Any computational system which is fertile for infection will eventually attract viruses. It's like a law of nature.
That not a law of nature; that's a logical fallacy known as begging the question. The fact is that this story is about making the OLPC computer infertile ground for viruses.
But in fairness, you're on the verge of making a good point about monocultures. This is the first large-scale test of the assertion that monocultures are dangerous in their nature (true enough - any problem is shared by all the members), therefore, monocultures are inherently fragile and will necessarily suffer and possibly fail as a result(a more contentious conclusion which could use a lot more data).
The fact is that this is one of the first deliberately 'open' systems to address the inherent security flaws of monoculture - indeed, it attempts to use monoculture as its singular strength. Its success or failure will teach us a lot. Are monocultures necessarily doomed, or can they be designed to develop (sorry) Borg-like strength?
OLPC isn't about exposing po' folks to kernels, compilers and binary code.
I appreciate what you're saying, and for what it's worth, I think you're right. To a degree.
But OLPC actually will do a lot for technological learning in the developing world. People will have to support them, after all. I live and work in IT in the developing world, and even discussion about this project (which has been significant - there's a huge interest here in this) has done a lot to make people think about everything from the nuts and bolts of the hardware spec to formulating national IT policies that take this project and the ideas behind it into account.
So ultimately I think it's better to re-phrase your statement to say that it's not only about exposing people to kernels, compilers and binary code. 8^)
John Fitzgerald published an interesting article a few years ago about some people's belief that because others are using computers successfully, that merely introducing a computer into a given situation will make the participants more productive, comparing it to the cargo cults in Melanesia many years ago.
I live and work in Melanesia, I can say for a fact that the cargo cults (and their mentality) are alive and well here. The impact of this mentality on development is significant. It's quite common for people to, for example, request a truck - or a computer - from a donor and then run it into the ground. No maintenance, no care taken whatsoever for its sustainability. Why? Because when it breaks, all they have to do is ask for another one.
It's pretty frustrating, to say the least. The attitude extends from the most remote islands (where some groups still dress in mock-US Army uniforms and parade in order to induce the heavenly powers to bring back the largesse that accompanied the Allied presence in WWII) to the highest levels of government. People here have come to expect easy profits from the developed world, and for its sins, the developed world complies.
That said, there's a real need for improved access to information and communications. People like me and my colleagues have been working together for years to improve the situation, and one of the ways to address the cargo cult mentiality is to stop giving things to people and start getting them to pay. Cheap laptops are a perfect vehicle for this.
USD 100 represents about 2 weeks' wages here (for the minority who are employed), and that's a pretty ideal price for something like this. It's an investment that parents are willing to make in their children's future, one which has enough value for them to insist that their children actually use them.
There's a tremendous interest in computers here. It's universally recognised that IT-related work is something that can create real economic wealth without as many problems as commercial agriculture, resource extraction and tourism. People can compete on the world market for employment and bring real prosperity into their communities for the first time.
The OLPC doesn't fill in every piece of this puzzle, but it's a damn good start.
What scandal? Oh, you mean this? "Former president Bill Clinton had a televised temper fit when an interviewer challenged his terrorism record."
Yep, it's that balance thing again. You see, if someone points out that all the recent scandals pertain to Republicans, someone's bound to come out complaining about 'bashing' and how the Dems seem to get a free ride from the 'Liberal' media.
No need to consider the real reasons why all the scandals these days are Republican scandals. I mean, no one really wants to admit that when one party takes advantage of the other's incompetence and timidity and runs roughshod over it in the elections, that party tends to pretty much do as it likes in office. And it gets away with bloody murder unless the opposition and the media finally grow a pair and start asking questions, which they don't. Years pass and the incumbents have started taking their privileged place at the trough for granted, which make them lazy and careless. This carelessness leads to some really stupid scandals, which finally tip the balance and let the other party take its place at the trough and complete the cycle.
Nobody wants to talk about that, because if the citizens of a nation were to come to believe this, they'd probably have to revolt. And nobody wants that, the citizens included.
