You cant say "doesnt work here or in Romania" so keep it like it is. You realize that, sorry to say that, you have WAY worse social problems than that? What about the places where it works? Well, I didn't say it doesn't work, actually I was trying to describe our situation.
And if you knew Uruguay, you'd know that we don't have that many social problems actually (I mean, we do, but we're much closer to a former Eastern European country than to, say, Africa, or even other South American countries like Bolivia or Peru)
One very interesting ethical/economical problem with mutual or other socialist systems, is that healthcare is basically inelastic (linky to a paper, even: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0165176503002763 ), that is, for any amount of supply, there will be demand to match. So at some point, someone has to decide when it is enough... in extreme cases, when to "pull the plug" on a terminal patient, or whether to spend the very costly medicine for cancer or AIDS patients...
In the US, that's decided by "do you have the money to afford it" basis, but over here, it's a way different ethical problem, as it's the state (everyone) who's paying for the health of a particular patient...
A question that I've wondered often: who should get to decide when it's "enough" ? Adding to that is that according to what I've read, 60% of all the healthcare expenses for a person are incurred in their last 6 months of life...
(1) I've read several articles about socialized systems in Europe being severely in debt. I posted earlier on socialized medicine in my country, and I forgot to mention, the system is deeply in debt in my country (Uruguay) too.
Do you plan on paying for your doctor to go to school? Feel like chipping in to buy an MRI? If not, then you have to pay something later on when you do need a doctor and an MRI. That's part of it too... we pay for public universities (that's right, you get to be a doctor for "free", university costs U$ 0, nothing, nada). OTOH it's infrastructure is crappy like everything public, teachers do their best but it's not enough, and it takes between 8 to 11 YEARS to graduate as a doctor)
I live in Uruguay, and like the previous Romanian poster, we have a socialized medicine here (a bit mixed, not fully socialized).
It seems to work a bit better than what you're describing (and way better than the Romanian system), but it has some severe downsides.
I get deducted 4,5 % of my salary each month (6% if you have children), and that pays for the monthly fee at the "mutual" (our form of medical care based on the ), which gives me basic health coverage.
By "basie", I mean "call us if you're dying or in severe risk, otherwise don't bother", the hospital seems to have been teleported to Iraq (they started some structural work and didn't have the money to finish it, so the entrance is covered in rubble and you have to enter through a small passageway on the side of the hospital), if you want to be seen by a specialist you have to book it anywhere from a month to three months in advance, unless the doctors (general practitioners?) determine you're likely to die or a severe threat to health from it. Oh, and you pay an extra fee for everything, too.
Medicine is included, but you never get "brand" name stuff, everything is generics, sometimes of dubious quality (I definitely notice a decreased effect from some of the stuff I've taken, in particular I used to suffer from asthma and the generics are nowhere as effective at stopping an attack).
Some medical procedures that seem to be common in the US are not included, dental care besides some tooth extraction is not included (everyone has lousy teeth compared to the US), and god forbid if you have to go to the "emergency" room, it takes something from 1 to 3 hours to be seen by the overworked staff, unless you actually look like you'll die on the spot. Most people (myself included) buy additional emergency services (not included in the social healthcare) which actually come in case of a non life-threatening emergency, and which you can see for all kinds of usual health-related stuff that would take all day in the mutual system (this or that hurts, my son has a fever, etc..).
And even then, only those who work, or whose relatives work, have access to the "mutual system".. the rest goes to the "public" hospitals, which are directly state managed (the "mutual system" seems to be private, non-profit based, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory) ), and those are even worse, even though they do provide basic healthcare.
The upside is, my hospital (with the entrance covered in rubble and all), has access to MRI, CRT and most modern equipment, and instead of being billed into oblivion, if I ever require the use of such services (if the doctors determine that - that is, very less frequently than in the US), I get to use them for a relatively small fee (most expensive procedures are about U$ 50 to U$ 100 fee).
I really can't understand how you can say with a straight face that medical care for someone in the US can be U$ 12.000 per year, even taking into account the huge difference in salaries between here and the US. For comparison, I earn about U$ 6.000 per year after taxes,and somehow seem to have better access to healthcare than most of you? (with all the caveats).
I don't know how socialized medicine would work in the US, but you already have my anecdotal evidence and the Romanian's, so you can see which you would prefer.
In languages other than English (like, say, my native Spanish), it's more natural to use the DD/MM/YYYY.
