No, the problem most geeks have with Compaq/HP/etc. machines isn't just price-based, it's standards based. If you build a machine yourself or buy this barebones Shuttle system or something similar, you're getting a more standard, interchangeable design, often with more expandability.
See, most 1st-tier mass-market PC companies have their motherboards manufactured according to proprietary designs by companies no one's ever heard of. They seldom live up to ATX or MicroATX or any similar spec, instead using strange form factors that often necessitate weird 2-piece motherboards with segments connected by ribbon cables. This was the case with 2 PCs I opened up recently, a fairly recent Compaq and an IBM. The PCI slots were on a PCB placed at a 90-degree angle to the main PCB.
So, good luck ever moving it to a different case. Not that you'd want to, because while motherboards designed by retail by reputable manufacturers are designed for a large measure of expandability, motherboards designed for big OEMs aren't. I bought my motherboard nearing 2 years ago with a 600MHz Duron and can upgrade to any socketed Athlon or Duron with a 200MHz FSB; if I'd bought a Compaq, odds are it would have used the obsolete slot design, and even if it used the socketed processors it almost certainly wouldn't have the multipliers and support logic for the higher clock speeds.
See, Compaq and the other tier-1 PC OEMs don't have a vested interest in letting consumers upgrade their existing PCs. They want to sell new ones. This is in contrast to the retail motherboard market, where there's competition and smaller OEMs and DIYers are the target market. So, whereas a Compaq is likely to have a limited multiplier range, few BIOS updates, and still be using hardware jumper settings, a retail mobo will be likely to have a complete multiplier range, frequent BIOS updates to support newer features and processors, and have more settings accessible in the BIOS rather than in hardware jumpers.
In addition, a Compaq or similar will likely have integrated peripherals geared toward being as cheap as possible, which usually means fewer features and more CPU and RAM dependence. Which reminds me--memory upgrades on Compaqs can be a nightmare. On most retail mobos you'll get 3 RAM slots--at least 2, but usually 3 and on rare occasion on better-designed full ATX boards, 4. On Compaqs and the like, they can make it really weird; for example, a Compaq I recently upgraded had its manual state that the first RAM slot could accept up to a 128 MB dimm, and the second could accept up to a 64MB dimm. Huh? What? Why? A *real* motherboard manufactured for retail by one of the better Taiwan manufacturers would, at the time, have had at least 2 dimm slots, capable of accepting up to 512 MB dimms each. Not that weird bullshit about one 128 MB dimm and one 64 MB dimm. I still don't understand that one...
Anyway, it's about more than just price. It's about quality, it's about adherence to standards.
> Son, please note that 'juvenile' in this case, as with all primates, is the stage that > would be referred to as 'teenage' in humans.
No, it is *not*. Do your research before speaking out of turn. Bonobos typically have their first offspring at around 13 years of age, but begin genital play between themselves and other juveniles and occasionally adults as well, between the ages of 2 and 4.
You are *wrong*. Now, go do your homework on the subject before speaking any more about it. Bonobo culture is unique and centered around sexual contact, which is used instead of aggression, which is used to enhance social bonds, which is used as currency to exchange for food, and which as in humans takes place for almost the whole monthly cycle rather than only during a short window as with most other primates.
Do your research or stop polluting/. with your arrogant and quite frankly *wrong* misstatements. You do not wish to believe something, therefore you dispute it instead of researching it. Since you didn't even know what a Bonobo monkey was before this conversation, you aren't qualified to make statements about them, particularly ones founded on your *assumptions*, when you have no *facts* about this particular subject.
You have more than enough information to go start your researches, so go away and don't come back until you have real facts to add to the discussion.
*lolita*--the newer version, starring Jeremy Irons, featured a 12-14 year old (in the book she started as 12, in the movie as 13) rubbing her ass against Humbert as she sat in his lap (when filming the scene they actually put a foam rubber pad between Irons and Swain, who was really underage at the time, so that he couldn't feel her gyrations directly). It also featured the bed sex scene where the money comes into the scene, as well as Humbert getting a handjob from Lolita in a classroom (not pictured but directly implied).
There are many other films--not just the latest "Romeo + Juliet" film of the play, but also the older Zeffirelli version where Juliet actually bares her breast. In the play *Hamlet* and at least one of the films it is implied that Ophelia is a young teenage girl, and though her age is not explicitly stated her actions "appear to be" those of a young teen.
*Fast Times at Ridgemont High* has a 15 year old having sex, among several other underage couplings.
*Animal House* has one of the characters making out with a 15 year old and debating whether to fuck her while she's unconscious or not.
Those are all I can recall offhand, but there are dozens of other famous films which would be tchnically illegal under those provisions of the Act.
It is also important to note that the film *Lolita* was actually unable to find an American distributor for over a year after the CPPA was passed, because no studios wanted to touch it in light of the law. There's actually a lot of press about that which can be dug up with a Google seach, including a heated interview of star Jeremy Irons. Finally it was released in the U.S.--on the cable channel Showtime, because no AQmerican distributor would touch it. Also, interviews with director Adrian Lyne and articles from the time the movie was released in parts of Europe mention that after the CPPA was passed, *Lolita* was reshot and re-edited in places to better comply with the law. So in effect the CPPA did affect a major motion picture, coercing it into changing its content.
That is perhaps why the film *Lolita* sucks so heartily compared to the book, since it departs from and omits many very important elements.
The problem with your studies is that they're done on child molesters, *not* the pedophile population at large. Most pedophiles live quiet lives of never touching children inappropriately, jerking off to the Sears catalogue, and never ever telling anyone that they are attrcted to children.
The people in such studies are very different--they're the ones who have no self-control and molested someone. There's a big difference. You very likely know at least one such pedophile personally, and would never guess his secret proclivities.
I can't cite something from a peer-reviewed journal because I don't have one handy and do not read them; however, you'll find that Discovery Magazine's special issue on *The Science of Sex* from several years ago has a wonderful article on the Bonobo's, a monkey which displays all these behaviours and more. I can't find the article online, but there's a snippet mentioned here, if you search the text for "bonobo": http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/gross-levitt- fem-algebra
It is an excellent article; I kept that issue even though it's several years old, because it had so many interesting articles. I could definitely find newer, more advanced primatology about Bonobos, but I don't have the time tonight--it's 3 A.M. where I am. I suggest you do a google search for the Bonobo and its sexual behaviours--the most human-like in the entire animal kingdom.
> There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief.
There's no definitive scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic, either. And yet, that is a valid theory that scientists are working to prove or disprove. Unfortunately there's no active research trying to prove or disprove the corralating hypothesis about pedophilia being genetic, unlike with homosexuality. Let's not forget that homosexuality was also defined by the psychological community as a mental disease just like pedophilia, until relatively recently.
> This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.
I'm interested in the truth, and the Truth, both scientific and philosophical. Who cares where it leads, if it's the truth? I'd rather not be an ignorant bigot, thank you.
> As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either.
There's not a single shred of evidence for a lot of theories regarding prehistoric evolutionary behaviours. But ask any anthropologist, and he can give you a lot of likely theories that make sense and are generally thought likely, though there's no solid evidence for them. That's the trouble with talking prehistory--no one was writing stuff down, you know.:-)
> It doesn't make any biological sense
I explained exactly why it makes biological sense. Men attracted to prepuscent girls in prehistory, back when evolution was still actively going largely according to natural selection, would probably take a prepubescent girl as a mate. Her first offspring, when she reaches menses and is capable, will almost surely be his, unlike if one takes an older postpubescent mate. In addition, any psychologist should be familiar with the phenomenon that a girl very often bonds closely to her first sexual partner, in ways she does not typiclly bond with other lovers aside from the first. A real devotion, consuming, often develops in these young romances. Therefore, a pedophile in prehistory who takes a young girl as mate will likely have a level of emotional attachment from her unlike what normal adult women display with their non-first-partner mates. This can be a very important bond, particularly in rough prehistoric cultures.
> it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates.
Absolutely incorrect. Our closest [primate relatives are Bonobo monkeys, related to chimps--theres a bit of a debate as to whether they should be considered a subset of the chimp population, or a species in their own right; but that is unimportant. What is important is that they display the whole range of human sexual behaviors, including sex or sexual play with prepubescent partners. Some adult males show preference for sex play with very young partners. So ys, our closest primate relatives sometimes display pedophiliac behaviours.
> There is nothing good about pedophilia.
I just told you why it *may* have been useful in prehistory, just as homosexuality was and remains today. Pedophilia, however, is no longer a viable or acceptable orientation.
> This is not an 'orientation'.
It absolutly is. Just because the same mental health professionals who until relatively recently classified homosexuality as a mental disease, still classify pedophilia as one (child molesting should be the disease, for there is a difference in having desires and having too little conscience to prevent oneself from acting upon them), does not mean that it is. I'm confident that the real, "hard" sciences will eventually present a concrete genetic explanation for pedophilia and homosexuality as well.
> I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations.
As I said, I want the truth and Truth, both scientific and philosophical. I don't care what the results in the short term are, because in the long term the more we know about ourselves and our world, the better. You seem more concerned with whether a pedophile thinks of his affliction as an orientation rather than a disease, than with knowing the truth. For shame.
