Well, in the real world, you have to wait for people who are good at their job to die before they are replaced by someone who is, hopefully, not as good.
Ya really think there's a chance of him coming back?
Cause if watching every episode of Angel at least 10 times (yes, even the crappy 5th season) has taught me anything, it's that you need to quarter the body and bury the parts seperately.
What's wrong with celebrating the death of your enemy?
Honestly.
I don't understand.
Does the concept of death scare you so much that you don't like to think about it at all?
Do you think the gods will get angry at us and strike us down too?
Or is it that if you were an evil bastard who would sell his own grandmother for the right price, you would prefer people who abhore that behaviour to not celebrate your death?
Ya know, you're right. Saddam was a good guy too. All that evil he did, let's just ignore that for a moment.. he brought democracy to Iraq long before Bush and Halliburton (who are also not all that bad, so long as you ignore the evil) and besides, he only did all that evil stuff cause that's the way politics are in the middle east. And he gave all those great speeches at his trial which we were prohibited from hearing cause, ya know, he might say stuff so evil it pops our ears or something.
pushes his 'computers' through governments and schools on powerless students. And you just said why a $300 computer designed for the first world is useless to the poor of the third world.
Short answer: the logistics of distribution make this impossible.
Long answer: you would need some form of "pre-order" organisation that collects all the money and takes care of distribution. They would need to collect 3 million orders, secure the funds, then place the order with the manufacturer, get the units, box them, label them for delivery, arrange 3 million pickups.. pay for those pickups. Refund anyone who changed their mind. Locate others to take the unsold merchandise off their hands. Then, finally, contribute whatever funds are left over to the OLPC.
Oh, and the whole time that they're handling $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion dollars, we've gotta trust them, and they've gotta ensure none of the employees are embezelling. It's just not doable.
About the only way it would be at all possible is if someone with $525 million dollars was to place an order for 3 million units, the manufacturers could deliver it to that one person's warehouse(s), then they could sell to retailers, who could sell to the public. The markups in that supply chain would be enormous.. just to make it economically viable for everyone involved.. and the price per unit would go far above $400 to $500. Maybe there'd be a few dollars left over for the OLPC.
Even if you were just trying to get 3 million people to donate enough to each supply one laptop to an aide organisation you'd have to ask for more than $175.. you'd probably have to ask for $300.
No, I rightfully went off at you for not even bothering to read the FAQ before asking a question.
That's what a FAQ is for.
If you don't like it, go hang out on a non-geek website where people don't mind rehashing the same questions over and over again.
This is why we have netiquette.
In fact, I think you know that you did the wrong thing and now you're trying to be indignant about it to save face.
Suck it up, take your lumps, read the FAQ and get behind this great project.
If we're lucky they'll get this out the door before their pandering to Microsoft turns it into a way to exploit the poor instead of helping educate them.
Alternatively, if you're so smart - you obviously have all the answers - where's your program to help the uneducated poor of the world? Oh, right, it's easy to bag someone else's project than do something yourself.
Camino is already the answer. An answer from the ghetto.
No-one is too sure where the hell the Firefox people get their money from, but there is actual funding going on here, and if you can get a browser that people are paid to work on fulltime (people not imported straight from Indian grad schools, thank you Microsoft for playing) then why would you choose to use a browser that people work on now and then?
You aint just whistlin' dixie brother. I'm an experienced Open Source developer (and professional software engineer) and I just refuse to touch autoconf, etc. As for rpm/deb packaging? Someone else, do it for me, please.
Maybe in america, where elections are first-past-the-post travesties you can count the ballots without any mathematical knowledge, but the rest of the world uses preferential (aka, fair) voting.
That's the your rationality talking. The average user doesn't need more than 128MB of ram, but Microsoft finds a way to use all that space up. (Just think about how much 128 million bytes of information is for a moment).
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Why do you bother teaching them math skills? Why don't you teach them language skills? Language skills are so much more important than math skills.
How does it feel?
Well, in the real world, you have to wait for people who are good at their job to die before they are replaced by someone who is, hopefully, not as good.
Or, ya know, catch them in some kind of scandal.
In an earlier time, Jack Valenti would have been a lord buying favours from the king.
The people would have lived in fear of his insanity.
Thankfully a knight might have challenged Jack and killed him in combat.
In the modern world we just have to wait for old age (or scandel) and hope the next guy to pay off the powers that be will be less effective.
Don't ruin the hope.
Ya really think there's a chance of him coming back?
Cause if watching every episode of Angel at least 10 times (yes, even the crappy 5th season) has taught me anything, it's that you need to quarter the body and bury the parts seperately.
