I can't see these systems needing a great amount of storage space, a few hundred meg maybe a gig. Flash memory is perfectly adequate for that, its also going to consume less power which as another reply to this post says is very important as there may not be any mains power."
A side benefit of this approach is you don't have to worry about a hard drive with moving parts, and you can get away without having to shock-mount it. Chip-based storage is very durable in comparison.
Ah; I see the disconnect between our sides of the conversation. I had assumed the regulator between the hand crank and the laptop would be part of the crank assembly, because they had described it as a single system provided all together. I was wondering what you were talking about, why you were worrying about a regulator when the hand crank had already been described as being part of the system.
You're so funny... You complain about lock in, then mention that Java is available on Win, Linux, Solaris and Mac (the four environments virtually EVERYONE is using). Oh, and the Linux version of Java runs on FreeBSD with Linux Binary Compatability turned on -- oh, you didn't know that? That's ok. That's FIVE operating systems Java runs on.
Oh, and by the way, you're not limited to Sun-provided compilers and JRE's either. IBM has a website full of alternative systems you can use. The Free Software Foundation is working on their own implementations as well.
Where's your lock-in? Because I'm having a hard time finding it.
BY THE WAY, I'm not a "java person". Professionally, I do VB.Net. Nyah, nyah. Pthhhbbbth!
Well, my Panasonic is pretty much rainproof. I've read about a number of pretty horrible tests this model line has been subjected to, and it's pretty impressive. I've never dropped it more than four feet, but a while ago I dropped an Itronix laptop from almost eight feet (actually, I threw it at the floor with some force). It had to be rebooted, but it was fine afterwards. I thought that was pretty impressive. The shock-mounting in my Panasonic is very interesting; it's a silicone sleeve that fits around the hard drive, plus a thin steel shell that fits around that, with flexible, light cables.
I don't know where you've heard about mil-spec laptops, but I think your source is way off the mark. The brands I follow (Panasonic, Itronix, Getac, and Amrel) are considered to be pretty bulletproof. I get mine from Ebay, and generally spend less than a thousand dollars. For example, a Panasonic CF-28 with some extras ran me around 900 bucks, total. I think that's a good value for a laptop that was originally around 4,000 bucks. And they're engineered very, very well. I really don't think you can go wrong with a Panasonic. It's an excellent machine. The LCD is armored, too, with a hard plastic plate. Wonderful.
As far as the voltage thing, you're really being ridiculous and your point is a little thoughtless. The issue here is, villagers won't always HAVE a "source of power". What good is your voltage regulator then? Or would you prefer that they have to find some central source of power, so that some external group has the power to deny them the use of their laptop? Your point of view has not been fully considered. MY point is that the hand crank solution suggested by the $100 laptop guys is brilliant, because it grants all power over access to the laptop to the laptop's OWNER, whether he has electric service or NOT. This applies to poor people, too. Electric power shut off because you missed the bill? No problem; you still have your laptop and can run it anyway.
You aren't reading my posts. No hard feelings, though.:)
If you switch, and start using C#, you'll be stuck using Microsoft Windows for most things. Although there is Mono, if Microsoft ever goes berserk and starts suing them over "patent violations" that'll cause real problems for you.
If you stick with Java, you can move pretty freely between Windows, Linux, Mac OS/X, and *BSD.
With C#, I believe you're more limited.
Additionally, I believe that many more companies offer Java development environments than offer C# environments; with C#, aren't you pretty much limited to Microsoft and Mono? With Java, you can go with Borland, IBM, Sun, even Oracle, and I'm sure there are others as well as "Free Software" implementations.
Just my two cents; this isn't a Microsoft bashing, by the way, it's just a matter of flexibility. Java gives you more flexibility than C#, so I'd stick with it.
1) Waterproof is impossible if you want to see the screen. Shockproof is almost impossible because of the harddrive.
