The GPL basically says "if you provide an executable to anyone outside your organization, you have to provide the source also." And if you as a government employee provide any sort of classified executable to anyone outside the government... well... enjoy your stay at Ft. Levenworth...
Seems that this is a somewhat stupid question. Even if classified work is done by a contractor, and sold to the government as work-for-hire, the contractor is the only one required to provide the source code to anyone, and then, only to the group to whom they give the executable - the government. So, as long as they wouldn't give the executable to anyone else, the GPL is obeyed. And quite honestly, if a contractor provides classified software to anyone except the government, under government blessing, they'll have bigger problems than a GPL violation.
Go ahead, use GPL'd software in whatever you like. Unless the government plans to sell the software to anyone else later, you're completly within the bounds of the license. Nowhere does the GPL say "if you give this software to someone, you have to provide it to the world." It simply says that "if you give someone this software, you have to give them the means to modify it."
Shouldn't that be Microsoft's concern and not the oversight committee?
Actually... it considering the number of pies that Microsoft has its fingers in, it IS the business of the oversight committee. Picture Microsoft stock dropping 50%, and CEO Balmer needing a quick way to raise it to appease the 15 million people holding stock. You think they won't start price gouging, cracking down further on license issues, making their subscription-based XP model more predatory, etc? You're crazy. They exist to make money, hand over fist, and if they stop doing that, shareholders will get angry, public support for the government intervention will dwindle, and there's a great many people going to be a great deal of fucked. I think this is EXACTLY what the oversight committee should address - how to enforce fair play, while not causing shockwaves.
While the methods Microsoft has used to become an industry giant are questionable, to say the least, the fact is, they are THE industry giant now. Microsoft is responsible for a great number of jobs, conducts research that would be too expensive for almost anyone else, and MSFT is a staple of a great many investment portfolios. Assuming you would become partially responsible for ensuring their compliance with federal regulations, part of your job will inevitably become spin control.
To break Microsoft's chokehold on the industry will send their stock into a tailspin, cause their R&D cycle to slow, and cause a chaotic move for power in various niches by everyone from giants such as IBM to various smaller companies that most people have never heard of. This will cause ripples (or shockwaves) in everything from the Dow Jones Industrial Average to unemployment figures to the number of dotcoms that show up and fail at trying to corner a niche to the price of new computers.
My question for you, then, is the following: If you do assume a role such that you oversee Microsoft's compliance with federal guidelines, how will you keep the ripple effects caused by your enforcement in check, and how will you justify the ripples that inevitably are created to the American people?
Those have been coming out weekly or so since the USS Cole was bombed, possibly longer. Ask anyone working on a military base. Most of the time, the Washington Post doesn't even pick up on them anymore.
So, speaking of media not mentioning this, why didn't we see something on slashdot about it earlier? If Roblimo knew he was going, he certainly could have mentioned when and where the damned thing was BEFORE it happened. I'm fairly well read on issues that involve merging technology and politics, and believe it or not, have had my rantings cited/quoted before. Oh, and I'm living in the DC area for the next few months. I could have taken the day off work, hopped on the Metro and been at this meeting in half an hour. And I'd have jumped at the chance, too. I can't promise that anything I'd have said there would have made a huge impact, but with so few people in attendance, I'll bet that one of the VIPs would have noticed that "the college kid with the southern accent made some good points."
Roblimo, could you (or someone else who knows) post a few more links about this, as well as a time and location for the next public meeting on it? Or, email me privately.
Do you have ANY clue what you write about? The P-3 is the air equivalent of the big yellow school bus. It's slow, noisy, and well-known among naval pilots for making unseasoned crew members lose their lunch. The MIG that you seem to think was the innocent victim is more like a Mustang. Small, fast, not that sturdy and much more maneuverable. You're basically suggesting that if a school bus is driving around in a deserted parking lot and two mustangs are circling it, trying to touch bumpers, that it's the school bus at fault when one of the Mustangs ends up as a Car-B-QUE.
You have virtually no experience with the Navy's air programs, no experience with international politics and therefore NO right to suggest you have any idea whatsoever who is at fault.
Asshole. Go thump the Geek Pride bible a bit more. At least you're marginally good at that.
Mr. Boucher, many of the political lobbies out there have slick web sites that detail bills coming up for a vote, suggest favorable candidates for upcoming elections, and allow their supporters to access all the information they could possibly want, all in one central location (ex: the NRA, the religious right, NORML, etc). Having spent many hours researching the candidates in this past November's election (local & state as well as national), I'm really discouraged by the lack of information available on the web sites of current representatives (if they exist at all). While representatives' votes are certainly a matter of public record, many representatives' web sites that I've encountered don't actually make this information available, and of those that do, even fewer publish the representative's rationalle for voting the way they did. It appears that lobbies are much, much better at using the internet to reach out to their supporters than politicians are.
The internet is quite possibly THE most cost effective way a representative has to reach their constituents, yet most hardly use it as more than a way to publish their contact information. If a rep wanted to be truly accountable, they could publish a few words about their recent votes, and why they feel they made the best decision possible for their district/state/etc. In my opinion, a representative who made decisions that were really in the best interest of their constituents - and repeatedly told them WHY those decisions where in their best interests - would be nearly impossible to defeat in reelection, yet most representatives don't do this.
My questions for you are these: Why do you feel most representatives aren't making more use of the internet to stay close to their constituents, what do you see being necessary to change this, and when do you think we can expect to see change come about?
Lets say that Company Foo creates a brand-new ultra-strong ultra-fast ultra-easy-to-use encryption algorithm. They call it Algorithm Bar. Their license is a term-limited one, and they price it ultra-cheap (think pennies). Great security cheap is wonderful; and everyone starts encrypting their records. Think of medical records, tax records, universitys' student accounts, etc. Lots and lots of proprietary mission-critical info, protected very, very well.
There is much rejoicing throughout the land as privacy advocates are justified, encryption become de-villanified, and company CIO's everywhere sleep soundly at night knowing that their vitals are locked down.
Then Company Foo disappears, due to a natural disaster, lack of profits due to their great pricing policy, or a guerilla attack from a government agency who's existance became much more difficult because of Algorithm Bar. Or even better, they decide to sit on their profits, and raise the license price by a few powers of 10. Either way, the licenses are not renewed. The software implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. The hardware implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. All those records, all that information, it's locked away safely from everyone, including the copyright holder. In a DMCA-friendly world, it would mean prision time for anyone to try to crack that encryption to access their own records.
To me, this is very very similar to suggesting that if I build a house, and lock my keys inside, I'm not allowed to punch a hole through my basement window to get back inside.
Suggesting that someone isn't allowed to access their information (be it purchased, leased, rented, or personally created) except through approved means is insane. If a law was in place that said they had to call a locksmith every time their door blew shut and locked them out instead of just opening it with a credit card, or had to call the police to open their gym locker if they forget the combination rather than cutting the two dollar lock off, people would be furious. Information is just a specific form of property. Why should we tolerate someone limiting our access to ANY particular form of property?
While I commend slashdot for attempting to provide a humerous outlook on the recent line of intellectual property lawsuits, settlements legistlative activities, I feel I can't participate in this childish contest. Intellectual property is a very serious concern, and my own intellectual property rights are being violated continually.
I have for quite some time held the patent and all exclusive rights to design, produce and market a handheld nutritional consumption aid, and out of the spirit of generousity and the goodness of my heart, I've elected not to enforce my patent. However, due to recent changes in the economy, I must being inforcing my right to collect a financial reward for my years of toiling research. Handheld nutritional consumption aids, commonly known as "siverware," are now commonplace in America, and indeed in most of the civilized world. Billions of people benefit from my intellectual property each and every day, yet I'm faced with ever-increasing debt, student loans, and a strong desire to consume six bottles of Killian's Irish Red while completing my evil bastard project from hell for my operating systems class. I regret that I must ask for some compensation for my years of hard work, however, I only ask that users of my hand held nutritional consumption aids pay a nominal fee of $.05 American dollars for each day that they use them. This amounts to only $18.25 per individual per calander year, and will allow me to attain a healthy income of roughly $7,000,000,000 per year. This will be used to research new and more effective handheld nutritional consumption aids, and buy me lots of good beer.
