[ale] Making kids stop being entitled slackers with free software

[Byron Jeff]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2014 at 12:11:06PM -0500, leam hall wrote:
> External motivation is not self-sustaining. What if you put energy
> into finding out why the lack of motivation?

There isn't a lack of motivation here. To recap:

---------------------
play video games, think about playing video games, watch Youtube
commentators play video games, or munching on unhealthy food that he
will never be able to work off if he continues his daily routine(while
talking about video games).
---------------------

There is the young man's motivation. It's his passion. The problem is it's
a bit difficult to make a living on most passion. It's the reason that most
of us do work that isn't necessarily directly related to our passion. Very
few of us will still go to work after picking up the big lottery check.

Systems management is a part of the issue. The other part is coupling the
work that has to be done (school, chores, etc.) with the passion that wants
to be done (gaming).

BAJ

> 
> On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 10:26 PM, Dustin Strickland
> <dustin.h.strickland at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So, my (much)younger brother is doing middle school online. As kids his
> > age do, he has issues with motivating himself to do anything other than
> > play video games, think about playing video games, watch Youtube
> > commentators play video games, or munching on unhealthy food that he
> > will never be able to work off if he continues his daily routine(while
> > talking about video games).
> >
> > I think I have a solution, but I would like ALE's opinion on the best
> > way to implement it. Here is a simple map of my home network(using
> > generic names, of course):
> > http://s29.postimg.org/fgrszgq4n/network_map.png
> >
> > My goal is simple: Unless he does a set amount of work each weekday
> > when scheduled, the network will lock down to prevent him from doing
> > anything else. Also, the network will lock down at 9 PM(10:30 on
> > weekends) and unlock at 6 AM. There will be an override
> > method for everyone else. His X session will also be suspended at these
> > times on his main machine(he uses Steam), and ideally all game consoles
> > would refuse to boot as well. If Microsoft were nice, they would allow
> > you to remotely change the parental controls PIN and settings for the
> > Xbox 360 remotely so that I could automate this job, but they have an
> > extensive history of making gimmicky products that are barely usable if
> > you need flexibility, so it is to be expected that they don't.
> >
> > After getting my feet wet in the field with a quick Google search, I'm
> > thinking that I want to use Squid. I'm probably going to
> > install Xen on his main machine, workstation-0, and have a PV domU take
> > care of everything. Do you guys approaching this the right way(from a
> > technical standpoint I mean, I really don't care what you think about
> > the ethics of it), and is there any other software you would recommend
> > for this purpose?
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mind on a Mission
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-- 
Byron A. Jeff
Chair: Department of Computer Science and Information Technology
College of Information and Mathematical Sciences
Clayton State University
http://faculty.clayton.edu/bjeff