Not true! I'm typing this on an old mil-spec laptop I got on Ebay, and this laptop is (if not submersible) effectively waterproof and (thanks to a protective harness around its hard drive and its LCD) shockproof. My screen looks pretty good; it's sunlight-viewable, too. You're thinking of consumer laptop tech. "There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy"... Do a Google search on the terms "MIL-STD-810", "IP-54", "shock-mounted", "Marinized", "Toughbook 28" (mine), "Getac", and "Amrel Rocky" for some more information on this subject. Most of the military laptops are extraordinarily expensive, so don't freak out; the shock-mounting and waterproofing isn't terribly hard to handle, most of the cost comes from custom-building the mil-spec laptops from molded magnesium or aluminum and so forth. Well, AND because the government has deep pockets, ha ha.
All you need to do to make a laptop water resistant and shockproof is:
1. Rubber-mount the LCD and the hard drive, and look into alternative LCD technologies that don't involve thin glass plates (like the electronic paper they mentioned in an article I read about the 100.00 computer).
2. Give the laptop a case that is water resistant and a rubber keyboard (which, by the way, are easier to manufacture than normal keyboards because you just have one mold to fill instead of a multitude of separate keys and key sizes).
Why don't you like the idea? What's the big deal? Make the laptop so it won't break easily... One would think this would be a GOOD thing.
About your voltage point, you're missing the point. A villager will not have access to lots of electrical power. So, the concept listed by the $100 computer guys was a computer that can be charged via hand-crank. THIS is what I was alluding to.
About the $100.00... I consider that a good price point, and I wasn't challenging it. What I was trying to say was, the computer the third world needs should be at this price point so they can replace it if necessary, not much more expensive like Western computers. So I think this was a misunderstanding on your part of what I was trying to say.;)
Pardon me, but you missed the point I was trying to make.
It's not about the third world suddenly wanting to become suburan American-type consumers. It has nothing to do with that at all.
What I mean is, for example:
A man who currently lives in a shack sees an article on the net about brick houses and adobe. He looks at his shack, looks at an adobe house, and thinks "That might be better". So he reads about how to make adobe or brick, digs clay, makes a kiln, and puts a better home together. Without spending money. Without any help from the West. It's HIS, he built it, all because he saw an idea he found interesting. Other people in his village find it interesting and do the same thing themselves.
So they are having problems with their crops. They want to know how to get more rice, or corn, or sweet potatoes, out of the same area of land. So one of their kids looks it up. They start trying different agricultural methods. Their food output gets better, they try more things, and it gets better again.
Or, they're having trouble with some kind of wild animal coming into their farm and killing their animals. They look up designs for different kinds of traps online, and catch the animal.
I am NOT talking about them suddenly wanting televisions, or to be rich. I'm talking about them being able to learn things that actually HELP them. Useful stuff. That's one thing the web is extremely good at providing, you know. Pretty much anything you might want to do has a "how-to" article somewhere.
During THIS decade, it would probably be only the kids using the computers, because along with the computers would be some kind of reading/writing/arithmatic education. But those kids grow up, and teach their kids. And so on.
Within a few decades, you have a country of people who are VERY self-sufficient and capable, who are used to the concept of researching solutions to problems. And THAT is the point of all this.
Understand where I'm going, now? I'm talking "How-To", not "MTV".
No, I don't think the $1000.00 computers are a good idea for the third world; they're nice, and powerful, but they don't fit the environment they'd be going to. For a computer to be useful in the third world, it needs to be:
1. Very durable, waterproof and shockproof with a battery you can charge up *without* a dependable source of electric power. 2. Very cheap, not just for the initial purchase, but so you can replace it easily if it gets stolen or destroyed. 3. Easy to use.
The expensive computers you're talking about wouldn't survive the first monsoon, and they wouldn't be replaceable. What good would they be? What people need is a whole *new* design, something relatively waterproof and tough, but at the same time cheap. It's a whole paradigm change, I think.
You know, if they pull it off, the West is going to jump on the idea, too, because EVERYONE will want one. Which will make it that much easier for third-world people to interact with the rest of the world (enhancing the process).
Absolutely. I think a very cheap laptop is inevitable. It's not a new idea, either; it's been floating around science fiction for years and years. An idea that interesting, in my opinion, is almost inevitable. One novel described laptops whose casings were made of plasticized straw, cheaply put together with inexpensive components. Almost like a salvage job... Another one described laptops made of paper composites, with printed-out circuit boards. And just this past year, didn't a company figure out how to print electronic circuits with a new process? Things are getting so interesting lately!
