That's why these laptops come with foot pedals so they can be used without electricity. And they automatically create an ad-hoc wireless network, so you don't have the same need for "human infrastructure" (meaning IT people.) Hopefully they are also setup so they can automatically share internet connections on that ad-hoc network.
I don't think it's just for the love of it. I know that I contribute to OSS because I could never write a full (pick your app/framework/daemon) myself. So something can be, in part, "mine," without me having to be either a genius or part of a great software team.
I have had to replace a few hard drives (in multiple machines) over the past few years. Maybe 1/4 of all my machines have had some hard drive problem. I've come to the point where I always have a regular backup system for all of my machines. If I could have a RAID-1 setup on my laptop I would. I have software RAID on most of my desktops/pseudo-servers. Maybe that's excessive (if it is non-essential stuff then a usb backup is enough) but I've had enough bad luck that I'm sick of losing data. And hard drives are just so cheap nowadays.
Look at Grameen Bank, whose founder just won the nobel peace prize. It provides micro-loans so people can start businesses, etc. The guy started with 27 dollars but now Grameen Bank has millions and millions of outstanding loans. How did he manage it? He didn't go, "oh, these people need water. Here's 27 dollars, go get yourself some water." He said, "how do provide the poor with opportunities to make more money?" So he gets more money because from the interest on his loans and he is then able to provide more loans. In 20-something years he has helped 40 million people move away from poverty.
That's what this laptop has the potential to do -- give people education, IT training, and access to the world that will allow them to help themselves. There was an article (I even think it was on slashdot) long ago about how a man had setup a kiosk next to his office somewhere in India and, within days, the local kids were proficient in using it. That kind of computer access provides you with computer skills (which are necessary for employment in the 21st century) and with information to feed curious minds.
What's really exciting is that it's a piece of technology that is built with the underdeveloped world in mind. It doesn't depend on the kinds of infrastructure we're used to, like having system admins available and having reliable power. That's why it has automatic ad-hoc network setup and a foot pedal to provide power when the power goes out. For too long people have assumed the rest of the world needs the same exact technology we need. Or, if they need something different, they need some junky crap from the past. The reality is that they need just as modern stuff, just with different considerations. Look at Motorola's Motofone -- uses e-ink to keep power usage down (since power is unreliable around the world so you can't charge your battery as much.) Even has an accessory to attach to your bike wheel to charge it.
Yes, but it won't include any capacity building. These laptops can help you learn and use that education to make more money in the future. It's a "teach a man to fish" kind of thing.
The problem is that you might not know how much space to allocate for/home and / -- especially if you don't have some huge drive. It's always been a problem for me, from the beginning of my time with GNU/Linux (1996). The last thing you want is to try to install some new package and find out you have no space on your / partition left. This is especially confusing for new users who don't understand that they have lots of space in the/home partition but none in/.
That's why we're talking about whether some kind of post-install partition resizing program needs to be available in Feisty Fawn (wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityFeistyIdeas/Upgradabilit y).
One thing you might want to talk about is intellectual property and international relations/development. China has been able to do well for itself because it hasn't cracked down on piracy. That is important because without modern computer software, how could China have caught up with the world? Smaller countries don't have that option -- they will be dealt with much more harshly if they don't respect foreign intellectual property. Trade deals, etc, won't be as favorable.
It isn't just software, it is genetically modified grains, irrigation techniques, and other technologies. These technologies often allow much more efficient use of resources. Again, not having them is an impediment to development.
There are also cases of foreign companies coming into countries and doing one of two things: taking local "intellectual property," like indigenous medicines, etc, and patenting them, or funding local scientists and other professionals but with the condition that whatever they develop is the intellectual property of the foreign company. And if someone local wants to use it, they have to pay the foreign intellectual property premium.
That was quite the response. My only point had been that evolution doesn't stop because everyone survives -- look at differences between ethnic groups. Tall/short, smart/dumb variables could become like ethnic preferences -- you try to marry people like yourself.
My only point was to refute the GP's argument that it was about productivity. If it was, there would be no ethnic groups. So tall/short, smart/dumb variables could be like people's ethnic preferences.
Evolution isn't just about surviving -- it is also about who mates with who. If the smart people stop reproducing with the short people, then the divergence will still happen.
But I believe that generally these types of socially-conscious funds inevitably wind up sacrificing returns for "principals".
