As for the retail cost being higher than the foreign government cost, we're talking about the difference between shipping a million units to another country, or shipping individual units to people in the states. Do what everyone else does, and charge for shipping and handling, and that problem is solved.
"Shipping and handling" -- at least as those charges are usually made -- doesn't deal with all the costs of dealing with individual customers; otherwise, retail mail/internet/etc. orders would be the same price as wholesale, with different shipping charges tacked on. Sure, you could bundle all those costs into huge shipping and handling charges, but the point remains that just for the supplier to break even, without any left over to subsidize other purchasers, individual purchasers of the "$100 laptop" are likely going to be spending a lot more than the price that governments are being charged (whether in the form of a much higher base price or the same base price with a giant service charge), and paying twice the price governments pay isn't going to fully subsidize a laptop to go to the developing world, and may not subsidize anything.
I would say, rather, the $100 laptop is not designed solely for such folks; its designed to serve the needs of a wide range of students which includes, but is not limited, to such folks.
The organizations providing food are clearly not able to take care of all the needs since Africa always seems to need more of them (b/c idiots for rulers, war etc. but that is not the point here)
There always need to be more because its a stopgap solution that doesn't address the underlying problem.
These people do not know that education will help without being educated in the first case.
Yeah, well, that's the burden on the national ministries of education that the product is being marketed to. Its a tool to help them, not a silver bullet.
This "cheap OSS laptops for starving children" schtick...
...doesn't actually exist. OLPC is not targetted at providing cheap OSS laptops to starving children.
Its targetted at providing cheap laptops to ministries of education in developing countries for universal distribution, and the developing countries that they are working with aren't the ones where mass starvation is the main problem, but ones where distribution of education and lack of infrastructure are problems, and those are exactly the problems the laptop is aimed at helping them deal with.
On a continent where donated FOOD gets intercepted by warlords and kept away from the needy, how the heck is this supposed to help them?
The specific countries that are in talks now are China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Egypt, and Thailand. While, presuming the continent you are talking about is Africa, there are two countries (Egypt and Nigeria) on that continent, they aren't the countries where that problem is particularly noted, indeed there among the more stable nations on the continent.
The developing world isn't one big undifferentiated mass.
I've read the website, it does not indicate if these schools are in mud hut villages or rural middle class or urban rich areas. Simply that they want every child to have a laptop.
They say clearly that they are targeting national governments to distribute them through their school systems universally. They list the nations they are currently in discussions with. All of those nations have economic conditions that span a considerable range; it is therefore pretty clear that they are not targetting to "mud hut villages" or "rural middle class" or "urban rich areas" exclusively, but to all those, as well as socioeconomic classes above, below, between, and off to the side.
You need to do more critical thinking on this issue. The reason people are poor is because they lack basic necessities like education, food, clothing, etc. and they live in countries with poor economies run by corrupt politicians. There is no *one* answer, but using money to buy food and clothing won't change the fundamental lack of education & industry. Providing computers will at least help people learn more about the world, more about computing, etc. which is a step in the right direction.
Ubiquitous computing with on-demand mesh networking also provides a potent information distribution capacity that undermines the ability to control communication on which totalitarianism thrives.
"They" -- as in the OLPC -- aren't doing this at all. Its an independent third-party trying to get enough pledges to get the OLPC project to go along with the third party's idea.
The OLPC is, per their own FAQ, exploring a commercial version, but hasn't said a thing about it.
Of course, since the $100-ish price is for national governments that are ordering millions of units at a pop and handling the distribution themselves, merely doubling the price to get a retail price quite possibly wouldn't even break even in the developed world for individual sales.
Perhaps I have a misunderstanding of the bill, but I don't believe telecom companies will be able to stop a company's website from being seen, only from having faster and more bandwidth available.
If you can delay packets from a site, you can effectively prevent it from being seen.
Yes, because we all know that all third-world countries shouldn't be provided with anything that would help their economies move forward. Instead, they should only receive insufficient food handouts, remaining in their impoverished third-world states forever.
That does minimize the competition for the developed world, as long as let developed nations governments continue to pretend to be doing something about conditions in the third-world, while in fact they are doing nothing but but putting band-aids on economic wounds than the economic policies they push are inflicting.
A number of US school districts are pursuing their own laptop programs with more expensive, existing general purpose laptops, but of course these generally aren't the poorest districts. The US, of course, may be big on national mandates in education, but isn't big on actual national programs that would reduce costs -- so, even if the OLPC product was useful for students in the developed world (and I think it would be) -- there would be little chance of the US government actually getting involved in the project.
Of course, that leaves out consideration of how Microsoft and others would spread FUD and lobby against public purchase and distribution of FOSS-driven computers.
I've looked through all their websites, and they don't clearly indicate if these laptops are for the dirt poor or for the middle class.
They are fairly clear that they are looking for national ministries of education to purchase them in bulk and distribute them nationally through schools on the basis of "one laptop per child", not only is this goal reflected in the name of the project (One Laptop Per Child), but detailed more specifically in the FAQ:
How will these be marketed?