The company I work for has lots of trouble with Windows' local date formats and Excel, to the point my boss refers to "spreadsheet hell" - the end users love Excel though. Thing is, end user's date format is usually DD/MM/YYYY, while the servers they upload the spreadsheets to are in MM/DD/YYYY...
We wish we could force the users to adopt the ISO standard...
You see, not all of us live conveniently close to a bookstore, and in my case, even Amazon is hazardous - I live in Uruguay... while our postal system is not among the worst in South America - stuff actually reaches me - it's incredibly slow and they sometimes misplace stuff or wrongly hold them at Customs.
Plus Shipping & Handling is a killer.
Hell, on S&H alone I could pay for one of those devices in about 10-20 books.
And I like reading on buses. Also, as many other Slashdotters, I don't have endless shelf space.
Gutemberg project...
Cheaper than paper equivalents (at least they should)..
I'm from Uruguay (the country that has actually gone out and bought the XOs), and... it's not at all like you imagine it.
We have electricity and running water everywhere, better literacy than the US and public education for everyone (better than that of the US if Slashdot whining is to be believed !)
On the other hand, average wages are about U$ 300/month, and so a computer is a luxury item for most, and very especially for parents of school-age children like the ones which will be the recipient of the XO.
You can read at the unofficial Proyecto Ceibal blog (the Uruguayan OLPC initiative) about how this has the potential to be a nice step forward:)
Inflation does not tax the poor: They have no cash savings. I see... good that you don't live in a 3rd world country like mine (Uruguay), then you'd REALLY feel the sting of inflation.
The thing is, when you have strong, sustained inflation, what happens is that the salary increases don't match the inflation and you get "real salary" loss (which means that your salary doesn't buy the same amount of things it did before).
My salary today is 400 % of what it was when I started working, you think my spending power has increased as much???, and I'm 26, yet I can barely afford food, rent, bills and Internet (I foolishly live alone which people my age here can't manage, it's not advisable at all, much better to split costs, but I digress)
A simple search in Google Scholar returns this oft-quoted book by David Romer (which seems to be a Neo-Keynesian economist), which in its very first page states
"Expansionary monetary policy aimed at rapid output growth is associated with improved conditions for the poor in the short run, but prudent monetary policy aimed at low inflation and steady output growth is associated with enhanced well-being of the poor in the long run." A little background on Romer:
The nice thing is I didn't know this guy existed. I sometimes want to go into Economics and Politics and I love talking about this stuff although it's clear I could use lots of basics (I only did a very basic course on Macro and Micro economics in university).
Adding to anecdotic evidence, I haven't had a severe cold or flu either for at least since I started working 5 years ago (I've missed work due to many issues, but never a medical one), I've been vaccinated the last two years but didn't have a flu before either.
Magic: The Gathering Online is another example of a massive multiplayer game (300.000 players) where the transactions weren't very well thought out... and a large part of the game relies on the "trading" aspect of a trading card game.
I think the MCS* training warned him about linux and he became convinced enough to end up being an MS fanboy. I just wanted to comment as someone who holds some MC* certifications, that if the MCS* training warned him about linux, it was probably due to his trainers and not anything Microsoft put into the training program (said programs mostly ignore the existence of Linux and behave as if Microsoft software were alone in the universe).
And btw I work for a Microsoft Gold Partner and I haven't seen such behaviour, we all like the way using MS software makes things easier (yeah we know and worry about the lock-in cost) but we're pragmatic and use Linux-based stuff and free/open source software if it's much better suited to the task at hand (not too often as Microsoft has a product line that tries to cover all bases and our license agreement means it usually doesn't cost extra).
Sorry for not replying earlier, I've seen many of your comments with that username on MTGSalvation.
I use another screen name over there but you'll recognize me for the epilepsia-inducing Uruguayan flag/UG madness avatar.
On the comment itself, you're probably right about that, I really hope it's aimed at another demographic, and yes, Magic Online is more than enough for most hardcore players.
Confidentiality of email does NOT exist. It might exist in some alternate universe but it doesn't exist on this planet.
This has nothing to do with the Confidentiality of email, and everything to do with accessing other people's email accounts without authorization.
Oh, by the way, the US isn't alone in the universe, and in Uruguay at least, it's a crime to read other people's e-mail accounts without permission, punishable with prison, so that might be the law in Sweden too
That law's a bit too strong, and it isn't enforced too often, but it does exist.
