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Ubuntu Christian Edition 1.5 Released
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Comments (32)
12 earlier comments in the full thread.
Why shouldn't parents get helpful tools? I think people who are against Internet filters don't have kids. I don't have kids, and sheesh, there are days I think of installing Dan's Guardian just for me. The Internet is the Wild Wild West, full of scary and scammy and evil things, and we should be helpful to parents instead of critical.
I know all the flaws inherent in content and URL filtering- they're not very reliable and they're trying to hit constantly moving targets. The answer is better technology for end users. The alternative is government controls or some other form of central control, and that's the last thing any rational person wants.
I know all the flaws inherent in content and URL filtering- they're not very reliable and they're trying to hit constantly moving targets. The answer is better technology for end users. The alternative is government controls or some other form of central control, and that's the last thing any rational person wants.
The Internet is a wonderful source of information, entertainment, etc, etc... But, there are things out there that are inappropriate even for an adult, and regardless of any religion. An adult can and is expected to navigate through all the crud, but, children require serious guidance. Just as you don't let your kid jump in the car and drive into the sunset. Internet computing is best a supervised and monitored activity.
As Don says, many parents simply don't have the time, or the knowledge, even if they do have the intent. Blocking software is simply an attempt to fill in the gaps, and supply a certain measure of safety. To really work, it still requires parental involvment.
Of course I have thought at times that children shouldn't be allowed to use computers until the're at least 18... Now that would resolve the issue :D
As Don says, many parents simply don't have the time, or the knowledge, even if they do have the intent. Blocking software is simply an attempt to fill in the gaps, and supply a certain measure of safety. To really work, it still requires parental involvment.
Of course I have thought at times that children shouldn't be allowed to use computers until the're at least 18... Now that would resolve the issue :D
My former boss called me in a panic when his step-son was looking for information about those wrinkly-faced dogs (can't spell it right now), and the search results yielded "doggy-style" porno links and never-ending pop-ups. The kid had no idea his search would lead to that mess. Oh well!
All -
I see we have a pretty bright group of people with thoughtful concern for the welfare of children.
I don't have anything to add, it's just nice to see in a world where the real problems of raising good kids safely often take a back seat to umpteen political imperatives.
I see we have a pretty bright group of people with thoughtful concern for the welfare of children.
I don't have anything to add, it's just nice to see in a world where the real problems of raising good kids safely often take a back seat to umpteen political imperatives.
Problem for my generation is how the world has changed. Yvor Winters wrote about Emerson to the effect that when Emerson preached yielding to impulse, he meant the impulses conditioned by 200 years of Puritan conscience. When Hart Crane listened and yielded to his impulses, Puritanism had died, and they turned out to be of a quite different sort.
When I was growing up, free access to sexually explicit material meant information and the target was crippling sexual ignorance. Ignorance of what bodies looked like or how they worked. Ignorance about what was normal. Ignorance about disease. We grew up in a world in which Lady Chatterly was banned and prosecuted. Attitudes had not changed much since the prosecution of Marie Stopes. So we have instinctive reactions to the screening of sexually explicit materials which come from this world. My own parents, unusually for their time and class, had books on all kinds of subjects on the shelves and we were allowed to read everything. But 'everything' did not mean much by today's standards.
The trouble is that the attitudes which were correct when what was being screened out was information are probably not right any more when what parents, Christian or not, feel they need to screen their children from is entrapment by adults pretending to be children, and images of violent pornography. Its what you come on when exploring. In our day the worst you came on was high minded texts about how to be sexually fulfilled in marriage. Now explorations are likely to plunge you into images of violent porn right away.
I don't believe that software can really be the answer. But it also cannot be prudent to allow the internet connected PC to sit in the bedroom with the door closed. And if you are a single parent working 1.5 jobs, yes, just what are you supposed to do?
Read the whole commentWhen I was growing up, free access to sexually explicit material meant information and the target was crippling sexual ignorance. Ignorance of what bodies looked like or how they worked. Ignorance about what was normal. Ignorance about disease. We grew up in a world in which Lady Chatterly was banned and prosecuted. Attitudes had not changed much since the prosecution of Marie Stopes. So we have instinctive reactions to the screening of sexually explicit materials which come from this world. My own parents, unusually for their time and class, had books on all kinds of subjects on the shelves and we were allowed to read everything. But 'everything' did not mean much by today's standards.