Good! I would much rather make less money (note, still making money) investing in green or sustainable businesses than make more money supporting things that disgust me.
I think just the summary shows a fundamental flaw in this theory -- there was a jump in music experts _after the book was published about Mozart. Sometimes it takes genius to make the leaps in a field. Then, so long as the leaps are properly documented, it is much easier for non-geniuses to tackle the same material. Just think, if that wasn't true then most of us would be stuck with a prehistoric concept of the world. It took a leap to link the movement of the stars with the roundness of the earth, or to think of the concept of zero, or to do or think of a million things that are now taught in elementary school. Did the leaps require hard work? Most of the time, they probably did. But that doesn't mean that with hard work anyone could have done what the people who made those leaps did with the knowledge they had had then.
I don't know of any water-based problems, but there have been plenty of stories of foreign species destroying local populations. The most recent story I've read is about poisonous toads in Western Australia that kills crocodiles (or is it alligators?) who eat them, and many other things. They now have so many they can't get rid of them.
on the other hand, this could destroy myspace: good thing
Thank you. I don't know why people seem to like myspace so much. The few sites on myspace I've ever seen are some of the ugliest, 1997 geocities-type, sites I've ever seen. What do people see in myspace?
I can feel your pain. I currently live in Silver Spring. I get the NY Times every morning and pick up the WSJ and WP from time to time when I come across it. I prefer reading the newspaper to trying to figure out what to bother to read on the websites. This is especially true because the websites will be updated frequently and I find myself reading an article that isn't really worth the little bit of update it provides. I do enjoy some specific blogs and alternative news sites. I try to discipline myself to only check them once a day, though.
I do recommend going to nytimes.com and getting a TimesSelect account. You can click "Today's Paper" at the top of the nytimes frontpage. When I am traveling I use that to help navigate the online news mess.
You set your car keys down somewhere and hopefully you find them again later when you try to remember it.
That's the problem with earthlings going to space -- we can't deal with space-based habits that contradict our own. On Earth we can hope to find our keys where we set them down. In space they float away.
One of the people who responded to you said that if the people who were willing to take care of her would fund it out of their own pockets then he agreed that they should be allowed to. I disaggress emphatically. If I am brain dead I hope my wife will pull the plug. Not only do I not want to be a psychological burden on her, I generally don't believe in the keep-me-alive-for-as-long-as-possible philosophy. I take care of myself so I will live a long life. But if something happens and I have to live as a vegetable, then just kill me.
I see there are already people criticising you. I will not be another one. I will just speak in philosophical terms.
In history human beings have been provided their social and moral guidelines from elsewhere. This included from their government, religious institution, or simply from the environment in which they lived. (After all, an agrarian society can only have so many types of social systems.) As technology has empowered us over the past few decades, we have had the opportunity to shun many of the external, meaning those which had to be adopted, sources of social and moral guidelines. But we haven't taken it upon ourselves to replace the guidelines developed over the ages by philosopher kings and religious leaders with a similarly developed set of our own creation.
This is dangerous when we start to have technologies like stem cell research. Making laws restricting what we can do with stem cells only goes so far. If we don't mature enough as humanity, every wild and repugnant use for stem cells will be found. It's the culture of self-interest and convenience. With as many lazy people as there are today, you don't think that there is going to be a very large market for constant replacement parts (meaning not just when we've had an accident or disease or something, but just because we're too lazy to stop eating french fries)?
This isn't just for stem cells, it's for almost all technologies. In the past, governments were able to control technology. It is becoming less and less true. Instructions on how to build a lot of dangerous things are online, and will always be online (or available universally in some other way.) The only way for us to have any sort of ethical future is for us to start promoting education and this kind of self-determined philosophizing.
An example I like to use is Star Trek (at least TNG.) The ferengi loved the holodeck because they could enjoy endless sexual escapades. That's where we're headed -- to giving up everything that makes us human and just doing the simplistic, animalistic, convenient thing all the time. And the only way I can see to not going down that path is something like the Star Trek way -- where humanity recognizes where that will lead us and each person chooses to instead not go the way of the ferengi.
I am big on the-institutional-infrastructure-determines-the-fu ture-of-the-system school of thought. That is why our system of winner-take-all elections will necessarily require that we are a predominantly two party democratic system (talking about America here.) I think that government ownership of all industry, etc, without simple (Paine-like) accountability inevitably leads to corruption and to some form of abuse/oppression.