I expect that when China "lobbies" one of it's neighboring countries -- or virtually anyone else -- from a position of power, they apply all the same pressure. There I expect it's probably even stronger, since politics and industry are so closely intertwined.
Interestingly, China is often much easier to deal with than other nations. I live in a country in the the Asia Pacific region, and China is very influential here. One ex-Prime Minister was removed from office because he refused to accept the One China policy. He's been more or less assured that he will never hold office again.
But the way China goes about this is very straightforward. Its lobbying is perfectly clear and utterly without hidden agendas or backroom dealing. This is in stark contrast to other powers in the region, who often espouse enlightened visions in the meetings and then completely subvert all that in the back room.
China's lobbying style is to put everything right on the table. E.g. 'Here's USD 10 million, spend it any way you like, but never ever talk about - or to - Taiwan.' Australia, on the other hand, will say, 'We fully support your right to self-determination. This aid comes with no strings... <sotto voce>but if we don't like your choice of attorney general, we'll pull it at a moment's notice.</sotto voce>
China support their own industry when it suits them (all the computers they donate are Lenovo) but the state cars they gave to the government ministers are all Buicks. See, they care a lot more about their strategic interests, and are often willing to forego a lot in order to achieve them. I would be very surprised to see a Chinese government agent slinking around in the background, trying to buy politicians. They'd be much more likely to invite the politician to an official lunch and make their offer formally, then brag about it in the national newspaper.
Low-voltage power supplies in racks might make sense. Not in desktops, because low-voltage power takes requires more copper to distribute it, because there's more current. Copper is very expensive of late.
Fine, but does the cost of copper outweigh the savings derived from reduced power consumption over the life of the computer? This measurement becomes especially important anywhere outside of North America, where power costs are often very high. Where I work in the developing world, the biggest problem I face is not buying the computers, but powering them.
I for one (heh) would welcome a low power commodity desktop at almost any price.
I'd wager that this kid is from some remote village that's still marvelling at the can opener. Kids with computers at home want to play games and that means Windows.
I'll ignore the condescension for a moment to correct your 'Windows is the computer' assumption.
I work in the developing world in a place where computers are about at the same level of uptake as they were in the US in the early to mid 1990s. More and more people are getting them, and exposure is increasing. From my observation, the only people who care about Windows are those who know nothing else. And that refers mostly to donors, volunteers, expat advisors and a few functionaries who have been trained overseas.
Almost everyone else has exactly the same reaction as that little girl: "Windows? never heard of it." This is true even if they're using Windows on their computer. They don't care about brand names, they just want to do their thing.
And by the way, of the roughly 450 youth who come and use one of the computer centres I administer, the most popular pastime is reading and writing email, followed by web browsing. Games come further down the list. Thing is, they can play games any time. Outside. With their friends. Email and the web? Their time for that is limited.
Why does software not being a physical object make it less suitable to be patented?
Because there are laws covering ideas and, however wrong they might be, they pass the test of applicability. Ultimately, patents were designed to present the rapid duplication of physical objects (and explicitly not ideas).
Patents are there so that if you invent something, someone else can't copy it and mass produce it cheaper than you can, without having paid anything for the development.
I'll get to development costs in a moment, because that's a valid issue. But first let's address the issue of mass production. Mass production of em is controlled by a number of very effective laws, so anyone attempting to make counterfeits of your software is subject to existing law. No recourse to patent law is required. Reproduction in digital format of your software (not the process) is subject to copyright law.
So what's left uncovered? The idea. Now you may argue that there should be legal restrictions on the use of ideas (or processes or other intellectual achievements), and some might agree. Unfortunately, governments have, in the past at least, refused to legislate exclusivity of ideas. In fairness, they have trodden dangerously close to doing so, mostly for the very reason that you give: to protect the research and development investment that people and companies make when developing new ideas.
That is a legitimate debate, and one that needs to be conducted well and fully.
But the facile conflation of the tangible and intangible, especially through analogy, is intellectually lazy and does nothing to advance this argument.
It's like saying nobody should steal, so I won't lock my car/house/whatever.
-1 Analogy
No it's not like that at all. It's not like anything, except the plain statement that patents, designed for finite, physical objects, should not be applied to infinitely reproducible items like software.
Software is not a house, a car or any other physical thing. Please stop pretending it is.
I have to get out of here. I just read 'Try Princess Lasso', and I started thinking, 'What, like Wonder Woman? Hey, now there's my kind of diagnostic!'
Geez, that's what I hate worst about geeks and the Internet. It's all abstractions from someone's parent's basement. I say we do it right this time. Let's have a real death match!
Come on, Email. Everyone calls you the killer app, let's see what you can do. You gonna stand there and let the Web knock you into the corner, or are you gonna do something about it?
And how about you, eh, Web? How 'bout you get off your bloated ass and start throwing some of that weight around? Or maybe you... can't? Wassamatter, Webbie gotta booboo? Come on, Web, FINISH HIM.
Because of intolerant bigots and other ignorant people who, either actively or passively, deny access to others based on their skewed perspective of what 'normal' is. And because this nation decided that human rights matter, even when it costs more to respect them.
Smaller businesses can take years to squeeze the cost of a total site re-design out of their profits.
Well, no problem there, then, because website accessibility issues have been discussed and understood in professional circles since the late 1990s. That's lots of time. The Web Accessibility Initiative, for example, is driven by the same organisation that defines HTML and XML. They've been promoting accessibility publicly since about 1998. So someone could hardly call themselves a web professional and not know about this issue in detail.
Unless you've been sucked in by some fly-by-night operator who thinks that FrontPage and an undergrad arts course are all that's needed to create the public face of your business, you're already good to go. Because you know that standards compliance saves you money in the long run, and that the most common blind person to visit your site is a web crawler, meaning that accessbility and search engine ranking can be directly correlated.
Yep, as long as you diluted the commercial, proprietary snake-oil with just a few dollops of common sense, ensuring accessiblity is a simple matter of picking up the WAI checklist and having an intern spend a few days verifying the few minor problems that somehow leaked into production.
It gives you a clear target to SUE when shit hits the fan!
Man, is that old chestnut still around?
Let me answer the same way I answered my country programme director when he raised the same issue vis à vis commercial support for FOSS. He said to me that 'confidence' was very important, and that some managers just liked to feel that they had some recourse, even if that feeling was effectively fantasy.
I looked at him and said, 'Since when is it our job to indulge people's fantasies? We have a fiduciary duty to our clients to provide them with the truth, and when indulging their misconceptions works against their best interests, we are duty-bound to advise them of the truth.'
So now I'm going to say to you: You can't sue. If you do, you won't win. You gave up your right to sue when you agreed to the license.
Remote villages near the coast could get one of these radios with solar cell recharged bateries, then use their own system localy.
Remote villages usually manage alright with tsunamis (provided there is high ground nearby; if there isn't, a warning system isn't going to do any good anyway), for a couple of reasons:
Villagers know enough to head for the hills when the ocean recedes[*]. During a recent localised tsunami in Vanuatu, there was only one fatality when a man foolishly went to grab a few stranded fish. When his family screamed at him not to be such a fool, he climbed a coconut tree, which was swept away when the water came in. Everyone I've spoken with about this incident considers this man a bit of an idiot who got what was coming to him.
It's not too hard to get away when there are only a few people around. The big danger is in urban areas where it's simply not possible to get everyone out of the affected zone in the limited time available.
[*] This phenomenon - that the ocean recedes rapidly before the arrival of a tsunami - is well understood in commonly affected areas. After all, it's a lesson you don't want to learn twice.
As a lefty, the best kept secret is that we have had the advantage for a long time now. Only we can point and click/drag things on the screen with our right hand while using a pen or typing with the left.
BINGO. My computer has a mouse on the right side and there's a stylus and tablet on the left. When I'm doing graphics work - which is a fair amount of the time - I hold the mouse in one hand and the stylus in the other. It's nice to be able to alternate between the two as well, because I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so I have to rest and flex my hands frequently.
I posted some first impressions about running GNOME on Compiz here.
The bottom line is that not all eye candy is created equal, but some of the features really have a positive effect on the user experience. I for one (heh) am looking forward to seeing a compositing window manager integrated tightly into GNOME.
