully willing to attempt, irregardless of the risks. They simply don't realize that it is such a big risk.
Similar to my thoughts, sans the whole meme bit. The attempt to silence the blog, especially with tax money, will blow up so badly it will make our oh-so-glorious capitol's fireworks displays look paltry and dull in comparison.
Anyway, I wonder if there is any way to change an "effect" into a "law".
If you're talking about the ads displayed alongside your emails, Google never said they read the emails, just that their systems scan the emails for key words to make the ads relevant. That is quite a bit different from reading the actual email.
That being said, I still feel it is a bit too questionable, and a bit too close to actually reading them, so I generally only use the gmail address for non-important tasks.
Even so, bringing up the whole "Google reads your email!" line this late into the game is either a very bad troll, or just somebody trying to ride the wave of being over-emotional (or funny, but that is unlikely, I think).
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, another major gaming corporation lost a lawsuit against a not-so-similar game "enhancing" device.
Nintendo was attempting to stop the creators of Game Genie from releasing their product via a lawsuit, but the creators of Game Genie were found to be within their rights to permit such altered play.
I fully realize that Nintendo/Game Genie are a very different beast compared to World of Warcraft/Bots, but at the same time, they are still relatively similar.
I don't have much else to say on this subject, even though I feel bots in online games cross the line, but it does make me wonder if any other gaming companies will attempt to revisit the old issue with cheat devises (such as Game Shark).
eBay is in a death spiral. They have been for a while now, and each step they take to try and ensure their survival, they alienate more of the people who made them the powerhouse they once (and still, for now) are.
Eventually, they will hit the ground, but they are doing their best to stay aloft and profitable.
As for the "millions" of users "overnight" for any good competing auction house (or even Google), let's be a bit more rational. Yes, there are a good number of people who are pretty upset with eBay as of late, but let's not be hasty to state that what could simply be a loud minority are "millions."
I could be completely mistaken, as I haven't paid much attention to eBay in a long while, but I have seen far too often when people have said that a vocal minority are the majority, simply because they are the most heard.
After all, if you have 100 apples, 99 of which are red and 1 of which is yellow, one generally notices the 1 yellow much more easily. Vice versa, if one has 100 apples, 99 of which are yellow and 1 of which is red, one will usually notice the single red much more easily.
That being said, giving a site such as Buy.com the ability to list stuff without listing fees does seem to be, well, damning. We'll see how this plays out over time, I suppose.
As for LastMinute Travel being common? Well, I can see it being ambiguous, at the least.
If I work in CityA, and my boss says to me, "I need you in CityB by tomorrow morning to meet with ClientX." I might be tempted to search for "last minute airfare" or similar, simply because "last minute" is a way of saying that something is almost out of time.
For people who regularly have to book flights and hotels less than a day in advance, there very well may be a common euphemism such as a "last minute travel plan" instead of "emergency travel plan" or similarly "dark" word ('emergency', as opposed to 'last minute').
I'm not sure how clear I am making myself, but simply put, "last minute" is a relatively common phrase in the States, and if it is similarly common in the UK, I doubt LastMinute.com will be able to do much in court to give themselves a victory.
Really, that's why companies shouldn't use common words or phrases for their names and trademarks, nor should they use overly-simply words or phrases.
Does it require/use an internet connection? Not only that, but to protect your children from those horrible, horrible online office suites, we use 95% of your bandwidth at all times!
Are the ads served up in relation to a keyword search? Yes, but don't worry, we've made deals with companies who use bogus adwords to ensure that you never see something you would care about spending money on (unless it is our product!)
Does it embed ads in output? Of course! This is just to help you get some income from the documents you create, so you can buy the/real/ version of Works (disclaimer: there is a 100.1% tax of all income earned by you immediately upon later viewing of our ads).
How long before it is cracked and made to serve up porno ads etc? This unreleased product (yeah, yeah, I know) is the most secure product we have to offer! There are only 23,987 known bugs!
When are they going to start including technology from this experiment into other MS products? Well, if the EU would just LEAVE US ALONE (HINT! HINT! GO AWAY!) WGA and OGA would be giving you a perfect demonstration right now!
The list of questions goes on of possible/probable issues with this. No issues exist! As we said, this is our greatest offering ever!
