nobody can actually prevent your buddies sending you personal e-mail to the company e-mail address. Yes, there is somebody who can prevent it - you. Don't give out your work email address to your buddies. Done. It's quite easy to keep work life and personal life separate, I never understood why more people don't do this.
I guess I mostly have a problem with calling anybody an "average consumer" - CR doesn't know what anybody's particular situation / preferences are. Their recommendations are based on some algorithm of quality/pricing/features/etc., but their balance never seems to be quite in line with what's important to me. And I'm talking about washing machines and such that I don't even really care about / know about.
So I end up throwing out their recommendations and just looking at the raw data to interpret it myself for my situation and preferences. But that raw data is available anywhere, and I find that 100 reviews on a review site by actual consumers who have used the product outside of a lab and for more than a week are much more useful.
Then they shouldn't sell themselves as "experts" if every true expert in a subject matter says they're wrong (which, as you point out, is pretty much the case).
If I want CONSUMER opinions I'd just go to epinions or amazon or cnet or wherever and read reviews. The idiotic reviews are easy enough to sort out and you get a better feeling for the quality / performance of a product from people who have actually used it for the same purposes that you intend to use it, rather than somebody who just plugged a device into a meter.
Exactly, technology is supposed to make things cheaper. I would never pay the same amount for CR online as for print, assuming I even though CR did a good job at reviewing anything. It's the same reason I don't sign up for any e-bills - credit card companies, electric company, etc. all want me to switch to an e-bill which saves them money but offers no benefit to me. Screw that, keep sending the paper statements until you pass some savings along to me.
Because 2GB is not a big enough maximum file size anymore. Huh? What file system has a 2GB file size limit? FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit (also small for modern use), and FAT16 has a 2GB partition size limit, but I haven't seen FAT16 used in almost a decade. Ext2/3, Reiser, et. al. have limits similar to NTFS.
There are already programs that try to supply third world countries with food, medicine, drinking water, infrastructure, etc. Nothing is stopping anybody from continuing to support those efforts. OLPC is taking a new, unexplored direction. It may work out it may not, we have yet to see. I for one see a lot of potential with the project and have high hopes in it working out. The existing strategy for helping poor countries has been unchanged for a long time and the overall problem doesn't seem to be getting better from a global standpoint, so a new approach to the problem should be welcome.
I don't see any logic in taking an extremest point of view of identifying the worst problems and suggesting that doing anything other than dealing with those problems head-on is a waste of time. It's not how mankind has advanced to where we are now. Progress can be made along multiple paths at the same time, and OLPC isn't slowing down any of the other existing support systems.
Agreed. From a fresh install of Ubuntu I actually spend more time configuring Firefox than I do the OS/desktop itself. Gnome gets out of your way and allows you to work, that's why I like it. From a fresh Windows install (XP or 2k3 Server) I spent most of my configuration time turning off stupid user warnings and un-hiding the useful information. Vista hasn't gotten any better in that regard, arguably worse.
Agreed, I have a newer laptop and Feisty didn't support some of the hardware (specifically audio), so I've been running Gutsy since the early alpha's and it's been fine. I wouldn't say it's been a step backwards from Feisty. Edgy was the one where they did some serious updates and forced a lot of things in early to "shake them out", not Gutsy.
Exchange for mail and calendaring is an OK solution, not the best, depending on your viewpoint. As a mail server it's actually pretty inferior to many offerings especially if you're not just hosting your own company's mail (multiple domains) and tied up with active directory. From an administrator's standpoint it's been pretty bad as well. 5.5 was a nightmare, 2003 has some improvements but is still generally unstable especially when you get to larger public and private folder sizes. Backups can be a pain, recovery from "corrupt" databases is near impossible, etc. I haven't yet used 2007 and don't plan to, we're 80% migrated off of Exchange (thank god) and I hope to finish the project in the next 6 months.
So yes, there is a need for other options. One of those needs is saving (more than) a few dollars, but there are many other reasons as well. Once you start down the Microsoft path and start running applications and services the "Microsoft way", you get further in bed with them and it gets more expensive and harder to get out - you lose flexibility and portability in the long run which is obviously what MS wants. Exchange might be a workable or even good solution for some companies, but in the long run it will never get any cheaper or easier.
Agreed, and not to mention that I keep business life and personal life separate. I would never receive an email from my dentist, wife, family, friends, etc. to my work address. If I need to be off of work for personal reasons, that's all my workplace needs to know - not that I'm at the dentist.
It's exactly that softness that I believe makes the ribs harder to break than a dried out, brittle board. I have broken some boards with punches and it certainly didn't feel good on my knuckles, but I've hit people in the chest, even floating ribs, equally hard and nothing broke.