I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to change things for a lot of people.
I think a third world wiki would probably lean very heavily towards "how-to" subjects that would directly benefit people living in the various areas affected. For example, articles on how to use clay to bake bricks for use in building, articles on the use of adobe, articles on roof-building and plumbing methods, how to build water-delivery systems out of locally available materials... These are the subjects I would put in.
Everything from ancient Roman engineering concepts (the arch, the aqueduct, locating and exploiting water sources, etc) to modern home-building techniques could go in. Operational stuff, you know?
It would also serve as a "good-faith" thing; don't try to mess with their culture, respectfully avoid the subject entirely, just give them what they need to really improve their lives. That's what they want to know, you know; "How do I build a house whose roof doesn't leak in monsoon season?" "How do I build a better boat, with more capacity for fish and is easier to pilot?" Stuff like that.
I'd LOVE to see a resource like that made available. I think it'd help people a whole lot more than dropping bags of food from airplanes.:)
Well, there IS something useful about such a concept. You have to consider the social effects of such a development:
1. Networks optimized for the third world give them the equivalent of a telephone system, only better. Once everyone can communicate with everyone, cooperation becomes a lot easier.
2. The cheap laptops give them the ability to communicate not only with each other, but with the rest of the world. They get to see how everyone else lives, and compare it with how they live. And they get to see that things CAN be different, which makes them want to make things different.
3. Once they have the ability to communicate with everyone, and they have the desire to improve their surroundings, access to information from the rest of the world might give them ideas about how to actually change things. They might look for ways to improve irrigation, for example. Or ways to prevent their houses from having a leaky roof. Or even things as simple as learning how to bake bricks from clay, to make better houses.
4. The more they know, and the more they change, the more they will WANT to know and change. And things will accelerate significantly. I don't expect them to accept changes to their culture, rather, I expect them to want to learn operational things, skills and trades, engineering. That sort of thing. They'll pick and choose, and get what they want.
Access to knowledge is an extremely liberating, empowering thing. It's like the old saw, "dont give a man a fish, teach him how to fish".
The third world doesn't need to be taken care of by the first world; it needs to learn how to take care of itself, without the first world's help.
I never minded banner ads. Sometimes they interested me and I clicked on them, most times they didn't relate to me and I ignored them. They were never any problem.
But then they started bouncing banner ads through Doubleclick and building profiles on people. That was annoying.
Then they started doing popups and popunders, which really annoyed the fuck out of me. So I blocked 'em -- as did everyone else. This was as it should have been, an appropriate response.
So then they did "interstitials", which blocked you from the content you were trying to access for some period of time. And they did nasty flash ads which obscured content for a period, although they sometimes were buggy and wouldn't let you in, period. And they did the floating ads which block the whole page, and they tried to hack your computer.
I say, fuck all advertisers. If they can't play nice, why should we play at all? And, as you say, why should we care about their problems?
Fuck 'em. They're a bunch of slimy carpetbaggers, anyway.:)
Companies set prices based on "what the market will bear". It has no relationship whatsoever to cost. They CLAIM that the prices are high because of (insert rationalization here) but really, that's bullshit.
They charge exactly what they get away with charging. And they study this problem in great detail. They insert the commercials BECAUSE THEY CAN.
Actually, I like to smile mysteriously, fold my left hand over my right, and then, very casually, glance down at my watch while saying "Mmmm." Sometimes I nod my head slightly or sigh plaintively.
Heh! You got me there... It was a one-off joke, so I didn't really do a proper object design. I don't code like that for real, of course (digs toe in floor and blushes).
Anyway, That was really supposed to be more like java-ish pseudocode. If it was Java, I'd have included classes for everything, including a superclass "Employee" which could be subclassed to "Manager", "Developer", "Consultant" and "EvilVendorRep" (although I don't know if you can classify those as "employees" because you generally have to invoke them with animal sacrifice so they might not actually be human).