The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. Initial discussions have been held with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. An additional, modest allocation of machines will be used to seed developer communities in a number of other countries. A commercial version of the machine will be explored in parallel.
Typically people starve during times of political unrest or drought, but not because they don't know how to do it.
Typically, people starve in the third world because they lack the skills and/or resources to provide anything to the global economy that can be exchanged for food, and because the subsistence agriculture that they do have the skill to do is inherently risky, threatened by pollution and climate shifts, and often not the way that the people in power can make the most money; further the crop failures are as often the result of bad agricultural methods as they are by actual drought.
Enhancing education helps deal with the underlying problems that cause starvation. OLPC is certainly neither the whole solution, nor the component most related to short-term needs. But there are lots of other groups involved in addression the problems of the developing world, and pissing on OLPC because it doesn't address all the problems, or the one piece you think is most immediate, is idiotic.
The people doing OLPC aren't hurting the efforts of organizations like the Red Cross or Food for the Poor. Indeed, it seems to me like it goes hand-in-hand with the efforts of small business development and microcredit in the third world that have demonstrated that building economic capacity by providing basic assistance aimed at enabling individual productivity can have considerable effects in dealing with the crushing poverty that produces hunger.
This is, really, about helping developing societies develope more of the tools they need -- in terms of human capital -- to feed themselves.
Money and food probably means a lot more to many of these people's immediate needs then a laptop for their child.
It certainly does, and if you were paying any attention you'd find lots of organizations devoting to addressing those immediate needs.
OTOH, if they don't deal with the longer-term needs of education and economic development -- both of which dirt cheap, mass-produced computers that are nearly universally available can help with -- those underlying problem driving those "immediate needs" that are temporarily alleviated by cash and food will simply worsen, and more cash and more food will be required to acheive the same results.
The $100 (actually, $130-something now, initially) price is premised on enormous bulk orders by national governments -- with individual orders in the millions of units -- that handle distribution themselves; the "retail price", even without any extra money to donate to charity, in the developed world -- paying for all the handling and distribution costs, etc., associated with 1-by-1 sale -- would likely be quite a bit over $200.
The pledgebank page has no actual connection to the project, it someone's independent "bright idea".
The project itself is, by its own statements, considering a commercial version in "parallel" though, unless I've missed it, no details have been released, which makes me rather skeptical how parallel that consideration is.
I'm sure what these starving, malnourished children across the third world will enjoy trying to eat these plastic and metal monstrosities.
There are many organizations providing food to starving, malnourished children across the third world (probably nearly as much as teh physical and political infrastructure can deliver with any kind of effectiveness -- possibly more than that). OTOH, there are plenty of people in the "developing" (an optimistic term) world that aren't presently starving, but are at risk of becoming that way from lack of marketable skills in an evolving economy.
Clearly, you would prefer ignoring that problem until they are dying in the streets, but not everyone in the world shares your view.
You make a contract with a citizen in another country, the contract is governed by...the other country's laws.
That's not really true, which should be obvious because, if were true, which laws applied would depend on which party to a contract was considered "you". The interaction of various national laws and treaty regimes (like the CISG) to contracts that span multiple countries is not nearly as straightforward as "you make a contract with a citizen in another country, the contract is coverned by the other country's laws."
Given that, as pointed out, the units used in the US are not actually Imperial units, the question must be asked as to what exactly to call that particular unit system.
The name I've seen most often to distinguish it from both the SI/Metric system and the Imperial system is "US Customary".
That fact is that Castro might look good compared to Stalin, but that doesn't make him a good example of a fair government.
OTOH, if Castro's regime looks good compared to Bautista's, it does make him an example of "doing good", providing better than what went before.
Or, more relevantly to the issue at hand, if China with Google's overtly filtered service provides more opportunity for information flow among China's citizens and makes the job of the Chinese authorities in controlling that flow both more difficult and more noticeable to those whose information is being controlled, than Google has done good, not evil, in China.
Even if they haven't by their act turned China into the platonic ideal of a free society.
Implied in the article then, a Windows 2003 server would have to be "up" approximately 20% more to satisfy the "claim". Now, I am not a calendar "expert", but I'm having a difficult time believing that Windows 2003 server is up an average of 364 * 1.2, or 436.8 days a year. If it is, I'm buying.
Maybe they are measuring "subjective uptime": it only seems like 436.8 days a year when you are supporting a Windows server?
Seems to me that dating fraud is something that isn't really amenable to regulation and that attempt to prevent through law is just going to result in pain and headaches all around.
Its fairly common for lawyers -- even ones getting paid -- to split with clients because their clients persist in not taking the lawyers' advice and doing things they were advised not to.
This isn't about reporting criminal wrongdoing at all, so that's not an issue. Its about whether a particular client and their legal representative can effectively work together, and, if the client is doing deals consulting the other sides lawyers and not their own, and can't be convinced that's not the right way to do business, well, its pretty easy to see there is a fundamental problem there.
Not all indemnification clauses are the same; the two you posted are, for instance, very different from each other.
