“…the couple had no idea that selling their children was illegal.”

Chinese couple sells their children to pay for online game obsession.

You quickly realize how many nutcases are sharing the planet with you, when you read blog comments attached to posts about pretty rational things.

Take for example, Netflix’s announcement that their unlimited plan that lets you do all of the streaming while having one physical disk out at a time, all for $9.99/month, was going to be eliminated.

Now you can have a $7.99 plan that includes unlimited DVDs (1 out at a time), a $7.99 unlimited streaming plan, or both.

So, for $15.98, you can continue to have what you had yesterday at $9.99.

Oh the humanity! A 60% increase! Overnight! GASP!

The comments sections everywhere, Twitter, and Facebook have erupted into outrage. People talking tough about sticking it to Netflix with threats of taking their business elsewhere. Ingrates are saying that they’ve enjoyed Netflix, but this is it… the relationship is over! There are those complete dopes who can only muster up four-letter words to drop into the comments sections to express their outrage. %&#$ YOU NETFLIX!

Reality: Netflix gives people a ridiculously great bargain for years, and then when they ask for a little more — $5.99/month more to be precise &mdash to cover additional streaming costs, or royalties that have to be paid, people are ready to dump Netflix altogether?

I’ve been a customer since 2000. I love Netflix. I wish they streamed at 1080p instead of 720p, but streaming is convenient. They are really fast at receiving my physical discs and sending out the next one in my queue. They have a great website. They have a huge selection. At $15.98, it’s a great value.

Some of you might be too young to remember having to drive to the local video store to pick up a VHS or DVD, wandering around in the store looking for something worth watching in the store’s horrible selection, picking something out, paying $2.99 for a 2 night rental, forgetting to drive it back on time, getting charged another few bucks for the late fee… And I’m saying this while back in the 80′s my family owned a video rental store.

It still amazes me that there are video rental places that are still in business.

So where are all of the outraged people going to go? I will bet that half of them stay with Netflix, and the other half will go somewhere else, realize how much the alternatives suck, and return to Netflix.

Sure, Amazon has streaming, but you’re paying $2.99-$3.99 per rental, good for only 48 hours (at least that’s how it was the last time I checked). They give Prime members free streaming on a limited selection, but it’s mostly stuff you wouldn’t have paid for anyways.

I will remain a loyal Netflix customer as long as I feel that I’m getting value out of their service. I look at it this way: For the cost of two movie tickets at a theater where I’ll have to deal with uncomfortable seats and other rude theater goers, I can have unlimited movies for an entire month, delivered right to my mailbox or streaming device. If these price hikes ensure Netflix continues to improve and works towards 1080p streaming, they can keep hitting my credit card.

Get outside:

NEARSIGHTEDNESS CAUSED BY not enough sun? “Researchers suspect that bright outdoor light helps children’s developing eyes maintain the correct distance between the lens and the retina — which keeps vision in focus. Dim indoor lighting doesn’t seem to provide the same kind of feedback. As a result, when children spend too many hours inside, their eyes fail to grow correctly and the distance between the lens and retina becomes too long, causing far-away objects to look blurry. . . . Luckily, there is a simple way to lower the risk of nearsightedness, and today, the summer solstice — the longest day of the year — is the perfect time to begin embracing it: get children to spend more time outside.”

via Instapundit.com

Hey, and you know what, kids can also install ComputerTime on their parents computers to prevent their parents from spending too much time on the computer!

Source: momfilter – TheLogOff.org

If you’re sitting in a chair for most of your day, doing your job, you might want to take notice: Just How Dangerous Is Sitting All Day?

Sitting down for extended periods makes you 53% more likely to have a heart attack, according to a study in a medical journal.

Parents with desk jobs are sitting all day long. That’s not good. Kids have to go to school, move between classes, walk from the bus to home and they’re more likely to be moving around and having varied activities. How many office-working adults are on a sports team.

Of course, kids have their summer vacations. Maybe they prefer to stay indoors where the A/C is on and sit for eight hours with only their thumbs moving as they play with a half-dozen friends on some Xbox Live game.

Even adults can make use of ComputerTime to make them get up, stretch, walk around, by setting session limits with mandatory five-minute breaks. The other alternatives are stand-up desks. You’ll burn more calories if you’re standing and moving around a little while you’re working. You don’t have to worry about an expensive ergonomic chair. It’s apparently better for your back, and you probably have less of a risk of throwing a clot from your butt to your brain, resulting in a stroke.

If you use a stand up desk, tell us how you like it by leaving a comment below.

Do you think stand up desks might be good for your kids too? Do you think they might be less comfortable about spending too much time on the computer if you made them stand while being on the computer?