Trying to confirm this I came across an article on electronic crime in Argentina where it states that "It will be punishable by up to six months of prision to whomever opens without permission an e-mail or other epistolar means" Article 153 of the Argentinean Criminal Code (Penal Code/Código Penal). Source:
Gleemax is supposed to be a Wizards' in-joke about a giant alien brain in a jar that runs R&D.
Like many in-jokes, I don't find it funny, and that marketing allowed them to use that name for their social networking site was a poor idea (if they ever ran it past marketing).
Also, the initial site I saw after they posted the news was such a horrible mix of green and black that I'm certain I'll never use the site unless it's very useful. I suspect that unless they get their act together it will be a failure.
BTW I'm a hardcore Magic: the Gathering player so I'm probably the target demographic.
I still find them more comfortable than websites to read, but I guess it's a matter of time until I find an electronic equivalent I'll be willing to use in the bus, bed, etc (those e-paper alternatives that keep on popping here).
There's also something to be said for the aesthetics of many magazines being better than websites, and also readability. Still, yes, they'll fall into a niche market I guess.
Thanks! I'll probably not look into it (who am I kidding), but I will file it for future reference if I do get into D&D again:) and of course for fellow nerds:P
Also a good thing if I want to get into PHP again (I had a very brief flash course in college).
3rd edition D&D was not a role playing game as I understood it... it was basically just a pen-and-paper version of a computer game, requiring a ridiculous amount of number crunching and bean counting. My feelings exactly. I'm not an RPG fan, but I do have some books and computer games and I play WOTC's other money-sucking game (Magic: The Gathering)... and the 3rd edition game stuck me as impossible to manage with just pen and paper...
Fortunately there are several cool games based on the D&D rules engine which I enjoyed a lot because I wasn't stuck with the pen-and-paper stats management (see: Bioware).
Well, many of us work/worked as Sysadmins, or build systems in our spare time, or whatever, so we get to see an amount of HDDs way above the average user.
While I had only one drive failure in my own PCs, I've seen at least fifty dead hard drives, including SCSI and IDE.
I'd say you probably upgraded most of your computers in time, and also consider that most hard drives die either at the very beginning of their lifespan or they start failing quite close to one another after their expected lifespan (which varies depending on the manufacturer but I jokingly say it's warranty + 1 month), the story about a HDD dying after just one year is odd, most of them die soon after installing or at least 2 years afterwards.
Google has seen a googol more HDDs than me (bad pun intended), and published a paper on the subject, which was linked in this very site:
Nice random comment on the paper that supports what I was saying: "in fact, all the metrics paint a pretty clear picture of infant mortality, then reasonably fit drives suriving their expected operational life (3 years). in senescence, all forms of stress correlate with increased failure." Mark Hahn
I live in Uruguay, and the most common burglary problem comes from young kids/teens from poor settlements ("cantegriles"/"villas miserias"/"favelas") that hop across roofs and walls of houses looking for an unprotected house to make a quick entrance and steal whatever valuables are at hand.
While I was studying with a classmate of a well-to-do family in his house, we heard a noise and saw one such teen trying to enter (he hadn't noticed us). We called the police and foolishly tried to follow him (he might have been armed, and it's not usual for people to own weapons in Uruguay). He escaped by jumping the wall into the next door house... which had a famished Doberman, which promptly attacked the teen. The police caught him and managed to separate him from the Doberman, but not before the Doberman had torn one of the teen's testes (ouch).
Wait... it's past April 1st... so this might actually be a real story.
ChaCha is a joke, they always direct you to Wikipedia whenever possible (I guess there's worse things), and refuse to answer some questions (I live in Uruguay so they're worthless for me).
so let me quote:
" When they can't direct you to the most obviously generic site, they start the trial and error process which consists in linking you to the most random pages hoping one of them contains the information you were looking for.
Not the best use for your time, we all know that Google didn't become a verb by linking people to garbage."
If the IU website is so horrible to search, why not maintain a local search engine for the website only? Also, do they know you can filter Google searches to only include results from a certain webpage?
I'd like to point you out to the Uruguayan OLPC blog, http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/ (English version), which has been keeping up with the developments in my country's project, which aims to give a laptop to every school-age kid, and has started with one of the 19 subdivisions - "departments" - in the country, with a trial already being ran.
