Parental controls on consoles

[Thorin]

By the way, the Criminal Code was *goddamn* hard to find, and then *goddamn* hard to find the right information in to quote :|

[Cova]

What, you thought I was going to be against legalizing cannabis?  Did you stereotype me?

Not so much that I'm stereotyping you specifically - just very odd to post anything about legalizing drugs on any forum and not have the majority of responses be against you.  Usually I get about 75% against me, and just a few supporters.

Well, it's not what was written, so I was going by the written word rather than the implied intent.  Sorry, my telepathy wasn't working on you; perhaps you were wearing your tin-foil hat?

I don't think the way I wrote it implied one way or the other, hence my statement about how english is an ambiguous language.  And if you haven't heard yet - they've proven that tinfoil hats don't stop RF

Not swerving to avoid the person when you have the opportunity to do so can be interpreted as dangerous driving as designated in section 249, subsection 1 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

We're talking about changing laws here - obviously all of the inter-related laws dealing with people being on roads need to be updated to be kept in sync.  Now I have a little more experience than most people with having to react suddenly to things being in front of me while moving at high speeds (I do a fair bit of off-road motorbiking on unfamiliar trails), so I think the idea comes to me a little easier that there are always circumstances where you should aim for areas/things that seem wrong at first thought - on the motorbike sometimes it's better to aim for a tree or something.  Back in normal traffic - say you were doing 110 down the highway in reasonably heavy traffic, and a person came running out onto the road from behind an overpass.  You could hit him, probably killing him, and pull over onto the shoulder within 100 meters.  Or you could swerve, which would likely put your car into a spin/slide (or roll your SUV), and could quite likely cause a 10+ car pileup and multiple fatalities if say a heavy semi was close-by behind and ran into the whole pileup.  It may be against our laws, but I'd say you should have hit the dumb-ass that ran onto the highway.  When I originally said I think jaywalking should be legal, I didn't mean to imply that people should be on roads at all, thats where cars belong and cars should have the right-of-way.  Just that people, who when looking out for their own safety cross roads in an uncontrolled area and do so when there is no traffic/risk, should be allowed to do so.

Perhaps I should rename this from "jaywalking" to "crossing the street other than at an intersection when there is a reasonable concern that doing so will interfere with regular traffic", because that's what I really meant.

I think we're argueing the same thing - people don't belong in traffic, but shouldn't be restricted from crossing empty streets.

I wonder where alcohol falls on the scale?  That's usually a taboo subject because so many people partake in it and there's such a huge industry around it...  But isn't alcohol a physically-addictive drug?  And does it have a high likelihood of causing crimes either to feed the addiction or while using the drug?  I wouldn't mind if those who like alcoholic beverages *cough*Analog!*cough* care to weigh in with an opinion on that...  I haven't seen any studies that question whether alcohol actually causes crimes to feed the addiction, although we all know that there are uneducated fools who drive while drunk, thus committing crimes while using.

I hit google quick, but didn't come across any good quotes to support alcohol one way or the other.  There was a little information on forming a dependance on alcohol, but it didn't seem concrete enough for me to consider as proof - I take everything from the 'net with a grain of salt.  One thing to take under consideration though is that alcohol does directly cause people to become violent.  Not the addiction to it, but drunk people like to start / get in fights.  If you put 100 drunk guys in a room, there'd be a fight soon after.  If you put 100 pot-heads in a room, they'd complain about lack of munchies for a bit then probably all go to sleep.  You could envision scenarios for various other drugs too.  100 people all trying to light cigarettes would probably burn up all the oxygen in the room and suffocate themselves in smoke 100 people on meth would pass-out, and wake up a day or so later and all be very pissed that there's no more for them to take.  On extacy they'd all be touching and feeling each other and everything else they can find for the wierd sensations.  On acid - I'm not even sure, being a very powerful hallucinogen most of them would almost be in a dream, and the few taking bad trips would be huddled up in the corners trying to hide probably.

[Darren Dirt]

Here's a funny take on censorship by "Mr. Lizard":

http://users.rcn.com/lizard.dnai/Sitter.html

The folks at Solid Oak (It's what their heads are made of, evidently) software have decided to start blocking anyone who tells people what sites they block! Sheesh. I mean, if you're selling censoring software, letting people know what you block seems to be free advertising....unless, of course, you're a bunch of lying, deceitful, lawsuit-happy ultra-conservative book-burning fascist funnydementedalist bastards who are selling something that most assuredly is not what you claim it is.





They claim that "CYBERsitter includes a bad sites list of 1000's of World Wide Web sites that are not suitable for children. Any site that focuses on topics such as adult or sexual issues, illegal activities, bigotry, racism, drugs, or pornography are included in the list. "





However....when a company claims their product does something, but it actually does something different, that's fraud -- a violation of the fundemental principle of non-initiation of force. And when you try to sic lawyers on someone -- a teenager, no less -- who has the balls (or, as us Red Sea Pedestrians say, the chutzpah) to point out in public that you're committing fraud, then you have gone way over the line.



Let's back up for a moment.



First off, I have no particular objections to selling censorship software to private citizens. Anyone has a right to put out their own eyes, and if the good (hah!) folks at Solid Oak can make money by selling Oedipus his needles, so be it. A fool and his money, etc.



A young man named Bennett Haselton, representing an anti-censorship youth group called Peacefire, downloaded their demo software and tested it out to see what it blocked. He found it did a lot more than just block the sites described above. It also blocked sites which dealt with radical politics, feminism, abortion, and gay rights -- none of which are mentioned in the advertising copy I quoted above. It's like buying a pesticide guaranteed to kill ants, and discovering it kills your kids as well!

I love somebody who will write at length about philosophy, politics, sociology... and make you LOL spit-take in the way they do it.  



--also to pique your interest lemme tell you there's a thoughtprovoking article that concludes with "don't let people tell you ratings are harmless" http://users.rcn.com/lizard.dnai/haley.html

[Thorin]

From what I could find out, the CYBERsitter mess was from 1996 or 1997.  Am I wrong on that?

[Darren Dirt]

From what I could find out, the CYBERsitter mess was from 1996 or 1997.  Am I wrong on that?

Yeah, but the way Mr. Lizard covers the issue is both thought-provoking and smile-inducing. Isn't that what most of the RW postings are about



If you go to his main page and check out some of the other articles linked there, even the FAQ, it's a lot more laughs-per-minute than anything on network sitcoms  :roll: