Yes, because a real train is exactly as convenient and practical as driving my car on the highway. Should I get off your lawn now?

What choice do they have?
You practically HAVE to have a bank account, or you can't get paid, pay bills easily, get a mortgage, and on and on. A person can hate the banks, distrust them, but have no real viable alternative.
There is no practical way to avoid big business. Even if you focus your shopping exclusively on small shops (most of which are owned by large companies, unbeknownst to you), they get most of their goods from big business. My tax money goes to big business whether I want it to or not. There are no small telecoms or utility companies. Even if you move to the boonies and become a live-off-the-lander, some of your money still goes to big business through taxes, for seeds, and so forth.

There is no practical (maybe even possible) way of removing oneself from the reach of big business. That doesn't mean one likes it or trusts it.

There's a very simple reason developers are tending towards 'freemium' games: it makes more money (at least on ios). Let's be honest, as much as a developer may love making an app, if they are to invest the time and resources required to make it good, they need to get paid. So their options are ad supported, which often doesn't pay very well, a non-free app, which often won't get many downloads (unless you're a marketing guru), or IAP. IAP have the benefit of allowing a free app which gets lots of downloads, the possibility of ad generated revenue that can be disabled for a fee if the user wants, and the option for the USER to determine how much they want to give. It's (theoretically) win/win for developer and customer.

However, the kids apps are absolutely horrible. The apps themselves are usually quick hack jobs with some manipulative child psychology tricks in them. Adults often hate them and can't stand them, but the kids love them and beg and cry to get them. Then they dress up IAP in pretty buttons and what not so every thing the kid clicks on brings up a purchase window and the kid bugs the heck out of the parents to fix it... One slip on the parents part and they accidentally make a purchase.

Honestly, they need to go after the lecherous developers that make that trash, rather than ask apple to censor (yet more) apps from the app store.

You know, I have 2 children, and I'm f'ing sick and tired of people here on slashdot standing on their pulpits preaching about how others should raise their kids, or what they would do if they 'love' their children. It's the hardest damn job in the world to raise kids, and every single parent (whether you think so or not) loves their children. They do the best they are able and know how. One thing I can practically guarantee: if you haven't actually DONE what you are preaching that others should, then it doesn't work like you think it will. That's a basic lesson in life.

I love vaccines, and my comment is in no way specifically about them, but...
I fundamentally disagree that the government should be in the business of 'protecting individuals from bad choices that other people make'. Freedom at its heart is about the ability to make choices, BAD choices if we want, without artificial hindrance from the government. Our society was based on the idea of punishing people for their actions, not someone else's judgement of their decisions. I know that mine is not a popular opinion, and everyone seems to want every other persons rights trampled to the ground, then that person thrown in jail forever (some ass rape would be good for them too), but it scares the shit out of me where our society is going.
The last thing we as a people need right now is mandated vaccines.

Any person who performs surgery on another without proper training is likely mentally unstable, barring extraordinary circumstances. Anyways, this example is about action, not decisions. The appropriate comparison would be if the parent made the decision to not have surgery done. And yes, that decision should be (and is) within the parents rights. What should happen (and what does) is that the government takes the child away if the parent makes a grossly dangerous decision (such as not allowing surgery for a life threatening affliction). That's fine and good, in my opinion.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me. I agree that its DESIRABLE for a person to be as highly informed as is practical to be, but not that they NEED to be. Do you think the government should step in and make decisions for you for everything that you are not an expert at?

You're disingenuously arguing this topic by focusing on just one of the points I raised (5).
However, yes, parents are not always 'highly' informed and educated on all issues. Are you seriously suggesting that a person needs to be in order to make a decision?

Don't be a smartass; it doesn't help the conversation.

1) No one is more familiar and in a better position to understand a child than their parents. Parents spend huge amounts of time dealing with their child and learning their quirks, emotions, and knowing their history.

2) Parents expend vast, enormous amounts of resources raising their children, and are directly and massively affected by the decisions that affect their children.

3) Without a doubt and by orders of magnitude, parents are most invested and concerned about their children's well being. There is simply no comparison to the love and care a parent feels towards their children. If there are people who can be trusted to do their best for a child, it's their parents.

4) Parents are legally obligated to provide the resources necessary for a child until they are 18, and to deal with the results of that child.

5) Parents MAY not always be the most rational decision makers concerning their children, and MAY not be the most expert on the decision at hand.

