Well, I guess I'd rather keep my options open and think for myself instead of have someone else regulate my life.

From the comments at the bottom of the article:

PokesdownMark says, "The assumption that people are stupid, that they will always make bad decisions is the most troubling aspect of this. The thinking that people are incapable of making a sensible decision. The idea of treating every individual like the lowest common denominator."

I agree.

You agree with his implied indignation or his statement?

People are at their worst/dumbest when they are panicked. The realization something is actually on fire? 5-30 seconds depending on if you start it or it just happens, freaking out about fire while lading tiny cups of water at it in vein before deciding this is beyond the control of 4 ounces of water every 10 seconds and a good towel beating? 30 seconds. Remembering where the extinguisher is? 10-20 seconds. Getting it: 1-2 minutes. Panicked fumbling with it before anything comes out: 30-40 seconds. Time it takes for a fire to get out of control (by which I mean the extinguisher has no effect at all, not that your valiant effort killed you but saved the nunnery down the hall) 20 seconds to a couple minutes. If a fire happens in your kitchen you would have a fighting chance, if it happened anywhere else you'd be screwed. Modern curtains/furniture/etc wouldn't light up faster if they were made of gasoline. Now granted you could argue you should be able to make that call, but you could have an extinguisher in your kitchen and it probably happens often that someone else entirely comes running in with it, not knowing the situation.

I'd like to see the apartment where it would take 1-2 minutes just to run out into the hall and back.

You don't think they had a good statistical backup for doing this that states that communally positioned fire extinguishers are overwhelmingly more likely to do you harm than good?

All this fire talk makes me want to try out our fire pit we've had forever. Sarah and I have Super Smash Bros Brawl and Guitar Hero 3 coming sometime next week. We'll have to play some Nintendo and then go sit by the fire. Edit: Jon's beloved Toys R Us had a deal where you got a Wii game half off if you bought Brawl. Most of the games were 2nd rate games already like $40, So you only saved $20-$25. Then someone saw it worked with GT3 and posted that on Slickdeals.net. So we 'saved' like $50. Since I actually was close not too long ago to getting GT3 before deciding against it in a way we got Brawl for free. Edit2: Looks like Monday.

Says the man who apparently believes that no one in the entire music industry has ever done an analysis into price structure and profits.

SAT time:

L : Writer :: T : Hero

Says the man who apparently believes that no one in the entire music industry has ever done an analysis into price structure and profits.

Ha http://www.granturismo-3.com/

Right...almost the same thing.

I have no idea what you're referencing, but I just read a study that showed that downloading has no statistically significant effect on album sales. You can feel free to cross-reference this with the RIAA thread.

He's talking about my belief that music piracy would effectively be ended, and that everyone who mattered in the actual production of music would make way more money, if mp3's were so cheap and convenient that no one gave a second thought to paying for them. Essentially moving to more of a 'sell in bulk' model. Who would bother with crappy p2p program experiences and mislabeled/garbled mp3's and whatnot if you had an easy to navigate system that charged like a dime per legit DRM free high quality mp3? His implication is that if there's any truth to my thinking they would already be doing that.

. The music labels and artists would make a boatload more under the 'bulk' system, but have distribution rights and agreements. The music industry has to care about keeping many many people that make a living off cds happy and take a million other things into consideration.

I was going to share this story when I first heard about it, but you know how that goes. Anyway, since the "nanny state" has been referenced, it fits here. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23447869-details/The+street+made+safe+for+texting+and+walking/article.do

The fire dept has no ulterior motives or outside influences to consider, only the people's safety.

Conceding that point then, since the fire department's only concern is people's safety, they would try to stop actions that would increase the risk of someone being hurt or killed no matter what. So if a fire starts in an apartment, and getting the fire extinguisher and going back in would increase the risk to the owner by some amount, the fire department would be against it. But unlike the fire department, people do have other factors to consider, even if they may conflict with their safety. It may be worth the added risk to one's own life to act to decrease the risk of losing their possessions or, God forbid, a family member, and it shouldn't be the government's place to try and prevent him from making that decision.