Slashdot Mirror
Wireless Pedal Power Computing in Laos
An anonymous reader writes "'An innovative, pedal powered, wireless network provides Internet access to off-grid villages in Laos,' using LINUX-based software which is being localised into the Lao language.
The 'Jhai Foundation's makes the Jhari computer, which consists of a single-board PC (the MZ-104 based upon the Mach-Z single-chip computer - equivalent to a 133 MHz 486 system), uses "embedded" circuit boards, the sort that are used in industrial equipment, and is devoid of moving parts such as fans or disc drives, made to operate for long periods of time without service or attention.'"
...of the episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where Rocksteady and Bebop have to pedal to keep the Technodrome's power running. Yes it does.
How about marketing some of these to the MMORPG players... it'd be just like real crack, get your high and lose weight!
that's funny, but will it work?
a pedal powered UPS.. would certainly make a sensible option for long blackouts, if the battery from the UPS is dying you can just jump on the excercise bike and throw a few hundred amps through it.
:)
And better yet, you could employ a school leaver to do it so no need to tire yourself out!
First post baby
...how much pedaling must be done to power a computer? Admittedly they mentioned they were using low power parts and all, but it seems like you would need to pedal for a while to store up enough charge in the battery to use the computer for even a short while.
It seems to me the project isn't finished by far. But I feel envious, here are people doing good for a large group of people that need it the most. Other goups come to mind. Why don't *I* do something like this? It would make the world a better place and I would have fun doning it. Infact, why are we not all do something like this?
-- (:> jms cs.vu.nl (_) --"---
Watching the new He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie last night brought so many emotions to me: joy, for seeing my favorite characters brought to the small screen once again; skepticism, in trying to believe these are the same characters as their original counterparts; and a sense of being overwhelmed, by the sheer number of revelations and surprises Mattel and Mike Young Productions managed to pack into an hour and a half of television.
Truly this is an historic moment for He-Fans everywhere. No longer is our favorite childhood hero banished to a one-time existence in the mid-1980s. Now it has been revived in a refreshing and powerful new series and toyline. Now our He-Man will take his place among the ranks of G.I. Joe, Transformers, Star Wars, and other franchise creations that have permanent appeal over many generations. What the new cartoon proves more than anything is that the concept for Masters of the Universe is timeless.
"The Beginning," which will be split into three "Origin" parts for regular airing, aspires to do something never before attempted in the Masters of the Universe canon. The original cartoon (and toyline) begin during He-Man's heroic career, never explaining how he got the sword or how his rivalry with Skeletor developed. Instead, we were fed constant hints as to how these things happened (Sorceress was assigned the job of giving the swords to their destined owners in "Origin of the Sorceress"), but never truly told the straight story on how a cowardly prince became the champion of Eternia. Mattel and Mike Young Productions have chosen not only to finally tell He-Man's origin story, but Skeletor's as well, interlocking the two permanently.
Skeletor's origin story still leaves many questions to be answered. The writers have chosen to use the Keldor tale first popularized in the 1986 series Mattel mini-comic, "The Search for Keldor!," which insinuated that Skeletor was King Randor's long-lost brother. Whether or not they are siblings remains a question mark, but what we do know is that Skeletor was once known as a goatee-sporting villain named Keldor (and goatees are always a sure sign of evil, right?). By the way Randor warns the Elders in the Hall of Wisdom, we understand that Skeletor and his army are fast approaching, threatening and invading every corner of Eternia. It is apparent that Randor and the Defenders (the new title of the Heroic Warriors that shows they are constantly on the defense against Skeletor) are struggling to keep the planet safe. While Mattel has chosen to show how Skeletor got his skullface, they have left the story of how Skeletor became Eternia's chief enemy up to question. This leaves all sorts of room for Hordak, King Hiss, and any number of threads to weave into Skeletor's past. But at this point in his life, Skeletor seems to have asserted his rightful place as Eternia's resident master of destruction and created a loyal band of warriors to fight his cause. When Skeletor and his forces attack the Hall of Wisdom, a clash with Randor leaves Skeletor faceless. When Skeletor tosses a vial of poison at Randor, he deflects it with his shield, and the poison sprays all over Keldor's face. The animators try so hard to make this a "Big, Important Moment" that they use dreadfully sluggish slow motion to It is thrilling to finally see Skeletor clutching his head screaming, "My face! My face!," and it is even more satisfying to know that Randor caused the deformation. If there was not hatred between these two before, there definitely is now. Mattel has worked hard to incorporate Randor more tightly into the He-Man/Skeletor rivalry and give Skeletor real motivation to detest the king of Eternia.
Another longtime hole in Skeletor's story has been how Eternia fought him all those twenty years while waiting for Adam to grow up and assume the powers of Grayskull. There have been many theories as to how this might be explained, but Mike Young Productions has come up with the best one I've heard yet. The Council of Elders banished Skeletor and his gang to Snake Mountain (in the "Dark Hemisphere," perpetuating the idea that Eternia has a dark half and a light half). The Sorceress and Man-At-Arms generated a mystic wall to imprison the villains in their own sub-world. This is the cartoon's first symbolic union of science and magic, as Man-At-Arms thrusts a generator into the ground and the Sorceress ignites it with her magic power. This is the first time in either cartoon series that the Sorceress has really performed a jaw-dropping magic spell. The shots of the mystic wall are breath-taking, and we understand immediately that this Sorceress will be a force to reckon with.
Unfortunately, the Sorceress is a failure. Gone is the maternity and soft-spoken spirituality of a kind-hearted woman in bird costume. She has been replaced by a female Egyptian pharaoh that speaks cold declarations and looks with hard eyes. I always imagined the scene when the Sorceress bestows the sword upon Prince Adam to be a beautiful, loving scene where the Sorceress would gently explain Adam's destiny as he, overwhelmed but fully aware of the moment's importance, dutifully accepted his new role. All hopes for such a moment are dashed by the icy Sorceress and frightfully bratty Prince Adam seen in "The Beginning."
Mattel has decided to make Prince Adam a boy and He-Man a man, which is a decision I very much approve. Michael Halperin, who wrote the original He-Man series bible, wanted Adam to be a teenager given the power to fight like a man, but Filmation nixed the idea in order to make He-Man and Prince Adam the exact same size and build to ease the difficulties of animating them. The new Adam provides endless avenues for personal growth and development. I think the writers chose to make Adam so unlikable in this first episode so that he would have some place to go and room to grow as the series fleshes him out. He certainly has the most potential of any of the characters in a series where the villain is usually the star. Adam's new look is a breath of fresh air, finally freeing him from that gaudy pink vest and giving him a look that crosses somewhere between Robin Hood and a punk rocker. The new story is more a fairy tale about how a child assumes the power to defeat bigger and stronger enemies, following classic myth-making principles.
But while writer Dean Stefan's decision to make Adam bratty now so he can become manly later is probably a smart one, it makes Adam's performance particularly hard to swallow. He jokes, chides, and ridicules the most important moments of his life, making him appear flippant and disrespectful. As soon as he meets the Sorceress, he makes a crack about sending her a birthday invitation (the guardian's silent response is the only moment when her frosty coldness truly works). Adam possesses reverence for almost nothing--his warrior training, his duties as a prince, his destiny as revealed in the legendary Castle Grayskull. Whereas his attitude in the old show was purely an act, this Prince Adam really does behave like this. It will be most interesting to see if, as Adam grows and accepts his challenges over time, he will grow out of his childishness and learn to act foolish only as a disguise for his secret identity. As told in "The Beginning," He-Man is merely a muscular costume for Prince Adam. Our hero is developed only minimally and possesses no life of his own. I always enjoyed in the old show how you could never really separate He-Man from Adam and vice versa--because even though Adam's behavior was all an act, his inner self was completely formed from the principles and strength of He-Man. One could not exist without the other, but there are times when Adam tires of being He-Man ("Into the Abyss") or outright gives him up ("The Problem With Power"). The writers for the new series seem to be going with the idea that Adam is the whole person and He-Man exists as an incidental, alternative form. If the writers are smart, they'll begin blending the two as the heroics of He-Man begin to have a maturing effect on Prince Adam. The new series promises us huge character development stories for Prince Adam, allowing us to fully understand the growing pains of suddenly becoming your planet's crowned champion.
Writer Dean Stefan produces an unexpected twist in the revelation scene at Grayskull when Adam completely walks out of it, mid-ceremony. Man-At-Arms, having known Adam's destiny all along (he and the Sorceress share a lot of secrets, don't they?), takes Adam to Castle Grayskull when he realizes the time has come. Adam hardly takes any of this seriously, which is a real shame. While I understand what the writers are trying to do, Adam's behavior subtracts not only from our love for him but also from the mystique of Castle Grayskull. If a teenage brat will not shut up when he enters Grayskull just from the feeling of being overwhelmed, then, well, he's a real brat. Adam's nonchalant attitude explodes when he declares, "I'm no great warrior. I'm just a kid. Thanks for the magic show," flagrantly refusing the Sorceress' offer. He flies back to the Royal Palace, where Skeletor and his minions have already wrecked havoc. Suddenly realizing that his family is in danger, Adam understands why he was asked to become a hero at this point in time. Some of Adam's behavior can be explained by his sheltered childhood lived in the safety of the Royal Palace. As Adam asks in his first scene, "What forces of evil? . . . They're history." He has never known evil, so how could he not have a carefree attitude about all this? By making Adam leave Grayskull prematurely, the writers force Adam to choose his destiny rather than have it simply bestowed upon him. Seeing the Palace in ruin, watching Man-At-Arms, his protector, jet off to the Evergreen Forest to join the fighting, hearing the words of his distraught mother, Adam has no choice but to return to Castle Grayskull and accept his adulthood. This plot twist allows Adam the power of choice and strengthens his character, even if it eschews the respectful scene I had always imagined in my head.
The problem with Adam's flippant attitude is that it belittles Grayskull in its very first scene, when it should feel the most powerful and grandiose. The director has chosen low angle and surveillance shots to give us a wide perspective on Castle Grayskull, mostly to make Adam feel small and lost in its expansiveness. The newly redesigned Castle Grayskull is another major weak point in Mattel's re-imagining of the old series. Rather than being a castle obscured by a twisting and elaborate Evergreen Forest, the new Grayskull is a vertical tower stuck in the middle of a jungle. It makes more sense now why no one could find Grayskull before, but that does not make for its frighteningly vertical design. Trying to better Filmation's Grayskull was a fruitless task from the beginning, since Castle Grayskull stands as the original He-Man's only true work of art. The huge jaw mouth, the deep, penetrating eye sockets, the animal-like body of the castle, its leg-like bones supporting its weight over the bottomless abyss, the organic green interior--how could the animators of today even begin to top all this? They don't even try. The new Castle Grayskull looks like any other stone castle with a skullface slapped on front. Instead of a dark interior that shifts and seems somehow alive, we are given dusty brick walls and empty corridors. The castle feels lonely more than anything else. The gargoyles peering from the rafters bring echoes of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" that I'd rather not acknowledge and, again, reduces Grayskull to a castle like any other. The designers give Grayskull no cohesive concept for its interiors. The entrance is a gothic stone corridor, the Sorceress's throne is an Egyptian pyramid, the labyrinth bears Roman coliseums, and the underground chamber is a haphazard mix between She-Ra's Crystal Castle and some vast region of outerspace (although the underground design certainly trumps all the rest of Grayskull). It's as if four different animators with completely different concepts for Grayskull decided they would each control a part of it. In the end, they succeed in making Grayskull into a confusing nothing. This is why the Sorceress's new Egyptian design does not fit in at all. If Grayskull were a pyramid, it would be appropriate, but not inside this castle. The Sorceress, the series's spiritual center, should be beautiful and simple, but the new design weighs her down with ornate designs and a heavy golden headdress. The new Castle Grayskull is this series' ultimate failure, unable to recapture almost any of the aura, suspense, or power of the original. Instead, it is an architectural mishmash.
The only attempt to capture the mystique of old comes when the Sorceress leads He-Man to the underground chamber. Her firefly light leads Adam through Grayskull's corridors, allowing for some of the best lighting and direction in the entire episode. As the Sorceress and Adam descend to the underground chamber, echoes of "Origin of the Sorceress" abound. Since that episode provides our only idea of what it is like to receive the powers of Grayskull, it becomes the benchmark by which this new scene must compare. And, unfortunately, it falls short. The underground chamber is the only Grayskull location that takes our breath away even for a second, as the crystalline expansiveness wows our eyes. The Sorceress sends a ray down into a black abyss, hinting that the abyss may be just as important in providing Grayskull's power as it was in the old series. An ornate chest rises out from the blackness, revealing Adam's sword. I do like that this entire sequence is free of dialogue, as if the Sorceress knew Adam's decision without asking him and he knew what to do without being told. But the scene lacks any pause, any breath, any learning. Adam picks up the sword with little or no hesitance, whips it above his head, and declares, "By the power of Grayskull!," without even the least bit of encouragement. Even Zoar had to have some coaching from Kodak Ungor before she could become the Sorceress again. In a few wild anime camera moves, Adam becomes He-Man in a shock of electric blue light. The transformation happens too rapidly without any of the reverence it deserves. This should have been a quiet, powerful moment as Adam accepts his destiny, but instead it barrels over Adam's "It's heavy" protest to reach the finished product, a sword-wielding muscle man named He-Man that almost seems foreign to the whole event.
