I would have to agree with that, Which is why we taught our daughter to: spell her name, memorize both cell phone numbers and be able to write them out, memorize her address and to write it out, how to deal with people and what to do when lost. However, it's a big planet, and getting lost at the age of five can easily get you killed, from any number of dangers. It's a very dangerous world, and I don't recall ever jumping over the I need to protect her from pedophiles fence.
Simply falling down a steep hill and into a creek is enough to kill a small child. Wandering onto a farm with a bull is enough to get killed. Crossing a highway at the bend of a road is an easy way to get killed. Why there must be easily a million ways for a 5 year old to get killed or have an accident that causes permanent disabling injuries. What are the odds of a five year old mistaking a belladonna berry for a blueberry? About 1:1. Fortunately, it doesn't produce fruits in the Spring, although it has naturalized in the area, and I teach my daughter not to eat plants. that's not to say she would not do so were she hungry, or alone.
She is after all five, and curious. A dangerous combination. Plus, my daughter won't begin kindergarten until August, this is just a summer intro. So while I teach her how to deal with life, it's a lot of responsibility to place solely on the shoulders of a five year old. Which is why we prosecute parents for leaving them alone at the age of five. If you spent more than 24 hours with a 5 year old, and actually watched what they do when left to their own decisions, you'd know this simple truth.
Young children are quite capable of making mistakes that would quickly kill themselves without having to bring in bogeymen to do it for them. Striking a match and it accidentally ignites their clothing is one more example. Reaching in a hand to pet a pretty doggie can easily disfigure a small child. And on an on.
You've obviously lived in a vacuum for some time. You'd be amazed at the current state of technology for asexual reproduction. Easier for women, as they have sperm banks. For men you need also a womb bank, but they sorta have them too.
I was raised in a 99.999% white community in Beemer country, with a community country club and our own neighborhood child molester. Who successfully stayed concealed for many years and had his way with a good number of the neighborhood kids.
I have been: abducted at gun-point, attacked with knives, been attacked by thugs and muggers, been attacked by dogs, lived on the street (and I mean really on the street), been set on fire, made high-explosives in my bathtub, done other dangerous chemical experiments, and lots more things. Lived in three corners of the US, and in several states. Traveled half-way around the world.
I never said I wanted to track her every move. I want to know she's gets from school to daycare safely. Hence being able to track her from point a to b once a day, when the school is supposed to send her to daycare, is all I need.
But you see, it's not a "But I only track her from here to here" thing. It's on or off, all or nothing. I don't doubt your intentions one bit as a parent. But the implications of having a GPS type device on your daughter is frighteningly prone to abuse, by you later on when you feel like you should be tracking her more places,
I've helped raise my wife's two former teenage daughters without needing to do that, but had the ability. Power doesn't corrupt everyone, but you're right there is that risk. Although, one really needed it. Both are now adults with their own kids.
...and when you have something like this, the stakes go WAY up as far as your child's safety.
Total BS. Child molestors aren't looking for gps devices to hack into to locate children. It's fairly easy to track children if you want to molest them. Get a job in a field that deals with kids, and you'll have an endless supply. Buy a home in a neighborhood with lots of young couples and children and you'll have a a cornucopia of children to target, etc.
My primary concern is to keep her from: getting attacked by loose dogs, and getting run over, falling down a hole, eating poison berries, lost in a wooded area, etc. While abduction is also a danger, regardless of statistics.
While I teach my daughter things like: don't eat berries off plants, don't talk to strange people, do talk to the police and firefighters, look both ways before crossing a street, etc. At five these rules don't get the respect they deserve and are often neglected when distracted. Five year olds are easily distracted.
Since when has July and August been made into a whole year? It's something optional the school offered, and most of her daycare friends are taking it, so I let her do it too.
1) serious harm or death to the child, 2) arrest of the parents for child endangerment, 3) loss of custudy of the child, due to child services and criminal charges, 4) the child raised in one group home after another with no loving, caring, nurturing parent, 5) all of the above.
I never said I wanted to track her every move. I want to know she's gets from school to daycare safely. Hence being able to track her from point a to b once a day, when the school is supposed to send her to daycare, is all I need.
