Unless you might have some users slinging about antiestablishment speech about Putin's regime, Russia is probably the safest. Yeah they have some weird laws regarding pornography so that might not fly too well either, but for the most part Russia seems to be the most lax on stuff like this - especially if you find a hosting company that is well connected. Just about anything is possible if you know the right people to bribe...
The Sony amp I had, did have the capability of switching the RIAA EQ out. I think it was there only to reproduce records that didn't have the RIAA curve cut into it, presumably early 78s, 16rpm, 'dictaphone records' and so on.
No, I really doubt it was for that. You see, before the RIAA there was still EQ applied to these recordings - about a half dozen differnt settings, in fact - and any piece of gear intended for such use would thus have ALL those settings available (as many pieces of vintage gear around my house have). If the RIAA EQ was switchable on your phono input, I suspect it was actually a switch to remove both the EQ AND the 40db gain provided by such an input. This would be to accommodate the turntables commonly available now that have this EQ and gain built into the device itself.
I'm almost sorry I mentioned RIAA eq. Let me repeat this yet again because it jsut doesn't seem to be sinking in: RIAA eq is not "optional." It is completely symmetrical and added at the very last step of the recording chain and the very first step of the playback chain. They are symmtrical, but they do introduce certain limitations - for example the boosted high end means less "headroom" in cartridges when playing content with lots of high end, and the playback boost needed on the low end effectively amplifies turntable bearing noise (rumble) and other low frequency resonances (where acoustically coupled feedback is most likely to occur) by 20db. Old master recordings were "optimized" for record and tape recording just as new tapes are "optimized" for cd. I cannot even imagine how bad a modern master intended for cd would sound on most turntables, let alone cassettes - they're mixed so hot it's unlikely any cartridge could track the record and no tape could provide decent high end above maybe 8khz. It would be like listening to the recording played over a telephone line.
No, I think you are still confusing EQ that is done in the record/playback chain with eq that is done on the mixer board or your preamp. The RIAA EQ that is applied is done to correct for mechanical requirements of the cutter/phonograph chain, not simply to "sound better." RIAA eq is symmetrical - that is, boost and cut applied during record are cut and boosted exactly by your preamp on playback. This is not "optional" or something you can disable.
But the masters records were made from were made to sound good on turntables, not on cds. They were made a fairly long time ago, and they were made on older equipment that often didn't perform as well as today's gear.
Yes, the "downmix" of lps and cds are different. They were often different even for different lp or cd pressings. How many versions of Dark Side of the Moon or Meddle or Animals have been released?
The RIAA curve isn't added to the master, it's added by the recording equipment that creates the masterdisk. Yes, the old masters WERE created to sound good on turntables and tape machines, but they were not pre-riaa equalized. Tape machines have a different sort of eq curve not compatible with the RIAA eq at all. If a CD were made of an RIAA eq'd recording it would be unlistenable - the bass would be 40db down from the highs. 40db is a HUGE amount - 10db is essentially "twice as loud," so you do the math.
Basically, those old master recordings sound bad on cd because they were made when playback equipment wasnt all that hot. Then again, many of the early digital pressings werent that hot, either.
In any case, we appear to agree that the precision of phonograph records is inherently lower than 16-bit audio, forget 24-bit
Not what I said at all. You are comparing apples and oranges. I can accurately represent the contents of a vinyl record - or pretty much ANY band limited analog signal - with only one bit. So what?
Who said I disagree with you? WHY do I have to disagree with you to write a reply? I didn't even say you were wrong, I said you weren't entirely informed. So save your confrontational bullshit for your mommy and daddy, babydoll.
It's a common practice for engineers to check out the results of the mastering process by listening to the mix on a shitty car stereo or a $49 boom box since that more closely replicates a typical listener's experience than a studio full of reference monitors
Common perhaps, but common only in the pop world. Ask Neil Young if he gives a shit what his recordings sound like on a boom box or an ipod. And such listening is done only as a secondary step - can you name a single pop album that was "mastered" on a boom box, or even a reasonably good Kenwood mini-rack?
