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OLPC CTO Quits to Commercialize OLPC Technology
theodp writes "The One Laptop Per Child project suffered a blow Monday, with CTO Mary Lou Jepsen quitting the nonprofit to start a for-profit company to commercialize technology she invented with OLPC (the first of Jepsen's pending OLPC patents was published by the USPTO on Dec. 13). The OLPC project halted consumer sales of the cheap laptop at the end of December."
So in other words, she did an 'ebay' on them.
Norris Normal - Who am I?
This sounds like this could be great for everyone. Hopefully Jepsen's new career path leads to more and more products having the sorts of technology we're seeing used by the OLPC folks. She can continue innovating as the XO is designed and the OLPC project focuses on manufacturing, distribution, and such and then cooperate with the OLPC people in the future as their product will be updated.
According to the article, she is just moving on in a different direction, and will still help the OLPC project in her new capacity by providing parts at cost.
Not that I RTFA or anything.
You got that right. FTA: "I will continue to give OLPC product at cost, while providing commercial entities products they would like at a profit," Jepsen wrote in an e-mail.
She was responsible for designing the display, which, depending on who you ask, is either really novel and cutting edge, or a substandard compromise to modern display design. Personally, the display is not anything I would want for standard laptop-like use.
The OLPC has their low-power display, and now she can go off and make the technology available to other markets instead of keeping it exclusive to the OLPC. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
My initial reaction was "What the hell, you theiving bastard stealing technology from a non-profit organization" But when you look at it, what difference does it make going out and selling these cheap laptops for profit, firstly the main selling point is gone, and the market is gone, so its just another cheap laptop- all be it with a littl einteresting technology, but nonetheless, atleast here in the UK that market has already been entered (asus eepc) so, betrayal- probably morally rather than contractually (Sp?), good move- probably not actually.
A person claiming responsibility for some of the XO's innovations has left the OLPC in order to be compensated for her inventions. I don't see the problem with this. The power consumption technologies are amazing; hard drives, processors, and displays all consume a lot of power.
My laptop only runs about 40 minutes at full bore (i.e., if I disable all of the power saving features). There is much work to be done in this area. I'd like to see a huge transition from HDD to solid state disks (i.e., 2.5" and 3.5" flash-like drives), as well as from CISC to RISC processors, especially for servers running on the x86 architecture. The former is probably more likely. HDD pales in comparison to SSD for reliability, performance, and power consumption. We already have small devices that run on flash memory; why can't we use similar technology for laptops in the future?
"You could almost look at defense of Microsoft as a form of the Stockholm syndrome." -neapolitan
> Not to criticize OLPC, but I think they should just keep the "Give One, Get One" program going.
I don't. By OLPC's own admission, many have been getting DOA or flakey laptops, there is no support, and the cost of dealing with hardware problems on an ad-hoc basis could drive them under. I don't begrudge their program or technology, I'm just pointing out that G1G1 cannot ignore market realities -- and shouldn't participate in it unless they're prepared to jack up the price in order to afford it.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Or is there just something really distasteful about the way the OLPC was hyped, sucked obscene amounts of funding and ultimately delivered? Media Lab's always had a degree of self-congratulatory hype machine about it, but the OLPC at $200 is way overpriced, way too specialized as far as maintainability, and this little patent trove they've accumulated and will now "sell" to others is just the icing on the cake. This ordinarily wouldn't bother me but its all being done under the guise of helping 'the poor 3rd worlders' which frankly I think is nonsense. The 3rd worlders will build their own machines from asian/chinese parts and replace them w/ similarly cheap parts when bits break at basically the same price point the OLPC is selling at. That will cover 99% of the 3rd world just fine, OLPC is over engineered for a very specific subset of rural, dirty and apparently earthquake prone 3rd world. What they really built was a fantastic low power rugged laptop for engineers/field technicians in an outdoor rough environment (oil derricks, large machinery etc) (and I bet this is what the spin off is going to cater too) but funded it by having us think of those "poor 3rd worlders"
I wonder if there is some way to bootstrap this to get the price of high function cell phones down? After all the high end HTC phones are little more than palmtop computers that have a phone instead of a modem and NIC.
