Posts by Alastair C

Old men who use computers less likely to get dementia

Re: Vice versa?

> Could it be that dementia is the cause and not using

> computers the effect?

My guess is that this is why they followed them for several years - to see whether dementia developed in those already using computers.

Microsoft silently kills silent, automatic Skype install via Updates

Re: All your money belongs to us.

Oh my god - amanfrommars just won the Turing test.

I for one welcome my etc. etc.

Mumsnet backtracks support for net filter

Meanwhile, back in the 21st century...

A lot of the criticism here is based on the assumption that parents are ignoring their responsibilities, and include advice on the lines of "just move the PC into the living room". That seemed reasonable when there was one PC in the house, but it's hardly the case now, surely? Virtually all phones - including bog standard ones - now have internet connections, so unless you're planning on not letting little Johnny take his phone out the living room, your plan may have problems.

It's valid to worry - constantly! - about the distinction between regulation and censorship - but there are other options between anarchy and big brother, surely? I was under the impression that one of the ideas was to ask providers to tag their content to a standard, so that browsers could filter based on that standard unless told not to. That's not the same as "scan every packet" at all. But it does follow the policies we have for lots of other stuff, i.e. that sellers do have some responsibility for their product.

As a society, we believe that alcohol and cigarettes are damaging for minors. We can't watch little Johnny every moment of every day, so we have laws to prevent the sales of alcohol and cigarettes to him. It doesn't work perfectly - Johnny is bound to get hold of alcohol somewhere else if he really wants - but it does lessen the threat, and is a general reflection of our society's views.

Well, our society also has views about exposing minors to sex and porn - and god knows there's some nasty old sh*t out there on them interwebs, and some nasty old pervs too. And since these days the internet is pretty much everywhere, it does seem to me we need to at least ask about what we could do.