> If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I never disagreed with that. Again, pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual is to rapist--not all pedophiles molest children, just as not all heterosexuals rape adults. There can be and are "normal" pedophiles who realize that they must remain celibate and have the slf-control to do so. Those lacking in self-control and empathy may touch children inappropriately and become child molesters, in which case they must be punished. But being attrcted to chuilden is neither a disease nor a crime, as long as one never acts upon those desires.
I should mention that the 13 year old in question, in the example given, was not yet displaying developed secondary sexual characteristics. I didn't get her Tanner stage or anything, but from the description I glean that she wasn't very pubecent. The man involved in the incident considers himself a pedophile and says his primary attractions are to 7-13 year old girls. He's also never touched another underage girl, whether pre- or post-pubescent, and is very happily married to the girl he "molested," now well into her 20s.
This is not a typical case by any stretch of the imagination, but we need to recognize that there are grey areas and unresolved problems.
One thing you mentioned in another post is that pedophiles are formed by incidents early in childhood, though we aren't exactly sure what the parameters are. I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.
In prehistoric times pedophilia probably served a valid genetic purpose--pedophiles probably chose young mates, developing deeper relationships since they'd definitely be the girl's first sexual partner, and they could be reasonably assured that her offspring would be his once she became fertile. In such prehistoric times this leaves the potential for a far greater bond between man and woman, much like the one that developed between my friend and his wife. Unfortunately, pedophiles now find themselves in a society which is hostile to their very existence, since we've artificially extended childhood up through 18-21, whereas we know in ancient times adulthood began at around 13 (as bar and bat mitzvahs show). A tough position to be in, for sure--I can't imagine what my life would be like if, as a heterosexual, I were forbidden from ever having sexual relationships...
I think you're both right and wrong here. Either a human being has an innate moral facility which prevents causing harm to another person, or he doesn't. Someone who doesn't and who's a pedophile will often become a child molester, while someone who does and who's a pedophile will almost surely not. We must remember that a pedophile can remain celibate by choice just as a heterosexual or homosexual can--despite the current scandal involving a statistically small percentage of priests, for example, remain celibate.
But we must acknowledge that it's not all black and white. People who have a conscience and feel awful in retrospect can still have self-control low enough to allow them to make a mistake, or people with a conscience can come into a very extraordinary situation and find a child he thinks is mature and willing and able.
I can't give you an example of the former because I don't know of any. An example of the latter is trivial, since I "met" a few online. One is a man who, in his 20s, began a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl--whom he later married. He's now in his 30s, she's in her 20s, and they have a loving, normal relationship which began as a crime and which made the older male participant extremely guilty during the early years. He says he's still a pedophile and still primarily attracted to prepubescent girls, but that he loves his wife far more than he could lust after anyone else. He has not offended with anyone but the girl who grew up to be his wife.
That's a *very* unusual story. It's not the norm. It's a real-life example of the grey area we get into when we deal with these issues. Legally he molested a child despite well-developed moral faculties. The fact that they're a happily married couple today and have been for almost a decade tends to undermine the illegal and immoral aspects of how it began. There are shades of grey most lawmakers and psychologists--with no disrespect intended--fail to see.
The need for virtual child pornography and perhaps even child-like RealDolls for those who want and can afford them comes into play in those grey areas. There are people with borderline self-control issues, who can usually control their urges and know they're not acceptable, but who may be tempted to offend if an unusual opportunity presents itself. If such people have means to subdue their sexual impulses through regular masturbation and fantasy aided by appropriate virtual pornography, it is likely that their sexual urges will be kept in check to a greater degree than those of a similar borderline personality without such fantasy sexual release. This is all theoretical of course, since there's no real way to conduct trials which would be acceptable to most of the medical and political communities.
Likewise, such things as virtual porn and child-like RealDolls would not cause harm. At worst they'd do nothing, and at best they'd help borderline cases keep control of their sexual urges. The people with little or no conscience would probably offend anyway, though for a few the fantasy may be enough to keep control of impulses some of the time and make desire for offense less frequent--out of convenience, or desire to stay free, or other non-conscience-related reasons. The people with a conscience who wouldn't offend anyway would doubtless be happier and healthier since they'd be allowed a fuller fantasy life to relieve sexual tensions.
So what we have is something that would cause no harm, but which *might* lessen harm, or at least make the lives of some pedophiles less tension-filled. There's thus no reason to make it illegal, and every reason to encourage it among pedophiles, stressing its sexual tension release possibilities.
Here's an essay I wrote about child pornography--not the virtual type, the real type. I wrote this essay not because I support the production of child porn--I don't, and I neither have nor want any--but because of my philosophical principles. I believe in straightforward, absolute freedom to do anything which does not cause direct, measurable harm to another human being. I believe that once you start making exceptions, even if you think they're for a good purpose, you've irrevocably ruined the foundations of freedom. Either somehing causes harm, or doesn't--if it's morally objectionable, but causes no harm, then it should still be permissible.
Those are my libertarian precepts and I stick to them. This essay was posted to USENET inresponse to a thumper who was droning on about how he was an evil evil person for viewing pictures of nude young girls. It's even more applicable now in the case of virtual child porn, where no children were harmed in the making.
You know, just looking at images harms no one. Images are not actions, they are mere information, binary ones and zeros just like anything else in cyberspace. There is a huge difference between passively looking at an image and actively doing whatever an image may depict.
An image is not good or bad. It may depict something good or bad, but the image is neutral. Images depicting torture and genocide have won Pulitzer Prizes and other awards, and are not considered illegal or evil just because what they depict may be illegal or evil. We do not feel remorse for looking at images, even if they depict horrors such as the famous photo of the nude Vietnamese woman running from her burning village as her flesh is melting. This is because the image just shows a moment in time; we are not responsible for that moment just because we have seen a representation of it.
So, if you have been looking at images of children in sexual and possibly abusive situations, then why should you feel bad for it? That moment would have happened whether or not you looked at the image 20 years or 20 minutes after whatever happened, happened. You are no more responsible for that moment just because you saw an image of it, than I am responsible for war crimes for looking at that famous image of a North Vietnamese man with a gun to his head, crying as he was about to be executed. And what if you enjoyed looking at an image of a girl in a questionable situation? You have no more engaged in the situation than I have engaged in the situation whenever I watch Annette Haven get reamed in the classic porn film *Co-Ed Fever*--although I wish it were me reaming Annette Haven, but I digress.;-)
The fallacy so many people--particularly overzealous LEA--fall for is believing that child pornography promotes child abuse. But it's untrue, and a notion founded entirely on emotive propaganda not fact. As I said, the things depicted in images would go on whether or not you view the images. Do you really think a child molester would stop molesting if no one would look at his pictures? Of course not; most child molesters do what they do without posting images on the Net. The motivation is primal, sexual, and the images are mostly for his own enjoyment, and sharing them with others is entirely secondary. So where is the harm if someone sees such an image and is excited by it? They are not vicariously contributing to the scene depicted--that would have happened no matter what.
Another argument some make is that seeing child pornography may make people more likely to emulate what is depicted. Well, that argument is quite groundless. In a society which condems adult-child sex as much as ours does, no one is going to think sex with children is OK just because they run across, or even collect, some pictures of it. Do people who see that picture of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head suddenly start thinking that it's okay to go around killing people? Heck, our films and television shows and video games are laden with more pure violence than ever before, and despite right-wing propaganda and rhetoric, the Justice Department's own aggregate statistics say that violent crimes among teenagers--surely the most impressionable demographic--have been on the decline overall for 10 years. The only thing that causes people to think there's a problem is media exploitation--the media broadcasts disproportionately about crimes involving youngsters because it increases their ratings. The statistics show the truth. Likewise with child porn--people believe it's a problem because the media tells them so. But the reality is that no one is going to go out and have sex with a 10 year old just because they see it in a picture or film. Would you go out and have sex with a dog if you see that on film? Of course not, unless it were something you were going to go out and do anyway.
That last statement is the key. There is *no* causal link between child porn and sex with children; the only reason some people may think so is based on the fact that the type of people who would collect child porn are the type of people who are attracted to children sexually in the first place. So, naturally a percentage of them are going to have sex with children; the child porn they may happen to possess is merely an indication of their attractions--not a cause, an effect. And it cannot be denied that child porn is for some pedophiles the same as adult porn is for some heterosexuals--a release valve for sexual tensions, something to masterbate to which ultimately decreases sexual desires, not increases them. Hence, child pornography (in a limited, semi-underground form, at least) is good for society, not bad, since it provides people who might otherwise seek juvenile sexual partners with a healthy, inanimate outlet for those needs.
