I've been expecting an announcement like this since at least 2002. I was at a recruiting event at Sun back in late 2002 and it was pretty obvious to me then that they had lost their way. They had no killer products or even rumors of such, they'd gone through a number of rounds of "cost cutting" measures (read: layoffs) and they were focused on yesterday's technology or pie-in-the-sky ideas.
But, big things have a lot of momentum and can coast for a long time before reality hits. And, for some, reality will only hit when they feel the frigid waters of the north Atlantic.
(This'll be my last comment on this as I've had this discussion oh-so-many times with people like you and I get tired of it)
OK, so they don't have internet access today and they can't check the weather. Who's to say the PCV's next project won't be to set up a wireless network? Who's to say they won't soon be getting telephone and dial up in his area? There are a lot of amazing things going on in this area. Here's one of my favorite: Jhai. Granted, you did point out one thing they can not do today with computers which I stated they could, what about all of the other things? Spreadsheets? Students learning? Bookkeeping? Computers are multipurpose tools. Not having an internet connection does diminish the value of them but, as I demonstrated when I was a PCV, by no means eliminates their value.
Building/buying PCs requires a lot of planning and execution. Having lived in the rice fields of central Thailand and spent many days traveling back and forth between my village and Bangkok, I know this from personal experience. It is not easy and this PCV should be commended for his efforts.
There is a big difference between buying a bottom-of-the-line PC over the internet here in America and buying a PC in any developing country. When I was a PCV I did not buy bottom of the line PCs because I knew they would be obsolete way too quickly. We ended up with 35 mid-level machines and we assembled them ourselves. part of this was due to cost and part due to my desire to teach people.
I can not speak for Togo but I can say that here in the US and in Thailand is is almost always cheaper to buy the components and assemble a machine yourself than it is to purchase a machine of the same specs. When I was a PCV that difference was about $300 but machines were expensive in Thailand at the time. When I last built a box here in the US I did a lot of research and saved about $200 building my own machine. Of course I spent my time instead of my money by assembling these machines but I enjoy it and when I was in Thailand I taught a group of students how to do it. Several of them went on to technical school/college to pursue computers - directly because they were exposed to them. Until I came along they had never used or knew anything about computers. So we saved money and built capacity. Pretty good value if you ask me.
The last point I will address is the one which makes me mad because it is clear to me you have not done any research before making such asinine comments as "Really clueless scam".
I suggest you head back to Aaron's blog. Click through to see his project listing on the Peace Corps site. Now, I used to be the director of the Peace Corps Partnership Program - the part of the Peace Corps he is using to help fund his project. If you actually read and research, which you clearly haven't, you might find that the PCPP raises a lot of money for PCVs in country and there is a lot of oversight of these funds. Oversight includes the staff here in Washington, DC accounting, accounting in-country by Peace Corps Staff, project oversight, project reviews, etc. You could even do a FOIA request to learn more about the oversight on a particular project if you wanted. Like I said, I know all this because I used to be director of that program and I fielded many a complaint by donors and Volunteers alike that we added too much red tape. I agree, there is a lot of oversight but it is necessary to maintain the integrity of the program.
In one of my parent comments I mentioned that "in-kind" gifts are not all they are cracked up to be. Early on when I was a PCV I solicited used computers and they were a serious headache. Some worked, some didn't and they all broke fairly quickly. It was just as easy/hard (depends
You ask a very good and legitimate question. One which I was asked a lot and some very bright minds in the development field used to ask also. Answer is that they would do the very same things with a computer you and I do. They use it for typing, data manipulation (spreadsheets, analysis, bookkeeping,...), playing games (yes, even people in developing countries like to play games. In fact, it is the game playing that often keeps community computer centers in business), checking the weather,.... lots of things.
Computers are tools just like a hammer and shovel. Yes, they require a higher level of infrastructure to use/maintain than the hammer and shovel but with this higher level of infrastructure they also provide a much greater "leverage" on the user's efforts than the hammer/shovel.
In my school (back in Thailand in '95) the teachers had been grading students the same way as every other teacher in Thailand - by hand. At the end of the school term this consumed about three days of each teacher's time. With my help we acquired some computers, a large printer (thanks to HP in Thailand) and developed spreadsheets to assist with grading. This system reduced end-of-term grading from three days down to about 4 hours of work.
