My kingdom for some mod points :\ +1 epic truth.

Redundant perhaps, but I do know absolutely -no one- who agrees with this censorship crap. There have been a few "shrug-it-off, it's just pedos" types, but as soon as they're informed exactly what this is, they change their tune rather quickly.

I do have to admit though, rather nice troll from the GP.

I love my Amiga... it's my old-school gaming machine :D

Fair enough, thanks for the reference - Austlii. I was unaware of that site. I'll go take a look and see if I can further educate myself on these things. :P

I'm interested in your sources...

I am not a lawyer, but I did do some research on this topic a while ago, and I found no such protections, so if you know something verifiable, I'd appreciate some links or references.

thanks in advance? ^_^

I'm a firm believer that -actions- are what matter. If we go... sorry, CONTINUE to go around making up laws based entirely on the -possibility- that something --might-- be more likely, then eventually everything will be illegal.

"Breathing in public -might- infect someone with something, so none of that!" :D

My post was not meant as a denial, I happen to agree with your sentiment for the most part.

Someone who --makes the concious choice to take a drug-- is also --making the concious choice to act under the drug's influence. Therefor, ANY crime they commit "while under the influence" is a concious, willing act.

This "aww poor them, they were ADDICTED, so they HAD to beat their grandma to death" is a load of crap.

Drugs should be entirely legal, with the simple premise that --if you CHOOSE to take them, your actions while 'under the influence' are also part of that CHOICE, and punishable as such.--

Sorry for the rant, but this is one of my biggest pet-peeves; people should damned well take responsability for what they do.

Fear, sadly; IS a major part of why people don't speak up I believe.

Australia does -not- legally protect freedom of speech or expression, many of 'our' laws prohibit us in 'thought crime' style, this however, is not what I think scares people.

The problem is that, if for example, I stood up in public and stated my belief that looking at an image of a criminal act, is -not- a criminal act, most would agree with me. However, when that criminal act is sexual and involves children, wether real or imaginary, the -vast- majority of those same people would label me as a pedophile. This label has many concequences, not just for myself, but also likely for my family, and would effectively end my social life, if not also my career. --THAT-- is what people fear.

Australia does -not- have protections for either freedom of speech or expression. While it is generally accepted that we do have these supposed protections, we have neither. It is illegal to swear in public, it is illegal to possess depictions of sexual acts involving children (no matter wether the 'child' is real or imaginary), it is illegal to possess documentation on how to commit violent crimes, or create explosives (this last one without a license.) ... the list goes on.

Austalia does NOT legally protect 'Free Speech'.

My -guess- would be it's to do with the fact that muscle uses more energy, even when idle, than fat... and considering "easy food" is really a thing of only the 'recent' past, the benefits of having stored energy to survive a hungry winter far outweighs the benefits of being able to lift an elephant, evolutionarily speaking at least...

These two groups may have differing opinions on this matter. There are enough people both unhappy -and- willing to bother with this issue. It's simply a matter of time before they get their chance.

These guys also...

Really? I've got 5 of them sitting on my desk right now, and they're all full... and I don't even pirate games/movies/etc... the interesting thing is, a good portion of my friends and workmates all have similar amounts of storage space -in use-. Sure we're all game developers and a good portion of us are artists as well, but it's not as rare as you might think. Especially when you re-include the pirates. :\

Obviously, feel free to take the 'predictions' with a grain of salt, the data being presented however is quite interesting.

Perhaps you should take a look at this:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

A great many things have an exponential growth curve, Moore's Law is only one such 'proof' of this concept. You may just find that things haven't "slowed" quite as much as you think.