Heh... tempting... but I've been BOredAtWork for so many years in so many forums/lists that it'd be a bitch to get rid of, and would have to take LOTS of cash to convince me to do it...
Sure, a chicken roaster manufacturer who knows their product is used to kill kids would have an obligation. But universities don't have the obligation to enforce copyright on Napster's service; Napster does. It's their service, they're the ones under an obligation to make sure it's not abused.
Asking universities to stop providing the bandwidth that makes Napster effective is like asking chicken farmers to stop selling chickens because babys could be put in chicken roasters. If anybody should be policing copyrights, it's Napster itself. They're the ones in a questionable legal position, not the universities.
It makes NO logical sense to sue to force a ban of Napster. And no legal precident exists for this, either. I mean, come on folks. As far as I can tell, this whole fiasco comes down to intended use. Napster is a file transfer system. It allows a user to search other users' drives for file with certain keywords in the name. That's it. The fact that it can be abused for piracy doesn't mean it should be illegal. By that logic, a chicken roaster should be illegal, because one could roast babies instead of chickens. BIC lighters should be illegal because they can be used to torch buildings instead of light cigarettes. And don't even get me started on firearms...
As for asking universities to enforce the laws of the nation on their students, that's bullshit. That's what the legal system is for. If the RIAA wants pirates off Napster, let them go after the pirates. It makes very little sense for them to go after the university (who has lots of money and lawyers) rather than the big time pirates (who according to the RIAA are students, and most likely poor and without lawyers). Asking universities to circumvent the court system and start passing judgement on their students is insane. Notice that the RIAA isn't actually saying "Here's the IP of someone who's making 800 songs available, thereby violating our exclusive distribution rights, please remove them from your network", they're saying "Well, Napster's on your network, so somebody somewhere's bound to be pirating. Shut it ALL down." If universities argree to this, they've set themselves in a huge, huge hole. Next thing you know, someone could come along and say "you allow refrigerators on campus, somebody somewhere is bound to be keeping alcohol in them when they're underage, so ban them all". Somebody could come along and say "you make Xerox machines available for student use; somebody somewhere's bound to be photocopying part of my textbook and robbing me of royalty money, shut them all down!" The whole idea of the RIAA expecting ANY university to shut down a service based on the POSSIBILITY of abuse is outrageous, and insane. I'm glad to see schools standing up to this shit; and I'm glad to know that mine would be one of the last to ever ban anything tech related.
...just get a coop job while you're there. Cooping rocks. You take an extra year to graduate, but it lets you break up the monotony of the school year. You basically (at least at VT) take two or three semesters off to work for a good company somewhere, and tack those semesters on at the end of your "senior" year. I love it. I've got cash, a great job lined up when I graduate (most coops get offered a great deal to stay on full time with their employeer - they're already trained, familiar with the people and products, and able to come back and be productive), and I learned enough while I was working that classes aren't that tough. Plus, I have five years to enjoy college life rather than four. There's no downside. You have a full year or two to enjoy being > 21 and in college (a big plus), can go to more parties, meet more people, and have more fun. The schoolwork is spread out so you don't get burnout, and it's much easier because of the practical experience. Why on earth WOULDN'T you want the best of both worlds?
Well, our friend DeCSS is available from the MPAA itself! With just a few simple clicks, you too can see that the MPAA, by their own standards for criminal behavior, should be JAILED. Woho!
Look near the bottom of that page, and follow the link called "United States Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Business Affairs," which will lead you here.
Now, click that ugly ass purple "Business FAQ" button, which will lead you here
Scroll down until you find a link to "State and Local Government on the Net", in the answer to the fifth question from the bottom. That will lead you here.
Now, there's a big 'ol box on the left that lets you search Google! Type in "DeCSS", and find a mirror near you! So boys and girls, let me ask one little question:
Q - Who should go to jail?