The public needs to be better educated NOW WAIT JUST A GOSH-DARN MINUTE! What is this "education" you are talking about?! How DARE you attempt to make our shee-, er, customers aware of ANYTHING but what we tell them!
The rest of your post deserves to be ignored! Propaganda! FUD! Slander! Libel! SUE SUE SUE! DON'T MAKE ME PICK UP THAT CHAIR YOU'RE SITTING ON!!!
You pay for it with the computer, just like you pay for Windows with the computer.
It's a pity we, as consumers, don't have access to a line-item list of everything we get nickel-and-dimed for; it would be truly shocking, I think, if we did.
Even though the parent has been modded as "Funny" it is actually a pretty decent idea...
But... There is a minor conundrum with it... On the one hand, purchasing ad space on MS Works will be giving money directly to Microsoft. On the other hand, it would be a potential loss of money for Microsoft over the long-term, if people start using OO.o as opposed to MS Works (losing out on the advertisement revenue).
I think I'll have to do a bit of digging to see if doing something like this is actually feasible, and how much it costs...
I can't wait for the first person to be double-taxed because of this and sue over it. Sure, very few people do bother to declare their online or catalog purchases, but surely there are at least a few people out there who do, even if the numbers are quite small.
If they get taxed at the point of purchase because of this, then get taxed again when they declare it (let's face it, the government isn't organized enough to change quite that quickly), I can foresee a very heavy-handed slap from the lawyers.
One person is not the problem, just as one person is almost never the problem.
The problem is when a large number of you wretches get together in an enclosed place and smoke to your hearts' content.
Of course, if you actually believed what you were saying in your post, you wouldn't have posted AC. At the least, I (a pussy, according to you) had the balls to attach my name to my belief, which seems to be more than you, the Anonymous Coward, are willing to do.
I think that forcing private businesses to disallow smoking is BS too, but at least they were trying to justify it through employee health complaints.
Yes, because people with more than a mild case of asthma have nothing better to do but sit in their homes all day because nicotine addicts simply cannot go without their health-damning condition that could potentially kill somebody who got an unfortunate face-full of smoke.
I have a somewhat severe issue with asthma, and I never went to restaurants because of the issues with smoke. It didn't matter that there were no-smoking sections, the smoke still drifted through the air (especially at the places that didn't even bother to try filtering the air). I would be dancing in the streets if smoking were banned in all public places, inside and outside both (actually, let's make it completely illegal, similar to so many other harmful and addictive substances).
There's nothing more fun than being a prisoner in your own home because the smokers are too Holier-Than-Thou to give a flying fuck about the people around them who have severe issues with breathing.
To put it all in fewer words: YOUR RIGHT TO KILL YOURSELF IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN MY RIGHT TO LIVE.
Get over the "smokers' rights" bullshit.
Back on topic, I'm fortunate that I don't have to fly too often, but when I do, I'll be triple-checking to make sure I have my MP3 player, extra batteries and a good set of headphones if cellphones are permitted on flights. At least people talking on their phones won't risk putting people in the hospitals.
Several of these comments seem to condone federal legislation to ban an annoyance in the name of safety. Gross.
I really, really hope that was sarcasm, but considering the rest of your post...
One of the biggest draws for me to watch stuff online instead of on TV is the lack of interruptions in the middle of a program. Breaking off the main content right at a critical point will keep me watching, yes, but it will also make me rather perturbed. I don't take undesired content well when annoyed. If stuff like this starts happening, then not only will I not bother with the ads, I'll be moving to an entirely different video site.
Of course, I'll be rather SOL if big companies who put their content online (far too few) begin to put commercials in the middle, but there's always the option to just wait until the stuff comes out on DVD.
Put a (SHORT!) commercial at the beginning of a program, and I am fine with it (though if it starts going over 15 seconds, I'll start being somewhat annoyed), or put one at the end and I'll probably decide to give the advertiser a click, just to keep some revenue going for the site/video, but start breaking the video with commercials, interrupting the flow of the video and the flow of the thought process in the brain, and you're going to end up with upset customers.
I don't know how many people are like myself, moving to stuff online simply to avoid the 5-10 minutes of commercials per 30-minute programs, but if I start having to put up with that online, as well, you'll lose me completely.
At some point, we may become so advanced, technologically, that there is nothing curently living which is beyond our ability to recreate in a laboratory setting. How would one determine what occurs naturally and what was created?
