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"Will Apple have to raise salaries to match the market rate, or face defections?"

Yes!

You're right that this isn't news, but it actually does have a processor that is designed for general-purpose computing; it's called the PPU (64-bit PowerPC processor blah blah blah). There are 7 OTHER SPU's (6 available in Linux) that have been optimized for vector processing. *Those* aren't general-purpose. But, Linux doesn't even need to see those to work. It can just run on the PPU.

It's certainly an interesting issue. It's not that long ago in human history that promising children in marriage before they were 10 was common practice, and sexual relations would be started much earlier than is generally considered "acceptable" now. So characterizing sexual attraction to children as being a serious mental illness seems a bit of a reach -- it was perfectly normal not that long ago. Unless of course the vast majority of people in the middle ages were mentally ill, which is a possibility.

Times change of course, and people live much longer now and popping out new kids at the soonest possible moment isn't a necessity. Further, kids have become increasingly sacred and protected from pretty much everything that has any potential to have an even vaguely negative affect on them, which certainly will affect their ability to deal with things like sex at an early age. Societies evolve, so the above paragraph isn't intended as an "it was okay to have sex with children then so it should be now" argument, merely offering a counterpoint to your suggestion that it's a mental illness.

The main thrust of your initial argument is that exposure to simulated child porn may cause certain individuals (presumably ones who are somehow predisposed) to take their fantasy acts into the real world, and cite that certain types of "users" of adult porn will seek out harder and harder stuff.

I see two philosophical problems with this as a basis for banning anything that might be construed as CP. Firstly, "may cause certain types of people" has a hollow ring to it, and seems to be used by people wanting to enforce their own wishes without a good reason. More to the point, it acknowledges that it doesn't cause the majority of people to behave in an unacceptable manner, no more than watching violent movies or playing violent video games causes a significant number of people to behave in an acceptable manner. As such, we're effectively punishing (as in, restricting the freedoms of) perfectly law-abiding citizens, in order to potentially protect us from a few.

Taken further, consider these ideas which, to the best of my knowledge, are all backed up by studies:

• listening to music while driving a vehicle should be banned, as it can cause some people to drive more "dynamically" increasing the risk of accidents (particularly music with a fast tempo)
• listening to anything at all while driving a vehicle can distract certain people enough to significantly increase the risk of accident; therefore radios and passengers should be banned
• certain people may become violent after drinking alcohol, so alcohol should be banned
• similarly, certain people may feel less inhibited by things such as "the law" or "decency" after drinking alcohol, so it should be banned twice
• some people commit violent crimes to obtain money, therefore being poor should be banned (not exactly sure how to implement this; perhaps not being poor could be banned instead?)

More seriously, a person who enjoys child porn almost certainly enjoys looking at children in real life, as well. So should we ban children from all public spaces just in case there happens to be a paedophile around who will have bad thoughts because they happen to see a child they find attractive? I mean, having separate "child habitats" where children are made safe from the problems of the real world is the next logical step in the continued cotton-balling of our kids.

The general point being, if people are somehow predisposed to paedophilia, or murder, or rape, or theft, or any of a number of things we want to strongly discourage in our society, then these actions could be partially triggered by any number of inputs. Some might be easy to identify, others more difficult. Moreover, many of these inputs may be perfectly acceptable things that normal folk feel add value to their lives. Lots of people have posted about violent movies as a point of comparison. If we start banning "normal" folk from doing things because some fucked up folk might use it as an excuse to do fucked up things... well, it's a slippery slope. If we decide CP is so offensive that even fake stuff must be banned, where do we draw the line? It's like if every week you fire the worst 10% of your staff; within a few weeks you'll be firing the average staff, and a few weeks later the previous top 10% will be on the chopping block. Which is to say, CP might be the most heinous thing we can think of now, but after it's completely outlawed and stamped out, there'll be something else which today doesn't seem as bad.

The second problem is that it portrays "seeking harder and harder stuff" as being a necessarily harmful thing. If the pictures or videos are all of consenting adults who enjoy performing "harder" stuff, then what harm does this cause? Presumably if the study found that such people went on to perform illegal, offensive or antisocial acts as a result of their addiction to hard porn it would've stated this.

Back to your initial question:

There's two immediate answers that come to mind: firstly, if it's not doing anyone any harm then what business is it of yours? Some people just like weird things. I'm really looking forward to getting home tonight so I can play some Total War. What purpose does this serve? Well, I enjoy it, but beyond that -- none, really. Is that so bad? If someone enjoys looking at computer generated images of naked children, why does it matter?

The second answer I already touched on: certain people might happen to enjoy it. And if a desire to see children naked is some kind of mental illness or addiction, then it's even possible that seeing fake images will satisfy their desire enough that they will be able to control their desire and not take it into the real world. That's certainly beneficial. So just as easily as you can say "certain types of people might use fake CP as a stepping stone to really molesting children", you can also say "certain types of people might use fake CP as an outlet to avoid molesting children". It doesn't require much stretching of the imagination to think that someone who gets their "fill" of CP via the internet in the safety of their own home is less likely to actually molest children than those who get their fill by hiding somewhere where they can see real naked children -- the physical proximity alone is probably enough to make it more likely that they'll get bolder.

Without clear evidence it's just speculation either way, but banning something which clearly doesn't directly harm anyone sets a dangerous precedent, so you'd best have a very good reason for doing so.

Who cares? How about people that would like a sustainable, livable environment?

I agree. I'm sick and tired of the government stepping in where they shouldn't. Aw, little Susy sent out naked pictures to her friends? Great, let's educate her and her parents, not hold the service she used to perform an action with responsible. Where's the personal responsibility these days?