Operating Systems Used by DEFCON CTF Teams [Poll]

I feel like I cannot be the only one who is disgusted every time I walk
through someones exhaled cigarette smoke while walking on a public sidewalk
or entering/exiting a public building. In populous areas, this equates to
every few steps.

People crowd around the doors to their establishments, which happen to be
right on the sidewalk, and inhale into their lungs a cocktail of
long-established and well-documented poisons. And then they blow it into the
sidewalk where the public walk through it and breath it in as well. I can
smell the stink of someone smoking over a hundred feet away, including in
the car in front of me (which often has kids in it).

Public smoking is a repugnant and sickening anachronism. It belongs in 2012
like an interracial dating ban belongs in Star Trek. Happily, it
appears some are figuring this out. I am personally going to raise the issue locally here in San Francisco,
and I encourage you to do the same in your local area. In the meantime I’m
exploring the idea of confronting offenders with a simple question:

Excuse me, you do realize how rude it is to stink up this entire area with
documented poisons that other people have no choice but to breathe?

I am also thinking of starting a campaign of recording
rude (redundant) smokers
throwing their butts out of their cars and sending the videos to the local
police department in hopes they’ll be fined. Same with those dropping them
on the sidewalk like they’re too special to find a garbage can. Maybe
getting a $1,000 fine for being an asshole will change some behavior.

It’s time for public smoking–and the extraordinarily rudeness of pollution
and littering associated with it–to be considered as nasty as it is, and for
the law to reflect this view.

[ Mar 31, 2012 ]