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Re: Asimov Site

> World".  He was worried about very quick, split-second, commercials,
> embedded in movies, TV programs, etc, which the viewer hardly noticed
> but which might enter the unconscious and, in time, "brain-wash" the
> viewer.  I think that kind of commercial has since then been made
> illegal at least in the US.

It's also been shown that it doesn't really work, or at least is not
very effective, in a
mass experiment on the BBC's programme "Tomorrow's World". As I recall,
there was a bit of
a difference for the test group that had been subjected to it, but it
was small.

> be commercials.  Thus 2 hours daily the average american spend watching
> commercials on TV.....

TV might already be a lost cause (at least in the us); we'd probably
better concentrate on how
to keep superfluous ads out of newsgroups and email.

> We're getting there!  Who could ever imagine that a mathematical
> algorithm could be patended, for instance?  But that has happened --

Personally, I think patenting a gene is even crazier. Patenting
something that you didn't
'invent' but really 'discovered' should be banned outright anyway.

Of course, the Net does have a tendency to work around things and make
patents & copyrights kind of
irrelevant - see the discussion over here, hasn't stopped anybody from
copying anything if they want to ;)

Regards, RD