The article mentions that they HOPE to bring the price down to $100 per laptop through mass production.
I did a quick check on tigerdirect and saw quite a few laptop models in the $400 range. And they do a whole lot more than show some stick figures and share text.
One of the selling points of these laptops is internet access, which means there's got to be power coming from somewhere so charging batteries is not an insurmountable obstacle. Heck, build some pedal powered dynamos for the villages, which would help with a lot of other issues as well.
It seems like one of the goals of this project is to have as few skills learned as possible carry over to other computers later in life. I've got to give the man credit, he seems to be getting people to sign up, but I wonder what Dell could provide a country willing to write them a $100 million dollar check...
All that is required for Net Neutrality to remain is for Congress to do nothing.
They are remarkably good at that, especially with the divided government we have now: remember, it takes 60 senators to pass legislation, and the dems only have 51.
don't complain when hardware companies don't bother to release drivers, or other software manufacturers don't port their products over to Linux.
You can't have it both ways. If you want stuff to "work" on Linux, you need to get a large enough user base to make it worth developers while. Of course, in order to get that user base, you need to start making stuff work on Linux.
Example: Office software
The standard for office document formats is Microsoft Office. It doesn't matter what any ISO or RFC claims. To the extent that software cannot open, view, and save a document or spreadsheet from Office and to Office, it is not compliant with the standard. In layman's terms, that means it's broke.
Another example: software installation
Any time a command line is required for a standard install of software, the installer is broken. The process should be double-click, next, I Agree, next, next, finish(maybe one or two more or fewer nexts as required).
Another news flash: Windows is free (as in beer) for 90% of its users. It comes pre-installed on your computer. And the computer may actually be cheaper than a similar model with Linux installed, which means that Linux is actually (*gasp*) more expensive than Windows.
I believe the "free software" community is truly on the verge of becoming systematically self-destructive (if it's not there already). Consider the latest Debian drama where people were actually paid to do some work. The Horror!!
That's about what upgrading an OS is to most people. Your OS comes with your computer. When you get a new computer, it comes with it's own OS, probably pretty close to the one you had last time, or a newer version.
That's what MS is up against, and why Vista may be very slow in rolling out.
And while "freedom" is nice to talk about, a computer program cannot take away your freedoms. If you didn't have the computer at all, you'd be have fewer options, and be less free. Some computers and software may give you more options and abilities than others, but none take things away from you (at least in the context we're discussing).
My first PC came with 10k of ROM and 32k(woohoo!) of RAM.
All you need for faster boot times is to burn Windows onto a 1G ROM chip. Problem solved.
Of course, for patches and service packs you'd need to go and buy a new chip to install in your computer, so there may be a few machines out there that miss some critical updates...
According to the linked article from The Mercury News, this was most certainly not during a school function. Just because the school let's out for something like the torch event, doesn't mean the students are still under the school's "juristiction."
Students are under the school's jurdisdiction from the time they leave home until they return. If two students get into a fight walking home from school, the school is responsible.
I'll admit, I'm skeptical about anything done in a county that has riots when the government tries to pass a law that would allow employers to fire unproductive employees, but maybe that's just me.
Yes, we're going to get away from the evil American MS and save money somehow. Ok guys, now get to work right away. We need it finished... someday.
He's been very critical of the intel agencies that said there were WMD's in Iraq (remember, it wasn't just the U.S. saying that).
He believes Iraq is a stalemate at this point and is not sure if it is winnable: not because of lack of faith in the U.S. military to do the job, but he's unsure if the Iraqi's want freedom enough to stand up for it.
He has changed his view on global warming.
As to evolution, I'm not sure what his stand is, but since the origins of life aren't covered by the theory of evolution (which assumes the existence of life in its mechanisms), there's loads of well-reasoned folks on both sides of that issue.
Oh, and I don't think I've ever heard him tell a guest to "Shut Up".
If Warcraft doesn't get any better, online games will be nothing but a kill-this, collect-that experience.
Because Goddess knows, players in Everquest never needed to "grind"...
Seriously, WoW is the largest game out there for a reason, and there are many other games out there trying to appeal to different audiences. Someone in this thread mentioned that travel took too long in WoW - surf over to the Vanguard forums and see what people there think about that (hint: they believe EQ1 was the golden age of gaming and auction houses and fast travel destroyed the genre).