Actually, a decent set of studio monitors DO cost as much as some cars. It's not that they are "better" than cheap equipment but that they tend to be more durable (ie they arent going to pop in the middle of a session while we wait for the techs to locate and install another set) and they tend to be very hot - not only to help ensure no home user has to endure piercing highs because his home system runs even hotter, but also just because so many of those guys are half deaf already and can't hear anything much above 5khz.
Because low frequency sounds have much more "energy" than high frequency sounds, the sound on an LP is equalized before encoding onto the record. This equalization is done according to a standard curve so all playback equipment handles it roughly the same, and the equalization boosts the high frequency sounds by 20db while REDUCING low frequency sounds by 20db, with a crossover point at roughly 1khz. The exact constants are 314uS and 3140uS, or about 100hz and 10khz, above and below which the equalization is "shelved," or flat.
If this equalization were not present, it would be almost impossible for the LP record to exist, as the grooves on a record would have to be so far apart. It would also be very, very hard to get playback equipment to reliably track such a record.
Now, records are not just "cut" in a dumb fashion. Since the 70s at least, mastering equipment has been smart enough to move the cutter head across the record at variable pitch. In this way, passages that had a lot of bass content (and thus produced wide excursion of the stylus) could be recorded at a wider pitch than "average" tracks. In fact, it is this equipment which allowed those "extra long play" records of the late 70s to come into existence. Radio Shack sold a few of these featuring such artists as Arthur Feidler and the Boston Pops, and Earth, Wind and Fire, and these albums could play a half hour or more on each side. This was done by careful equalization and record level settings combined with variable pitch cutting of the master disk.
So far as excursion goes, no, it aint limited at all to anything like 2 mils. If you can find an old copy of Telarc's recording of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and look closely at the record, you will see places where the groove pitch is about fifty times that! This was considered one of the benchmark tests of the day as many cartridges and tonearms could not play it without skipping. In fact, if you simply read some old equipment reviews of the 70s and 80s you will often find this recording to be one of the standard reviewers tests.
But what you completely missed is electrical noise. See, a standard phono cartridge has an impedance of 600 ohms. A 600 Ohm source impedance, at room temperature, has a fairly well defined noise floor. That is, barring any other source of noise, the simple thermal noise of the transducer itself can never go below a certain level. Given a "0db" standard for most phono cartridges of roughly 4.5mV, the noise floor can never me more than 76db below zero. This was, in fact, the source of some amount of fraudulent advertising during the "numbers race" of the 70s and 80s, when many manufacturers would claim phono s/n rations of upward of 100db. While one can most certainly make a preamp that can prodice this low noise output with a SHORTED input, connecting an actual transducer to the input throws that right to the wind. As a result the FTC mandated phono S/N be specified with a standard input impedance of 600 Ohms.
None of which _really_ means anything. Zero db on a phonograph is not a hard limit (as shown by the Telarc recording) and that noise floor does not mean no information can exist below -76db. But likewise, Digital recordings are not so "hard limited" either. Noise shaping allows much greater than 96db s/n floor across the midrange where it is most needed at the expense of higher frequency noise floor where it is less likely to be audible.
Basically, the difference between these two - outside the distortions implicitly mandated by the RIAA EQ curve and the electronics needed to accommodate it - comes down to mastering. Which adds new meaning to the phrase "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice..." When, in a few years, these kids buying vinyl have grown into twenty somethings with plenty of disposable income and are once again lured into replacing their "old vinyl collection" with new digitally mastered SACD recordings that are cut from the _analog_ masters (that sound good) rather than the CD masters where the signal was digitally comp
Man, it's amazing how many "enlightened" folks here have their arguments so well formed. These people are just clueless, they are bigots, they hate fags and/or jews and/or science and/or whatever...
Look kids: this is america. We have the RIGHT to believe what we believe, to say what we believe, and to act on what we believe. Political lobbying is speech and, if you don't like the way things are going, you're damn sure not going to accomplish anything by calling "the other side" names and being BIGOTS.
Some christians are fucked up. Yeah. But from the looks of it, so are most of you ranting about them in this thread.
