Slashdot Mirror
The Indian Info-Rickshaws
DoomDoom writes "CNN is running a story
on how the Indian government is delivering health and educational services on a WiFi equipped rickshaw to the poorest of its citizens. It's a poetical union of a typical third world product with high-tech! Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?"
"By using computers, I can improve my knowledge," Sharma, whose parents plan to pull her out of school at 15
Ouch. I complain that I only was able to go to a technical school [putting myself through college now]; at least I got to finish out high school.
It amazes me everytime I read about how hard so many people have it, then I look around and see these hideously overweight people driving SUVs, tossing out food, with a ridiculous sense of entitlement (e.g. "society owes me because I'm special") to that effect.
I wonder if more of us in America will ever wake up and realize how good we have it? Yes, of course, the wealth/technology/etc we have introduces its own set of problems, (e.g. SCO, Microsoft, obeisty, ...) but I'd rather
deal with that anyday than lack of education or starvation.
feh. stuff.
If they need to change a tire, and use the hub to get tech support, will they hear an english speaker? ;)
Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?
Even the poor need pr0n once in a while.
What are they going to do, play freecell at work? Please, don't let them take up an American work ethic! (/me is American, please laugh)
I could use a few ex-dotcommers to pull my rickshaw around. They'd be getting a pittence, I'd get transportation and it's clean for the environment. Win Win situation ... who wants to sign up?!
This is awful! Now, these newly uplifted Indian masses will take even more of our programming jobs!
Grumble, grumble...populism...communism...grumble grumble!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The thing I have to wonder about is:
How is this really effective?
With a single rickshaw, even with decent class organization, how are these skills going to help people get better jobs or do their work better? Especially when they are barely completing junior high school years?
While it is a nice way to spread tech around, I dont see how it makes life better for people than the same amount of money in other educational things (books, teachers, that much money goes a long way).
This gives a whole new meaning to the term 'Mobile Internet'.
Not only is cheap computing vital for the poor of the 3rd world, but for us here in America.
If you want to build community here in America, where mass media has supplanted our face to face community, cheap wireless broadband might be vital. Otherwise, you get a hollow corporate teevee community, which pushed hollow corporate consumer values into children's heads. When Americans get online, they can rebuild that community. Cheap computers and broadband are needed in order to distribute video entertainment, which need not be produced by large corporations.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The Indian guys I work with are always talking about "veediables"[1] and whatnot. In print, though, there's no accent, so no problem.
This is precisely why India is such a bonanza for outsourcing: An incredible number of Indians are well-educated and speak English. Probably more English speakers in India than any of the countries where it's the official first language.
More power to 'em, I say.
[1] Variables.
Probably every single one of you reading this post has spent more time in front of your computer today than these people will, at a rickshaw, in a month. And the Indian government wants to "... use technology to improve education, health care and access to agricultural information in India's villages ..."? If they were serious about that they'd create a tiny computer center in each village and instead of sending rickshaws around, send teachers instead.
What always amazes me is how governments in other countries manage to get IT projects finished with tiny budgets. Here in the UK or in the US the rickshaws would have cost 100s of thousands each and a small fortune to run. Look at eVoting for example - i've heard prices of $10000 per machine! WTF costs $10000 to stick an unsecure crappy computer in a box and put some strung together voting software on it? India they do it with some custom build hardware and it costs nothing!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
When I first read the title, I thought this was going to be a variation on the carrier pigeon protocol...
On a more serious note, where does the thing get power? And if there's already a power outlet wherever it travels, why not just put in a low cost PC permanently and save all the pedalling?
(By reading this post you agree to not take the previous sentence seriously. This agreement takes effect the instant your eyes meet the words in this post. No, you can not reject this agreement! Too late!)
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
It's good to see the Indian government is taking the initiatives to bring modern technology to within reach of the rural community.
In the article, it mentions many Indian villages are poorly wired, telephone lines can go dead for weeks at a time, making wireless technology the most reliable Web connection.
However, what it takes is a willing government to find an alternative, rather than giving promises to improve telephone lines.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
None benefit from technology until they can sustain their own health and living conditions. India needs better housing and agriculture first. To my current knowledge, there are also children starving at India and we can't send our process foods to help because not even rich/processed food will stay in a starving child's stomach.
Does India not know that patience will bring technology to them in least expense? Please wait, let the people and corporations at these united States of America pay for the R&D and we'll let you know when the technology is versatile, popular, and in the bargain-bin.
