I tried to make the switch to dvorak a while ago, and I found I got good pretty fast at typing text and word processing documents.
By far the worst part though, were commands like ls -al which are very hard to relearn with a different layout. The show-stopper, however, was using VI. Vi assumes that you're using a querty layout, because the keys in command mode (like hjkl for left/up/down/right) aren't in logical positions when you're using a different keyboard.
So until there's a widely available 'dvorak-mode' for Vi which reassigns the command mode keys to be whatever the old querty key in the same place would have been, I'm sticking with querty.
By far the biggest event of my adolescence was buying my own computer. It took me a year or two of lawn mowing, but it was for me what I suspect what getting a car was to my parents generation - freedom. Before that, we had a single family computer with a modem. Being far more technically savvy than my parents, I of course got into all sorts of things I shouldn't have, including (but not limited to) violent video games, porn and hacking. Getting my own computer meant that I could pursue these interests in private without having to go through all the effort of hiding them.
Before you write off my opinion, let me say that I have given up video games for over a year now, my fascination with hacking has largely worn off, and, well, I have largely stopped using online porn. In spite of this, I don't regret what I did, although my parents would certainly have heart attack if they knew the half of it.
I think I discovered porn when I was in the 6th grade, which would mean I was 12. I was by far the most sexually educated kid I knew growing up, because my desire for porn was about half sexual fascination and about half intellectual fascination with forbidden knowledge. Perhaps the best thing I ever found was the Alt.Sex FAQ . Some people might be horrified at the thought of a 15 year old reading this, but I think it went a long way towards making me the most sexually knowledgeable and educated kid I knew. When other kids were having sex, I was afraid of getting gonorrhea. When I finally did, I knew much more about a woman's body and how to treat it than I would have otherwise. For all the raunchy "degrading" porn I watched, I read well written story romances.
My point is basically this - that if you attempt to force a morality upon your kids, they *might* obey it, but they will only do so because of fear of punishment from you. If you let them see what's out there, make their own mistakes and learn the hard way, they will come to their own morality in time, and it will be one that they will follow because they believe in it. This make take time and what they arrive at may not be exactly what you are starting with, but I am a strong believer that what matters is the thought behind the action.
I got myself into a good deal of trouble along the way with the things I dabbled in, and my parents reaction was always that you are responsible for your actions. In time, I decided that my actions weren't worth the risks. I would never have reached this had they simply forbade me or cut me off. This isn't to say that they didn't try - I knew I was breaking the rules, and I was smart enough to get away with it for the most part.
Since you are reading/., we can assume that you are somewhat more sophisticated than my parents were, and thus that your ability to enforce your rules is also greater, so that your kids might not be able to get away with what I got away with. Putting myself in your position, I would give them freedom to do what they like, but I would set up a monitor on their activity, so that if something truly threatening were to take place (agreeing to meet a stranger they met in a chat room), I could intervene. That would be the exception though - the point is that they should learn about consequences when they are young and the consequences are not all that serious, rather than when they are older and the consequences are life consequences. As humiliating as it was to tell my parents why we'd gotten kicked off our ISP, I would rather relive that a hundred times than wind up in jail for hacking today.
I realize it would be hard as a parent to know that your 12 year old son watches donkey porn twice a week, but I think with patience, education, and a few tough learning experiences your kids will come to their own understanding of right and wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
I tried to make the switch to dvorak a while ago, and I found I got good pretty fast at typing text and word processing documents. By far the worst part though, were commands like ls -al which are very hard to relearn with a different layout. The show-stopper, however, was using VI. Vi assumes that you're using a querty layout, because the keys in command mode (like hjkl for left/up/down/right) aren't in logical positions when you're using a different keyboard. So until there's a widely available 'dvorak-mode' for Vi which reassigns the command mode keys to be whatever the old querty key in the same place would have been, I'm sticking with querty.
By far the biggest event of my adolescence was buying my own computer. It took me a year or two of lawn mowing, but it was for me what I suspect what getting a car was to my parents generation - freedom. Before that, we had a single family computer with a modem. Being far more technically savvy than my parents, I of course got into all sorts of things I shouldn't have, including (but not limited to) violent video games, porn and hacking. Getting my own computer meant that I could pursue these interests in private without having to go through all the effort of hiding them.
Before you write off my opinion, let me say that I have given up video games for over a year now, my fascination with hacking has largely worn off, and, well, I have largely stopped using online porn. In spite of this, I don't regret what I did, although my parents would certainly have heart attack if they knew the half of it.
I think I discovered porn when I was in the 6th grade, which would mean I was 12. I was by far the most sexually educated kid I knew growing up, because my desire for porn was about half sexual fascination and about half intellectual fascination with forbidden knowledge. Perhaps the best thing I ever found was the Alt.Sex FAQ . Some people might be horrified at the thought of a 15 year old reading this, but I think it went a long way towards making me the most sexually knowledgeable and educated kid I knew. When other kids were having sex, I was afraid of getting gonorrhea. When I finally did, I knew much more about a woman's body and how to treat it than I would have otherwise. For all the raunchy "degrading" porn I watched, I read well written story romances.
My point is basically this - that if you attempt to force a morality upon your kids, they *might* obey it, but they will only do so because of fear of punishment from you. If you let them see what's out there, make their own mistakes and learn the hard way, they will come to their own morality in time, and it will be one that they will follow because they believe in it. This make take time and what they arrive at may not be exactly what you are starting with, but I am a strong believer that what matters is the thought behind the action.
I got myself into a good deal of trouble along the way with the things I dabbled in, and my parents reaction was always that you are responsible for your actions. In time, I decided that my actions weren't worth the risks. I would never have reached this had they simply forbade me or cut me off. This isn't to say that they didn't try - I knew I was breaking the rules, and I was smart enough to get away with it for the most part.
Since you are reading /., we can assume that you are somewhat more sophisticated than my parents were, and thus that your ability to enforce your rules is also greater, so that your kids might not be able to get away with what I got away with. Putting myself in your position, I would give them freedom to do what they like, but I would set up a monitor on their activity, so that if something truly threatening were to take place (agreeing to meet a stranger they met in a chat room), I could intervene. That would be the exception though - the point is that they should learn about consequences when they are young and the consequences are not all that serious, rather than when they are older and the consequences are life consequences. As humiliating as it was to tell my parents why we'd gotten kicked off our ISP, I would rather relive that a hundred times than wind up in jail for hacking today.
I realize it would be hard as a parent to know that your 12 year old son watches donkey porn twice a week, but I think with patience, education, and a few tough learning experiences your kids will come to their own understanding of right and wrong.
Foxbat