So does that make you our volunteer then to hop a plane to Mongolia and teach the little ones xmodmap?
No, someone who knows some English just googles for the information same as everyone else. The weak point is internet connectivity. The value of the whole exercise is seriously diminished without it.
Not sure why this is modded funny, given that it is an option, especially since it seems that the alt key is particularly prone to stickage, so you simply map it to the xo's equivalent of the windows key which isn't used for much. The problem is that recipes I've seen for this use xmodmap, and sooner or later you're going to be trying to fix something in a shell pre X, and you'll be hooped if you haven't fixed the problem physically.
Perhaps in consumerist societies, but I bet they take more care of stuff when they know it can't/won't be replaced.
The summary does read like something out of a consumerist society -- "Product break, what we do now?" Well, you fix it.
I wonder if OLPC is regretting G1G1 at all, putting thousands of XO's into the hands of people for whom it was never intended. The XO is for children and geeks, and if they ever plan to release one to the general North American consumer public, yes, they've got a lot of work to do. In fact, I'm not even sure it would be possible in the near future at the price point they're aiming at.
Not quite sure what is meant by "we don't know of any _reliable_ method", unless perhaps it means something that works for everyone the same way 100% of the time, and there's some small number of units that can't be fixed by disassembly and wiping the area under the affected key with isopropyl alcohol. I didn't even go that far with mine, I just pried up the edge of the keyboard mat near my stuck alt key just enough to get the q-tip in.
The XO is designed to be like the old Volkswagen Beetle -- cheap and easily fixable by non-experts in the field. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren't prone to stuck key syndrome, but it's not the end of the world, and these are fricken amazing devices at twice the price.
As such, the principle of Occam's razor - do not make theories more complicated than necessary - eliminates the existence of a God, because the world is simpler without one.
Occam's razor is a rule of thumb, something for assessing probability. It isn't a law which eradicates the improbable.
I just love it when people grab any occasion to try to sue as much money as they can from large (and rich) companies, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. As much as they can? 25 grand? From Google? That's petty cash to them. I wonder how they arrived at such a strangely low figure. Perhaps they figured if they kept it low Google would simply cut them a cheque and tell them to piss off and stop bothering them.
mp3sparks.com has great selection, great price, and your choice of compression level and format. The only problem with it is that they don't have any options to fund your account, so you can't buy anything from them (at least not from North America).
Along with that should go greatly increased penalties for the abuse of these capabilities. Firing a contractor seems hardly sufficient.
Firing does seem inadequate, but you want go easy on the knee jerk throw all the baddies in jail response, given that the US already has one of the highest incarceration rates expressed as percentage of population. Simpler would be to cut off a hand for the first offense, the other hand for a second, and so on from there depending on what body part they are using to access a computer. I think most would stop with the first amputation.
I installed kubuntu and found it to be a complete mess, totally unusuable. Then I installed ubuntu, then the kde desktop. The splash screen when it starts says 'kubuntu', but it sure as hell isn't the mess I got when I started by installing kubuntu. I think what I've got should be called ubuntuk, ubuntu + kde, or gubuntuk since it has both gnome and kde. I should figure out how to replace the splash screen with a custom one.
From the Wired article you provided:
Fresh Start will now be a no-cost option on Sony's slick subnotebooks, but only for those who opt for Windows Vista Business Edition, a $100 upgrade.
Perhaps they should still offer it for regular edition, then market the business edition upgrade as "Upgrade to Business Edition and get Fresh Start free, a fifty dollar value!"
Since there are hundreds of thousands of compromised sites out there, and millions of spam bots the internet bad guys could get almost all of us on this list pretty quickly.
That might not be such a bad idea, actually. Overwhelm them with millions of 'pervs' from all walks of life -- grandmas, teachers, nuns, and who knows? Perhaps some judges and congress critters. They might be a little more discriminating in their targeting after that.
but I use Linux because I don't want to pay MS for anything. ever. again. That's why I switched initially. But I could achieve that objective by switching to a Mac. I had the opportunity to mess with a MacBook for a couple of weeks, and didn't feel at all compelled to switch. And even if Microsoft wanted to give me a copy of Windows for free, I wouldn't use it regularly (I would install it in a vm and poke it with a stick to see how it reacts).
I think the poster who said we use it 'because it is ours' explained part of it for me. I'm not interested in a corporate controlled OS. Windows is Bill's, and OS/X is Steve's. And they can do things like shove DRM down our throats or support DVD players that enforce region coding and not being able to skip shite. They can do what they like, because it is their OS. Screw them both.
As for it being fun to tinker and shit, I used to feel that way too, and I can do that if I have to, but there are a universe of geeky things to do. I like ubuntu + kde because beyond a few tweaks to get things how I like, it doesn't require a load of geeking in order to get to geeking on the things I actually want to spend time geeking on.
I don't donate because I know that they could more than make their budget with simple, unobtrusive text advertising. That is to say, I would like them to do a little advertising, enough to make the budget and perhaps a little more for padding. They don't need my money.
Except that google maps are often off by a half a block with regard to addresses. I'm not sure what that translates to in grave plots, but you will likely be virtually venerating the wrong dead person.
Yup, there was a court case that established that corporations have the rights of personhood. Unfortunately I can't cite it off the top of my head, but it is cited in the documentary The Corporation. The documentary makers ask what kind of a person the corporation is, and, after going through some 'evidence', conclude that it is a psychopath.
So why not get a 4 year old laptop? I doubt my T40 Thinkpad is worth more than $350. For non-geek regular mortals that would be a great idea, speaking as an xo owner just about the xo. I love my xo, but so much of that is pure geek appeal. I have no problem zipping around on the command line getting it to do what I want, rather than what it's designer's intended, which is for it to be a classroom appliance used by meshed up flocks of kids. Given what an xo costs on ebay, which seems to be about what G1G1 participants paid, and given that most adult geeks are going to want to buy an SD card for it, portable usb keyboard, mouse, usb memory stick, possibly usb to ethernet adapter if you can't always use wireless... you can easily spend more than $100 for accessories for this 'hundred dollar laptop'. Unless you're enamoured of the pure geek appeal of this wee green beasty you probably would be better off spending less on a 2nd hand laptop while getting more in terms of processing power, RAM, and storage (though you're unlikely to find anything as rugged).
According to the article, could be the same stuff:
What has happened is that many of the companies that do the outsourcing for Cisco now run an extra shift and sell the now counterfeit hardware out the back door. After all, they have the manufacturing capability, the expertise and the full blessing of Cisco. It's not the same as 2nds, or cheap knock offs with fake labels. It would suck if you were getting duped, esp. if paying full Cisco prices, but for a very steep discount there are probably customers who would knowingly buy these even though it means forgoing warranty.
Me neither. I still have my 'Boycott Adobe' mouse pad from boycottadobe.com's cafe press store back before boycottadobe.com became one of those obnoxious ad sites. Ah, those heady days of youthful protest. Adobe backed off quickly, no doubt thinking "Not unflattering mouse pads!", but the damage was done. Unfortunately, the boycottadobe.com web site/movement folded fairly quickly after that. Perhaps they weren't selling enough mouse pads and other boycott adobe related items.
The content of the Quran, as read by the average reasonable person, resembles Mein Kampf in its degree of evil.
The content of the Quran, as read by the average reasonable person, contains a central theme or concern for justice defined in simple 'tit for tat' terms -- basically don't start fights because God loves not the aggressor, but if anyone strikes you, then give 'em hell. Consequently, the Quran is much more congruent with the values of most average reasonable persons than is the New Testament with its emphasis on forgiveness and turning the other cheek.
Aye. Using their monopoly control of the desktop to foist what was at the time an inferior browser on people was what first started me feeling hostility towards Microsoft. It led directly to my becoming a Linux user. While I love Linux to bits now, truth is I didn't switch to it because it was a great OS, but rather because it wasn't Microsoft. Almost embarassing to admit that once upon a time I was actually pro-Microsoft. I was even stupider then than I am now. Wow.
Now, THAT's a platform I could support 100%. The dog/cat hybrid is especially brilliant. The platforms of obama and hillary and the republican guy are just grey and lame by comparison. Flyingsquid in 2008! Huzzah!
If you read the fine article you would know that it doesn't link to the guy's site. Nor does the summary. He makes some interesting products which readers of the fine article might want to check out.
The guy's web site.
I did a google search on "Mr Widget" bottle rocket and the results were all from news sites to do with this story. Searching on antigravity research was better.
Slashdot Mirror
No, someone who knows some English just googles for the information same as everyone else. The weak point is internet connectivity. The value of the whole exercise is seriously diminished without it.
Good point. They might have to use spit.
Not sure why this is modded funny, given that it is an option, especially since it seems that the alt key is particularly prone to stickage, so you simply map it to the xo's equivalent of the windows key which isn't used for much. The problem is that recipes I've seen for this use xmodmap, and sooner or later you're going to be trying to fix something in a shell pre X, and you'll be hooped if you haven't fixed the problem physically.
The summary does read like something out of a consumerist society -- "Product break, what we do now?" Well, you fix it.
I wonder if OLPC is regretting G1G1 at all, putting thousands of XO's into the hands of people for whom it was never intended. The XO is for children and geeks, and if they ever plan to release one to the general North American consumer public, yes, they've got a lot of work to do. In fact, I'm not even sure it would be possible in the near future at the price point they're aiming at.
Not quite sure what is meant by "we don't know of any _reliable_ method", unless perhaps it means something that works for everyone the same way 100% of the time, and there's some small number of units that can't be fixed by disassembly and wiping the area under the affected key with isopropyl alcohol. I didn't even go that far with mine, I just pried up the edge of the keyboard mat near my stuck alt key just enough to get the q-tip in.
The XO is designed to be like the old Volkswagen Beetle -- cheap and easily fixable by non-experts in the field. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren't prone to stuck key syndrome, but it's not the end of the world, and these are fricken amazing devices at twice the price.
Occam's razor is a rule of thumb, something for assessing probability. It isn't a law which eradicates the improbable.
mp3sparks.com has great selection, great price, and your choice of compression level and format. The only problem with it is that they don't have any options to fund your account, so you can't buy anything from them (at least not from North America).
Firing does seem inadequate, but you want go easy on the knee jerk throw all the baddies in jail response, given that the US already has one of the highest incarceration rates expressed as percentage of population. Simpler would be to cut off a hand for the first offense, the other hand for a second, and so on from there depending on what body part they are using to access a computer. I think most would stop with the first amputation.
I installed kubuntu and found it to be a complete mess, totally unusuable. Then I installed ubuntu, then the kde desktop. The splash screen when it starts says 'kubuntu', but it sure as hell isn't the mess I got when I started by installing kubuntu. I think what I've got should be called ubuntuk, ubuntu + kde, or gubuntuk since it has both gnome and kde. I should figure out how to replace the splash screen with a custom one.
Perhaps they should still offer it for regular edition, then market the business edition upgrade as "Upgrade to Business Edition and get Fresh Start free, a fifty dollar value!"
That might not be such a bad idea, actually. Overwhelm them with millions of 'pervs' from all walks of life -- grandmas, teachers, nuns, and who knows? Perhaps some judges and congress critters. They might be a little more discriminating in their targeting after that.
I think the poster who said we use it 'because it is ours' explained part of it for me. I'm not interested in a corporate controlled OS. Windows is Bill's, and OS/X is Steve's. And they can do things like shove DRM down our throats or support DVD players that enforce region coding and not being able to skip shite. They can do what they like, because it is their OS. Screw them both.
As for it being fun to tinker and shit, I used to feel that way too, and I can do that if I have to, but there are a universe of geeky things to do. I like ubuntu + kde because beyond a few tweaks to get things how I like, it doesn't require a load of geeking in order to get to geeking on the things I actually want to spend time geeking on.
And yet, people are still buying. That's some marketing organization.
I don't donate because I know that they could more than make their budget with simple, unobtrusive text advertising. That is to say, I would like them to do a little advertising, enough to make the budget and perhaps a little more for padding. They don't need my money.
Except that google maps are often off by a half a block with regard to addresses. I'm not sure what that translates to in grave plots, but you will likely be virtually venerating the wrong dead person.
Yup, there was a court case that established that corporations have the rights of personhood. Unfortunately I can't cite it off the top of my head, but it is cited in the documentary The Corporation. The documentary makers ask what kind of a person the corporation is, and, after going through some 'evidence', conclude that it is a psychopath.
Me neither. I still have my 'Boycott Adobe' mouse pad from boycottadobe.com's cafe press store back before boycottadobe.com became one of those obnoxious ad sites. Ah, those heady days of youthful protest. Adobe backed off quickly, no doubt thinking "Not unflattering mouse pads!", but the damage was done. Unfortunately, the boycottadobe.com web site/movement folded fairly quickly after that. Perhaps they weren't selling enough mouse pads and other boycott adobe related items.
The content of the Quran, as read by the average reasonable person, contains a central theme or concern for justice defined in simple 'tit for tat' terms -- basically don't start fights because God loves not the aggressor, but if anyone strikes you, then give 'em hell. Consequently, the Quran is much more congruent with the values of most average reasonable persons than is the New Testament with its emphasis on forgiveness and turning the other cheek.
Aye. Using their monopoly control of the desktop to foist what was at the time an inferior browser on people was what first started me feeling hostility towards Microsoft. It led directly to my becoming a Linux user. While I love Linux to bits now, truth is I didn't switch to it because it was a great OS, but rather because it wasn't Microsoft. Almost embarassing to admit that once upon a time I was actually pro-Microsoft. I was even stupider then than I am now. Wow.
Now, THAT's a platform I could support 100%. The dog/cat hybrid is especially brilliant. The platforms of obama and hillary and the republican guy are just grey and lame by comparison. Flyingsquid in 2008! Huzzah!
If you read the fine article you would know that it doesn't link to the guy's site. Nor does the summary. He makes some interesting products which readers of the fine article might want to check out.
The guy's web site. I did a google search on "Mr Widget" bottle rocket and the results were all from news sites to do with this story. Searching on antigravity research was better.