He-Man himself appears oddly disconnected and undeveloped in his first outing. Having just been created, he lacks any real personality of his own. The writers have taken great pains to improve our hero from the one of old. He-Man's action sequences are a lot like his old ones (picking up a boulder, deflecting Skeletor's blasts, stopping a fall in mid-air by plunging his sword into the cliffside), but they are a lot harder for him to perform. Lifting a boulder appears to take all his strength, as he carefully cuts the rock with his sword, pulls it up from the ground, and takes his time rising from his knees to hold the boulder completely in the air. A huge problem in the original series was that He-Man appeared to do anything and everything almost effortlessly. When a hero is all-powerful, he becomes boring. The new series has taken great pains to show He-Man is strong, but his feats of strength are not necessarily easy. This allows room for He-Man to be weak, to fall, to make a mistake. Already the writers have cured one of the major ills of the old show. I particularly love it when He-Man catches Randor as they fall into the lava pits and Randor asks, "He-Man, you can fly?" in a stroke of comedic genius. He-Man, of course, can not fly, pointing out one of his weaknesses right from the start. He plunges his sword into the mountainside to stop, but fails, and he has to let go of Randor to make the second attempt work. This is far more dramatic than He-Man quickly and effortlessly saving the day. Unlike the original series, the action sequences of the new one will actually be interesting.
If there is any message the new series is trying to send us, it is this: THE ACTION SCENES WILL BE MUCH, MUCH BETTER. At least a third of "The Beginning" movie is spent on battles, pairing up different character so they can square off and demonstrate their weapons and abilities. Just like "Diamond Ray of Disappearance," Mattel is using this as a toy commercial to demonstrate all the "neat things" each character can do, enticing us to buy. But such commercialism can be excused because the animators go to great lengths to make these tiffs interesting and exciting. One of the major problems of the old series was the "one strike, you're out" formula, which dictated that any time a villain was struck, hit, or kicked, he was automatically defeated and completely out of commission. This is why battles on the old series happen so quickly and quietly: all it takes is one action for a hero to knock out the villain. The new series has much more faith in the resilience of its characters. When Man-E-Faces knocks Mer-Man down, he stands up again and whips out his sword (cleverly using his belt emblem to hide his sword). The villains are not defeated easily and the heroes are not perfect, making the action scenes far more intriguing. The heroes might actually lose against these ferocious enemies.
While I do not have space to talk about every character individually, I would like to write a few quick impressions about each one:
Man-At-Arms - a more quiet force than I first expected, he maintains his fatherly presence with a bit more strategic intelligence. His once useless battle mace can change shape and produce strategy plans, and he seems more like a middle-aged warrior than the aging engineer of old.
Man-E-Faces - one of the most useless characters of the original toyline, Mattel could have ditched him this time around. But instead, they are trying to finally integrate Man-E with the rest of the cast. He still has not found his place, but he is more active than I expected. The question still remains whether his shifting faces actually change his personality and his powers or if they do nothing to him at all.
Ram Man - does not really have much to do here, but maintains the clumsy, dumbfounded personality of old, and his beefier redesign fits his powers perfectly
Mekaneck - this new series works hard to give Mekaneck the purpose he never really attained in the original; the fact that his neck can bend and twist will aid that goal a lot.
Stratos - not much different from the Stratos of old, his main purpose is to be the Defender that can actually fly.
I was actually amazed at how much Mattel did NOT change from the original series. Most of the characters' redesigns are variations on the old ones, and they all possess the same powers and even the same weapons of the originals (and the cartoon has managed to integrate the weapons in ways that Filmation never bothered to).
Teela has a refreshing new anime look, given long ponytail hair and a ferocious, wide-eyed attitude. She does not seem nearly as reserved and harsh as the old Teela; in fact, she comes across as playful, youthful, and freed up. This allows her to have more of a bantering sibling relationship with Prince Adam than the almost parental relationship of old. The new show chooses familiar ground with which to introduce them--the traditional training sequence in the Royal Palace courtyard under the watchful view of Man-At-Arms. Returning to this place assures the audience that nothing has changed at all. Adam and Teela's spirited attacks on each other tell us right from the start that their attraction is more than just the kind of bond childhood friends share. Teela's backflips and snake staff action prove she will certainly have more than her fair share of great action scenes in the new series.
Orko remains surprisingly unchanged from the original series. His more wizardly outfit works well, but his high-pitched squealing and Freudian slips prove he will be comedic relief all over again. That will probably be okay, since the writers must know Orko was overused in the original show. The writers have done an excellent job of solving yet another mystery from the original series: how Orko found out Adam's secret (or why Adam would tell him it at all). Orko and Cringer follow Adam to Grayskull and witness his transformation, becoming the only two other than the Sorceress and Man-At-Arms to know the secret. I like that Cringer and Battle Cat are unable to speak in the new series. It allows Cringer to be frightened constantly without the whiny voice (he looks more like a real cat too). Battle Cat's new design is disappointing, however. The animators have scaled back his armor, but his head is way too small for his body. Orko, Cringer, and Battle Cat always bear the burden of being the funny sidekicks, and the jury is still out on exactly how they will function in this new series.
King Randor and Queen Marlena are remarkably muted in their twenty-first century redesigns. The gruffness of Randor's original voice is missing, and he almost sounds like he could be He-Man's age. The animators have chosen to dress Randor and Marlena in the same brown and orange colors, but this has a dulling effect. Whereas the original Queen Marlena, in her striking and simple green gown, provided a commanding presence even when she did not speak, the new Marlena seems quiet and unaware. She's a token mother figure without any of the intelligence and power of the original. I can hardly imagine this Queen Marlena being a headstrong astronaut from the planet Earth.
But while Mattel and Mike Young Productions have done a credible job with the heroes, their energies have obviously been better spent on the villains. Maintaining the looks and color schemes for the Evil Warriors, the animators have wisely sharpened the appearances and powers of Skeletor's ratpack. Here's my rundown:
Mer-Man - the Best Entrance award goes to Mer-Man, who pops out of a swampy pool in foreboding, grand style. The animators have taken away the bumbling oafishness of the original and made Mer-Man's fishy origins an asset. His razor-sharp teeth, piercing eyes, and throaty voice make him dangerous and full of malice. His scene with the giant floating blowfish goes on way too long, however, and having Man-At-Arms trapped in its belly is a little too "Jonah and the Whale" for my tastes.