Oh, and for all you Ron Paul supporters: THIS is exactly why he wants to break up federal control of the schools: to return to a system as outlined by the founders. But don't kid yourself for a minute that means "no religion in schools." If you will study your history you will see the original plan was for THE COMMUNITIES TO DECIDE. Don't like the values of your community? Move, or work to change them. But don't think you deserve special treatment because you're all alone in your beliefs in a sea of "zealots;" Move.
So, you armchair libertarians and constitutionalists better make up your minds, cuz if you really believe what you speak then many of you need to learn a HELL of a lot about respecting other's beliefs.
No, if someone consistently sees 12 year olds has hot that makes the person a hebephile, not a pedophile. Pedophilia is the attraction to *children.* Not young people who look like small adults, not teens who essentially *are* young adults.
But neither is the point. The point is, if you have watched fox news or oprah at all since the dawn of the Clinton era, you will see that "pedophilia" has become the new cultural term for "anyone attracted to anyone notably younger or anyone under the age of 18." Men of 50 are called "pedo" for chatting up 19 year old interns and boys of 18 are called "pedo" and end up on sex offender registries for banging their 16 year old girlfriends.
But even greater than that, while it is perfectly fine for Mademoiselle to run a hot cover featuring a 14 year old model in some skimpy thing, doing so *on the internet* will not only get one labeled an abuser of children it will also net one jail time and a lifetime of persecution on "the list." And don't even think about taking a picture of a NAKED kid - no, even art in this context is strictly not allowed. Thus, the "kiddie porn" those airline clerks are looking for is NOT simply trophy pictures of some fellow returning from his sex vacation in bangok, but could even include a tourist returning from the beaches of brazil with a hard drive full of vacation pics or a photographer returning from an art gig in ukraine.
And THAT is the problem - soon as it was codified into law, the scope of what may be considered "porn" has increasingly widened along with our attitudes about "children." Films that were perfectly legal 20 years ago could never be made today - meaningful dialogue has been all but squashed because of a witch hunt mentality fostered by a mainstream media terrified of "the internet" and looking for any way to compete even if it means breeding fear and contempt in the citizenry at large, and an elite of politicians looking for any means at all to hang onto their jobs by securing votes.
You try to address reality by pointing out pedophilia is not what I say it is. The problem is, you assume reality is defined by a dictionary. It isn't - the reality is we as a culture have all but lost contact with *any* meaningful reality when it comes to the issue of young people and sexuality.
Molesting a child is a harmful act. So is molesting and adult.
Images of child molestation are not child molestation. Looking at an image of child molestation no more makes one a molester than does watching bank robbery footage make one a bank robber.
And pedophilia may be real, but its no more "dangerous" than homosexuality or heterosexuality. We all have feelings every day it would be bad to act upon - most of us are rational enough to avoid doing the wrong thing. Assuming all "pedophiles" (which, in this society, would mean pretty much any male who has ever looked at a 15 year old and thought "wow that's hot") are simply out of control, irrational animals unable to control their actions is the very height of idiocy.
It IS an anecdote - the point being this is unusual. When XP came out there weren't people lining up to get it REMOVED from their computer because it was so bad. There were, however, lots of people who had just gotten saddled with machines loaded with ME who felt cheated - to the point companies like Dell and HP offered "kits" of new driver cd and os cds to replace the ones that came with their machine.
They are not looking for passwords to nuclear reactor equipment - the clowns at the border probably wouldn't recognize such lists unless they were marked "passwords to nuclear reactor equipment." They're not even looking for bootlegged movies because they'd be detaining damn near everyone with a laptop.
No, they are pretty much just looking for naughty pix of little kids - that's it. And much as someone might find that offensive, sorry it just aint "dangerous."
It's encouraging to see ONE judge in this country got it right - _personal_ computers are an extension of our mind and deserve the utmost protection.
Do you really think those machines coming in with xp on them were purchased? No, most likely they reloaded the machine and used the xp license key off their old machine. And, last I looked, MS don't get a penny for Ubuntu.