But that doesn't mean that all of communisms manifestations are doomed. Socialism, which has been exceptionally popular aruond the world, has been one implementation of communist ideas that has been very successful. But they have only been successful because they have had reasonably accountable governments and institutionalized transparency.
Also, communism has failed as much for historical reasons as for any others, just as democracy has. Countries are only ready for certain types of government when their populations are ready for those types of government too. Democracy (at least as we think of it) isn't going to work in a feudal state where there is no private class of politically ambitious people. I'd say that communist-like governments are only possible when the same conditions that make democracy possible are there and the people demand it. So the transition is really more totalitarianism->democracy->communism. If you don't have the economic/population/etc circumstances in line, any government change will return to totalitarianism. Look at the world's democracies over history -- most have become dictatorships.
But that isn't necessarily bad. Look at China. I'd argue that the guo ming dang (which, remember, were "democratic" dictators in Taiwan after their defeat until 1988) would have served the Chinese people VERY poorly. They were the aristocrats with no concern for anyone but themselves. (Note: this isn't as true for Sun YatSen, but it was true for Chaing KaiShek.) Mao made some terrible decisions, but he also made some fabulous ones: he unbound women's feet, he unified the dozens and dozens of dialects to strengthen the concept of China being one country, and he ruled with the interest of keeping the country together as paramount (just as Lincoln did -- he believed there was no point following the letter of constitutional law if that would be like signing a suicide pact.)
But China isn't an example to follow. It was one place where just the right people were in charge at just the right time, and they weren't there because of the way the institution was set up. But they are opening up, which demonstrates that it is only possible when the population is ready. There are ways to facilitate this readiness, but there is no point trying to advocate democracy when it isn't there.
Sorry for the poor writing. I am sick with slashdotanitis and went straight from bed to my computer and to typing this comment.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why these laptops come with foot pedals so they can be used without electricity. And they automatically create an ad-hoc wireless network, so you don't have the same need for "human infrastructure" (meaning IT people.) Hopefully they are also setup so they can automatically share internet connections on that ad-hoc network.
I don't think it's just for the love of it. I know that I contribute to OSS because I could never write a full (pick your app/framework/daemon) myself. So something can be, in part, "mine," without me having to be either a genius or part of a great software team.
I have had to replace a few hard drives (in multiple machines) over the past few years. Maybe 1/4 of all my machines have had some hard drive problem. I've come to the point where I always have a regular backup system for all of my machines. If I could have a RAID-1 setup on my laptop I would. I have software RAID on most of my desktops/pseudo-servers. Maybe that's excessive (if it is non-essential stuff then a usb backup is enough) but I've had enough bad luck that I'm sick of losing data. And hard drives are just so cheap nowadays.
Look at Grameen Bank, whose founder just won the nobel peace prize. It provides micro-loans so people can start businesses, etc. The guy started with 27 dollars but now Grameen Bank has millions and millions of outstanding loans. How did he manage it? He didn't go, "oh, these people need water. Here's 27 dollars, go get yourself some water." He said, "how do provide the poor with opportunities to make more money?" So he gets more money because from the interest on his loans and he is then able to provide more loans. In 20-something years he has helped 40 million people move away from poverty.
That's what this laptop has the potential to do -- give people education, IT training, and access to the world that will allow them to help themselves. There was an article (I even think it was on slashdot) long ago about how a man had setup a kiosk next to his office somewhere in India and, within days, the local kids were proficient in using it. That kind of computer access provides you with computer skills (which are necessary for employment in the 21st century) and with information to feed curious minds.
What's really exciting is that it's a piece of technology that is built with the underdeveloped world in mind. It doesn't depend on the kinds of infrastructure we're used to, like having system admins available and having reliable power. That's why it has automatic ad-hoc network setup and a foot pedal to provide power when the power goes out. For too long people have assumed the rest of the world needs the same exact technology we need. Or, if they need something different, they need some junky crap from the past. The reality is that they need just as modern stuff, just with different considerations. Look at Motorola's Motofone -- uses e-ink to keep power usage down (since power is unreliable around the world so you can't charge your battery as much.) Even has an accessory to attach to your bike wheel to charge it.