That's why you have legal representatives; to understand the details and make sure you aren't getting tied up by what might seem innocuous if you don't analyze it more carefully than to have a general understanding of a heading like "indemnification clause".
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I would say, rather, the $100 laptop is not designed solely for such folks; its designed to serve the needs of a wide range of students which includes, but is not limited, to such folks.
The specific countries that are in talks now are China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Egypt, and Thailand. While, presuming the continent you are talking about is Africa, there are two countries (Egypt and Nigeria) on that continent, they aren't the countries where that problem is particularly noted, indeed there among the more stable nations on the continent.
The developing world isn't one big undifferentiated mass.
They say clearly that they are targeting national governments to distribute them through their school systems universally. They list the nations they are currently in discussions with. All of those nations have economic conditions that span a considerable range; it is therefore pretty clear that they are not targetting to "mud hut villages" or "rural middle class" or "urban rich areas" exclusively, but to all those, as well as socioeconomic classes above, below, between, and off to the side.
Ubiquitous computing with on-demand mesh networking also provides a potent information distribution capacity that undermines the ability to control communication on which totalitarianism thrives.
"They" -- as in the OLPC -- aren't doing this at all. Its an independent third-party trying to get enough pledges to get the OLPC project to go along with the third party's idea.
The OLPC is, per their own FAQ, exploring a commercial version, but hasn't said a thing about it.
Of course, since the $100-ish price is for national governments that are ordering millions of units at a pop and handling the distribution themselves, merely doubling the price to get a retail price quite possibly wouldn't even break even in the developed world for individual sales.
A number of US school districts are pursuing their own laptop programs with more expensive, existing general purpose laptops, but of course these generally aren't the poorest districts. The US, of course, may be big on national mandates in education, but isn't big on actual national programs that would reduce costs -- so, even if the OLPC product was useful for students in the developed world (and I think it would be) -- there would be little chance of the US government actually getting involved in the project.
Of course, that leaves out consideration of how Microsoft and others would spread FUD and lobby against public purchase and distribution of FOSS-driven computers.
They are fairly clear that they are looking for national ministries of education to purchase them in bulk and distribute them nationally through schools on the basis of "one laptop per child", not only is this goal reflected in the name of the project (One Laptop Per Child), but detailed more specifically in the FAQ:
How clear can they be?Typically, people starve in the third world because they lack the skills and/or resources to provide anything to the global economy that can be exchanged for food, and because the subsistence agriculture that they do have the skill to do is inherently risky, threatened by pollution and climate shifts, and often not the way that the people in power can make the most money; further the crop failures are as often the result of bad agricultural methods as they are by actual drought.
Enhancing education helps deal with the underlying problems that cause starvation. OLPC is certainly neither the whole solution, nor the component most related to short-term needs. But there are lots of other groups involved in addression the problems of the developing world, and pissing on OLPC because it doesn't address all the problems, or the one piece you think is most immediate, is idiotic.
The people doing OLPC aren't hurting the efforts of organizations like the Red Cross or Food for the Poor. Indeed, it seems to me like it goes hand-in-hand with the efforts of small business development and microcredit in the third world that have demonstrated that building economic capacity by providing basic assistance aimed at enabling individual productivity can have considerable effects in dealing with the crushing poverty that produces hunger.
This is, really, about helping developing societies develope more of the tools they need -- in terms of human capital -- to feed themselves.
It certainly does, and if you were paying any attention you'd find lots of organizations devoting to addressing those immediate needs.
OTOH, if they don't deal with the longer-term needs of education and economic development -- both of which dirt cheap, mass-produced computers that are nearly universally available can help with -- those underlying problem driving those "immediate needs" that are temporarily alleviated by cash and food will simply worsen, and more cash and more food will be required to acheive the same results.
The $100 (actually, $130-something now, initially) price is premised on enormous bulk orders by national governments -- with individual orders in the millions of units -- that handle distribution themselves; the "retail price", even without any extra money to donate to charity, in the developed world -- paying for all the handling and distribution costs, etc., associated with 1-by-1 sale -- would likely be quite a bit over $200.
The pledgebank page has no actual connection to the project, it someone's independent "bright idea". The project itself is, by its own statements, considering a commercial version in "parallel" though, unless I've missed it, no details have been released, which makes me rather skeptical how parallel that consideration is.
Seems to me that dating fraud is something that isn't really amenable to regulation and that attempt to prevent through law is just going to result in pain and headaches all around.
Its fairly common for lawyers -- even ones getting paid -- to split with clients because their clients persist in not taking the lawyers' advice and doing things they were advised not to.
This isn't about reporting criminal wrongdoing at all, so that's not an issue. Its about whether a particular client and their legal representative can effectively work together, and, if the client is doing deals consulting the other sides lawyers and not their own, and can't be convinced that's not the right way to do business, well, its pretty easy to see there is a fundamental problem there.
Not all indemnification clauses are the same; the two you posted are, for instance, very different from each other.
That's why you have legal representatives; to understand the details and make sure you aren't getting tied up by what might seem innocuous if you don't analyze it more carefully than to have a general understanding of a heading like "indemnification clause".