Beast Man - the quintessential first henchman, Beast Man fails to return to his darker roots from the first episodes of the original series. Instead, the writers have opted to go with the bumbling, clueless Beast Man that became the norm. His chief allies appear to be the Griffins, which allow him to swoop in and rescue Skeletor whenever necessary. The scene where the two ride Griffins and the wind flies against them is one of the strongest sensory moments in the episode and proves that Beast Man is Skeletor's right hand man.
Trap Jaw - thankfully, Trap Jaw's foolishness has been reduced and his powers emphasized. His huge robotic arm supports almost any weapon, and he actually seems threatening now.
Clawful - the loneliest of Skeletor's first season band, Clawful was a villain who always had great potential with his echoing voice and devilish eyes. The new series kills that potential by giving him the idiot voice and brain that Trap Jaw abated. But, like all the other villains, his terrific redesign and blazing powers reveal a triumph of brawn over brain.
Whiplash - how did Whiplash get so big? He's huge now, and the better for it. His tail cracks down on Teela, and if that doesn't frighten a person, Whiplash sitting on you will.
Tri-Klops - the "odd man out" of Skeletor's original five cohorts (Beast Man, Trap Jaw, Evil-Lyn, Mer-Man, and Tri-Klops), Tri-Klops returns in this series with newfound purpose. His cyclops eye can shoot fire now (among other things, I'm sure), and his Doom Seeker robots attack when we least expect them to. The Doom Seeker have not been fully explained, but they add purpose to Tri-Klops. Expect a lot more from him in the future.
Of course the most improved villain is Evil-Lyn, who reaches her full potential in this new series. While the new design is a little too sticks-and-bones for me, the attitude and the power are all there. Whereas it was sometimes unclear her role in the original series, Evil-Lyn is undoubtedly second-in-command now. She stands alongside Keldor in his first scene, and takes over for Skeletor when he escapes with Randor. And just as Skeletor receives a tilting shot over his body upon entrance, so too does Evil-Lyn warrant a similar shot later on, proving that she is just as threatening. Her staff-length crystal ball is an improvement and her glowing purple eyes are a welcome addition to her sorceress ensemble. Whereas Evil-Lyn always seemed like Teela's evil counterpart in the original series, this Evil-Lyn positions herself far beyond Teela's level. As a longtime Evil-Lyn fan, it is a thrill to see her finally kicking butt. After Tri-Klops, Trap Jaw, and Beast Man each try to break the mystic wall, Evil-Lyn steps forward and declares, "Step aside, boys," and fires her magical best. While her attempt fails (allowing Skeletor to assume his rightful role as destroyer of the mystic wall), the sequence proves the hierarchy of the Evil Warriors and Evil-Lyn's place atop it. Perhaps no moment among the action scenes is more powerful than when Evil-Lyn sends a cosmic blast across the Evergreen Forest and turns it into a barren wasteland, turning the tables and making the Evil Warriors the team to beat. Never would the original He-Man series have produced a moment where it seemed so much like the villains would actually win. Skeletor's army is, on a hand to hand ratio, more powerful than He-Man's Defenders, allowing them to become the longtime threat legend has made them out to be. Now we understand why Eternia needs He-Man: these enemies are too strong for anyone but him.
Evil-Lyn's rise to power could not come without a hint of mutiny. Writer Dean Stefan chooses to end the episode with a tacked-on scene where Evil-Lyn questions Skeletor's authority. "Perhaps you think you could run things better than I," Skeletor coldly says to Evil-Lyn, eliciting the conciliatory reaction he wanted from her. The scene is rather useless in "The Beginning," but it does promise plenty of classic tension between these two power-starved villains. Evil-Lyn will be her own force in this new series.
But just like "Diamond Ray of Disappearance," the true star of this premiere episode is Skeletor. Retaining the wit of the original, this Skeletor is far more powerful and threatening than ever before. His voice leaves much to be designed, but Mattel has successfully re-imagined him as a warrior. The new Skeletor is far more physical, allowing him to fight He-Man almost equally. His flips and jumps into the air, his amazing sword slashing, and his dynamic mid-air moves all reveal the potent influence of anime on the new Masters of the Universe. Skeletor can do almost anything, and that makes him a stronger villain. Thankfully, the animators have brought back the Havoc Staff and added a royal cape, giving Skeletor a captive elegance and form he did not quite possess before. The director has overused the red eyes glowing, which are supposed to signal the moments when Skeletor gets most angry. The red eyes were used throughout original He-Man memorabilia, but Filmation chose to resist it. It was inevitable that the new cartoon would employ the red eyes, but the animators should be frugal with their usage. On the other hand, director Gary Hartle chooses brilliantly to obscure Skeletor's skullface until he finally reveals it to King Randor, the man he blames for his deformation. As Randor wisely responds, "You did it to yourself," cleverly pointing out that Skeletor's evil will poison himself and ultimately bring his downfall. Obscuring Skeletor's face, shrouding him in darkness, and granting him legendary fighting skills and magic powers have bolstered Skeletor to the level he was always meant to achieve--a serious, powerful supervillain almost incapable of defeat. Skeletor still delivers terrible dialogue about threatening He-Man and ruling Eternia, and he still surrounds himself with blundering idiots (he gets annoyed with Beast Man), but he's a much stronger villain than the one Alan Oppenheimer voiced (even if Oppenheimer's Skeletor laugh was much better). As always, Skeletor remains the star of He-Man's show.