She'll continue to consult with OLPC and provide product to OLPC at cost. I think, I may be overlooking something, I'd love to see all of the OLPC tech released into the commercial market this way. It could help drive the manufacturing costs down and get the XO back down to the original $100US per unit goal. I participated in the Buy One, Get One program because I thought the hardware sounded damn handy, despite being configured for children.
I am all for anything that brings us closer to a similar commercial unit at a reasonable price as long as it isn't directly detrimental to the OLPC project. This does seem like this could go in a similar direction to the Classmate PC, but that would be the decision of the final manufacturer/distributor and would presumably require price breaks to be competitive. Honestly I haven't looked into the Classmate much, but I may have to spend a little time looking into it. I disliked having Windows on such a project, but I really don't know enough about the hardware to feel strongly about it.
The "consumer demand" for OLPC is based on its price and novelty, not on its performance or utility. She has jumped ship quite prematurely and her character flaws will soon result in a bitter future for the OLPC project and her own independent ventures.
If she thinks she can start collecting royalties on the OLPC and get rich, which is what I suspect is her intent, she'll find that it won't pay off nearly as well as she imagines and ultimately, she'll end up selling her patent rights to some company that somehow sees the OLPC operation as a competitor.
The OLPC project has proven to be a very interesting story to follow in that various new technologies were developed or improved while creating the devices. But it seems that there is very strong potential for OLPC to fail due to greed and short-sightedness. It's shameful, but it's neither rare nor unexpected.
In being nice.
You might make a living giving yourself away, but you wont make a real profit.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Rice and medicine are great in the short term, like after a disaster, but long term any free aid like that just kills local industry, ensuring that the third world country you're "helping" remains third world - and dependent on aid.
Laptops to poor people may seem useless (and I'm not convinced of their worth), but at least it's trying to change the underlying cause of being poor (access to production), instead of simply prolonging their existence for another day.
No you've got an educational laptop, you can find out what a quantum leap is.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I forget the term for it, but some charities operate businesses aimed at crowds not in need of their charity in order to fund the charities they are involved with. It sounds a lot like this move is going along these lines which should translate to what you suggest, jack up the price in order to afford it so they can participate.
Personally, I can see a lot of use for Tech in the OLPC project outside laptops. My understanding of the screen is that is doesn't wash out in sunlight so a variety of Fish finders, control panels, GPS units, and so on might be able to benefit from it the display tech along. And speaking along the same lines, Sonar -depth/fish finders units, could be adapted to use different and perhaps better processing power making use of more receivers for finer and more accurate results on less costs.
I was thinking just the other day about a passive sonar device to detect the presence of a human within a certain distance of a bus using normal engine noise as a base signal. Throw this on a small display pointing to the location of the bus and the driver will have a second audible and visual warning if he fails to see a child dangerously close to the unit, or perhaps one that has fallen under the wheel's track that might be missed when looking into a mirror. It could also record the data and allow management to instruct the driver the kids (or people) are walking to close to the bus as it is driving off. Both issues that could cause accidents taking small children to and from school. I'm thinking with four or six receivers and a little mathematics, this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. I think the OLPC device might be powerful enough in itself to power the unit let alone adapting the components to streamline costs that it is hardly a tick in the budget for poor school districts when provisioning new equipment.
Not only that, but if commercial sales result in higher volume, then the production cost will go down, and it's a win for everyone: OLPC users, consumers who buy the commercial version, and of course the open source software world in which this machine lives.
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OK, they need to get the price down to $100. Instead of selling them in the US at $400 at a 100% profit margin to raise money for charity, they need to just sell the things for $199 commercially and take over the low end market. In a year or two, they'll be down to $99 through sheer volume.