Although... That gives me an idea: if we did it that way, we could make sure that the Consultant classes had trouble with infinite looping in a few of their methods (maximization of billable hours, eh?). And the Vendor classes would have to have a dozen different almost identical forms, all of which are nearly impossible to tell apart, take almost the same parameters, are described identically in the documentation... But then, behave in completely different, randomized ways!
The manager class wouldn't do much, but it would pop up endless annoying nag windows. Heh...:)
if(internal project){
if(doneByEmployees){
if(manager.clueless){
if(manager.schedule.isRidiculous()){
project.lateness.reason = "Employees came, they saw the schedule, they laughed, then they did the project in its natural timeframe";
} else {
project.lateness.reason = "Employees came, they saw the schedule, something went wrong, all hell broke loose, then they finished the project as fast as they could, considering";
}
} else if (manager.isEvil) {
project.lateness.reason = "Employees hate him anyway and ignored his sadistic schedule. General sentiment of 'fuck it, I'm on salary' prevails, manager crashes and burns, employees get reassigned, everybody sings 'ding dong, the witch is dead' and goes to Starbucks for coffee";
} else {
project.lateness.reason = "Unforseen problems arose, employees did their best to deal with them, stakeholders wouldn't budge on schedule, so the project was late.";
}
} else {// CONTRACTORS! HERE BE DRAGONS!
project.lateness.reason = "maximization of billable hours (duh)";
} } else {// VENDORS! GOOD LORD, HIDE THE WOMEN, KIDS, AND FARM ANIMALS!
project.lateness.reason = "Incredible, absolutely amazing scope creep, maximization of billable hours, platform/system/vendor changes midstream, refusal to engage in technology transfer as extortion technique, total screw up of vendor, outsourcing to country without indoor plumbing (but assume they can handle high technology), etc, etc, etc"; }
A group of porcupines were trying to stay warm during a cold winter. Whenever they got too close to one another, they would prick each other with their quills. So they determined a safe distance at which they could stay warm and not prick one another.
Henceforth, this distance was called "decency and good manners".
If the admin was just enforcing a policy, and wasn't personally invested in punishing the kid, he probably wanted to mention only the one file that wouldn't get the kid expelled or sued. Everything that goes in email can come back to haunt you. This may have been a case of the admin not wanting to create proof that he knew of an illegal use.
First of all, I'd say to myself "It's their network and they can decide what I run on it". Then I'd say "However, they didn't appropriately warn me that they didn't want me running BitTorrent. This is all a misunderstanding, let's clear it up." And then I would go to the networking office and say this:
"First of all, this is a misunderstanding. I wasn't downloading or distributing copyrighted material, I was just downloading an update to the software, and I had an appropriate license for it. So I haven't broken the law and I haven't done anything that'll get YOU in trouble, either. I only use BitTorrent to download Linux ISO's (or whatever), and I didn't think anyone would care about that -- it's all properly licensed to me, no laws broken...
I understand why you might not want me to run BitTorrent, and since you obviously don't want me running it on your network, I won't, ok? But do me a favor and restore my network access, because this is all just a misunderstanding and no law has been broken. I'm sorry if I've caused you any trouble."
I would be very polite and businesslike, I would show the network admin respect, and I would try VERY hard to not come across as hostile in any way.
Network priviledges are important to a college kid. And they don't have to turn the tap back on, remember that. BE NICE and clear the mess up, and maybe it'll all get settled in a friendly way.
Of course, if you WERE trading movies or music, you're probably SOL. But you probably weren't (you deserve the benefit of the doubt). Treat it as a misunderstanding that has to be cleared up, and you'll be ok.
Slashdot Mirror
An A/C said:
" Hard drives? Why do you need them?
I can't see these systems needing a great amount of storage space, a few hundred meg maybe a gig. Flash memory is perfectly adequate for that, its also going to consume less power which as another reply to this post says is very important as there may not be any mains power."
A side benefit of this approach is you don't have to worry about a hard drive with moving parts, and you can get away without having to shock-mount it. Chip-based storage is very durable in comparison.
Cool...
Ah; I see the disconnect between our sides of the conversation. I had assumed the regulator between the hand crank and the laptop would be part of the crank assembly, because they had described it as a single system provided all together. I was wondering what you were talking about, why you were worrying about a regulator when the hand crank had already been described as being part of the system.