Mattel and Mike Young Productions have done an amazing job of streamlining and retelling the often incongruous He-Man mythology. The Hall of Wisdom, which never appeared in the original series, finally establishes the Council of Elders as the center of wisdom and power in Eternia. When Keldor attacks the hall, the Elders vanish and declare Captain Randor king of Eternia (finally proving that Randor rules over all, not just part, of the planet, but vanquishing the King Miro mythology of the old series). The Elders' disappearance marks a powerful shift for all of Eternia. Randor, standing alone in the now empty hall, hears only the voice of the Sorceress in falcon form. She declares, "Peace will come only for a time. A hero shall emerge to protect Eternia." Director Gary Hartle takes care to obscure the Sorceress until Adam meets her, cleverly hiding her in shadowed shots of her wings. The Sorceress explains to Adam that the Elders joined their powers and gave their energy to the Sorceress to protect. While this would seem to answer the question "What is the secret of Grayskull?," it does not quite make sense. If the ultimate power of Grayskull is the the power and knowledge of the Elders, then what did Grayskull exist before they stored their power in it? Why was the Sorceress living there? When Skeletor grills King Randor for information, he asks, "Now that the Council of Elders is no more, who controls the power of Eternia now?" What is this power of Eternia? Does it allow one to control Eternia, or the entire universe? Is is simply the knowledge and power of the original Elders? And why did Grayskull exist before it became the storage place for that power? Since Skeletor is still looking for the Elders, he does not even realize that Grayskull exists, adding an interesting new twist to the mythology. Skeletor will not attack Grayskull until he learns that the Elders' power is stored with in it. I am hoping that Grayskull houses more than just the Elders' magic. The original Grayskull kept its secret mysterious, but always offered the power to control the universe. This new series does not quite say if Grayskull offers this kind of power anymore or if the "power" is just the concentrated wisdom of Eternia's oldest Elders.
Furthermore, is the Hall of Wisdom still standing? With all the energy put into creating the Hall of Wisdom at the beginning of this movie, we would expect its presence to continue. I wish the animators had put as much effort into Grayskull as they did the hall. The opening shots and music in "The Beginning" are unrivaled by the rest of the story. On the whole, the music is banal and disinterested, providing more coverage than truly adding excitement. Places where the music should have provided the most emotion (such as Adam receiving the Power Sword) is where it remains the most unmemorable. The direction is vastly improved, showing what twenty years can do to children's animation. The moving camera shots, low angles, and blazing action cuts show the new influence of anime and modern cinema on animation. Director Gary Hartle has done a supreme job of making the once stagnant He-Man characters practically jump off screen.
The new He-Man series brings almost hundreds of welcome improvements upon the original, including better action scenes, better continuity, and darker villains, but it fails miserably when it comes to voices. King Randor and Mekaneck and Man-At-Arms all sound like the same person. Skeletor's voice is hollow and posses none of the resonant vocals of Alan Oppenheimer. He-Man's voice sounds the way a boring muscle-man's should, lacking any of the maturity and moral depth of John Erwin's performance. Even Evil-Lyn, who has the best voice of all the new characters, sounds grainy and desperate when listened against the golden confidence of Linda Gary's witch. All the characters look fantastic, but when they open their mouths, I want to cry.
Still, my complaints are largely nitpicky. Mattel and Mike Young Productions have overcome the major hurdles by firming up the mythology, finally telling the origin story of He-Man, and re-envisioning the entire cast of characters without taking away the appearances, powers, and personalities that first made us love them. I am impressed by how much has not changed, and most of the changes are welcome improvements upon the original series. Executive producer Bill Schultz has succeeded in guiding this new series to its rightful place. On the whole, "The Beginning" is off to a great start.
"The team in Rochester is hard at work localising Linux and the KDE environment for the Lao language"
I like using KDE, but I don't think it would be useable on a 486...good luck to them regardless.
Basically, this system could work without maintenance or electricity in any of it's elements for many years. And that is just amazing.
"The equipment will be powered by electricity stored in a car battery charged by "foot cranks" which are essentially bicycle wheels and pedals hooked to a small generator. The generator is connected to a car battery and the car battery is connected to the computer. Connection with each computer to the others will be by radio local area network (LAN). Each village will connect to one repeater station powered by a solar means on the ridge near the river valley. That station will then send the radio signal to the microwave tower nearby and eventually to a server in Vientiane that will connect the villages to the internet."
When will my hamster be able to lose fat and power my linux box at the same time?
just can't buy a simple generator which will be working on coal or some other sort of energy?!
But * pedals *?!!! Come one! It is the new millenium already!
(ring, ring) Hello. I am calling from a small Laotian village to tell you about the great savings you can get by subscribing to Time magazine for only pennies a day...(hangup)
Or this:
("You have mail") These small village Laotian girls are waiting for you! Just click here to see hot wild natives going crazy for you live!
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Hans: dat compudah is for da girly-man.
Franz: ya, mine is a beowulf cluster.
Hans: ya, of Crays.
Franz: ya, und they are overclocked.
I can see other uses for lower power consumption computer devices. The fact of the matter is that computers and their associated equipment suck up a lot of power - people or groups interested in limiting their power usage could utilize these to great benefit. Public schools are always interested in lowering their costs - our local high school, for example, has hundreds of computers running at any given time. The electricity costs to the district as a whole must be astronomical. For basic websurfing and word processing, which is the primary function of most school computers, these would be ideal, and I can imagine that the cost savings in terms of the power bill would quickly pay off the initial investment. *shrug* Just a thought.
Your lucky if they can read let alone need or care about a computer.
http://saveie6.com/
Linux keeps on keepin' on. Very Cool. Kudos to all involved!
If they insist on a GUI they should go for something with less bloat like fvwm or LiteStep.
In a poor country like Laos where food is scarse, powering equipment with food is revolting. What would be the slogan, "steal a child's meal, pedal your way to the net"? Surely there are other sources of energy.
I tried this at home and it doesn't work... Every time I cycle power my machine just reboots :(
Thank you, I shall be here all week!
Just an american (european) way of thinking that anyone who is not in the US / europe must be living in straw huts and hunt wild animals for a living.
There are actually educated people in the 'third' world (*wow*). The fact that they come up with a method of running PCs without burning fossile fuels is something we should envy. Especially now with a completely flopped 'sustainable world' congres in south AFRICA.
I would love to have one of those spring-powered radios but the fact is our 'first world' society is so fixed on CO2 production we can't get them here.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Hmmmm Equiv to a 133mhz 486..probably486sx no damn fpu!!.... while this is noble and all none of these "computers" as they call them.... can not be used for all the MMORPG now out there.. how can we expect our economy to survive if we can't hook people living in huts in 3rd world countries on money makers like evercrack and DAoC..
they should really have more modern pc's and ahve the pedal power hooked up to teams of 10 kids at a time!!!
in my experience computer geeks have pretty bad bo (body odour).
Can you imagine how much this would compound the problem?
-- james
equivalent to a 133 MHz 486 system
lessee.. 133MHz. That's over a million cycles a second. Damn, they can move fast over there.