There's only so much you can do in an online game. FFXI actually had a great story, and let the players feel very much like the hero altering world events. But the grind and forced grouping in that game were insane. EQ2 doesn't know what it is: right now it's trying to be WoW, and not doing a very good job of it. Warhammer should be a great PvP game, and Age of Conan also looks very intersting.
Give a man a fish, etc etc. The idea is to provide educational resources so that they can fix their own problems because fixing other people's problems only makes them depdendent. You give people food and they grow less food; then if you are no longer able to provide them with food they die because they've let their food production system to go hell. This is the same situation.
Computers != education.
Educators are needed. Too much reliance on computers and you start allowing 1337 speak on exams. Again, it's not that computers are bad, but you start at the basics: books, blackboards, writing tablets.
Anyway roads are a very inefficient and wastefull mode of long distance transport. THird world countries would be better off with India's example which has the worlds largest rail network
Roads, rails, take your pick. People need a way to get from one place to another. Right now, they don't have that. They need a way to produce something and have that something shipped to markets. Food, for example. Lumber for homes. Pipes for plumbing.
OLPC is the communications infrastructure. Each one acts as an alway-on WiFi relay for the next. VoIP, internet radio, IPTV, etc., all can be distributed over the dynamic mesh network.
That sounds great, but it's a short range mesh. So everyone in the village/town with a laptop can talk to each other. They can do that now without computers. Unless that short range mesh gets a powered connection to an internet trunk somewhere the education use that is touted is somewhat limited at best.
I would invest in a communications infrastructure to support them. Ground up wireless phone, computer, TV, and anything else that can be broadcast.
But, before I did that I would build a transportation infrastructure, so there were roads everywhere people wanted to go and goods could be moved from one place to another efficiently.
I know computers seem high on slashdot readers' priority list, but honestly, America did pretty well without them for a long time. And many 3rd world citizens would love to have the standard of living that Americans enjoyed in the early 20th century.
I'm not saying computers are bad or not helpful. But the grandiose schemes of bringing them everywhere when so many more basic needs and wants haven't been met seem a bit misplaced.
When my aunt gave live hermit crabs to me and all my cousins without checking with any of our parents first...
Are you sure that Ubuntu is going to open every single file from all of their applications without any trouble. And all of their applications will work in Ubuntu? Especially the games the kids play?
It's may be all well and good until they find out that you broke the computer and little johnny can't play on it anymore.
Of course, if you're looking for a way out of future Christmas obligations, this may be a great plan.
automobiles in the U.S. than serviceman who died in the entire Vietnam conflict.
But we're used to driving in cars, and accept the tradeoffs. Also, we feel more in control when driving. Like the article said, once something becomes commonplace, it's no longer news.
There was a local news story some years ago about a town that was going to have a lot of houses moved and land dug up due to radon. They finally determined the risk wasn't high enough and they didn't have to do the digging. During the process, several townspeople suggested spending the money that would have gone to radon removal and use it to redesign and intersection where traffic accidents killed several people from that small town each year. Unfortunately, the intersection was "functional" and deemed not worthy of the towns limited budget.
I put terrorism in a different category though. There are people in the world actively trying to do as much damage and kill as many americans as possible. I sure as hell want my government actively trying to stop them. There are also very few natural or accidental occurences that have the potential damage that a nuclear detonation in a major city would cause. The first job of government is to protect its people. Aggressively when required.
For pure storytelling, I still think that was the best in breed for the Final Fantasy's up to and including X-2. X was close though, that was another good story.
Planescape: Torment was great, one of the first games to not have obvious "right" and "wrong" dialogue choices.
Baldur's Gate 2 was another solid choice.
I would have put Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in their as well, but I suppose they went with Jade Empire instead. Now, if only LA had wanted to actually build a game instead of just market for their movies, they could have had Star Wars Galaxies set during the Old Republic era where lots of jedi made some sense...
No, no. Al Gore only invented the internet. Google built it, organized it, and made it accessible.
Joking aside: many, many people get to the internet through google. To them, google is the internet (or at least, the keeper of the internet). They are not a hated corporation in the mind of John Q. Public.
So if it turns out that copyright law as written is bad for Google, they may be able to get John Q. Public's support for having it changed. Just think about what they could do with banner ads at every search supporting legislation or candidates.
You're talking about interfering with my God Given Constitutional Right to watch funny videos on YouTube for crying out loud.
We all know that Google is a Good Guy(tm). If it weren't for them, the internet wouldn't exist. So if they a law is bad, then it must be true. Fire up the politicians and let's save YouTube before all our entertainment goes away.
