Meant to mod parent funny, misclicked "overrated", posting to undo.

Parent and GGP are right, and GP is mistaken, as TFS clearly states. The issue is "a new earned-incentives and privileges scheme", i.e., control.

I suspect he meant "consistent".

Yeah. If you want elegance, you should probably just go straight to the math. As soon as you put it into a computer with its pesky limitations of finite time and space, elegance goes right out the window.

As someone who got lost somewhere deep in a single sentence (which consumed three whole screen-width lines) that spent nearly 100 words on a dependent clause (which itself contained two parenthetical clauses) before even getting to the subject (I was starting to wonder if there would be one at all) I question the value of your comments on the topic of elegance...

I guess it would be like driving a Chevy Lumia van.

Are you a physicist, or have you seriously studied physics, or do you have a source for that? Because I'm sure I've read numerous times about actual physicists hoping to detect gravity waves from merging black holes.

Yes, everyone loves to believe that they are (and always will be) smart and tough enough that THEY don't need any of those pesky nanny-state consumer protection laws. Mr. Galt, is that you?

You kept the "N hours" but conveniently forgot the "just keeping them entertained" part. Hooray for honest discourse!

Look here: I spend N hours already keeping him fed, sheltered, healthy, and educated. I also have my own responsibilities related to and financially supporting those. If I have a few hours left over, do I want to spend them watching over his shoulder while he plays PokeSmurfVillage or whatever game he's into this week? Fuck no. But I guess that makes me an incompetent parent. Right?

Parenting is a whole lot more than supervising your children while they play. There, you learned something today. You're welcome.

Well, this is where I bow out. I agree entirely that rehabilitation is more worthwhile, but less emphasized (at least in the US, where I live) than retribution. But if we're beginning the discussion with a complete overhaul of the entire criminal justice system, then I think I'll sit out. I came here to talk about Google's payment authorization scheme.

Have a good day.

This "good old days" thinking is lazy and often wrong. My kid has basically all the screen time he wants (I don't set limits), but he plays outside with our neighbors for hours a day, running up and down the street or playing basketball. And you may not have noticed it, but games are quite social these days. He's always trading pokemon or game secrets with his friends who play the same games, or even playing some of them online with the neighbors.

Nobody is saying that surrounding them with screens 24/7 is the answer. And it's not like other modes of entertainment are without risk. I have to supervise my kid to some extent no matter what he's doing--playing with neighbor kids, making something with glue, paint, scissors, etc., or playing games on the tablet. This isn't about parents abdicating their duties to the tablet. This is about an unreasonable system.

If the intersection by my house had no stop signs, I'd go to the city council and say, "Hey! There's an uncontrolled intersection right next to my house, and I can't let my kid out the door without direct supervision, or he could get hurt. There need to be some stop signs there!" That's the answer, not "pay closer attention to your kid you lazy parent!"

Likewise, if I can't let my kid play on the tablet without hovering over his shoulder the whole time to make sure he doesn't accidentally buy $99 worth of fooberries, the best answer isn't to just suck it up and watch him play his game for an hour. The answer is to put in some damn stop signs, and that's all people are asking for here.

This is exactly the problem.

Current situation: Thank you for entering your password to authorize the purchase on screen. I will not bother to mention that you've also authorized unlimited additional purchases over the next half hour.

Bare minimum acceptable solution: Thank you for entering your password to authorize this purchase, as well as unlimited additional purchases for half an hour.

Slightly better: Please enter your password to authorize this purchase, as well as unlimited additional purchases for half an hour.

Good, and easy solution: Thank you for your purchase. Authorize additional purchases for the next (30 minutes | 24 hours | Forever | No thanks, ask for my password next time ).

Yes. You know what, you sound like you are either a child yourself, or someone who hasn't lived as an adult long enough to learn that rules are never perfect, but "everyone should just do the obviously right thing all the time" is not a feasible substitute.

You're definitely going places with that attitude! (Places where the toilet is right next to the bed, most likely.)

Also, you do realize you're commenting on an article about a LAWsuit, right?

That's a compelling rebuttal, but consider this: when a minor (16 or 17 usually) is to be tried as an adult, or an adult is to be declared incompetent to stand trial (insanity defense), a lot of the court's time is taken up deciding one way or the other, independent of the question of guilt. If that process had to be followed for every criminal prosecution, every day, then yes, it would be utterly impractical.