;)
No problem; "sorted" as the English say.
You're so funny... You complain about lock in, then mention that Java is available on Win, Linux, Solaris and Mac (the four environments virtually EVERYONE is using). Oh, and the Linux version of Java runs on FreeBSD with Linux Binary Compatability turned on -- oh, you didn't know that? That's ok. That's FIVE operating systems Java runs on.
Oh, and by the way, you're not limited to Sun-provided compilers and JRE's either. IBM has a website full of alternative systems you can use. The Free Software Foundation is working on their own implementations as well.
Where's your lock-in? Because I'm having a hard time finding it.
BY THE WAY, I'm not a "java person". Professionally, I do VB.Net. Nyah, nyah. Pthhhbbbth!
(All in jest, all in jest, no hard feelings)
-- Crazyphilman
Well, my Panasonic is pretty much rainproof. I've read about a number of pretty horrible tests this model line has been subjected to, and it's pretty impressive. I've never dropped it more than four feet, but a while ago I dropped an Itronix laptop from almost eight feet (actually, I threw it at the floor with some force). It had to be rebooted, but it was fine afterwards. I thought that was pretty impressive. The shock-mounting in my Panasonic is very interesting; it's a silicone sleeve that fits around the hard drive, plus a thin steel shell that fits around that, with flexible, light cables.
:)
I don't know where you've heard about mil-spec laptops, but I think your source is way off the mark. The brands I follow (Panasonic, Itronix, Getac, and Amrel) are considered to be pretty bulletproof. I get mine from Ebay, and generally spend less than a thousand dollars. For example, a Panasonic CF-28 with some extras ran me around 900 bucks, total. I think that's a good value for a laptop that was originally around 4,000 bucks. And they're engineered very, very well. I really don't think you can go wrong with a Panasonic. It's an excellent machine. The LCD is armored, too, with a hard plastic plate. Wonderful.
As far as the voltage thing, you're really being ridiculous and your point is a little thoughtless. The issue here is, villagers won't always HAVE a "source of power". What good is your voltage regulator then? Or would you prefer that they have to find some central source of power, so that some external group has the power to deny them the use of their laptop? Your point of view has not been fully considered. MY point is that the hand crank solution suggested by the $100 laptop guys is brilliant, because it grants all power over access to the laptop to the laptop's OWNER, whether he has electric service or NOT. This applies to poor people, too. Electric power shut off because you missed the bill? No problem; you still have your laptop and can run it anyway.
You aren't reading my posts. No hard feelings, though.
If you switch, and start using C#, you'll be stuck using Microsoft Windows for most things. Although there is Mono, if Microsoft ever goes berserk and starts suing them over "patent violations" that'll cause real problems for you.
If you stick with Java, you can move pretty freely between Windows, Linux, Mac OS/X, and *BSD.
With C#, I believe you're more limited.
Additionally, I believe that many more companies offer Java development environments than offer C# environments; with C#, aren't you pretty much limited to Microsoft and Mono? With Java, you can go with Borland, IBM, Sun, even Oracle, and I'm sure there are others as well as "Free Software" implementations.
Just my two cents; this isn't a Microsoft bashing, by the way, it's just a matter of flexibility. Java gives you more flexibility than C#, so I'd stick with it.
1) Waterproof is impossible if you want to see the screen. Shockproof is almost impossible because of the harddrive.
;)
Not true! I'm typing this on an old mil-spec laptop I got on Ebay, and this laptop is (if not submersible) effectively waterproof and (thanks to a protective harness around its hard drive and its LCD) shockproof. My screen looks pretty good; it's sunlight-viewable, too. You're thinking of consumer laptop tech. "There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy"... Do a Google search on the terms "MIL-STD-810", "IP-54", "shock-mounted", "Marinized", "Toughbook 28" (mine), "Getac", and "Amrel Rocky" for some more information on this subject. Most of the military laptops are extraordinarily expensive, so don't freak out; the shock-mounting and waterproofing isn't terribly hard to handle, most of the cost comes from custom-building the mil-spec laptops from molded magnesium or aluminum and so forth. Well, AND because the government has deep pockets, ha ha.
All you need to do to make a laptop water resistant and shockproof is:
1. Rubber-mount the LCD and the hard drive, and look into alternative LCD technologies that don't involve thin glass plates (like the electronic paper they mentioned in an article I read about the 100.00 computer).
2. Give the laptop a case that is water resistant and a rubber keyboard (which, by the way, are easier to manufacture than normal keyboards because you just have one mold to fill instead of a multitude of separate keys and key sizes).
Why don't you like the idea? What's the big deal? Make the laptop so it won't break easily... One would think this would be a GOOD thing.
About your voltage point, you're missing the point. A villager will not have access to lots of electrical power. So, the concept listed by the $100 computer guys was a computer that can be charged via hand-crank. THIS is what I was alluding to.
About the $100.00... I consider that a good price point, and I wasn't challenging it. What I was trying to say was, the computer the third world needs should be at this price point so they can replace it if necessary, not much more expensive like Western computers. So I think this was a misunderstanding on your part of what I was trying to say.
Pardon me, but you missed the point I was trying to make.
It's not about the third world suddenly wanting to become suburan American-type consumers. It has nothing to do with that at all.
What I mean is, for example:
A man who currently lives in a shack sees an article on the net about brick houses and adobe. He looks at his shack, looks at an adobe house, and thinks "That might be better". So he reads about how to make adobe or brick, digs clay, makes a kiln, and puts a better home together. Without spending money. Without any help from the West. It's HIS, he built it, all because he saw an idea he found interesting. Other people in his village find it interesting and do the same thing themselves.
So they are having problems with their crops. They want to know how to get more rice, or corn, or sweet potatoes, out of the same area of land. So one of their kids looks it up. They start trying different agricultural methods. Their food output gets better, they try more things, and it gets better again.
Or, they're having trouble with some kind of wild animal coming into their farm and killing their animals. They look up designs for different kinds of traps online, and catch the animal.
I am NOT talking about them suddenly wanting televisions, or to be rich. I'm talking about them being able to learn things that actually HELP them. Useful stuff. That's one thing the web is extremely good at providing, you know. Pretty much anything you might want to do has a "how-to" article somewhere.
During THIS decade, it would probably be only the kids using the computers, because along with the computers would be some kind of reading/writing/arithmatic education. But those kids grow up, and teach their kids. And so on.
Within a few decades, you have a country of people who are VERY self-sufficient and capable, who are used to the concept of researching solutions to problems. And THAT is the point of all this.
Understand where I'm going, now? I'm talking "How-To", not "MTV".
No, I don't think the $1000.00 computers are a good idea for the third world; they're nice, and powerful, but they don't fit the environment they'd be going to. For a computer to be useful in the third world, it needs to be:
1. Very durable, waterproof and shockproof with a battery you can charge up *without* a dependable source of electric power.
2. Very cheap, not just for the initial purchase, but so you can replace it easily if it gets stolen or destroyed.
3. Easy to use.
The expensive computers you're talking about wouldn't survive the first monsoon, and they wouldn't be replaceable. What good would they be? What people need is a whole *new* design, something relatively waterproof and tough, but at the same time cheap. It's a whole paradigm change, I think.
You know, if they pull it off, the West is going to jump on the idea, too, because EVERYONE will want one. Which will make it that much easier for third-world people to interact with the rest of the world (enhancing the process).
Absolutely. I think a very cheap laptop is inevitable. It's not a new idea, either; it's been floating around science fiction for years and years. An idea that interesting, in my opinion, is almost inevitable. One novel described laptops whose casings were made of plasticized straw, cheaply put together with inexpensive components. Almost like a salvage job... Another one described laptops made of paper composites, with printed-out circuit boards. And just this past year, didn't a company figure out how to print electronic circuits with a new process? Things are getting so interesting lately!
I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to change things for a lot of people.
I think a third world wiki would probably lean very heavily towards "how-to" subjects that would directly benefit people living in the various areas affected. For example, articles on how to use clay to bake bricks for use in building, articles on the use of adobe, articles on roof-building and plumbing methods, how to build water-delivery systems out of locally available materials... These are the subjects I would put in.