Five and I have addressed it with the school. the teacher, the principal, and the district administrator, and tomorrow with the town council.
However, since this has probably all happened before and it is STILL happening, I have to assume, my pebble in the still waters will have just as profound an affect as the others before me.
I'm not simply attacking this from a single angle. But my prime objective is to keep my child safe, alive and happy. If that means bugging her with GPS or radio-transmitter for a few years, so be it. Better alive and safe than on a poster in Walmart.
First off, write a letter explaining what has happened and send it to your school board
Who said I haven't?
local newspaper-who-might-give-a-crap-about-this-kind-of-thing.
Ok, now that's a bit creepy, but I see it on the news in other places.
Talk with your daughter's teachers, the school principal, and whoever else you need to to get some assurances that they're not going to do this again.
Did that too, but since this has been happening for years, how am I to expect my complaint to fair any better?
Then... talk with your daughter about what happened and how she can make sure she gets home on the right bus.
Again, been there done that.
If you really want a technological solution then buy her a mobile phone, maybe something like one of these beasties which can be locked down to only calling a handful of numbers (not a product endorsement, just giving an example), and make sure she knows how to call you at home if she has trouble again. Keep it charged and have her stash it in her jacket or backpack where she's unlikely to lose it. There's no need to weld it onto a metal cuff around her ankle, just let her use it to call you when she needs to. Hopefully you can both feel better about her security that way. You need to know that she is safe
Five year olds are great at breaking things they can play with.
and she needs to know that you trust her and that you are able to help her out if she has troubles.
She already knows this.
Strapping a prisoner restraint collar around her neck and monitoring her every move isn't going to do that.
I was actually thinking something to attach to her clothes or backpack, and also why I wanted an off-switch.
That all works fine, until they switch bus numbers and don't tell the child that she should be on bus 3 and not 5. My child can count to 100 and the school wasn't too happy about that. They should only be able to count to twenty. They needed my permission to put sunblock on her, so, the first day of class she got sunburn, because the daycare center where I dropped her off, expected the school would do it. Now they have permission and I even provided them with a free bottle of sunscreen and today she got more sunburn because they didn't put it on her again. So now, I have to put it on her myself, before school and hope she still has enough coverage when it's time to go outside.
This is a 5 year old we are talking about. They have proven limited survival capabilities. I don't plan on tracking her her whole life, just until she can reasonably manage herself, in a year or two. I would consider $50-$500 (or even more) a worthwhile investment for a year or two's worth of being able to better ensure her survival.
In twenty years, I hope my child can think that she can do whatever is necessary to ensure the survival of her children, and has the ability to do it.
I've already done that, unfortunately, the only learning algorithm available requires a 7-10 year programming period in order to obtain a sufficient stored information database and skill at detecting and solving potentially life threatening and yet initially non-trivial situations.
example situation:
All of the other children on the bus have left, and the designated authority figure has not taken you to your designated destination, do you:
a) ask the authority figure why he hasn't dropped you off yet, b) wait patiently for the driver to take you to your destination, c) lay down and take a nap, d) get off the bus to check out the pretty flowers, e) ask the bus driver to stop as you notice him pass a playground, f) wait on the bus until after the driver finishes his route and leaves the bus, not noticing the child still on the bus, and then wait for the driver to come back until the bus gets hot and you pass out and die.
Well to add some more clarity. I'll throw in this one last detail. As I was on my way to the daycare center, to pick up my daughter for her dance class, I get a phone call from the daycare center. The voice on the other end of the line asks, "Did you pick up your daughter from school today?"
A very valid point, but my wife used to work at one of those shelters. Most of those women are dumber than dirt, because they keep going back for more and some of them just use those shelters as a vacation to get away from it all when it gets too bad and also to get a bunch of freebies. Not that I mean to blame the women. Those guys, and yes even some women who are abusers,really need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law can provide. But sadly, this is one of the most under-reported crimes in America, and the victims are among the least protected. Just look at that ex-cop, and how he's gotten away with killing two, or at least until now. Little bit late now that the damage is done. But this is all kind of OT.
