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Libya Purchases 1.2 mil Wind-up Laptops
An anonymous reader writes "The government of Libya is reported to have agreed to provide its 1.2m school children with a cheap, durable laptop computer by June 2008.
The laptops offer internet access and are powered by a wind-up crank. They cost $100 and manufacturing begins next year, says One Laptop per Child.
The non-profit association's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, said the deal was reached on Tuesday in Libya.
Professor Negroponte told the New York Times in an email that the project mirrored Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's political agenda of creating a more open Libya and he also expressed interest in purchasing the computers for poorer African neighbors."
BTW, were these things designed to be sand proof ?
God damn that Muammar Gaddafi, trying to make those African kids better with computers than our American kids. We need to get rid of these kinds of terrorists immediately, with their educating children and what not. What's next a Libyan bill of rights?!?!? Somebody needs to tell them that this is 2006, and the whole concept of a "Bill of Rights" is totally dated.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
... about third world countries needing food and medicine more (god I can't stand those comments!), here's a very nice article I found through reddit about what happened when an Indian computer chap put a comp in a slum in the capital city.
Its 6 years old but sure makes for nice reading. Stuff like that makes the OLPC worth it IMO.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
First of all every people should get rid of of their own dictator. But educated masses are the first step for creating democracies and raise the awareness of political and social problems. Maybe it will help.
Yeah guess what, charity doesn't work in Africa, it just keeps up a dependency relationship.
Education works. Laptops are a nice way of showing some effort on that front.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Man. Those Libyians are going to be really pissed when they find out that their plutonium wasn't used to power the laptops.
May the Maths Be with you!
Please do some reasearch. Libya is a huge thinly populated country with oil. It has the highest or second highest std of living in Africa. Most middle class people speak Italian (former colony). If anyone in a '3rd world' country can make use of cheap computers, it's them.
A personal computer can be a great way to improve education! You don't think they're going to be playing video games or cranking out word documents with that (printerless) thing, do you? Libya is not some super-poor country, either. They have an 82.6% literacy rate so we know they're getting some education. CIA rates their average risk of getting Major infectious diseases as "intermediate" so they do have some competent level of medical care. Considering all that and their 2.3% rate of population growth, I'd say Libya is a second world, or developing, nation. Not a third world.
And if their Jamahiriya government style wanted to 'rape their own country and KEEP those poor kids poor" why would they be buying the laptops or trying to create a more open Libya?
Demented But Determined.
Can't type, wind the crank, and wind the crank, all at the same time. An internet ready computer that can't be used for porn? Amazing!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Africa is not some dust bowl or rain forests full of poisonous monkeys.
It is a rich continent and although technology ("progress?") hasn't reached every corner that does not mean the images of doe eyed children starving to death in the middle of nowhere are emblematic of the entire continent.
Something the computer _CAN_ provide is information. What I mean is you can take all the supplies you like but unless you have a hand book or instruction manual those supplies (unless it is just food aid) are all but useless. Imagine having the biggest reference book ever openly available for you and your tutors. Want to build a damn for hydroelectricity in your village? Search for it. Want to build a wind turbine? Search for it then search for companies that can supply and ship components you can't make.
When you talk of providing modern medicine - yes, great. Now look at who rapes who. The "west" (with its extraordinarily tight grip of patents, trademarks, copyrights on most modern drugs) is implicit in the denial of medicine to these countries. Why? Because the corporations of the west will not sell drugs in those countries at the low prices required.
Libya is certainly not as ravaged as your post would indicate. It's a rich(ish) country with food, oil, medicine etc etc. Although maybe their dictator is a bit loco. Then again, he certainly seems to have grown up a lot over the last 20 years.
Other problems in Africa (Darfur, Ethiopea, Eritrea, Congo Basin etc) are cause by _WAR_. If it wasn't for the gutless inaction of the UN then maybe, just maybe those problems would have been sorted out (or at least the long road to recovery) long ago.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm ranting but.. well.. I guess I am.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Libya life expectancy: 76.69 years
USA life expectancy: 77.85 years
Yup, they're just about starving, there. I can see the corpses piling up daily...
The United States treats its socialism the way a priest treats masturbation -- it does it very rarely, with a great amount of guilt, and tries very hard to ignore the amount of relief it brings.
If Iraq is a classic example of 'how not to do regime change' then Lybia is a classic example of 'how to do it right'.
Regime change?
So Gaddafi is no longer the boss in Lybia? No, he's still there.
But it's a democracy now, right? No, still dictator for life.
At least, he's not a terrorist, is he? Well, it's been proved that Lybia has destroyed at least 2 airliners.
If the official story about Lybia was true, it would be such an asset for the current administration that they would be talking about it every day. Yet, Gaddafi's "redemption" receives a surprisingly low media coverage.
When you read between the lines, you realize that Gaddafi got an exceptional deal. 1. He got pardoned for his terrorist acts, 2. economic sanctions were lifted, 3. the US has stopped trying to kill him. In exchange for that : 1. he gave up a non-existing WMD program, 2. he paid a token sum to his victims' families, 3. he gave up terrorist activities (which he had not been able to pursue in the latest 10 years because of the embargo). In exchange, US/UK got 1. drilling rights for Lybian oil, 2. a good PR case for their "War against Terror" (TM) brand.
The irony is that, in 2003, Iraq and Lybia were very similar. Both were led by homicidal madmen, both were under UN embargo, both had no WMD, both were rich in oil.
There were just 2 differences. Lybia was actually a terrorist state and Iraq was not willing to give access to it's oil.
Guess which one was invaded...
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
Read here:u ll/443254b.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7109/f
The six are all foreign workers. Poor conditions at the hospital led to 400 kids getting AIDS, and now the Libyan "government" is trying these six in a death-penalty case to try to blame them for the poor conditions at the hospital.
Libya is a 3rd-world hell-hole, but it doesn't have to be. There's plenty of money, they just need to can the idiot running the place and get an actual government. Probably the best piece that I've read on Libya:
http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/in-the- land-of-the-brother-leader/12/
In Michael Totten's words: Libya is the most oppressive state on earth next to North Korea.
I would strongly suggest that anyone in Libya who may be reading this to read the "Declaration of Independence" of the US. There you will find that you have a duty to can the dictator. Note: DUTY.
Do you have ESP?
Have you thought how good idea it is? They have cash (oil) but it's pointless to just give it to people. But if you give computers to kids in 10 years time you'll have a lot very skilled computer scientists. And for quite cheap wage. Think how many western companies will try to invest in country like that. And it's much closer that India.
Question is: Are those kids going to learn something or just ignore those computers? Thing is that there're not many things to play with in Libya. Of course if you don't count sand.
That creates very intresting experiment. You have a lot of kids who have nothing to do except playing with computers. Almost 24/7. And they have friends who do the same... What kind of outcome we can get?
I personally think that Qudaffi is not stupid. That's a great investment in future. And great chance - where else can you buy valuable education for $100? If I'm right, we will see many other contries to follow the suit.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
Judge by facts, not because your own dictator says "evil man over there".
Yes, human rights are still a problem. But a country that just legalised imprisoning people without charge, trial, access to lawyer and for as long as you like is not really the party that should speak accusingly of other parties on this matter.
Get rid of your own dictator first before you tell others to do so.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org