A - The MPAA and the United States Government!
Ya know, I should be an attorney instead of an engineer... this is just too easy...
This professor apparently said code must compile on Codewarrior for grading. He can NEVER mandate that you develop on codewarrior. If you stick to ANSI standard stuff, you can build/test/run on Debian, and just open everything in Visual C++, codewarrior, etc to create the project, then submit it for grading. I've been doing this for 4 years at Virginia Tech, no problems yet. Of course, all bets are off if you're required to use MFC or some platform dependant extensions.
Platform requirements are good. In the real world, you'll probably not be shipping a product on Linux, at least, not as the target platform (a port would be likely, though). Cross platform code is important, and this will force you to learn how to write it. Requirements for the platform are also good in that the majority of the class needs to learn to CODE, not learn a new IDE. If the department standardizes on one IDE, professors can teach it as they need to, students don't need to learn a new one each semester, and projects can be graded fairly and consistantly.
On a side note, the required platform for my Operating Systems class at VT is any linux system with kernel 2.2.x. You might find that IDE's are forced on you in the intro level classes, but in the more advanced ones, that will be left open. Someone in my class asked if they can use VC++, and the professor said "well, if you can build a Linux kernel in there, you definately deserve to pass this class... but I wouldn't recommend it..."
Raise your own damn kids(tm). That's my new campaign. This is just one more (of the many) bullshit steps society is taking to shirk the responsibility of raising their OWN DAMN KIDS.
It's simple, really. The responsibility of raising kids is the PARENT'S. We've tried to pawn it off on day care centers. We've tried to pawn it off on the schools. We've tried to pawn it off on TV. Music. Movies. Government. Anything except ourselves.
Here's the story folks; we can't suddenly plot Johnny down in front of the nintendo and pat ourselves on the back saying "well, he's learning to focus." This is such bullshit. I'm sorry to point out the obvious here, but if you want a "normal" kid, you've got to participate in their lives, and possibly rethink your definition of "normal". In this respect, I've gotta agree with the above post.
Ok, offtopic rant time! (yay)
I'm sick and tired of reading all these articles about saving the children from the evils of the world, and having every last one be a steaming pile of shit. Come on. "Write your congressman, save the children from Ozzy Osbourne!" "Support library filtering software, save the children from porn!" "Support drug prison terms, save the children from evil plants!"
People, it's a very simple idea you have to grasp: a parent should be the biggest influence in a child's life. End of story. If you're concerned about music/drugs/porn/crime/gangs/whatever, you've not talked to your kids enough. Same thing with this ADD stuff; if your child has a genuine medical condition, spend enough time with them to notice it, and get it treated. If your child is just crying out for attention (my theory on the majority of ADD cases), it's YOUR FAULT. How dare parents today hand their kids off to day care centers and schools, and sign happily on the line when some overstressed undertrained teacher says "ridalin would help". This article is just MORE fuel on the fire; one more parent is gonna buy his kid a nintendo, and say "well, they're learning... now I can work an hour later!". People are pawning their kids upbringing off on anything EXCEPT themselves. This just provides one MORE thing for 'em to use.
Here's the basics folks: If you don't want your child to act out, teach them respect. If you don't want your child to commit crimes, teach them why it's wrong. If you don't want them smoking pot, teach them it's dangerous. If you don't want them having sex early, teach them it's wrong. Don't sit your kids in front of a nintendo to learn to focus, and then complain that video games are sending the wrong messages. Don't sit them in front of the TV to learn moral values and then complain that TVs are immoral. Raise your own damn kids. Don't expect me, the government, the schools or the media to do it for you.
If my parents would have listened to counselors/teachers, I'd have been in the learning disabled program by 3rd grade. My mother got a letter suggesting that I be placed in that program, and went to the principal insisting I be IQ tested. She still breaks out the "your son has special needs; he's blessed with special talents" letter now and then. And the "your son has special needs; he's not showing satisfactory progress" one that had preceeded it. Which one do you want for YOUR kids?