That is pretty irrelevant... If we are creating something that already exists, that specific object or creature was man-made, but as a whole, the species it is mimicking evolved naturally.
There will be lots of legal issues related to "accident of nature" or "industrial accident" related to when created things go bad, and how to prove they were created versus just having occurred by themselves.
If this becomes an issue, it will be because of bad (as in poorly-skilled) scientists not bothering to document what they are doing, then releasing whatever it is they created in a place where we, as a human whole, are not entirely familiar, such as a rain forest.
Of course, if it is released into a section of a rain forest not currently being monitored, it will have to be in large enough quantities to not only survive, but thrive. If there are enough of them to thrive, there will be enough to seriously unbalance the local ecosystem. If there are enough to seriously unbalance the local ecosystem, other scientists are going to find out. When other scientists find out that something has suddenly caused an imbalance in an ecosystem, they are going to try and find out why. When they try to figure out why, they will discover the creature the bad scientists created. When they discover those creatures, they will begin to question why they, if they were native to the local ecosystem, suddenly caused an imbalance (and no, evolution is not the answer, as evolution is not an over-night thing where an ape gives birth to a human).
Those scientists studying this thing will come to the conclusion it was brought in from outside, and is not native to that particular ecosystem.
Those scientists will then attempt to figure out where the creatures were brought in from, and when they find that they are found nowhere else, will begin wondering what happened.
Here's the kicker, however: If there were enough of these creatures created to survive, let alone thrive, it would have cost potentially hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in money (pretty easily noticeable when organizations are spending that type of money, even in corrupt nations) and would require a huge amount of logistical work to be able to bring all of those creatures to the location where they were put.
A lot of people will know where the creatures were from, even if they don't know they were man-made, and even for fanatical groups, there are people who talk when they are supposed to keep silent. Someone, somewhere, is going to say something that will eventually get back to the investigating scientists, who will then have a pretty good idea of where to look for the origin of these creatures.
And, of course, if you say that the person who orchestrated the creatures killed off everybody who was involved, there would be questions and investigations as to the deaths of people, which will, with so many dead, lead back to the orchestrator.
Let's ignore the cost of housing these creatures until there are enough to even survive. Or the food. Or the waste they will produce.
Perhaps several billion dollars for such a cost would be an understatement, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Also in terms of programming a big problem is that of ambiguity. Compilers can't handle it, their syntax and grammar is rigidly defined, as it must be. That's the reason we have programming languages rather than simply programming in a natural language: Natural language is too imprecise, a computer cannot parse it. We need a more rigidly defined language.
Logban disagrees with this, insofar as it is concerned with itself.
You comment that IE8 was slightly faster than FF, but you don't mention which version of FF you were using.
The article is talking about the currently-RC-status 3.5. Were you, by chance, using FF2 or earlier to compare? Earlier versions of Firefox have known issues with memory leaks. Many of these, though not all, have been fixed in the 3.5 version.
If you're going to say that "IE8 is slightly faster than FF" and that it is significantly better on older machines, you really ought to have said which version of Firefox you were using.
Of course, this goes both ways. Saying Firefox 3.5 is lightyears ahead of IE, without mentioning which IE it was being compared with, is utterly useless. Yes, Firefox 3.5 is lightyears ahead of IE5, 5.5, 6, or earlier versions (if they even still exist), but not so much when compared to 7 or 8.
Anecdotal evidence really does need versions along with it to at least look intelligent.
Honestly, we've been having "Google Killers," "Microsoft Killers," "Amazon Killers" and all of their kin-killers for so long now, that I'm surprised news sites aren't completely jaded.
I've been hearing about Wolfram Alpha for about a week now, and it is always the same thing: New site that may give Google a run for its money.
The same was said for... who was it? I can't remember. Let me go Google it.
Oh, that's right: Cuil. I don't have the desire to dredge the graves of all the other "killer" products.
What is with people tossing out all of these "killer" products? If your product is so great, it will generate its own power. When something is put forward so much, proclaimed as a "killer" product, people tend to yawn.
Put the product in the market, and come back in a year before it is so heavily trumpeted. Anything that is unreleased or in limited release that is touted as a "killer" product sounds questionable, at best, especially when the general public has not even heard of it yet. You know, the general public who gives a product its critical mass?
