Yeah, but there's always the hypothetical Gates Constant to consider - the ratio of the number of additional lines of code contributed to F/OSS projects which wouldn't have otherwise been written had Microsofts tactics not irked, irritated and annoyed so many developers over the years.
An individuals sympathy is one thing, but when you start to upset large groups of people, it will bite your profit margin in the ass eventually.
The example I gave was close to the metal because that particular machine had only a thin 16k veneer of BASIC for an OS, but the investigative/problem solving skills I took from those experiences are those which apply productively towards any career or task, not just for programming computers.
Have you heard of the "Hole in the wall" experiment and what it has to say about functional literacy?
What once took advanced degrees and was limited to the realm of engineers quickly becomeschildsplay - that is simply a natural progression. The obverse to this is that a child in 2020 will most likely be able to do more with a computer than you can today with all your old-fashioned book-learnin'.
"What you can learn by watching TV is, to a large extent, how to watch TV. Video is a poor way to learn how to ski, skydive, sculpt, or sing. The nature of its presentation does not encourage thoughtful dialogue, discourse, or analysis."
Is interactivity not the major difference? With a computer you can learn how to ski,skydive,sculpt and sing.
Not wanting to get all web 2.0 on your ass, but the fact that the internet is becoming a less passive experience by the day, is one reason I remain optimistic about its educational role.
"There are laptops out there that are only slightly more expensive than the XO and superior in pretty much every way."
This comment had the following non-exhaustive list of qualities the XO claims.
1) High quality automatic WI-FI meshing.
2) Very long battery life.
3) Usable out in bright sunlight.
4) Highly durable and reliable design, with no moving parts.
Since you know of these laptops 'out there' which beat the XO in these categories out of the box, would you mind posting some links to back up your claim?
"If you really believe that the XO is the best thing since sliced bread then why is it that companies arent lining up to buy them for their employees? If it really was the best deal wouldnt everyone want them?"
What sort of company exists employs undereducated children in the first place? I thought the point was to develop the best all-round educational platform for children, not to develop a computer designed for the needs of a typical office environment.
"and i never went into who pays for it (i don't give a flying fuck btw)" then "what i'm trying to get at, is that a $250 laptop if a fucking waste of money"
If, as you so eloquently state, you do not care who pays for the XO, then why are you so concerned about the actual price? Upon whose benefit are you outraged?
"all they do with it is browse porn"
Would you care to cite your sources? Do not worry, I shan't hold my breath.
Forgive me - you have at least managed to convince me that you're not astroturfing, I'm just having fun!
I grew up on an 8bit Z80 128k Spectrum (+2). I learned more from that and its single instruction book (no internet) than I would have from an 'industry standard' computer of the time - because I could poke and peek inside it, because it was designed to be explored and played with - the ROM/OS even had little messages inside to reward the curious.
The point is, that these kids will be able to learn more about computers and technology with the OLPC because it comes from the same sort of heritage, than they could with a box which has any other existing commercial OS (or even just plain Linux) shoved inside.
It's about market share - which educational computing system will become the successful standard for children in developing nations? Intel have demonstrated that they are very interested in this market and will happily use underhanded tactics to claim it.
In this light it would make absolutely no sense to service the wealthy geek niche while Intel/Microsoft maximise profits at the expense of education, because by the time the OLPC had done whatever else it would take to satisfy you, the contest would be over.
This isn't an anti-capitalist hippie parade either, but quite simply that all profit which is extracted from these developing nations represents lost opportunity for education. Intel/Microsoft can either help or hinder, but they have no sympathy from me if they continue to choose the latter.
It's an education project, and giving a computer to a child who may not have even seen one previously has more impact than giving it to some inner city kid who would be able to access a computer at school or a library. This is also an example of why doing things because it is patriotic, is sometimes a quite short-sighted approach.
My parents were discussing the concept of introducing a 'property tax' for maintaining rights over IP to act as a financial disincentive for maintaining large speculative libraries of IP, which may be litigated upon at a future date.
My point in response was that a financial barrier already exists with regards maintaining and extracting a revenue stream from any IP, using the language of the parent, 'a fee or tax of sorts'. Thus pointing out that the proposed idea which garnered the response from my parent "OMG. This is one of the most insightful ideas concerning copyright since its conception.", really wasn't. Unless maintaining the status quo wrt the big and small players is indeed revolutionary.
Furthermore, I do not believe that I accused you of missing the point, rather I merely hinted at the possibility which you seem to have subsequently verified.
I think you miss the point that the patent or copyright application is irrelevant unless you are prepared to a) Monitor usage of your IP; b) Litigate or otherwise negotiate some mechanism for renumeration. Traditionally these steps have both favoured holders of larger IP interests because they can afford to retain parties to act on their behalf - c.f Britney vs. the next kid making funny about Britney on youtube.
It becomes a more level playing field when entities such as youtube start sharing ad revenue, as that provides a mechanism for renumeration and thus removes the requirement for litigation for IP holders of all sizes.
Surely the large IP holders already pay a fee or tax of sorts in that they have to retain representation to protect their IP portfolios? Whereas something like Chocolate Rain which unexpectedly gets 13million views, automatically gets placed into the public domain, because it would be too expensive for 'the little guy' to retain copyright over it.
I think in this case 'Productive' property would be reduced to that which you choose to litigate over.
I don't think it's a +mark or a -mark, more of a facet of humanity which needs to be understood before we can hope to turn it into something remotely beneficial.
