Meanwhile, they were still building and promoting the Classmate the whole time.
Is there ANYTHING wrong with that? Classmate is a more powerful and more expensive system than XO. It is a better fit for older kids and it simply has more computing potential. There simply isn't going to be one, and only one, machine for every child not in a wealthy developed country.
So before you go mouthing off about how OLPC is the one keeping laptops out of the hands of children, keep in mind all of what I said so far and then keep in mind that these kids were getting ZERO laptops prior to Negroponte's efforts and that Intel and others had no interest in this shit whatsoever prior to the OLPC project (at which point Intel realised there was a metric fuck-ton of profit to be made of the destitude children of the third world).
First, that is a load of shit. What makes Negroponte different is that he was vocal about it. Everybody had interest, but there was no practical way to deliver the product. Remember, they were mouthing off about a $100 laptop. That didn't materialize. The laptop is $200 with a high rate of failure.
Second, you make it sound like if Negroponte had started this 10 years earlier, third world kids would have had machines 10 years earlier. The most important factors of this whole "laptops for kids" thing are the price of components and the purchasing power of the countries involved. So while you think, unfounded, that nobody took notice of the market until Negroponte, the truth is somewhat more economical: all these companies were doing studies on these emerging markets and realized the price point at which one could profitably sell a system at, and what these places could pay, had not yet reached parity. We are at the early cusp of when the price at which a laptop can be made reaches the price at what can be afforded.
There was much saber rattling about a $100 laptop to which the "big guys" scoffed at. Why? Because they knew that the component price alone would exceed that cost. The price will EVENTUALLY get to that point, at which point you're going to say "see you were wrong!" As anyone who bought an IBM PC 5150 for $8000 can tell you, cost goes down over time.
You got one thing right...there's no failure of capitalism here. It's working as well as it always does.
Yes. Intel used its free market right to leave an idiotic organization that is more obsessed with being the only solution than with getting systems into the hands of the world's poor. Seriously, why would OLPC care if Intel was working with ASUS? You must be kidding. Classmate is more expensive and more powerful which is what older kids need...are you fucking kidding me? These kids have never seen a fucking computer and now you're telling me they need one more powerful than the OLPC. Uh, ok maybe that's the way things work in bizzaro world.
As for everybody having interest...they had interest but did NOTHING until he started this. You can come up with whatever excuse you want but the fact is that he got the ball rolling. Intel didn't care until they realised they had a marketshare issue to contend with. So please spare me the cost of parts bullshit. The cost was a HUGE factor for the OLPC because the OLPC has tech that these other laptops don't (like viewability in daylight). Nice try though.
As for an idiotic organization more obsessed with being the only solution...that's not true. Negroponte is pissed because he started something that nobody else had done and then the big corps suddenly realised the profit issues at stake and decided to piss on his cornflakes. This guy put his whole life into this so I'd say he has a right to be pretty fucking pissed off. It's about money for them but not for him. Intel and Msft don't give a flying fuck about kids who can't read and use computers -- he does.
Exactly. It should also be noted that not-for-profit refers only to the entity; it's goal isn't to make wealth that is distributed to its shareholders. Salaries are still paid to NFPs' employees including the principals who founded the institutions. Sometimes these salaries are very high.
However, this isn't a failure of capitalism. Capitalism allowed the OLPC to be created at all levels, and it was OLPC wanting Intel to cease it's production of more cheap laptops that caused Intel (who had previously done a great deal of good for the project) to step out. OLPC wanted to be the only game in town. Having more cheap laptops for children in the world is a good thing, regardless of who makes them. If the XO is a better laptop, then people will get those. If OLPC can't meet the demand because their product is too good, better to have a Classmate than nothing. So if you want to demonize someone for keeping cheap laptops out of childrens' hands, then demonize OLPC for biting the hand that feeds it.
For starters, Negroponte makes ZERO DOLLARS from his OLPC organization. The organization's CFO makes ZERO DOLLARS. So your first point is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. As for Intel doing a "great deal of good" for the project...PLEASE explain how. They supposedly gave them some money but it's not clear how much. Meanwhile, they were still building and promoting the Classmate the whole time. The primary reason for the alliance was just so they would stop sniping at each other in the press. So before you go mouthing off about how OLPC is the one keeping laptops out of the hands of children, keep in mind all of what I said so far and then keep in mind that these kids were getting ZERO laptops prior to Negroponte's efforts and that Intel and others had no interest in this shit whatsoever prior to the OLPC project (at which point Intel realised there was a metric fuck-ton of profit to be made of the destitude children of the third world). You got one thing right...there's no failure of capitalism here. It's working as well as it always does.