Yeah. When said critical mass is around, then you can call it a killer. Until then, the river flows on.
It's open-source. Unless you are talking about literal documentation, it is sort of difficult to have anything "undocumented."
That comment of yours is severely over-rated.
Yup, speed is everything, all right. Especially when almost all of the instances are less than a second apart. Many are even withing a half second of each other.
I just finished a few of my own (very unscientific) tests, and in all but Adobe and 163, the pages was loaded before I got my mouse from the address bar to the scroller.
Granted, my system isn't exactly "low-end," but it isn't new, either. It is almost three years old, and was fairly high-end when I built it.
Still, looking only at the times MS has, I don't get why they are trumpeting differences that are negligible, at best.
No, wait, let me correct myself.
Looking only at the times that these speed tests that companies are so fond of put out, I don't get why ANYBODY bothers to trumpet differences that are negligible, at best.
Sadly, the lay-man will likely look at these numbers and think they actually mean something.
Anyway, if speed is desired, go with Opera. If Opera were open-source and had viable StumbleUpon support, it would be the perfect browser.
Honestly, this sounds suspect, at best. I can think of numerous reasons why asthma would appear more common in people who watched TV more, including one much more likely "death spiral":
A person who will have asthma likely has it to lesser degrees when they are younger. This makes it more difficult to go out and do activities that would require the body to breath harder.
In turn, this causes said people to find other tasks to occupy their time, of which TV is a very easy solution.
Of course, the more TV you watch, and the less physical activity you have, the worst shape your body will be in. If you are not physically capable of doing active activities (taking asthma out of the equation for the moment) then you are less likely to do said activities.
Again, you then seek other ways to occupy your time, and the cycle repeats.
I could just as easily say that TV is liked with lower IQ (ignoring the fantasy that IQ is) and show a very strong link with it. However, watching TV does not lower a person's intelligence, it just makes them less likely to increase it. Of course, accessibility to learning materials is far more important, so any would-be jokers who want to comment about this being the reason Africa is the leading scientific nation need not respond.
Also, preemptive "Why so serious?"
Anybody who designs a website with a main menu that is a drop-down, instead of making the links readily available, cannot be trusted with working on something as complex as a browser.
Without Linux and its kin (BSD and, especially, UNIX), the Internet would be a mere shadow of what it currently is, IF it would even exist at all.
All this talk I always hear about the fabled "Year of Linux" always fails to mention the little fact that, without Linux and Open-Source technology, a lot of the tech we have today would not exist or would be prohibitively expensive.
So enough of this sensationalist hype, OK? The Year of Linux came when the Internet took off, and we've been living in the Year (or years) of Linux ever since. When Microsoft and Apple can compete with the Internet, then it will be their year. Until then, let them play catch-up.
Welcome to the United States of America, the land where the Haves have Justice and and the Have-Nots haven't.
Not only that, but younger children tend to be significantly less fearful.
What a 16-year-old may consider too risky to attempt, a child just a few years younger may be fully willing to attempt, irregardless of the risks. They simply don't realize that it is such a big risk.
What does a god, any god, have to do with common sense?
The belief in a god is the exact opposite of common sense.
Similar to my thoughts, sans the whole meme bit.
The attempt to silence the blog, especially with tax money, will blow up so badly it will make our oh-so-glorious capitol's fireworks displays look paltry and dull in comparison.
Anyway, I wonder if there is any way to change an "effect" into a "law".
If you're talking about the ads displayed alongside your emails, Google never said they read the emails, just that their systems scan the emails for key words to make the ads relevant. That is quite a bit different from reading the actual email.
That being said, I still feel it is a bit too questionable, and a bit too close to actually reading them, so I generally only use the gmail address for non-important tasks.
Even so, bringing up the whole "Google reads your email!" line this late into the game is either a very bad troll, or just somebody trying to ride the wave of being over-emotional (or funny, but that is unlikely, I think).
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, another major gaming corporation lost a lawsuit against a not-so-similar game "enhancing" device.
Nintendo was attempting to stop the creators of Game Genie from releasing their product via a lawsuit, but the creators of Game Genie were found to be within their rights to permit such altered play.
I fully realize that Nintendo/Game Genie are a very different beast compared to World of Warcraft/Bots, but at the same time, they are still relatively similar.