Slashdot Mirror
The article mentions that they HOPE to bring the price down to $100 per laptop through mass production.
I did a quick check on tigerdirect and saw quite a few laptop models in the $400 range. And they do a whole lot more than show some stick figures and share text.
One of the selling points of these laptops is internet access, which means there's got to be power coming from somewhere so charging batteries is not an insurmountable obstacle. Heck, build some pedal powered dynamos for the villages, which would help with a lot of other issues as well.
It seems like one of the goals of this project is to have as few skills learned as possible carry over to other computers later in life. I've got to give the man credit, he seems to be getting people to sign up, but I wonder what Dell could provide a country willing to write them a $100 million dollar check...
All that is required for Net Neutrality to remain is for Congress to do nothing.
They are remarkably good at that, especially with the divided government we have now: remember, it takes 60 senators to pass legislation, and the dems only have 51.
don't complain when hardware companies don't bother to release drivers, or other software manufacturers don't port their products over to Linux.
You can't have it both ways. If you want stuff to "work" on Linux, you need to get a large enough user base to make it worth developers while. Of course, in order to get that user base, you need to start making stuff work on Linux.
Example: Office software
The standard for office document formats is Microsoft Office. It doesn't matter what any ISO or RFC claims. To the extent that software cannot open, view, and save a document or spreadsheet from Office and to Office, it is not compliant with the standard. In layman's terms, that means it's broke.
Another example: software installation
Any time a command line is required for a standard install of software, the installer is broken. The process should be double-click, next, I Agree, next, next, finish(maybe one or two more or fewer nexts as required).
Another news flash: Windows is free (as in beer) for 90% of its users. It comes pre-installed on your computer. And the computer may actually be cheaper than a similar model with Linux installed, which means that Linux is actually (*gasp*) more expensive than Windows.
I believe the "free software" community is truly on the verge of becoming systematically self-destructive (if it's not there already). Consider the latest Debian drama where people were actually paid to do some work. The Horror!!
How often do you upgrade the engine in your car?
That's about what upgrading an OS is to most people. Your OS comes with your computer. When you get a new computer, it comes with it's own OS, probably pretty close to the one you had last time, or a newer version.
That's what MS is up against, and why Vista may be very slow in rolling out.
And while "freedom" is nice to talk about, a computer program cannot take away your freedoms. If you didn't have the computer at all, you'd be have fewer options, and be less free. Some computers and software may give you more options and abilities than others, but none take things away from you (at least in the context we're discussing).
My first PC came with 10k of ROM and 32k(woohoo!) of RAM. All you need for faster boot times is to burn Windows onto a 1G ROM chip. Problem solved. Of course, for patches and service packs you'd need to go and buy a new chip to install in your computer, so there may be a few machines out there that miss some critical updates...
Maybe so they can get the plates back?
Students are under the school's jurdisdiction from the time they leave home until they return. If two students get into a fight walking home from school, the school is responsible.
This was most definitely a school function.
This strikes me as a purely political move.
... someday.
I'll admit, I'm skeptical about anything done in a county that has riots when the government tries to pass a law that would allow employers to fire unproductive employees, but maybe that's just me.
Yes, we're going to get away from the evil American MS and save money somehow. Ok guys, now get to work right away. We need it finished
That Novell simply got tired of throwing money into a project with no hope of any return on investment?
I watch the Factor quite often. FYI:
He's been very critical of the intel agencies that said there were WMD's in Iraq (remember, it wasn't just the U.S. saying that).
He believes Iraq is a stalemate at this point and is not sure if it is winnable: not because of lack of faith in the U.S. military to do the job, but he's unsure if the Iraqi's want freedom enough to stand up for it.
He has changed his view on global warming.
As to evolution, I'm not sure what his stand is, but since the origins of life aren't covered by the theory of evolution (which assumes the existence of life in its mechanisms), there's loads of well-reasoned folks on both sides of that issue.
Oh, and I don't think I've ever heard him tell a guest to "Shut Up".
No, that is what is best in life.
But Crom still laughs at you and throws you from his mountain.
Because Goddess knows, players in Everquest never needed to "grind"...
Seriously, WoW is the largest game out there for a reason, and there are many other games out there trying to appeal to different audiences. Someone in this thread mentioned that travel took too long in WoW - surf over to the Vanguard forums and see what people there think about that (hint: they believe EQ1 was the golden age of gaming and auction houses and fast travel destroyed the genre).
