AT&T did exactly this same thing a couple of months ago; they ran an advert offering an extra 50% worth of data IF you called and told them you were accepting the free change to your contract.

If this effect is real, then it's also being retconned into my parents generation (I'm 31) as well; I think it's more about the changing nature of our technological products and the fact that they are not constructed in a manner conducive to repair.

You either had the ad open for so long it expired before you clicked the link, or you got an email from Steam and you clicked the link after the sale had expired.

Chrome doesn't read your emails and what personal information the browser does "phone home" to Google can be disabled if you so wish. The scanning of emails for ad targeting is done server-side for Gmail; still, if you replace "Google's browser" with "Gmail" then you'd have a statement I'd probably agree with. Personally I don't mind my email being checked by an algorithm to generate keywords for advertising; the keywords are only used while that specific email is open on-screen, so it's not like Google is amassing a database of every keyword ever found in any of your email -- that WOULD concern me.

Percentages can be negative; that is a perfectly normal and correct way to show the magnitude of a decrease.

Laws constructed under the Commerce Clause authority to restrict the interstate sale of alcohol have been ruled unconstitutional; maybe this will mark the end of our prohibition-era drug war nonsense. This could well be a can of worms the Attorneys-General will regret opening.

Last I checked there was no amendment giving the Federal gov't authority to create drug laws; it's an interpretation of the commerce clause that's been used as legal justification. Wikipedia has an interesting break-down of the source of constitutional authority for drug laws here. The argument is tenuous and based on the idea that if the federal gov't refuses to tax something, then it has the authority to make laws criminalizing all trade. It's an argument which gives the fed broad reach beyond the letter of the US Constitution; it doesn't mean it's right or wrong -- just that it's the kind of interpretation liable to being changed as our society loses it's hard-nosed Puritanical belief in regulating the private lives of others.

When you speak you exhale; if your airway is restricted or partially-blocked you can still potentially force air out by creating high pressure in excess of 1 ATM using muscles. When you inhale, however, the force to move the air comes entirely from the pressure difference between your lungs and the environment; assuming you could pull a vacuum with your lungs the best you can EVER achieve would be 1 ATM of pressure forcing air into you -- without external help. EMTs can use bag-valve-mask hand ventilators to provide a source of high-pressure air to help force it into you (assisted breathing) but that would require the cops to actually give a crap and get help.