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US Geeks Recycle GNU/Linux Boxes for Ecuador
An anonymous submitter writes: "According to this article on Salon, geeks involved with Indymedia are recycling 300 GNU/Linux boxes to send to independent media activists in Ecuador. The machines will be used to create free public computer labs across South America, networked with donated wireless 802.11b cards. Anyone wanna chip in to help cover the shipping costs?"
if I only lived in Ecuador! :) I mean they're giving out free 802.11b cards? I'll take some!
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
For shame! Slashdotting these poor good samaritains!
Couldn't you post links to the RIAA or something?
You can't take the sky from me...
As much as I enjoy helping people, this isn't really very good news for Linux from a marketing perspective. "Media activists" are generally hairy-armpitted girls and non-shower-taking guys. And "free computer clinic" brings to mind a dank, messy and smelly closet with an aging clunker of a PC inside. Do we really want computer students in Ecuador (and the US, for that matter) thinking of Linux as the bottom of the barrel that will be replaced with "standard Windows" when they have the money?
Somehow this reminds me of an old Jay Leno bit about humanitarian efforts to give Christmas toys to starving kids in the third-world:
Child: "Kalimba eat potato?"
Humanitarian: "No, Kalimba *play with* potato! See, you can put eyes, ears and mouth on the potato!"
Child: "Kalimba eat potato?"
Humanitarian: "No, no..."
That's about all I remember. It was hilarious, but I can't find the whole routine on the web.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
> Why is it that people ooh and aww and feel their heart sink when Sally Struthers shows them pictures of starving orphans in some god-forsaken place, but then the next day can be found in a Dillards parking lot mortified that a homeless kid almost touched their Lexus?
Because you just don't fuck with another man's automobile!