Slashdot Mirror
Cuba Lifts Ban on Home Computers
ianare writes "The first legalized home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. The desktop computers cost almost $800, in a country where the average wage is under $20 a month, but some Cubans do have access to extra income. Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island which the government claims is due to low bandwidth availability. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean, but it remains unclear whether once the connection is completed, the authorities will allow unrestricted access to the internet."
At $800 for a new PC, I think that Cubans are going to resort to doing what they did with cars; taking pre-revolution ones and keeping them going for 40-50 years.
Unfortunately, I think they'll have trouble getting the valves/tubes for those old 1950s models, and they probably won't be of a high enough spec to run the latest malware.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
DEAR AMERICANO - I HAVE BEEN LIVING CUBA SINCE 1951. MY FATHER HAS STASHED AWAY 500 MILLION BILION CUBAN PESSOS IN BASEMENT HERE IN HABANNNNA. HE ALSO HAS LARGE SUPPLY OF CUBBAN CIGARILLOS THAT HE BEEN QUIETLY TAKING ONE PER DAY SINCE 1962 FROM CIGAR FACTORY. HE NEEEDS HELP GETTING THEM OFF OF THE ISLAND INTO AMERIKA. PLEASE SEND YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION AND WE SPLIT THIS, GIVE YOU 10% OF PROFITTS. GRACIAS!
I imagine that there will be copies of Microsoft windows on pc's, and the dvd's will have a fee paid to hollywood licensing body at the mpiaa. Will Steve Balmer find himself in American prison for selling to Cuba ? Since no doubt some of this money comes from outside Cuba, are not the citizens of America helping propping up Fidel and his cronies. Will the bank records be used to hunt down these people. The US Treasury should be vigilant and like it did with the cuban inspired domain names enforce the laws to stop trade with Cuba (and covered here on Slashdot). Theres also the patent aspects, somebody in Cuba must be in breach of some us pto patents.
I'd be happy to send them every copy of Vista that I own, but that might scare them back into severe isolation.
Invenio via vel creo
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
myselfmusic
"I got the clutch working by stealing about 4 feet of wire from a fence, and winding it back and forth between the pedal lever and the clutch release arm."
Hell...I did something similar with my last car...the part was $300 from Saturn, and I was like BULLSHIT because it was a tiny piece of the part that broke. Ended up drilling two holes, grabbing some wire (this is where you caught me...I had fencing wire in my garage...nice heavy gauge) and wove it between the two pieces. I kept it that way until I bought my new car and the gears never seemed so smooth before this hack.
Unfortunately, when I traded it in, I thought I better tell the mechanic -- they gave me all of $500 for trade-in value because it was held together with duct tape and wire. Should not have said anything at all...
The fact that we don't need to rely on ourselves, the fact that we have other people do our dirty work for us, that makes us Superior.
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