No, the specs shouldn't be restricted for style reasons. I believe that the permissive specs and "undefined behaviors" are part of what made C and later C++ so successful.
I hate it when languages try to dictate how I should code when there are no technical reasons. My beliefs are that languages should be designed for experts, not for preventing beginners from shooting themselves in the foot. For this, there are compiler warnings, coding standards, static analysis tools, ... (which I believe are essential)

Now let me tell you a few reasons why "if (a = b)" is better than "a = b;" followed by "if (a)" :
- An extra line takes up screen real estate, which is precious.
- In the two line version, "a" is written twice instead of once. It goes against the principle of code factorization.
Of course there are arguments going against it but it is just to show that it is not clear cut. Personally, I would use "if ((a = b))" : it gets rid of the warning, it's a common way of showing that you are not doing a typical equality test and it doesn't suffer the problems I mentioned.

As for point 2, while it is unlikely to find a compiler that have trouble guessing that the two styles mean the same thing, changing compiler is not that simple, especially if you are on an exotic platform.

I also don't believe in point 3 : whether you use it of not, "if (a = b)" remains uncommon, and it will jump at any experienced programmer.

From the comments, it looks like the concept of logical equivalence is indeed a hard concept to grasp.

!women || people (a logical consequence) is probably closer to the intended meaning.

Only if men != women.

Using the SI :
507 MM = 507*1e6*1e6 = 507 trillions = 507 T
6.8 MM = 6.8*1e6*1e6 = 6.8 trillions = 6.8 T
2 K = 2 Kelvin = -271.15 C = -407.07 F

That's a lot of code, but it took about 1000 times the world population to write it. Also, YouTube views are very cold.

In France we have a somewhat controversial tax called ISF (Impôt de solidarité sur la fortune).
People owning more than 1.3M€ in assets can be taxed up to 1.5% of their net worth annually.

/var meant to be both writable and persistent. That makes it very sensitive and a good target for attackers. This is the reason why it is a good idea to avoid putting executable files in there. In fact the less you rely on /var, the better.

/usr, /bin, /lib and /etc can be mounted read-only in production. That's the case of Android for example. As a result, it is a much safer place for executables and libraries.

Several countries in Africa are traversed by the Equator, which is a good place for launch facilities.
Maybe that's the idea.

As you suggested I checked Google for facts and I was indeed wrong on some points, sorry. Germany gets most of its electricity from coal, not gas. And I thought the import/exports where on a daily basis instead of a yearly basis (I didn't write it though, so you probably implied it somehow).
However my point still stands : Germany export expensive fossil fuel power when demand is high and imports cheap nuclear power when demand is low.

Here are the facts about Germany :
- Coal : 45%
- Renewables : 22%
- Nuclear : 16 %
- Gas : 11%
- Exports are higher during winter (high demand) and imports are higher during summer (low demand)
- Renewable electricity production is at the lowest in winter
- Coal electricity production is at the highest in winter
- Germany is a net exporter globally, France is also a net exporter globally. Germany is a net exporter for France.
Source : http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/downloads/pdf-files/aktuelles/stromproduktion-aus-solar-und-windenergie-2013.pdf (+ others)

Another thing : according to this http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images/7/75/Half-yearly_electricity_and_gas_prices.png household electricity for s1 2013 in Germany is 0.29€/kWh, that's more than 0.40$/kWh and among the most expensive in Europe. Are you taking everything into account when you are talking about 0.18€ (taxes, subscription...) ?

Germany's production is mostly fossil fuel. They may be the champion of renewables but it still represents only a small part of the picture.
The way Germany works is more of less like this : France has plenty of nuclear reactors that are good at producing base load power, so, when demand is low, Germany buys this excess power for a low (sometimes even negative) price. Now, when demand is high, France's nuclear power is not sufficient for its own use, so Germany starts its gas plants and sell back electricity at a high price.

Does it mean that 45% of all servers will be used to heat up water ? Or maybe something about weather forecasts.

Piracy, in Japan ? I've seen very little of it compared to other countries. However they have a large second hand market, which probably has a similar effect on sales.

As for Albums, they are almost collector items. The CDs and packaging are high price / high quality. For example, the bar code, price and other technical data are printed on a separated piece of cardboard (spine card / obi). This is partly to avoid messing with the cover art.
In fact we can argue that the album itself is merchandize.

Interesting point. But can we really call a place where sound doesn't exist "quiet". In the same way we can't call vacuum "cold" because there is no temperature.
The air in an anechoic chamber actually makes things stop vibrating whereas vacuum merely prevents the sound from propagating.

Ask Slashdot, they can tell you if a product will fail or not with 50% accuracy. If you use a time machine, you can go up to 90% : Slashdot is quite good as predicting the past.

Communities like Slashdot are good for many things but predictions is not one of them. Of course, we have to be right sometimes (like with Windows RT) because being 100% wrong is just as hard as being 100% right

You just said the second point I wanted to bring.
The Wii is marketed as a console for the living room and indeed, while we have several consoles at home, the Wii is the one that get the most time on the big screen. After all, party games and local multiplayer is where the Wii really shines. In the end, it makes the lack of HD even more noticeable.

Note that I don't think that it is a bad move from Nintendo. The Wii sold really well and was always profitable. I just said that, in my opinion, the Wii would have been much better with HD.

I have a Wii and I still rage about the lack of HD. Indeed the games are fun and that's why I rage instead of just forgetting about this crap piece of hardware. Good graphics won't turn a bad game into a good game but it certainly make things more enjoyable.
The WiiU is OK though, it may not be able to show scenes as complex as the competition (Xbox one, PS4, PC) but at least, it is not an aliased mess.