Speaking of the 99 bucks though - emachines with vista ships with an "enhanced" DVD they invite you to install with no explanation. Do that, and you have to call them up and pay 99 bucks for the upgrade in order to get a license key that works - and the only way to uninstall is to reload the OS from scratch (ie bye bye data). I'm still not clear on exactly what it is, but I do know how much it costs because I was the one who called them about the "problem."
We get computers in the shop all the time with XP on them and people wanting them reloaded - machines that surely didnt come from the shop with XP... hell, some of them probably didn't even come with ME.
Not to mention all those Vista machines of late that folks want reloaded with XP or ubuntu.
LOTS of them. They might have shipped Vista at 39 percent, but I bet the number still using it after a month is less than 35%.
Look, I am not defending religious training in public schools, but it really seems the "separationists" have gone off the deep end in recent years. Remember that even Jefferson, that bulwark of the separation crowd, held that it was up to THE COMMUNITIES to decide this issue.
And while we're on the issue, let me say we really need to bring back latin (a subject Jefferson also pointed out the importance of). With most of the world's languages based on latin, teaching this "dead language" could go a long way toward expanding our view of the world stage.
Nothing wrong with education, so long as it has balance. Teaching comparative religion in schools is not the same as indoctrination.
Just because someone says "god did it" they have not automatically excluded any attempts at information gathering.
God did it... now let's see why, and what rules he put into place.
Software systems can test their sandbox for signs of a virtual host, so why can't we? This whole thing about ID intrinsically representing an end to knowledge seeking is a strawman argument.
Perfect example in this case: avisynth. It's the backbone of just about all the canned windows DVD ripper tools and it has an interface to the media player APIs. As such it is trivial (yes, I've done it - and I've contributed code to the project so I know quite well how it works) to create a filter chain that accepts an encrypted WMV source and dumps raw video right to the hard drive in the form of an AVI.
Where, exactly, is child porn legal? Or, if it were, where would it be legal to CREATE said pornography given that creation of said material would involve molesting a child?
And what happens when it no longer requires a child to create child porn?
Uh oh... now we're back to that "creating demand" problem no one can prevent without revoking the US Constitution. (Yeah I realize we're talking about Australia here in the OP, but dont you folks have SOME assured right to freedom of expression?)
Do I see your logic? That's sort of like standing at the edge of the great salt flats and asking if I see the ocean. Yeah, well, I see where something might have been there at one time... but, really, no.
Sorry but that was never a logical argument. You don't create demand for something by viewing it, you create demand for something by interacting with others. And since its still not illegal to talk about what you like with others, there is ultimately nothing that can be done about that "creating demand" part unless you make it illegal to even discuss the topic.
Whether or not someone was harmed in the creation of an image has nothing at all to do with whether or not it harms anyone else to view the image. If that's your argument then we need to ban all forms of journalistic photography and prosecute the producers of every show from Oprah to COPS to Jerry Springer.
And what do you consider sexual abuse? How about parents hanging about their kids bedrooms, planting spy cameras in their private spaces and generally teaching them that sex is unnatural unless it involves procreation? Maybe we should just take the kids away from all adults until they turn 18 and let them raise themselves in colonies or something - that way we dont have to worry about fucked up adults raising fucked up kids.
How is it false? If your neighbor jacking off in his basement to pictures of 8 year olds really harms you, then so does him jacking off to pictures of women sucking off donkeys, right? But how is that not like him taking pleasure in shooting cops, or watching videos of people shooting cops? What about talking to people about how he likes jacking off to pics of 8 year olds? Or talking to people about how he likes shooting cops on the tv? Doesnt that just reinforce the behavior?
How you folks continue to justify one step down the slippery slope is beyond me. How about the idea "stay the fuck out of my home and I'll stay the fuck out of yours?"
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you might have some users slinging about antiestablishment speech about Putin's regime, Russia is probably the safest. Yeah they have some weird laws regarding pornography so that might not fly too well either, but for the most part Russia seems to be the most lax on stuff like this - especially if you find a hosting company that is well connected. Just about anything is possible if you know the right people to bribe...