Yeah, it says IE7 has 37% of the market and Firefox has 36%. So please explain to me your statement: "In the time it has come out, more people have adopted that single version of internet explorer than are using all versions of firefox combined."
Only on slashdot is right...
Every government is owned by money, whether it's corporations, individuals, or other organizations. Some countries just hide it better. Thinking otherwise just shows your naiveté. The old saying, "money makes the world go 'round" doesn't just apply to the USA. If you find a country where greed doesn't exist, please let me know. I'd like to meet these people who are so evolved.
I call bullshit on this. PC World either tests very few laptops or they simply don't know what the hell they are doing. There's several gaming laptops out there outfitted with Core 2 Duo Extreme chips and dual SLI configured nVidia video cards that would blow the doors off of the MacBook Pro. Seriously, it's not even a competition. That's not intended at all as a slight against Apple but aimed purely at the questionable reputation of PC World.
You can actually get more than a 8x speed up by smartly exploiting a shared cache between cores. Your post is so vague, that it is pointless. You might want to be more specific because otherwise I could easily just say "no you can't" and I'd be just as right.
Actually the odds are far more likely that he doesn't really need all 3500 books. There are a lot of people who feel the need to collect things to fill psycological holes.
1) Any network connected to the internet can be hacked given enough time. Some of these institutions are extremely attractive to hackers all over the world and it's inevitable they will be hacked. Classified material should never be stored or accessible to computers that are connected to the internet in any way. The lab in question is not a military lab so they probably have significantly more lax standards regarding the handling of such material.
2) People like to talk about a lack of military security but most of what you hear is bullshit. The military doesn't allow ANY sensitive information to be accessible to ANY computer or network that can connect to the internet or any other form of public access (such as a BBS). There's a lot more to that statement but I can assure you that short of someone putting material where it simply doesn't belong, it's just not possible to access it. In fact, this rule has been in place since before the internet.
You need to read more carefully. I'm not saying those people deserve to be there. I don't know if they do. I'm simply saying that your statement that they can only detain and abuse non U.S. citizens is simply incorrect. Being a citizen does NOT protect you from being detained or abused for the duration of the "war on terrorism" which could be forever.
Regarding getting your facts straight...
Please explain why you can mistreat people just because they aren't U.S. citizens. Technically, they can mistreat you even if you are a U.S. citizen, and they have.
But, don't pretend that American interests weren't being served when these treaties were signed. Just to clarify, it was American corporate interests that were being served. The average American either a) doesn't know anything about this stuff, or b) doesn't give a shit what happens to the *AAs.
1) Msft doesn't like the Classmate simply because it doesn't push Msft technology (duh).
2) Intel joined the OLPC project for the sole reason of keeping Negroponte & Co. from being able to disparage them (and vice versa). Otherwise, they want the OLPC to die a rapid and painful death so that their classmate can succeed.
3) AMD Geode chips are extremely low power. I'm sure Intel will come out with a faster chip and it may be low power but I have yet to see anything that says they are better than the Geode. Even if they are, the OLPC is available now. They aren't waiting for 2008 for Intel to *maybe* come out with something slightly better. In any event, these kids don't care either way.
4) Both Msft and Intel have realised (thanks to Negroponte) that there's a giant market of several billion people who don't have PCs. They also realise that even if they only make $5 per laptop, that's a shitload of money.
But hey, keep defending them. They're so transparent a blind man can see what they're doing. Prior to the OLPC, neither company gave a rat's ass about the developing world's children.
I was just at the site and it was asking for $200 per donation. I input that I would like to donate 2 laptops and it came up with a total of $400. So, I don't know where you got your information from but it is not accurate at the time of this posting.
Laws vary from state to state but in most states a company can fire you for any reason or no reason whatsoever. The only restriction being you cannot terminate someone purely for race, gender, etc. On the flip side, an employee can quit with no advance notice for any reason he/she chooses. Two weeks notice is merely the custom.
In the case of layoffs, companies will generally pay severance based on time served with the company. It's a corporate policy at most companies but is not required by law (although it can potentially be required as part of a contract). Companies do it for morale reasons and to not piss off the people who aren't being layed off.