As the second and third world countries continue to develop, they will increasingly use computers. Apple's market strategy cannot support that need - a company whose main desktop starts at $2500 just can't work in a country where the average worker makes that in a year. Even a Mac Mini is far beyond the reach of most people and companies in that area.
I chuckled when I read this, because I'm about 3 weeks away from installing two brand new Mac Minis in a tiny village in Vanuatu. Apple was the only major company who met all our criteria:
Price - It costs about the same to import a Mini as it does to purchase a PC locally.
Performance - The Mac Mini sitting on my desk as I write this performs better than any other PC in this office, except for my own (P3 3GHz, SATA RAID) workstation.
Form factor - The Mini can be picked up and locked away in the storage room, the only room there that's sturdy and has a lock. It's also nicely sealed, so I don't have to worry about rats, mice and geckoes getting inside it.
Form factor II - Laptops are too portable. They tend to end up the possession of the village bully, and stay there. But there's no power in the village in question, so the Mac is useless anywhere except in the building where it's installed. (See below for more about power.)
It's got a beautiful, engaging interface, which is perfect for first-time computer users. Its multimedia capabilities (especially the included remote control device) make it ideal for entertainment, which means that the people operating them can raise funds by having regular community movie nights.
They're low power. A Mac Mini runs at about 20 watts under normal use. Combined with that of an LCD monitor, it's consumption is low enough that it can be run from a battery bank which is charged daily via generator/solar/wind.
Dead easy to support. No Viruses, no spyware. Problems? Turn it off, insert the OSX CD, turn it on. In twenty minutes the entire system is restored. Smaller stuff can be fixed remotely over a phone line using ssh.
There are a ton of very nice little PCs that match some of the above critera. Indeed, there are a number of DIY methods to achieve all of the above. But at the end of the day, the result wouldn't measure up to the Mac Mini in terms of polish.
I've only ever programmed with a GUI on Windows -- and I have to admit that I find Dev Studio to be one of the few programs that Microsoft seems to have gotten (nearly) right.
*sigh* Another armchair International Development specialist whose only experience of hardship was when the ice in the local 7/11's Slurpee machine melted last July. Sorry if what follows sounds a little harsh, but....
"Yeah, just what the 3rd world needs - computers. Not non-corrupt governments and basic infrastructure... yeah, computers, that's the ticket!"
And just how the fuck do you think corruption comes about, except through the cynical exploitation of an under-educated and ill-informed populace[*]? Improved access to education, information and communications are explicitly aimed at improving governance in developing countries.
By the way, did it ever occur to you that much of the corruption afflicting developing countries is encouraged and often instigated by the same sanctimonious pricks who occasionally deign to drop a few pennies in the international development pot? OLPC is largely self-funding, which means that governments would be stealing from themselves if they subverted this one. In fairness, that's hardly unheard of, but it provides a stronger incentive to actually do the right thing with the laptops.
And infrastructure... these computers are designed to supplement local infrastructure. If you had any clue whatsoever about the logistics of building infrastructure in most developing countries, you'd know why this ad hoc, opportunistic approach is the only viable approach right now.
"On the other hand, maybe they will only go to semi-desparate places that do have some modicum of rule of law, etc. In which case, never mind."
Oh FFS, did you even read the website? You know, the one where they say exactly that?
Look, seriously: Please go educate yourself before I start to think that these bovine comments are just part of some astroturf campaign to discredit the work of the OLPC project, which is - Heavens to Betsy - actually based on insight and experience. Volunteer for Peace Corps, VSO, CUSO or GeekCorps. Work overseas for a while and then see what you think about your facile 'analysis'.
[*] Sounds a bit like some developed countries we know, doesn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
That not a law of nature; that's a logical fallacy known as begging the question. The fact is that this story is about making the OLPC computer infertile ground for viruses.
But in fairness, you're on the verge of making a good point about monocultures. This is the first large-scale test of the assertion that monocultures are dangerous in their nature (true enough - any problem is shared by all the members), therefore, monocultures are inherently fragile and will necessarily suffer and possibly fail as a result(a more contentious conclusion which could use a lot more data).