The Sony amp I had, did have the capability of switching the RIAA EQ out. I think it was there only to reproduce records that didn't have the RIAA curve cut into it, presumably early 78s, 16rpm, 'dictaphone records' and so on.
No, I really doubt it was for that. You see, before the RIAA there was still EQ applied to these recordings - about a half dozen differnt settings, in fact - and any piece of gear intended for such use would thus have ALL those settings available (as many pieces of vintage gear around my house have). If the RIAA EQ was switchable on your phono input, I suspect it was actually a switch to remove both the EQ AND the 40db gain provided by such an input. This would be to accommodate the turntables commonly available now that have this EQ and gain built into the device itself.
I'm almost sorry I mentioned RIAA eq. Let me repeat this yet again because it jsut doesn't seem to be sinking in: RIAA eq is not "optional." It is completely symmetrical and added at the very last step of the recording chain and the very first step of the playback chain. They are symmtrical, but they do introduce certain limitations - for example the boosted high end means less "headroom" in cartridges when playing content with lots of high end, and the playback boost needed on the low end effectively amplifies turntable bearing noise (rumble) and other low frequency resonances (where acoustically coupled feedback is most likely to occur) by 20db. Old master recordings were "optimized" for record and tape recording just as new tapes are "optimized" for cd. I cannot even imagine how bad a modern master intended for cd would sound on most turntables, let alone cassettes - they're mixed so hot it's unlikely any cartridge could track the record and no tape could provide decent high end above maybe 8khz. It would be like listening to the recording played over a telephone line.
No, I think you are still confusing EQ that is done in the record/playback chain with eq that is done on the mixer board or your preamp. The RIAA EQ that is applied is done to correct for mechanical requirements of the cutter/phonograph chain, not simply to "sound better." RIAA eq is symmetrical - that is, boost and cut applied during record are cut and boosted exactly by your preamp on playback. This is not "optional" or something you can disable.
But the masters records were made from were made to sound good on turntables, not on cds. They were made a fairly long time ago, and they were made on older equipment that often didn't perform as well as today's gear.
Yes, the "downmix" of lps and cds are different. They were often different even for different lp or cd pressings. How many versions of Dark Side of the Moon or Meddle or Animals have been released?
The RIAA curve isn't added to the master, it's added by the recording equipment that creates the masterdisk. Yes, the old masters WERE created to sound good on turntables and tape machines, but they were not pre-riaa equalized. Tape machines have a different sort of eq curve not compatible with the RIAA eq at all. If a CD were made of an RIAA eq'd recording it would be unlistenable - the bass would be 40db down from the highs. 40db is a HUGE amount - 10db is essentially "twice as loud," so you do the math.
Basically, those old master recordings sound bad on cd because they were made when playback equipment wasnt all that hot. Then again, many of the early digital pressings werent that hot, either.
In any case, we appear to agree that the precision of phonograph records is inherently lower than 16-bit audio, forget 24-bit
Not what I said at all. You are comparing apples and oranges. I can accurately represent the contents of a vinyl record - or pretty much ANY band limited analog signal - with only one bit. So what?
Who said I disagree with you? WHY do I have to disagree with you to write a reply? I didn't even say you were wrong, I said you weren't entirely informed. So save your confrontational bullshit for your mommy and daddy, babydoll.
Zzzzzzip!
It's a common practice for engineers to check out the results of the mastering process by listening to the mix on a shitty car stereo or a $49 boom box since that more closely replicates a typical listener's experience than a studio full of reference monitors
Common perhaps, but common only in the pop world. Ask Neil Young if he gives a shit what his recordings sound like on a boom box or an ipod. And such listening is done only as a secondary step - can you name a single pop album that was "mastered" on a boom box, or even a reasonably good Kenwood mini-rack?
Actually, a decent set of studio monitors DO cost as much as some cars. It's not that they are "better" than cheap equipment but that they tend to be more durable (ie they arent going to pop in the middle of a session while we wait for the techs to locate and install another set) and they tend to be very hot - not only to help ensure no home user has to endure piercing highs because his home system runs even hotter, but also just because so many of those guys are half deaf already and can't hear anything much above 5khz.
