Okay, so you say give them food first, then WiFi or other technology. You are wrong.
First; in many places most people aren't dying of hunger in their status quo. It's a flood, draught, war or whatever that makes people die in numbers. So, get them food all the time? No. Get them food when disaster strikes? Yes.
Second: in many places, the poor people are the ones who have no (profitable) profession. In today's world people can farm food much too efficiently to need everybody on the fields. What do the rest do? Drive rikshaws, play (or are) disabled, make themselves (or their kids) disabled, sell themselves (or others), or beg. There's a huge workforce with no skills in the poor countries. And, even if they had the skills, they usually don't have markets.
Now, tourism is a big player in any poor-and-warm country. To be successful, local guides et cetera will have to speak good english (education!), market their services abroad, do things so that western (or eastern) tourists will want to pay to them. In tourism and other professions innovation will also come in handy.
So, they need education to succeed. How can WLAN help that? Connectivity. In some places they have e-mail but no telephone, or the telephone is a crappy radio something, and the post office doesn't always work reliably or fast. People want to talk to each other. Second; with a somewhat fast WiFi connection, the good teachers (which are few) can teach students going to other schools. Third, the internet is a vast resource of learning material, especially when there aren't many (or good) books. Imagine volunteers teaching from their western living rooms. Or, far-away places reaching potential tourists over the internet. Or, even, people organizing their work or selling their products over the internet.
WiFi is cheaper than cable. I think I paid $2 or something (tourist price) for a 1-litre aluminium can that I turned into an antenna once.. a connector and a piece of rod made it into a nice antenna capable of over 1km. It is used between two villages 1.2km apart in Nepal, in a place where the shortest path (on the ground) between the villages is maybe 5km. WiFi tech is also being used there, to bridge distances of over 40km, with volunteer-made amplifiers.
There was a story about the place I'm talking about
here. Also, I've been to the place =).
So, consider the cost and determination needed to ship useful amounts of food against the cost of helping education etc etc. One day, even the third world can count on electric communication nationwide, and that will benefit them a lot.
Surely, with, say, 1/10 of the real gravity, staying up there would be much much easier. Atmosphere probably would be denser there and motion caused by warming/cooling would be slower.
Now, what makes the planes stay up? Antigravity? Drag? Anti-drag? No.
Hot air balloons (or hydrogen/helium balloons (or even great balls of vacuum)) stay in the air the same way things float (or don't sink) in the water. Principally, water/air density is bigger under the object than it is above it. This always generates a force - the trick is to make it equal or beat the force excerted by gravity. The balloons make it by making the thing lighter than air, the wings of airplanes succeed by making air move faster above the wing than below. So the bloody airplane has to maintain a certain velocity just to generate the needed lift, and this needs energy. And here the drag is acting against.
Now, I have a spare 486 or pentium 100MHz or similiar, and want to set up a DSL router (for several home computers). LRP works beautifully for the job, tried it - but my spare computer already has a spare harddisk inside and the biggest cost involved in the home router is buying a second network adapter anyway.
So what do I do? Install a "big" distro that takes most of the 1GB or 2GB HD, spend more time with it than what LRP would take to configure, AND make the router machine do much other stuff as well, like having my data files on a computer that's always accessible from my university, for example. And, I make it share the printer, for I only have one for several computers, have a httpd to play with (or keep my personal pages and email on), have a box with the good irc client (irssi) that I can use even from Windows etc etc. These are the things I actually do; I could probably think of more.
Now, what's the benefit of LRP? Not needing a HD. And, it being easier to set up. I being a Linux geek prefer spending lots of time tweaking a box that will do more.
LIFE is not as funny as you jerks think it is.
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Seriously. I haven't been diagnozed, but life really sucks.
I've had massive problems trying to concentrate on things I didn't find interesting (which included all the school subjects), I'm sometimes bad-tempered and can't handle all social situations. Sometimes I also "hyperfocus", although for only a couple of hours. I also find it difficult to sleep at decent times, and I've very seldom slept (well) enough.
I really hurt my job prospects, my social life and the projects I attempt. Heck, I've been a complete failure in most of my projects, and projects initiated by others.
It's possible that I might get diagnozed with something like this ADD (I have Advanced Dungeons and Dragons!), or the Asperger syndrome, but whattheheck. Life is difficult for all the healthy guys too. At least life is difficult for all somewhat intelligent and (therefore) critical types.
What's this talk about the college grades? Why do they matter so much?
All in all, what works with me is NOT DOING THINGS I don't find interesting. Luckily, now that I'm 21, my parents won't make me do things and I've already had a couple of years to learn to live with myself. Sure, sometimes life still sucks.
Another addition; sure, some of you might have no alternatives to medication in your current state, but addictive medication will get you hooked. And other "reasons" for ADHD might be the twisted society, your parents or whatever. Clearly, everybody has problems with growing up and some need (professional) therapy, and some even need medication to get the therapy through, but, maybe there's such a thing as personality anyway and we shouldn't fight it with medicine unless its totally intolerable.
Gotta point out something. Why don't you get your electricity free? Because you're counting on somebody else to provide it. Now, you could have your roof coated with solar panels if you wanted. You'd still pay for the panels and the occational replacement and would be the one to take care of them. But energy itself would be free.
Similiarly, you could simply buy a Wireless Thing(tm) and sit in the atmosphere, transmitting and receiving, and relying on the free routing. Of course it would be slow (at first) and not very
good with truly mobile things (for they demand electricity, which is hard to store in a portable form), but with proper self-made antennae 802.11b is already reaching 40kms and over.
How would the routing work? How about every node having a GPS receiver? Maybe the "DNS servers" (or whatever) would be regularly sending packets telling their geographical location (once an hour might be sufficient) and every device keeping track of a couple of the closest ones. The devices without "DNS server coverage" would simply ask the devices around it. With enough devices and decent range, everybody would get the coordinates at powerup. These "DNS servers" or "directory servers" would keep track of the geographical location of Big Stationary Server Machines like www.microsoft.com, which could be keeping track of mobile user devices the way NetMeeting or ICQ or whatever works (mapping user to changing IP address).
Now, what do I do when I send a packet? "Hey, this packet'd go to www.myserv.com at (56.26996N, 18.4537E)! That's east from me, so you there, east from me, route!"
Surely, with most houses networked (with stationary devices with 5km range and 100Mbps) would, well, ROCK. But, this is a simple scheme and some of you will do better.
Now for the wild part. How about throwing away the thick Atlantic cable and, sitting on the coast, simply SHOUT into the water in the US? A good microphone will still hear the sound on the European coast. Now, sound waves, even though they travel huge distances underwater, are not too effective at all, but, a possibility. Imagine a small lake with ppl sitting around it with their modems in the water.
Actually, this kind of thing is happening in the developing countries. They are networking rural areas with 802.11b tech, paying for the link to the Internet and the devices, of course, but, getting communication inside the rural networks for free (sometimes even with electricity coming from their local solar/wind/water generators).
This kind of thing will probably have its place. The REAL question is, do you want to pay someone for providing a steady link or do you want to do-it-yourself? The western economy is pro-paying-someone-else, in many things, but it doesn't have to be so. Think of radio amateurs, who do "free communications", although on a very small scale. But, their equipment is constantly getting better.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, so you say give them food first, then WiFi or other technology. You are wrong.
First; in many places most people aren't dying of hunger in their status quo. It's a flood, draught, war or whatever that makes people die in numbers. So, get them food all the time? No. Get them food when disaster strikes? Yes.
Second: in many places, the poor people are the ones who have no (profitable) profession. In today's world people can farm food much too efficiently to need everybody on the fields. What do the rest do? Drive rikshaws, play (or are) disabled, make themselves (or their kids) disabled, sell themselves (or others), or beg. There's a huge workforce with no skills in the poor countries. And, even if they had the skills, they usually don't have markets.
Now, tourism is a big player in any poor-and-warm country. To be successful, local guides et cetera will have to speak good english (education!), market their services abroad, do things so that western (or eastern) tourists will want to pay to them. In tourism and other professions innovation will also come in handy.
So, they need education to succeed. How can WLAN help that? Connectivity. In some places they have e-mail but no telephone, or the telephone is a crappy radio something, and the post office doesn't always work reliably or fast. People want to talk to each other. Second; with a somewhat fast WiFi connection, the good teachers (which are few) can teach students going to other schools. Third, the internet is a vast resource of learning material, especially when there aren't many (or good) books. Imagine volunteers teaching from their western living rooms. Or, far-away places reaching potential tourists over the internet. Or, even, people organizing their work or selling their products over the internet.
WiFi is cheaper than cable. I think I paid $2 or something (tourist price) for a 1-litre aluminium can that I turned into an antenna once.. a connector and a piece of rod made it into a nice antenna capable of over 1km. It is used between two villages 1.2km apart in Nepal, in a place where the shortest path (on the ground) between the villages is maybe 5km. WiFi tech is also being used there, to bridge distances of over 40km, with volunteer-made amplifiers.
There was a story about the place I'm talking about here. Also, I've been to the place =).
So, consider the cost and determination needed to ship useful amounts of food against the cost of helping education etc etc. One day, even the third world can count on electric communication nationwide, and that will benefit them a lot.
Surely, with, say, 1/10 of the real gravity, staying up there would be much much easier. Atmosphere probably would be denser there and motion caused by warming/cooling would be slower.
Now, what makes the planes stay up? Antigravity? Drag? Anti-drag? No.