There's only so much you can do in an online game. FFXI actually had a great story, and let the players feel very much like the hero altering world events. But the grind and forced grouping in that game were insane. EQ2 doesn't know what it is: right now it's trying to be WoW, and not doing a very good job of it. Warhammer should be a great PvP game, and Age of Conan also looks very intersting.
And of course don't miss this gem.
Loads and loads of great games on the horizon, if you just pick your head up and look around.
By these guys?
Or has their worked been made suspect or not confirmed?
I thought they ditched the hand crank?
Educators are needed. Too much reliance on computers and you start allowing 1337 speak on exams. Again, it's not that computers are bad, but you start at the basics: books, blackboards, writing tablets.
Roads, rails, take your pick. People need a way to get from one place to another. Right now, they don't have that. They need a way to produce something and have that something shipped to markets. Food, for example. Lumber for homes. Pipes for plumbing.
That sounds great, but it's a short range mesh. So everyone in the village/town with a laptop can talk to each other. They can do that now without computers. Unless that short range mesh gets a powered connection to an internet trunk somewhere the education use that is touted is somewhat limited at best.
I would invest in a communications infrastructure to support them. Ground up wireless phone, computer, TV, and anything else that can be broadcast.
But, before I did that I would build a transportation infrastructure, so there were roads everywhere people wanted to go and goods could be moved from one place to another efficiently.
I know computers seem high on slashdot readers' priority list, but honestly, America did pretty well without them for a long time. And many 3rd world citizens would love to have the standard of living that Americans enjoyed in the early 20th century.
I'm not saying computers are bad or not helpful. But the grandiose schemes of bringing them everywhere when so many more basic needs and wants haven't been met seem a bit misplaced.
But adding a single Linux box is an increase in Linux use.
Stacked Statistics Much?
When my aunt gave live hermit crabs to me and all my cousins without checking with any of our parents first...
Are you sure that Ubuntu is going to open every single file from all of their applications without any trouble. And all of their applications will work in Ubuntu? Especially the games the kids play?
It's may be all well and good until they find out that you broke the computer and little johnny can't play on it anymore.
Of course, if you're looking for a way out of future Christmas obligations, this may be a great plan.
automobiles in the U.S. than serviceman who died in the entire Vietnam conflict.
But we're used to driving in cars, and accept the tradeoffs. Also, we feel more in control when driving. Like the article said, once something becomes commonplace, it's no longer news.
There was a local news story some years ago about a town that was going to have a lot of houses moved and land dug up due to radon. They finally determined the risk wasn't high enough and they didn't have to do the digging. During the process, several townspeople suggested spending the money that would have gone to radon removal and use it to redesign and intersection where traffic accidents killed several people from that small town each year. Unfortunately, the intersection was "functional" and deemed not worthy of the towns limited budget.
I put terrorism in a different category though. There are people in the world actively trying to do as much damage and kill as many americans as possible. I sure as hell want my government actively trying to stop them. There are also very few natural or accidental occurences that have the potential damage that a nuclear detonation in a major city would cause. The first job of government is to protect its people. Aggressively when required.
I for one, would like to be the first to welcome our Game Rating Overlords. ;)
For pure storytelling, I still think that was the best in breed for the Final Fantasy's up to and including X-2. X was close though, that was another good story.
Planescape: Torment was great, one of the first games to not have obvious "right" and "wrong" dialogue choices.
Baldur's Gate 2 was another solid choice.
I would have put Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in their as well, but I suppose they went with Jade Empire instead. Now, if only LA had wanted to actually build a game instead of just market for their movies, they could have had Star Wars Galaxies set during the Old Republic era where lots of jedi made some sense...
They ran commercials years ago showing people from the frigid north somewhere (Russia maybe)? eating Dannon yogurt and living to 100 years old.
This is nothing new.
No, no. Al Gore only invented the internet. Google built it, organized it, and made it accessible.
Joking aside: many, many people get to the internet through google. To them, google is the internet (or at least, the keeper of the internet). They are not a hated corporation in the mind of John Q. Public.
So if it turns out that copyright law as written is bad for Google, they may be able to get John Q. Public's support for having it changed. Just think about what they could do with banner ads at every search supporting legislation or candidates.
that get's copyright law reexamined.
You're talking about interfering with my God Given Constitutional Right to watch funny videos on YouTube for crying out loud.
We all know that Google is a Good Guy(tm). If it weren't for them, the internet wouldn't exist. So if they a law is bad, then it must be true. Fire up the politicians and let's save YouTube before all our entertainment goes away.