Because low frequency sounds have much more "energy" than high frequency sounds, the sound on an LP is equalized before encoding onto the record. This equalization is done according to a standard curve so all playback equipment handles it roughly the same, and the equalization boosts the high frequency sounds by 20db while REDUCING low frequency sounds by 20db, with a crossover point at roughly 1khz. The exact constants are 314uS and 3140uS, or about 100hz and 10khz, above and below which the equalization is "shelved," or flat.
If this equalization were not present, it would be almost impossible for the LP record to exist, as the grooves on a record would have to be so far apart. It would also be very, very hard to get playback equipment to reliably track such a record.
Now, records are not just "cut" in a dumb fashion. Since the 70s at least, mastering equipment has been smart enough to move the cutter head across the record at variable pitch. In this way, passages that had a lot of bass content (and thus produced wide excursion of the stylus) could be recorded at a wider pitch than "average" tracks. In fact, it is this equipment which allowed those "extra long play" records of the late 70s to come into existence. Radio Shack sold a few of these featuring such artists as Arthur Feidler and the Boston Pops, and Earth, Wind and Fire, and these albums could play a half hour or more on each side. This was done by careful equalization and record level settings combined with variable pitch cutting of the master disk.
So far as excursion goes, no, it aint limited at all to anything like 2 mils. If you can find an old copy of Telarc's recording of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and look closely at the record, you will see places where the groove pitch is about fifty times that! This was considered one of the benchmark tests of the day as many cartridges and tonearms could not play it without skipping. In fact, if you simply read some old equipment reviews of the 70s and 80s you will often find this recording to be one of the standard reviewers tests.
But what you completely missed is electrical noise. See, a standard phono cartridge has an impedance of 600 ohms. A 600 Ohm source impedance, at room temperature, has a fairly well defined noise floor. That is, barring any other source of noise, the simple thermal noise of the transducer itself can never go below a certain level. Given a "0db" standard for most phono cartridges of roughly 4.5mV, the noise floor can never me more than 76db below zero. This was, in fact, the source of some amount of fraudulent advertising during the "numbers race" of the 70s and 80s, when many manufacturers would claim phono s/n rations of upward of 100db. While one can most certainly make a preamp that can prodice this low noise output with a SHORTED input, connecting an actual transducer to the input throws that right to the wind. As a result the FTC mandated phono S/N be specified with a standard input impedance of 600 Ohms.
None of which _really_ means anything. Zero db on a phonograph is not a hard limit (as shown by the Telarc recording) and that noise floor does not mean no information can exist below -76db. But likewise, Digital recordings are not so "hard limited" either. Noise shaping allows much greater than 96db s/n floor across the midrange where it is most needed at the expense of higher frequency noise floor where it is less likely to be audible.
Basically, the difference between these two - outside the distortions implicitly mandated by the RIAA EQ curve and the electronics needed to accommodate it - comes down to mastering. Which adds new meaning to the phrase "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice..." When, in a few years, these kids buying vinyl have grown into twenty somethings with plenty of disposable income and are once again lured into replacing their "old vinyl collection" with new digitally mastered SACD recordings that are cut from the _analog_ masters (that sound good) rather than the CD masters where the signal was digitally comp
Man, it's amazing how many "enlightened" folks here have their arguments so well formed. These people are just clueless, they are bigots, they hate fags and/or jews and/or science and/or whatever...
Look kids: this is america. We have the RIGHT to believe what we believe, to say what we believe, and to act on what we believe. Political lobbying is speech and, if you don't like the way things are going, you're damn sure not going to accomplish anything by calling "the other side" names and being BIGOTS.
Some christians are fucked up. Yeah. But from the looks of it, so are most of you ranting about them in this thread.
Oh, and for all you Ron Paul supporters: THIS is exactly why he wants to break up federal control of the schools: to return to a system as outlined by the founders. But don't kid yourself for a minute that means "no religion in schools." If you will study your history you will see the original plan was for THE COMMUNITIES TO DECIDE. Don't like the values of your community? Move, or work to change them. But don't think you deserve special treatment because you're all alone in your beliefs in a sea of "zealots;" Move.