The people of India are our brothers and sisters; love thy neighbor, and remind them that Pakistan is their neighbor.
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
that the poorest of the poor actually need things like food, water, shelter. If technology can aid in that then so be it. 99.9% of the time another human body capable of providing one out of the three is essential.
Technology is just an aid. The poor really need able people like you and me. In turn, when they are able they can do the same.
I'll bet it's even poetic, which is how most normal people would have put it since "poetical" is an extremely uncommon word and the more proper usage is, indeed, "poetic".
... oh wait, terribly sorry. Forgot where I was for a second. Stupid me.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Gamers complain when their latency exceeds 50 ms- if this system was what I thought it was (a WiFi server making the rounds by bicycle to villages that have no Internet access, instead of a single computer with a Satelite Connection) what would they say about the latency exceeding one week (or whatever it took for the server to come back and fullfill their requests)?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Given the imperfections in any distribution system, the only way to make sure the poorest can get enough food to avoid starvation is to make it obscenely cheap.
Ever notice how the help for the poor is the US has changed "ending starvation" to "stopping malnutrition" to "feeding the hungry".
Yes, in the last few decades the US has eliminated starvation and undernutrition within its borders.
Pssst - don't tell the UN....
I mean, what will we call it? It' isn't wardriving, and is sounds stupid to say 'warrickshawing'. Nope, nope. It will have to go.
(Alternate challenge to Slashdotters: What is the correct verb for 'pulling a rickshaw'? I bet that Jepoardy punk would know...)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Do you mean "couldn't care less"? The implication of "could care less" means that you actually DO CARE in some amount. The point of "couldn't care less" means that you already care so little (ie, not at all) that you couldn't care any amount less than you already don't.
Indeed nice catch.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Secondly:
You're absolutely correct. It is just you. If you're not interested in the article just because it's not about something more interesting (like Scott Peterson's latest hairstyle or the outcome of the six-hour finale of 'Who'll hook up with the mad axe murderer?') then I respectfully suggest that you move along. The majority of people onDrill baby drill - on Mars
If I was a poor dude in India, living on $1 per day with no water or electricity and possessing only a few clay pots, a few shirts, pants, and rubber slippers, I could care less about some bullshit technology in some bullshit rickshaw.
Look at it from my perspective. I need clean water. I need clean food. I need some electricity. All that must come FIRST before everything else. Why is my government wasting money on some bullshit technology that isn't going to help me?
Despite the fact that Bill Gates got it so wrong with Microsoft/Windows, he got everything right when he said that people living on $1 per day cannot survive on free WiFi and computer education. I applaud him for standing up to those tech-obsessed idiots who think technology is going to solve everything.
The ONLY technology that will solve EVERYTHING is the Star Trek-style replicator. Only that will solve my problems as a poor dude living on $1 per day.
Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?
Do you think proper spelling is in order when making insultingly assumptive statements?
vk.
The United States is a source of inspiration...yet the people who live here can't appreciate that simple fact.
Despite my unnerving to hear Jesus Gospel from Bible thumpers, someone said to me; "Remove the moat from your eye before you try to remove the moat from your neighbor's eye."
Well, I looked around and thought the conditions in America should be better. Is that why America is such a rude country, because we don't accept ourselves below a standard that has been indirectly defined? Does not Social Services hold people to standards of living acceptible to people of other countries, yet Americans are often scolded for not upholding luxuries around us? When I was growing-up through middle-school, if your lunch did not have corporate advertisements on the packaging then you were often looked upon as un-cool or a "plain" or Amish-like child.
The people at the United States have been raised in such a way to not consider they have any problem with their lifestyle that it is so expensive and high a standard compared to people in other countries, yet somehow the military of the United States gets sent to help other countries to improve their conditions as America? Is there stifled reason for all that "Infadel" name-calling thrown at USA and its posterity for ruining other countries by bring our "rich" standard of living to them before they can travail their own casualties of our life-style such as loss of --- respect of neighbors, loss of privacy, loss of -name-the-whatever-trespass-?
America needs to recognize that its vision of the people in other countries and at foreign states can't be understood until America cures its own infirmaties.
So I say to America as what those jackass Bible thumpers annoy unto me, "remove the moat from your eye first!"
I am the nightmare of nightmares.