Perhaps, it is for that very reason, my friend. Education and ideas are severely limited in poor parts of the world. With such 'poor man' technology remote villages can develope learning programs through 'net resources freely available. And perhaps, if written English in unknown to anyone in the village, on of our resourceful people can write a web page translator from English to "..." remote language. the point is. The sooner poor continents like Africa get wired, the sooner they will take command of their lives from the last vestiges of colonialism. Education can save them from Aids, kick start the economy, and provide people a way they can network against warlords. Who knows? But it is a resource they must have. You have been flamed. The Mayor has spoken.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Golden Triangle Druglords go bankrupt, due to increased competition from poppy farmers selling their product via the internet. One anonymous farmer was quoted as saying 'With e-commerce, the cost of transaction per customer dwindles to almost nothing--pennies. Eliminate the middleman. Sell directly to your customers, and you too can become a cash money millionaire.' Who said e-commerce doesn't work?
" Your lucky if they can read let alone need or care about a computer."
Gosh, and I bet they are so primitive they can't use apostrophes either!
("Your"/"You're").
Dumbass.
graspee
perhaps, finally Physical Ed and web surfing come together. One class pedals on the machine for the exercise while another class uses the computer technology.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Oh well - I am in a third-world country (1) . Reading Slashdot. Typing a reply to your troll. Is there something wrong with me? Am I going to go blind?
(1) South Africa - yes we have not technically come up the ranks if you're out of the big cities. Large parts of SA would benifit from portable power that does not require walking 100km to the nearest petrol/diesel/coal/paraffin depot.
__
cs
doesn't stand for anything! It's called Linux. Thank you.
"All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."
Wow, a group of individuals who actually get in better shape the more they surf the internet. With this level of constant exercise and limitless access to knowledge, who knows?--The Laotians may soon be our superiors! Almost like puling a rickshaw down the information superhighway...
[este]
Uh? Like how does it make you steal a child's meal if your village gets a generator which can be used to generate electricity by foot pedals? Instead, they could use the SAME generator and battery for warming up the food. Just if Anonymous Cowards started surfing the whole day, it might become a problem
Providing the villages with access to information and with means of communication can instead change something in the long run too. Or?? Did you have a point, if so please explain - your comment did not make any sense to me.
This is nothing new...
Gilligan did this years ago for the Professor.
Actually I have volunteered at peace corps and worked in Peru and I have visited many parts of Central America. I can tell you that %85-%90 of the population can barely even put food on the table for their families. They typically make maybe a few hundred dollars a year. If I were one of the Peruvians, I would much rather prefer modern farming equipment, food and a better education for my children then a machine which would give me none of my needs. The few educated and upper class Peruvians already have computers in their offices and homes. I admit reliable power is a problem but most have generators or they just put up with the outages. I for one agree that more proper resources should be spent for the third world for things like food and medical vacinations then computers.
Infact, I recall seeing a story here on slashdot several months ago about all the donated pc's going to Asia just being thrown out in a dump. No one really wanted them.
http://saveie6.com/
One thing that would be awesome is if there were some form of e-banking available through this sytem. Right now all their "savings" are in Lao kip, which is about as worthless as a third world currency can be. They would be very happy if they could save in dollars.
Some of you may laugh at the idea of using 486s, but I can tell you I saw a lot of Lao hunters out using muzzle loader muskets that must have been 150 years old. If the technology works and it's available, it doesn't matter how outdated it is.
Imagine if we would add generators to all those useless stationary bikes, stair masters, and treadmills at the health clubs. Why, a couple thousand alone could power all the tofu makers in California.
These guys are thinking about pedal power, but the Laotians will use their creative powers to come up with other power sources. I'm sure these things will be adapted to use water power and animal power. All Laotian villages are built on rivers or streams, and all already use animal power sources for various things, especially pumping water. These things could also be solar. Laos has a lot of sunlight.
Hey hey...we don't need anyone's real-world experience here. The fact is, Westerners are evil and third world are virtuous. Anyone offering a viewpoint that contradicts this dogma is a heretic, and is eligible to be moderated as flamebait.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Other third world countries no doubt have higher literacy rates than many 1st world countries. For example education is compulsory in Thailand (right next to Laos) until the age of 18.
Just to defend my little island, you can get them no problem in Great Britain in a couple of different types.
And I'd reckon we're slightly less confused about the state of the rest of the world. One of the benefits of our previous colonialist policies is that we have much closer ties with these third world countries than many other nations.
jh
jh
I would love to have one of those spring-powered radios but the fact is our 'first world' society is so fixed on CO2 production we can't get them here.
Of course they are available. For example, see wind up radio, here or any other link from google.
I don't know about Laos. I've never been that far east, and I like to talk only of what I know (you know, like everyone here on Slashdot). But the Internet is not what people need in the jungles of central Africa.
Bill Clinton once came to Africa and decided that what the schools all needed was to be wired. I have no idea whatever came of his plans for this, but the point is, I really didn't understand how he could possibly think the Internet would offer a higher ROI than, say, a few textbooks. Or pencils. Or teachers who had better than a 3rd-world high-school education themselves.
The Onion got it. Not so farfetched as it sounds.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Why not use wind or solar, because all that pedaling is going to old pretty quickly.
Sure, a 486-class system will be sluggish with KDE, but as long as it has a healthy dose of RAM, it'll do fine.
:-P
As for the banal comments about Laotian/third-world intelligence, the fact is that these people are human beings with the very same potential that we all have. The difference is that many of them have simply not had the same opportunities. This project aims to rectify that problem. A Cisco and Dilbert 2-thumbs up!
While watching Discovery Channel here in Tokyo a month ago or so (I admit it, I'm a Discovery junkie), an interesting comment regarding mammoth-hunting early homo sapiens was made. The jist of it was that if you took one of these early homo sapiens and raised them in our world, they'd have just as much potential for success as any of us.
I would hope that might make folks who spew "third-world-stupid" comments think twice before doing so. Opportunistically challenged does not equate with stupid. Unless, of course, you're married to your sister and live in a trailor park somewhere in the South.
This seems like something Al Queda would enjoy
making use of...
I think AC is missing the point somewhere. The main reason food is scarse (and your beloved childen are eating cold food) is because the USA spent so many years bombing Laos in the name of freedom. Then again maybe you are right - better not to "let" them have Internet access or they may get to see how the first world lives.
Actually, if one person can power a single 133mhz 486,
Then a Beowulf cluster of the things might actually be useful.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
.. this means the lao's hackers are not into pizza while coding...
Some simpler X11-based toolkits should run fine on that kind of machine, but KDE and Gnome are both pretty resource hungry.
Hmm, pedal-powered computers you say? And you thought you got upset that a file was taking so long to download!