The other argument against child pornography, and the one most often touted by law enforcement agencies, is that child pornography can be used as a "recruitment tool" for pedophiles and child molesters who may try to convince children that adult-child sex is OK by showing them such images. This last argument is perhaps the thinnest, least believable, because anything can be used for a nefarious purpose--just because plastic baggies can be used to hold drugs, does not mean they don't have more positive uses, or that they need to be made illegal. I'd concede fully that child porn can and has been used in that capacity; just the other day I watched a news program about a guy who used it that way. But regular adult pornography is just as effective a recruitment tool, because people interested in seducing young girls (or boys) don't rely on being able to convince them sex with adults is all right--they're taught at school if not by their parents that it isn't--but rather they rely on the youngster's natural curiosity about sex and natural desires to do things that feel good. Adult pornography arouses curiosity and desire in the potential subject just as much. A child rapist is just going to rape, regardless of what the child wants, so he does not usually use any pornography in finding a victim, and it is not at all important in enabling him to do what he does. Pornography is only really used in this context by non-rapists who want to seduce or otherwise broach the subject of sex with children. This can just as easily--if not more easily--be done with adult pornography as with child pornography. It is also safer, since the adult can leave regular adult pornography in places the child is sure to find it and wonder about it, and if the child reports the porn to his or her parents, the adult can make an excuse about accidentally leaving it in an accessible place; the same is not true of child pornography, which the parents are going to report if their child reports seeing it. My researches into the subject (for a book, which may or may not ever get published) indicate that adult pornography is used for seducing children far, far more often than child pornography is. Therefore to blame such seductions on child pornography is ludicrous, since adult pornography, which is perfectly legal to possess, serves exactly the same purpose. In this context, child pornography is not at all different from or more useful than regular porn.
If there are any other arguments for why merely possessing or viewing child pornography is somehow inherently "bad", bring them up and I'll refute them. Face it: the only reason you feel bad about looking at what you say you've looked at, is a pathological Puritan guilt about sex. That's why the U.S. has such a high rate of sex crimes compared to the rest of the world--an unhealthy Puritan outlook on sex leads to an unhealthy sex life and a potential for sexual pathologies.
If what you said is true, then the pornography industry would have dried up years ago because we'd all be immune to their wares. We're not. Even in European countries where almost everything is permitted in pornography except children--bestiality is okay, fake rape is okay, fake torture and fake necrophilia and pissing and scat is okay--there's still a thriving pornography trade.
The "slippery slope" argument you just posited is the one invented by the anti-porn crusadetrs who wanted all pornography banned, and supported by the Meese Commission in the Reagan era. The Meese Commission report has been thoroughly debunked by real scientists and researchers, and in fact the original Meese Commission was composed of scientists and researchers who concluded that pornography had no adverse effects on the viewer and no "slippery slope" effect. It's very telling that Attorney General Ed Meese dissolved that original Commission before it made those finding official, and then replaced the members with ones hand-picked as anti-porn crusaders.
Hookers and one-night-stands have nothing to do with pornography, except maybe the lack of it. I know beause I frequently use escorts--call girls, basically; high priced hookers of a higher class. When I frequently watch pornography, I have no desire to use such services. When I'm working too hard and don't get the chance to diffuse my sexual urges for a while using porn, or when I'm travelling and don't have ready accss to the types of porn I like, that's when I call an escort to come over and fuck the hell out of me for an hour. When I have my pornographic release regularly, though, I usually don't bother to call escorts.
The slippery slope argument is hogwash. People don't need more and more intense porn until porn no longer works for them any more; what you mistake for this is the natural course of exploration one goes through when he finds porn. People start out with softcore porn when they're new at it, then explore until they find the kind of porn they prefer, and stick with the kinds of porn they have a preference for. For example, my ideal porn is the type directed by Lizzy Borden and Rob Black at Extreme Associates and the Gag Factor series by JM Productions. Yes, they're a lot more "hardcore" in many ways than other porn films I've seen before. But it's a small sector of th market and I had to watch a lot of othwer porn films before I discovered these, and I knew Rob Black's style is what I liked ever since I saw his first film about 4 years ago. So basically I've been watching the same style of porn for 4-5 years. It still works for me--when I watch it. When I don't I go out and fuck someone.
So, when it comes to pedophiles, better that they have something to watch and diffuse those sexual energies, than have nothing at all and get desires built up to the point where they want to go out and find someone to fuck. Even if your slippery slope argument were right--which it isn't--virtual child porn would still at least delay and cut down on the frequency of abuse.
Unlike most people here, I actually know some pedophiles on a personal level. I met many online, while researching a pedophile character for a book I was writing.
After conversing with many of them, I had to come to the conclusion that pedophilia is no different from heterosexuality or homosexuality, except that heteros and homos can enjoy healthy sex lives and pedos can't. That's unfortunate, and sometimes, in the case of people with low self-control, leads to the horrible crime of child molestation. But we must always remember that heterosexual is to rapist as peophile is to child molester--not all pedophiles are child molesters any more than all heterosexuals are rapists.
We should attempt to help these people to control their sexual urges instead of stigmatizing them; that would *really* bring child sexual abuse statistics down. Virtual child porn is a nice start--no ral children involved, placed entirely in fantasy, to provide pedophiles with the same release valve for sexual tensions that heterosexuals and homosexuals have in regular porn. Get horny, watch virtual porn, jerk off, no more horniness. That's how it works in human males, unlike the moralizers' baseless claims that porn makes people want to act out more in real life. No, it releases sexual tensions. If every pedophile whacked off o some realistic-looking virtual childporn fuckfilms once or twice a day, they'd never have a strong urge to touch a child in real life, because the sexual urge would be sated.
I also wish pedophiles could get RealDolls which look like young girls, too. That would help to satisfy their sexual urges even further, resulting in fewer cases of really touching children. Anything which causes a real reduction of child molestation, without violating essential Constitutional rights, is a good thing in my book.
I found out in my research that pedophiles aren't automatically bad people or people who do bad things. They're just like you and I, except their sexual attractions are focused towards people whom it's unacceptable to engage sexually in this day and age. In prehistory pedophilia probably served a real purpose--finding a mate when she's young and bonding to her, so that her offspring when she becomes fertile will definitely be yours, and she'll likely be very devoted. Homosexuality is said to also serve an evolutionary purpose--homosexuals won't likely have childen of their own, and therefore will likely give some of their resources to their neices and nephews, resulting in a more rsource-rich childhood for the children of those families who have homosexual members. The difference is pedophilia is no longer viable and socially acceptable, while heterosexuality and homosexuality are.
My friend, Ted Bundy's spurious claims were discredited years ago. He made them in an attempt to receive leniency based on the fact that he claimed an addiction to porn made him do it. So, it was a statement made by a very clever serial killer to try to avoid the death penalty. He wanted to trade his "help" in studying the evils of pornography, for a commutation of the death sentence.
Use some common sense here instead of the scaremongering of the uber-moralists. Let me asume that you're a heterosexual male, and ask you this question: when you watch normal heterosexual porn featuring adults fucking thehell out of each other, what happens?
I can't speak for you, but generally what happens is that th viewer gets rally, really excited, pulls his dick out and jerks it off til he cums, and then suddenly his sexual desires are gone. It's just like the old joke about how while women want to cuddle all men want to do after sex is fall asleep. Our sexual desires just instantly evaporate after a good porn-aided whack-off session, and we're more unlikely than ever to go out in search of sex. Not only that, but it temporarily allays our sexual frustrations and relaxes us.
The same is true for homosexuals watching gay porn. Use porn, whack off, no more horniness. So, why would it be any different for pedophiles using child pornography? Wath kids fucking, pound the pope, no more horniness. Period.
So, logic dictates the opposite of what scaremongering moralists claim. If we really want to lower the rate of child molestation, then all the 3D graphic artists among us should start producing and distributing movies and stills starring virtual 3D models of fake young children now that we know it's legal. That way pedophiles will get stimulated, jerk off, and have their sexual appetites wane. Then the next time they get horny, they can do th same thing.
The fact is, pedophiles become child molesters (there *is* a differnce--pedophilia is a sexual orientation, while child molesting is an action) mostly out of sexual frustration from the constant build-up of desires which they can't fulfill. Virtual child porn could fulfill those desires and diffuse those overwhelming pent-up sexual urges, before pedophiles become child molesters, and without harming a single child.
You can of course quote anything you'd like.:-) If you really want to talk more about such issues, reply to this comment saying so, and I'll set up a throw-away e-mail account and e-mail you from that. I have a few reasons for requiring a higher level of anonymity than most, since I'm involved in supporting some causes that most of mainstream society dislikes; therefore I don't keep a fixed e-mail address for the Chasing Amy nic. LMK and I'll get back to you.
Anything that provides the opportunity for escape or is mood-altering can become addictive. In that respect I don't think the immersive video games are much different from other things people can become addicted to--drugs, alcohol, pr0n, traditional paper-and-dice roleplaying, etc. There's a good reason that even huge fans of the game jokingly agree with the term "Evercrack." But it's important to note that people can become addicted to just about anything--watching those 24-hr. cable news stations, posting to Slashdot; anything which alters the mood, takes the mind off real life or personal life, or makes someone feel special or important.
That's not to say that it's inherently dangerous or addictive--most people can drink or smoke pot or watch pr0n or play Everquest or D&D without becoming addicted. It's a very small percentage with personalities susceptible to addictions who develop real problems, while almost everyone else can successfully have a few drinks or play a few games without it interfering with the rest of their lives.
So, it's the addictive personalities which are the real problem, not alcohol or games or pr0n or drugs or cable news or whatever one's addiction is. When I read the following paragraph, I had an intersting thought:
> While such cases are rare, mental-health professionals say the fantasy worlds > offered by computer and video games can become the stuff of very real addictions that > destroy marriages and careers.
The thought was--what is it about these people's real lives that's so boring or bad that they want to escape into the make-believe world of power or pleasure offered by a computer game or a syringe of heroin? That's what we need to blame and address, not the games or the pr0n or the alcohol or drugs. All of those things can and are used in moderation by most people, to bring them additional pleasure; some people have no or insufficient real-life joys, and rtreat into their favorite "opiate." These deficiencie in their lives, which enhance susceptibility to escapism, are what need to be addressed and improved.