Those things ought to be in bubble-packs at the local drugstore, alongside the cheap calculators, electronic dictionaries, and other low end electronics. This wouldn't stroke Negroponte's ego, but it would get the things out there in volume. Soon enough, they'd be available all over the world, purely on price.
Jepsen probably sees this. Negroponte wants to meet with heads of state and be in the press.
how this as blow to the OLPC project, she is still offering her technology at cost to OLPC and still consulting with them. Also, because of the G1G1 program Haiti, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Afghanistan now have seed programs, which means that her technology is now on display in at least eight different countries[counting Mexico and Peru].
Unfortunately, too many people have this attitude, and it's just very naive. If poverty could be solved by mere money, it would've been solved a long time ago. The real problem is infrastructure. When money is sent, a large proportion ends up in corrupt hands. The problem of poverty is not a lack of money, it's the lack of stable political systems. Or, to put it another way, a lack of stable Capitalism.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
What does it mean when she says she will continue to provide OLPC "at cost?" Does she (or her new company) do the actual manufacturing? If that's the case, it's very honourable. Or does she mean "a reasonable break even patent licensing cost," in which case it's a little "evil."
Was she hired by OLPC? Yet she retains all the patents for her work?
The incremental cost for any patent licensing is effectively "0". (Note, I said "incremental" cost. Yes, there's development effort put into it, which may or may not have been on OLPC's dime, not her's. But whether they make 100,000 or one billion OLPC's, any incremental cost for patent usage should be zero.)
I'm all for a profitable commercial version; I'd love to have a lower powered (and physically powered) laptop, for so many different purposes (web browsing, thin client, and so on). I love the idea, but I wouldn't want it to be at the expense of the original purpose of the project.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
The linked patent may have Jepsen listed as an inventor, but it is assigned to "ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD ASSOCIATION, INC.", so I'm not sure why it's mentioned in the summary. She's can't use that without OLPC's permission.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Here are some links:
http://olpc.osuosl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1414
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-open/2007-December/thread.html#459
The general reason given for ending G1G1 was that it was a strain on the OLPC volunteers. See especially Nicole Lee's post http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-open/2007-December/000474.html
I disagree. Even though I live in a 3rd-world country I disagree. The first world gives *massively* in many many different ways to the third world, seriously.
What afflicts the third world seems to be disorganization, corruption, dishonesty, and low intelligence. That's why they're in the fix they're in, just like some communities in the USA (trailer parks, urban ghettoes, "artist communes") are third world status because they're filled with dishonest, disorganized, foolish people.
And we all know that these characteristics are absolute, because everybody in these places is dishonest, disorganized, and foolish, and they're all there because they chose to be there. And because all success takes is somebody to decide they're going to dig themselves out. It's not about resources, it's about willpower. These people can end their struggle and saunter off to Cigarandbrandytown and make a mint whenever they like.
No, wait, it's not like that at all. People are born into poverty, it's a genuine bitch to get out of it, and most have to spend at least the first 16 to 18 years in it by default, during which they may either luck out and develop solid values and see what's so incredibly fucked about where they're coming from, or they may experience quite the opposite and have their health ravaged by subsisting on cheap convenience foods, using drugs, and placing heavy value on trivial material possessions viewed as luxury items --never mind the education issue. And then leaving home with no financial aspects whatsoever is an utterly fantastic way to get set to enter the job market, where most positions available for people with no certifiable skills provide precious little room for advancement in either position or wage; the result here is either changing jobs a ton and seeming unstable or unreliable, or sticking it out longer-term with one or two businesses and then not getting anywhere and looking like a slug who does the bare-minimum to not get fired.
I could go on, but speaking as somebody who *did* grow up poor and pull himself out to live in a decent neighborhood and ultimately land a job paying $40,000 a year -a sum many of you will figure as paltry, but it's more than I'd ever anticipated making when I was a kid watching the cops come and haul away the latest drug dealing neighbors every few months- I can tell you that the people who pull themselves out are exceptions. Most people are stuck there because their situation is utterly hopeless, many of them know no better, and there is precious little in the way of outside stimulus to encourage them to get out beyond waking up every day and knowing that the people in the nice houses thirty miles down the road consider you to be the scum of the earth, which isn't really "encouraging" in the way most people would use the word.
Actually, it is called "social entrepreneurialism". I was hoping someone who wasn't a bitter troll could refresh my memory on this but it seems you made me dig out some information and look it up.
An example of this is Athena Partners who sells bottled watter as a non profit to raise funds for breast cancer. Baldev Farms which is one of largest Banana plantations on South India exists to raise funds for The George Foundation's Women's Empowerment program. IT is another prime example of this concept effectively working. There are more if you look around.
Europe is a net exporter of food.
Please people, can't you atleast study the basic isses of poverty and starvation based on facts rather than just having strong opinions based on assumptions? The info is on wikipedia, if you can't be bothered to even read wikipedia, you're not entitled to an opinion!
Your ass is correct. In 2006, the USA spent $23.5 billion on official development assistance, and $100 billion on the war in Iraq. (Iraq is currently the largest recipient of American aid, and one could debate whether that portion of the aid budget should actually be counted as part of the cost of the war. Before the Iraq war, the largest recipient of aid was Israel.)
But a banana plantation in support of Women's Empowerment, hmmmmmmmmmmm
There's a dearth of rugged laptops on the market, just a few and pretty expensive. On the other hand, you can get any number of delicate laptops that commonly turn to junkage within a short time. I think this project has really pushed the envelope and embarrassed other manufacturers into considering similar better/cheaper/tougher machines. It hasn't hurt, put it that way. There are different market segments based on needs and price, we need them all, there is no one sits fits everyone machine. You want expensive and delicate, you can get that right now, they'll gladly sell you one. You want real tough and cheap,until this thing came around, not so much doable. And one of the main points with laptops are they are portable, even *gasp*, the theoretical ability to use one out in the big room with the yellow light and blue wall paint. Regular laptops are pretty sucky there, the screens disappear, you have to worry about the weather, the battery life sucks with all of them, this one however claims it is actually usable out in the light and also has a few different self powered options, meaning long range "battery life" away from a wall plug..
I know I have been holding out getting another laptop, after having three of them, because I just can't use them outside. If I am inside, well duh I have a desktop with a big screen. and I don't hang out in starbucks and so on, but I am an outside worker and could actually use one now and then. But it has to be dust and moisture proof/resistant and be able to take some knocks beyond the normal lightweight commuter train ride and sitting at a cafe or conference table. Hopefully this better screen tech and "ruggedness" will induce other builders into making adult sized versions without them costing more than semi-decent used cars.
Interesting. You complain that I'm being too judgmental, yet immediately put me into a compartment conveniently labeled "typical American". Come back to me when you have some idea what a typical American is, my hypocritical friend, if you ever manage to successfully define what that means. Matter of fact, don't bother coming back.
In any event, when someone leaves an organization and takes key patents with them it is usually not good for that organization, because they no longer control critical assets required for their future survival. In such cases, that usually means that the organization failed to protect its interests, and the fact this woman is promising that she will make parts available at coast is just rhetoric: you can choose to believe it if you wish, but that doesn't mean it will happen that way. That's the only point I was trying to make, genius. Deal with it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Pardon me, "at cost".
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
One of the problems with a number of these countries is deforestation has altered the reflective index of the ground and, in turn, altered the local climate. Another problem is that there has been some level of dependence on natural reservoirs and natural water sources. All fine and good, except when environmental shifts have depleted the natural reservoirs and instability has impacted availability of natural water sources.
The cost would be high, but it should be possible to produce artificial reservoirs with (a) some degree of protection against evaporation, (b) some degree of artificial change in reflective index, and (c) some method of pumping heat. It need not be a perfect setup, it need only be good enough to capture torrential rains and release them slowly to farmers, and also encourage even a fractional increase in rainfall in the region.
That last one seems ambitious, but horticulturalists and engineers are experts at building microclimates and a microclimate is all this is about. A small microclimate that has a fractionally higher humidity and a way to exploit it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
However, it's darn hard to solve a poverty problem without money.
The real problems are complex and intertwined. That doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't be addressed. Of course, it's more points politically to serve up simple solutions, and in fact lots of aid is spent to prop up thoroughly corrupt regimes that happen to be useful to first world governments. Moreover, first world corporations benefit from corrupt regimes that can be trusted to deal with any unionization efforts with extreme prejudice, and who have no interest in making their countries self-sufficient in any way.
What the countries need in order to benefit most from money is a democratic government with relatively low corruption, but that's hard to get without a minimum level of wealth. Anything that will increase education and communication is likely to make democracy more feasible. Of course, any increase in democracy is likely to be inconvenient to foreign exploiters, and may well be opposed by people with money.
Capitalism is largely irrelevant here, since corporations are no more concerned for the general welfare than corrupt governments. What the countries need is government accountability to the people, and some actual benevolence from the first world would help.
This is why I'm in favor of the OLPC project. I don't know if it'll actually do much good, but it has to be better than sending food to people who have no prospect of learning to feed themselves, and handing over money to corrupt bureaucrats.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Shouldn't the patents belong to the olpc project since it was done on their tab. Nice to see ethics in the well educated.(not) I doubt she didn't get paid and compensated for her developments.
Did I miss a joke here? Since when does anybody expect a response when they send their CV to anybody but a personnel department (unless specifically instructed otherwise)? Sending it to a principle is tantamount to a crank letter as it screams that you have no idea how submit your credentials professionally.
It's not a donation, the countries it's being targeted at are buying these laptops. If anything it's an education scheme to improve a countries citizen's knowledge. It's going to take 10 maybe 15 years before we actually know if it worked of course.Since they're the ones purchasing the laptops I don't think it is appropriate for you or me to tell them what they need.The OLPC isn't a donation. The countries are purchasing these PCs. Western aid is off topic.
"If anything it's an education scheme to improve a countries citizen's knowledge. It's going to take 10 maybe 15 years before we actually know if it worked of course."
I think it may be sooner than that.
The XO seems to include a generous dose of hands-on, tinkering, write-your-own-programs tools. In many ways it reminds me of the start of the PC revolution. One of the really sad things to me is that during the 1980s there were really large numbers of "laypersons" who bought Commodores and Ataris and Apples and IBM PCs for no good reason, just to see what they were like, and wrote trivial programs in BASIC and HyperCard and so forth. People bought magazines that had programs slightly more complicated than they could write for themselves and typed the darn things in.
For reasons that aren't completely clear to me, this has all gone by the wayside.
I don't say that everyone who writes a thirty-line BASIC program goes on to become a programmer, but I'll bet that a darned large percentage of the professional software engineers of today were shaped by junior-high-school experiences tinkering with software.
The guys who invented the airplane probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the years they spent tinkering with bicycles.
We'll know that it worked when there is a sudden wave of software innovation coming out of those Third World countries, and my bet is that we'll start to see it in less than "10-15 years."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
What the third world really needs is actually for the EU to stop protecting its domestic food production, so the third world can start earning some export profits.
No, they have opposite goals. Companies by default are concerned solely for their own benefit, and any deviation from that to benefit other people is remarkable charity. Governments by default are concerned for the benefit of their citizens, and any deviation to that to benefit private individuals is corruption.
Don't be so quick to disparage it. While I'll be the first to admit that it's not really necessary for typical indoor use, the extremely high definition and brilliant contrast make it possible to use a portable device in scenarios you might not have considered before.
