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Venezuela Purchases a Million Intel Classmates
An anonymous reader submits news of the million-laptop order from Venezuela of Intel's version of the kid-friendly laptop. The computers are produced in Portugal. "The machines, rebranded 'Magellan,' will also come with Linux pre-installed as opposed to Windows XP. This order alone is 50% bigger than the entire OLPC project has managed to sell worldwide."
Kids don't need teachers.
How we know is more important than what we know.
As a Portuguese concerned about the education of the young and concerned about the economy, I must that these Magellan computers (named after Ferdinand Magellan, a very famous portuguese maritime explorer) are nothing but a huge scam based on portuguese tax holders. We are talking about a 900 MHz refurbished Intel Classmate PC that is both ugly, heavy, and marketed as "built in Portugal", which is _not_! And the choice of operating systems is appalling! We can either stick with Window XP or Caixa Mágica, a portuguese GNU/Linux distribution that is horribly produced, horrible to use, horrible to maintain, but thrown around at every state sponsored GNU/Linux deployment. No wonder people dislike GNU/Linux after using Caixa Mágica...
Indeed, Intel Classmate was rebranded 'Magellan' in Portugal for some government funded laptops for students. I wonder if it really will be rebranded the same in Venezuela.
Pinker's book belongs by all accounts to the popular science category thus I really doubt that it scientfically "proves beyond a doubt" that intelligence is "almost exclusively" heritable.
There is still a lot of debate in that field and current books for psych students don't present the case as settled.
But you know what. I am inclined to agree with Pinker but it's absolute statements like these that discredit him.
And the Bell Curve has not only been criticized for racism but also methodology.
Mostly, lack of education.
Moral education at home, and not demanding work from the students. Its lot alike to the US "No Child Left Behind". To give you an example:
A colleague of mine taught some years in high school and was dismissed because he was being to hard with kids. He demanded one kid to solve "1000/100" without the calculator. She couldn't.
Well played. Your post history slams or espouses some country in 8/10 last comments, but by not mentioning it here, I'm sure no mod will ever look it up. I guess I should have expected that.
But you know what. I am inclined to agree with Pinker but it's absolute statements like these that discredit him.
And the Bell Curve has not only been criticized for racism but also methodology.
I wouldn't consider him "popular science," since he uses hard science in the book and his research is about anything but a popular topic.
Stephen Pinker: Research
The entire point of his book is that intelligence and personality are heritable, in contrast to the "blank slate" theory which suggests human beings can be shaped or educated into having certain intelligence and personality traits.
Every book has been criticized for its methodology. Criticism alone debunks nothing. Do you have a valid counterargument, or are you just trying to insult away the problem?
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
rational people make rational choices. his socialist stance probably has something to do with his choosing an open source OS based on its merits. i mean, he had no problem ordering laptops from Intel. so i don't think he was trying to make a political statement with this purchase.
and in the interviews i've watched of Chavez, he comes off as a surprisingly intelligent person--i had no idea national leaders could be like that.
The ironic thing is that Chavez is actually a good leader and a very intelligent person, while the western media does its best to make him look foolish. Bush has the mental capacity of a ball peen hammer, but the western media does its best to make him look smart.
I hate printers.
The official details on the BOM state the computer costs 180 to manufacture, although a source told us 369 total
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
No, they don't. The government assured JP SÃ Couto that they would buy at least 500.000 units.
BTW, JP SÃ Couto was one of the companies that added to the shameful situation in Portugal about Microsoft's OOXML, by only showing up to vote in favour like a good lapdog partner.
This could perhaps be best viewed like a nice reward...
well, the wealthy minority may have enjoyed more privileges under the rule of his predecessors, but the majority of Venezuelans are not the ones driving in mercedes or bmws and banging pots and pans in the streets of their upper class suburban neighborhoods.
it's almost farcical watching the anti-Chavez protesters wearing their Gucci sunglasses as they denounce the first leader in Venezuelan history to actually act in the interest of the lower-class majority rather than simply marginalize the poor to cater to the rich.
Chavez should be praised if on for nationalizing the nation's oil resources so that oil profits actually go towards helping the impoverished native citizens rather than line the pockets of overseas oil companies--which is why he's so unpopular in the U.S.--not to mention the fact that literacy rates have increased significantly since his progressive reforms began, and he actually allowed the Venezuelan people to draft their own constitution via mass referendum. and, yes, buying up unused land from the rich and redistributing it amongst the poor to set up food co-ops to feed the local community is such a terrible thing to do. god forbid Venezuelan people actually get to eat.
but maybe he should adopt the American model and simply lock up the poor, or let them die from lack of health care.
but maybe he should adopt the American model and simply lock up the poor, or let them die from lack of health care.
I'm not disagreeing with you about Venezuela's reforms (I really don't know much about the country to be honest), but the above is definitely not the "American model". Poor people here live pretty long lives, and get plenty of healthcare. Unlike normal people, who go to the doctor when they might have a problem, and have to pay via insurance and co-pays, poor people (especially illegal immigrants) go to the ER whenever they have a problem, and get their care for free at the cost of the taxpayer and high hospital bills for everyone else. Obviously, this is a pretty big problem, and I don't really know the solution for it, but to say we let poor people die from lack of healthcare is completely wrong and dishonest.
As for locking them up, many poor people commit crimes, unsurprisingly, so they go to prison. Of course, with the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world, we're definitely doing something wrong. Personally, I think all non-violent drug offenders should go free and just get a ticket (and marijuana should be legalized); this would go a long way to relieving pressure on our prisons and court systems, as the War on (Some) Drugs is an utter failure, just like Prohibition was an utter failure nearly a century ago. But to say that poor people are being locked up through no fault of their own is also completely wrong and dishonest. They're committing crimes to get there, and these crimes (even the drug offenses, unfortunately) are crimes in most other countries as well, so it's not like we're criminalizing things which are legal everywhere else.
god forbid Venezuelan people actually get to eat.
Ever since his price controls went into effect, certain staple foods have become harder and harder to find. Milk is hit or miss, same with eggs and the like. Hugo is a weird case, he seems to be trying to do some good things, but unfortunately his actions are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and economics, much in the same way that opposite end of the spectrum small government no-regulation types do.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
The most pathetic thing about all this, is the total failure of the current US administration in every area it gets involved in. Take those world leader meetings between the hockey puck mom running mate and, those pathetic sock puppet governments.
Columbia it's drug problems and it is all the surrounding countries fault not the fault of US administration who is in charge, Iraq and it's terrorists problems and it is the surrounding countries fault and not the fault US administration who is in charge, Georgia and it's premeditated murder of sanctioned peace keepers and it is the surrounding countries fault and not the fault of the current US administration who is in charge.
Those three set piece publicity stunts where a damning indictment of the current US administration's corruption and incompetence. The only world (what a joke) leaders willing to be so shamefully used in a third rate publicity stunt, an embarrassment to themselves and their countries and to the US government.
Venezuela's efforts in advancing their technological adoption and bridging the digital divide is commendable and could only be improved upon by working with their neighbouring countries to create local ODM facilities so rather than buying in the technology, as much as possible is manufactured locally this of course would partner well with their likely contributions to FOSS software that are bound to result from their adoption of it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen