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Comment by bmelton | Hacker News Reader

I felt the same way. My first thought was that I was glad there weren't any assault weapons involved, for which I was immediately ashamed. Immediately after that I was disgusted that Bloomberg.com wanted me to watch an ad for a new Mercedes before I could check on the well-being of my fellow humans.

I'm not proud of my thoughts, and I'm not proud of the hundred or so sarcastic remarks that I've thought of since I first heard the news either.

I am genuinely saddened that this happened, and my most sincere hope is that whomever did so is apprehended quickly and that nobody else is injured or killed while that happens. At the same time, the explosion looks (at least to me) like Tannerite, and I'm also thinking that perhaps Tannerite is going to get banned, or regulated, despite being, basically, iron oxide; which would make such a ban pretty futile.

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" Immediately after that I was disgusted that Bloomberg.com wanted me to watch an ad"

Are you suggesting that they should have some automatic kill switch implemented in advance which they can hit to show sensitivity? [1] Networks also run commercials to make money it's part of how they can afford to do what they do. Of course I've seen cases where networks don't run commercials on rare occasions.

[1] And why do they need to do this? Are you willing to pay for access instead so they don't have to run any advertising?

No, I'm not, and obviously they have every right to.

At just seemed crass at the moment. I admit that I was just having an overly emotional response at the time and do not fault them for it whatsoever.

I work for a large media organization and we have the ability to suspend advertising in response to crisis events. I'd assume other major outlets would have equivalent capabilities.

At the end of the day advertisers don't want to be associated with certain stories, and there's a public good imperative that drives rapid, open access in these tragic situations that overrides commercial interest even if that were of concern.

They're not running commercials on TV right now, but I agree that it's unrealistic to expect websites to just switch into non-commercial mode on the fly.

What's interesting though is that events like this are in fact an advertisement for TV itself and a show of value which keep people needing to have TV access. So even if they don't run advertising they also might need to do (to keep their license at least the broadcast networks) a certain amount of public good.

So they build good will as the place to go when some major event has happened and you are looking for every morsel of information or discussion about it.

Tannerite ignition is dependent on the impact of a high speed projectile. How would a terrorist with a rifle get a clean shot of the explosive through the crowd? I think it is unlikely that Tannerite was used.

FPS Russia is getting investigated by the FBI over tannerite, I think.

It would be awfully convenient if it was. Never let a crisis go to waste and all that.

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