I did a month-long evaluation of an OLPC B2 prototype, and the thing that appealed to me most was the fact that it made it possible (or at least conceivable) to have constant access to information at all times, without worrying about rain, sun or shade, accidents, dust and most other kinds of things that make laptop-users cringe. The display played no small part in this.
I live in what the UN designates as a Least Developed Country, so I'll admit that my needs are special. But I can think of dozens of ways in which a device with similar attributes to the OLPC would be useful to inhabitants of the world's most developed cities. Their low cost and robustness, combined with their suitability to the task, finally give us true commoditisation of information technology.
This dual-mode screen is really impressive when you see it at work. It is truly innovative because it makes new uses of computers possible.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
If the OLPC is ever to reach the US$ 100 target price (even if we give it the adjustment for a shrinking dollar) it is via production volume of its key parts. Making them available to other companies via a for-profit seems to be the best way to do it.
;-)
It was always pretty obvious to me that, even if the XO itself does not bring a huge change, its technologies and its "less is enough" approach are bound to make a massive change to a very monotonous market.
Let's hope it's the next Apple II
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Thanks for all the interest in my new company!
some comments:
1) My new company *is* trying to explore the concepts of open hardware - and trying to figure out the right way to do it. I've been asking many people for advice on this: Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, Larry Lessig, John Gilmore, Brewster Kahle, etc. We are struggling through it. Hardware is different from software - but how can we open it up?
2) Doesn't anyone want a 50 Euro laptop? I do. I'm not talking about designing last years product for next year. Other people can do that..I plan to continue to innovate and invent.
3) Finally: I'm not taking my inventions from OLPC - I'm licensing them from OLPC. Why: An inventor has a good chance of improving the price/performance of her inventions. Why restrict her access to them if our goal is lower cost computing for the developing world?
Posted by: Mary Lou Jepsen on January 01, 2008
The third world needs an inexpensive $100 laptop that poor kids can play Doom on.
From what I heard, you're on the right track. Jepsen contributed her display patents to OLPC. She did a lot of important work for them. Criticizing her for going into business seems completely unfair. OLPC is a charitable organization, and is not permitted to compete in the market. For these technologies to take advantage of the market, they need to be developed by a business. This could be very good for them.
I think you got modded unfairly here; I don't think this is flamebait, you may have a valid point - I've seen exactly this kind of thing MANY MANY times now, here in Africa and also all over the world - one or more people parade as heroes trying to do some good, manage to get lots of funding, then produce little or nothing, and move on to something else and repeat the cycle. I know people who have literally made their careers doing this.
Should we let you die out and then our world will stabilize itself? Pink Floyd isn't anyone to quote, really, but they've also said it: Us and Them.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Hmm.
Is that possibly one of the reasons for the animosity from Microsoft and certain others?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I must say that I wish my successes were as "imaginary" as Negroponte's.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
My first program was in Fortran two and was a few lines, basically a Hello World!! I went on from there to a lifetime of software engineering. At the beginning, all there were was mainframes. The smallest machine around was the IBM 1620, and I could only dream of actually owning a computer. Today I own an 8-core Mac Pro. A machine thousands of times more powerful than those original mainframes. My dreams have come true :-)
I would have done anything legal and moral to have an XO at that age.
Redirecting money from the Iraq war to charity aid wouldn't solve very much. Not waging wars in the first place might, however.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
What about shop rights?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Well said
Ok,
I completely sympathize with your post. However, coming from another previously dirt-floor poor person, I think you might be a little too despondent for the poor people. They have more than a few examples of how to work out of their situation. My uncle is a classic example. My father and his four eldest have worked their way out of the mire and muck but my uncle still doesn't see why he's still struggling to not be poor. The problem is simple. He refuses to change. When he sees a good opportunity that he would like to take advantage of and he doesn't have the funds on hand to do so, he doesn't think "What can I change so that I do have the funds next time?", he instead thinks, "Fuck my luck."
My wife and I volunteer with several kids from my Dad's church along with my cousins from both uncles... The number one lesson we teach through art, sports, animal husbandry, and outdoorsmanship? Self-empowerment.