I asked. They'd like some housing, food, maybe some clothes and some medical help first. But thanks for asking!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Computing IS unneccessary for the poorest of the poor. Here's why:
The only things that are necessary are food, water, shelter, and health care. That's it. That's all that's necessary for the richest of the rich too.
Everything else is not necessary, but occasionally quite helpful--such as education, democracy, transportation infrastructure, and information infrastructure. Then there are things whose helpfulness is marginal but people like them anyway, like Britney Spears.
I appreciate that this is being done. Information/transportation infrastructure improvements will hopefully have a SECONDARY effect that improves health care and food distribution concerns. But please don't confuse the means with the end. What is needed is food and health care. If info-rickshaws are a means of getting there, so be it. If it isn't the best way of reaching the end, it is far from fucking necessary.
I think we now know what happened to those Microsoft Port-a-potty iLoos that might have been a hoax. After the laughter died down, MS probably dumped them in India where someone added wheels.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Yeah, so those Indian dudes are cheaper workers and stealing all the jobs here. Outsourcing is evil and all that rot but give it a break will y'all.
If they use technology that in anyway helps the poor, might as well give them credit. At least that rickshaw puller ain't taking your job!
Does India not know that patience will bring technology to them in least expense? Please wait, let the people and corporations at these united States of America pay for the R&D and we'll let you know when the technology is versatile, popular, and in the bargain-bin.
I never thought I'ld say this, but.. Someone give SlashdotTroll a round of applause for telling India effectually "WAIT, don't outsource our technology; let us keep our Research and Development jobs and we'll sell the technology to you years later."
roflmao! Yea, that'll be the day when India gives us back our jobs!
The people of India are our brothers and sisters; love thy neighbor, and remind them that Pakistan is their neighbor.
I doubt this actually applies. Muslims and Hindus and Seiks don't love eachother just because they're neighbors. Each tribe looks as its neighbor as a toilette, despite they all smell like shit. If I was forced to love one of those middle-east countries, I'ld pick Turkey because they have a great Star Trek series.
The article did not mention what the platform is, but I wonder if the Windows XP stripped to DOS edition is going to be used here or if a better alternative will be used?
As to who thinks there are better places to put resources, none other than Bill and Melinda Gates think so. Two of the high profile efforts are and AIDS vaccine and TB efforts, although there's plenty more fronts they're throwing financing at.
I remember an interview with him (can't find it online) where he recalled being at a meeting with dozens of people pitching high tech solutions to Third World problems and him rejecting almost all of them in favor of vaccines. He said it was silly to start laying down fiber optic cable (this was a few years before WiFi) in an area where you couldn't draw clean water from a well.
Now, don't get me wrong. Any effort that conveys health information or basic education to people who need it is, by definition, a Good Thing (TM). Also, this is an indigenous effort of Indians (presumably the Indian government) helping their own, not someone outside trying to find the best place to spend their money. One would assume (and the photos of healthy people in TFA certainly imply) they've already got their vaccination, clean water, and hunger plans already in place, so they might as well experiment with alternate education efforts.
Still, I have to wonder about the long term viability of this project. With India's struggling masses, you have to wonder if the money might be better spent elsewhere.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Oh ya, I almost forgot that I did. I would have completely forgot about this if Slashdot didn't remind me. Where would I be without this place.
First Slashdot told me what to think. Now they're telling me what I thought. How nice. I can't imagine how difficult life would be without Slashdot leading me along...
"By using computers, I can improve my knowledge," Sharma, whose parents plan to pull her out of school at 15, said in Hindi, before joining a class on Web cameras. "And that will help me get a job when I grow up. (Emphasis mine)
Now, she didn't specify whose job she wanted, but...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Why aren't they using a bike equipped with a laptop, solar cells, and a wifi card?
Much lighter and far more mobile.
It could even go to where there is no power.
A usable setup like that could cost less than $1k US and it wouldn't kill the bikers going up hills.
People in poverty will never get out of poverty unless they try something different. Its a way of life. People in india who are old need help with their chores, what's the best way of getting it done, keep your kid home and make her do it instead of hiring someone else and paying them. Because of this type of child labor abuse, the cycle continues, the only way to make the kid be rich is for her to get married, usually its to someone who is also poor, uneducated and also the same class.
