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Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

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Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#111
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " I could easily argue Windows is easier than either one with WSL. " No you definitely couldn't. The experience is sub-par, having to deal with the Win boundary sucks, it's slower, and many apps don't work. This is very visible when trying to use an editor that's not imbued with Microsoft's magic. WSL is a glorified virtual machine, that's all. Homebrew does not install a virtual machine. I'm not 100% happy with it…

Windows is easier than either one with WSL. If two people can make that argument, maybe you can in fact make that argument? Something to consider.

One person. You didn't make an argument, you made a declaration.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#112
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a chance that OP doesn't want his kids to end up like you though.

Fair enough, obviously OP has the right to parent as he pleases. I think that my tinkering intuition has led me to many of my professional successes, and this talent was garnered by experimentation with computers as a child.

No disagreement from me. Without gaming on Windows systems I would may never gotten involved in programming in the first place. I'm currently watching what looked like my nephews Roblox/Minecraft addiction turn into some real amazing content creation utilizing youtube as a very real learning source.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#113
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know all about this PC Master Race stuff. Basically, I wanted my kids to have to maintain, build a system to play games. When my kids were young Minecraft JUST came out. They both learned A LOT about modding early. If they were stuck on consoles they probably would have missed out on all that.

Consoles are consumption devices. PCs are creation devices.

Sometimes when you want to play a game you don't want to sit in an office chair at the same desk workstation that you use for your home office.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#115

Tech banned in my house :D - Windows and telemetry-based apps. I do have a VM for a work VPN however. - Google, except the school district forced an exception. - Youtube, unless supervised on a shared anonymous tablet. - Double-click and other advertising sites. - Third-party cookies, and most third-party javascript. - No giving out information to any site, make it up if required. - Alexa etc, wife uses Siri. As you…

Maybe the internet is a different place now but if these restrictions were placed on me as a kid I never would have grown up to be who I am today.

1. "Back in the day" people actually were forced to work on computers to get anything to work (much like boomers had to work on cars to have them run). Now for many kids it's a passive learning experience, they can just say "Siri give me Youtube" and then hit whatever recommendations it has. They don't even need to learn how to spell, let alone configure a modem.

2. More broadly, while children (and young adults) resent restrictions and rules, was Rousseau really right about nature being best? Rousseau was a guy who put his own children into a French orphanage (it's unknown whether any survived) rather than raise them himself, not sure if he's got a lot of real-world experience. And even cultures that have had time to get things right (unlike our rapidly developing society with lots of scary new risks that we aren't evolved to handle) generally seemed to have a lot of rules to avoid behaviour that was risky (either in the short term, or creating long-term bad habits).

3. The internet is a distributed race to create the most "engaging" content possible, powered by evolving AI. Letting kids play on it unrestricted these days is like letting them loose in a red light district with drug dealers on every corner giving them unlimited money and thinking it will end up well.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#116

Tech banned in my house: - amazon alexa anything - any smart speaker that uses persistent voice recognition (ok google etc) - things like thermostats, security systems/cameras (ring doorbells, etc) that require a functioning WAN connection and cloud based services. anything you would find here: https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en - smart lightbulbs and other "internet of things" devices that require a connecti…

> - anything else that is legally obligated to be backdoored by the ministry of state security (wechat, alipay, tiktok, etc)

Does that include everything by PRISM participants, or just foreign states?

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#117

Tech banned in my house: - amazon alexa anything - any smart speaker that uses persistent voice recognition (ok google etc) - things like thermostats, security systems/cameras (ring doorbells, etc) that require a functioning WAN connection and cloud based services. anything you would find here: https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en - smart lightbulbs and other "internet of things" devices that require a connecti…

> - anything else that is legally obligated to be backdoored by the ministry of state security (wechat, alipay, tiktok, etc) Does that include everything by PRISM participants, or just foreign states?

From a purely pragmatic perspective as a citizen and resident of a five eyes country, I consider it a much lower threat to myself and my career, political life and financial life to have my data in the possession of the NSA than the MSS.

I've also previously held a security clearance and worked for a large defense contractor in a network engineering role, so I have some inside perspective on how the sausage is made.

It would not be unreasonable of me to assume that a Chinese domestic citizen could hold exactly the same positions but in the inverse. The main difference being that even if they desired to go all-in on cloud based computing services from a US based firm (google, icloud, azure/office365, fb messenger, paypal, etc) they would be prevented from effectively and reliably doing so by the great firewall.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#118

Tech banned in my house: - amazon alexa anything - any smart speaker that uses persistent voice recognition (ok google etc) - things like thermostats, security systems/cameras (ring doorbells, etc) that require a functioning WAN connection and cloud based services. anything you would find here: https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en - smart lightbulbs and other "internet of things" devices that require a connecti…

Regarding the protection of one’s children, I am not comprehending why you would have such an extensive list but still allow facebook and instagram.

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#119
post #118

Tech banned in my house: - amazon alexa anything - any smart speaker that uses persistent voice recognition (ok google etc) - things like thermostats, security systems/cameras (ring doorbells, etc) that require a functioning WAN connection and cloud based services. anything you would find here: https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en - smart lightbulbs and other "internet of things" devices that require a connecti…

Regarding the protection of one’s children, I am not comprehending why you would have such an extensive list but still allow facebook and instagram.

I didn't say I have children. It seems like a very extensive list because I went into a lot of detail, but it can be summed up as:

- no IOT devices I can't fully control, and which are known to stop functioning when there's a last mile residential ISP outage.

- no consumer-abusive electronics that I believe will be a waste of my money in the medium to long term

Re: Tech my dad banned in our house when I was a kid

#120

Rules for my kids: If you're over 10 years of age you should know what your limits are. I'm always going to be here for advice and help to get yourself back up from an accident or something that went wrong. I won't block content. I won't demand access to their phones. I won't shame them in any way. I'm also planning on being sex and body positive. Nudity isn't inherently sexual and shame is a social construct. Nothin…

That's putting your children in grave danger from all manner of criminals online.
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