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Negroponte Responds to $100 Laptop Criticisms
teefaf writes "Wired News is running an article on the most recent developments surrounding Nicholas Negroponte's (of MIT) $100 laptop project. The project aims to make 'cheap' computers available to children in developing countries. In the article, Negroponte responds to the inevitable criticism from Intel and Microsoft, "When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right", and elaborates on his vision for the future of the project, "He also said the display and other specifications could change as enhancements are made. In other words, he seemed to be saying to his critics: Don't get too hung up on how this thing operates now, 'The hundred-dollar laptop is an education project,' he said. 'It's not a laptop project.'". The article also states that the initial production cost of the laptops is expected to be $135; the $100 price-point probably won't be hit until 2008. It's possible that the cost could drop as low as $50 by 2010."
Why do these countries need a widespread distribution of $100 computers? Have people forgotten that the computer is not necessary? I'll go out on a limb to say that computers have done 3 notable things over the years: 1) increase the powers of various militaries to create weapons which kill better, 2) make the wallets of porn mongers fatter and 3) help those of us with sloppy handwriting get A's on various projects/presentations.
I work with computers part-time (php/mysql and the like). My job is worthless. So is yours, but it puts bread on the table, alright? For some of the people that these $100/sub-$100 laptop/desktop/playskool looking devices are directed towards, there is no bread. There is no medicine, there is no fill-in-the-blank.
Just plain fuKt up if you ask me.
Still doesn't make up for the number of consumers he's manipulated; how many corperations he's destroyed; how many laws he's twisted; how many ideas he's stolen; how many patents he's broken; and how many governments he's lied to.
google.slashdot
Believe it or not, not everything is a good idea.
But this is.
I'm sorry, but I can't stand people who think that doing something is intrinsically good in itself, whether or not that something is actually useful.
Well boo...
fuckin'
hoo.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
These people don't need computers, they need security, clean water and medicine.
So take the computers away from them. Right?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Why, you ask, is Gates opposed to this powerful volley in the war on world poverty when he has been on the same side for years now? What, in God's name, could motivate this man, who has donated billions upon billions to humanitarian causes, to publicly critisize such a worthy project?
The answer is simple: That was Bill Gates the businessman talking.
Think about it. Windows Vista was just delayed the bazillionth time due to compatibility issues, because it's forced to include drivers for countless hardware vendors and existing software bases, just so it can install on most PC's. Meanwhile, here's an incredibly cheap laptop, of which there will be millions of exact copies; a ready development platform for the world's greatest open source developers to converge around. Sure the third world will benefit greatly from these bad boys, but just wait and see how red hot Bill gets when these things take 20-50% of the American market. Who needs proprietary, crashing software and overpriced, overheating hardware which lasts for 2 hours after a charge, when you can buy a $150 laptop at Wal-Mart and THAT'S IT! Never buy anything else until the next laptop. Microsoft will be gutted.
I, for one, will stand in line for one of these Ubun-tops at $200.
"You know, for someone who likes to mock people for being uninformed, you sure get a lot of facts wrong."
Oh to hell with it.
Flame on:
If people like you would actually even listen to the fucking BBC World Service (and even that is a big fucking filter), read a few books, and possibly even travel to some of the countries we're talking about, maybe you'd have half a clue. If one has no electricity or fucking clean water, then a fucking computer is the fucking farthest from your fucking mind and that maybe other issues, like food preservation, medication storage - IF YOU HAVE ACCESS to a fucking doctor, and being able to fill your rice bowl with some protein are probably on the top of your priorities.
But no. _You_ live in your own little insulated fucking world surrounded by the _wealth_ of things like bloody MP3 players (I don't have one! Horrors! and my phone doesn't have a camera! Oh what the fuck shall I ever do!), and think that you'll solve the world's problems if you'll just fucking give everyone microcomputers! Wow! How the fuck did the modern world FUCKING EXIST before FUCKING 1976 if microcomputers are so fucking important? Eh? I tell you what. Go without your fucking computer for two weeks. See if you're still alive. Then get your computer back and try going 2 weeks without clean water. Go ahead, get water out of the fucking stream near you with no filtering. See if you can tough it out for 2 weeks drinking water from a stream and not getting sick.
Flame off.
--
BMO