All of the children have tags attached to their backpacks. She had hers. They decided to change the numbers and not tell anyone. Some alert individuals caught the change of numbers in the morning when the buses arrived to pick up and changed the numbers themselves. Since my daughter was dropped off by me, because we were running 5 minutes late, she didn't get that benefit. So, you see, that is part of my concern. A district with a normal total population of 3000, can't keep lines of communication open for three days when they only have to deal with a population a small fraction of that.
She already knows how to spell her name and address. Has memorized the cell phones of both parents and can do numerous other astounding and miraculous feats. However at five years of age she doesn't have the mental capacity you would instill upon her. She will gladly accept a red balloon or chocolate from you or any other total and friendly stranger, as would probably 95% of all five year olds.
She cannot be relied upon to always make the right choice, hence the need for rational adults or high-tech solutions.
My knee-jerk reaction doesn't mean I'm an ignorant and uninformed or inattentive parent, or one of those people always shouting "think of of children", as some posters believe. Although I expected such knee-jerk reactions. Thankfully there are also useful posts here, and a commercial solution that looks to fit most of my bill. Maybe, I'm overreacting, but it will give me peace of mind and I will wind up with a new toy to hack up later. Perhaps to be incorporated into an autonomous vehicle later.
I won't sit by and watch as others put my child at needless risk, simply because they aren't qualified for the job they are in. I don't think I'm asking too much that a school can keep track of, as it turns out about 85 kindergardners (it seems about 10-15% of the parents are picking up their children, or they're just overreacting like me). the school has a total capacity for 500 students, and it hasn't reached capacity. Therefore my initial estimate of 200 was a bit high. How many paid professional people does it take to put 85 pre-K kids on buses?
Well, I have and will continue to voice my concerns about the school and it's lack of good planning. I will be bringing it before the town council, and doing what I can to prevent it from happening. However, I don't have a great deal of confidence in the district anymore. I feel for the other parents too, but my prime concern is to keep my daughter safe. I have the ability to do this and thus don't mind the expense.
Well, for perspective, the local district has had this occur for at least every year for the past five years or more. Further we're talking about a class size of about 200 kindergertners. That's all they have to deal with in the summer at the elementary, except for a few older kids. They lost track of roughly a dozen kids on Friday or about 5% of the class. I'm only discovering this incompetence due to the fact this is the first child I've had at this school.
While I have and continue to instruct my on daughter how to deal with such situations, she is after all only five. You cannot expect a five year old to deal with much on an independent basis.
As far as removing, stuff , I put on her, that's unlikely if I tell her she needs to wear it all day. She may break or lose such a thing, but she is mostly obedient to her parents. Besides. if it's jewelry, she'll wear it.
I may be overreacting, but in the matter of a child's life it's far better to overreact than under react.
Besides, this has geek factor written all over it.
The problem here is many of these games are cover highly mature content, which I as a parent am free to prevent my child from having in the house. I am free to not allow my child to visit houses where these games are. Free to discipline my child for obtaining and playing these games against my wishes. Free to turn the channel on movies based on these games. Free to block shows containing this content.
However, my child will still be bombarded with the violent commercials these video games and movies advertise. Commercials I can only react to after the fact, or record all our TV use and strip out the commercials. Not to mention that there are a great many people who are bad parents and allow their children to play these games and watch these shows. Which means I now have to police every aspect of my child's life, because I never know where the next GMAXII may show up. At least most "normal" porn depicts a useful and necessary function in life. While some might say reducing the excess population is also useful. I'd have to vote that one down. Sex is necessary to preserve the species (well, maybe not anymore due to technology). Death will come to everyone eventually, and thus killing isn't necessary. Hmm, maybe we should just get rid of both, and then there wouldn't be any more need for controversy? Nahhhhhh.
Because that would require the application of logic, Which isn't respected among most disciplines in college, except by closet logicians, and beside who ever said humans were logical? [run on sentence -1]
I'm surprised to find out that textbooks are no longer open source. I remember when I was in school, I could open a book and there was all the text, just out there freely on the page for anyone to read. Or are they proposing to make the books truly open by including all the answers, like in the teachers' books? Why don't they just distribute the teachers' books then? Of course real learning may go down a mite if that were done.