The trouble is that the attitudes which were correct when what was being screened out was information are probably not right any more when what parents, Christian or not, feel they need to screen their children from is entrapment by adults pretending to be children, and images of violent pornography. Its what you come on when exploring. In our day the worst you came on was high minded texts about how to be sexually fulfilled in marriage. Now explorations are likely to plunge you into images of violent porn right away.
I don't believe that software can really be the answer. But it also cannot be prudent to allow the internet connected PC to sit in the bedroom with the door closed. And if you are a single parent working 1.5 jobs, yes, just what are you supposed to do?
People doing things out of necessity doesn't mean I have to like it. Children being actively assisted by their parents when surfing the internet is the best way of educating them about it.
Single parents having 1.5-2 jobs can't do that, right. However, a country where single parents are forced to have full-time employment just to survice has a severely broken social security system. I live in the UK, there's quite a many single mothers out here, many of them are very young. One of my neighbours got pregnant the second time before she was eighteen. If she had to work for a living the children would not be able to survive. Not everyone has parents who can take care of their children during working hours. If she had to work society would punish her children for the "mistakes" she had made, bravo.
Instead of handing out these UCE cds that Christian ministry of yours should rather try to provide cheap or free daycare facilities for single parents. Penguins have been doing that forever, humans still can't get it right.
Single parents having 1.5-2 jobs can't do that, right. However, a country where single parents are forced to have full-time employment just to survice has a severely broken social security system. I live in the UK, there's quite a many single mothers out here, many of them are very young. One of my neighbours got pregnant the second time before she was eighteen. If she had to work for a living the children would not be able to survive. Not everyone has parents who can take care of their children during working hours. If she had to work society would punish her children for the "mistakes" she had made, bravo.
Instead of handing out these UCE cds that Christian ministry of yours should rather try to provide cheap or free daycare facilities for single parents. Penguins have been doing that forever, humans still can't get it right.
I'd add in that single parents that need multiple jobs just to allow themselves and their children to survive probably shouldn't be paying for internet service.
> However, a country where single parents are forced to have full-time employment just to survice has a severely broken social security system.
That's a political matter, and outside the bounds of LXer's TOS. Suffice it to say that reasonable people can disagree about the proper role of the state in providing for its citizens. The US and the UK make different decisions, for different reasons. We should probably leave it at that.
> If she had to work society would punish her children for the "mistakes" she had made, bravo.
Allowing people not to suffer the effects of their bad decisions means they never learn from them. Again, this is political, and we should probably drop the subject.
> Instead of handing out these UCE cds that Christian ministry of yours should rather try to provide cheap or free daycare facilities for single parents.
Linux CD's are cheap, easily provided by a single volunteer, and unregulated. Child care is expensive, requires multiple people, and is regulated in most areas. The two can't easily be compared.
> Penguins have been doing that forever, humans still can't get it right.
Do you have any idea what the relative fatality rate is for penguin chicks vs. human children? I wouldn't be so quick to make comparisons without checking the facts first.
That's a political matter, and outside the bounds of LXer's TOS. Suffice it to say that reasonable people can disagree about the proper role of the state in providing for its citizens. The US and the UK make different decisions, for different reasons. We should probably leave it at that.
> If she had to work society would punish her children for the "mistakes" she had made, bravo.
Allowing people not to suffer the effects of their bad decisions means they never learn from them. Again, this is political, and we should probably drop the subject.
> Instead of handing out these UCE cds that Christian ministry of yours should rather try to provide cheap or free daycare facilities for single parents.
Linux CD's are cheap, easily provided by a single volunteer, and unregulated. Child care is expensive, requires multiple people, and is regulated in most areas. The two can't easily be compared.
> Penguins have been doing that forever, humans still can't get it right.
Do you have any idea what the relative fatality rate is for penguin chicks vs. human children? I wouldn't be so quick to make comparisons without checking the facts first.
Quoting:this is political, and we should probably drop the subject
That's a good idea.
That will start getting applied to all political discussions, right? Not just the ones that appear to attack Christian-based distros?
