I don't blame the kid for the absolutely over-the-top reaction by the supposedly smarter adults. But, frankly, if I were Muslim and named Ahmed Mohamed and living in Texas, I'm not sure I would consider constructing anything involving wires, battery and timer and bringing it to school. Sure, in a perfect world he SHOULD have been able to without incident, but 14 is old enough to understand the social climate and the danger of unnecessarily scaring the ignorant yahoos.
I might add another annoyance not mentioned yet. Whenever I use one of the more obscure search functions (such as "inurl"), every few pages I am forced to do a captcha because, in their words, they are detecting "suspicious" activity. I guess knowing what you are doing automatically tags you as up to no good.
Problem is, Google and Bing are set up to produce optimum results for the 98% of users that have little to no idea of how to frame a search query; have only fair-to-middling spelling, grammar; and are looking for topics for which the first page or two, at most, of results will get them where they want to go. They are not designed for serious, scholarly, in-depth, obscure, complex or nitpicking search queries. Like many things in life, they are dumbed down to serve the masses.
Most people use 5 gb/mo.? Really? Hell, I do just basic web browsing, no gaming, no streaming movies (just the odd YouTube vid now and then) and I still chew up a good 20-25 gb. Somebody just checking e-mail, Facebook and a few blogs and news sites several times a day probably tops 5 gb before the month is up.
I have almost never viewed any major site's overhaul as an improvement. It usually ends up just complicating (or even rendering impossible) the things I use it for. Invariably, there was nothing "wrong" with the site's functionality as it was that needed "fixing," but they decided to mess with it anyway. Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but when something works fine as it is, I'm a firm advocate for leaving well enough alone.
It was not quite hyperbole when JFK jokingly addressed a group of Nobel winners at the White House: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
Man, he accomplished so much, yet still found time to regularly impregnate the help!
Newsflash - the camera has a limited field of view.
Not to mention a 2-dimensional image (depth of field is important when driving) that is of a considerably reduced size compared to reality.
She couldn't back up to save her ass, since she spent more time looking at the camera's feed then actually turning her head to look behind her.
Many drivers will likely start to rely solely on the camera image, instead of using it as an adjunct to a brief walkaround check and the normal "real life" turn-your-head field of view. It may save some lives, but I fear other preventable backup accidents will happen due to overreliance on the camera. In general, I feel that a lot of safety technology, including things like airbags and ABS, lull some drivers into a false sense of security that leads them to be more careless, inattentive, or even reckless. These devices are all well-intentioned, and undoubtedly have saved some lives, but are counterproductive if the most critical part of the vehicle -- the driver -- relies on them to the exclusion of good old-fashioned common sense and care.
Actually, I'm not sure their audience is capable of cognitive dissonance.
cognitive, adj. \käg-n-tiv\ : of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (as thinking, reasoning, or remembering).
Lessee...thinking, reasoning, remembering. Strikes one, two, and three. Fox News aficianados don't think or reason -- they are sponges soaking up their pundits' mots du jour and regurgitating them. There's about as much cognitive activity involved their as there is in a trained parrot.
.....rip out your car stereo and replace it with a do-it-yourself touchscreen PC, complete with DVD, GPS, TV, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, MP3, and Internet surfing.
How 'bout ripping out the driver and replacing him/her with someone who will pay attention to THE ROAD and not video, chitchat, texting or surfing the Web? That would be a worthwhile modification.
Please, folks, stop this incessant and increasingly ridiculous "multi-tasking" behind the wheel. 99% of those who say they can do it safely, can't. They just think they can (primarily because their definition of "safe" is "I haven't had an accident.....yet"). Save the rest of that shit for when you get to your destination. If you can't live without being connected to the hive for the length of your commute, stay home.
Its more like asking the publishers of the phone book to determine whether any individuals or businesses listed are engaged in illegal activity. Or asking the cab company to do the same for every address they are asked to deliver a passenger to.
There's no perfect analogy, but in every example, applying the same "logic" to a physical world parallel results in something ludicrous and impractical, and definitely something that a third party shouldn't be expected to do for free, or really at all.