So, you armchair libertarians and constitutionalists better make up your minds, cuz if you really believe what you speak then many of you need to learn a HELL of a lot about respecting other's beliefs.
No, if someone consistently sees 12 year olds has hot that makes the person a hebephile, not a pedophile. Pedophilia is the attraction to *children.* Not young people who look like small adults, not teens who essentially *are* young adults.
But neither is the point. The point is, if you have watched fox news or oprah at all since the dawn of the Clinton era, you will see that "pedophilia" has become the new cultural term for "anyone attracted to anyone notably younger or anyone under the age of 18." Men of 50 are called "pedo" for chatting up 19 year old interns and boys of 18 are called "pedo" and end up on sex offender registries for banging their 16 year old girlfriends.
But even greater than that, while it is perfectly fine for Mademoiselle to run a hot cover featuring a 14 year old model in some skimpy thing, doing so *on the internet* will not only get one labeled an abuser of children it will also net one jail time and a lifetime of persecution on "the list." And don't even think about taking a picture of a NAKED kid - no, even art in this context is strictly not allowed. Thus, the "kiddie porn" those airline clerks are looking for is NOT simply trophy pictures of some fellow returning from his sex vacation in bangok, but could even include a tourist returning from the beaches of brazil with a hard drive full of vacation pics or a photographer returning from an art gig in ukraine.
And THAT is the problem - soon as it was codified into law, the scope of what may be considered "porn" has increasingly widened along with our attitudes about "children." Films that were perfectly legal 20 years ago could never be made today - meaningful dialogue has been all but squashed because of a witch hunt mentality fostered by a mainstream media terrified of "the internet" and looking for any way to compete even if it means breeding fear and contempt in the citizenry at large, and an elite of politicians looking for any means at all to hang onto their jobs by securing votes.
You try to address reality by pointing out pedophilia is not what I say it is. The problem is, you assume reality is defined by a dictionary. It isn't - the reality is we as a culture have all but lost contact with *any* meaningful reality when it comes to the issue of young people and sexuality.
Molesting a child is a harmful act. So is molesting and adult.
Images of child molestation are not child molestation. Looking at an image of child molestation no more makes one a molester than does watching bank robbery footage make one a bank robber.
And pedophilia may be real, but its no more "dangerous" than homosexuality or heterosexuality. We all have feelings every day it would be bad to act upon - most of us are rational enough to avoid doing the wrong thing. Assuming all "pedophiles" (which, in this society, would mean pretty much any male who has ever looked at a 15 year old and thought "wow that's hot") are simply out of control, irrational animals unable to control their actions is the very height of idiocy.
It IS an anecdote - the point being this is unusual. When XP came out there weren't people lining up to get it REMOVED from their computer because it was so bad. There were, however, lots of people who had just gotten saddled with machines loaded with ME who felt cheated - to the point companies like Dell and HP offered "kits" of new driver cd and os cds to replace the ones that came with their machine.
They are not looking for passwords to nuclear reactor equipment - the clowns at the border probably wouldn't recognize such lists unless they were marked "passwords to nuclear reactor equipment." They're not even looking for bootlegged movies because they'd be detaining damn near everyone with a laptop.
No, they are pretty much just looking for naughty pix of little kids - that's it. And much as someone might find that offensive, sorry it just aint "dangerous."
It's encouraging to see ONE judge in this country got it right - _personal_ computers are an extension of our mind and deserve the utmost protection.
Do you really think those machines coming in with xp on them were purchased? No, most likely they reloaded the machine and used the xp license key off their old machine. And, last I looked, MS don't get a penny for Ubuntu.
Speaking of the 99 bucks though - emachines with vista ships with an "enhanced" DVD they invite you to install with no explanation. Do that, and you have to call them up and pay 99 bucks for the upgrade in order to get a license key that works - and the only way to uninstall is to reload the OS from scratch (ie bye bye data). I'm still not clear on exactly what it is, but I do know how much it costs because I was the one who called them about the "problem."