Isn't user control a fundamental tenet of Free Software? Anyone who says "oh parents just need to spend more time with their kids and monitor their activities" is someone who has never had children, or ever cared for any. It sounds so easy, doesn't it. You don't have to be a single parent working 1.5 jobs to realize how ignorant this is- if you're a two-parent family with one stay-at-home it's still a hugely demanding job, and believe it or not sometimes mommy and daddy want to have a minute here and there to do something other than watch their kids Web-surf, standing ready to defeat Wrong Clicks. People want to control what comes into their homes, which seems most reasonable to me, and better than other options, like some form of central control.
When I was an adorable little runt we had all kinds of semi-supervised time- running around playing with the neighbor kids, getting bucked off the crazy bored Thoroughbred across the street, working in our little gardens, burning junk in the burn barrel, digging "wells", making wood things with actual saws and hammers- I can't imagine having some kind of full-time warden hovering over every activity. Our protections were a friendly neighborhood where strangers were obvious, and everyone keeping half an eye on everyone. We didn't need full-time wardens.
The Internet is definitely not a friendly neighborhood- the more tools for users to protect themselves the better.
When I was an adorable little runt we had all kinds of semi-supervised time- running around playing with the neighbor kids, getting bucked off the crazy bored Thoroughbred across the street, working in our little gardens, burning junk in the burn barrel, digging "wells", making wood things with actual saws and hammers- I can't imagine having some kind of full-time warden hovering over every activity. Our protections were a friendly neighborhood where strangers were obvious, and everyone keeping half an eye on everyone. We didn't need full-time wardens.
The Internet is definitely not a friendly neighborhood- the more tools for users to protect themselves the better.
> If she had to work society would punish her children for the "mistakes" she had made, bravo.
Hopefully anything that doesn't directly apply to FOSS. There are places where FOSS and politics interact, and I'd think those would be appropriate for LXer. I'll do my best to hold up my end (as previous threads have shown, I sometimes have difficulty holding my tongue).
The technical argument that the goals of UCE can be better accomplished with a special repository and installation scripts is a legitimate one, IMO. It's also one the UCE people are free to ignore if they want.
Hopefully anything that doesn't directly apply to FOSS. There are places where FOSS and politics interact, and I'd think those would be appropriate for LXer. I'll do my best to hold up my end (as previous threads have shown, I sometimes have difficulty holding my tongue).
The technical argument that the goals of UCE can be better accomplished with a special repository and installation scripts is a legitimate one, IMO. It's also one the UCE people are free to ignore if they want.
> Instead of handing out these UCE cds that Christian ministry of yours should rather try to provide cheap or free daycare facilities for single parents.
I can't let such a cheap shot go.
I belong to a church that feeds 500 homeless people every day, supports halfway houses for addicts and prison parolees, and a battered women's shelter.
One special focus of our pastor is single parents and their children. We are reminded to invite them to our church to our homes, and, for the children especially, on special outings.
None of that means we can't distribute a few CDs.
I can't let such a cheap shot go.
I belong to a church that feeds 500 homeless people every day, supports halfway houses for addicts and prison parolees, and a battered women's shelter.
One special focus of our pastor is single parents and their children. We are reminded to invite them to our church to our homes, and, for the children especially, on special outings.
None of that means we can't distribute a few CDs.
Look, I think the point is that some feel it would be better to just offer a repository than to offer a whole distro. Such thinking makes sense and is welcomed. I think we're probably better off letting go of whether single parents can or should spend more time with their kids. Frankly, I wish this were a perfect world too. There certainly isn't any point in letting this conversation dwindle into the kind of discussion we just brought an end to. So let's just agree to disagree on hte parenting issue, and leave it at that. Mind your 'tongues', folks. Life is short.
And no, I really don't care who started it.
And no, I really don't care who started it.
>And no, I really don't care who started it.
Yes sir. (whimper)
Yes sir. (whimper)
I'm pointing, but I'm not saying who.
> And no, I really don't care who started it.
I do! I do! Not that my caring matters any. :)
I do! I do! Not that my caring matters any. :)
> I can't let such a cheap shot go.
And at least I'm not the only one who has trouble holding their tongue. :)
And at least I'm not the only one who has trouble holding their tongue. :)
>And at least I'm not the only one who has trouble holding their tongue. :)
It's all wet and gooshy and keeps slipping out from my fingers.
It's all wet and gooshy and keeps slipping out from my fingers.
Thanks guys! I knew I could count on y'all!
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Well, would you want porn popping up when your child mistypes a URL?
A lot of people probably install blocking software, not because they don't trust their kids, but because they don't trust the Internet.