I don't have a ton of experience to draw on (a few years), but in the martial arts I've seen a couple of people who got "cracked" ribs, who take it easy for a month or two while the ribs heal, but that's different than "broken" ribs. But I don't have any supporting references either. I know when doing some jujitsu with 250+ lb. guys that I can feel my chest compress pretty significantly when they're on it, it feels to me like my entire rib cage is flexing.
I guess to me it just seems to be more of an issue of brittleness than putting an object on a force gauge and seeing what it takes to break it. I don't know what the total amount of chemical energy in a cell phone battery equates to if it were all released at once, but it seems unlikely a small battery could break ribs, let alone a spine, to kill a man.
Boards for breaking are designed to break - they are very dried out and have a weakness along the grain. It's not at all true that they are harder to break than ribs - that just makes some martial artists think that they can throw a single punch and break the "equivalent" of 8 ribs so they feel like they're cool. Go to Home Depot and buy a "green" piece of wood the same size as a breaking board and try to break it with a punch. Let me know how that works out for you after you get back from the hospital. Ribs are more similar to this - they are somewhat flexible, and it's nearly impossible to concentrate a punch on a single rib - it will be spread across multiple ribs, especially because of the tissue and muscle that interlaces and supports them. The article you link to actually explains this as one of the reasons that the bones in your hand don't break when breaking a board.
Hmm, I'm actually quite surprised that you don't collaborate more online, maybe we have differing definitions of collaboration. I find whiteboards and notebooks quite limiting due to my bad handwriting (and drawing skills), lack of space, difficulty in disseminating notes after the meeting, etc. I have a "whiteboard guy" at work, and he carries around a digital camera to snap pictures of the whiteboard and emails 5MB JPG's out afterward - just seems like misuse of technology to me. I prefer to be able to type out notes in outline form (I type way faster than I write), be able to whip up a quick spreadsheet, drag flowchart boxes around and all the other stuff you can only do digitally. Also while face to face is generally nice, sometimes physical proximity isn't an option (we have remote developers and sales people), and also language can be a barrier with people who have heavy accents - in those cases chat works out much better for me. Anyway we're getting pretty off topic.
Don't get too hung up with "programming" on the OLPC, run some of the VM's out there and check it out - it's mostly very basic stuff with a "fun" outcome for kids that would keep their attention. Also that's only one very small part of the education aspect of the device, I don't expect it to be generating 1,000,000 crack python programmers in the next two years. There are a great number of other possibilities with the device for information portability, information access, etc. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in reality.
Just so you know, a 1GB flash card costs $5, so it shouldn't be a show-stopper to buying a device. Of course I don't know why manufacturers bother putting such a useless amount of memory to ship with their device in the first place.
The particular laptops produced by the project are a means to the goal, and designed specifically to advance it. That was my point, I'm sorry if my wording confused you. Actually it is "the" means to the goal for the OLPC group, not "a" means to the goal.
Your original post replied to somebody else who asked why Negreponte would be angry if other laptops than his made it into childrens hands. The answer is, he wouldn't be angry if that were the result - he has said numerous times that he would consider the project a success if that happened. Your response inferred otherwise, but it wasn't clear what your point was, which is why asked what you believed the goal to be. That's all, no matter...
I bet you're a real success in life with your positive attitude and open-mindedness to new ideas. Good luck with that.
assuming you don't print them in 4 colors on nice glossy paper and don't have to pay absurd licensing fees Good point, I'll concede that.
And a $180 plastic laptop is fireproof? No, you cut my quote short where I said the laptop is "somewhat hardened". My point about fire was to counter your inference that books are somehow indestructible and the OLPC breaks like an average Dell laptop. The OLPC can survive a drop in the mud, where an equivalent drop may make part of a book unreadable. We can argue specific examples all day, but I think on the whole the OLPC is at least as durable as a book.
Let's just say that when I need to collaborate, I use paper or a whiteboard, not a computer. I'm pretty sure you just dated yourself here, which actually explains a lot of your other comments.
I bet it wouldn't even survive a good drop. Not sure what you think a "good drop" is, but it is way more durable than consumer electronics that you and I are familiar with. It's all solid state (no moving parts), rubberized keyboard, shock-mounted components, and the plastic is twice as thick as what would normally be used for such a device. I assure you it can handle a "good drop" just fine (plus children aren't that tall, so if they drop the laptop it is only falling a foot or two). You're correct that the screen itself, as on most laptops, is likely the most vulnerable point.