We get computers in the shop all the time with XP on them and people wanting them reloaded - machines that surely didnt come from the shop with XP... hell, some of them probably didn't even come with ME.
Not to mention all those Vista machines of late that folks want reloaded with XP or ubuntu.
LOTS of them. They might have shipped Vista at 39 percent, but I bet the number still using it after a month is less than 35%.
It has been done with plugins. Mine stores 2GB and I keep it on my keychain.
Look, I am not defending religious training in public schools, but it really seems the "separationists" have gone off the deep end in recent years. Remember that even Jefferson, that bulwark of the separation crowd, held that it was up to THE COMMUNITIES to decide this issue.
And while we're on the issue, let me say we really need to bring back latin (a subject Jefferson also pointed out the importance of). With most of the world's languages based on latin, teaching this "dead language" could go a long way toward expanding our view of the world stage.
Nothing wrong with education, so long as it has balance. Teaching comparative religion in schools is not the same as indoctrination.
Just because someone says "god did it" they have not automatically excluded any attempts at information gathering.
God did it... now let's see why, and what rules he put into place.
Software systems can test their sandbox for signs of a virtual host, so why can't we? This whole thing about ID intrinsically representing an end to knowledge seeking is a strawman argument.
Perfect example in this case: avisynth. It's the backbone of just about all the canned windows DVD ripper tools and it has an interface to the media player APIs. As such it is trivial (yes, I've done it - and I've contributed code to the project so I know quite well how it works) to create a filter chain that accepts an encrypted WMV source and dumps raw video right to the hard drive in the form of an AVI.
No "tanks" needed...
Webmaster?
Where, exactly, is child porn legal? Or, if it were, where would it be legal to CREATE said pornography given that creation of said material would involve molesting a child?
And what happens when it no longer requires a child to create child porn?
Uh oh... now we're back to that "creating demand" problem no one can prevent without revoking the US Constitution. (Yeah I realize we're talking about Australia here in the OP, but dont you folks have SOME assured right to freedom of expression?)
Do I see your logic? That's sort of like standing at the edge of the great salt flats and asking if I see the ocean. Yeah, well, I see where something might have been there at one time... but, really, no.
by viewing it?
Sorry but that was never a logical argument. You don't create demand for something by viewing it, you create demand for something by interacting with others. And since its still not illegal to talk about what you like with others, there is ultimately nothing that can be done about that "creating demand" part unless you make it illegal to even discuss the topic.
Dumbass, there is no leader. The only "leader" in a flock of sheep is the first one to go over the cliff.
Olsen twins movies; Britney Spears (pre-16) videos; Online child modeling; Cosmopolitan magazine...
No, you cannot tell the top from the bottom - because there isn't a top or bottom. You can always go higher, and you can always sink lower.
I think you missed the part where I mocked the _people_ who had elected these leaders. Thus, it seems most of your commentary is rather moot.
/.)
Oh, here's that part again - the part that got me modded "troll" (again - love
Baaaaaaahhhh...
Whether or not someone was harmed in the creation of an image has nothing at all to do with whether or not it harms anyone else to view the image. If that's your argument then we need to ban all forms of journalistic photography and prosecute the producers of every show from Oprah to COPS to Jerry Springer.
And what do you consider sexual abuse? How about parents hanging about their kids bedrooms, planting spy cameras in their private spaces and generally teaching them that sex is unnatural unless it involves procreation? Maybe we should just take the kids away from all adults until they turn 18 and let them raise themselves in colonies or something - that way we dont have to worry about fucked up adults raising fucked up kids.
How is it false? If your neighbor jacking off in his basement to pictures of 8 year olds really harms you, then so does him jacking off to pictures of women sucking off donkeys, right? But how is that not like him taking pleasure in shooting cops, or watching videos of people shooting cops? What about talking to people about how he likes jacking off to pics of 8 year olds? Or talking to people about how he likes shooting cops on the tv? Doesnt that just reinforce the behavior?
How you folks continue to justify one step down the slippery slope is beyond me. How about the idea "stay the fuck out of my home and I'll stay the fuck out of yours?"