Yes, but it won't include any capacity building. These laptops can help you learn and use that education to make more money in the future. It's a "teach a man to fish" kind of thing.
The problem is that you might not know how much space to allocate for /home and / -- especially if you don't have some huge drive. It's always been a problem for me, from the beginning of my time with GNU/Linux (1996). The last thing you want is to try to install some new package and find out you have no space on your / partition left. This is especially confusing for new users who don't understand that they have lots of space in the /home partition but none in /.
t y).
That's why we're talking about whether some kind of post-install partition resizing program needs to be available in Feisty Fawn (wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityFeistyIdeas/Upgradabili
One thing you might want to talk about is intellectual property and international relations/development. China has been able to do well for itself because it hasn't cracked down on piracy. That is important because without modern computer software, how could China have caught up with the world? Smaller countries don't have that option -- they will be dealt with much more harshly if they don't respect foreign intellectual property. Trade deals, etc, won't be as favorable.
It isn't just software, it is genetically modified grains, irrigation techniques, and other technologies. These technologies often allow much more efficient use of resources. Again, not having them is an impediment to development.
There are also cases of foreign companies coming into countries and doing one of two things: taking local "intellectual property," like indigenous medicines, etc, and patenting them, or funding local scientists and other professionals but with the condition that whatever they develop is the intellectual property of the foreign company. And if someone local wants to use it, they have to pay the foreign intellectual property premium.
So that's something interesting to think about.
That was quite the response. My only point had been that evolution doesn't stop because everyone survives -- look at differences between ethnic groups. Tall/short, smart/dumb variables could become like ethnic preferences -- you try to marry people like yourself.
My only point was to refute the GP's argument that it was about productivity. If it was, there would be no ethnic groups. So tall/short, smart/dumb variables could be like people's ethnic preferences.
Evolution isn't just about surviving -- it is also about who mates with who. If the smart people stop reproducing with the short people, then the divergence will still happen.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375765441/ref=pd _cp_b_title/104-7416757-8067151?ie=UTF8 (11 Practice Tests for the SAT and PSAT, 2007)
But I believe that generally these types of socially-conscious funds inevitably wind up sacrificing returns for "principals".
Good! I would much rather make less money (note, still making money) investing in green or sustainable businesses than make more money supporting things that disgust me.
I think just the summary shows a fundamental flaw in this theory -- there was a jump in music experts _after the book was published about Mozart. Sometimes it takes genius to make the leaps in a field. Then, so long as the leaps are properly documented, it is much easier for non-geniuses to tackle the same material. Just think, if that wasn't true then most of us would be stuck with a prehistoric concept of the world. It took a leap to link the movement of the stars with the roundness of the earth, or to think of the concept of zero, or to do or think of a million things that are now taught in elementary school. Did the leaps require hard work? Most of the time, they probably did. But that doesn't mean that with hard work anyone could have done what the people who made those leaps did with the knowledge they had had then.
I don't know of any water-based problems, but there have been plenty of stories of foreign species destroying local populations. The most recent story I've read is about poisonous toads in Western Australia that kills crocodiles (or is it alligators?) who eat them, and many other things. They now have so many they can't get rid of them.
on the other hand, this could destroy myspace: good thing
Thank you. I don't know why people seem to like myspace so much. The few sites on myspace I've ever seen are some of the ugliest, 1997 geocities-type, sites I've ever seen. What do people see in myspace?
I can feel your pain. I currently live in Silver Spring. I get the NY Times every morning and pick up the WSJ and WP from time to time when I come across it. I prefer reading the newspaper to trying to figure out what to bother to read on the websites. This is especially true because the websites will be updated frequently and I find myself reading an article that isn't really worth the little bit of update it provides. I do enjoy some specific blogs and alternative news sites. I try to discipline myself to only check them once a day, though.
I do recommend going to nytimes.com and getting a TimesSelect account. You can click "Today's Paper" at the top of the nytimes frontpage. When I am traveling I use that to help navigate the online news mess.
You set your car keys down somewhere and hopefully you find them again later when you try to remember it.
That's the problem with earthlings going to space -- we can't deal with space-based habits that contradict our own. On Earth we can hope to find our keys where we set them down. In space they float away.
IANAL
agreed. but if i haven't written something down, it's my wife's job to make those decisions (unless i specify someone other than her in my will.)