With 2.5 days saved, the teachers could spend more time developing lesson plans, getting training, etc. Essentially, the system allowed an increase in teacher productivity which multiplied many times over many occupations, increases a country's productivity and level of wealth.
Keep in mind that my school had intermittant electricity, intermittant running water and the road outside the school had only recently been paved when I got there (paving the school driveway was one of my projects). This was not a city school by any means. At the time I was there, someone with basic computer skills (what we were teaching the students) could make about twice as much money as someone without. That extra money is the difference between having to be a rice farmer (there are few jobs more difficult and back breaking than rice farming), where you may or may not eat, may or may not pay the bills, and having a comfortable living, sending your kids to school, etc.
Here's a few other examples of how computers/technology can drive change where many of us from developed countries might question it:
Grameen Bank - people told Yunus poor people weren't worth lending to (kind of like the argument that poor people don't need computers)
I could go on and on about this topic as you can tell... Also highly recommended is to read the book "The Ugly American". There is a LOT of truth in that book.
My brother once said something similar. He questioned why I needed to go halfway around the world to help people when there were people in our own backyard who needed help.
Besides the obvious fun of it all - traveling to foreign lands, meeting foreign people, eating their amazing food, learning their language,... - I responded by saying to him "America is the most powerful country in the world - we have the largest military and the largest economy. Given this, where does our backyard really end?" You can't say it ends at our borders because so much of our economy is dependent upon trade and manufacturing that occurs outside of our borders. Where were the computers we are so fond of manufactured? Where were our clothes made? I bet your TV was not made in America. Do you like to eat apples in May? You can eat fresh apples in May because they are imported from the southern hemisphere - places like Chile, Argentina...
So, to be hard-nosed about it, helping those people in other countries has some very selfish motives - it helps us and even helps those people in Flint, Michigan.
I was a PCV (Thailand) and also worked at PC HQ for a while doing fundraising. In addition to this, I raised over $25K while a Volunteer for various IT projects. This was back in the mid-90's when Volunteers were discouraged from this sort of thing because it was seen as "inappropriate". Luckily I have a rebellious streak.
But I digress...
The fabric of funding available in each country is different but you need money - not IT because you're going to go buy it. After I solicited donations of used equipment, I often found used equipment to be more trouble than it was worth and with a small amount of moeny I could go buy/build new stuff. So you're on the right track.
Sources: try embassies. I solicited funds from EVERY embassy in Thailand. Surprisingly, Saudi Arabia gave me the most money. I expected a European country to give the most. Also look into Chambers of Commerce. There are a LOT of gov't aid organizations (USAID, for example) and NGOs out there who might fund you. Look into the USAID publication which lists everyone who receives money from them. It is published annually and is a GREAT resource for people who might fund you. Regional politicians are a good source - try the governor of your province. I developed a great relationship with mine and he helped me a LOT in several situations. Also try the Peace Corps Partnership Program. It's often slow but can provide a lot of money.
Just because these people are giving you money, don't look at it as a donation. It's not. They want something in return. What can you give them? Good will. Be absolutely sure to take LOTS of pictures of cute little kids with the computers you buy/build. Do what you can to get these pictures printed in the local/national papers. Again, develop relationships with people in the newspapers and your pics/press releases will get published more often than not. Make up certificates and send to donors, invite them to "dedication" ceremonies (9 times out of 10 they won't come but will be happy to have been invited). Repeat customers are much cheaper and easier to acquire than new customers - once someone has given you money, wait a few months and hit them up again.
Don't forget that you're going to leave in 2 or so years. Training is FAR more important than the actual equipment. Build capacity. Teach people how to build/repair their own macines, teach them how to use the machines. If you don't build capacity you're wasting your two years there. I wasn't trying to but did so out of dumb luck - I taught a few coworkers how to use the machines and a few students how to build/repair them. Unknowingly at the time I launched a few IT careers...
Finally, here's a link to a manual I produced way back when but is still being used by Peace Corps Thailand. It is old and somewhat country specific but there's a lot more of my "lessons learned" in there than I write here.
Does anyone else see irony in an article where there is an apparent attempt to bring more women into the OSS community being tagged "Gnome, Chicks, Women"?
Oh, wait - I just reloaded the page and the "Chicks" tag is now gone!