Cynicism is popular in /. yet it is also useless. Any sort of action that can be planned and executed even once improves the standing of the population effected by that action. First, any attempt to reduce the poverty, and by this is meant poverty, is effective. Scale is limited, yet again any action would be effective. As in dying water, a drop progresses. Many here expect flash change for their limited attention to India is shallow and requires immediate satisfaction. Transition from poverty in any degree is usually impossible once entire towns and villages succumb. This effort provides limited potential for inspiration, yet in place of no inspiration is still significant. Suggestions recommend spending hundreds or thousands of fold the budget spent in this on other actions for their shallow attention to observe change. These are useless, what can be done is in the progress of being done.
Don't get me wrong, we need to consider foreign languages, culture, etc etc, but c'mon, this nonstop talk about poor dotheads and technology is ridiculous.
Political Gimmick to attract votes!
Kind Regards
Simon Harvey
Oh... I guess the title of the class must have been "Remedial Camwhoring 101"
Drill baby drill - on Mars
What a ridiculous waste of money and a preachy headline. Things that would improve the lives of people who are truly at the bottom of society in a second world nation are health care (India has 57.92 deaths per 1,000 live births), basic literary (only 59.5% of the population can read at this time! how can you justify his crap?!?!) and helping the absolutely destitute (25% of the population is below the poverty line) feed themselves.
Peculiar that your post should have been modded down as flamebait. I wonder if it had anything to do with your "leftist" slashdot handle? Naw, couldn't be....
This is so perfectly out of a william gibson novel i want to hurl :)
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Umm, which comment would that be exactly? I don't see it.
So now the out-sourcers are telecommuting?
When broadband becomes really cheap, and as computers get cheaper, 80% of Americans and many more others will be able to watch a lot of video online. That is when you really get a chance to build minds. Besides, alot of people don't like to read too much.
Video entertainment is a great way to instill memes in young minds. What has happened in the free software movement will be repeated in the Free Video Movement. Thouands of people all over the world will be able to collaborate on homebrew movies, sitcoms, documentaries. And the political and philosophical ideas being propagated through such a Free Video Movement will be "bottom up" memes, empowering working people, and disempowering corporations, the top of the government, and the rich.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I work for the Australian arm of a large Indian software company. As part of the community projects run by the company, we fund the improvement of sanitation infrastructure in some of the poorest parts of India. As these places do not receive much information about software development, these projects are the only way my company is known in these areas.
When people from my company travel to rural India and mention who they work for, people immediately assume they build toilets!
I was an undergraduate student at Indian Instutute of Technology, Kanpur (where this project was developed), and have been to Bithoor many times.
The whole village consists almost exclusively of very poor people, who couldn't care less about this technology.
The middle class you speak of, doesn't exist in Bithoor. In slightly bigger villages/towns, it does.
I grew up in a village which was bigger than Bithoor, and had no access to computers till I was an undergrad at IIT Kanpur. I think of myself all the time when I think of such technology introduced in villages, and how I could have benifitted from it.
Definitely a good thing. But maybe more people would benifit if there was more effort in social/civic education in cities in India, and villages were more self-reliant. And of course, somehow the poor people in the villages didn't starve and suffer from innumerable diseases.
</rant>I've read and read and read. What makes you Americans feel so f*****g proud of yourselves that you want to critique something that IS WORKING in the most rural of the rural areas in India.
You people keep arguing about Voting machines where as in a country of 1.06 Billion people, we conducted a general election with 62% voting record ELECTRONICALLY. Why dont you achieve that wihout spending a billion dollars.
I have no sympathy to those people who can't look at their own backyars before they comment on others. Sure India has a long long way to go, before it can become a "Developed Country". But look around you. How many of your bosses are Indians. Heck how many scienticts in Intel, Cisco, NASA etc are Indians. If you guys are so damn bright, try to get into the Indian Institute of Technology. Then you might earn the right to actually critique someone who's passed out of there.
read this http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/aug/19spec.htm
Yeah, it's that way....I mean, look at what we spend for nukes, armed parity/domination of the world, etc. Talk about money that could be used to lift up others... after the last 4 years, I could use some "lifting up." Think how good we would have it if we didn't waste that money the way we do..... Wanna do something for the people of this country, while spending the 1B per month?
I'm really moved by the idea of Rikshaws with mobile information on them. I'm sure that someone here could come up with a battery operated info server, I can kinda see the outlines but I'm not knowledgable enough for detail. I really love the look of the one in the photos.
I'm really moved because that 15-year old girl (in the story) will have her best chance ever of getting cached pages with up to date news, courses, mail, etc. Even if her parents DO take her out of school, she will still have better access to information.