Yeah. Fucking. Right. If you think little third-world kids will just start hacking their software, Again, I don't think you've either played with the OLPC device or grew up in the "digital age" or you'd realize this is very plausible. Was I writing enterprise level code when I was 8? No, but I could slop together a 20 line QBasic program to print some junk on the screen that moved around. Self taught, no manuals. As I learned more I built upon those skills. The python program, "Pippy", comes with very simple examples that are easy to play with and manipulate. The turtle program can even teach basic numbers and logic. I think you underestimate the intelligence of children, 3rd world or not. Honestly I think some activities on this device can be used without the user even being able to read (I believe that was one of the intents of the project).
There is a lot of potential here, it's unfortunate that you don't see it.
gets people familiar with Microsoft's office tools (which are necessary skills for many jobs, even in the developing world) I'd like to see any information at all that suggests the target audience for OLPC will grow up needing MS Office skills. You seem to misunderstand the project's demographic. Not to mention that a word processor is a word processor and a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, and those tools are on the OLPC.
$180 can be used to print dozens of textbooks (which are infinitely more useful for education). Actually textbooks on the OLPC are one of the strong points. $180 may print a few textbooks, not dozens - but the OLPC could hold hundreds. Textbooks are vulnerable to water, fire, tearing, etc. The OLPC is at least somewhat hardened. Also children won't have to lug multiple textbooks to and from school, just this one lightweight device.
Kids can "express themselves" much better with pencil and paper than with a laptop. Again I'm not sure where you draw this conclusion, and again you must not be familiar with the OLPC device. It encourages collaboration and sharing much more than a pencil and paper. It has drawing programs which would be equivalent to pencil and paper (form factor arguments aside). It also has collaborative music making programs and basic puzzles and "programming" tasks. Also almost all program code is transparent to the user - people can make changes to code or write their own basic code (this is done very well with samples, etc.).
Ahh I didn't read far enough up the thread to your original post where you made that distinction, my bad. In that case it's the responsibility of the government to make the call where the money is best spent, but this project is a valid option for the semi-poor countries.
There are a number of things wrong with that statement. It's an extremest point of view that "we shouldn't worry about X until Y and Z are fixed". Similar statements are "we shouldn't try to cure aids until after we cure cancer". Yes, parts/most of Africa has a number of problems larger than "kids don't have laptops". But if you know anything about this project, it's not about giving kids laptops so they can bang around on MySpace all day like american kids do. I suggest you get educated about the project, goals, the technology implementations, etc. Download an emulated version. Try out the server version that teachers/schools will run. Understand the potential impact on education in Africa, which may accelerate forward progress of upcoming generations in Africa.
Are you two, and just learning to read for the first time? No, are you? Your technique works for things like The Cat in the Hat, but I read what you might call "big boy books" like this 1,000 page book that I'm currently reading.
I can't stand the physical form factor of books. You have to hold the book with both hands - all the time - so it doesn't close on itself, or you have to almost break the book binding to keep itself open. Then you lay down and have it resting and you accidentally breath and the page flips back. Then the paper dries out your fingertips from flipping pages. As you work through a book the "keep it open" strategy changes as the bulk of pages moves from one side to the other. You can't enlarge the text and always need to have a strong light source around at the proper angle. Newspapers are large and bulky, and articles jump around all over the place.
Something like the Kindle could solve all those problems. If it's well done, I'd much rather read books, magazines, newspapers, etc. on a device like this than in the paper form factor. I do 99.9% of all my reading on computers. If I really want to read a book I can force myself through about one a year.
Considering 99% of the reviews are by people who don't own and have never seen the device and are just whining like everybody here on/., I wouldn't worry about the reviews...
I'm not sure why. Filterset.G can be used with AdBlock Plus, but the Adblock Plus maintainer recommends that you don't use it. Here is more information:
There is nothing in your post that I can even begin to agree with. I don't feel like going point-by-point, so I'll just pick out one example.
Plus, Vista actually feels much more like it has a unified UI. OK, here's a fun exercise. Open up the following applications in Vista:
Command Prompt
Notepad
IE7
Word 2007 (or any Office '07 app)
You will now be looking at 4 different window styles / borders / color schemes / menu layouts / etc. How's that for a consistent UI? Oh yeah, if you're running Aero, then maximize all of them and watch how the windows all change even more, in more inconsistent ways. Fun stuff. Windows Vista is like a box of chocolates.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I mostly have a problem with calling anybody an "average consumer" - CR doesn't know what anybody's particular situation / preferences are. Their recommendations are based on some algorithm of quality/pricing/features/etc., but their balance never seems to be quite in line with what's important to me. And I'm talking about washing machines and such that I don't even really care about / know about.
