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Why do you care? You're in charge, and Contractor A is sending you to an informational seminar in Hawaii and Contractor B is only sending you to Italy.

Clearly Contractor A has the better proposal.

Except that the one in Italy comes with an envelope misplaced in your hotel room desk drawer.

You make the decision, but you base that decision on advice from impartial civil servants.

That's why it's important that civil servants are protected from unscrupulous dodgy MPs, and allowed to do the real work while the MP just signs off the contracts.

Most of the big decisions take much longer to go through than the MPs term in that position anyway.

> It really isn't difficult to ask Google how to filter web content.

For some people it is difficult. Google try making it as easy as possible. Filter sellers try making it as easy as possible (they have financial interest in doing so) and yet we know it's still hard.

> Just as it wasn't difficult for me to phone up my TV provider and ask how I hide the adult channels on my TV.

I tried this. The only way I could get an answer was to use their Usenet support group. Already they've prevented many people from getting a response. When I asked the question they said it was impossible to do so. All the channels are (I assume) subscription only, but they're in the menus.

> You don't need to be a genius to work a computer. You just need to apply yourself a tiny little bit to do whatever it is you are trying to do.

You don't need to be a genius to be a ballet dancer. You just need to apply yourself a tiny little bit to do whatever it is you are trying to do.

> You don't need to be a genius to be a ballet dancer. You just need to apply yourself a tiny little bit to do whatever it is you are trying to do.

Come on now, this is a false equivalency. It's far easier to use a computer than be a ballet dancer.

If you pretend to be a ballet dancer when you know nothing about ballet dancing, you're pretty freaking stupid.

When you are the country's authority on ballet dancing, you're grossly negligent and should be fed to mice.

Secretaries of State are not intended to be authorities on their respective subjects. The decisions they make are typically completely abstracted from any technical matters, and they have a wide range of expert opinion to call upon when necessary.

You could apply the same criticism to pretty much anyone in a managerial position.

I can guarantee you there are high-ranking executives in leading IT companies who have less practical knowledge of computing than the average 13-year-old.

This is probably my favorite comment of all time on the internet.

It's far easier for you to use a computer, because you have used computers.

Remember when user manuals used to tell people what "ctrl c" meant" ('Hold down the "control key, then press and release the c key, then release the control key') - or Microsoft's animation of ctrl-alt-del to login?

I used ballet dancing because people start young, with simple steps, and build up. This is kind of how computer users work. You might think that searching the web, selecting software, downloading and installing that software is easy and merely a sequence of simple steps. But that bit of ballet? That's just a sequence of steps strung together.

>> I used ballet because people start young

More than 75% of the British population has access to the Internet[1] today.

Less than 0.5% of the sampled population had participated in ballet at least once in the course of a year, in the most recent survey year I could find[2].

There are less similarities than there are differences in the computing / Internet to ballet comparison. I don't feel it's a useful argument.

1. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/internet-access-quarterl...

2. http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/research/TP_Y5FiguresArts.x...

>impartial civil servants.

LOL

> I think it is scary that politicians are put in charge of thousands of employees and billion pound budgets without having to have any experience managing in the first place.

This is what the civil service is for. In the UK the ministers set policy, while the permanent secretaries of the civil service carries out the day to day management of the department and is accountable for how the department spends money. This also includes ensuring the minister is suitably supported with research and advise to make decisions even on subjects they might not know very well.

Of course there's plenty of room for ministers to make stupid decisions by refusing to accept good advice and/or not having enough understanding to know when they receive bad advice, but the civil service is very much set up so that one function is to limit the damage a clueless politician will make.

> Sure there are advisers and whatever but surely before you approve say a £10B pound submarine project you should know something about submarines, who builds them and what is a reasonable figure to pay?

I think you kind of answered yourself. No one can know everything about everything, that's what "advisers or whatever" are for. Their job is to educate the advised enough so that they can effectively make decisions, which is what they're (supposed to be) good at.

Aren't MPs are responsible for talking to potential contractors about the non-specifics of any contract. That is to say that they receive indirect favours from a number of potential contractors, and then decide on which contractor provided the best schmooze.

If there is a draw between contractors then whoever went to Eton with you shall win. If both contractors went to Eton, then whoever fagged for the other, automatically loses.

Telling technophobes to google "parental controls" and download one of the free options is a great way to get people infected with malware or scamware.

While that might not be the best of advice, I think the point is that people need to apply themselves. Just throwing up your hands and saying, "I don't understand," is shirking your responsibilities as a parent.

Ask around with friends and family. Surely someone knows a person that has reasonable technical competency. If they don't know the answer ask them to look for you, or hell pay them a little bit to spend some time researching for you.

If that fails, call up your local technology writer/reporter. I'm sure that if they don't already know of such things, it would make a great story/article for them to do (because surely there are a lot of other parents in the same boat as you).

I grew up with unfettered access to the Internet, (at least to the degree that 14.4kbps could be considered "unfettered") and look at me; I turned out fine... giggity.