Guess that means I'm not the only one who noticed...
I went from Girlfriend 1.0 to Girlfriend 2.0 which delivered on most of the promised features so I was pretty excited when offered an upgrade from GF 2.0 to Wife 1.0. The problem is that I found that Wife 1.0 offers slowly degrading performance and not all of the features of GF 2.0. Sadly I did not read the fineprint until after the upgrade to Wife 1.0 - this is an irreversible upgrade....
"We have invested THOUSANDS of dollars in R&D for our buggies and buggie whips. We have no plans for producing whips or any other products for these new fangled horseless carriages." - famous last words by a buggy whip manufacturer
I'm sure many others will cover equipment, power charging and such - I'll cover how you should do this. Well, since I taught in a developing country for a few years, this is my suggestion of how...
Developing countries generally have a huge surplus of labor - it's one of their biggest resources. They also, like a lot of the world, tend to have lots of kids who are eager to learn new stuff.
What you need to do is take several GPS receivers with you and hook up with a local teacher who can integrate GPS ideas and geography in with their lessons. The teacher could even make it a special project working with trustable students to map their own village(s).
The key here is to push as much onto the students as possible so they do the work and they learn.
You'll help the teacher, help the students and help make more than just maps.
Over the past 15 years, Eigler has led a group of young scientists who have pioneered the use of atom manipulation in wide-ranging experiments aimed at building and understanding of the properties of atomic-scale structures and exploring their potential for use in information technologies such as digital logic and data storage.
Let's see... if they were 25 when Eigler started, they're now 40! Not so young anymore!
You've never had to escape from people bent on killing your entire ethnic group.
Not that I have, mind you, but I would think you have heard of the Holocaust, Cambodia (ever see The Killing Fields?), Rwanda and even what went on in South Africa for so long.
At this point in the world's history, I cannot sympathize with anyone attempting to use false ID to travel.
I don't know about you but if were being persecuted and all I needed to do to escape harm was to use a false ID, I think I'd choose the false ID.
Sometimes the right thing to do is to ignore and/or willfully break stupid laws.
Sorry for sounding so harsh but that part of your comment was pretty dumb. Seeing mountains of skulls in Cambodia has a way of changing your point of view.
I had the same problem recently - I was repartitioning my HD to install Fedora on a second partition and, whoops! low-level formatted the whole thing by accident.
Since I regularly back up, and had done so, this was a blessing in disguise as it gave me an opportunity to clean up the cruft that accumulates.
But, like the author of one of the articles points out, I didn't have the patches to WinXP offline. Within 15 minutes of initial connection I had THREE worms on my computer! While removing and patching for them I acquired a fourth which I was not able to remove until the next day.
I guess I was lucky in that I knew what I was doing and was able to get that first critical patch applied.
Needless to say, I use Fedora more and more every day...
I was at Sun back in Feb. of 2003 and pointedly asked the speaker these questions - where were they going, what new products did they have and how were they going to deal with the rise of cheap servers/Linux.
After hearing the speaker waffle on about MadHatter, thin clients, new opportunities and that most-hated MBA word (and I'm an MBA) "monetizing" for about 10 minutes, I realized I already knew the answers to my questions.
At the short and informal reception following the speaker, an engineer who had sat on the panel (but didn't say anything during it) button-holed me to tell me that I had hit the nail right on the head - he said virtually all of Sun was trying to figure out the answers to my questions and as yet they did not have any answers.
Not much is sadder than the rusting hulk of a once great company in total denial.
I've been running for about 22 years now, ran competitively in HS and college and continue to race.
For "serious" marathoning, I'd say you need to do a minimum of 40-60 MPW. Elite athletes (read: Olympic studs) run around 100 as a minimum but some, such as the legendary Zapotek (spelling?) ran upwards of 180-200 MPW.
I and some friends find our limit when working full time is around 90-110 MPW but we do know people that do more. They are also probably certified OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). I'm just a little bit OCD.;-)
One of my goals in the last year was to see what I could do and I was in a place, geographically, mentally, financially that allowed me to do nothing but run. That was when I reached 140 MPW; I also brought my marathon time down by a significant amount.
For me personally, it was one of the best times of my life. I learned a lot about myself, my training and what I can do (both running and other pursuits). I don't feel I need to do 140 MPW anymore to continue to improve but, it sure does boost confidence when you know you *could* and *did* run 140 MPW.