"Actually, with the iPod and iTunes, it was made really easy for people to rip CDs, and was advertised as such, so most people could load the content they already had."
I beg to differ. There were numerous easy to use tools available for ripping CDs long before iTunes. It was the full integration from top to bottom with purchasing albums that put it over the top. Although, it really doesn't matter. You can't "rip" a book except in the literal sense anyway and 99.99% of the population doesn't already own books in electronic form. So, they don't give a damn about that.
As for Amazon locking people in...well, that's worked pretty well for Apple. The millions of songs they sell via iTunes (with the exception of very recently) have all been DRM laden and the DRM they use is even proprietary. Apple also strong-arms the record companies. Amazon DOES, in fact, work with publishers (look at the damn catalog if you don't believe me). They offer direct publishing to authors as well but that's mostly to appeal to the self-published at this point. I don't see major authors switching to this model anytime soon. Even if they do, why do I give a damn about the publishers? If their business model is dead, then that's just too damn bad.
Re:Don't understand the Kindle at all... for the..
on
Kindle Versus The iPhone
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The Kindle may fail but not for the reasons you speak about.
"Profit on hardware, profit on software, even profit on content the user already owns."
Sounds a lot like the iPod and iTunes which of course were total failures...
This is about providing content people want in a very convenient fashion with a nice interface...just like the iPod and iTunes. Amazon is going one better though by offering books for significantly less than what you'd pay for their paper-based brethren.
As for the lack of PDF support...this is a non-issue since you can get free software that will convert PDF to mobi (which kindle does support). I also think the need for PDF support is way overplayed. If I bought it, it would be to read books -- not to read random white papers I downloaded from the web.
Kindle may fail but it will fail because people simply can't make the leap from paper to digital when it comes to books. There's something about holding a book in your hands that can't be beat, imho. That said, having a dictionary at the ready as well as wikipedia look-ups is very nice. When I read I usually keep a dicitionary nearby but it has to be a fat one with a huge number of entries to be worth a damn and I don't like keeping a fat book on my bed like that. The Kindle is cool but paper may still be cooler.
Learn how to read. CIA != NSA.
In regards to your off topic remark, every organization of any reasonable size has people that aren't very smart or are ruled more by their egos than what's actually best for the organization (or country as the case may be). It's called human nature. Get used to it.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with patriotism and can be applied to any person in any country on earth. Perhaps if you studied history a bit more you'd understand what that sentence actually means.
Slashdot Mirror
If they got one, it wouldn't do any good because they have no electricity.
Is there ANYTHING wrong with that? Classmate is a more powerful and more expensive system than XO. It is a better fit for older kids and it simply has more computing potential. There simply isn't going to be one, and only one, machine for every child not in a wealthy developed country.
So before you go mouthing off about how OLPC is the one keeping laptops out of the hands of children, keep in mind all of what I said so far and then keep in mind that these kids were getting ZERO laptops prior to Negroponte's efforts and that Intel and others had no interest in this shit whatsoever prior to the OLPC project (at which point Intel realised there was a metric fuck-ton of profit to be made of the destitude children of the third world).
First, that is a load of shit. What makes Negroponte different is that he was vocal about it. Everybody had interest, but there was no practical way to deliver the product. Remember, they were mouthing off about a $100 laptop. That didn't materialize. The laptop is $200 with a high rate of failure.
Second, you make it sound like if Negroponte had started this 10 years earlier, third world kids would have had machines 10 years earlier. The most important factors of this whole "laptops for kids" thing are the price of components and the purchasing power of the countries involved. So while you think, unfounded, that nobody took notice of the market until Negroponte, the truth is somewhat more economical: all these companies were doing studies on these emerging markets and realized the price point at which one could profitably sell a system at, and what these places could pay, had not yet reached parity. We are at the early cusp of when the price at which a laptop can be made reaches the price at what can be afforded.
There was much saber rattling about a $100 laptop to which the "big guys" scoffed at. Why? Because they knew that the component price alone would exceed that cost. The price will EVENTUALLY get to that point, at which point you're going to say "see you were wrong!" As anyone who bought an IBM PC 5150 for $8000 can tell you, cost goes down over time.
You got one thing right...there's no failure of capitalism here. It's working as well as it always does.
