Being dad of 2 y/o and 9 y/o. Where during lockdown younger kid was strategically getting "screen time" so older kid could study & wife and I could work...
After opening new or commenting on existing similar bugs/features reports to YT/Google, trying things mentioned in other comments (e.g.: /etc/hosts, router or OpenDNS filtering...) as well as (being software engineer) also experimenting with writing something myself.
Somehow accidentally I've ran into https://account.microsoft.com/family/about. And I couldn't believe how something that was produced by company that just "a couple of years ago" was the prime example of how bad big-tech can be (also forced employee performance bell-curve, "Developers! Developers! Developers!" and many other :facepalm" things)...
That M$ company produced something that literally "just fucking works exactly as you would imagine/hope it does".
Seriously - last email I got from M$ is:
"Hi {my_name},
{kids_name} wants more screen time today.
How much extra time would you like to give them?
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
2 hours
8 hours
I don’t want to give more time today"
And the one before that was:
"Hi {my_name},
{kids_name} wants more time on this app today. Extra time starts right after it's added.
Roblox
How much extra time would you like to give them?
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
2 hours
3 hours
I don’t want to give more time today
To change the daily limits for Roblox, you can go to App and game limits."
For context - to earn "game time" he first did some reading and math today. So latter his "Roblox time" for today (weekend) was first to run out, followed by overall "screen time".
And really the only thing I've been wondering is should we ditch Android devices/tablets and get M$/Windows stuff instead?
Meanwhile the whole "Should we ditch Sony/PS for XBox (which plays along because it's M$)?" is resolved by simply not getting next gen game console and instead kid starting to play and appreciate PC gaming \o/
> That M$ company produced something that literally "just fucking works exactly as you would imagine/hope it does".
We used to use that with our son when he was younger. We found some problems with it:
1) Popping up a button saying "ask a parent for more time" was a problem – it was encouraging him in asking for more. I wish there was a way to turn that off, but at least at the time there wasn't
2) It was unreliable, sometimes we would give him more time and he wouldn't get it and he'd get upset
3) The monitoring data on how much time he used on each app was often wrong
We haven't used it for a couple of years though, so maybe it has improved since. I wrote my own parental control software and we use that now. Its big advantage is that it does exactly what I want, and I can experiment with changing how it behaves and observing how our children respond – can't get that with an off-the-shelf solution
The only reliable way I've found to block YouTube (and other things) while still allowing kid to use Google Classroom/Hangouts/etc is:
1) Use Windows 10 with Kids/Family features
2) Switch my kid to use Edge instead of Chrome/Chromium
Nr 1 allows you to block apps (e.g. Calculator, Chrome, Roblox ...) as well as websites - either completely and/or during specific days/times. There's also "screen time" feature - both for the computer/OS itself, as well as per application.
So you can allow kid to have "unlimited" screen time on week days between 8am and 3pm (during "home" school) while block all apps/games except Edge. Then say in the afternoon allow 2 hours for Minecraft/Roblox/etc. Or not allow any - so when they try to launch it you get email/notification and can allow it for the next 5/15 minutes ... 1/3/8 hours.
Nr 2 is mostly because Chrome doesn't care/use Windows block/filter rules. Luckily Edge is basically Chrome that does honor those rules.
And yeah - while I didn't have luck with other ideas (e.g. DNS, /etc/hosts ...etc) because of that accounts.youtube.com or say wanting to still allow youtube for the other (toddler which was "home daycaring" because that was closed too) - somehow this Microsoft & Edge thing just works exactly as you would expect it.
And for the occasional "But teacher assigned us to watch this YouTube video" - kid can ask for permission to view particular URL.
That said - at that point we've usually went the route of just opening that particular youtube video on one of parents computers/phones and watching it together (or streaming to living room TV).
The disadvantage due to pregnancy leave is tricky stuff - even with best intentions. (Actually same for any other longer term leave).
Especially if in the X months you are away, someone needs to step in as temp replacement because you're the only person of that role in your team/unit.
Basically - where does that replacement come from? And where does replacement go afterwards?
It's slightly less problematic if you're 1 of say 3 or more people in the same role in the team/unit.
Though even when it works out (say if not temp backfill then you have another place/team/unit to join once you're back, or you weren't only person of that role).
Various changes/pivots likely lead to you coming back to something completely different from what you left, if it's even determined what exactly will you work on once you come back.
And to expand on also hinted growth of skills. Having kids - gives one abundance of opportunity to practice growing others.
Obviously you won't be around your kids all the time, nor be there for them forever. So after initial "micromanagement" phase with babies. With toddlers and older you start switching towards mentoring and coaching.
Which overlaps (not specific things, but concepts) with managers/leaders growing employees.
I'm wondering if there's similar type of analysis for renewable electricity sources like solar panels and windmills?
There's been criticism regarding longetivity and degradation of performance of solar panels.
And windmills have been criticized for amount of concrete (and with that CO2) that base requires, and same as for solar panels about longetivity, being hard to recycle ...
A good reason for the risk-averse to avoid rooftop solar and leave the analysis to power companies who have a huge stake in building their PV plants correctly and cheaply.
While being Serbian, with family from Croatia (some of which are now there dealing with corrupt government employees accepting faked papers to transfer land ownership). Means I totally get the pessimistic and corruption focused view of the world/governments/etc.
We just don't have enough info to go into such tabloid level direction for this guy.
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Maybe his wife or one of grandparents came from N.Z. and he can live/work there without visa?!?
Maybe it's intra-company transfer (like how many Googlers from "east" start in EU/Canada, and then get transferred to USA after a year or two) there?
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Either way - it's still pretty shitty "Do as I say, not as I do" behavior from the guy, and Google itself (Hey, here are great tools for remote collaboration with your team - as long as you're not a Google employee).
I am also sorry that your family is dealing with Croatian government corruption, which is never OK. I hope your family is able to get a good lawyer, that will protect your family’s interests and needs.
Then you have to go further back in order to find instances of fun/excitement/engagement.
While I haven't been keeping a detailed log - I did recall last time (and then several more before that) when I was able to put important/urgent project or work on hold to do something else that's more fun and has been itching for a while.
Literally last time was 3+ years ago - when I said to my team/manager "I know this project is behind/urgent, and to continue for a while longer on it, I'll take 2-3 days to work on this other thing that's not in our scope".
Since then it's been a stream of such behind/urgent/huge/important projects - and only now I realized that I didn't do those "breaks" of working shortly on something else.
How much of your burnout do you think came from kind of flywheel where you feel bad/guilt/stress for not delivering 100%, causing even worse stress so you can deliver even less?
And perhaps also guilt from being behind on work/projects preventing you from relaxing/enjoying previously fun things ...etc
So in that circle - they would go into slightly different directions.