Maybe the treadmill computer desk is the way to go.

ALTHOUGH his computer time is limited to half an hour a day, Damian Chuah Tjun Kit, 14, beat over 30,000 readers all over Asia to emerge champion of the The 39 Clues book series online competition.

To make it extra special, Damian received his prize cheque of US$5,000 (RM15,000) on his birthday, April 25.

Nice work Damian!

(Source)

Smile, You’re On Candid Camera!

Do you talk with your kids — about what’s appropriate for posting to social networking sites and what’s not — every so often?

Kids post crazy things on their Facebook walls sometimes. Parents that can clearly see what their kids are saying if they just reviewed their kids walls once in a while don’t seem to worry too much about what their kids are saying either. It’s mostly foul language, but once in a while, criticisms of peers (pre-cursors to online bullying perhaps), and sometimes sexually inappropriate remarks.

Teens will be teens, but what’s said amongst a group of friends in study hall or on the school bus is different than broadcasting to the entire network of 350 friends and family that follow you on your social channel.

Is it completely lost on parents that an expanded audience can see the posts? If Johnny posts something beyond the pale on Sally’s wall, then all of Sally’s friends can read. Sally’s friends might include her aunt who happens to be a college admissions officer at the college that Johnny wants to get into. Or it could be her uncle who is a cop. Or maybe she’s friends with the pastor. Be careful what you say, or you could go straight to hell! Just kidding.

Adults on facebook often post things that make them look like idiots to. I see idiotic comments from people I don’t even know personally. Lots of stupid political beliefs get shared. I have a list of people in my head now that I believe have very poor judgement, and idiotic beliefs. Then there are the people that I feel sorry for. Is your life really that boring? Wow. Thanks for the daily glimpses into the inanities of your days.

Big Brother Might Be Watching.

Beyond what your friends see and read about you, what if the government also pays careful attention to what’s in these social networks.

First, a humorous look:

CIA’s ‘Facebook’ Program Dramatically Cut Agency’s Costs

But seriously, Facebook is the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented?

Not all people feel them. This is article is very interesting:

Who feels chills while listening to music? People “open to experience” (Source: Collision Detection)

I bet this strongly correlates to people who have a need for better quality audio equipment. I know few people who seek out really high quality audio systems for that ultimate music listening experience. They strive to reproduce the most authentic and realistic sound. The put in audiophile headphones, sit, and close their eyes, and completely get lost in the sound.

I had somebody question my need to spend money on high-end equipment many years ago. They said, “I don’t hear that much of a difference.”

I demonstrated, by hooking up a pair of low end speakers that didn’t have that much clarity and had no tightness in the bass, and switched between the to… A… B… A… B…

“I still don’t get it. They sound the same to me.”

So this article about the study linked to above isn’t shocking to me. This person I refer to is the least open to new experiences of any person that I’ve ever met. Been listening to the same kind of music for four decades, been eating the same kind of food for four decades, been partaking in the same activities for over four decades. Present something new to try and the stock response is, “Why would I want to do that? No thanks.”

I wonder about the entire generation of kids being brought up with iPods and their inferior white ear bud headphones. If these kids get chills from listening to certain songs, then they really have to give some higher-end audio a chance. Get a pair of Sennheiser headphones to replace those stock ear bud headphones.

To me, music hasn’t generally been about the lyrics so much as it’s been about the sonic experience. What’s your experience? Have you noticed the difference in what people hear when they listen to music? Does music give you chills sometimes? Do you actively seek out new forms of music (and food, places to go, thinks to try)?

Nobody that I know likes the light produced by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). I don’t like the 60Hz flicker that accompanies them, and the color is very displeasing. I’ve given them a chance more than once, but even my kids complained about the light quality. So I used them where we’re generally not living, reading, eating, cooking. I’ve been using them outdoors (but they take forever to warm up in the cooler seasons), and in rooms that we don’t spend much time.

They may cause migraines. They contain about 5mg mercury per bulb, requiring that they be disposed of at CFL recycling locations — inconvenient enough that many people will just toss them into their regular garbage and end up in landfills. What’s so environmentally friendly about that?

So now they might cause cancer?

Energy saving light bulbs ‘contain cancer causing chemicals’:

Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.

Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”

Ann Althouse also justifiably rants about the activism that never ends. It’s always something that has to be made a big deal out of and the activists have to force their conclusions on the rest of us.

So before we have an adequate replacement for the incandescent bulb, politicians around the world are banning them and trying to force people into using fluorescent bulbs or alternatives that just plain suck!

Don’t take my choices away from me! Let the market deal with it in it’s own way, and when we have viable alternatives, people will switch to the best product that saves them money, is safe, and provides them with sufficient quality light.

