"According to his corporate biography, Radstone has an MA in Law from the University of Cambridge, England"
Particularly interesting as Cambridge University don't award MA's in Law. As I was told, Cambridge generally don't give out Masters considering their graduate degree's being already equivalent, although they do seem to award out some Masters.
If American politics are like nowhere else on the planet, and Democrats and Republicans are jarringly similar to most Europeans, what does this say about Americans?
Non-profits in the same area even end up competing with each other. When there's a humanitarian disaster, NGOs get their people on the ground quickly, then quickly generate a blizzard of proposals to the exact same funding sources.
That's a funding consideration that relates *specifically* to raising money. My point about market forces was specifically about the specification of the notebook. Your argument is confusing two separate things.
If they sell many more of these in wealthy countries at higher prices, then they can potentially sell them at below costs in poor countries, so that even if the $175 OLPC cost $176 to build, they might still get away selling it at $175 to the people who need it most.
While it is a fair point that higher volumes will push down prices, you're mistaken that this is a consideration for the project. They have *previously* stated that they had no intention of selling units in developed markets, and that they intended to make no effort to do so, although the subcontracted manufacturer had said it did intend to sell a similar product. Thus, the needs of developed markets was not previously a consideration in the product's specificaion.
Admittedly however, the recent announcements this story covers does cloud that, but based on what Negroponte has said previously, I don't believe the market needs of developing countries are being considered in the specification of the machine.
So you have at least the same financial discipline on all your plans that a for-profit does.
I think you may be confusing sensible financial prudence with the profit motive that drives markets. Governments are (usually) non-profit, and can hardly be said to be driven by market needs. The democratic system maybe. But not the action of the government. Or at least a sane one.
So, maybe, market considerations are important for a charitable enterprise in some specific senses, but that wasn't really the point. My point was that the projects technical specification wasn't driven by market forces.
A kid given a notebook in Africa is hardly going to exercise consumer choice between a UNICEF Vista notebook versus the government provided Linux one.
Microsoft didn't become a billion dollar company through pure altruism.
This is classic behaviour by Microsoft. It's strategic.
As the developing world becomes saturated with PCs and the growth slows down, Microsoft doesn't want to lose out in developing low-cost markets to Linux. Therefore, given this project has the possibility of creating an avalanche of cheap Linux PCs in developing markets which overtime could threaten future sales of Windows in those markets, (through loss of mindshare, legacy notebooks, follow on projects, and the skills of these kids being firmly outside Windows) Microsoft sees a threat and sees a need to kill it.
They can't end the project so it's embrace and extend all over again.
C'mon. The OLPC is not a conventional PC nor notebook lacking a colour LCD, and a harddisk. This is going to be an embedded variant of Windows, with different features dropped.
Either Embedded Windows XP, or much, much more likely, Windows CE. And they'll still have to up the hw spec.
Since when has this project been driven by market needs? I thought it was meant to empower children by giving them the power of a notebook, not the power of Windows.
So now they have to up the spec to meet Windows, which will need to up the price as component costs rise. Just so they can run Windows. To change the hardware spec. at this stage in the project would only happen for strong reasons related to the overall success of the project.
It doesn't make sense, and there must be something else going on behind the scenes.
Both languages are *so* similar, if you learn one you'll pick the other up in no time. I learnt C# in a week on a live project after being parachuted in to help out a project that was slipping.
Pick initially whichever is more convenient - which do you have a compiler and development tools for?
It's not at all unique in being the only BBC radio content available as an MP3.
In Our Time is also available as an MP3. Bits of the recent Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series as well as a whole selection of other Radio 4 programmes were also available for download as MP3.
Why the picture of a caterpillar to represent a worm?
America is the Already the Richest Nation
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 1
The United States are already the richest country on the planet. So, immigration is bad because you don't want other people from poorer nations to have any of that wealth? And trade deals are bad because poorer nations that produce much more cheaply because they're poorer are unfair?
At the risk of sounding troll-like, wake up. This sounds like the richest nation on earth being greedy.
"I believe
OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. As the successor to DOS, which has over 10,000,000 systems in use, it creates incredible opportunities for everyone involved with PCs." -- Bill Gates, from "OS/2 Programmer's Guide" (forward by Bill Gates)
It's a shame it's a PocketPC device. I spent months last year trying to use and being frustrated by the PocketPC OS. It's crap and clever marketing (like this) can't save it.
I think a sub-notebook with a WLAN and GSM card will probably be more use.
Slashdot Mirror
You never want to deal with just one supplier. You need competition, and the continual threat that you can always go with supplier B.
And when the specs are met and the price is right for the current generation, you drop the alternative supplier, and start discussing the next.
Have you only just noticed?
"According to his corporate biography, Radstone has an MA in Law from the University of Cambridge, England"
Particularly interesting as Cambridge University don't award MA's in Law. As I was told, Cambridge generally don't give out Masters considering their graduate degree's being already equivalent, although they do seem to award out some Masters.
What utter bollocks.
If American politics are like nowhere else on the planet, and Democrats and Republicans are jarringly similar to most Europeans, what does this say about Americans?