I'm still having a WTF moment from pre-registering my child for kindergarten (I allowed my child to skip the entrance exams. Yes really my public school district has placement exams for kindergarten.). "We don't give out grades until 6th grade. We just check off task accomplishments", say what? This from a district that handed school preparation packages to parents with: missing pages, wrong word tenses, misspelled words and numerous grammatical errors. Thank you Microsft Word!
Maybe I should just home-school my child. Of course then she'd probably have an unfair advantage. Which I may still do.
I've backed up DVDs from all the major studios on popular titles, with varying types of protection and not had any trouble with any of them. Perhaps if you could name some specific titles that use ARCCOS, according to you, we can disprove your fallacious claim? Just like Groklaw, IBM and Novell decimated SCO's claims. While what you say is true; if you try to just copy a Disney DVD from one disk to another it simply won't play, however, you can use K9Copy to make one that doesn't skip anything. I know. I have a small child who watches Disney videos, much to my disapproval, and thus need to make backups often. A DVD can only take so much abuse from an elementary age child. They are highly destructive beings and UL aught to hire some of them to test products with.
I just use K9Copy. It just works. I did make a few changes (I use the AC3 for sound instead of the default), and it has few quirks based on how movie studios label and group stuff. I just find the part I want to copy, click on it, then click on a specific language (this is a necessary step, for some odd reason, I left it off once and part of the rip was in French), and click on the subtitles I want (I'm predominately deaf). Then rip it to an iso. Once that's done I burn it off to a disk. Easy as pie and no stupid commercials, menu copyright warnings you can't zip through, extra features, blah blah blah. Sure I could do all that, but why? I just want the movie.
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I would have to agree with that, Which is why we taught our daughter to: spell her name, memorize both cell phone numbers and be able to write them out, memorize her address and to write it out, how to deal with people and what to do when lost. However, it's a big planet, and getting lost at the age of five can easily get you killed, from any number of dangers. It's a very dangerous world, and I don't recall ever jumping over the I need to protect her from pedophiles fence. Simply falling down a steep hill and into a creek is enough to kill a small child. Wandering onto a farm with a bull is enough to get killed. Crossing a highway at the bend of a road is an easy way to get killed. Why there must be easily a million ways for a 5 year old to get killed or have an accident that causes permanent disabling injuries. What are the odds of a five year old mistaking a belladonna berry for a blueberry? About 1:1. Fortunately, it doesn't produce fruits in the Spring, although it has naturalized in the area, and I teach my daughter not to eat plants. that's not to say she would not do so were she hungry, or alone. She is after all five, and curious. A dangerous combination. Plus, my daughter won't begin kindergarten until August, this is just a summer intro. So while I teach her how to deal with life, it's a lot of responsibility to place solely on the shoulders of a five year old. Which is why we prosecute parents for leaving them alone at the age of five. If you spent more than 24 hours with a 5 year old, and actually watched what they do when left to their own decisions, you'd know this simple truth. Young children are quite capable of making mistakes that would quickly kill themselves without having to bring in bogeymen to do it for them. Striking a match and it accidentally ignites their clothing is one more example. Reaching in a hand to pet a pretty doggie can easily disfigure a small child. And on an on.
You've obviously lived in a vacuum for some time. You'd be amazed at the current state of technology for asexual reproduction. Easier for women, as they have sperm banks. For men you need also a womb bank, but they sorta have them too.
Um no, actually not.
I was raised in a 99.999% white community in Beemer country, with a community country club and our own neighborhood child molester. Who successfully stayed concealed for many years and had his way with a good number of the neighborhood kids.
I have been: abducted at gun-point, attacked with knives, been attacked by thugs and muggers, been attacked by dogs, lived on the street (and I mean really on the street), been set on fire, made high-explosives in my bathtub, done other dangerous chemical experiments, and lots more things. Lived in three corners of the US, and in several states. Traveled half-way around the world.
But I've never lived in a shelter.