Think of the teenage Everquest addict's likely profile--a smart geek with a lot of ability but no respect in real life. Our society--particularly our highschool society--accords brainless people with athleticism limitless respect, and people with tremendous minds but not so impressive bodies almost none. It's therefore understandable if one falls into the lure of finding that respect in a make-believe world, since the real one refuses to provide it.
It's like with Columbine, how not a single step was made to teach kids to be more egalitarian and accepting, and instead the pressure was turned up and people who didn't fit in perfectly into the social machine were shunned and harassed even more. No one wants to see underlying problems--they want to blame the game or the substance instead of the deficiencies in our society. It's sad and alarming, and is getting us nowhere. We need to see the problems in our society and work our best to fix them--not blame that which brings the problems to light.
Lindows isn't selling their distribution yet, reall--they're letting people pay for the privilege of being beta-testers; the final product isn't even done yet. Beta testers are commonly defined by their contracts/livenses as employees and forbidden from distributing copies of the beta software. So, Lindows has a real point here. They're not publicly distributing their OS or selling it to the public yet, so they don't need to release source yet. It's only available for beta testing and in most of the software world, that's considered internal.
So, I see no problem here--as long as the code is released once the product leaves beta. Though, it does open the possibility for an interesting loophole--perpetual beta! Of course, if they kept the product in beta indefinitely while selling their product through beta-tester registration fees, I'm sure a Court would easily determine they're acting in bad faith and violating the GPL. I just thought I'd point out that scenario before someone else did.:-)
As The Tick would say...
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Quark Stars
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· Score: 2
As long as the threshold is at a reasonable point, I can't say I'd complain about it. It's only fair that those who use the most should pay the most, rather than having those who use the least subsidize the hogs.
And I say this as one of the hogs who'd have to pay more if I were on that cable system. I regularly transfer about 1.2 GB *a day* so, yes, I should have to pay more than the relatively small sum I pay per month now.:-) As it is, the guys who use their connections for low-traffic everyday uses like checking e-mail and websurfing are paying the same rate I do, and that just isn't fair to them.
The problem would be setting a reasonable scale of bandwidth and rates, and I somehow doubt the limits are going to be very reasonable...
Yenc is a different matter entirely--it's taken off on USENET because it allows faster uploading and downloading for those who transfer massive amounts of binary data by about 33%. That's significant because the hardcore binaries group users leave their machines connected an ungodly amount of the time to their NNTP servers, sucking down pr0n by the thousands of JPEGs and mp3s and videos by the megabyte.
In such an environment Yenc encoding instead of UUencoding makes a *very* significant difference. However, the people who are hardcore USENET users are *not* the same as those who are average Web users. Huge difference. Yenc got so big so fast because the hardcore users have the clout in USENET--they're the ones who post most of the content, and if you don't Yenc, you don't get their content.
The Web is completely the opposite of this model--it's a lowest-common-denominator place, where the average end user is the target market and competition between websites is fierce. In the binary USENET groups there are few content providers and many leeches whom no one cares about, with the content providers (posters) having near-total conrol. On the Web there are many content providers, all vying to get as many eyeballs and consumers as possible--the average consumer counts big.
So, any content provider who switches to Yenc on USENET doesn't have to care at all about the dork who wants to keep using an outdated OE to access newsgroups--his audience is his fellow posters, all of whom know about and are starting to use Yenc too. On the Web, a content provider who switches to JPEG2k is risking financial ruin if too many of his customers use software that refuses to view.jp2 images.
You have an interesting point--bandwidth is getting more dear, now that the pyramid-scheme banner advertising revenue outfits have been going tits-up. However, I just don't see most website owners risking their livelihoods by implementing an image format which most of their customers, plugins or no, may not be able to read--particularly since so much of web layout is done using images these days instead of text.
Think about it--how many users are set to automatically download plugins as needed? Almost none because of security reasons. herefore, some active decision is needed on behalf of the user to actually install the plugin or not. What will be the user's reaction if he goes to the site of WidgetCo, doesn't know what to do with this dialogue box about installing stuff (especially if he's been told be friends or company that installing strange software can be dangerous, or if he's been molested by the likes of CometCursor), says "No", and gets a page of big X's where all the buttons and banners should be? Well, it might well be to go to the site of WidgetBiz instead to get his widgets there.
This is why I really don't see JPEG2k taking off. It's a risk most companies won't take--you don't want your users not being able to use your site. Look how long it took Flash to become as common as it is today--many years, and then only because it started shipping by default with Windows.
I have no doubt that IE7 will have JPEG2k support--poor and half-hearted support. As with most Microsoft products it'll probably take the until the second major release to get it right, so let's say IE8 will have fully implemented JPEG2k support out-of-the-box. How many years will it be until that's out? And how much further along will available bandwidth be by then?
I could well be wrong, but I just don't see this taking off. Unlike Flash did, it doesn't bring anything spectacularly new to the table--a few people have been talking about the visual effects you can get using wavelet images, but those same effects are common (if poorly implemented) Flash effects today, in addition to the many other effects Flash does. So that leaves us with the better compression over JPEG as its big marketing point...and I just don't see that being enough to get website owners to risk alienating end users. So *at least* until great JPEG2k support ships with IE out of the box, and that version of IE is common, I don't see JPEG2k going anywhere except into some niche markets.
While you don't often see it "in the wild" as it were--except in some Japanese manga newsgroups where it's the standard since it's lossless--it's very often used when working with graphics. Unless you need to save with seperate layers, why use bulky formats like.PSD or.PSP when doing graphics work and needing to save your work losslessly, when.PNG is usually so much smaller? I save everything as.PNG for future work, and then when it goes up on the Web I can batch output crappier-quality.JPEGs.
So, the PNG format is a resounding success among those who work with images, and then we dumb it down to JPEG or GIF for the end users.
All that said, I don't see the JPEG2k standard really succeeding--now that more and more users are getting faster and faster connections, there's not that much need for the smaller filesizes. Combine that with the fact that users have to install a plugin to see them--and God only knows which browsers and what versions they may be using--and I don't see webmasters clamoring to adopt it, and if they don't adopt it in large numbers, the format will never catch on. So it's very iffy at the moment, IMHO, as to whether the new standard will ever replace the old--certainly not in 5 months from now, and probably not even in 5 years from now, since the need for file size savings keeps slowly evaporating.
from the looks and description it's just a simple ventilation space for the CPU with just one opening. I was thinking more along the lines of a real duct system, specifically designed for maximum airflow over the CPU, GPU, northbridge and anything else that may get toasty on a modern system. What I mean is much like the pre-made duct system they sell for overclockers--I forget what the thing is called, but it's specifically designed to direct the airflow from the intake, over the CPU, and out of the case, unlike with just slapping a fan in the front and back which isn't nearly as efficient.
If airflow is directed very efficiently and driven by both an intake fan and an exhaust fan, even a modern CPU and GPU should be cool-able, whereas with this design the guy specifically warned against just doing the same with a newer, hotter machine. The hard part would be configuring a system of ducts to provide the most efficient airflow possible for at least 3 and possibly 4 components, but it could be done.
The heavy equipment needed for water cooling would defeat the purpose of having a light foam case, so I was thinking a series of ducts.
Picture a thin plastic duct leading from one end, to the CPU, to the GPU, and to anywhere else on a given modern system that would get particularly hot--northbridge on some systems, perhaps. *Then* with the ducts in place, one could encase the whole thing in foam and have an intake on one side and an out-take on the other, with a high-capacity fan on each side to keep the air moving and pump the heat out quck.
Then of course one could power on the PC and hope the thing doesn't overheat anyway.:-) The duct idea is one I think would be most reasonable, if someone were crazy enough to relly want to try this with a modern PC. The foam idea is kind of neat, though, in a weird way--you could probably sculpt it into just about any shape. Just imagine, you could show up at a big LAN party with a PC-sculpture of the Q3 logo...;-)
Re:Why is PGP Freeware not an option?
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Can GnuPG Deliver?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Umm, PGP isn't *exactly* closed-source--only the latest versions 7.x truly are. Up through 6.5.8 the source is available free for non-commercial use according to its own license. http://www.pgpi.org/ for details and source code. In fact, most PGP fans don't use version 7 precisely because the code hasn't been released and reviewed yet, while many of the earlier builds have undergone a good deal of scrutiny.
In fact, there are several unofficial forks. I myself use 6.0.2ckt Build 07 from http://www.ipgpp.com/ , which seems to be popular with a lot of folks. The real hardcore PGP zealots are still using 2.6.x branches. Personally, I have no idea what the submitter of the story was thinking when he used that phrase. Most PGP users will continue to use PGP, and if bugs are found they will be fixed, just as the unofficial 6.0.2ckt version has gone through 7 build releases as has 6.5.8ckt. If a bug is found, someone will fix it, no problem.
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Hmmm. "Bareboned" sounds like a good title for a pr0n film that takes place in a computer store...
:-)
"Oh yes! Gimme access to that CPU slot!"
"No mister, your multiplier's too big!"
"Don't worry, baby, I'll tweak your jumper settings before I slide it in..."
"Don't forget to put on your heatsink! And use a little arctic silver to...make it go in smoother..."