Law Enforcement should be spending its efforts going after the perverts that create kiddie porn, where it would actually do the poor kids some good.
But they are much harder to find, and might require, I don't know, some effort? Going after the low-hanging fruit is always preferable: it pads your conviction rate; takes less time, money and detective work; and looks great to the "think of the children crowd" at election time (for D.A.s and prosecutors) or budget time (for law enforcement agencies).
Total agreement here. Look at the much more irreligious Euro and Scandinavian countries -- crime isn't running rampant in the streets there, and they have a much lower crime and incarceration rate than the good ol' God-fearing U.S. of A. The fallacy is the notion that morality can only be imbued into a society by appealing to some higher power dictating commandments to the poor, sinful mortals, and threatening fire and brimstone upon those who disobey. In the long run, a more just and peaceful society can be realized when citizens have legitimate, intelligent, logical reasons for restricting or outlawing certain acts and behaviors, not just "God says it's wrong, so don't do it." But it takes a wholesale shift in attitude that cannot be easily achieved when most kids grow up with some degree of religious belief pounded into them, when even politicians and lawmakers appeal to the unseen old man in the sky, and the techniques of reason and critical thinking are not only not taught from an early age, but actively discouraged by the educational system.
Nothing new or earth-shattering here. People tend to invest themselves emotionally in their beliefs. They will often cling to a discredited belief because it fits with their general worldview, and gives them a feeling of comfort, power, or righteousness. Plus, few people enjoy being proven wrong.
When you attack someone's preciously held beliefs, no matter how graciously or tactfully, the reaction is often the same as if you took an axe, went into their house, and started destroying their furniture. The natural reaction is to both defend and counter-attack.
Until and unless critical thinking is taught and instilled in people from a very young age, this will continue to be the norm. And, believe me, the powers that be do NOT want kids learning how to question and examine things critically -- by and large, they want moderately-educated clones who will quietly fall into line and do the bidding of the corporate interests that really run things.
Creativity is rotating through Eye of the Tiger, We Are the Champions, Rock and Roll, part 2 and We Will Rock You.
I'm envisioning a day when crowds at sporting events sing one of these, then at the end of the game are barred from leaving the stadium until they cough up a fee...
Generally, the bigger the corporation and the larger the customer base, the less emphasis that is placed on customer service. Fact is, most customers never complain, and of those who do, most will eventually give up and either suck it up and write it off as a lesson learned, or just take their business elsewhere. IF there IS an "elsewhere." If there is no comparably-priced alternative that provides everything you need, then you pretty much resign yourself to being screwed and live with it.
Look at Wal-Mart. In many, many communities, they are THE one and only big-box, cheap prices, we carry most everything store. If your alternatives are shopping at a smaller store and paying 15-25% more, or driving an hour to another town, or staying in town but spending all day running around to 5 or 6 stores to get what you can get in one stop at Wal-Mart, then Wal-Mart it is. And if the aisles aren't clean, or the clerks and manager are surly, or they keep refusing your coupons, or whatever...well, you're probably going to curse them and wish nasty consequences upon them...but you'll still shop there.
The Big Boys know this, so they don't even concern themselves with customer service. They know that the really persistent complainers, the "hotheads" (in their eyes) who will make a federal case out of their problem make up maybe 0.5% of their customer base. If your annual profit is in the mega-millions, you're probably not going to give a rat's ass about that half a percent.
So, we have a proposed law that will do nothing to stop criminals from:
-- Using a fake ID to purchase the phone
-- Forcing, coercing, or paying some sap to buy the phone for them
-- Stealing phones, either from a store or an individual
On the latter (and expect such thefts to multiply several-fold if this passes), if they steal from an individual, they often think they've just misplaced or lost it, and it may be some time before they contact their provider and have the service suspended. Even a store theft can go undetected for several hours, add on a few more to determine which phones (numbers) have been stolen, a few more for the bureaucracy to get those numbers blocked, etc. In either case, a thief could easily have 24-48 hours of use before the phone is disabled or monitored. Considering many crooks go through prepaid phones like candy anyway, this won't slow them down too much. That only leaves the dumber crooks, and if they're stupid enough to buy a phone with their real ID, they're probably stupid enough to get caught pretty quickly even without this law.