Advice from a marathoner
on
Running for Geeks
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Look, I'm (almost) as geeky as anyone else on/. but one of the most wonderful things about running is that it strips you down to your soul.
When you run as much as I do (up to 140 miles per week), you quickly learn that everything has weight and carrying even a few extra ounces (be they on your back in the form of a camel-back, strapped to your arm in the form of a GPS/MP3/gizmo-du-jour or in the form of fat in your belly) becomes a very heavy burden after enough miles.
Don't be like people who go "camping" in their big-ass RVs complete with satellite TV. One has to question why they even left home. When you go out to run, leave everything behind in both a physical and metaphysical sense. Enjoy the scenery, enjoy the air, enjoy feeling the fire in your lungs and being alive.
Try leaving everything at home except your shorts, socks, shoes and a watch (and a key to get back in).
When you leave it all behind, you might be surprised with what you find within.
for the "low cost of living and lots of open space"
One could argue it's because the natural migration of people just hasn't put too many people there yet. While 10 miles outside of NYC is almost as urban as the city itself.
But I like to think it's because not many people want to live in a dry, desolate land.
I don't usually respond to *any* surveys simply b/c my time is more valuable than offering it for free to some company.
With that said, this is yet more evidence - along with the price drops in Thailand, Ballmer's world travels and all their other efforts to quell the tide - that Linux is slowly restoring competition to the marketplace.
Linux may one day supplant MS, it may not. It might garner a significant market share and co-exist with MS. As long as there is competition in the market, MS can't abuse their power and THAT is what is important to me.
His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.
I agree with all of your statements - even that his operation has been greatly hindered - but don't think he can't elude capture/death/cream-pies-in-the-face for quite a long time.
Pol Pot was responsible for the death of something like 30% (more?) of all Cambodians. Despite the horrid acts he committed, Pol Pot died of old age in a rural village in Cambodia.
"Not to mention the fact that Rekall is completely cross-platform."
Sorry to demonstrate my ignorance but, can you explain how it is cross-platform? I only saw rpms and source tarballs on the site for download. i.e. could you explain (generally) how to set this up under another (Windows?) environment?
I wasn't able to find anything on their site specifically saying what the system requirements are - OS, version, other stuff, etc...
There are several great editors out there and Bluefish certainly stands near the top but...
where is the site manager like you'd find in Dreamweaver or (shudder) Frontpage?
Sorry, I love Linux and all other FLOSS. I use OpenOffice.org wherever possible. I browse and do email with Mozilla... I advocate as much as possible but until there is a high quality web authoring tool which also has a site editor, the only way you'll get me to give up Dreamweaver is by prying it out of my cold dead hand.
But I have hope - the tide of Open Source is rising faster and faster!:-)
I learned cursive like everyone else and believed, just like everyone else that it was faster than printing.
My cursive was also nearly illegible to anyone but myself and, by the fifth grade I found I couldn't even read a lot of what I wrote.
Liking the style I saw on blueprints, I started writing like that (block caps). It was slow at first but I stayed with it b/c of the improvements in legibility - i.e. I could actually read notes I took in class.
Today, many years later, I can write in my block caps as fast as anyone who writes cursive and I've stylized a few letters here and there so anyone who knows me *knows* it is *my* handwriting. Additionally, everyone can read my handwriting very clearly.
The only reason I've ever been given for cursive is speed. If I can easily write block caps as fast as someone else can write cursive, this argument must be bunk.
Whatever, WinCE is going to have to get into a lot of "PDAs, smartphones, consumer electronics devices and other information appliances" if it's to achieve the kind of growth eTForecasts is predicting. There's certainly no sign that the PDA market will grow that fast, and we suspect the consumer electronics world will favour low-cost Linux.
Sorry to rain on your parade but seems to me that the Register doesn't believe these current predictions.
But then, 67.43% of all statistics and predictions are pulled out of someone's bung hole anyway. We should revisit this prediction in, say, 10 years.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been expecting an announcement like this since at least 2002. I was at a recruiting event at Sun back in late 2002 and it was pretty obvious to me then that they had lost their way. They had no killer products or even rumors of such, they'd gone through a number of rounds of "cost cutting" measures (read: layoffs) and they were focused on yesterday's technology or pie-in-the-sky ideas. But, big things have a lot of momentum and can coast for a long time before reality hits. And, for some, reality will only hit when they feel the frigid waters of the north Atlantic.