Bareboned. I like that new word.
No, the problem most geeks have with Compaq/HP/etc. machines isn't just price-based, it's standards based. If you build a machine yourself or buy this barebones Shuttle system or something similar, you're getting a more standard, interchangeable design, often with more expandability.
See, most 1st-tier mass-market PC companies have their motherboards manufactured according to proprietary designs by companies no one's ever heard of. They seldom live up to ATX or MicroATX or any similar spec, instead using strange form factors that often necessitate weird 2-piece motherboards with segments connected by ribbon cables. This was the case with 2 PCs I opened up recently, a fairly recent Compaq and an IBM. The PCI slots were on a PCB placed at a 90-degree angle to the main PCB.
So, good luck ever moving it to a different case. Not that you'd want to, because while motherboards designed by retail by reputable manufacturers are designed for a large measure of expandability, motherboards designed for big OEMs aren't. I bought my motherboard nearing 2 years ago with a 600MHz Duron and can upgrade to any socketed Athlon or Duron with a 200MHz FSB; if I'd bought a Compaq, odds are it would have used the obsolete slot design, and even if it used the socketed processors it almost certainly wouldn't have the multipliers and support logic for the higher clock speeds.
See, Compaq and the other tier-1 PC OEMs don't have a vested interest in letting consumers upgrade their existing PCs. They want to sell new ones. This is in contrast to the retail motherboard market, where there's competition and smaller OEMs and DIYers are the target market. So, whereas a Compaq is likely to have a limited multiplier range, few BIOS updates, and still be using hardware jumper settings, a retail mobo will be likely to have a complete multiplier range, frequent BIOS updates to support newer features and processors, and have more settings accessible in the BIOS rather than in hardware jumpers.
In addition, a Compaq or similar will likely have integrated peripherals geared toward being as cheap as possible, which usually means fewer features and more CPU and RAM dependence. Which reminds me--memory upgrades on Compaqs can be a nightmare. On most retail mobos you'll get 3 RAM slots--at least 2, but usually 3 and on rare occasion on better-designed full ATX boards, 4. On Compaqs and the like, they can make it really weird; for example, a Compaq I recently upgraded had its manual state that the first RAM slot could accept up to a 128 MB dimm, and the second could accept up to a 64MB dimm. Huh? What? Why? A *real* motherboard manufactured for retail by one of the better Taiwan manufacturers would, at the time, have had at least 2 dimm slots, capable of accepting up to 512 MB dimms each. Not that weird bullshit about one 128 MB dimm and one 64 MB dimm. I still don't understand that one...
Anyway, it's about more than just price. It's about quality, it's about adherence to standards.
> Son, please note that 'juvenile' in this case, as with all primates, is the stage that
/. with your arrogant and quite frankly *wrong* misstatements. You do not wish to believe something, therefore you dispute it instead of researching it. Since you didn't even know what a Bonobo monkey was before this conversation, you aren't qualified to make statements about them, particularly ones founded on your *assumptions*, when you have no *facts* about this particular subject.
> would be referred to as 'teenage' in humans.
No, it is *not*. Do your research before speaking out of turn. Bonobos typically have their first offspring at around 13 years of age, but begin genital play between themselves and other juveniles and occasionally adults as well, between the ages of 2 and 4.
You are *wrong*. Now, go do your homework on the subject before speaking any more about it. Bonobo culture is unique and centered around sexual contact, which is used instead of aggression, which is used to enhance social bonds, which is used as currency to exchange for food, and which as in humans takes place for almost the whole monthly cycle rather than only during a short window as with most other primates.
Do your research or stop polluting
You have more than enough information to go start your researches, so go away and don't come back until you have real facts to add to the discussion.
*lolita*--the newer version, starring Jeremy Irons, featured a 12-14 year old (in the book she started as 12, in the movie as 13) rubbing her ass against Humbert as she sat in his lap (when filming the scene they actually put a foam rubber pad between Irons and Swain, who was really underage at the time, so that he couldn't feel her gyrations directly). It also featured the bed sex scene where the money comes into the scene, as well as Humbert getting a handjob from Lolita in a classroom (not pictured but directly implied).
There are many other films--not just the latest "Romeo + Juliet" film of the play, but also the older Zeffirelli version where Juliet actually bares her breast. In the play *Hamlet* and at least one of the films it is implied that Ophelia is a young teenage girl, and though her age is not explicitly stated her actions "appear to be" those of a young teen.
*Fast Times at Ridgemont High* has a 15 year old having sex, among several other underage couplings.
*Animal House* has one of the characters making out with a 15 year old and debating whether to fuck her while she's unconscious or not.
Those are all I can recall offhand, but there are dozens of other famous films which would be tchnically illegal under those provisions of the Act.
It is also important to note that the film *Lolita* was actually unable to find an American distributor for over a year after the CPPA was passed, because no studios wanted to touch it in light of the law. There's actually a lot of press about that which can be dug up with a Google seach, including a heated interview of star Jeremy Irons. Finally it was released in the U.S.--on the cable channel Showtime, because no AQmerican distributor would touch it. Also, interviews with director Adrian Lyne and articles from the time the movie was released in parts of Europe mention that after the CPPA was passed, *Lolita* was reshot and re-edited in places to better comply with the law. So in effect the CPPA did affect a major motion picture, coercing it into changing its content.
That is perhaps why the film *Lolita* sucks so heartily compared to the book, since it departs from and omits many very important elements.
The problem with your studies is that they're done on child molesters, *not* the pedophile population at large. Most pedophiles live quiet lives of never touching children inappropriately, jerking off to the Sears catalogue, and never ever telling anyone that they are attrcted to children.
The people in such studies are very different--they're the ones who have no self-control and molested someone. There's a big difference. You very likely know at least one such pedophile personally, and would never guess his secret proclivities.
I can't cite something from a peer-reviewed journal because I don't have one handy and do not read them; however, you'll find that Discovery Magazine's special issue on *The Science of Sex* from several years ago has a wonderful article on the Bonobo's, a monkey which displays all these behaviours and more. I can't find the article online, but there's a snippet mentioned here, if you search the text for "bonobo": http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/gross-levitt- fem-algebra
It is an excellent article; I kept that issue even though it's several years old, because it had so many interesting articles. I could definitely find newer, more advanced primatology about Bonobos, but I don't have the time tonight--it's 3 A.M. where I am. I suggest you do a google search for the Bonobo and its sexual behaviours--the most human-like in the entire animal kingdom.
> There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief.
:-)
There's no definitive scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic, either. And yet, that is a valid theory that scientists are working to prove or disprove. Unfortunately there's no active research trying to prove or disprove the corralating hypothesis about pedophilia being genetic, unlike with homosexuality. Let's not forget that homosexuality was also defined by the psychological community as a mental disease just like pedophilia, until relatively recently.
> This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.
I'm interested in the truth, and the Truth, both scientific and philosophical. Who cares where it leads, if it's the truth? I'd rather not be an ignorant bigot, thank you.
> As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either.
There's not a single shred of evidence for a lot of theories regarding prehistoric evolutionary behaviours. But ask any anthropologist, and he can give you a lot of likely theories that make sense and are generally thought likely, though there's no solid evidence for them. That's the trouble with talking prehistory--no one was writing stuff down, you know.
> It doesn't make any biological sense
I explained exactly why it makes biological sense. Men attracted to prepuscent girls in prehistory, back when evolution was still actively going largely according to natural selection, would probably take a prepubescent girl as a mate. Her first offspring, when she reaches menses and is capable, will almost surely be his, unlike if one takes an older postpubescent mate. In addition, any psychologist should be familiar with the phenomenon that a girl very often bonds closely to her first sexual partner, in ways she does not typiclly bond with other lovers aside from the first. A real devotion, consuming, often develops in these young romances. Therefore, a pedophile in prehistory who takes a young girl as mate will likely have a level of emotional attachment from her unlike what normal adult women display with their non-first-partner mates. This can be a very important bond, particularly in rough prehistoric cultures.
> it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates.
Absolutely incorrect. Our closest [primate relatives are Bonobo monkeys, related to chimps--theres a bit of a debate as to whether they should be considered a subset of the chimp population, or a species in their own right; but that is unimportant. What is important is that they display the whole range of human sexual behaviors, including sex or sexual play with prepubescent partners. Some adult males show preference for sex play with very young partners. So ys, our closest primate relatives sometimes display pedophiliac behaviours.
> There is nothing good about pedophilia.
I just told you why it *may* have been useful in prehistory, just as homosexuality was and remains today. Pedophilia, however, is no longer a viable or acceptable orientation.
> This is not an 'orientation'.
It absolutly is. Just because the same mental health professionals who until relatively recently classified homosexuality as a mental disease, still classify pedophilia as one (child molesting should be the disease, for there is a difference in having desires and having too little conscience to prevent oneself from acting upon them), does not mean that it is. I'm confident that the real, "hard" sciences will eventually present a concrete genetic explanation for pedophilia and homosexuality as well.
> I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations.
As I said, I want the truth and Truth, both scientific and philosophical. I don't care what the results in the short term are, because in the long term the more we know about ourselves and our world, the better. You seem more concerned with whether a pedophile thinks of his affliction as an orientation rather than a disease, than with knowing the truth. For shame.