On the other hand, this law would enable law-abiding users to be more easily tracked and identified by criminals, private eyes, general snoops, bill collectors, stalkers, blackmailers, and so on. Not to mention the guvmint, should you happen to hold ideas or engage in activities that, while not necessarily unlawful, are considered a "threat" by whomever is in power.
So, all in all, we have a law that would (a) do nothing to reduce crime and, indeed, likely increase it (the aforementioned assumed rise in phone thefts), while (b) inconveniencing, harrassing, and possibly endangering law-abiding citizens.
"Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort," wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. "When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life."
How and why did we develop this obsessive need to be communicating, interacting, "in touch" with others constantly? Have we become so shallow and insecure that it is intolerable to simply be alone with one's thoughts and reflections for even a short period of time? This is not healthy. While man is a social animal and requires some degree of contact and interaction with others, "alone time" is just as important and beneficial. If you monitored and analyzed all the cell, texting, and IM "conversations" that take place constantly around you, you'd probably find that much of it is "blather" -- little meaningful content; much prattling on for the sake of just "saying" something, anything; a multitude of shallow, time-wasting exchanges that could easily be eliminated without any lost benefit. And in the process, the avoidance of actually communicating with oneself -- thinking, reflecting, meditating, ruminating, working out of feelings and problems -- the kind of thing we used to do while driving or shopping or walking down the street or just lazing about the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We don't know how to be "alone" anymore, and our sense of self is being subsumed by a constant integration into the "hive."
** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles". So far I haven't seen any solid scientific support for that hypothesis. There are other hypotheses like "drawn CP allows pedophiles to let off steam without a child getting involved" which are equally unsubstantiated, seem equally sensible to a layman and make it seem a good idea to actually try and find out what is true.
Good luck getting funding for THAT study. As someone else said (to borrow his words), the whole subject area is "EVIL, EVIL, EVIL" to many, who would rather use a broad brush to paint generalities and condemnation rather than actually study the matter and perhaps seek to understand the why of how such an interest develops, and possibly develop strategies for prevention and treatment. It's SOOO much easier just to write pedos off as sub-human monsters and treat them as such.
I think the more hysterical, over-the-top anti-pedos might fear that such a study WOULD show that so-called "virtual kiddie porn" DOES act as a "safety valve," more often preventing such an interest from escalating to harming or exploiting actual children. I don't know if that is true, but a study showing it to be thus would take some of the wind out of their sails.
Or not. Hell, plenty of studies show that abstinence-based sex education does absolutely nothing in the long run to prevent teens from having sex, but that hasn't quieted the naysayers. A similar mentality keeps the War on Drugs chugging along when it does little to actually curb drug use, whether habitual or recreational. Remember that most of the "antis" in these areas have a strong religious bent, and will easily ignore or reject practical solutions in favor of simple condemnation and prohibition because "God says it's wrong" requires so much less actual thought.
If you read the previous articles about this yahoo's quixotic quest, you'll find that he's not attacking the general notion of hyperlinking per se, but whether linking to allegedly defamatory content is, in and of itself, an act of defamation. To me, that's like saying that if a print newspaper publishes something libelous or defamatory, then anyone advertising, selling, or telling you where you can buy that newspaper is also guilty of defamation. The previous ruling seems to establish a test of context -- a mere link to the material is not actionable, but a link actively promoted in the context of implying that the content is true might be.
But in any case, hyperlinking is not "publishing," and a blanket ruling to that effect would be incredibly ignorant. There are ways to deal with the specific parameters of this case without causing collateral damage to the Net and undermining the very basic concepts that make it what it is.
