A niche market for GMail; a child friendly version ?

Cycling to work on a rather dull looking morning, an old idea of mine
came to mind.

Why doesn't Google Gmail provide a GMail service, specifically for
primary school age children ?

I've given my three kids there own GMail accounts (although none of them
are literate enough yet to use them), but there's no way I can make
these accounts child safe:

- A higher SPAM filter setting;
- SPAM shouldn't be kept but trashed immediately;
- A guarantee that adverts are safe;
- The parent has the option to block (specific and additional) email
addresses.

>> I would imagine that a child GMail account would be a sub-account of
the parent account; allowing the parent access even when the little brat
discovers how to change the password.

Great eh ?

But then I started thinking that when for example Timothy becomes more
literate (and he's already quite internet-savvy), there's nothing to
stop him from just creating a new (standard) GMail account.

In that case I'd lose all control.

Which brings up the matter of how to make your child "modern-world-wise"
? (But that's a subject for a separate blog ...).

So is it a good idea or not ?

Gegroet. Paul.

Well, there isn't much happening with this blog ... but I thought I'd share this picture of our glorious trinity ...

Tuesday 28 Feb

As Sebastian is experimenting with his height (reaching all the light switches and creating a disco-effect) and Sophy & Timothy are safely (..) at school, my time to digest some of todays news.. 

• A handgrenade is thrown into a dutch café (killing 1, injuring 8) and it doesn't make headline news ..
  
• As the credit crunch continues, Fortis warns of sub-prime losses and believe me it won't end here (there was once a study that linked the number of times the word 'recession'  was mentioned in the media to the occurence of a recession XXXX
  

This experiment ends here, unsuccessfully, as Sebastian needs more attention ... and writing this doesn't take the 5 minutes I envisaged.

To be continued ...

Gegroet.    Paul. 

Wederom bewijs van de zwakten van het elektronisch stemmen (in de VS)

Hieronder een kopie van een email aan de stichting wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet.

Hi,

Allereerst mijn complimenten voor het onder de aandacht brengen van de
gevaren en zwakten van het elektronisch stemmen (hoe breng ik
bijvoorbeeld een proteststem uit ?).

Voor een verdere versterking van jullie (en onze) positie, hieronder
een link naar een artikel over de angsten in de VS (betreffende de
mid-terms m.n.):

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars

Alhoewel het hier de amerikaanse technologie, denk ik dat het
totaalbeeld geldt voor alle elektronische stemmethoden: er zijn teveel
zwakke schakels in het proces; hoe maak je proces betrouwbaar en
verifieerbaar ?

Veel sterkte met de campagne.

Paul Richardson.

Timothy's first day in Groep 2

From behind the new MacBook, on an overcast Monday morning, here's a photo of Timothy on his first day in Groep 2 at the Sint Nicolaasschool.

Another first; he cycled there (i.e. on his bike and there were no 'incidents') and yes, he was real keen on going.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder ...

After a long break from blogging, here's a little update of our goings-on (especially for those in France).

First of all, the four of us and Harm (Sophy's boyfriend & Timothy's mate) visited Amersfoort zoo.

Which is interesting, but pales into insignificance compared to this lovely image.

Yes, this is number 3; one picture from the show she / he gave us this afternoon at the hospital (it was all movement so we got a good view of her / him; I think baby will be a girl, but we didn't ask after the gender when the echo was being made; it'll be a surprise).

Countdown to count-up

(For the lack of better material:)Here's an interesting fact (really); at 3 seconds past 2 minutes past 1 (am) on 4 May 2006 we will witness the only moment in history where there is a "count-up" of time:
01:02:03 04-05-06
(Note that this moment has already occurred in the States as the month is written before the day there).
I guess you're now bored to death...(it's hard to fill a blog).
PS: Caroline: thanks for the comments.