Hot air balloons (or hydrogen/helium balloons (or even great balls of vacuum)) stay in the air the same way things float (or don't sink) in the water. Principally, water/air density is bigger under the object than it is above it. This always generates a force - the trick is to make it equal or beat the force excerted by gravity. The balloons make it by making the thing lighter than air, the wings of airplanes succeed by making air move faster above the wing than below. So the bloody airplane has to maintain a certain velocity just to generate the needed lift, and this needs energy. And here the drag is acting against.
Now, I have a spare 486 or pentium 100MHz or similiar, and want to set up a DSL router (for several home computers). LRP works beautifully for the job, tried it - but my spare computer already has a spare harddisk inside and the biggest cost involved in the home router is buying a second network adapter anyway.
So what do I do? Install a "big" distro that takes most of the 1GB or 2GB HD, spend more time with it than what LRP would take to configure, AND make the router machine do much other stuff as well, like having my data files on a computer that's always accessible from my university, for example. And, I make it share the printer, for I only have one for several computers, have a httpd to play with (or keep my personal pages and email on), have a box with the good irc client (irssi) that I can use even from Windows etc etc. These are the things I actually do; I could probably think of more.
Now, what's the benefit of LRP? Not needing a HD. And, it being easier to set up. I being a Linux geek prefer spending lots of time tweaking a box that will do more.
Seriously. I haven't been diagnozed, but life really sucks.
I've had massive problems trying to concentrate on things I didn't find interesting (which included all the school subjects), I'm sometimes bad-tempered and can't handle all social situations. Sometimes I also "hyperfocus", although for only a couple of hours. I also find it difficult to sleep at decent times, and I've very seldom slept (well) enough.
I really hurt my job prospects, my social life and the projects I attempt. Heck, I've been a complete failure in most of my projects, and projects initiated by others.
It's possible that I might get diagnozed with something like this ADD (I have Advanced Dungeons and Dragons!), or the Asperger syndrome, but whattheheck. Life is difficult for all the healthy guys too. At least life is difficult for all somewhat intelligent and (therefore) critical types.
What's this talk about the college grades? Why do they matter so much?
All in all, what works with me is NOT DOING THINGS I don't find interesting. Luckily, now that I'm 21, my parents won't make me do things and I've already had a couple of years to learn to live with myself. Sure, sometimes life still sucks.
Another addition; sure, some of you might have no alternatives to medication in your current state, but addictive medication will get you hooked. And other "reasons" for ADHD might be the twisted society, your parents or whatever. Clearly, everybody has problems with growing up and some need (professional) therapy, and some even need medication to get the therapy through, but, maybe there's such a thing as personality anyway and we shouldn't fight it with medicine unless its totally intolerable.
Gotta point out something. Why don't you get your electricity free? Because you're counting on somebody else to provide it. Now, you could have your roof coated with solar panels if you wanted. You'd still pay for the panels and the occational replacement and would be the one to take care of them. But energy itself would be free.
Similiarly, you could simply buy a Wireless Thing(tm) and sit in the atmosphere, transmitting and receiving, and relying on the free routing. Of course it would be slow (at first) and not very good with truly mobile things (for they demand electricity, which is hard to store in a portable form), but with proper self-made antennae 802.11b is already reaching 40kms and over.
How would the routing work? How about every node having a GPS receiver? Maybe the "DNS servers" (or whatever) would be regularly sending packets telling their geographical location (once an hour might be sufficient) and every device keeping track of a couple of the closest ones. The devices without "DNS server coverage" would simply ask the devices around it. With enough devices and decent range, everybody would get the coordinates at powerup. These "DNS servers" or "directory servers" would keep track of the geographical location of Big Stationary Server Machines like www.microsoft.com, which could be keeping track of mobile user devices the way NetMeeting or ICQ or whatever works (mapping user to changing IP address).
Now, what do I do when I send a packet? "Hey, this packet'd go to www.myserv.com at (56.26996N, 18.4537E)! That's east from me, so you there, east from me, route!"
Surely, with most houses networked (with stationary devices with 5km range and 100Mbps) would, well, ROCK. But, this is a simple scheme and some of you will do better.
Now for the wild part. How about throwing away the thick Atlantic cable and, sitting on the coast, simply SHOUT into the water in the US? A good microphone will still hear the sound on the European coast. Now, sound waves, even though they travel huge distances underwater, are not too effective at all, but, a possibility. Imagine a small lake with ppl sitting around it with their modems in the water.
Actually, this kind of thing is happening in the developing countries. They are networking rural areas with 802.11b tech, paying for the link to the Internet and the devices, of course, but, getting communication inside the rural networks for free (sometimes even with electricity coming from their local solar/wind/water generators).
This kind of thing will probably have its place. The REAL question is, do you want to pay someone for providing a steady link or do you want to do-it-yourself? The western economy is pro-paying-someone-else, in many things, but it doesn't have to be so. Think of radio amateurs, who do "free communications", although on a very small scale. But, their equipment is constantly getting better.