But seriously. Why not use a $200 800MHz PC from Walmart, and just swap the hard drive with some solid-state storage? I'm sure it would be a much lower-cost solution, and shouldn't use up signficantly more power (especially if you underclocked the CPU).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Here is how I used a mouse to power an ARM based CPU. I cant see it taking a whole human to power a PC.
Maybe they should use lower power chips?
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
As if the Laotians need PC's! They are too busy supplying opium to the world to need PC's. In the Laotian language, shit, let's keep them in the stoned age! Heaven's Gate forbid they learn English. Doh!
Wouldn't it be interesting to have a race for the "most usable minimalist machine for daily use", instead of the biggest, brightest, prettiest, etc.
I mean, what does it take to browse the internet, receive email, write a letter, do kitchen maths, and some coding ?
It would make a change from hyping the latest graphics card and fastest cpu and prettiest casings....
Yeah! Lets export coal to Laos! Yeah! That's the ticket!
Now here is an area where the real Billy Gates, the great philanthropist, could shine.
He could support a project like this with a tenth of a per cent of his annual income!
ZFMicro (maker of the MachZ - now called the ZFx86 CPU) is currently involved in a lawsuit with National Semiconductor over National's commitment to act as silicon foundry for the ZF design. See http://www.zfmicro.com/pdf/InvBusDailyZFvsNSC.pdf
From the article: "National had sales of $1.5 billion for the year ended May 27. ZF's Sales peaked at about $4 million in 2001 and have virtually ceased as a result of the dispute with National."
Use of an embedded board based on this chip may prove to be less than prudent. Of course there are plenty of other embedded boards that will run Linux...
It sounds like a good project if they can make a serious network with the wifi system, but to me living in the north of thailand it sounds a little bit like a technicians project to proof their skills. In Chiang Mai here you could buy a Pentium 166 mhz for about 5000 baht, that is USD 120. Is someone going to tell me that there is money for WIFI and not for pc's like this? There are a lot of NGO's operating here and the UN. I'm sure it's possible to find a little pot with money from which a network can be build of say 50 stations. Don't think btw that Laos is not connected in the cities and touristcentra there are already internetcafe's, it's just that very few people at the countryside would speak enough english or has enough knowledge to operate them besides the students in Vientenne. It's an intresting experiment but don't think to much of things like that. 95% of the people at the countryside in Thailand doesn't know how to use the internet and they advanced further. The people here need better schools and better schoolbooks. English at the countryside is being thought by people who hardly speak it themselves. You cry when you see some of the mistakes in their books.
Best luck anyway though!
I hope that's just a mistake made by the news reporter and not the actual team behind this project. A car battery isn't designed to survive deep discharges and will end up unable to hold a charge rather quickly. They should have checked out the car and deep cycle battery FAQ at: http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/. A deep cycle battery is what really needs to be used.
While it would also make this project more expensive, a solar cell would be a worthwhile investment to keep the battery fully charged during periods of non-use, and to make up for people who cheat the system by using the computer but not contributing pedal power (obviously if there is a battery, this is possible).
The other concern I'd have is what happens to these batteries after their service life is exhausted? Hopefully the members of this project will collect and recycle them. Toxic lead and acid is the last thing we need to be making these people deal with.
---
Siggy, siggy, siggy, can't you see? Sometimes your puns just irritate me.
Dont know if someone had posted this before, but,India, which has a much larger rural population is also experimenting something innovative. They are trying out motorbike riders who take laptops to rural areas ! More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2 124000/2124712.stm
After a long, back breaking day at work, the farmers return home to pedal up some power for a relaxing evening of web surfing.
Remember when we surfed the net (well crawled actually) using 386's? heck I had a compaq desk pro 286 for pulling email at one point, using pegasus and win 3.1.
90% of the computers in use today, are grossly overpowered for the basics actually needed. Heck, word processing can be done (and was) reasonably well, on an apple 2+ or Ibm "Personal Computer".
The difference between "need" and "want" grows greater every day here in the west.
Bufoed Lamonte (who forgot his login password again)
Worried they'll take your job?
Read this story months ago.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
...seriously. Given the amount of time I spend working on my computer each day, it'd be great to combine it with some exercise as well. Burn calories and get your work done at the same time.
today: using the asian masses to pedal-power a hoard of 486's
tomorrow: matrix style baby-farms
rediculous. Access to educated people in some areas of the world is difficult. But once one person knows how to use a computer in a village then they can teach each other, then learn more by the great amount of info already out there. /.
this is not about a misdirected fulfillment of a resource, but the tool where such places as Africa can become aware of themselves, of their civil rights, of the ways they can fight off disease, cleanliness, heck. how to smelt steel.
this is vital.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
As soon as the computer was booted up the people started downloading movie trailers -- unfortunately they were all in Commodore 64 format!
Last I heard, they were kicking out/killing all the white farmers and the food supplies have vaporized. What's the ETA for when everyone is dead from murder or starvation?
Hey, if you're like me and you don't have the skillz to hack a laotian l10n or the time/committment to travel to Laos (though this is incredibly appealing), you can always just give some of your hrrible corpulent filty soul-polluting lucre to their cause. I spend $5 on lunch without thinking about it. This is cooler than lunch.
Two days this week I eat home-make mac'n'cheeze and the project gets the $5 I save. It's that simple. For us consumer-americans, realizing the power of our spending choices is the first step to re-taking a position of active relavence in society.
Howard Dean for president
I work for Easy Racers (www.easyracers.com)
It is my job to know how much power, average and athletic, people can produce. The answer is this:
about 100 watts average sustainable (as in more than one hour) output for an average person.
Anyone who can put more than 200 watts for an hour can pat themselves on the back. 300 watts or more for an hour and maybe you should be looking at racing bikes for a living! So assuming you have an average generator of say 80-90% efficiency, producing 100 watts on hour is probably about the max for the "general population". Which is still plenty to run an efficient laptop.
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
This would be great for all of those fat, donut eating programmers in the US who sorely need some exercise while they work (I am one of them.)
Awww, how touching. What a nice humanist outlook you have.
I hate to question your qualification to speak on the subject, but you sound kind of naive. It would be nice if the world worked as you say, but the parts I have seen, frankly, do not. Making a lasting impression on a culture, for which both you and I see a need [and which offends many educated minds, BTW - the classic missionary vs. anthropologist battle - but that's neither here nor there], takes a lot more than shipping in a few laptops and solar panels, and rigging up a cell tower or satellite modem or something. I get the feeling you do not quite appreciate how much more.