The fact is that this is one of the first deliberately 'open' systems to address the inherent security flaws of monoculture - indeed, it attempts to use monoculture as its singular strength. Its success or failure will teach us a lot. Are monocultures necessarily doomed, or can they be designed to develop (sorry) Borg-like strength?
I appreciate what you're saying, and for what it's worth, I think you're right. To a degree.
But OLPC actually will do a lot for technological learning in the developing world. People will have to support them, after all. I live and work in IT in the developing world, and even discussion about this project (which has been significant - there's a huge interest here in this) has done a lot to make people think about everything from the nuts and bolts of the hardware spec to formulating national IT policies that take this project and the ideas behind it into account.
So ultimately I think it's better to re-phrase your statement to say that it's not only about exposing people to kernels, compilers and binary code. 8^)
I live and work in Melanesia, I can say for a fact that the cargo cults (and their mentality) are alive and well here. The impact of this mentality on development is significant. It's quite common for people to, for example, request a truck - or a computer - from a donor and then run it into the ground. No maintenance, no care taken whatsoever for its sustainability. Why? Because when it breaks, all they have to do is ask for another one.
It's pretty frustrating, to say the least. The attitude extends from the most remote islands (where some groups still dress in mock-US Army uniforms and parade in order to induce the heavenly powers to bring back the largesse that accompanied the Allied presence in WWII) to the highest levels of government. People here have come to expect easy profits from the developed world, and for its sins, the developed world complies.
That said, there's a real need for improved access to information and communications. People like me and my colleagues have been working together for years to improve the situation, and one of the ways to address the cargo cult mentiality is to stop giving things to people and start getting them to pay. Cheap laptops are a perfect vehicle for this.
USD 100 represents about 2 weeks' wages here (for the minority who are employed), and that's a pretty ideal price for something like this. It's an investment that parents are willing to make in their children's future, one which has enough value for them to insist that their children actually use them.
There's a tremendous interest in computers here. It's universally recognised that IT-related work is something that can create real economic wealth without as many problems as commercial agriculture, resource extraction and tourism. People can compete on the world market for employment and bring real prosperity into their communities for the first time.
The OLPC doesn't fill in every piece of this puzzle, but it's a damn good start.
Yep, it's that balance thing again. You see, if someone points out that all the recent scandals pertain to Republicans, someone's bound to come out complaining about 'bashing' and how the Dems seem to get a free ride from the 'Liberal' media.
No need to consider the real reasons why all the scandals these days are Republican scandals. I mean, no one really wants to admit that when one party takes advantage of the other's incompetence and timidity and runs roughshod over it in the elections, that party tends to pretty much do as it likes in office. And it gets away with bloody murder unless the opposition and the media finally grow a pair and start asking questions, which they don't. Years pass and the incumbents have started taking their privileged place at the trough for granted, which make them lazy and careless. This carelessness leads to some really stupid scandals, which finally tip the balance and let the other party take its place at the trough and complete the cycle.
Nobody wants to talk about that, because if the citizens of a nation were to come to believe this, they'd probably have to revolt. And nobody wants that, the citizens included.
Interestingly, China is often much easier to deal with than other nations. I live in a country in the the Asia Pacific region, and China is very influential here. One ex-Prime Minister was removed from office because he refused to accept the One China policy. He's been more or less assured that he will never hold office again.
But the way China goes about this is very straightforward. Its lobbying is perfectly clear and utterly without hidden agendas or backroom dealing. This is in stark contrast to other powers in the region, who often espouse enlightened visions in the meetings and then completely subvert all that in the back room.
China's lobbying style is to put everything right on the table. E.g. 'Here's USD 10 million, spend it any way you like, but never ever talk about - or to - Taiwan.' Australia, on the other hand, will say, 'We fully support your right to self-determination. This aid comes with no strings... <sotto voce>but if we don't like your choice of attorney general, we'll pull it at a moment's notice.</sotto voce>
China support their own industry when it suits them (all the computers they donate are Lenovo) but the state cars they gave to the government ministers are all Buicks. See, they care a lot more about their strategic interests, and are often willing to forego a lot in order to achieve them. I would be very surprised to see a Chinese government agent slinking around in the background, trying to buy politicians. They'd be much more likely to invite the politician to an official lunch and make their offer formally, then brag about it in the national newspaper.
