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How Classsmate PC Stacks Up Against OLPC
lisah writes "While the One Laptop Per Child project pulled itself together and shipped its first Beta machines, Intel was busy developing its own version, the Classmate PC. Inevitable comparisons will be made between the two (especially since OLPC's chairman Nicholas Negroponte called Intel's move "predatory"), so Linux.com's Tina Gasperson and her kids took a Classmate PC for a test run to see how it does in the real world. The upshot? Good battery life, easy to use, and great with ketchup. 'The Classmate is so adorably cozy it make you want to snuggle up on a comfy couch or lean back on some pillows on the floor while you surf. Good thing wireless is built right in. Too bad the typical Linux foibles apply. The first snag was having to log in as root to check the system configuration because the Classmate wouldn't log on to the network. Something tells me most elementary and high school teachers with nothing but Windows experience aren't going to get that.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
*My* biggest question is "What are these kids actually going to DO with these computers anyway?" The sort of starry-eyed idealistic answer given by OLPC is basically "They're going to use educational software to learn, use the internet to better themselves, etc." But take a hard, realistic look at countries like Nigeria and THEIR experience with an impoverished population gaining access to the internet. When poor Nigerians got access to the internet, they didn't use it to primarily to better themselves--they used it to set up scams, relay points for identity theft, etc. When you give a truly impoverished kid a computer, it's very nice to think "Well, he'll use that to go through years of education to get a job in a country where even IT professionals make a pittance." But, more likely, he'll see the MUCH more provocative possibility of using it to scam and steal from those with VASTLY greater resources than he has (i.e., us in the first world) with relative ease. Even if he can just scam, spam, and ID theft his way into $40 a week, it's more than enough to bribe local authorities to look the other way, feed his whole family, and buy himself access to a world which was way beyond his reach before. To him that's a good thing. To the rest of the world, it's a huge pain in the ass. In a way, it's a warped way of leveling the playing field and "redistributing wealth," but definitely NOT in the way the OLPC expects.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Typical American School classroom: 30 Students all at basically the same level (grade wise) Computer lab available if not in classroom. Textbooks for every subject. Library full of reference books. Teacher and Assistant. Blackboard, overhead projector, audio/visual equipment. Electricity, desks and lights. Computer access at home. Typical Emerging Market school classroom: Lots of students. Teacher. Blackboard. OLPC is designed provide more than just a computer. It'll be a textbook, library, play video, link to scarce resources, link to the world. It can even be used by the parents of these kids to lookup agricultural processes, how to build a pump to get clean water, medical information, lobby the UN and world bank for money, info on micro loans, check to see if their government is lying to them.
my sister spent 3 months in senegal and from her own account, yes they do abuse whatever they own (or dont own) to a pretty large extent. they managed to break a sturdy plastic fresbee (something which i've never seen or heard done in the "first world") and my sister's walkman, along with clothes, jewelry, shoes or anything they got their hands on.
what's sad is that in their mind, they're imitating us. they break them to show that they don't care, to give the impression that they're rich enough that they can afford to break them (even if it's not true, it's part of an image that they want to give themselves)