Yes. Intel used its free market right to leave an idiotic organization that is more obsessed with being the only solution than with getting systems into the hands of the world's poor. Seriously, why would OLPC care if Intel was working with ASUS? You must be kidding. Classmate is more expensive and more powerful which is what older kids need...are you fucking kidding me? These kids have never seen a fucking computer and now you're telling me they need one more powerful than the OLPC. Uh, ok maybe that's the way things work in bizzaro world. As for everybody having interest...they had interest but did NOTHING until he started this. You can come up with whatever excuse you want but the fact is that he got the ball rolling. Intel didn't care until they realised they had a marketshare issue to contend with. So please spare me the cost of parts bullshit. The cost was a HUGE factor for the OLPC because the OLPC has tech that these other laptops don't (like viewability in daylight). Nice try though. As for an idiotic organization more obsessed with being the only solution...that's not true. Negroponte is pissed because he started something that nobody else had done and then the big corps suddenly realised the profit issues at stake and decided to piss on his cornflakes. This guy put his whole life into this so I'd say he has a right to be pretty fucking pissed off. It's about money for them but not for him. Intel and Msft don't give a flying fuck about kids who can't read and use computers -- he does.
Exactly. It should also be noted that not-for-profit refers only to the entity; it's goal isn't to make wealth that is distributed to its shareholders. Salaries are still paid to NFPs' employees including the principals who founded the institutions. Sometimes these salaries are very high.
However, this isn't a failure of capitalism. Capitalism allowed the OLPC to be created at all levels, and it was OLPC wanting Intel to cease it's production of more cheap laptops that caused Intel (who had previously done a great deal of good for the project) to step out. OLPC wanted to be the only game in town. Having more cheap laptops for children in the world is a good thing, regardless of who makes them. If the XO is a better laptop, then people will get those. If OLPC can't meet the demand because their product is too good, better to have a Classmate than nothing. So if you want to demonize someone for keeping cheap laptops out of childrens' hands, then demonize OLPC for biting the hand that feeds it.
For starters, Negroponte makes ZERO DOLLARS from his OLPC organization. The organization's CFO makes ZERO DOLLARS. So your first point is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. As for Intel doing a "great deal of good" for the project...PLEASE explain how. They supposedly gave them some money but it's not clear how much. Meanwhile, they were still building and promoting the Classmate the whole time. The primary reason for the alliance was just so they would stop sniping at each other in the press. So before you go mouthing off about how OLPC is the one keeping laptops out of the hands of children, keep in mind all of what I said so far and then keep in mind that these kids were getting ZERO laptops prior to Negroponte's efforts and that Intel and others had no interest in this shit whatsoever prior to the OLPC project (at which point Intel realised there was a metric fuck-ton of profit to be made of the destitude children of the third world). You got one thing right...there's no failure of capitalism here. It's working as well as it always does.Yeah, it says IE7 has 37% of the market and Firefox has 36%. So please explain to me your statement: "In the time it has come out, more people have adopted that single version of internet explorer than are using all versions of firefox combined." Only on slashdot is right...
Every government is owned by money, whether it's corporations, individuals, or other organizations. Some countries just hide it better. Thinking otherwise just shows your naiveté. The old saying, "money makes the world go 'round" doesn't just apply to the USA. If you find a country where greed doesn't exist, please let me know. I'd like to meet these people who are so evolved.
I call bullshit on this. PC World either tests very few laptops or they simply don't know what the hell they are doing. There's several gaming laptops out there outfitted with Core 2 Duo Extreme chips and dual SLI configured nVidia video cards that would blow the doors off of the MacBook Pro. Seriously, it's not even a competition. That's not intended at all as a slight against Apple but aimed purely at the questionable reputation of PC World.
Actually the odds are far more likely that he doesn't really need all 3500 books. There are a lot of people who feel the need to collect things to fill psycological holes.
1) Any network connected to the internet can be hacked given enough time. Some of these institutions are extremely attractive to hackers all over the world and it's inevitable they will be hacked. Classified material should never be stored or accessible to computers that are connected to the internet in any way. The lab in question is not a military lab so they probably have significantly more lax standards regarding the handling of such material. 2) People like to talk about a lack of military security but most of what you hear is bullshit. The military doesn't allow ANY sensitive information to be accessible to ANY computer or network that can connect to the internet or any other form of public access (such as a BBS). There's a lot more to that statement but I can assure you that short of someone putting material where it simply doesn't belong, it's just not possible to access it. In fact, this rule has been in place since before the internet.