The obvious conclusion from this information is that PARENTS, by large orders of magnitude, are the ones who should be making decisions for their children. They are the defacto most trusted, invested, and authoritative people capable of making the decisions. In my opinion, the government should only step in when it is clear that the parents are giving worse general and long term care than the alternative (IE foster homes, etc.). That line is very, very low.

Is there any chance you have the research you've done on other vaccinations, and can post it for others to read? I've done significant research myself, but the problem I always ran into was suppressed or redacted information, so I feel the conclusions I've come to are somewhat inaccurate.

In general however I've concluded basically the same thing as you: it's a risk assessment, and the risks on both sides (in the current world situation) are negligible. The added inconvenience is a factor for deciding to not get the vaccinations, although I have to admit my defacto position on medical procedures and drugs is to avoid unless there is compelling reason not to, and that is my largest deciding factor. Too many times I've witnessed medical procedures and drugs which were recommended and then discovered to be harmful.

Tablets do two primary things to improve on traditional methods of education and learning:

1) they provide an interactive, consistent, high availability, versatile environment which replaces alternative 'babysitters' such as the TV or game console. Let's be honest, if all kids had 2 parents giving 24 hours a day to them, we wouldn't need daycare, babysitters, or school, because they are all just supplements for parents. But parents need to work, make dinner, clean the house, change diapers, buy the groceries... And they run out of time and energy. A tablet with a good educational app is better than many of the readily available alternatives.

2) they have the ability to engage kids in a way that adults often struggle with while teaching certain (boring, non physical) content. I know that my very best efforts were barely enough to keep my daughter interested in learning letters for more than a couple minutes, yet playing an alphabet app with her could keep her interested for up to 30 minutes. Apps that simply are not available for desktops/laptops, in a format (touch) that is far superior, especially for young kids.

My system can do 5.1, but I actually prefer using it in 5 channel stereo mode, especially with tv/cinema. I find 5.1 to be too dynamic, resulting in the quiet being too quiet and the loud being too loud. Stereo on the other hand has a much more consistent range. The other issue is that most stuff is NOT 5.1, so I would have to specifically switch to 5.1 for a song/video that had it, which I could never be bothered to do. Thank god I like stereo better!

Joking aside, you're spot on that it depends on the software. My daughter started using my iPad when she was one, and some of the educational/kids apps are complete garbage, doing more harm than good. Some of the apps however are FABULOUS. She learned her numbers and letters before she was three, and despite my best efforts, I think the iPad did most of the work. The big benefit the iPad has is that it can hold their attention, and give them infinite time when it's got it. I had to struggle to keep her interested in letters and numbers, and I would run out of energy (or time) relatively quickly.

On top of that, iOS is just fantastic for kids. My current one year old grabs the iPad whenever he can get his hands on it (he bites it so I keep it away from him!), and he's already figured out how to open it, scroll through the apps, and launch one without breaking anything. All in the few seconds he gets when I'm not looking! Even at 3 my daughter can't use a mouse effectively, so a normal computer is totally unworkable at these young ages.

Finally, I think using a tablet is a lot better than zoning in front of a tv. God knows how much Time our generations spent doing at, and we still managed to turn out okay... I think...

This.
I have (and still do) use all sorts of various systems for backups both at home and at work, and Time Machine is by far the best. Completely invisible, automatic and smart. You can turn off your computer mid-backup and it just continues when you turn it back on. It is so much better than the alternatives, I'm surprised how little limelight it gets.

Perhaps just as important as the backups: it has a great UI to access said backups! One click gives access to a file at any date in the past you want.

The most sleep deprived profession is parenthood. The fact that taking care of kids isn't considered a 'job' is one of the great tragedies of our times. Without a doubt it is one of the most useful jobs for our societies, and one of the hardest. My experience with staying home and taking care of a child was that it was about 3x harder than a job (in IT). The second child was 2x harder again. And I get paid nothing (tax wise). The government would rather my child getting far inferior care in daycare - because apparently that's a 'real' job.

You know, I'm all for vaccines and think they have helped to change the world, but where can we find these statistics? I've looked high and low trying to put numbers together to prove that getting a vaccine is statistically better than not, but I've come up mostly empty handed.

  To be accurate the numbers need to look at total risk of the vaccine, which admittedly is probably tough to know, but surely there are numbers for known and obvious reactions. They also need to look at the real current risks of the various diseases, properly weighting the severity of the risk.

To be honest I suspect that this data has either not been collected properly, or is being hidden for whatever strange corporate reasons.