The OLPC is the best damn thing since sliced bread... If we can leverage it correctly. Teach the kids that they have power over something, that little PC is a good starting point, and they might start to see that they can cultivate change in their lives and get something a little better.
Of course I'm not all 'bluesky' sales about the thing, but life is full of trials and crushing defeats anyway... Why not try to get somewhere nice between the troughs.
My father and his four eldest have worked their way out of the mire and muck but my uncle still doesn't see why he's still struggling to not be poor. The problem is simple. He refuses to change. When he sees a good opportunity that he would like to take advantage of and he doesn't have the funds on hand to do so, he doesn't think "What can I change so that I do have the funds next time?", he instead thinks, "Fuck my luck."
That's a reduction. On the surface? Yes, he is refusing to change. But you are not your uncle. You have not endured the same experiences he has endured throughout the course of his life. You do not have the exact same balance of chemicals he has. He may have particular convictions, be they religious or philosophical, which predispose him to particular attitudes regarding the idea of fate or similar concepts. He may have psychological problems that are undiagnosed. And so on. Factors such as these may contribute to his inability to get it together and exercise greater control of what little he has in the way of finances. Even then, financial "best practices" won't produce especially substantial results for a great long while. Does he have any metric for measuring incremental success, so that he can turn around when things seem tough and tell himself not to fret, because things are in fact working out, albeit slowly, and that it's going to be worth it? And after decades of financial hardship, what sort of fear or anxiety grips him upon seeing a bill or invoice, and is it about the cost, or is it a gut reaction that might as well be instinctual?
Really, I know it seems simple for you and for me when we sit down and break apart a problem, at least from a very general conceptual point-of-view think about a few possible solutions, and then resolve to adopt one and see it through, but think about the difficulty faced when you're going through, and then imagine having some sort of block -beyond being lazy, which is always a possibility: plenty are, well-off and poor alike- which prevents you from even getting to the hard part. You might as well pretend that an illiterate just "believes" that they can't read, or that someone who had a traumatic experience with a dog as a child is being silly for being hysterically afraid of dogs in the here-and-now, regardless of whether they're being attacked.
That's science. If you can't face it, mod down -1 and claim I'm a "Troll" to formalize your impotence.
No, you were likely modded down for inflammatory rhetoric about the poor being dishonest, disorganized, and foolish, which does not meaningfully correlate with people having low IQs or any subsequent innovations which may lead to a particular society's lack of success, and that is what you're talking about here. Even so, your implication that poverty is merely a result of people being stupid, rather than the result of complex combinations of numerous factors as it is in real life, is a short-sighted load of hot air completely deserving of dismissal, much the same of your borderline-eugenic spiel about great pockets of dumb people fucking themselves over in the more destitute parts of the world.
I love the display. There's some slight banding to the color, but it looks very sharp in color mode and absolutely razor sharp in B&W mode.
That's science. If you can't face it, mod down -1 and claim I'm a "Troll" to formalize your impotence. That's not science. That's a correlation. Correlation does not imply causality. Are the IQ tests biased in favour of the US because they were developed in the US? If the IQ tests are unbiased, are 3rd-world IQs low because 3rd-world countries have inferior educations? etc. etc.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Sending a resume to the personnel department pretty much guarantees the same end result: No hire.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
And most of the people hat say that are millionaires. Go figure.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe Fake Steve is just tossing bananas for fun, as usual, but he's right, then she's waaaaaaaay wrong and needs to expect extraordinary start up costs. IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
This isn't a guaranteed way to learn, but history suggests that groups tend to learn efficiently when they have not only the right information but also the right conditions. What constitutes the right conditions is not something that is really known, but it's a fair bet that "Classical" schooling is superior in many ways to modern schooling when it comes to diversity and understanding.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
it's a win for everyone
You insensitive clod! You've forgotten Microsoft.