The moments that she could sneek would fill her mind more than anything else she could possibly have seen before. That's a start... it's there for her to absorb.
I just wanna know who's gonna have the "wifi rickshaw" w/crypto at the Rep. convention?... Sounds like street mayhem! As a patriot, we can't afford to lose the "wifi rickshaw" race India.
It's under your viewing threshold. Click on the "1 reply beneath your current threshold." link to see it.
the rickshaw drivers are ex-Americans who lost their IT jobs to offshoring [troll ducks]
Equal Opportunity Spam
Table-ized A.I.
I was working in the NGO tech sector in Cambodia for a while and came across a similar project, which also made it to CNN. See Digital Home Mag
Rumor has it that this project only ever sent and received a handful of emails before everyone lost interest.
It turned out that internet is pretty irrelevant to the locals. The only people who got anything out of it were the aid workers who got covered on CNN.
An email connection that is only available once a week at best when the rickshaw comes round is not much value to anyone, especially if you dont know anyone else who has an email address. Teaching spreadsheets and MS Word is not much value in a community which has no computers the rest of the week. If you are reliant on subsistence agriculture like I suspect most of these villages are, you are likely more worried about digging your fields by hand than calculating crop yields. Telemedicine is all very well but irrelevant if you cant afford the drugs or surgery required. There is very little internet content relevant to a rural farmer. Any grand talk of eGovernment are pointless if your local government is not on line.
The best you can hope for is a couple of kids get a glimpse of the outside world and get the ambition and drive to get out and make something of themselves.
The people who set up these projects on the other hand get to pat each other on the back, fly off to nice conferences in expensive hotels where they tell each other about how valuable their work is, and of course appear on CNN.
In my experience as soon as there is a community has a purpose for an internet connection, the free market kicks in and internet cafes spring up like mushrooms. As any traveler will tell you most moderately prosperous 3rd world towns are full of internet cafes full of local kids IMing each other.
A better use of government time would be laying copper (or even fiber) to these villages so they could start with a phone connection, and then use government policy to keep internet connection costs down.
A better use of our resources would be to stop subsidizing our farmers so that the 3rd world poor can compete fairly and work themselves out of poverty.
Most of these high tech ventures get more media (international) attention since magic word IT is attached, while it is doubtful what benfits these serve and how long these ventures are sustained. Yes technology can better people lives, but in this case techonology is not the solution where the problem lies else where. Most of the Indian villages don't even have a library at all and opening a decent library is far more better and sustainable alternative than running these info rickshaws around, yeah opening an old fashinoed library won't get any media attention though.
The ONLY technology that will solve EVERYTHING
alright, so I'll say first I'm a pessimist. But even so, there is no such thing as a end-all be-all solution to any problem in the world. A startek typ replicator would cause an enourmous number of problems in todays world. The markets on everything would fall through the floor, and it still wouldnt solve the food problem. The main problem with feeding everyone is cost and transportation. Here in the states for example, we pay farmers to burn their crops. Why? because it keeps the market steady. Why dont we give it to india? 2 reasons, one: we'd have to insure that it wasnt resold within a market touched on by the US's because that would hurt us (and every country has to selfish to some degree). two, and the more important reason to me: transporting it to india from the mid-west would be a huge bitch that nobody has the money to pay for.
just my 2 cents
--Aaron
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Yea! You got the joke! Your mom was right, you do have a great sense of humor.
Oh I play Quake3 arena (I have a PC at work that can do better than freecell) ... my accuracy has improved a LOT since I started playing on the office LAN :)
... Programming is fun , but not for more than 6 hours a day :)
... and yes, I have no life.
I'm in office (software firm) from 10 AM to 10 PM , but somewhere in the middle afternoon there comes a time when work is too too hard , and I kick back with a little Quake3
Work ethic in India is a LOT different
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
He ought to have some kind of insight into this.
~S
The evil brown people are out to steal your job, beware. To arms my white supremacist brother, to arms!
;), it's just a lottery, if you die, you die, and there's a lot of people in India so no big deal). These people are not out to exploit you, these people are not boogeymen, they're not even remotely nasty, I walked through slums shoulder to shoulder and packed with men a good foot shorter than me and with skin as black as the ace of spades, and sure, they stared a lot, but I got no hostility, quite the opposite, many smiles, everyone was quite friendly.