If the government is going to mandate them, then consumers no longer have a choice. Manufacturers won’t have to expend any real effort to improve their CFL products or develop alternatives. If consumers don’t have a choice, where is the incentive to innovate?

UPDATE: Amy Alkon recommends a place to get a good deal on incandescent bulbs if you want to start hoarding them by the hundreds.

UPDATE: Don’t expect the GOP to come through for us on this one either.

It’s the middle of my kid’s school vacation this week. The kids are spending a portion of the week at their grandparent’s house, and a long drive to and from.

We’re also in the middle of Screen-Free Week. This used to be called “TV Turnoff Week”. We once threw together and promoted a “PC Turnoff Week”.

What’s one week when you have fifty-one other weeks in the year where kids are going to gorge themselves with screen-time no matter what? How many screens do your kids interact with. There’s the TV, the computer, the iPod, the smart phone, etc.

Managing screen time is something that parents should be doing all year long.

You can limit computer time, but they might just get on their iPod touch and play games, or text their friends on and off when they should be doing homework.

It’s a challenge to manage multiple kids and multiple screens. Have you been effective at doing this within your family, or have you thrown your hands up?

ComputerTime will do the job on your Windows PCs to reign in excessive use, and more importantly eliminate the arguments between parents and the kids, but are you using any tools to help with the other technologies in your home?

A tweet from @Ramit linked to stereomood, which describes itself like this:

behind every song there’s always an emotion. we don’t know why but maybe that’s why we love music.

so we’ve created a way to suggest songs that follow your feelings: stereomood is the emotional internet radio, providing music that best suits your mood and your activities.

After reading that, I wonder if they have music that fits the mood of people who are averse to using the SHIFT key.

But it’s a neat concept and for people who like to be introduced to new artists that appeal to them, it seems like a great resource, as are the popular Pandora, and Radio Paradise.

Radio Paradise is particularly awesome since I purchased a Roku, because not only do they stream their music to your home audio system, but you get listener uploaded HD photos that go along with the music.

FM? What’s FM?

Do you have a favorite Internet music stream? Let us know in the comments below.

This is a big day for us. ComputerTime 4.0 is out, and all of our faithful and happy ComputerTime users will have the update pushed out to them today.

We’re also happy about this because along with the updated version of ComputerTime, we’re also releasing something called the Internet Limit Add On. Customers who chose to purchase this optional add on will be able to set one set of limits for overall computer time, and another set of limits for how long the kids can be on the Internet.

When we created ComputerTime 1.0, we always had this in mind that we would have an “InternetTime” product someday too. So this is a big milestone for us. We hope you’ll like the new feature!

More information about this to follow, but I wanted to share the excitement with you.

Download ComputerTime (it has a 14-day free trial!)

Oh… and please share us with these little buttons below! Please!

vvvvvvvvvvvvv

App aims to reduce fatigue-related accidents on the road.

I’d need something that actually safely pulls the car over to the side of the road, puts the seat back and shuts the car off so that I can continue my snooze.

CNN asks the question:

Have our brains become so desensitized by a 24/7, all-you-can-eat diet of lurid flickering images that we’ve lost all perspective on appropriateness and compassion when another human being apparently suffers a medical emergency? Have we become a society of detached voyeurs?

According to the most recent findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 8- to 18-year-olds on average spend 11½ hours a day using their technology.

Their brains have become “wired” to use their tech gadgets effectively in order to multi-task — staying connected with friends, texting and searching online endlessly, often exposing their brains to shocking and sensational images and videos. Many people are desensitizing their neural circuits to the horrors they see, while not getting much, if any, off-line training in empathic skills. And the effects may even reach young people.

I know quite a few people who enjoy watching those videos of people doing stunts and failing big-time. They seem to take particular pleasure with the ones where people get their grundles slammed on a railing, or get teeth knocked out with failed bike stunts. What do you think?

This NYT article presents the competition between the pros and cons of all of the technologies that we have at our fingertips. There’s an app for just about every kind of task you can imagine. and they can be used to help along your personal and work life.

But if you’re not consciously making sure that it’s working for you, it can own you, and before you know it, those same apps are taking away from your life.

From a family perspective, many of the ideas that are discussed from the perspective of adults can be adapted to kids as well.

You bought your kids cell phones so they can keep in touch in case of an emergency, or just for convenience. Have your kids been taken over by the cell phones? Do they text constantly to a point of being completely distracted all of the time? Have your kids turns into bad-manners-monsters because they can’t put them down even when they’re at the dinner table at the grandparents? Have technologies taken control of your kid’s reports cards?