Never, never, EVER use an ATM to make a deposit. I learned that the hard way. That receipt it spits out is worthless if the contents of that envelope are misplaced, lost, or stolen. Until a human being actually verifies those contents, there is no deposit. And if the envelope, or its contents, pull a disappearing act twixt machine and homo sapiens, you're screwed. You can wave the little receipt in their face and yell and scream and make dire threats, and you will simply be told that the machine receipt isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss. After all, think about it from their point of view -- one could put an empty envelope in the thing while punching in a $500 deposit, and then claim that it was stolen or otherwise misplaced. So, there is no deposit until a bank employee says there is a deposit.
But this? This is absolutely thought crime. The Simpsons are not real people. They have no right to be free from harm, because they cannot be harmed. They're a figment of Matt Groening's imagination. A very famous figment, perhaps, but no less imaginary for it.
Whether or not such "virtual porn" is a "gateway" to actual harm and molestation or not (and I believe, in most cases, it's not) isn't necessarily the issue for those who want to prosecute these sorts of things. Even if you could prove scientifically through some sort of brain scan that an individual would never actually harm or molest a living, breathing human child, the mere fact that he thinks and fantasizes about such things -- even in an abstract, purely theoretical and fictional manner -- is enough of an "eewww!" factor to brand him and make him subject to punishment and ostracization.
Frankly, though, given the evolving state of copyright law, I'd be more worried about Groening and 20th Century Fox/Gracie Films going after him for infringement. The way things are going, the punishment for that may end up being even more draconian than that for possessing kiddie porn.
There's also the tried & true drug dealer method....pre paid cells.
Honestly, in the current environment of paranoia, how is it that unregistered, unlisted, untraceable cell phones can still be purchased, for cash, with no forms to fill out or IDs to be checked, at any Wal-Mart or 7-11? I've been expecting this loophole to be permanently sealed for years now, and am shocked that it hasn't been addressed by the Powers That Be(TM).
Well, that's another potential response -- denying anything unusual had been seen, for fear of being thought a fool if you are wrong. Reminds me of the two garbagemen witnessing the Bird of Prey uncloaking and taking off in "Star Trek IV":
Slashdot Mirror
I don't blame the kid for the absolutely over-the-top reaction by the supposedly smarter adults. But, frankly, if I were Muslim and named Ahmed Mohamed and living in Texas, I'm not sure I would consider constructing anything involving wires, battery and timer and bringing it to school. Sure, in a perfect world he SHOULD have been able to without incident, but 14 is old enough to understand the social climate and the danger of unnecessarily scaring the ignorant yahoos.
I might add another annoyance not mentioned yet. Whenever I use one of the more obscure search functions (such as "inurl"), every few pages I am forced to do a captcha because, in their words, they are detecting "suspicious" activity. I guess knowing what you are doing automatically tags you as up to no good.
Problem is, Google and Bing are set up to produce optimum results for the 98% of users that have little to no idea of how to frame a search query; have only fair-to-middling spelling, grammar; and are looking for topics for which the first page or two, at most, of results will get them where they want to go. They are not designed for serious, scholarly, in-depth, obscure, complex or nitpicking search queries. Like many things in life, they are dumbed down to serve the masses.
Most people use 5 gb/mo.? Really? Hell, I do just basic web browsing, no gaming, no streaming movies (just the odd YouTube vid now and then) and I still chew up a good 20-25 gb. Somebody just checking e-mail, Facebook and a few blogs and news sites several times a day probably tops 5 gb before the month is up.
I have almost never viewed any major site's overhaul as an improvement. It usually ends up just complicating (or even rendering impossible) the things I use it for. Invariably, there was nothing "wrong" with the site's functionality as it was that needed "fixing," but they decided to mess with it anyway. Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but when something works fine as it is, I'm a firm advocate for leaving well enough alone.
It was not quite hyperbole when JFK jokingly addressed a group of Nobel winners at the White House: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
Man, he accomplished so much, yet still found time to regularly impregnate the help!
I've always said copyright is for the birds... (Well, someone had to say it!)
Perfect solution -- I mean, it's not like they could borrow a car, or have one registered in someone else's name. Oh, wait...
Newsflash - the camera has a limited field of view.
Not to mention a 2-dimensional image (depth of field is important when driving) that is of a considerably reduced size compared to reality.
She couldn't back up to save her ass, since she spent more time looking at the camera's feed then actually turning her head to look behind her.