What's wrong with celebrating the death of your enemy?
Honestly.
I don't understand.
Does the concept of death scare you so much that you don't like to think about it at all?
Do you think the gods will get angry at us and strike us down too?
Or is it that if you were an evil bastard who would sell his own grandmother for the right price, you would prefer people who abhore that behaviour to not celebrate your death?
Ya know, you're right. Saddam was a good guy too. All that evil he did, let's just ignore that for a moment.. he brought democracy to Iraq long before Bush and Halliburton (who are also not all that bad, so long as you ignore the evil) and besides, he only did all that evil stuff cause that's the way politics are in the middle east. And he gave all those great speeches at his trial which we were prohibited from hearing cause, ya know, he might say stuff so evil it pops our ears or something.
He's dead now, we should feel bad.
Or, at least, it's a good start.
You don't need a low power rugged laptop in a society with ample power and concrete floors.
On the other hand, if you're interested in starting a project to help inner city schools, why don't you?
Short answer: the logistics of distribution make this impossible.
Long answer: you would need some form of "pre-order" organisation that collects all the money and takes care of distribution. They would need to collect 3 million orders, secure the funds, then place the order with the manufacturer, get the units, box them, label them for delivery, arrange 3 million pickups.. pay for those pickups. Refund anyone who changed their mind. Locate others to take the unsold merchandise off their hands. Then, finally, contribute whatever funds are left over to the OLPC.
Oh, and the whole time that they're handling $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion dollars, we've gotta trust them, and they've gotta ensure none of the employees are embezelling. It's just not doable.
About the only way it would be at all possible is if someone with $525 million dollars was to place an order for 3 million units, the manufacturers could deliver it to that one person's warehouse(s), then they could sell to retailers, who could sell to the public. The markups in that supply chain would be enormous.. just to make it economically viable for everyone involved.. and the price per unit would go far above $400 to $500. Maybe there'd be a few dollars left over for the OLPC.
Even if you were just trying to get 3 million people to donate enough to each supply one laptop to an aide organisation you'd have to ask for more than $175.. you'd probably have to ask for $300.
Neither Microsoft nor Sony are charities trying to bring free education to the poor of the world.
Why should we judge the OLPC project by the same standards that we judge multinational profit machines?
Why do I even have to ask this question?
What is wrong with you?
Jesus H. Christ.
No, I rightfully went off at you for not even bothering to read the FAQ before asking a question.
That's what a FAQ is for.
If you don't like it, go hang out on a non-geek website where people don't mind rehashing the same questions over and over again.
This is why we have netiquette.
In fact, I think you know that you did the wrong thing and now you're trying to be indignant about it to save face.
Suck it up, take your lumps, read the FAQ and get behind this great project.
If we're lucky they'll get this out the door before their pandering to Microsoft turns it into a way to exploit the poor instead of helping educate them.
Wow, you should get some kind of "biggest Slashdot retard" award for that comment.
Why are you not reading the FAQ?
Alternatively, if you're so smart - you obviously have all the answers - where's your program to help the uneducated poor of the world? Oh, right, it's easy to bag someone else's project than do something yourself.
and thanks to Moore's law.
This isn't news, they've been saying this for over a year now.
On the stupidity scale, using unpatched IE is only slightly above using IE at all.
I really wish people would put even a bit of effort into using the term correctly.
Hell, this isn't even a Worm! It's just exploiting a browser bug to steal passwords.
Yawn.
Don't use Internet Explorer.
No-one is too sure where the hell the Firefox people get their money from, but there is actual funding going on here, and if you can get a browser that people are paid to work on fulltime (people not imported straight from Indian grad schools, thank you Microsoft for playing) then why would you choose to use a browser that people work on now and then?
You aint just whistlin' dixie brother. I'm an experienced Open Source developer (and professional software engineer) and I just refuse to touch autoconf, etc. As for rpm/deb packaging? Someone else, do it for me, please.
Maybe in america, where elections are first-past-the-post travesties you can count the ballots without any mathematical knowledge, but the rest of the world uses preferential (aka, fair) voting.
You forgot Step 1: Call a priest.
That's the your rationality talking. The average user doesn't need more than 128MB of ram, but Microsoft finds a way to use all that space up. (Just think about how much 128 million bytes of information is for a moment).
Hey, nice job. I like the way you got em nodding then slipped that little gem in there.
Well done.
Things change.
Get with the program.
It is unfair that only the mathematicians can check the counting.
It is unfair that only the literate can read the ballot.
Perhaps programming should be taught in public schools.
Oh wait.