Or you could just spend all the former TV time playing WoW. LOL. When I moved alone, I had to choose my bills wisely, and chose not to have Cable TV and get ADSL instead (which was actually cheaper).
Now I spend enough money on Magic: The Gathering that I could probably afford cable with a few extra programming packages besides:P
Wow. The JMC and other Chinese cars are becoming the best-selling cars over here (Uruguay/South America), and Indian-made Marutis are close behind, so we're screwed.
The worst thing is, I'd love to have one of those and I can't afford either (would you believe they cost 10.000 US over here?).
The only good thing is, they won't archieve 64 mph in a city ever unless they're crazy, so just don't drive them in a highway.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you knew Uruguay, you'd know that we don't have that many social problems actually (I mean, we do, but we're much closer to a former Eastern European country than to, say, Africa, or even other South American countries like Bolivia or Peru)
One very interesting ethical/economical problem with mutual or other socialist systems, is that healthcare is basically inelastic (linky to a paper, even: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0165176503002763 ), that is, for any amount of supply, there will be demand to match. So at some point, someone has to decide when it is enough... in extreme cases, when to "pull the plug" on a terminal patient, or whether to spend the very costly medicine for cancer or AIDS patients...
In the US, that's decided by "do you have the money to afford it" basis, but over here, it's a way different ethical problem, as it's the state (everyone) who's paying for the health of a particular patient...
A question that I've wondered often: who should get to decide when it's "enough" ? Adding to that is that according to what I've read, 60% of all the healthcare expenses for a person are incurred in their last 6 months of life...
I live in Uruguay, and like the previous Romanian poster, we have a socialized medicine here (a bit mixed, not fully socialized).
,and somehow seem to have better access to healthcare than most of you? (with all the caveats).
It seems to work a bit better than what you're describing (and way better than the Romanian system), but it has some severe downsides.
I get deducted 4,5 % of my salary each month (6% if you have children), and that pays for the monthly fee at the "mutual" (our form of medical care based on the ), which gives me basic health coverage.
By "basie", I mean "call us if you're dying or in severe risk, otherwise don't bother", the hospital seems to have been teleported to Iraq (they started some structural work and didn't have the money to finish it, so the entrance is covered in rubble and you have to enter through a small passageway on the side of the hospital), if you want to be seen by a specialist you have to book it anywhere from a month to three months in advance, unless the doctors (general practitioners?) determine you're likely to die or a severe threat to health from it. Oh, and you pay an extra fee for everything, too.
Medicine is included, but you never get "brand" name stuff, everything is generics, sometimes of dubious quality (I definitely notice a decreased effect from some of the stuff I've taken, in particular I used to suffer from asthma and the generics are nowhere as effective at stopping an attack).
Some medical procedures that seem to be common in the US are not included, dental care besides some tooth extraction is not included (everyone has lousy teeth compared to the US), and god forbid if you have to go to the "emergency" room, it takes something from 1 to 3 hours to be seen by the overworked staff, unless you actually look like you'll die on the spot. Most people (myself included) buy additional emergency services (not included in the social healthcare) which actually come in case of a non life-threatening emergency, and which you can see for all kinds of usual health-related stuff that would take all day in the mutual system (this or that hurts, my son has a fever, etc..).
And even then, only those who work, or whose relatives work, have access to the "mutual system".. the rest goes to the "public" hospitals, which are directly state managed (the "mutual system" seems to be private, non-profit based, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory) ), and those are even worse, even though they do provide basic healthcare.
The upside is, my hospital (with the entrance covered in rubble and all), has access to MRI, CRT and most modern equipment, and instead of being billed into oblivion, if I ever require the use of such services (if the doctors determine that - that is, very less frequently than in the US), I get to use them for a relatively small fee (most expensive procedures are about U$ 50 to U$ 100 fee).
I really can't understand how you can say with a straight face that medical care for someone in the US can be U$ 12.000 per year, even taking into account the huge difference in salaries between here and the US. For comparison, I earn about U$ 6.000 per year after taxes
I don't know how socialized medicine would work in the US, but you already have my anecdotal evidence and the Romanian's, so you can see which you would prefer.
In languages other than English (like, say, my native Spanish), it's more natural to use the DD/MM/YYYY.
The company I work for has lots of trouble with Windows' local date formats and Excel, to the point my boss refers to "spreadsheet hell" - the end users love Excel though. Thing is, end user's date format is usually DD/MM/YYYY, while the servers they upload the spreadsheets to are in MM/DD/YYYY...