Fine, but does the cost of copper outweigh the savings derived from reduced power consumption over the life of the computer? This measurement becomes especially important anywhere outside of North America, where power costs are often very high. Where I work in the developing world, the biggest problem I face is not buying the computers, but powering them.
I for one (heh) would welcome a low power commodity desktop at almost any price.
I'll ignore the condescension for a moment to correct your 'Windows is the computer' assumption.
I work in the developing world in a place where computers are about at the same level of uptake as they were in the US in the early to mid 1990s. More and more people are getting them, and exposure is increasing. From my observation, the only people who care about Windows are those who know nothing else. And that refers mostly to donors, volunteers, expat advisors and a few functionaries who have been trained overseas.
Almost everyone else has exactly the same reaction as that little girl: "Windows? never heard of it." This is true even if they're using Windows on their computer. They don't care about brand names, they just want to do their thing.
And by the way, of the roughly 450 youth who come and use one of the computer centres I administer, the most popular pastime is reading and writing email, followed by web browsing. Games come further down the list. Thing is, they can play games any time. Outside. With their friends. Email and the web? Their time for that is limited.
Because there are laws covering ideas and, however wrong they might be, they pass the test of applicability. Ultimately, patents were designed to present the rapid duplication of physical objects (and explicitly not ideas).
I'll get to development costs in a moment, because that's a valid issue. But first let's address the issue of mass production. Mass production of em is controlled by a number of very effective laws, so anyone attempting to make counterfeits of your software is subject to existing law. No recourse to patent law is required. Reproduction in digital format of your software (not the process) is subject to copyright law.
So what's left uncovered? The idea. Now you may argue that there should be legal restrictions on the use of ideas (or processes or other intellectual achievements), and some might agree. Unfortunately, governments have, in the past at least, refused to legislate exclusivity of ideas. In fairness, they have trodden dangerously close to doing so, mostly for the very reason that you give: to protect the research and development investment that people and companies make when developing new ideas.
That is a legitimate debate, and one that needs to be conducted well and fully.
But the facile conflation of the tangible and intangible, especially through analogy, is intellectually lazy and does nothing to advance this argument.
-1 Analogy
No it's not like that at all. It's not like anything, except the plain statement that patents, designed for finite, physical objects, should not be applied to infinitely reproducible items like software.
Software is not a house, a car or any other physical thing. Please stop pretending it is.
I have to get out of here. I just read 'Try Princess Lasso', and I started thinking, 'What, like Wonder Woman? Hey, now there's my kind of diagnostic!'
Geez, that's what I hate worst about geeks and the Internet. It's all abstractions from someone's parent's basement. I say we do it right this time. Let's have a real death match!
Come on, Email. Everyone calls you the killer app, let's see what you can do. You gonna stand there and let the Web knock you into the corner, or are you gonna do something about it?
And how about you, eh, Web? How 'bout you get off your bloated ass and start throwing some of that weight around? Or maybe you... can't? Wassamatter, Webbie gotta booboo? Come on, Web, FINISH HIM.
DHS: they're not Really Ready for anything, are they?
Because of intolerant bigots and other ignorant people who, either actively or passively, deny access to others based on their skewed perspective of what 'normal' is. And because this nation decided that human rights matter, even when it costs more to respect them.
Well, no problem there, then, because website accessibility issues have been discussed and understood in professional circles since the late 1990s. That's lots of time. The Web Accessibility Initiative, for example, is driven by the same organisation that defines HTML and XML. They've been promoting accessibility publicly since about 1998. So someone could hardly call themselves a web professional and not know about this issue in detail.
Unless you've been sucked in by some fly-by-night operator who thinks that FrontPage and an undergrad arts course are all that's needed to create the public face of your business, you're already good to go. Because you know that standards compliance saves you money in the long run, and that the most common blind person to visit your site is a web crawler, meaning that accessbility and search engine ranking can be directly correlated.