Don't watch the news. Nor do I watch crime shows.
I never said I wanted to track her every move. I want to know she's gets from school to daycare safely. Hence being able to track her from point a to b once a day, when the school is supposed to send her to daycare, is all I need.
But you see, it's not a "But I only track her from here to here" thing. It's on or off, all or nothing. I don't doubt your intentions one bit as a parent. But the implications of having a GPS type device on your daughter is frighteningly prone to abuse, by you later on when you feel like you should be tracking her more places,
I've helped raise my wife's two former teenage daughters without needing to do that, but had the ability. Power doesn't corrupt everyone, but you're right there is that risk. Although, one really needed it. Both are now adults with their own kids.
...and when you have something like this, the stakes go WAY up as far as your child's safety.
Total BS. Child molestors aren't looking for gps devices to hack into to locate children. It's fairly easy to track children if you want to molest them. Get a job in a field that deals with kids, and you'll have an endless supply. Buy a home in a neighborhood with lots of young couples and children and you'll have a a cornucopia of children to target, etc.
My primary concern is to keep her from: getting attacked by loose dogs, and getting run over, falling down a hole, eating poison berries, lost in a wooded area, etc. While abduction is also a danger, regardless of statistics.
While I teach my daughter things like: don't eat berries off plants, don't talk to strange people, do talk to the police and firefighters, look both ways before crossing a street, etc. At five these rules don't get the respect they deserve and are often neglected when distracted. Five year olds are easily distracted.
Since when has July and August been made into a whole year? It's something optional the school offered, and most of her daycare friends are taking it, so I let her do it too.
No, because underreacting can lead to :
1) serious harm or death to the child,
2) arrest of the parents for child endangerment,
3) loss of custudy of the child, due to child services and criminal charges,
4) the child raised in one group home after another with no loving, caring, nurturing parent,
5) all of the above.
No, it's a one month introduction to kindergarten before kindergarten starts in August.
You must have some incredible vision to be able to watch your kids from over a mile away through buildings and trees and brick walls and everything!
I never said I wanted to track her every move. I want to know she's gets from school to daycare safely. Hence being able to track her from point a to b once a day, when the school is supposed to send her to daycare, is all I need.
Five and I have addressed it with the school. the teacher, the principal, and the district administrator, and tomorrow with the town council.
However, since this has probably all happened before and it is STILL happening, I have to assume, my pebble in the still waters will have just as profound an affect as the others before me.
I'm not simply attacking this from a single angle. But my prime objective is to keep my child safe, alive and happy. If that means bugging her with GPS or radio-transmitter for a few years, so be it. Better alive and safe than on a poster in Walmart.
First off, write a letter explaining what has happened and send it to your school board
Who said I haven't?
local newspaper-who-might-give-a-crap-about-this-kind-of-thing.
Ok, now that's a bit creepy, but I see it on the news in other places.
Talk with your daughter's teachers, the school principal, and whoever else you need to to get some assurances that they're not going to do this again.
Did that too, but since this has been happening for years, how am I to expect my complaint to fair any better?
Then ... talk with your daughter about what happened and how she can make sure she gets home on the right bus.
Again, been there done that.
If you really want a technological solution then buy her a mobile phone, maybe something like one of these beasties which can be locked down to only calling a handful of numbers (not a product endorsement, just giving an example), and make sure she knows how to call you at home if she has trouble again. Keep it charged and have her stash it in her jacket or backpack where she's unlikely to lose it. There's no need to weld it onto a metal cuff around her ankle, just let her use it to call you when she needs to.
Hopefully you can both feel better about her security that way. You need to know that she is safe
Five year olds are great at breaking things they can play with.
and she needs to know that you trust her and that you are able to help her out if she has troubles.
She already knows this.
Strapping a prisoner restraint collar around her neck and monitoring her every move isn't going to do that.
I was actually thinking something to attach to her clothes or backpack, and also why I wanted an off-switch.