Many drivers will likely start to rely solely on the camera image, instead of using it as an adjunct to a brief walkaround check and the normal "real life" turn-your-head field of view. It may save some lives, but I fear other preventable backup accidents will happen due to overreliance on the camera. In general, I feel that a lot of safety technology, including things like airbags and ABS, lull some drivers into a false sense of security that leads them to be more careless, inattentive, or even reckless. These devices are all well-intentioned, and undoubtedly have saved some lives, but are counterproductive if the most critical part of the vehicle -- the driver -- relies on them to the exclusion of good old-fashioned common sense and care.
Actually, I'm not sure their audience is capable of cognitive dissonance.
cognitive, adj. \käg-n-tiv\ : of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (as thinking, reasoning, or remembering).
Lessee...thinking, reasoning, remembering. Strikes one, two, and three. Fox News aficianados don't think or reason -- they are sponges soaking up their pundits' mots du jour and regurgitating them. There's about as much cognitive activity involved their as there is in a trained parrot.
Dissonance, plenty. "Cognitive." not so much.
.....rip out your car stereo and replace it with a do-it-yourself touchscreen PC, complete with DVD, GPS, TV, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, MP3, and Internet surfing.
How 'bout ripping out the driver and replacing him/her with someone who will pay attention to THE ROAD and not video, chitchat, texting or surfing the Web? That would be a worthwhile modification.
Please, folks, stop this incessant and increasingly ridiculous "multi-tasking" behind the wheel. 99% of those who say they can do it safely, can't. They just think they can (primarily because their definition of "safe" is "I haven't had an accident.....yet"). Save the rest of that shit for when you get to your destination. If you can't live without being connected to the hive for the length of your commute, stay home.
Its more like asking the publishers of the phone book to determine whether any individuals or businesses listed are engaged in illegal activity. Or asking the cab company to do the same for every address they are asked to deliver a passenger to.
There's no perfect analogy, but in every example, applying the same "logic" to a physical world parallel results in something ludicrous and impractical, and definitely something that a third party shouldn't be expected to do for free, or really at all.
Law Enforcement should be spending its efforts going after the perverts that create kiddie porn, where it would actually do the poor kids some good.
But they are much harder to find, and might require, I don't know, some effort? Going after the low-hanging fruit is always preferable: it pads your conviction rate; takes less time, money and detective work; and looks great to the "think of the children crowd" at election time (for D.A.s and prosecutors) or budget time (for law enforcement agencies).
Total agreement here. Look at the much more irreligious Euro and Scandinavian countries -- crime isn't running rampant in the streets there, and they have a much lower crime and incarceration rate than the good ol' God-fearing U.S. of A. The fallacy is the notion that morality can only be imbued into a society by appealing to some higher power dictating commandments to the poor, sinful mortals, and threatening fire and brimstone upon those who disobey. In the long run, a more just and peaceful society can be realized when citizens have legitimate, intelligent, logical reasons for restricting or outlawing certain acts and behaviors, not just "God says it's wrong, so don't do it." But it takes a wholesale shift in attitude that cannot be easily achieved when most kids grow up with some degree of religious belief pounded into them, when even politicians and lawmakers appeal to the unseen old man in the sky, and the techniques of reason and critical thinking are not only not taught from an early age, but actively discouraged by the educational system.
Nothing new or earth-shattering here. People tend to invest themselves emotionally in their beliefs. They will often cling to a discredited belief because it fits with their general worldview, and gives them a feeling of comfort, power, or righteousness. Plus, few people enjoy being proven wrong.
When you attack someone's preciously held beliefs, no matter how graciously or tactfully, the reaction is often the same as if you took an axe, went into their house, and started destroying their furniture. The natural reaction is to both defend and counter-attack.
Until and unless critical thinking is taught and instilled in people from a very young age, this will continue to be the norm. And, believe me, the powers that be do NOT want kids learning how to question and examine things critically -- by and large, they want moderately-educated clones who will quietly fall into line and do the bidding of the corporate interests that really run things.