(This'll be my last comment on this as I've had this discussion oh-so-many times with people like you and I get tired of it)
OK, so they don't have internet access today and they can't check the weather. Who's to say the PCV's next project won't be to set up a wireless network? Who's to say they won't soon be getting telephone and dial up in his area? There are a lot of amazing things going on in this area. Here's one of my favorite: Jhai. Granted, you did point out one thing they can not do today with computers which I stated they could, what about all of the other things? Spreadsheets? Students learning? Bookkeeping? Computers are multipurpose tools. Not having an internet connection does diminish the value of them but, as I demonstrated when I was a PCV, by no means eliminates their value.
Building/buying PCs requires a lot of planning and execution. Having lived in the rice fields of central Thailand and spent many days traveling back and forth between my village and Bangkok, I know this from personal experience. It is not easy and this PCV should be commended for his efforts.
There is a big difference between buying a bottom-of-the-line PC over the internet here in America and buying a PC in any developing country. When I was a PCV I did not buy bottom of the line PCs because I knew they would be obsolete way too quickly. We ended up with 35 mid-level machines and we assembled them ourselves. part of this was due to cost and part due to my desire to teach people.
I can not speak for Togo but I can say that here in the US and in Thailand is is almost always cheaper to buy the components and assemble a machine yourself than it is to purchase a machine of the same specs. When I was a PCV that difference was about $300 but machines were expensive in Thailand at the time. When I last built a box here in the US I did a lot of research and saved about $200 building my own machine. Of course I spent my time instead of my money by assembling these machines but I enjoy it and when I was in Thailand I taught a group of students how to do it. Several of them went on to technical school/college to pursue computers - directly because they were exposed to them. Until I came along they had never used or knew anything about computers. So we saved money and built capacity. Pretty good value if you ask me.
The last point I will address is the one which makes me mad because it is clear to me you have not done any research before making such asinine comments as "Really clueless scam".
I suggest you head back to Aaron's blog. Click through to see his project listing on the Peace Corps site. Now, I used to be the director of the Peace Corps Partnership Program - the part of the Peace Corps he is using to help fund his project. If you actually read and research, which you clearly haven't, you might find that the PCPP raises a lot of money for PCVs in country and there is a lot of oversight of these funds. Oversight includes the staff here in Washington, DC accounting, accounting in-country by Peace Corps Staff, project oversight, project reviews, etc. You could even do a FOIA request to learn more about the oversight on a particular project if you wanted. Like I said, I know all this because I used to be director of that program and I fielded many a complaint by donors and Volunteers alike that we added too much red tape. I agree, there is a lot of oversight but it is necessary to maintain the integrity of the program.
In one of my parent comments I mentioned that "in-kind" gifts are not all they are cracked up to be. Early on when I was a PCV I solicited used computers and they were a serious headache. Some worked, some didn't and they all broke fairly quickly. It was just as easy/hard (depends
You ask a very good and legitimate question. One which I was asked a lot and some very bright minds in the development field used to ask also. Answer is that they would do the very same things with a computer you and I do. They use it for typing, data manipulation (spreadsheets, analysis, bookkeeping,
Computers are tools just like a hammer and shovel. Yes, they require a higher level of infrastructure to use/maintain than the hammer and shovel but with this higher level of infrastructure they also provide a much greater "leverage" on the user's efforts than the hammer/shovel.
In my school (back in Thailand in '95) the teachers had been grading students the same way as every other teacher in Thailand - by hand. At the end of the school term this consumed about three days of each teacher's time. With my help we acquired some computers, a large printer (thanks to HP in Thailand) and developed spreadsheets to assist with grading. This system reduced end-of-term grading from three days down to about 4 hours of work.
With 2.5 days saved, the teachers could spend more time developing lesson plans, getting training, etc. Essentially, the system allowed an increase in teacher productivity which multiplied many times over many occupations, increases a country's productivity and level of wealth.