That all works fine, until they switch bus numbers and don't tell the child that she should be on bus 3 and not 5. My child can count to 100 and the school wasn't too happy about that. They should only be able to count to twenty. They needed my permission to put sunblock on her, so, the first day of class she got sunburn, because the daycare center where I dropped her off, expected the school would do it. Now they have permission and I even provided them with a free bottle of sunscreen and today she got more sunburn because they didn't put it on her again. So now, I have to put it on her myself, before school and hope she still has enough coverage when it's time to go outside.
This is a 5 year old we are talking about. They have proven limited survival capabilities. I don't plan on tracking her her whole life, just until she can reasonably manage herself, in a year or two. I would consider $50-$500 (or even more) a worthwhile investment for a year or two's worth of being able to better ensure her survival.
In twenty years, I hope my child can think that she can do whatever is necessary to ensure the survival of her children, and has the ability to do it.
I've already done that, unfortunately, the only learning algorithm available requires a 7-10 year programming period in order to obtain a sufficient stored information database and skill at detecting and solving potentially life threatening and yet initially non-trivial situations.
example situation:
All of the other children on the bus have left, and the designated authority figure has not taken you to your designated destination, do you:
a) ask the authority figure why he hasn't dropped you off yet,
b) wait patiently for the driver to take you to your destination,
c) lay down and take a nap,
d) get off the bus to check out the pretty flowers,
e) ask the bus driver to stop as you notice him pass a playground,
f) wait on the bus until after the driver finishes his route and leaves the bus, not noticing the child still on the bus, and then wait for the driver to come back until the bus gets hot and you pass out and die.
I haven't ruled out home-schooling yet.
Thank you for your informative and intelligent post!
Well to add some more clarity. I'll throw in this one last detail. As I was on my way to the daycare center, to pick up my daughter for her dance class, I get a phone call from the daycare center. The voice on the other end of the line asks, "Did you pick up your daughter from school today?"
At which point I nearly freaked out.
A very valid point, but my wife used to work at one of those shelters. Most of those women are dumber than dirt, because they keep going back for more and some of them just use those shelters as a vacation to get away from it all when it gets too bad and also to get a bunch of freebies. Not that I mean to blame the women. Those guys, and yes even some women who are abusers,really need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law can provide. But sadly, this is one of the most under-reported crimes in America, and the victims are among the least protected. Just look at that ex-cop, and how he's gotten away with killing two, or at least until now. Little bit late now that the damage is done.
But this is all kind of OT.
All of the children have tags attached to their backpacks. She had hers. They decided to change the numbers and not tell anyone. Some alert individuals caught the change of numbers in the morning when the buses arrived to pick up and changed the numbers themselves. Since my daughter was dropped off by me, because we were running 5 minutes late, she didn't get that benefit. So, you see, that is part of my concern. A district with a normal total population of 3000, can't keep lines of communication open for three days when they only have to deal with a population a small fraction of that.
She already knows how to spell her name and address. Has memorized the cell phones of both parents and can do numerous other astounding and miraculous feats. However at five years of age she doesn't have the mental capacity you would instill upon her. She will gladly accept a red balloon or chocolate from you or any other total and friendly stranger, as would probably 95% of all five year olds.
She cannot be relied upon to always make the right choice, hence the need for rational adults or high-tech solutions.
My knee-jerk reaction doesn't mean I'm an ignorant and uninformed or inattentive parent, or one of those people always shouting "think of of children", as some posters believe. Although I expected such knee-jerk reactions. Thankfully there are also useful posts here, and a commercial solution that looks to fit most of my bill. Maybe, I'm overreacting, but it will give me peace of mind and I will wind up with a new toy to hack up later. Perhaps to be incorporated into an autonomous vehicle later.
I won't sit by and watch as others put my child at needless risk, simply because they aren't qualified for the job they are in. I don't think I'm asking too much that a school can keep track of, as it turns out about 85 kindergardners (it seems about 10-15% of the parents are picking up their children, or they're just overreacting like me). the school has a total capacity for 500 students, and it hasn't reached capacity. Therefore my initial estimate of 200 was a bit high. How many paid professional people does it take to put 85 pre-K kids on buses?