> If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I never disagreed with that. Again, pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual is to rapist--not all pedophiles molest children, just as not all heterosexuals rape adults. There can be and are "normal" pedophiles who realize that they must remain celibate and have the slf-control to do so. Those lacking in self-control and empathy may touch children inappropriately and become child molesters, in which case they must be punished. But being attrcted to chuilden is neither a disease nor a crime, as long as one never acts upon those desires.
I should mention that the 13 year old in question, in the example given, was not yet displaying developed secondary sexual characteristics. I didn't get her Tanner stage or anything, but from the description I glean that she wasn't very pubecent. The man involved in the incident considers himself a pedophile and says his primary attractions are to 7-13 year old girls. He's also never touched another underage girl, whether pre- or post-pubescent, and is very happily married to the girl he "molested," now well into her 20s.
This is not a typical case by any stretch of the imagination, but we need to recognize that there are grey areas and unresolved problems.
One thing you mentioned in another post is that pedophiles are formed by incidents early in childhood, though we aren't exactly sure what the parameters are. I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.
In prehistoric times pedophilia probably served a valid genetic purpose--pedophiles probably chose young mates, developing deeper relationships since they'd definitely be the girl's first sexual partner, and they could be reasonably assured that her offspring would be his once she became fertile. In such prehistoric times this leaves the potential for a far greater bond between man and woman, much like the one that developed between my friend and his wife. Unfortunately, pedophiles now find themselves in a society which is hostile to their very existence, since we've artificially extended childhood up through 18-21, whereas we know in ancient times adulthood began at around 13 (as bar and bat mitzvahs show). A tough position to be in, for sure--I can't imagine what my life would be like if, as a heterosexual, I were forbidden from ever having sexual relationships...
I think you're both right and wrong here. Either a human being has an innate moral facility which prevents causing harm to another person, or he doesn't. Someone who doesn't and who's a pedophile will often become a child molester, while someone who does and who's a pedophile will almost surely not. We must remember that a pedophile can remain celibate by choice just as a heterosexual or homosexual can--despite the current scandal involving a statistically small percentage of priests, for example, remain celibate.
But we must acknowledge that it's not all black and white. People who have a conscience and feel awful in retrospect can still have self-control low enough to allow them to make a mistake, or people with a conscience can come into a very extraordinary situation and find a child he thinks is mature and willing and able.
I can't give you an example of the former because I don't know of any. An example of the latter is trivial, since I "met" a few online. One is a man who, in his 20s, began a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl--whom he later married. He's now in his 30s, she's in her 20s, and they have a loving, normal relationship which began as a crime and which made the older male participant extremely guilty during the early years. He says he's still a pedophile and still primarily attracted to prepubescent girls, but that he loves his wife far more than he could lust after anyone else. He has not offended with anyone but the girl who grew up to be his wife.
That's a *very* unusual story. It's not the norm. It's a real-life example of the grey area we get into when we deal with these issues. Legally he molested a child despite well-developed moral faculties. The fact that they're a happily married couple today and have been for almost a decade tends to undermine the illegal and immoral aspects of how it began. There are shades of grey most lawmakers and psychologists--with no disrespect intended--fail to see.
The need for virtual child pornography and perhaps even child-like RealDolls for those who want and can afford them comes into play in those grey areas. There are people with borderline self-control issues, who can usually control their urges and know they're not acceptable, but who may be tempted to offend if an unusual opportunity presents itself. If such people have means to subdue their sexual impulses through regular masturbation and fantasy aided by appropriate virtual pornography, it is likely that their sexual urges will be kept in check to a greater degree than those of a similar borderline personality without such fantasy sexual release. This is all theoretical of course, since there's no real way to conduct trials which would be acceptable to most of the medical and political communities.
Likewise, such things as virtual porn and child-like RealDolls would not cause harm. At worst they'd do nothing, and at best they'd help borderline cases keep control of their sexual urges. The people with little or no conscience would probably offend anyway, though for a few the fantasy may be enough to keep control of impulses some of the time and make desire for offense less frequent--out of convenience, or desire to stay free, or other non-conscience-related reasons. The people with a conscience who wouldn't offend anyway would doubtless be happier and healthier since they'd be allowed a fuller fantasy life to relieve sexual tensions.
So what we have is something that would cause no harm, but which *might* lessen harm, or at least make the lives of some pedophiles less tension-filled. There's thus no reason to make it illegal, and every reason to encourage it among pedophiles, stressing its sexual tension release possibilities.
Here's an essay I wrote about child pornography--not the virtual type, the real type. I wrote this essay not because I support the production of child porn--I don't, and I neither have nor want any--but because of my philosophical principles. I believe in straightforward, absolute freedom to do anything which does
;-)
not cause direct, measurable harm to another human being. I believe that once you start making exceptions, even if you think they're for a good purpose, you've irrevocably ruined the foundations of freedom. Either somehing causes harm, or doesn't--if it's morally objectionable, but causes no harm, then it should still be permissible.
Those are my libertarian precepts and I stick to them. This essay was posted to USENET inresponse to a thumper who was droning on about how he was an evil evil person for viewing pictures of nude young girls. It's even more applicable now in the case of virtual child porn, where no children were harmed in the making.
*Why Viewing Child Pornography Isn't Inherently "Bad"*
You know, just looking at images harms no one. Images are not actions,
they are mere information, binary ones and zeros just like anything else in
cyberspace. There is a huge difference between passively looking at an
image and actively doing whatever an image may depict.
An image is not good or bad. It may depict something good or bad, but the
image is neutral. Images depicting torture and genocide have won Pulitzer
Prizes and other awards, and are not considered illegal or evil just
because what they depict may be illegal or evil. We do not feel remorse
for looking at images, even if they depict horrors such as the famous photo
of the nude Vietnamese woman running from her burning village as her flesh
is melting. This is because the image just shows a moment in time; we are
not responsible for that moment just because we have seen a representation
of it.
So, if you have been looking at images of children in sexual and possibly
abusive situations, then why should you feel bad for it? That
moment would have happened whether or not you looked at the image 20 years
or 20 minutes after whatever happened, happened. You are no more
responsible for that moment just because you saw an image of it, than I am
responsible for war crimes for looking at that famous image of a North
Vietnamese man with a gun to his head, crying as he was about to be
executed. And what if you enjoyed looking at an image of a girl in a
questionable situation? You have no more engaged in the situation than I
have engaged in the situation whenever I watch Annette Haven get reamed in
the classic porn film *Co-Ed Fever*--although I wish it were me reaming
Annette Haven, but I digress.
The fallacy so many people--particularly overzealous LEA--fall for is
believing that child pornography promotes child abuse. But it's untrue,
and a notion founded entirely on emotive propaganda not fact. As I said,
the things depicted in images would go on whether or not you view the
images. Do you really think a child molester would stop molesting if no
one would look at his pictures? Of course not; most child molesters do
what they do without posting images on the Net. The motivation is primal,
sexual, and the images are mostly for his own enjoyment, and sharing them
with others is entirely secondary. So where is the harm if someone sees
such an image and is excited by it? They are not vicariously contributing
to the scene depicted--that would have happened no matter what.
Another argument some make is that seeing child pornography may make people
more likely to emulate what is depicted. Well, that argument is quite
groundless. In a society which condems adult-child sex as much as ours
does, no one is going to think sex with children is OK just because they
run across, or even collect, some pictures of it. Do people who see that
picture of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head suddenly start thinking
that it's okay to go around killing people? Heck, our films and television
shows and video games are laden with more pure violence than ever before,
and despite right-wing propaganda and rhetoric, the Justice Department's
own aggregate statistics say that violent crimes among teenagers--surely
the most impressionable demographic--have been on the decline overall for
10 years. The only thing that causes people to think there's a problem is
media exploitation--the media broadcasts disproportionately about crimes
involving youngsters because it increases their ratings. The statistics
show the truth. Likewise with child porn--people believe it's a problem
because the media tells them so. But the reality is that no one is going
to go out and have sex with a 10 year old just because they see it in a
picture or film. Would you go out and have sex with a dog if you see that
on film? Of course not, unless it were something you were going to go out
and do anyway.
That last statement is the key. There is *no* causal link between child
porn and sex with children; the only reason some people may think so is
based on the fact that the type of people who would collect child porn are
the type of people who are attracted to children sexually in the first
place. So, naturally a percentage of them are going to have sex with
children; the child porn they may happen to possess is merely an indication
of their attractions--not a cause, an effect. And it cannot be denied that
child porn is for some pedophiles the same as adult porn is for some
heterosexuals--a release valve for sexual tensions, something to masterbate
to which ultimately decreases sexual desires, not increases them. Hence,
child pornography (in a limited, semi-underground form, at least) is good
for society, not bad, since it provides people who might otherwise seek
juvenile sexual partners with a healthy, inanimate outlet for those needs.