First there is the matter of deciding who will be responsible for the computer equipment. Remember, nobody yet has a clue how to use it, and you as an outsider don't have any way of judging the people. So you do the only possible thing: give it to the chief. The computer becomes a tool of politics - more on that below.
Then there is the training aspect. Have you ever tried to teach someone to operate a computer whose native language doesn't have a word for "computer" or "keyboard" or "quote" or "pointer" or "icon" or "sentence" or "space" or "disk"? I have. The only way it was possible to make any progress at all was to revert to French, which neither of us spoke fluently, so it was rough going. (They do have a word for "mouse"....) Note that a language barrier is only a thin disguise for what is actually a cultural barrier. The desktop metaphor, for example, isn't as useful as you'd think when people don't work in offices.
Moving on. Now that some bright kid or kids have picked up the basics of how to send and receive spam, we come to maintenance, vandalism and politics. I know, I know, you probably don't believe people could possibly be so self-destructive as to steal the satellite phone, leaving the computer as basically a doorstop, if these people even had doors, which many don't. You believe that since the 486-class machines mentioned in the article (see, I'm still on topic) are designed to be robust, with no moving parts and all, that they will actually be robust and not break down when faced with the sort of humidity you find in a rain forest nine months of the year. You believe that the truck battery, which is used to power the thing, will not grow legs within two days, or that if it does stay put, that it will last longer than a year. You believe that those who have been trained to take good care of their gateway to the Internet will actually exercise proper maintenance procedures. You believe that the computer will not divide the village into haves and have-nots, and that the whole thing won't be stolen or vandalised by the have-nots - people who will have no clue how to operate any of it - out of sheer jealousy for the haves. You believe that the OS will never crash and need a reinstall (a good bet, with Linux, but still) - at which time it would most likely become a paperweight, for whoever can afford paper.
In short, my friend, you haven't lived in central Africa. This isn't racism or cultural imperialism talking, it's experience. "Things fall apart," wrote Chinua Achebe. The great Nigerian writer knew what he was talking about.
Finally there is the small question of money, and ROI. I guess whoever is paying for this program can do what they wish, but putting the Internet out in the middle of nowhere won't be cheap, no matter what you do. If you were to make a wish list of how these people could really benefit from Western civilisation, you might start with...
- schools: textbooks, blackboards, chalk, pencils/pens, books - i.e. libraries, though that's getting into the "dreaming" stage. After all, in many 3rd-world cultures, the language has only recently been written down at all - so most available books will be in another language. You could start in writing and/or translating your own books and publishing them yourself, as some people I know have done. A bit tedious but you gotta start somewhere.
- adult literacy: primers, books, teachers, child care - and see note above about books.
- plumbing: even hand pumps would be a luxury in many places I've been. Running water would be great, if you had...
- electricity: diesel generators are hard to operate when diesel fuel is $8/gallon and hard to get. I once thought solar panels were the answer, but they're extremely expensive and limited.
- medicines: antibiotics, quinine, Flagyl, and aspirin would go a long way for areas that don't have them. Vaccines, too, for things like measles and polio.
- public health: literature, public health education personnel (AIDS education is still MUCH needed out there, unlike in the West), and miscellany such as traps to eradicate tse tse fly populations (yes, such traps exist, and yes, sleeping sickness is still very much alive in this day and age). Actual doctors and nurses would be most welcome in any number of villages I could name, but those are a bit more expensive. Literacy and proper plumbing are also big parts of the public health equation - see above.
- agriculture - introducing new crops, new methods of farming, and technology at a locally sustainable level (plows, carts, etc) - so that when the white man leaves, there is some chance of things not falling apart.
In my book, Internet access is far down the list of things the people I've met could use from the West to improve their lives. Sure, it has a sort of Slashdot gushy excitement to it, but, like many public aid projects, it would have a lot more to do with Westerners feeling like they're making a difference than with anyone actually making a difference. Would you really rather have the 'net than the indoor john? (Don't answer that, slash-crowd! You guys are disgusting!)Fortunately (to get back on topic), the project the article talks about is being run partly by actual Laotians (is that the right word), so presumably they have already thought through such issues as I have presented here. As I've said before, I've never been to Asia. Maybe this project can actually be made to work.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Laos is a fantastic place, with great people. While I appreciate that it is cool to do this from a technical perspective, I would think that providing water filtration (or even running water!) to these villiages would be a more worthwhile endeavour.
One of the most striking features of these towns (aside from the baling wire power grid) is how isolated they are. I predicted (two years ago) that I had found one spot where I could be saved from e-mail for at least another decade. Guess I was wrong.
If anybody makes it to Xam Nua, let me know if one of my favorite places is still as beautiful with telephones and internet access! (Vang Vieng surely is not!)
I would add to this that if someone is really interested in helping out, time is the most valuable donation. You don't need too many qualifications to teach (or to assist at a school), and it is rewarding.
The costs:
Airfare to Bangkok - $550
Train to Vientiene - $20
Truck to the middle of nowhere - $2
Month's living expenses - $200
It really isn't that hard!
Before all of that, I'm sure Laos was a great country. Too bad we had to bomb their.... uh... I give up. Yeah, we're horrible people in America... Now I want to cry.
Simple software for communicating with other villages and text processing for business is the order of the day in Laos.
I can't help but wonder whether alternative energy sources wouldn't be more simple, though. I hear that Laos gets quite a bit of sun these days. Enclosed solar panels might be easier. Less peddling, at least.
Can you imagine the weight you'd lose running FSCK on a 120 gig drive?
They are the ones with enormous thighs.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
You have many good points and I will concede that there are many difficult obstacles in Africa's future. Your point, in total, is that implementation of internet access is difficult to maintain, to use, etc., but your points do not tell us why these resources could be left out of any kind of serious plan for real progress. Notice: "part of the plan" all i pointed out is that the knowledge may be obtained through the internet that is not obtainable elswhere. One teacher may teach many. In short: Your mistake is thinking difficult=impossible=should not do. Wrong. I am truly aware of the difficulties, at least conceptually. But this little technology(topic), is just a small tool for that goal. Social divisions? sure. poverty. have/have nots. sure. truly terrible. No joke there. uess we shouldnt try anything that we can't implement all at once. wave my wand and POOF!!! everyone has a DELL! and cable access(bandwidth social classes) oh and good french. C'mon. id love to but... small implementations like public libraries, may still be benificial. at last. how can i write anything more than half intelligent so late? sorry for the ramblings. Oh. Humanist thoughts are useful. Good Will should never be looked down upon. things are often simpler than you may think, if the right solution is implemented. one key can unlock a complex crypt-lock. good evening .
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.