Keep in mind that my school had intermittant electricity, intermittant running water and the road outside the school had only recently been paved when I got there (paving the school driveway was one of my projects). This was not a city school by any means. At the time I was there, someone with basic computer skills (what we were teaching the students) could make about twice as much money as someone without. That extra money is the difference between having to be a rice farmer (there are few jobs more difficult and back breaking than rice farming), where you may or may not eat, may or may not pay the bills, and having a comfortable living, sending your kids to school, etc.
Here's a few other examples of how computers/technology can drive change where many of us from developed countries might question it:
Indian fishermen's lives changed by cellphones
Grameen Bank - people told Yunus poor people weren't worth lending to (kind of like the argument that poor people don't need computers)
I could go on and on about this topic as you can tell... Also highly recommended is to read the book "The Ugly American". There is a LOT of truth in that book.
~ZanderMander
My brother once said something similar. He questioned why I needed to go halfway around the world to help people when there were people in our own backyard who needed help.
... - I responded by saying to him "America is the most powerful country in the world - we have the largest military and the largest economy. Given this, where does our backyard really end?" You can't say it ends at our borders because so much of our economy is dependent upon trade and manufacturing that occurs outside of our borders. Where were the computers we are so fond of manufactured? Where were our clothes made? I bet your TV was not made in America. Do you like to eat apples in May? You can eat fresh apples in May because they are imported from the southern hemisphere - places like Chile, Argentina...
Besides the obvious fun of it all - traveling to foreign lands, meeting foreign people, eating their amazing food, learning their language,
So, to be hard-nosed about it, helping those people in other countries has some very selfish motives - it helps us and even helps those people in Flint, Michigan.
I was a PCV (Thailand) and also worked at PC HQ for a while doing fundraising. In addition to this, I raised over $25K while a Volunteer for various IT projects. This was back in the mid-90's when Volunteers were discouraged from this sort of thing because it was seen as "inappropriate". Luckily I have a rebellious streak.
But I digress...
The fabric of funding available in each country is different but you need money - not IT because you're going to go buy it. After I solicited donations of used equipment, I often found used equipment to be more trouble than it was worth and with a small amount of moeny I could go buy/build new stuff. So you're on the right track.
Sources: try embassies. I solicited funds from EVERY embassy in Thailand. Surprisingly, Saudi Arabia gave me the most money. I expected a European country to give the most. Also look into Chambers of Commerce. There are a LOT of gov't aid organizations (USAID, for example) and NGOs out there who might fund you. Look into the USAID publication which lists everyone who receives money from them. It is published annually and is a GREAT resource for people who might fund you. Regional politicians are a good source - try the governor of your province. I developed a great relationship with mine and he helped me a LOT in several situations. Also try the Peace Corps Partnership Program. It's often slow but can provide a lot of money.
Just because these people are giving you money, don't look at it as a donation. It's not. They want something in return. What can you give them? Good will. Be absolutely sure to take LOTS of pictures of cute little kids with the computers you buy/build. Do what you can to get these pictures printed in the local/national papers. Again, develop relationships with people in the newspapers and your pics/press releases will get published more often than not. Make up certificates and send to donors, invite them to "dedication" ceremonies (9 times out of 10 they won't come but will be happy to have been invited). Repeat customers are much cheaper and easier to acquire than new customers - once someone has given you money, wait a few months and hit them up again.
Don't forget that you're going to leave in 2 or so years. Training is FAR more important than the actual equipment. Build capacity. Teach people how to build/repair their own macines, teach them how to use the machines. If you don't build capacity you're wasting your two years there. I wasn't trying to but did so out of dumb luck - I taught a few coworkers how to use the machines and a few students how to build/repair them. Unknowingly at the time I launched a few IT careers...
Finally, here's a link to a manual I produced way back when but is still being used by Peace Corps Thailand. It is old and somewhat country specific but there's a lot more of my "lessons learned" in there than I write here.
Good luck!
~ZanderMander
Does anyone else see irony in an article where there is an apparent attempt to bring more women into the OSS community being tagged "Gnome, Chicks, Women"?
Oh, wait - I just reloaded the page and the "Chicks" tag is now gone!
Guess that means I'm not the only one who noticed...
I went from Girlfriend 1.0 to Girlfriend 2.0 which delivered on most of the promised features so I was pretty excited when offered an upgrade from GF 2.0 to Wife 1.0. The problem is that I found that Wife 1.0 offers slowly degrading performance and not all of the features of GF 2.0. Sadly I did not read the fineprint until after the upgrade to Wife 1.0 - this is an irreversible upgrade....