The other argument against child pornography, and the one most often touted
by law enforcement agencies, is that child pornography can be used as a
"recruitment tool" for pedophiles and child molesters who may try
to convince children that adult-child sex is OK by showing them such
images. This last argument is perhaps the thinnest, least believable,
because anything can be used for a nefarious purpose--just because plastic
baggies can be used to hold drugs, does not mean they don't have more
positive uses, or that they need to be made illegal. I'd concede fully
that child porn can and has been used in that capacity; just the other day
I watched a news program about a guy who used it that way. But regular
adult pornography is just as effective a recruitment tool, because people
interested in seducing young girls (or boys) don't rely on being able to
convince them sex with adults is all right--they're taught at school if not
by their parents that it isn't--but rather they rely on the youngster's
natural curiosity about sex and natural desires to do things that feel
good. Adult pornography arouses curiosity and desire in the potential
subject just as much. A child rapist is just going to rape, regardless of
what the child wants, so he does not usually use any pornography in finding
a victim, and it is not at all important in enabling him to do what he
does. Pornography is only really used in this context by non-rapists who
want to seduce or otherwise broach the subject of sex with children. This
can just as easily--if not more easily--be done with adult pornography as
with child pornography. It is also safer, since the adult can leave
regular adult pornography in places the child is sure to find it and wonder
about it, and if the child reports the porn to his or her parents, the
adult can make an excuse about accidentally leaving it in an accessible
place; the same is not true of child pornography, which the parents are
going to report if their child reports seeing it. My researches into the
subject (for a book, which may or may not ever get published) indicate that
adult pornography is used for seducing children far, far more often than
child pornography is. Therefore to blame such seductions on child
pornography is ludicrous, since adult pornography, which is perfectly legal
to possess, serves exactly the same purpose. In this context, child
pornography is not at all different from or more useful than regular porn.
If there are any other arguments for why merely possessing or viewing child
pornography is somehow inherently "bad", bring them up and I'll refute
them. Face it: the only reason you feel bad about looking at what you say
you've looked at, is a pathological Puritan guilt about sex. That's why
the U.S. has such a high rate of sex crimes compared to the rest of the
world--an unhealthy Puritan outlook on sex leads to an unhealthy sex life
and a potential for sexual pathologies.
If what you said is true, then the pornography industry would have dried up years ago because we'd all be immune to their wares. We're not. Even in European countries where almost everything is permitted in pornography except children--bestiality is okay, fake rape is okay, fake torture and fake necrophilia and pissing and scat is okay--there's still a thriving pornography trade.
The "slippery slope" argument you just posited is the one invented by the anti-porn crusadetrs who wanted all pornography banned, and supported by the Meese Commission in the Reagan era. The Meese Commission report has been thoroughly debunked by real scientists and researchers, and in fact the original Meese Commission was composed of scientists and researchers who concluded that pornography had no adverse effects on the viewer and no "slippery slope" effect. It's very telling that Attorney General Ed Meese dissolved that original Commission before it made those finding official, and then replaced the members with ones hand-picked as anti-porn crusaders.
Hookers and one-night-stands have nothing to do with pornography, except maybe the lack of it. I know beause I frequently use escorts--call girls, basically; high priced hookers of a higher class. When I frequently watch pornography, I have no desire to use such services. When I'm working too hard and don't get the chance to diffuse my sexual urges for a while using porn, or when I'm travelling and don't have ready accss to the types of porn I like, that's when I call an escort to come over and fuck the hell out of me for an hour. When I have my pornographic release regularly, though, I usually don't bother to call escorts.
The slippery slope argument is hogwash. People don't need more and more intense porn until porn no longer works for them any more; what you mistake for this is the natural course of exploration one goes through when he finds porn. People start out with softcore porn when they're new at it, then explore until they find the kind of porn they prefer, and stick with the kinds of porn they have a preference for. For example, my ideal porn is the type directed by Lizzy Borden and Rob Black at Extreme Associates and the Gag Factor series by JM Productions. Yes, they're a lot more "hardcore" in many ways than other porn films I've seen before. But it's a small sector of th market and I had to watch a lot of othwer porn films before I discovered these, and I knew Rob Black's style is what I liked ever since I saw his first film about 4 years ago. So basically I've been watching the same style of porn for 4-5 years. It still works for me--when I watch it. When I don't I go out and fuck someone.
So, when it comes to pedophiles, better that they have something to watch and diffuse those sexual energies, than have nothing at all and get desires built up to the point where they want to go out and find someone to fuck. Even if your slippery slope argument were right--which it isn't--virtual child porn would still at least delay and cut down on the frequency of abuse.
Unlike most people here, I actually know some pedophiles on a personal level. I met many online, while researching a pedophile character for a book I was writing.
After conversing with many of them, I had to come to the conclusion that pedophilia is no different from heterosexuality or homosexuality, except that heteros and homos can enjoy healthy sex lives and pedos can't. That's unfortunate, and sometimes, in the case of people with low self-control, leads to the horrible crime of child molestation. But we must always remember that heterosexual is to rapist as peophile is to child molester--not all pedophiles are child molesters any more than all heterosexuals are rapists.
We should attempt to help these people to control their sexual urges instead of stigmatizing them; that would *really* bring child sexual abuse statistics down. Virtual child porn is a nice start--no ral children involved, placed entirely in fantasy, to provide pedophiles with the same release valve for sexual tensions that heterosexuals and homosexuals have in regular porn. Get horny, watch virtual porn, jerk off, no more horniness. That's how it works in human males, unlike the moralizers' baseless claims that porn makes people want to act out more in real life. No, it releases sexual tensions. If every pedophile whacked off o some realistic-looking virtual childporn fuckfilms once or twice a day, they'd never have a strong urge to touch a child in real life, because the sexual urge would be sated.
I also wish pedophiles could get RealDolls which look like young girls, too. That would help to satisfy their sexual urges even further, resulting in fewer cases of really touching children. Anything which causes a real reduction of child molestation, without violating essential Constitutional rights, is a good thing in my book.
I found out in my research that pedophiles aren't automatically bad people or people who do bad things. They're just like you and I, except their sexual attractions are focused towards people whom it's unacceptable to engage sexually in this day and age. In prehistory pedophilia probably served a real purpose--finding a mate when she's young and bonding to her, so that her offspring when she becomes fertile will definitely be yours, and she'll likely be very devoted. Homosexuality is said to also serve an evolutionary purpose--homosexuals won't likely have childen of their own, and therefore will likely give some of their resources to their neices and nephews, resulting in a more rsource-rich childhood for the children of those families who have homosexual members. The difference is pedophilia is no longer viable and socially acceptable, while heterosexuality and homosexuality are.
My friend, Ted Bundy's spurious claims were discredited years ago. He made them in an attempt to receive leniency based on the fact that he claimed an addiction to porn made him do it. So, it was a statement made by a very clever serial killer to try to avoid the death penalty. He wanted to trade his "help" in studying the evils of pornography, for a commutation of the death sentence.
Use some common sense here instead of the scaremongering of the uber-moralists. Let me asume that you're a heterosexual male, and ask you this question: when you watch normal heterosexual porn featuring adults fucking thehell out of each other, what happens?
I can't speak for you, but generally what happens is that th viewer gets rally, really excited, pulls his dick out and jerks it off til he cums, and then suddenly his sexual desires are gone. It's just like the old joke about how while women want to cuddle all men want to do after sex is fall asleep. Our sexual desires just instantly evaporate after a good porn-aided whack-off session, and we're more unlikely than ever to go out in search of sex. Not only that, but it temporarily allays our sexual frustrations and relaxes us.
The same is true for homosexuals watching gay porn. Use porn, whack off, no more horniness. So, why would it be any different for pedophiles using child pornography? Wath kids fucking, pound the pope, no more horniness. Period.
So, logic dictates the opposite of what scaremongering moralists claim. If we really want to lower the rate of child molestation, then all the 3D graphic artists among us should start producing and distributing movies and stills starring virtual 3D models of fake young children now that we know it's legal. That way pedophiles will get stimulated, jerk off, and have their sexual appetites wane. Then the next time they get horny, they can do th same thing.
The fact is, pedophiles become child molesters (there *is* a differnce--pedophilia is a sexual orientation, while child molesting is an action) mostly out of sexual frustration from the constant build-up of desires which they can't fulfill. Virtual child porn could fulfill those desires and diffuse those overwhelming pent-up sexual urges, before pedophiles become child molesters, and without harming a single child.
Think about it.
You can of course quote anything you'd like. :-) If you really want to talk more about such issues, reply to this comment saying so, and I'll set up a throw-away e-mail account and e-mail you from that. I have a few reasons for requiring a higher level of anonymity than most, since I'm involved in supporting some causes that most of mainstream society dislikes; therefore I don't keep a fixed e-mail address for the Chasing Amy nic. LMK and I'll get back to you.
Anything that provides the opportunity for escape or is mood-altering can become addictive. In that respect I don't think the immersive video games are much different from other things people can become addicted to--drugs, alcohol, pr0n, traditional paper-and-dice roleplaying, etc. There's a good reason that even huge fans of the game jokingly agree with the term "Evercrack." But it's important to note that people can become addicted to just about anything--watching those 24-hr. cable news stations, posting to Slashdot; anything which alters the mood, takes the mind off real life or personal life, or makes someone feel special or important.
That's not to say that it's inherently dangerous or addictive--most people can drink or smoke pot or watch pr0n or play Everquest or D&D without becoming addicted. It's a very small percentage with personalities susceptible to addictions who develop real problems, while almost everyone else can successfully have a few drinks or play a few games without it interfering with the rest of their lives.
So, it's the addictive personalities which are the real problem, not alcohol or games or pr0n or drugs or cable news or whatever one's addiction is. When I read the following paragraph, I had an intersting thought:
> While such cases are rare, mental-health professionals say the fantasy worlds
> offered by computer and video games can become the stuff of very real addictions that
> destroy marriages and careers.