Come on, this is all getting a little ridiculous, the general isolationist paranoia currently gripping the US is pretty amazing to me, I remember being in discussions in the late nineties with members of my family, they were wondering when all of us technological workers were going to get together and unionise like all other worker groups. Naive as I was at the time, I assumed and assured them in turn that that would never happen as it's not in the nature of those with the desire to advance technology in their modus operandi.
I still believe that to a degree, but the amount of times I see these alarmist they're moving our jobs to wherethefuckistan posts on slashdot and other associated sites where I come to watch my peers frolick and play in an uneskimo like way, I really gotta wonder if it's possible that all these people are merely dispassionate corporate drones driven into pursuing an IT career as a method to put food on the table rather than being a part of something they were passionate about.
I've been to india, I've worked there as an external consultant and seen the people, I've walked down the streets and seen the people selling steaks on dirty blankets on side streets, sweltering heat and tropical humidity, driving conditions that, to achieve the safety standards deemed near criminal in a modern first world western country would require reflexes equivalent to those of your average Ninja Gaiden master (and in truth, the Indians do not have those reflexes, there's a reason why they have those Lord Ganesh idols on their dashboards
In summary, fear less, accept more, move on, do not begrudge their attempts to make their lives better, because if you want to bring it down to a comparison of the downtrodden level I can absolutely guaruntee you they'll be coming out on the bottom.
Mod parent up, I would, but have no points.
And the Bills browsing the web auf Englisch.
Wirklich kühl.
Adeus!!!
A parallel discussion appears to be kicking off http://www.callcentrevoice.com/topic.asp?forumid=1 &threadid=4768here, but the gist is that the UK (or any other country for that matter) has an ethical responsibility to its own workforce to ensure jobs aren't outsourced overseas. In the case of India, the oft-mentioned poverty isn't really going to be addressed by competing purely on the basis of price. After all, cheapest is rarely best. Though 'exploiting' isn't perhaps the phrase I'd use, the conditions in many call and contact centres in India certainly don't meet up to those in the UK, and let's not get into language- and cultural barriers' discussions...
Might seem a bit like a plug, but the link above seems to be pretty open about discussing these things from either side. Personally, as a UK resident, I'd prefer to see jobs staying put in the UK rather than being outsourced or 'offshored' but the reality is that business is ultimately about the bottom line and most businesses would seem to value profitability over service and quality*.
Duncs.
First of all, lets not turn this into yet another outsourcing related to flame war
Secondly, being an Indian, I can tell you this (and similar technology related efforts) make a big difference. In a lot of different ways. While these projects may or may not fulfill their key goal (whatever this may be), what it does provide is a sense of confidence to the people. A feeling of being cared for by the government. A sense of being looked after. And then, all such gadgets/advancements still generate a sense of wonder in the people. There is a sense of novelty associated to such devices/initiatives.
The point I'm trying to convey is, in the more developed world, such devices or initiatives happen far too often (and maybe even at a faster pace). For a big, poor country, that broke out of the shackles not too long ago (we have been independent only 60 years now), such initiatives bring about lot of self belief and confidence.
http://efil.blogspot.com/
http://psand.net/itrike/
Strictly speaking a hand-pulled version of this machine is a Rickshaw (or Jinrikisha - Japanese for Man propelled vehicle) and one pulled by a bike - i.e. a trike is a Velotaxi.
The US is also spending large amounts of money on space exploration and arms, despite the fact that many American's live in poverty, without access to decent healthcare.
The US has such a skewed distribution of wealth that it could quite easily bring it's poorest up to a decent standard of living, with relatively little cost to the rest of the population.
I do get annoyed when I hear about IT in 3rd world countries. There is this idea that if you give the poorest of countries internet access, that magically all this education, information and communication erupts for the benefit of the people. That it suddenly gives people these magnificent opportunities to better their lives.
What a load of rubbish, lets first focus on giving these people quality of life. I am sure a mother of five would choose clean water, sewage and a decent home over being able to see the latest CNN update. I am yet to see evidence of the immense Educational benefit of the internet. Communication yes, but actual learning and the quality of learning material?
(Just to point out, I myself worked for "LearnDirect" and still feel uneasy about the training material!)
Lets first give people what the need rather then what we feel people are supposed to have. No one in the right mind should dictate the need for internet access to those who don't even have access to running water. Its Email versus E. coli in my mind !