So I end up throwing out their recommendations and just looking at the raw data to interpret it myself for my situation and preferences. But that raw data is available anywhere, and I find that 100 reviews on a review site by actual consumers who have used the product outside of a lab and for more than a week are much more useful.
Then they shouldn't sell themselves as "experts" if every true expert in a subject matter says they're wrong (which, as you point out, is pretty much the case).
If I want CONSUMER opinions I'd just go to epinions or amazon or cnet or wherever and read reviews. The idiotic reviews are easy enough to sort out and you get a better feeling for the quality / performance of a product from people who have actually used it for the same purposes that you intend to use it, rather than somebody who just plugged a device into a meter.
Exactly, technology is supposed to make things cheaper. I would never pay the same amount for CR online as for print, assuming I even though CR did a good job at reviewing anything. It's the same reason I don't sign up for any e-bills - credit card companies, electric company, etc. all want me to switch to an e-bill which saves them money but offers no benefit to me. Screw that, keep sending the paper statements until you pass some savings along to me.
There are already programs that try to supply third world countries with food, medicine, drinking water, infrastructure, etc. Nothing is stopping anybody from continuing to support those efforts. OLPC is taking a new, unexplored direction. It may work out it may not, we have yet to see. I for one see a lot of potential with the project and have high hopes in it working out. The existing strategy for helping poor countries has been unchanged for a long time and the overall problem doesn't seem to be getting better from a global standpoint, so a new approach to the problem should be welcome.
I don't see any logic in taking an extremest point of view of identifying the worst problems and suggesting that doing anything other than dealing with those problems head-on is a waste of time. It's not how mankind has advanced to where we are now. Progress can be made along multiple paths at the same time, and OLPC isn't slowing down any of the other existing support systems.
Agreed. From a fresh install of Ubuntu I actually spend more time configuring Firefox than I do the OS/desktop itself. Gnome gets out of your way and allows you to work, that's why I like it. From a fresh Windows install (XP or 2k3 Server) I spent most of my configuration time turning off stupid user warnings and un-hiding the useful information. Vista hasn't gotten any better in that regard, arguably worse.
Agreed, I have a newer laptop and Feisty didn't support some of the hardware (specifically audio), so I've been running Gutsy since the early alpha's and it's been fine. I wouldn't say it's been a step backwards from Feisty. Edgy was the one where they did some serious updates and forced a lot of things in early to "shake them out", not Gutsy.
Exchange for mail and calendaring is an OK solution, not the best, depending on your viewpoint. As a mail server it's actually pretty inferior to many offerings especially if you're not just hosting your own company's mail (multiple domains) and tied up with active directory. From an administrator's standpoint it's been pretty bad as well. 5.5 was a nightmare, 2003 has some improvements but is still generally unstable especially when you get to larger public and private folder sizes. Backups can be a pain, recovery from "corrupt" databases is near impossible, etc. I haven't yet used 2007 and don't plan to, we're 80% migrated off of Exchange (thank god) and I hope to finish the project in the next 6 months.
So yes, there is a need for other options. One of those needs is saving (more than) a few dollars, but there are many other reasons as well. Once you start down the Microsoft path and start running applications and services the "Microsoft way", you get further in bed with them and it gets more expensive and harder to get out - you lose flexibility and portability in the long run which is obviously what MS wants. Exchange might be a workable or even good solution for some companies, but in the long run it will never get any cheaper or easier.
Agreed, and not to mention that I keep business life and personal life separate. I would never receive an email from my dentist, wife, family, friends, etc. to my work address. If I need to be off of work for personal reasons, that's all my workplace needs to know - not that I'm at the dentist.
It's exactly that softness that I believe makes the ribs harder to break than a dried out, brittle board. I have broken some boards with punches and it certainly didn't feel good on my knuckles, but I've hit people in the chest, even floating ribs, equally hard and nothing broke.
I don't have a ton of experience to draw on (a few years), but in the martial arts I've seen a couple of people who got "cracked" ribs, who take it easy for a month or two while the ribs heal, but that's different than "broken" ribs. But I don't have any supporting references either. I know when doing some jujitsu with 250+ lb. guys that I can feel my chest compress pretty significantly when they're on it, it feels to me like my entire rib cage is flexing.
I guess to me it just seems to be more of an issue of brittleness than putting an object on a force gauge and seeing what it takes to break it. I don't know what the total amount of chemical energy in a cell phone battery equates to if it were all released at once, but it seems unlikely a small battery could break ribs, let alone a spine, to kill a man.