Creativity is rotating through Eye of the Tiger, We Are the Champions, Rock and Roll, part 2 and We Will Rock You.
I'm envisioning a day when crowds at sporting events sing one of these, then at the end of the game are barred from leaving the stadium until they cough up a fee...
Generally, the bigger the corporation and the larger the customer base, the less emphasis that is placed on customer service. Fact is, most customers never complain, and of those who do, most will eventually give up and either suck it up and write it off as a lesson learned, or just take their business elsewhere. IF there IS an "elsewhere." If there is no comparably-priced alternative that provides everything you need, then you pretty much resign yourself to being screwed and live with it.
Look at Wal-Mart. In many, many communities, they are THE one and only big-box, cheap prices, we carry most everything store. If your alternatives are shopping at a smaller store and paying 15-25% more, or driving an hour to another town, or staying in town but spending all day running around to 5 or 6 stores to get what you can get in one stop at Wal-Mart, then Wal-Mart it is. And if the aisles aren't clean, or the clerks and manager are surly, or they keep refusing your coupons, or whatever...well, you're probably going to curse them and wish nasty consequences upon them...but you'll still shop there.
The Big Boys know this, so they don't even concern themselves with customer service. They know that the really persistent complainers, the "hotheads" (in their eyes) who will make a federal case out of their problem make up maybe 0.5% of their customer base. If your annual profit is in the mega-millions, you're probably not going to give a rat's ass about that half a percent.
So, we have a proposed law that will do nothing to stop criminals from:
-- Using a fake ID to purchase the phone
-- Forcing, coercing, or paying some sap to buy the phone for them
-- Stealing phones, either from a store or an individual
On the latter (and expect such thefts to multiply several-fold if this passes), if they steal from an individual, they often think they've just misplaced or lost it, and it may be some time before they contact their provider and have the service suspended. Even a store theft can go undetected for several hours, add on a few more to determine which phones (numbers) have been stolen, a few more for the bureaucracy to get those numbers blocked, etc. In either case, a thief could easily have 24-48 hours of use before the phone is disabled or monitored. Considering many crooks go through prepaid phones like candy anyway, this won't slow them down too much. That only leaves the dumber crooks, and if they're stupid enough to buy a phone with their real ID, they're probably stupid enough to get caught pretty quickly even without this law.
On the other hand, this law would enable law-abiding users to be more easily tracked and identified by criminals, private eyes, general snoops, bill collectors, stalkers, blackmailers, and so on. Not to mention the guvmint, should you happen to hold ideas or engage in activities that, while not necessarily unlawful, are considered a "threat" by whomever is in power.
So, all in all, we have a law that would (a) do nothing to reduce crime and, indeed, likely increase it (the aforementioned assumed rise in phone thefts), while (b) inconveniencing, harrassing, and possibly endangering law-abiding citizens.
In other words....typical.
"Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort," wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. "When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life."
How and why did we develop this obsessive need to be communicating, interacting, "in touch" with others constantly? Have we become so shallow and insecure that it is intolerable to simply be alone with one's thoughts and reflections for even a short period of time? This is not healthy. While man is a social animal and requires some degree of contact and interaction with others, "alone time" is just as important and beneficial. If you monitored and analyzed all the cell, texting, and IM "conversations" that take place constantly around you, you'd probably find that much of it is "blather" -- little meaningful content; much prattling on for the sake of just "saying" something, anything; a multitude of shallow, time-wasting exchanges that could easily be eliminated without any lost benefit. And in the process, the avoidance of actually communicating with oneself -- thinking, reflecting, meditating, ruminating, working out of feelings and problems -- the kind of thing we used to do while driving or shopping or walking down the street or just lazing about the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We don't know how to be "alone" anymore, and our sense of self is being subsumed by a constant integration into the "hive."
** The usual argument is that "all child porn turns people into pedophiles". So far I haven't seen any solid scientific support for that hypothesis. There are other hypotheses like "drawn CP allows pedophiles to let off steam without a child getting involved" which are equally unsubstantiated, seem equally sensible to a layman and make it seem a good idea to actually try and find out what is true.