One of the people who responded to you said that if the people who were willing to take care of her would fund it out of their own pockets then he agreed that they should be allowed to. I disaggress emphatically. If I am brain dead I hope my wife will pull the plug. Not only do I not want to be a psychological burden on her, I generally don't believe in the keep-me-alive-for-as-long-as-possible philosophy. I take care of myself so I will live a long life. But if something happens and I have to live as a vegetable, then just kill me.
I see there are already people criticising you. I will not be another one. I will just speak in philosophical terms.
In history human beings have been provided their social and moral guidelines from elsewhere. This included from their government, religious institution, or simply from the environment in which they lived. (After all, an agrarian society can only have so many types of social systems.) As technology has empowered us over the past few decades, we have had the opportunity to shun many of the external, meaning those which had to be adopted, sources of social and moral guidelines. But we haven't taken it upon ourselves to replace the guidelines developed over the ages by philosopher kings and religious leaders with a similarly developed set of our own creation.
This is dangerous when we start to have technologies like stem cell research. Making laws restricting what we can do with stem cells only goes so far. If we don't mature enough as humanity, every wild and repugnant use for stem cells will be found. It's the culture of self-interest and convenience. With as many lazy people as there are today, you don't think that there is going to be a very large market for constant replacement parts (meaning not just when we've had an accident or disease or something, but just because we're too lazy to stop eating french fries)?
This isn't just for stem cells, it's for almost all technologies. In the past, governments were able to control technology. It is becoming less and less true. Instructions on how to build a lot of dangerous things are online, and will always be online (or available universally in some other way.) The only way for us to have any sort of ethical future is for us to start promoting education and this kind of self-determined philosophizing.
An example I like to use is Star Trek (at least TNG.) The ferengi loved the holodeck because they could enjoy endless sexual escapades. That's where we're headed -- to giving up everything that makes us human and just doing the simplistic, animalistic, convenient thing all the time. And the only way I can see to not going down that path is something like the Star Trek way -- where humanity recognizes where that will lead us and each person chooses to instead not go the way of the ferengi.
I am big on the-institutional-infrastructure-determines-the-fu ture-of-the-system school of thought. That is why our system of winner-take-all elections will necessarily require that we are a predominantly two party democratic system (talking about America here.) I think that government ownership of all industry, etc, without simple (Paine-like) accountability inevitably leads to corruption and to some form of abuse/oppression.
But that doesn't mean that all of communisms manifestations are doomed. Socialism, which has been exceptionally popular aruond the world, has been one implementation of communist ideas that has been very successful. But they have only been successful because they have had reasonably accountable governments and institutionalized transparency.
Also, communism has failed as much for historical reasons as for any others, just as democracy has. Countries are only ready for certain types of government when their populations are ready for those types of government too. Democracy (at least as we think of it) isn't going to work in a feudal state where there is no private class of politically ambitious people. I'd say that communist-like governments are only possible when the same conditions that make democracy possible are there and the people demand it. So the transition is really more totalitarianism->democracy->communism. If you don't have the economic/population/etc circumstances in line, any government change will return to totalitarianism. Look at the world's democracies over history -- most have become dictatorships.
But that isn't necessarily bad. Look at China. I'd argue that the guo ming dang (which, remember, were "democratic" dictators in Taiwan after their defeat until 1988) would have served the Chinese people VERY poorly. They were the aristocrats with no concern for anyone but themselves. (Note: this isn't as true for Sun YatSen, but it was true for Chaing KaiShek.) Mao made some terrible decisions, but he also made some fabulous ones: he unbound women's feet, he unified the dozens and dozens of dialects to strengthen the concept of China being one country, and he ruled with the interest of keeping the country together as paramount (just as Lincoln did -- he believed there was no point following the letter of constitutional law if that would be like signing a suicide pact.)
But China isn't an example to follow. It was one place where just the right people were in charge at just the right time, and they weren't there because of the way the institution was set up. But they are opening up, which demonstrates that it is only possible when the population is ready. There are ways to facilitate this readiness, but there is no point trying to advocate democracy when it isn't there.
Sorry for the poor writing. I am sick with slashdotanitis and went straight from bed to my computer and to typing this comment.
Mr. Bloomberg isn't a republican. He switched to the republican party right before running for mayor in New York.
i was kiding.
Not to mention freeciv.