Slashdot Mirror
He was around. And the darn kid showed no respect, not even back then!
dsracic at vt dot edu
Some uber-geek YOU are, not clicking the profile name, and searching around for the all-elusive address!
(Anyone else appreciate the humor in needing an email address to GET an email address?)
Send a gmail invite my way, please!
Why? Because I asked nicely, and I have a really low and ultra-cool UID here.
Booya! First post!
Oh, and SCO sucks. Primarily because it's not above them to set this up themselves, and say (yet again) how everyone's out to get them...
Seems that this is a somewhat stupid question. Even if classified work is done by a contractor, and sold to the government as work-for-hire, the contractor is the only one required to provide the source code to anyone, and then, only to the group to whom they give the executable - the government. So, as long as they wouldn't give the executable to anyone else, the GPL is obeyed. And quite honestly, if a contractor provides classified software to anyone except the government, under government blessing, they'll have bigger problems than a GPL violation.
Go ahead, use GPL'd software in whatever you like. Unless the government plans to sell the software to anyone else later, you're completly within the bounds of the license. Nowhere does the GPL say "if you give this software to someone, you have to provide it to the world." It simply says that "if you give someone this software, you have to give them the means to modify it."
Troll? Who? I would never post a troll here. I have the utmost respect for good discussion sites!
Actually... it considering the number of pies that Microsoft has its fingers in, it IS the business of the oversight committee. Picture Microsoft stock dropping 50%, and CEO Balmer needing a quick way to raise it to appease the 15 million people holding stock. You think they won't start price gouging, cracking down further on license issues, making their subscription-based XP model more predatory, etc? You're crazy. They exist to make money, hand over fist, and if they stop doing that, shareholders will get angry, public support for the government intervention will dwindle, and there's a great many people going to be a great deal of fucked. I think this is EXACTLY what the oversight committee should address - how to enforce fair play, while not causing shockwaves.
To break Microsoft's chokehold on the industry will send their stock into a tailspin, cause their R&D cycle to slow, and cause a chaotic move for power in various niches by everyone from giants such as IBM to various smaller companies that most people have never heard of. This will cause ripples (or shockwaves) in everything from the Dow Jones Industrial Average to unemployment figures to the number of dotcoms that show up and fail at trying to corner a niche to the price of new computers.
My question for you, then, is the following: If you do assume a role such that you oversee Microsoft's compliance with federal guidelines, how will you keep the ripple effects caused by your enforcement in check, and how will you justify the ripples that inevitably are created to the American people?
Sorry, couldn't pass it up
Oh, and about your sig... I'm still 100 times better than you are! Woho!
Those have been coming out weekly or so since the USS Cole was bombed, possibly longer. Ask anyone working on a military base. Most of the time, the Washington Post doesn't even pick up on them anymore.
At least, that's the conclusion one could draw from your logic. McDonalds leads to world peace? Horseshit.
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Roblimo, could you (or someone else who knows) post a few more links about this, as well as a time and location for the next public meeting on it? Or, email me privately.
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Do you have ANY clue what you write about? The P-3 is the air equivalent of the big yellow school bus. It's slow, noisy, and well-known among naval pilots for making unseasoned crew members lose their lunch. The MIG that you seem to think was the innocent victim is more like a Mustang. Small, fast, not that sturdy and much more maneuverable. You're basically suggesting that if a school bus is driving around in a deserted parking lot and two mustangs are circling it, trying to touch bumpers, that it's the school bus at fault when one of the Mustangs ends up as a Car-B-QUE.
You have virtually no experience with the Navy's air programs, no experience with international politics and therefore NO right to suggest you have any idea whatsoever who is at fault.
Asshole. Go thump the Geek Pride bible a bit more. At least you're marginally good at that.
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The internet is quite possibly THE most cost effective way a representative has to reach their constituents, yet most hardly use it as more than a way to publish their contact information. If a rep wanted to be truly accountable, they could publish a few words about their recent votes, and why they feel they made the best decision possible for their district/state/etc. In my opinion, a representative who made decisions that were really in the best interest of their constituents - and repeatedly told them WHY those decisions where in their best interests - would be nearly impossible to defeat in reelection, yet most representatives don't do this.