Boards for breaking are designed to break - they are very dried out and have a weakness along the grain. It's not at all true that they are harder to break than ribs - that just makes some martial artists think that they can throw a single punch and break the "equivalent" of 8 ribs so they feel like they're cool. Go to Home Depot and buy a "green" piece of wood the same size as a breaking board and try to break it with a punch. Let me know how that works out for you after you get back from the hospital. Ribs are more similar to this - they are somewhat flexible, and it's nearly impossible to concentrate a punch on a single rib - it will be spread across multiple ribs, especially because of the tissue and muscle that interlaces and supports them. The article you link to actually explains this as one of the reasons that the bones in your hand don't break when breaking a board.
Hmm, I'm actually quite surprised that you don't collaborate more online, maybe we have differing definitions of collaboration. I find whiteboards and notebooks quite limiting due to my bad handwriting (and drawing skills), lack of space, difficulty in disseminating notes after the meeting, etc. I have a "whiteboard guy" at work, and he carries around a digital camera to snap pictures of the whiteboard and emails 5MB JPG's out afterward - just seems like misuse of technology to me. I prefer to be able to type out notes in outline form (I type way faster than I write), be able to whip up a quick spreadsheet, drag flowchart boxes around and all the other stuff you can only do digitally. Also while face to face is generally nice, sometimes physical proximity isn't an option (we have remote developers and sales people), and also language can be a barrier with people who have heavy accents - in those cases chat works out much better for me. Anyway we're getting pretty off topic.
Don't get too hung up with "programming" on the OLPC, run some of the VM's out there and check it out - it's mostly very basic stuff with a "fun" outcome for kids that would keep their attention. Also that's only one very small part of the education aspect of the device, I don't expect it to be generating 1,000,000 crack python programmers in the next two years. There are a great number of other possibilities with the device for information portability, information access, etc. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in reality.
Just so you know, a 1GB flash card costs $5, so it shouldn't be a show-stopper to buying a device. Of course I don't know why manufacturers bother putting such a useless amount of memory to ship with their device in the first place.
Your original post replied to somebody else who asked why Negreponte would be angry if other laptops than his made it into childrens hands. The answer is, he wouldn't be angry if that were the result - he has said numerous times that he would consider the project a success if that happened. Your response inferred otherwise, but it wasn't clear what your point was, which is why asked what you believed the goal to be. That's all, no matter...
There is a lot of potential here, it's unfortunate that you don't see it.
Ahh I didn't read far enough up the thread to your original post where you made that distinction, my bad. In that case it's the responsibility of the government to make the call where the money is best spent, but this project is a valid option for the semi-poor countries.
What, exactly, do you believe his claimed goal to be? Because getting laptops in the hands of children is pretty darn close to the goal.
There are a number of things wrong with that statement. It's an extremest point of view that "we shouldn't worry about X until Y and Z are fixed". Similar statements are "we shouldn't try to cure aids until after we cure cancer". Yes, parts/most of Africa has a number of problems larger than "kids don't have laptops". But if you know anything about this project, it's not about giving kids laptops so they can bang around on MySpace all day like american kids do. I suggest you get educated about the project, goals, the technology implementations, etc. Download an emulated version. Try out the server version that teachers/schools will run. Understand the potential impact on education in Africa, which may accelerate forward progress of upcoming generations in Africa.
I can't stand the physical form factor of books. You have to hold the book with both hands - all the time - so it doesn't close on itself, or you have to almost break the book binding to keep itself open. Then you lay down and have it resting and you accidentally breath and the page flips back. Then the paper dries out your fingertips from flipping pages. As you work through a book the "keep it open" strategy changes as the bulk of pages moves from one side to the other. You can't enlarge the text and always need to have a strong light source around at the proper angle. Newspapers are large and bulky, and articles jump around all over the place.
Something like the Kindle could solve all those problems. If it's well done, I'd much rather read books, magazines, newspapers, etc. on a device like this than in the paper form factor. I do 99.9% of all my reading on computers. If I really want to read a book I can force myself through about one a year.
Considering 99% of the reviews are by people who don't own and have never seen the device and are just whining like everybody here on /., I wouldn't worry about the reviews...
- Do I need Filterset.G updater?
- Filterset.G on Wikipedia
- Filterset.G - I call "bullshit"
- A not so short history of Adblock
I personally just use the "EasyList (USA)" filter subscription and it seems to work fine, I don't see any ads.- Command Prompt
- Notepad
- IE7
- Word 2007 (or any Office '07 app)
You will now be looking at 4 different window styles / borders / color schemes / menu layouts / etc. How's that for a consistent UI? Oh yeah, if you're running Aero, then maximize all of them and watch how the windows all change even more, in more inconsistent ways. Fun stuff. Windows Vista is like a box of chocolates.