The thought was--what is it about these people's real lives that's so boring or bad that they want to escape into the make-believe world of power or pleasure offered by a computer game or a syringe of heroin? That's what we need to blame and address, not the games or the pr0n or the alcohol or drugs. All of those things can and are used in moderation by most people, to bring them additional pleasure; some people have no or insufficient real-life joys, and rtreat into their favorite "opiate." These deficiencie in their lives, which enhance susceptibility to escapism, are what need to be addressed and improved.
Think of the teenage Everquest addict's likely profile--a smart geek with a lot of ability but no respect in real life. Our society--particularly our highschool society--accords brainless people with athleticism limitless respect, and people with tremendous minds but not so impressive bodies almost none. It's therefore understandable if one falls into the lure of finding that respect in a make-believe world, since the real one refuses to provide it.
It's like with Columbine, how not a single step was made to teach kids to be more egalitarian and accepting, and instead the pressure was turned up and people who didn't fit in perfectly into the social machine were shunned and harassed even more. No one wants to see underlying problems--they want to blame the game or the substance instead of the deficiencies in our society. It's sad and alarming, and is getting us nowhere. We need to see the problems in our society and work our best to fix them--not blame that which brings the problems to light.
Lindows isn't selling their distribution yet, reall--they're letting people pay for the privilege of being beta-testers; the final product isn't even done yet. Beta testers are commonly defined by their contracts/livenses as employees and forbidden from distributing copies of the beta software. So, Lindows has a real point here. They're not publicly distributing their OS or selling it to the public yet, so they don't need to release source yet. It's only available for beta testing and in most of the software world, that's considered internal.
:-)
So, I see no problem here--as long as the code is released once the product leaves beta. Though, it does open the possibility for an interesting loophole--perpetual beta! Of course, if they kept the product in beta indefinitely while selling their product through beta-tester registration fees, I'm sure a Court would easily determine they're acting in bad faith and violating the GPL. I just thought I'd point out that scenario before someone else did.
Spooooooooooooooooooon!!!!!!
[c'mon, somebody *had* to say it.]
As long as the threshold is at a reasonable point, I can't say I'd complain about it. It's only fair that those who use the most should pay the most, rather than having those who use the least subsidize the hogs.
:-) As it is, the guys who use their connections for low-traffic everyday uses like checking e-mail and websurfing are paying the same rate I do, and that just isn't fair to them.
And I say this as one of the hogs who'd have to pay more if I were on that cable system. I regularly transfer about 1.2 GB *a day* so, yes, I should have to pay more than the relatively small sum I pay per month now.
The problem would be setting a reasonable scale of bandwidth and rates, and I somehow doubt the limits are going to be very reasonable...
Yenc is a different matter entirely--it's taken off on USENET because it allows faster uploading and downloading for those who transfer massive amounts of binary data by about 33%. That's significant because the hardcore binaries group users leave their machines connected an ungodly amount of the time to their NNTP servers, sucking down pr0n by the thousands of JPEGs and mp3s and videos by the megabyte.
.jp2 images.
In such an environment Yenc encoding instead of UUencoding makes a *very* significant difference. However, the people who are hardcore USENET users are *not* the same as those who are average Web users. Huge difference. Yenc got so big so fast because the hardcore users have the clout in USENET--they're the ones who post most of the content, and if you don't Yenc, you don't get their content.
The Web is completely the opposite of this model--it's a lowest-common-denominator place, where the average end user is the target market and competition between websites is fierce. In the binary USENET groups there are few content providers and many leeches whom no one cares about, with the content providers (posters) having near-total conrol. On the Web there are many content providers, all vying to get as many eyeballs and consumers as possible--the average consumer counts big.
So, any content provider who switches to Yenc on USENET doesn't have to care at all about the dork who wants to keep using an outdated OE to access newsgroups--his audience is his fellow posters, all of whom know about and are starting to use Yenc too. On the Web, a content provider who switches to JPEG2k is risking financial ruin if too many of his customers use software that refuses to view
HUGE difference.
You have an interesting point--bandwidth is getting more dear, now that the pyramid-scheme banner advertising revenue outfits have been going tits-up. However, I just don't see most website owners risking their livelihoods by implementing an image format which most of their customers, plugins or no, may not be able to read--particularly since so much of web layout is done using images these days instead of text.
Think about it--how many users are set to automatically download plugins as needed? Almost none because of security reasons. herefore, some active decision is needed on behalf of the user to actually install the plugin or not. What will be the user's reaction if he goes to the site of WidgetCo, doesn't know what to do with this dialogue box about installing stuff (especially if he's been told be friends or company that installing strange software can be dangerous, or if he's been molested by the likes of CometCursor), says "No", and gets a page of big X's where all the buttons and banners should be? Well, it might well be to go to the site of WidgetBiz instead to get his widgets there.
This is why I really don't see JPEG2k taking off. It's a risk most companies won't take--you don't want your users not being able to use your site. Look how long it took Flash to become as common as it is today--many years, and then only because it started shipping by default with Windows.
I have no doubt that IE7 will have JPEG2k support--poor and half-hearted support. As with most Microsoft products it'll probably take the until the second major release to get it right, so let's say IE8 will have fully implemented JPEG2k support out-of-the-box. How many years will it be until that's out? And how much further along will available bandwidth be by then?
I could well be wrong, but I just don't see this taking off. Unlike Flash did, it doesn't bring anything spectacularly new to the table--a few people have been talking about the visual effects you can get using wavelet images, but those same effects are common (if poorly implemented) Flash effects today, in addition to the many other effects Flash does. So that leaves us with the better compression over JPEG as its big marketing point...and I just don't see that being enough to get website owners to risk alienating end users. So *at least* until great JPEG2k support ships with IE out of the box, and that version of IE is common, I don't see JPEG2k going anywhere except into some niche markets.
While you don't often see it "in the wild" as it were--except in some Japanese manga newsgroups where it's the standard since it's lossless--it's very often used when working with graphics. Unless you need to save with seperate layers, why use bulky formats like .PSD or .PSP when doing graphics work and needing to save your work losslessly, when .PNG is usually so much smaller? I save everything as .PNG for future work, and then when it goes up on the Web I can batch output crappier-quality .JPEGs.
So, the PNG format is a resounding success among those who work with images, and then we dumb it down to JPEG or GIF for the end users.
All that said, I don't see the JPEG2k standard really succeeding--now that more and more users are getting faster and faster connections, there's not that much need for the smaller filesizes. Combine that with the fact that users have to install a plugin to see them--and God only knows which browsers and what versions they may be using--and I don't see webmasters clamoring to adopt it, and if they don't adopt it in large numbers, the format will never catch on. So it's very iffy at the moment, IMHO, as to whether the new standard will ever replace the old--certainly not in 5 months from now, and probably not even in 5 years from now, since the need for file size savings keeps slowly evaporating.
from the looks and description it's just a simple ventilation space for the CPU with just one opening. I was thinking more along the lines of a real duct system, specifically designed for maximum airflow over the CPU, GPU, northbridge and anything else that may get toasty on a modern system. What I mean is much like the pre-made duct system they sell for overclockers--I forget what the thing is called, but it's specifically designed to direct the airflow from the intake, over the CPU, and out of the case, unlike with just slapping a fan in the front and back which isn't nearly as efficient.
If airflow is directed very efficiently and driven by both an intake fan and an exhaust fan, even a modern CPU and GPU should be cool-able, whereas with this design the guy specifically warned against just doing the same with a newer, hotter machine. The hard part would be configuring a system of ducts to provide the most efficient airflow possible for at least 3 and possibly 4 components, but it could be done.
The heavy equipment needed for water cooling would defeat the purpose of having a light foam case, so I was thinking a series of ducts.
:-) The duct idea is one I think would be most reasonable, if someone were crazy enough to relly want to try this with a modern PC. The foam idea is kind of neat, though, in a weird way--you could probably sculpt it into just about any shape. Just imagine, you could show up at a big LAN party with a PC-sculpture of the Q3 logo... ;-)
Picture a thin plastic duct leading from one end, to the CPU, to the GPU, and to anywhere else on a given modern system that would get particularly hot--northbridge on some systems, perhaps. *Then* with the ducts in place, one could encase the whole thing in foam and have an intake on one side and an out-take on the other, with a high-capacity fan on each side to keep the air moving and pump the heat out quck.
Then of course one could power on the PC and hope the thing doesn't overheat anyway.
Umm, PGP isn't *exactly* closed-source--only the latest versions 7.x truly are. Up through 6.5.8 the source is available free for non-commercial use according to its own license. http://www.pgpi.org/ for details and source code. In fact, most PGP fans don't use version 7 precisely because the code hasn't been released and reviewed yet, while many of the earlier builds have undergone a good deal of scrutiny.
In fact, there are several unofficial forks. I myself use 6.0.2ckt Build 07 from http://www.ipgpp.com/ , which seems to be popular with a lot of folks. The real hardcore PGP zealots are still using 2.6.x branches. Personally, I have no idea what the submitter of the story was thinking when he used that phrase. Most PGP users will continue to use PGP, and if bugs are found they will be fixed, just as the unofficial 6.0.2ckt version has gone through 7 build releases as has 6.5.8ckt. If a bug is found, someone will fix it, no problem.