I'm going to assume this is a joke, just like the joke I made. It offends me that you would dig up a comment that disgusting, but I'm just going to count to ten and tell myself it's just a joke. It pisses me off that you would presume to know me to make such a vile remark, especially in response to a very mild jibe at a nameless person in a CNN story, but again, I'll just tell myself it's a joke.
But you think you know me, eh?
<rant>
I too have worked with Indians and find them much like Americans: a pretty set ratio of good, solid, caring people (the majority) to mean spirited jerks (a small minority). I've worked with enough groups in enough environments to know this is a universal constant, like the speed of light. You can take a population of Mongolian shepherds or New York subway commuters or MIT engineering undergrads or Mexico City sanitation workers and come up with exactly the same ratio. A universal constant.
I know that outsourcing is just a rational outgrowth of globalization, that we privilleged American techies need to grow up and adapt to it. Even when my wife lost her job at a "family friendly employer" for taking a leave of absence to watch her father die, I knew this. I also knew this when I had no choice but to stay with the same employer and eventually work with the woman brought over from India to replace my wife. Dog tired from staying up all night while my wife cried for her losses, I still had enough sense to realize that this other woman was not a demon, that she too had a family. I saw which side of that ratio she fell on, but I'm not ashamed to admit I was still damn glad to leave that place.
I've gotten racist comments (thankfully, very rare) from elders in my wife's family because I'm caucasian. She's gotten harassed in the street in some neighborhoods (thankfully, even rarer) because she's Japanese.
With all that said, I think I've earned the freaking right to make a mild jibe, especially when I see executives outsource core engineering functions, betray their workers and stockholders (I am both) by mortgaging their company's future just to save a few nickels in the here and now. You want to pontificate? Try the parent post to mine or look around and find something overtly racist. You seem to be looking for it really hard, seeing it even when it's not there.
The real irritating thing is that I agree with most of what you've said: Isolationism and paranoia are screwing this country. Sticking our heads in the sand while bitching and moaning will not get those jobs back, primarily because they're not even in India anyomre, but on a bus to Vietnam or the Ukraine or China. I know that the tide can not be stopped, and that we can't take it personally, and that we must adapt: I'm going to a orientation session tomorrow (9AM on a Saturday: what was I thinking?) for my second Masters' degree. What are you doing this weekend?
</rant>
There. I've gotten it off my chest. I'm sure that I appear to be the exact opposite of what I claim to be. Instead of the enlighted, easygoing guy I'm sure I've come off as a petty, small minded jerk. Your comments (Tell yourself: It's just a joke... It's just a joke...) have pushed me onto the other side of the ratio. But you know what? I just don't care.
By the way. I call Godwin's Law on you for digging up White Supremacy. You loose.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Quite possibly. But so what? I made up the three points of Karma lost on this post within the same day. Now if I could only get by the time restrictions on posting. I don't care that I've posted 50 times in the last 24 hours- that's a stupid restriction.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You seem to be under the delusion that governments and NGOs care what we think. If you aren't connected or sufficiently wealthy to buy your way into the "connected", they are simply not interested in anything you have to say, though the NGOs wiil be happy to accept your tax-deductible contributions.
For instance, here's a one sentence solution to the energy crisis and global warming:
Replace fossil fuel with (probably cheaper) algae biomass biodiesel, and build NASA's space power satellite system using the JP Aerospace blimp-to-orbit as a launch platform for less than 1/1000 the price NASA based its original SPS cost projections on.
OK, it's a long sentence. Details at the URL below.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Godwin's law only applies to comparisons to hitler, White supremacy is significantly older than hitler, and I didn't really think you were a white supremacist, I'm real sorry if you took it that way, I wouldn't make such a charge to anyone I was not prepared to end the life of personally after doing so, It was indeed as you assumed, just a joke.
;)
;)
Everything else, we already appear to agree on, what am I doing on the weekend? whatever I want, The Man has no influence over me, I have not enough responsibilities to fulfill in order to *need* like I need oxygen his approval, I work this industry because I love it, that's all, it's my passion. That being said, I'll probably be doing something on the weekend to fulfill that passion, and at the same time, placate the man, just a coincidence, but I'm not going out of my way to make it any different.
Cheer up buddy, there's no argument to lose. Even though according to the continuing debate on Godwin's law, evoking Godwin's law also invalidates an argument.
Duh, stop submitting articles.