"We have invested THOUSANDS of dollars in R&D for our buggies and buggie whips. We have no plans for producing whips or any other products for these new fangled horseless carriages."
- famous last words by a buggy whip manufacturer
I'm sure many others will cover equipment, power charging and such - I'll cover how you should do this. Well, since I taught in a developing country for a few years, this is my suggestion of how...
Developing countries generally have a huge surplus of labor - it's one of their biggest resources. They also, like a lot of the world, tend to have lots of kids who are eager to learn new stuff.
What you need to do is take several GPS receivers with you and hook up with a local teacher who can integrate GPS ideas and geography in with their lessons. The teacher could even make it a special project working with trustable students to map their own village(s).
The key here is to push as much onto the students as possible so they do the work and they learn. You'll help the teacher, help the students and help make more than just maps.
From the article:
Over the past 15 years, Eigler has led a group of young scientists who have pioneered the use of atom manipulation in wide-ranging experiments aimed at building and understanding of the properties of atomic-scale structures and exploring their potential for use in information technologies such as digital logic and data storage.
Let's see... if they were 25 when Eigler started, they're now 40! Not so young anymore!
(it's a joke. laugh.)
no startup can be the next Microsoft unless some other company is prepared to bend over at just the right moment and be the next IBM.
You've never had to escape from people bent on killing your entire ethnic group.
Not that I have, mind you, but I would think you have heard of the Holocaust, Cambodia (ever see The Killing Fields?), Rwanda and even what went on in South Africa for so long.
At this point in the world's history, I cannot sympathize with anyone attempting to use false ID to travel.
I don't know about you but if were being persecuted and all I needed to do to escape harm was to use a false ID, I think I'd choose the false ID.
Sometimes the right thing to do is to ignore and/or willfully break stupid laws.
Sorry for sounding so harsh but that part of your comment was pretty dumb. Seeing mountains of skulls in Cambodia has a way of changing your point of view.
I had the same problem recently - I was repartitioning my HD to install Fedora on a second partition and, whoops! low-level formatted the whole thing by accident.
Since I regularly back up, and had done so, this was a blessing in disguise as it gave me an opportunity to clean up the cruft that accumulates.
But, like the author of one of the articles points out, I didn't have the patches to WinXP offline. Within 15 minutes of initial connection I had THREE worms on my computer! While removing and patching for them I acquired a fourth which I was not able to remove until the next day.
I guess I was lucky in that I knew what I was doing and was able to get that first critical patch applied.
Needless to say, I use Fedora more and more every day...
I was at Sun back in Feb. of 2003 and pointedly asked the speaker these questions - where were they going, what new products did they have and how were they going to deal with the rise of cheap servers/Linux.
After hearing the speaker waffle on about MadHatter, thin clients, new opportunities and that most-hated MBA word (and I'm an MBA) "monetizing" for about 10 minutes, I realized I already knew the answers to my questions.
At the short and informal reception following the speaker, an engineer who had sat on the panel (but didn't say anything during it) button-holed me to tell me that I had hit the nail right on the head - he said virtually all of Sun was trying to figure out the answers to my questions and as yet they did not have any answers.
Not much is sadder than the rusting hulk of a once great company in total denial.
I've been running for about 22 years now, ran competitively in HS and college and continue to race.
;-)
For "serious" marathoning, I'd say you need to do a minimum of 40-60 MPW. Elite athletes (read: Olympic studs) run around 100 as a minimum but some, such as the legendary Zapotek (spelling?) ran upwards of 180-200 MPW.
I and some friends find our limit when working full time is around 90-110 MPW but we do know people that do more. They are also probably certified OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). I'm just a little bit OCD.
One of my goals in the last year was to see what I could do and I was in a place, geographically, mentally, financially that allowed me to do nothing but run. That was when I reached 140 MPW; I also brought my marathon time down by a significant amount.
For me personally, it was one of the best times of my life. I learned a lot about myself, my training and what I can do (both running and other pursuits). I don't feel I need to do 140 MPW anymore to continue to improve but, it sure does boost confidence when you know you *could* and *did* run 140 MPW.
Look, I'm (almost) as geeky as anyone else on /. but one of the most wonderful things about running is that it strips you down to your soul.