Well, I have and will continue to voice my concerns about the school and it's lack of good planning. I will be bringing it before the town council, and doing what I can to prevent it from happening. However, I don't have a great deal of confidence in the district anymore. I feel for the other parents too, but my prime concern is to keep my daughter safe. I have the ability to do this and thus don't mind the expense.
I have to go pick up my daughter now.
Well, for perspective, the local district has had this occur for at least every year for the past five years or more. Further we're talking about a class size of about 200 kindergertners. That's all they have to deal with in the summer at the elementary, except for a few older kids. They lost track of roughly a dozen kids on Friday or about 5% of the class. I'm only discovering this incompetence due to the fact this is the first child I've had at this school.
While I have and continue to instruct my on daughter how to deal with such situations, she is after all only five. You cannot expect a five year old to deal with much on an independent basis.
As far as removing, stuff , I put on her, that's unlikely if I tell her she needs to wear it all day. She may break or lose such a thing, but she is mostly obedient to her parents. Besides. if it's jewelry, she'll wear it.
I may be overreacting, but in the matter of a child's life it's far better to overreact than under react.
Besides, this has geek factor written all over it.
The problem here is many of these games are cover highly mature content, which I as a parent am free to prevent my child from having in the house. I am free to not allow my child to visit houses where these games are. Free to discipline my child for obtaining and playing these games against my wishes. Free to turn the channel on movies based on these games. Free to block shows containing this content.
However, my child will still be bombarded with the violent commercials these video games and movies advertise. Commercials I can only react to after the fact, or record all our TV use and strip out the commercials. Not to mention that there are a great many people who are bad parents and allow their children to play these games and watch these shows. Which means I now have to police every aspect of my child's life, because I never know where the next GMAXII may show up. At least most "normal" porn depicts a useful and necessary function in life. While some might say reducing the excess population is also useful. I'd have to vote that one down. Sex is necessary to preserve the species (well, maybe not anymore due to technology). Death will come to everyone eventually, and thus killing isn't necessary. Hmm, maybe we should just get rid of both, and then there wouldn't be any more need for controversy? Nahhhhhh.
Because that would require the application of logic, Which isn't respected among most disciplines in college, except by closet logicians, and beside who ever said humans were logical? [run on sentence -1]
I'm surprised to find out that textbooks are no longer open source. I remember when I was in school, I could open a book and there was all the text, just out there freely on the page for anyone to read. Or are they proposing to make the books truly open by including all the answers, like in the teachers' books? Why don't they just distribute the teachers' books then? Of course real learning may go down a mite if that were done.
I'm still having a WTF moment from pre-registering my child for kindergarten (I allowed my child to skip the entrance exams. Yes really my public school district has placement exams for kindergarten.). "We don't give out grades until 6th grade. We just check off task accomplishments", say what? This from a district that handed school preparation packages to parents with: missing pages, wrong word tenses, misspelled words and numerous grammatical errors. Thank you Microsft Word!
Maybe I should just home-school my child. Of course then she'd probably have an unfair advantage. Which I may still do.
I've backed up DVDs from all the major studios on popular titles, with varying types of protection and not had any trouble with any of them. Perhaps if you could name some specific titles that use ARCCOS, according to you, we can disprove your fallacious claim? Just like Groklaw, IBM and Novell decimated SCO's claims. While what you say is true; if you try to just copy a Disney DVD from one disk to another it simply won't play, however, you can use K9Copy to make one that doesn't skip anything. I know. I have a small child who watches Disney videos, much to my disapproval, and thus need to make backups often. A DVD can only take so much abuse from an elementary age child. They are highly destructive beings and UL aught to hire some of them to test products with.
I just use K9Copy. It just works. I did make a few changes (I use the AC3 for sound instead of the default), and it has few quirks based on how movie studios label and group stuff. I just find the part I want to copy, click on it, then click on a specific language (this is a necessary step, for some odd reason, I left it off once and part of the rip was in French), and click on the subtitles I want (I'm predominately deaf). Then rip it to an iso. Once that's done I burn it off to a disk. Easy as pie and no stupid commercials, menu copyright warnings you can't zip through, extra features, blah blah blah. Sure I could do all that, but why? I just want the movie.