The DPI of the Kindle is 167. The DPI of the iPhone is 160. People love the DPI of the iPhone, so I'd say you don't know what you're talking about.
You need to read more carefully. I'm not saying those people deserve to be there. I don't know if they do. I'm simply saying that your statement that they can only detain and abuse non U.S. citizens is simply incorrect. Being a citizen does NOT protect you from being detained or abused for the duration of the "war on terrorism" which could be forever.
1) Msft doesn't like the Classmate simply because it doesn't push Msft technology (duh). 2) Intel joined the OLPC project for the sole reason of keeping Negroponte & Co. from being able to disparage them (and vice versa). Otherwise, they want the OLPC to die a rapid and painful death so that their classmate can succeed. 3) AMD Geode chips are extremely low power. I'm sure Intel will come out with a faster chip and it may be low power but I have yet to see anything that says they are better than the Geode. Even if they are, the OLPC is available now. They aren't waiting for 2008 for Intel to *maybe* come out with something slightly better. In any event, these kids don't care either way. 4) Both Msft and Intel have realised (thanks to Negroponte) that there's a giant market of several billion people who don't have PCs. They also realise that even if they only make $5 per laptop, that's a shitload of money. But hey, keep defending them. They're so transparent a blind man can see what they're doing. Prior to the OLPC, neither company gave a rat's ass about the developing world's children.
I was just at the site and it was asking for $200 per donation. I input that I would like to donate 2 laptops and it came up with a total of $400. So, I don't know where you got your information from but it is not accurate at the time of this posting.
Laws vary from state to state but in most states a company can fire you for any reason or no reason whatsoever. The only restriction being you cannot terminate someone purely for race, gender, etc. On the flip side, an employee can quit with no advance notice for any reason he/she chooses. Two weeks notice is merely the custom.
In the case of layoffs, companies will generally pay severance based on time served with the company. It's a corporate policy at most companies but is not required by law (although it can potentially be required as part of a contract). Companies do it for morale reasons and to not piss off the people who aren't being layed off.
"Actually, with the iPod and iTunes, it was made really easy for people to rip CDs, and was advertised as such, so most people could load the content they already had."
I beg to differ. There were numerous easy to use tools available for ripping CDs long before iTunes. It was the full integration from top to bottom with purchasing albums that put it over the top. Although, it really doesn't matter. You can't "rip" a book except in the literal sense anyway and 99.99% of the population doesn't already own books in electronic form. So, they don't give a damn about that.
As for Amazon locking people in...well, that's worked pretty well for Apple. The millions of songs they sell via iTunes (with the exception of very recently) have all been DRM laden and the DRM they use is even proprietary. Apple also strong-arms the record companies. Amazon DOES, in fact, work with publishers (look at the damn catalog if you don't believe me). They offer direct publishing to authors as well but that's mostly to appeal to the self-published at this point. I don't see major authors switching to this model anytime soon. Even if they do, why do I give a damn about the publishers? If their business model is dead, then that's just too damn bad.
The Kindle may fail but not for the reasons you speak about.
"Profit on hardware, profit on software, even profit on content the user already owns."
Sounds a lot like the iPod and iTunes which of course were total failures...
This is about providing content people want in a very convenient fashion with a nice interface...just like the iPod and iTunes. Amazon is going one better though by offering books for significantly less than what you'd pay for their paper-based brethren.
As for the lack of PDF support...this is a non-issue since you can get free software that will convert PDF to mobi (which kindle does support). I also think the need for PDF support is way overplayed. If I bought it, it would be to read books -- not to read random white papers I downloaded from the web.
Kindle may fail but it will fail because people simply can't make the leap from paper to digital when it comes to books. There's something about holding a book in your hands that can't be beat, imho. That said, having a dictionary at the ready as well as wikipedia look-ups is very nice. When I read I usually keep a dicitionary nearby but it has to be a fat one with a huge number of entries to be worth a damn and I don't like keeping a fat book on my bed like that. The Kindle is cool but paper may still be cooler.
Learn how to read. CIA != NSA. In regards to your off topic remark, every organization of any reasonable size has people that aren't very smart or are ruled more by their egos than what's actually best for the organization (or country as the case may be). It's called human nature. Get used to it.