We wish we could force the users to adopt the ISO standard...
It would be the perfect gift for me :) ...
:)
You see, not all of us live conveniently close to a bookstore, and in my case, even Amazon is hazardous - I live in Uruguay... while our postal system is not among the worst in South America - stuff actually reaches me - it's incredibly slow and they sometimes misplace stuff or wrongly hold them at Customs.
Plus Shipping & Handling is a killer.
Hell, on S&H alone I could pay for one of those devices in about 10-20 books.
And I like reading on buses. Also, as many other Slashdotters, I don't have endless shelf space.
Gutemberg project...
Cheaper than paper equivalents (at least they should)..
I'm sold
I'm from Uruguay (the country that has actually gone out and bought the XOs), and... it's not at all like you imagine it.
:)
We have electricity and running water everywhere, better literacy than the US and public education for everyone (better than that of the US if Slashdot whining is to be believed !)
On the other hand, average wages are about U$ 300/month, and so a computer is a luxury item for most, and very especially for parents of school-age children like the ones which will be the recipient of the XO.
You can read at the unofficial Proyecto Ceibal blog (the Uruguayan OLPC initiative) about how this has the potential to be a nice step forward
http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/
I see... good that you don't live in a 3rd world country like mine (Uruguay), then you'd REALLY feel the sting of inflation.
The thing is, when you have strong, sustained inflation, what happens is that the salary increases don't match the inflation and you get "real salary" loss (which means that your salary doesn't buy the same amount of things it did before).
My salary today is 400 % of what it was when I started working, you think my spending power has increased as much???, and I'm 26, yet I can barely afford food, rent, bills and Internet (I foolishly live alone which people my age here can't manage, it's not advisable at all, much better to split costs, but I digress)
A simple search in Google Scholar returns this oft-quoted book by David Romer (which seems to be a Neo-Keynesian economist), which in its very first page states "Expansionary monetary policy aimed at rapid output growth is associated with improved conditions for the poor in the short run, but prudent monetary policy aimed at low inflation and steady output growth is associated with enhanced well-being of the poor in the long run." A little background on Romer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Keynesian_economics
The nice thing is I didn't know this guy existed. I sometimes want to go into Economics and Politics and I love talking about this stuff although it's clear I could use lots of basics (I only did a very basic course on Macro and Micro economics in university).
Adding to anecdotic evidence, I haven't had a severe cold or flu either for at least since I started working 5 years ago (I've missed work due to many issues, but never a medical one), I've been vaccinated the last two years but didn't have a flu before either.
Magic: The Gathering Online is another example of a massive multiplayer game (300.000 players) where the transactions weren't very well thought out... and a large part of the game relies on the "trading" aspect of a trading card game.
The "Is the server up" tread on the forums runs to 143 pages since November 2006 and is very scary http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=733609
LOL... for those of you that don't get it, you're missing on an awesome series, Top Gear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear
And btw I work for a Microsoft Gold Partner and I haven't seen such behaviour, we all like the way using MS software makes things easier (yeah we know and worry about the lock-in cost) but we're pragmatic and use Linux-based stuff and free/open source software if it's much better suited to the task at hand (not too often as Microsoft has a product line that tries to cover all bases and our license agreement means it usually doesn't cost extra).
Sorry for not replying earlier, I've seen many of your comments with that username on MTGSalvation.
I use another screen name over there but you'll recognize me for the epilepsia-inducing Uruguayan flag/UG madness avatar.
On the comment itself, you're probably right about that, I really hope it's aimed at another demographic, and yes, Magic Online is more than enough for most hardcore players.
This has nothing to do with the Confidentiality of email, and everything to do with accessing other people's email accounts without authorization.
Oh, by the way, the US isn't alone in the universe, and in Uruguay at least, it's a crime to read other people's e-mail accounts without permission, punishable with prison, so that might be the law in Sweden tooThat law's a bit too strong, and it isn't enforced too often, but it does exist.
Trying to confirm this I came across an article on electronic crime in Argentina where it states that "It will be punishable by up to six months of prision to whomever opens without permission an e-mail or other epistolar means" Article 153 of the Argentinean Criminal Code (Penal Code/Código Penal). Source:
http://www.mastermagazine.info/articulo/10697.php
Gleemax is supposed to be a Wizards' in-joke about a giant alien brain in a jar that runs R&D.