:)
Everything from ancient Roman engineering concepts (the arch, the aqueduct, locating and exploiting water sources, etc) to modern home-building techniques could go in. Operational stuff, you know?
It would also serve as a "good-faith" thing; don't try to mess with their culture, respectfully avoid the subject entirely, just give them what they need to really improve their lives. That's what they want to know, you know; "How do I build a house whose roof doesn't leak in monsoon season?" "How do I build a better boat, with more capacity for fish and is easier to pilot?" Stuff like that.
I'd LOVE to see a resource like that made available. I think it'd help people a whole lot more than dropping bags of food from airplanes.
Well, there IS something useful about such a concept. You have to consider the social effects of such a development:
1. Networks optimized for the third world give them the equivalent of a telephone system, only better. Once everyone can communicate with everyone, cooperation becomes a lot easier.
2. The cheap laptops give them the ability to communicate not only with each other, but with the rest of the world. They get to see how everyone else lives, and compare it with how they live. And they get to see that things CAN be different, which makes them want to make things different.
3. Once they have the ability to communicate with everyone, and they have the desire to improve their surroundings, access to information from the rest of the world might give them ideas about how to actually change things. They might look for ways to improve irrigation, for example. Or ways to prevent their houses from having a leaky roof. Or even things as simple as learning how to bake bricks from clay, to make better houses.
4. The more they know, and the more they change, the more they will WANT to know and change. And things will accelerate significantly. I don't expect them to accept changes to their culture, rather, I expect them to want to learn operational things, skills and trades, engineering. That sort of thing. They'll pick and choose, and get what they want.
Access to knowledge is an extremely liberating, empowering thing. It's like the old saw, "dont give a man a fish, teach him how to fish".
The third world doesn't need to be taken care of by the first world; it needs to learn how to take care of itself, without the first world's help.
Then it doesn't NEED the first world. See?
I agree completely.
:)
I never minded banner ads. Sometimes they interested me and I clicked on them, most times they didn't relate to me and I ignored them. They were never any problem.
But then they started bouncing banner ads through Doubleclick and building profiles on people. That was annoying.
Then they started doing popups and popunders, which really annoyed the fuck out of me. So I blocked 'em -- as did everyone else. This was as it should have been, an appropriate response.
So then they did "interstitials", which blocked you from the content you were trying to access for some period of time. And they did nasty flash ads which obscured content for a period, although they sometimes were buggy and wouldn't let you in, period. And they did the floating ads which block the whole page, and they tried to hack your computer.
I say, fuck all advertisers. If they can't play nice, why should we play at all? And, as you say, why should we care about their problems?
Fuck 'em. They're a bunch of slimy carpetbaggers, anyway.
The price would be the same.
Companies set prices based on "what the market will bear". It has no relationship whatsoever to cost. They CLAIM that the prices are high because of (insert rationalization here) but really, that's bullshit.
They charge exactly what they get away with charging. And they study this problem in great detail. They insert the commercials BECAUSE THEY CAN.
Just my two cents.
Which? Yours or mine?
After all, mine wasn't even Java. It was merely a java-like pseudocode. But I repeat myself.
Weirdo.
Actually, I like to smile mysteriously, fold my left hand over my right, and then, very casually, glance down at my watch while saying "Mmmm." Sometimes I nod my head slightly or sigh plaintively.
Ethics? In a manager? I thought the ethical B-school kids were considered "culls"...
Umm... Sorry about that. The indenting looked great when I was typing it, but then, in the page, well...
Another guy who doesn't get that A) IT WAS A JOKE, and B) IT WAS SILLY PSEUDOCODE.
What is this, an asperger's convention? Lay off the coffee, man, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack.
BREATHE.
To be fair, there are good contractors and bad ones (although the good ones seem to be in the minority).
;)
If you're a good one, good for you!
No hard feelings I hope.
Heh! You got me there... It was a one-off joke, so I didn't really do a proper object design. I don't code like that for real, of course (digs toe in floor and blushes).