When you run as much as I do (up to 140 miles per week), you quickly learn that everything has weight and carrying even a few extra ounces (be they on your back in the form of a camel-back, strapped to your arm in the form of a GPS/MP3/gizmo-du-jour or in the form of fat in your belly) becomes a very heavy burden after enough miles.
Don't be like people who go "camping" in their big-ass RVs complete with satellite TV. One has to question why they even left home. When you go out to run, leave everything behind in both a physical and metaphysical sense. Enjoy the scenery, enjoy the air, enjoy feeling the fire in your lungs and being alive.
Try leaving everything at home except your shorts, socks, shoes and a watch (and a key to get back in).
When you leave it all behind, you might be surprised with what you find within.
for the "low cost of living and lots of open space"
One could argue it's because the natural migration of people just hasn't put too many people there yet. While 10 miles outside of NYC is almost as urban as the city itself.
But I like to think it's because not many people want to live in a dry, desolate land.
Now people who are really qualified can do a "Deep Dive". Not just some imaginary mathmaticians from MIT.
DIVE! DIVE!
Now WE can sink their Battleship!
Does anyone else find the 4th screenshot from the right incredibly funny?
Note that among other templates there is one for toilet paper?
Now to just figure out how to run it through my laserprinter.....
:-D
I don't usually respond to *any* surveys simply b/c my time is more valuable than offering it for free to some company.
With that said, this is yet more evidence - along with the price drops in Thailand, Ballmer's world travels and all their other efforts to quell the tide - that Linux is slowly restoring competition to the marketplace.
Linux may one day supplant MS, it may not. It might garner a significant market share and co-exist with MS. As long as there is competition in the market, MS can't abuse their power and THAT is what is important to me.
His operation has been greatly hindered, and he'll go down...eventually.
I agree with all of your statements - even that his operation has been greatly hindered - but don't think he can't elude capture/death/cream-pies-in-the-face for quite a long time.
Pol Pot was responsible for the death of something like 30% (more?) of all Cambodians. Despite the horrid acts he committed, Pol Pot died of old age in a rural village in Cambodia.
"Not to mention the fact that Rekall is completely cross-platform."
Sorry to demonstrate my ignorance but, can you explain how it is cross-platform? I only saw rpms and source tarballs on the site for download. i.e. could you explain (generally) how to set this up under another (Windows?) environment?
I wasn't able to find anything on their site specifically saying what the system requirements are - OS, version, other stuff, etc...
Thanks!
I think I've looked at Bluefish before.
:-)
There are several great editors out there and Bluefish certainly stands near the top but...
where is the site manager like you'd find in Dreamweaver or (shudder) Frontpage?
Sorry, I love Linux and all other FLOSS. I use OpenOffice.org wherever possible. I browse and do email with Mozilla... I advocate as much as possible but until there is a high quality web authoring tool which also has a site editor, the only way you'll get me to give up Dreamweaver is by prying it out of my cold dead hand.
But I have hope - the tide of Open Source is rising faster and faster!
I learned cursive like everyone else and believed, just like everyone else that it was faster than printing.
;-)
My cursive was also nearly illegible to anyone but myself and, by the fifth grade I found I couldn't even read a lot of what I wrote.
Liking the style I saw on blueprints, I started writing like that (block caps). It was slow at first but I stayed with it b/c of the improvements in legibility - i.e. I could actually read notes I took in class.
Today, many years later, I can write in my block caps as fast as anyone who writes cursive and I've stylized a few letters here and there so anyone who knows me *knows* it is *my* handwriting. Additionally, everyone can read my handwriting very clearly.
The only reason I've ever been given for cursive is speed. If I can easily write block caps as fast as someone else can write cursive, this argument must be bunk.
End the tyrrany of bad cursive!
Whatever, WinCE is going to have to get into a lot of "PDAs, smartphones, consumer electronics devices and other information appliances" if it's to achieve the kind of growth eTForecasts is predicting. There's certainly no sign that the PDA market will grow that fast, and we suspect the consumer electronics world will favour low-cost Linux.
Sorry to rain on your parade but seems to me that the Register doesn't believe these current predictions.
But then, 67.43% of all statistics and predictions are pulled out of someone's bung hole anyway. We should revisit this prediction in, say, 10 years.