Good luck getting funding for THAT study. As someone else said (to borrow his words), the whole subject area is "EVIL, EVIL, EVIL" to many, who would rather use a broad brush to paint generalities and condemnation rather than actually study the matter and perhaps seek to understand the why of how such an interest develops, and possibly develop strategies for prevention and treatment. It's SOOO much easier just to write pedos off as sub-human monsters and treat them as such.
I think the more hysterical, over-the-top anti-pedos might fear that such a study WOULD show that so-called "virtual kiddie porn" DOES act as a "safety valve," more often preventing such an interest from escalating to harming or exploiting actual children. I don't know if that is true, but a study showing it to be thus would take some of the wind out of their sails.
Or not. Hell, plenty of studies show that abstinence-based sex education does absolutely nothing in the long run to prevent teens from having sex, but that hasn't quieted the naysayers. A similar mentality keeps the War on Drugs chugging along when it does little to actually curb drug use, whether habitual or recreational. Remember that most of the "antis" in these areas have a strong religious bent, and will easily ignore or reject practical solutions in favor of simple condemnation and prohibition because "God says it's wrong" requires so much less actual thought.
If you read the previous articles about this yahoo's quixotic quest, you'll find that he's not attacking the general notion of hyperlinking per se, but whether linking to allegedly defamatory content is, in and of itself, an act of defamation. To me, that's like saying that if a print newspaper publishes something libelous or defamatory, then anyone advertising, selling, or telling you where you can buy that newspaper is also guilty of defamation. The previous ruling seems to establish a test of context -- a mere link to the material is not actionable, but a link actively promoted in the context of implying that the content is true might be.
But in any case, hyperlinking is not "publishing," and a blanket ruling to that effect would be incredibly ignorant. There are ways to deal with the specific parameters of this case without causing collateral damage to the Net and undermining the very basic concepts that make it what it is.
Never, never, EVER use an ATM to make a deposit. I learned that the hard way. That receipt it spits out is worthless if the contents of that envelope are misplaced, lost, or stolen. Until a human being actually verifies those contents, there is no deposit. And if the envelope, or its contents, pull a disappearing act twixt machine and homo sapiens, you're screwed. You can wave the little receipt in their face and yell and scream and make dire threats, and you will simply be told that the machine receipt isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss. After all, think about it from their point of view -- one could put an empty envelope in the thing while punching in a $500 deposit, and then claim that it was stolen or otherwise misplaced. So, there is no deposit until a bank employee says there is a deposit.
But this? This is absolutely thought crime. The Simpsons are not real people. They have no right to be free from harm, because they cannot be harmed. They're a figment of Matt Groening's imagination. A very famous figment, perhaps, but no less imaginary for it.
Whether or not such "virtual porn" is a "gateway" to actual harm and molestation or not (and I believe, in most cases, it's not) isn't necessarily the issue for those who want to prosecute these sorts of things. Even if you could prove scientifically through some sort of brain scan that an individual would never actually harm or molest a living, breathing human child, the mere fact that he thinks and fantasizes about such things -- even in an abstract, purely theoretical and fictional manner -- is enough of an "eewww!" factor to brand him and make him subject to punishment and ostracization.
Frankly, though, given the evolving state of copyright law, I'd be more worried about Groening and 20th Century Fox/Gracie Films going after him for infringement. The way things are going, the punishment for that may end up being even more draconian than that for possessing kiddie porn.
There's also the tried & true drug dealer method....pre paid cells.
Honestly, in the current environment of paranoia, how is it that unregistered, unlisted, untraceable cell phones can still be purchased, for cash, with no forms to fill out or IDs to be checked, at any Wal-Mart or 7-11? I've been expecting this loophole to be permanently sealed for years now, and am shocked that it hasn't been addressed by the Powers That Be(TM).
Well, that's another potential response -- denying anything unusual had been seen, for fear of being thought a fool if you are wrong. Reminds me of the two garbagemen witnessing the Bird of Prey uncloaking and taking off in "Star Trek IV":
"Did you see that??"
"No...and neither did you!!"