Wanna get blown up by the French intelligence services?
And the new Pirates of the Carribean movie is released when exactly?
This is old news, spun up by the movie PR to promote the movie.
Non-profits in the same area even end up competing with each other. When there's a humanitarian disaster, NGOs get their people on the ground quickly, then quickly generate a blizzard of proposals to the exact same funding sources.
That's a funding consideration that relates *specifically* to raising money. My point about market forces was specifically about the specification of the notebook. Your argument is confusing two separate things.
If they sell many more of these in wealthy countries at higher prices, then they can potentially sell them at below costs in poor countries, so that even if the $175 OLPC cost $176 to build, they might still get away selling it at $175 to the people who need it most.
While it is a fair point that higher volumes will push down prices, you're mistaken that this is a consideration for the project. They have *previously* stated that they had no intention of selling units in developed markets, and that they intended to make no effort to do so, although the subcontracted manufacturer had said it did intend to sell a similar product. Thus, the needs of developed markets was not previously a consideration in the product's specificaion.
Admittedly however, the recent announcements this story covers does cloud that, but based on what Negroponte has said previously, I don't believe the market needs of developing countries are being considered in the specification of the machine.
So you have at least the same financial discipline on all your plans that a for-profit does.
I think you may be confusing sensible financial prudence with the profit motive that drives markets. Governments are (usually) non-profit, and can hardly be said to be driven by market needs. The democratic system maybe. But not the action of the government. Or at least a sane one.
So, maybe, market considerations are important for a charitable enterprise in some specific senses, but that wasn't really the point. My point was that the projects technical specification wasn't driven by market forces.
A kid given a notebook in Africa is hardly going to exercise consumer choice between a UNICEF Vista notebook versus the government provided Linux one.
Microsoft didn't become a billion dollar company through pure altruism.
This is classic behaviour by Microsoft. It's strategic.
As the developing world becomes saturated with PCs and the growth slows down, Microsoft doesn't want to lose out in developing low-cost markets to Linux. Therefore, given this project has the possibility of creating an avalanche of cheap Linux PCs in developing markets which overtime could threaten future sales of Windows in those markets, (through loss of mindshare, legacy notebooks, follow on projects, and the skills of these kids being firmly outside Windows) Microsoft sees a threat and sees a need to kill it.
They can't end the project so it's embrace and extend all over again.
C'mon. The OLPC is not a conventional PC nor notebook lacking a colour LCD, and a harddisk. This is going to be an embedded variant of Windows, with different features dropped.
Either Embedded Windows XP, or much, much more likely, Windows CE. And they'll still have to up the hw spec.
"there's a huge demand for Microsoft software"
Since when has this project been driven by market needs? I thought it was meant to empower children by giving them the power of a notebook, not the power of Windows.
So now they have to up the spec to meet Windows, which will need to up the price as component costs rise. Just so they can run Windows. To change the hardware spec. at this stage in the project would only happen for strong reasons related to the overall success of the project.
It doesn't make sense, and there must be something else going on behind the scenes.
C'mon.... it's targetted for an ARM, designed for low power consumption, resource restricted (not much RAM, not much ROM), it can only be....
;)
the Newton OS!
(And here's a patronising link for the kids who are too young to remember
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_OS)
If it wasn't for the Newton, we wouldn't even have the ARM either.
Boycott Microsoft!
Oh no we can't! So that's what a monopoly is.
Technically, you're right
But isn't it morally right too?
Not that anyone cares about such things.
Both languages are *so* similar, if you learn one you'll pick the other up in no time. I learnt C# in a week on a live project after being parachuted in to help out a project that was slipping.
Pick initially whichever is more convenient - which do you have a compiler and development tools for?
"Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious".
Fact: There are many Microsoft employees who are avid Slashdot devotees. And to be kind they are malicious, and to be not so kind they are eeeevil.
If you knew anything about Alan Moore, you'd know he just doesn't write 'silly' comic books.
One comic by Alan Moore contains more intelligent thought then you'll find in a week of viewing the Fox News Network.
It's not at all unique in being the only BBC radio content available as an MP3.
In Our Time is also available as an MP3. Bits of the recent Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series as well as a whole selection of other Radio 4 programmes were also available for download as MP3.
Why the picture of a caterpillar to represent a worm?
The United States are already the richest country on the planet. So, immigration is bad because you don't want other people from poorer nations to have any of that wealth? And trade deals are bad because poorer nations that produce much more cheaply because they're poorer are unfair?
At the risk of sounding troll-like, wake up. This sounds like the richest nation on earth being greedy.
Get a Nokia Mobile phone with built in GPS.h tml
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,4879,53751,00.
Also doubles as a Mobile Phone.
It's a shame it's a PocketPC device. I spent months last year trying to use and being frustrated by the PocketPC OS. It's crap and clever marketing (like this) can't save it.
I think a sub-notebook with a WLAN and GSM card will probably be more use.
Or maybe Willow Rosenburg or evil Willow - always a favourite.
So you're the person on slashdot who uses his own name as a handle!
I knew there was at least one.