My questions for you are these: Why do you feel most representatives aren't making more use of the internet to stay close to their constituents, what do you see being necessary to change this, and when do you think we can expect to see change come about?
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There is much rejoicing throughout the land as privacy advocates are justified, encryption become de-villanified, and company CIO's everywhere sleep soundly at night knowing that their vitals are locked down.
Then Company Foo disappears, due to a natural disaster, lack of profits due to their great pricing policy, or a guerilla attack from a government agency who's existance became much more difficult because of Algorithm Bar. Or even better, they decide to sit on their profits, and raise the license price by a few powers of 10. Either way, the licenses are not renewed. The software implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. The hardware implementing Algorithm Bar deactivates itself. All those records, all that information, it's locked away safely from everyone, including the copyright holder. In a DMCA-friendly world, it would mean prision time for anyone to try to crack that encryption to access their own records.
To me, this is very very similar to suggesting that if I build a house, and lock my keys inside, I'm not allowed to punch a hole through my basement window to get back inside.
Suggesting that someone isn't allowed to access their information (be it purchased, leased, rented, or personally created) except through approved means is insane. If a law was in place that said they had to call a locksmith every time their door blew shut and locked them out instead of just opening it with a credit card, or had to call the police to open their gym locker if they forget the combination rather than cutting the two dollar lock off, people would be furious. Information is just a specific form of property. Why should we tolerate someone limiting our access to ANY particular form of property?
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I have for quite some time held the patent and all exclusive rights to design, produce and market a handheld nutritional consumption aid, and out of the spirit of generousity and the goodness of my heart, I've elected not to enforce my patent. However, due to recent changes in the economy, I must being inforcing my right to collect a financial reward for my years of toiling research. Handheld nutritional consumption aids, commonly known as "siverware," are now commonplace in America, and indeed in most of the civilized world. Billions of people benefit from my intellectual property each and every day, yet I'm faced with ever-increasing debt, student loans, and a strong desire to consume six bottles of Killian's Irish Red while completing my evil bastard project from hell for my operating systems class. I regret that I must ask for some compensation for my years of hard work, however, I only ask that users of my hand held nutritional consumption aids pay a nominal fee of $.05 American dollars for each day that they use them. This amounts to only $18.25 per individual per calander year, and will allow me to attain a healthy income of roughly $7,000,000,000 per year. This will be used to research new and more effective handheld nutritional consumption aids, and buy me lots of good beer.
Thank you.
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Asking universities to stop providing the bandwidth that makes Napster effective is like asking chicken farmers to stop selling chickens because babys could be put in chicken roasters. If anybody should be policing copyrights, it's Napster itself. They're the ones in a questionable legal position, not the universities.
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As for asking universities to enforce the laws of the nation on their students, that's bullshit. That's what the legal system is for. If the RIAA wants pirates off Napster, let them go after the pirates. It makes very little sense for them to go after the university (who has lots of money and lawyers) rather than the big time pirates (who according to the RIAA are students, and most likely poor and without lawyers). Asking universities to circumvent the court system and start passing judgement on their students is insane. Notice that the RIAA isn't actually saying "Here's the IP of someone who's making 800 songs available, thereby violating our exclusive distribution rights, please remove them from your network", they're saying "Well, Napster's on your network, so somebody somewhere's bound to be pirating. Shut it ALL down." If universities argree to this, they've set themselves in a huge, huge hole. Next thing you know, someone could come along and say "you allow refrigerators on campus, somebody somewhere is bound to be keeping alcohol in them when they're underage, so ban them all". Somebody could come along and say "you make Xerox machines available for student use; somebody somewhere's bound to be photocopying part of my textbook and robbing me of royalty money, shut them all down!" The whole idea of the RIAA expecting ANY university to shut down a service based on the POSSIBILITY of abuse is outrageous, and insane. I'm glad to see schools standing up to this shit; and I'm glad to know that mine would be one of the last to ever ban anything tech related.