The Milgram experiment: "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."
Try doing a whois on that domain from the same IP address which you used to do your tests - networksolutions have now blacklisted my IP from accessing their whois database just for doing a similar test with networksolutionsjustlostacustomer.com!
..that I tested this out using the domain name 'networksolutionsjustlostacustomer.com', which is still up for grabs.. but only via networksolutions, natch.
Torrent encryption was developed primarily to avoid traffic-shaping. E.g. a good percentage of those legitimately downloading Fedora 8 today via torrent will probably use encryption just to ensure a quicker download.
Slashdot Mirror
An individuals sympathy is one thing, but when you start to upset large groups of people, it will bite your profit margin in the ass eventually.
Have you heard of the "Hole in the wall" experiment and what it has to say about functional literacy?
What once took advanced degrees and was limited to the realm of engineers quickly becomes childsplay - that is simply a natural progression. The obverse to this is that a child in 2020 will most likely be able to do more with a computer than you can today with all your old-fashioned book-learnin'.
So are you defending hatred towards all poor kids, or just the black ones?
Is interactivity not the major difference? With a computer you can learn how to ski,skydive,sculpt and sing.
Not wanting to get all web 2.0 on your ass, but the fact that the internet is becoming a less passive experience by the day, is one reason I remain optimistic about its educational role.
"I would like to think I have been an influence on his distinctly digital life these days."
If he is accurate then it sounds like it could be a mutually beneficial relationship?
This comment had the following non-exhaustive list of qualities the XO claims.
1) High quality automatic WI-FI meshing.
2) Very long battery life.
3) Usable out in bright sunlight.
4) Highly durable and reliable design, with no moving parts.
Since you know of these laptops 'out there' which beat the XO in these categories out of the box, would you mind posting some links to back up your claim?
"If you really believe that the XO is the best thing since sliced bread then why is it that companies arent lining up to buy them for their employees? If it really was the best deal wouldnt everyone want them?"
What sort of company exists employs undereducated children in the first place? I thought the point was to develop the best all-round educational platform for children, not to develop a computer designed for the needs of a typical office environment.
If, as you so eloquently state, you do not care who pays for the XO, then why are you so concerned about the actual price? Upon whose benefit are you outraged?
"all they do with it is browse porn"
Would you care to cite your sources? Do not worry, I shan't hold my breath.
Forgive me - you have at least managed to convince me that you're not astroturfing, I'm just having fun!
The point is, that these kids will be able to learn more about computers and technology with the OLPC because it comes from the same sort of heritage, than they could with a box which has any other existing commercial OS (or even just plain Linux) shoved inside.
In this light it would make absolutely no sense to service the wealthy geek niche while Intel/Microsoft maximise profits at the expense of education, because by the time the OLPC had done whatever else it would take to satisfy you, the contest would be over.
This isn't an anti-capitalist hippie parade either, but quite simply that all profit which is extracted from these developing nations represents lost opportunity for education. Intel/Microsoft can either help or hinder, but they have no sympathy from me if they continue to choose the latter.
It's an education project, and giving a computer to a child who may not have even seen one previously has more impact than giving it to some inner city kid who would be able to access a computer at school or a library. This is also an example of why doing things because it is patriotic, is sometimes a quite short-sighted approach.
Unless they demonstrate the same unreasonable bitchiness towards the Classmate PC, I'm going to assume some bias.
My parents were discussing the concept of introducing a 'property tax' for maintaining rights over IP to act as a financial disincentive for maintaining large speculative libraries of IP, which may be litigated upon at a future date.
My point in response was that a financial barrier already exists with regards maintaining and extracting a revenue stream from any IP, using the language of the parent, 'a fee or tax of sorts'. Thus pointing out that the proposed idea which garnered the response from my parent "OMG. This is one of the most insightful ideas concerning copyright since its conception.", really wasn't. Unless maintaining the status quo wrt the big and small players is indeed revolutionary.
Furthermore, I do not believe that I accused you of missing the point, rather I merely hinted at the possibility which you seem to have subsequently verified.
I do not miss this point, in fact, I never stated that IP holders do pay a tax on their IP.
It becomes a more level playing field when entities such as youtube start sharing ad revenue, as that provides a mechanism for renumeration and thus removes the requirement for litigation for IP holders of all sizes.
Surely the large IP holders already pay a fee or tax of sorts in that they have to retain representation to protect their IP portfolios? Whereas something like Chocolate Rain which unexpectedly gets 13million views, automatically gets placed into the public domain, because it would be too expensive for 'the little guy' to retain copyright over it. I think in this case 'Productive' property would be reduced to that which you choose to litigate over.
Apparently the words 'wired ethernet' mean nothing to him either.
The Milgram experiment: "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."
Thanks for checking - for the record though I ran no scripts - the first whois query I made was the one upon which I found out I was blacklisted!
Try doing a whois on that domain from the same IP address which you used to do your tests - networksolutions have now blacklisted my IP from accessing their whois database just for doing a similar test with networksolutionsjustlostacustomer.com!
..that I tested this out using the domain name 'networksolutionsjustlostacustomer.com', which is still up for grabs.. but only via networksolutions, natch.
Like Radiohead? Seriously though, back up your claims!
Torrent encryption was developed primarily to avoid traffic-shaping. E.g. a good percentage of those legitimately downloading Fedora 8 today via torrent will probably use encryption just to ensure a quicker download.
But how many episodes before this invariably gets canceled?