I don't have much else to say on this subject, even though I feel bots in online games cross the line, but it does make me wonder if any other gaming companies will attempt to revisit the old issue with cheat devises (such as Game Shark).
Anyway, here's a link to a bit more info about the Nintendo vs. Game Genie bit. Sorry it's from Wikipedia, but it is a semi-decent summary (emphasis on summary) that is readily accessible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys%2C_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America%2C_Inc.
eBay is in a death spiral. They have been for a while now, and each step they take to try and ensure their survival, they alienate more of the people who made them the powerhouse they once (and still, for now) are.
Eventually, they will hit the ground, but they are doing their best to stay aloft and profitable.
As for the "millions" of users "overnight" for any good competing auction house (or even Google), let's be a bit more rational. Yes, there are a good number of people who are pretty upset with eBay as of late, but let's not be hasty to state that what could simply be a loud minority are "millions."
I could be completely mistaken, as I haven't paid much attention to eBay in a long while, but I have seen far too often when people have said that a vocal minority are the majority, simply because they are the most heard.
After all, if you have 100 apples, 99 of which are red and 1 of which is yellow, one generally notices the 1 yellow much more easily.
Vice versa, if one has 100 apples, 99 of which are yellow and 1 of which is red, one will usually notice the single red much more easily.
That being said, giving a site such as Buy.com the ability to list stuff without listing fees does seem to be, well, damning.
We'll see how this plays out over time, I suppose.
We'll have to google it to find out.
Don't forget "Dumpster".
As for LastMinute Travel being common? Well, I can see it being ambiguous, at the least.
If I work in CityA, and my boss says to me, "I need you in CityB by tomorrow morning to meet with ClientX." I might be tempted to search for "last minute airfare" or similar, simply because "last minute" is a way of saying that something is almost out of time.
For people who regularly have to book flights and hotels less than a day in advance, there very well may be a common euphemism such as a "last minute travel plan" instead of "emergency travel plan" or similarly "dark" word ('emergency', as opposed to 'last minute').
I'm not sure how clear I am making myself, but simply put, "last minute" is a relatively common phrase in the States, and if it is similarly common in the UK, I doubt LastMinute.com will be able to do much in court to give themselves a victory.
Really, that's why companies shouldn't use common words or phrases for their names and trademarks, nor should they use overly-simply words or phrases.
The rest of your post deserves to be ignored! Propaganda! FUD! Slander! Libel! SUE SUE SUE! DON'T MAKE ME PICK UP THAT CHAIR YOU'RE SITTING ON!!!
You pay for it with the computer, just like you pay for Windows with the computer.
It's a pity we, as consumers, don't have access to a line-item list of everything we get nickel-and-dimed for; it would be truly shocking, I think, if we did.
Even though the parent has been modded as "Funny" it is actually a pretty decent idea...
But... There is a minor conundrum with it...
On the one hand, purchasing ad space on MS Works will be giving money directly to Microsoft.
On the other hand, it would be a potential loss of money for Microsoft over the long-term, if people start using OO.o as opposed to MS Works (losing out on the advertisement revenue).
I think I'll have to do a bit of digging to see if doing something like this is actually feasible, and how much it costs...
I can't wait for the first person to be double-taxed because of this and sue over it.
Sure, very few people do bother to declare their online or catalog purchases, but surely there are at least a few people out there who do, even if the numbers are quite small.
If they get taxed at the point of purchase because of this, then get taxed again when they declare it (let's face it, the government isn't organized enough to change quite that quickly), I can foresee a very heavy-handed slap from the lawyers.
One person is not the problem, just as one person is almost never the problem.
The problem is when a large number of you wretches get together in an enclosed place and smoke to your hearts' content.
Of course, if you actually believed what you were saying in your post, you wouldn't have posted AC. At the least, I (a pussy, according to you) had the balls to attach my name to my belief, which seems to be more than you, the Anonymous Coward, are willing to do.
Yes, because people with more than a mild case of asthma have nothing better to do but sit in their homes all day because nicotine addicts simply cannot go without their health-damning condition that could potentially kill somebody who got an unfortunate face-full of smoke.
I have a somewhat severe issue with asthma, and I never went to restaurants because of the issues with smoke. It didn't matter that there were no-smoking sections, the smoke still drifted through the air (especially at the places that didn't even bother to try filtering the air). I would be dancing in the streets if smoking were banned in all public places, inside and outside both (actually, let's make it completely illegal, similar to so many other harmful and addictive substances).
There's nothing more fun than being a prisoner in your own home because the smokers are too Holier-Than-Thou to give a flying fuck about the people around them who have severe issues with breathing.
To put it all in fewer words: YOUR RIGHT TO KILL YOURSELF IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN MY RIGHT TO LIVE.
Get over the "smokers' rights" bullshit.
Back on topic, I'm fortunate that I don't have to fly too often, but when I do, I'll be triple-checking to make sure I have my MP3 player, extra batteries and a good set of headphones if cellphones are permitted on flights. At least people talking on their phones won't risk putting people in the hospitals.
Several of these comments seem to condone federal legislation to ban an annoyance in the name of safety. Gross.I really, really hope that was sarcasm, but considering the rest of your post...
...and the match is getting short.
One of the biggest draws for me to watch stuff online instead of on TV is the lack of interruptions in the middle of a program. Breaking off the main content right at a critical point will keep me watching, yes, but it will also make me rather perturbed. I don't take undesired content well when annoyed. If stuff like this starts happening, then not only will I not bother with the ads, I'll be moving to an entirely different video site.
Of course, I'll be rather SOL if big companies who put their content online (far too few) begin to put commercials in the middle, but there's always the option to just wait until the stuff comes out on DVD.
Put a (SHORT!) commercial at the beginning of a program, and I am fine with it (though if it starts going over 15 seconds, I'll start being somewhat annoyed), or put one at the end and I'll probably decide to give the advertiser a click, just to keep some revenue going for the site/video, but start breaking the video with commercials, interrupting the flow of the video and the flow of the thought process in the brain, and you're going to end up with upset customers.
I don't know how many people are like myself, moving to stuff online simply to avoid the 5-10 minutes of commercials per 30-minute programs, but if I start having to put up with that online, as well, you'll lose me completely.
That is pretty irrelevant... If we are creating something that already exists, that specific object or creature was man-made, but as a whole, the species it is mimicking evolved naturally.
There will be lots of legal issues related to "accident of nature" or "industrial accident" related to when created things go bad, and how to prove they were created versus just having occurred by themselves.If this becomes an issue, it will be because of bad (as in poorly-skilled) scientists not bothering to document what they are doing, then releasing whatever it is they created in a place where we, as a human whole, are not entirely familiar, such as a rain forest.
Of course, if it is released into a section of a rain forest not currently being monitored, it will have to be in large enough quantities to not only survive, but thrive. If there are enough of them to thrive, there will be enough to seriously unbalance the local ecosystem. If there are enough to seriously unbalance the local ecosystem, other scientists are going to find out. When other scientists find out that something has suddenly caused an imbalance in an ecosystem, they are going to try and find out why. When they try to figure out why, they will discover the creature the bad scientists created. When they discover those creatures, they will begin to question why they, if they were native to the local ecosystem, suddenly caused an imbalance (and no, evolution is not the answer, as evolution is not an over-night thing where an ape gives birth to a human).
Those scientists studying this thing will come to the conclusion it was brought in from outside, and is not native to that particular ecosystem.
Those scientists will then attempt to figure out where the creatures were brought in from, and when they find that they are found nowhere else, will begin wondering what happened.
Here's the kicker, however: If there were enough of these creatures created to survive, let alone thrive, it would have cost potentially hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in money (pretty easily noticeable when organizations are spending that type of money, even in corrupt nations) and would require a huge amount of logistical work to be able to bring all of those creatures to the location where they were put.
A lot of people will know where the creatures were from, even if they don't know they were man-made, and even for fanatical groups, there are people who talk when they are supposed to keep silent. Someone, somewhere, is going to say something that will eventually get back to the investigating scientists, who will then have a pretty good idea of where to look for the origin of these creatures.
And, of course, if you say that the person who orchestrated the creatures killed off everybody who was involved, there would be questions and investigations as to the deaths of people, which will, with so many dead, lead back to the orchestrator.
Let's ignore the cost of housing these creatures until there are enough to even survive. Or the food. Or the waste they will produce.
Perhaps several billion dollars for such a cost would be an understatement, after all.