Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Oh, hell no. A private diary, fine. But if my kid is young enough for me to feel the need to monitory his/her IM conversations, s/he sure as hell isn't going to be locking me out of 'em. These aren't phone calls or letters with friends... this is a medium over which communication with lots of strangers is possible and one that makes it easy for predators to make contacts. I'm all for the internet and IMing, but different cautions are necessary than with other forms of communication. If I were worried enough that my kid was hiding something and s/he got something like this to keep me out of it, I'd be responding by severely limiting computer access. And keep in mind, I'm really liberal when it comes to kids being allowed to act as adults as far as they're capable. I think kids should be taught to handle alcohol in a social setting from preschool age by being allowed to drink it (with sharp limits, of course, but an ounce or two of weak wine isn't harmful to a child), and I was deeply offended when a piercer told me the other day he thought it was immoral to pierce a sixteen-year-old's navel because of the inherent sexuality of it--at no point since the dawn of man has a 16-year-old not been a sexual being, however our society wishes to infantilize adolescents and even young 20somethings at times. But there are trust and responsibility issues at stake here. I like the idea of a password-protected flash drive--I'd buy 'em myself if the price were right--but I don't like the way this is marketed.

These are cool
.

Fat virus
?

Cory Doctorow sums up drug prohibition beautifully.

I want some of these.

Wow
.

Y'all remember that Sharkey guy who's running for governor of Minnesota on a vampire platform? His wife has been fired from their local school district, apparently for being a pagan. I'd expect that crap here in SC, but how did Minnesota not get the memo that religious discrimination against public employees is against federal law? More here.

If I ever get out of the credit card I have now, I am never getting another.

A subject of discussion this week has been power/totem animals. I think we've identified Spirit with the Raven, and I've always identified with owls.

Car-lighter sex toys?

You mean Sleepless in Seattle wasn't a horror flick all by itself?

Because God forbid we be comfortable or have fun while we're learning!

Ahhh. Irony.

Duh.

This is a neat idea. Surfing things you'd like to keep private on a public/shared computer, less so.

Chewbacca blog.

I've wanted to do something like this at times. Right now it's enough that I know what I believe.

Modern knitting!

Who makes these things?

I think I'd like to try these.

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