This afternoon, we spent some time in the garden. Small children, sunshine, bubbles.
When I took a closer look, turned out there was more to the picture than met the eye.
Yes, there he is. My little boy in a bubble.
children
And just like that, I could vanish.
Well, not me. My blog. And not so much vanish as get filed in the bottom drawer of a locked filing cabinet in a disused laboratory with a sign on the door…
Wondering what I’m talking about?
It’s the government’s latest wheeze to protect the children. Won’t you think of the children, they cry, while coming up with a plan to censor vast swathes of the internet. Have a look at the list here at Openrights group.
The idea, as I understand it, is that these things will be on by default. So your new internet connection comes with parental controls switched on, and then a secondary screen asks: Do you want to block
? pornography
? violent material
? extremist and terrorist related content
? anorexia and eating disorder websites
? suicide related websites
? alcohol
? smoking
? web forums
? esoteric material
? web blocking circumvention tools
And all these things are ticked. I don’t think anyone has confirmed the list as it would be, but this is put together from current block lists from ISPs.
Now, I can see that we probably don’t want our 3 years olds accessing pornography. Definitely no violent content (so that’s Tom and Jerry wiped out then). Extremist and terrorist related content. Um, hang on. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Who decides who is a terrorist?
Let’s skip on a bit. Web forums. *all* web forums?? That’s a bit sweeping isn’t it? Still, that’s one way to quieten those irritating biscuit related questions from Mumsnet.
And esoteric material. That’s an interesting one. What classes as esoteric? The definition is “Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.” Which, if you think about it, covers an awful lots of things. You got any niche interests? How about home education? That’s pretty small, after all, isn’t it? Might not start at defined as esoteric, but you could easily see how it could wind up on the list. Or odd political interests, like the basic income perhaps?
Ideas could come and go on the internet without anyone ever really seeing. Movements that currently start small and grow wouldn’t ever get that chance – all sorts of religions would definitely fade away.
Is that really how you want to keep your children safe? By keeping them as ignorant as the politicians wafting about westminster?
Because surely only someone utterly ignorant of how the world/internet works would come up with such a plan. It’s just beyond awful. And the best way to fight back about it? Shout. Make sure our voices are heard. If you *want* to be able to have a varied and yes, esoteric internet, it is time to put a stop to this nonsense.
The open rights group and wired are excellent resources on all of this, and don’t forget to keep your MP in the loop. (I wonder how many emails would class as annoying :/)
Moving on from Emma's Diary
For 18 months, from October 2011, I was an Emma’s Diary blogger.
I really enjoyed it. You might think that blogging here pretty much daily and trying to write tech stuff regularly at Tech Solved that I’d have enough writing to do, but it appears you’d be wrong. I loved having a space where the focus was on the pregnancy and then the one child. Here he’s one of many, but there he was my focus, and while some times in the run up to the actual post I wondered what I would write about, it turned out it was always easy to do.
But all good things must come to an end, and with one thing and another, I’m no longer writing there.
And I’m sad about it.
It was good to be part of a team blog. I loved the event we got to do, and have made good friends through it. I’m sure we’ll stay in touch, but it won’t be the same.
I am determined though, that I’m going to keep a special place here for Tigerboy. And more than that, I’m going to make a special place for each of the others. So maybe not every couple of weeks, but regularly each of the children will get a post focused on them. With four children, if I did one post a week, that would mean they’d each get twelve in the year – that would work, wouldn’t it? I’ll have to talk to the older ones about what it’s OK to blog about them – as they’ve got older, I’ve pulled back from their lives, which is part of why the blog is so marvellously eclectic these days.
But that’s OK, isn’t it? Eclectic is good. There’s no real reason to limit yourself to a particular niche, unless you’d like to make a living, or win awards.
Oh.
Oh well.
I guess I’ll have to make a living a different way. (Hint, we do blog stuff. Over at Colneis. We can do you a blog for business, or help you migrate off wordpress.com or do whatever it is blog like that you need. We’ve got a fair bit of experience of this stuff between us.)
And yes, it means the blog is changing focus yet again. You’re used to that now though, aren’t you?
ten to midnight
And no post prepared. Blogging on a phone while wrestling a wide awake baby into bed and pondering days with lots done yet still not enough.
It’s a balancing act, this life. Trying to find time and space to be all things to all people, and still a little room to be me. Sometimes I almost make it, sometimes I fail more or less spectacularly.
Today I planted beans and peas, watered plants with washing up water, returned clothes that are too big, confused children, ran, made lunch, bought tea, fed Smallest, read blogposts, twittered, answered emails, sorted clothes, donated to charity and occasionally sat. And the todo list is longer than ever.
Time to get a grip. Starting with bed before midnight, and family focus offline time. I’ll be about, but not as much. Remember me anyway?