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Start here, at the MPAA's "Related Sites" page.
Look near the bottom of that page, and follow the link called "United States Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Business Affairs," which will lead you here.
Now, click that ugly ass purple "Business FAQ" button, which will lead you here
Scroll down until you find a link to "State and Local Government on the Net", in the answer to the fifth question from the bottom. That will lead you here.
Now, there's a big 'ol box on the left that lets you search Google! Type in "DeCSS", and find a mirror near you! So boys and girls, let me ask one little question:
Q - Who should go to jail?
A - The MPAA and the United States Government!
Ya know, I should be an attorney instead of an engineer... this is just too easy...
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Platform requirements are good. In the real world, you'll probably not be shipping a product on Linux, at least, not as the target platform (a port would be likely, though). Cross platform code is important, and this will force you to learn how to write it. Requirements for the platform are also good in that the majority of the class needs to learn to CODE, not learn a new IDE. If the department standardizes on one IDE, professors can teach it as they need to, students don't need to learn a new one each semester, and projects can be graded fairly and consistantly.
On a side note, the required platform for my Operating Systems class at VT is any linux system with kernel 2.2.x. You might find that IDE's are forced on you in the intro level classes, but in the more advanced ones, that will be left open. Someone in my class asked if they can use VC++, and the professor said "well, if you can build a Linux kernel in there, you definately deserve to pass this class... but I wouldn't recommend it..."
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It's simple, really. The responsibility of raising kids is the PARENT'S. We've tried to pawn it off on day care centers. We've tried to pawn it off on the schools. We've tried to pawn it off on TV. Music. Movies. Government. Anything except ourselves.
Here's the story folks; we can't suddenly plot Johnny down in front of the nintendo and pat ourselves on the back saying "well, he's learning to focus." This is such bullshit. I'm sorry to point out the obvious here, but if you want a "normal" kid, you've got to participate in their lives, and possibly rethink your definition of "normal". In this respect, I've gotta agree with the above post.
Ok, offtopic rant time! (yay)
I'm sick and tired of reading all these articles about saving the children from the evils of the world, and having every last one be a steaming pile of shit. Come on. "Write your congressman, save the children from Ozzy Osbourne!" "Support library filtering software, save the children from porn!" "Support drug prison terms, save the children from evil plants!"
People, it's a very simple idea you have to grasp: a parent should be the biggest influence in a child's life. End of story. If you're concerned about music/drugs/porn/crime/gangs/whatever, you've not talked to your kids enough. Same thing with this ADD stuff; if your child has a genuine medical condition, spend enough time with them to notice it, and get it treated. If your child is just crying out for attention (my theory on the majority of ADD cases), it's YOUR FAULT. How dare parents today hand their kids off to day care centers and schools, and sign happily on the line when some overstressed undertrained teacher says "ridalin would help". This article is just MORE fuel on the fire; one more parent is gonna buy his kid a nintendo, and say "well, they're learning... now I can work an hour later!". People are pawning their kids upbringing off on anything EXCEPT themselves. This just provides one MORE thing for 'em to use.
Here's the basics folks: If you don't want your child to act out, teach them respect. If you don't want your child to commit crimes, teach them why it's wrong. If you don't want them smoking pot, teach them it's dangerous. If you don't want them having sex early, teach them it's wrong. Don't sit your kids in front of a nintendo to learn to focus, and then complain that video games are sending the wrong messages. Don't sit them in front of the TV to learn moral values and then complain that TVs are immoral. Raise your own damn kids. Don't expect me, the government, the schools or the media to do it for you.
If my parents would have listened to counselors/teachers, I'd have been in the learning disabled program by 3rd grade. My mother got a letter suggesting that I be placed in that program, and went to the principal insisting I be IQ tested. She still breaks out the "your son has special needs; he's blessed with special talents" letter now and then. And the "your son has special needs; he's not showing satisfactory progress" one that had preceeded it. Which one do you want for YOUR kids?
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