:)
Anyway, That was really supposed to be more like java-ish pseudocode. If it was Java, I'd have included classes for everything, including a superclass "Employee" which could be subclassed to "Manager", "Developer", "Consultant" and "EvilVendorRep" (although I don't know if you can classify those as "employees" because you generally have to invoke them with animal sacrifice so they might not actually be human).
Although... That gives me an idea: if we did it that way, we could make sure that the Consultant classes had trouble with infinite looping in a few of their methods (maximization of billable hours, eh?). And the Vendor classes would have to have a dozen different almost identical forms, all of which are nearly impossible to tell apart, take almost the same parameters, are described identically in the documentation... But then, behave in completely different, randomized ways!
The manager class wouldn't do much, but it would pop up endless annoying nag windows. Heh...
if(internal project){ // CONTRACTORS! HERE BE DRAGONS! // VENDORS! GOOD LORD, HIDE THE WOMEN, KIDS, AND FARM ANIMALS!
;)
if(doneByEmployees){
if(manager.clueless){
if(manager.schedule.isRidiculous()){
project.lateness.reason = "Employees came, they saw the schedule, they laughed, then they did the project in its natural timeframe";
} else {
project.lateness.reason = "Employees came, they saw the schedule, something went wrong, all hell broke loose, then they finished the project as fast as they could, considering";
}
} else if (manager.isEvil) {
project.lateness.reason = "Employees hate him anyway and ignored his sadistic schedule. General sentiment of 'fuck it, I'm on salary' prevails, manager crashes and burns, employees get reassigned, everybody sings 'ding dong, the witch is dead' and goes to Starbucks for coffee";
} else {
project.lateness.reason = "Unforseen problems arose, employees did their best to deal with them, stakeholders wouldn't budge on schedule, so the project was late.";
}
} else {
project.lateness.reason = "maximization of billable hours (duh)";
}
} else {
project.lateness.reason = "Incredible, absolutely amazing scope creep, maximization of billable hours, platform/system/vendor changes midstream, refusal to engage in technology transfer as extortion technique, total screw up of vendor, outsourcing to country without indoor plumbing (but assume they can handle high technology), etc, etc, etc";
}
Did I miss anything?
Remember Schopenhauer's porcupines:
A group of porcupines were trying to stay warm during a cold winter. Whenever they got too close to one another, they would prick each other with their quills. So they determined a safe distance at which they could stay warm and not prick one another.
Henceforth, this distance was called "decency and good manners".
If the admin was just enforcing a policy, and wasn't personally invested in punishing the kid, he probably wanted to mention only the one file that wouldn't get the kid expelled or sued. Everything that goes in email can come back to haunt you. This may have been a case of the admin not wanting to create proof that he knew of an illegal use.
First of all, I'd say to myself "It's their network and they can decide what I run on it". Then I'd say "However, they didn't appropriately warn me that they didn't want me running BitTorrent. This is all a misunderstanding, let's clear it up." And then I would go to the networking office and say this:
"First of all, this is a misunderstanding. I wasn't downloading or distributing copyrighted material, I was just downloading an update to the software, and I had an appropriate license for it. So I haven't broken the law and I haven't done anything that'll get YOU in trouble, either. I only use BitTorrent to download Linux ISO's (or whatever), and I didn't think anyone would care about that -- it's all properly licensed to me, no laws broken...
I understand why you might not want me to run BitTorrent, and since you obviously don't want me running it on your network, I won't, ok? But do me a favor and restore my network access, because this is all just a misunderstanding and no law has been broken. I'm sorry if I've caused you any trouble."
I would be very polite and businesslike, I would show the network admin respect, and I would try VERY hard to not come across as hostile in any way.
Network priviledges are important to a college kid. And they don't have to turn the tap back on, remember that. BE NICE and clear the mess up, and maybe it'll all get settled in a friendly way.
Of course, if you WERE trading movies or music, you're probably SOL. But you probably weren't (you deserve the benefit of the doubt). Treat it as a misunderstanding that has to be cleared up, and you'll be ok.
So, it's not an illusion of your own, it's one they gave you. :)
Developers tell their managers whatever their managers seem to want to hear, because managers decide who gets raises and who gets laid off.
Don't be so naiive.