Like many in-jokes, I don't find it funny, and that marketing allowed them to use that name for their social networking site was a poor idea (if they ever ran it past marketing).
Also, the initial site I saw after they posted the news was such a horrible mix of green and black that I'm certain I'll never use the site unless it's very useful. I suspect that unless they get their act together it will be a failure.
BTW I'm a hardcore Magic: the Gathering player so I'm probably the target demographic.
I still find them more comfortable than websites to read, but I guess it's a matter of time until I find an electronic equivalent I'll be willing to use in the bus, bed, etc (those e-paper alternatives that keep on popping here).
There's also something to be said for the aesthetics of many magazines being better than websites, and also readability. Still, yes, they'll fall into a niche market I guess.
Thanks! I'll probably not look into it (who am I kidding), but I will file it for future reference if I do get into D&D again :) and of course for fellow nerds :P
Also a good thing if I want to get into PHP again (I had a very brief flash course in college).
Fortunately there are several cool games based on the D&D rules engine which I enjoyed a lot because I wasn't stuck with the pen-and-paper stats management (see: Bioware).
Well, many of us work/worked as Sysadmins, or build systems in our spare time, or whatever, so we get to see an amount of HDDs way above the average user.
/ 18/0420247
While I had only one drive failure in my own PCs, I've seen at least fifty dead hard drives, including SCSI and IDE.
I'd say you probably upgraded most of your computers in time, and also consider that most hard drives die either at the very beginning of their lifespan or they start failing quite close to one another after their expected lifespan (which varies depending on the manufacturer but I jokingly say it's warranty + 1 month), the story about a HDD dying after just one year is odd, most of them die soon after installing or at least 2 years afterwards.
Google has seen a googol more HDDs than me (bad pun intended), and published a paper on the subject, which was linked in this very site:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02
Nice random comment on the paper that supports what I was saying: "in fact, all the metrics paint a pretty clear picture of infant mortality, then reasonably fit drives suriving their expected operational life (3 years). in senescence, all forms of stress correlate with increased failure." Mark Hahn
Well... they could use the googol :P
Another nice "number" is the Aleph but it doesn't fit this problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number
Disclaimer: true but probably exaggerated story.
I live in Uruguay, and the most common burglary problem comes from young kids/teens from poor settlements ("cantegriles"/"villas miserias"/"favelas") that hop across roofs and walls of houses looking for an unprotected house to make a quick entrance and steal whatever valuables are at hand.
While I was studying with a classmate of a well-to-do family in his house, we heard a noise and saw one such teen trying to enter (he hadn't noticed us). We called the police and foolishly tried to follow him (he might have been armed, and it's not usual for people to own weapons in Uruguay). He escaped by jumping the wall into the next door house... which had a famished Doberman, which promptly attacked the teen. The police caught him and managed to separate him from the Doberman, but not before the Doberman had torn one of the teen's testes (ouch).
ChaCha is a joke, they always direct you to Wikipedia whenever possible (I guess there's worse things), and refuse to answer some questions (I live in Uruguay so they're worthless for me).
My brother had a blog post on ChaCha http://mrhathouse.blogspot.com/2006/12/maybe-not-
so let me quote: " When they can't direct you to the most obviously generic site, they start the trial and error process which consists in linking you to the most random pages hoping one of them contains the information you were looking for.
Not the best use for your time, we all know that Google didn't become a verb by linking people to garbage."
If the IU website is so horrible to search, why not maintain a local search engine for the website only? Also, do they know you can filter Google searches to only include results from a certain webpage?
"Humor is tragedy plus time". Mark Twain
I'd like to point you out to the Uruguayan OLPC blog, http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/ (English version), which has been keeping up with the developments in my country's project, which aims to give a laptop to every school-age kid, and has started with one of the 19 subdivisions - "departments" - in the country, with a trial already being ran.
5
This was covered by Slashdot under the heading OLPC Project Rollout Begins In Uruguay: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/12/07720
Now I spend enough money on Magic: The Gathering that I could probably afford cable with a few extra programming packages besides
Wow. The JMC and other Chinese cars are becoming the best-selling cars over here (Uruguay/South America), and Indian-made Marutis are close behind, so we're screwed.
The worst thing is, I'd love to have one of those and I can't afford either (would you believe they cost 10.000 US over here?).
The only good thing is, they won't archieve 64 mph in a city ever unless they're crazy, so just don't drive them in a highway.