Yep, as long as you diluted the commercial, proprietary snake-oil with just a few dollops of common sense, ensuring accessiblity is a simple matter of picking up the WAI checklist and having an intern spend a few days verifying the few minor problems that somehow leaked into production.
So what was your objection, again?
Man, is that old chestnut still around?
Let me answer the same way I answered my country programme director when he raised the same issue vis à vis commercial support for FOSS. He said to me that 'confidence' was very important, and that some managers just liked to feel that they had some recourse, even if that feeling was effectively fantasy.
I looked at him and said, 'Since when is it our job to indulge people's fantasies? We have a fiduciary duty to our clients to provide them with the truth, and when indulging their misconceptions works against their best interests, we are duty-bound to advise them of the truth.'
So now I'm going to say to you: You can't sue. If you do, you won't win. You gave up your right to sue when you agreed to the license.
No, Linus is a leader. RMS is a leader. Gates is a leader.
This man is a programmer who seems to have a knack for self-promotion.
If he was as good as all that, I'd have heard of him from somewhere other than Channel 9, wouldn't I?
Remote villages usually manage alright with tsunamis (provided there is high ground nearby; if there isn't, a warning system isn't going to do any good anyway), for a couple of reasons:
[*] This phenomenon - that the ocean recedes rapidly before the arrival of a tsunami - is well understood in commonly affected areas. After all, it's a lesson you don't want to learn twice.
BINGO. My computer has a mouse on the right side and there's a stylus and tablet on the left. When I'm doing graphics work - which is a fair amount of the time - I hold the mouse in one hand and the stylus in the other. It's nice to be able to alternate between the two as well, because I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so I have to rest and flex my hands frequently.
I posted some first impressions about running GNOME on Compiz here.
The bottom line is that not all eye candy is created equal, but some of the features really have a positive effect on the user experience. I for one (heh) am looking forward to seeing a compositing window manager integrated tightly into GNOME.
Well, yeah, and the more layers of newspaper you wrap your dick in, the less likely you are to get anyone pregnant.
But that doesn't mean I would recommend that as a strategy.
Beaver bombs? Why bother, when we've got the chicken cannon. (Visual aid here.)
We'll save the beaver for, uh, other uses. 8^)
I chuckled when I read this, because I'm about 3 weeks away from installing two brand new Mac Minis in a tiny village in Vanuatu. Apple was the only major company who met all our criteria:
There are a ton of very nice little PCs that match some of the above critera. Indeed, there are a number of DIY methods to achieve all of the above. But at the end of the day, the result wouldn't measure up to the Mac Mini in terms of polish.
Nope. No way.
Man, you must be new here.
emacs, of course. 8^)
*sigh* Another armchair International Development specialist whose only experience of hardship was when the ice in the local 7/11's Slurpee machine melted last July. Sorry if what follows sounds a little harsh, but....
And just how the fuck do you think corruption comes about, except through the cynical exploitation of an under-educated and ill-informed populace[*]? Improved access to education, information and communications are explicitly aimed at improving governance in developing countries.
By the way, did it ever occur to you that much of the corruption afflicting developing countries is encouraged and often instigated by the same sanctimonious pricks who occasionally deign to drop a few pennies in the international development pot? OLPC is largely self-funding, which means that governments would be stealing from themselves if they subverted this one. In fairness, that's hardly unheard of, but it provides a stronger incentive to actually do the right thing with the laptops.
And infrastructure... these computers are designed to supplement local infrastructure. If you had any clue whatsoever about the logistics of building infrastructure in most developing countries, you'd know why this ad hoc, opportunistic approach is the only viable approach right now.
Oh FFS, did you even read the website? You know, the one where they say exactly that?
Look, seriously: Please go educate yourself before I start to think that these bovine comments are just part of some astroturf campaign to discredit the work of the OLPC project, which is - Heavens to Betsy - actually based on insight and experience. Volunteer for Peace Corps, VSO, CUSO or GeekCorps. Work overseas for a while and then see what you think about your facile 'analysis'.
[*] Sounds a bit like some developed countries we know, doesn't it?