All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Housewives ever done done for us? Brought us into the world! From the forthcoming movie "Life of Geek Brian"
...and take it back to the shop. Tell them that you have far too light a grasp on reality to own such a technologically powerful piece of equipment. Then you should volunteer to help all those starving and sick children in the world, I would try Africa first, it's always in the news.
After about eighteen minutes you will experience a gradual realisation of how, once, your life was so shallow and empty that you filled it with material things and then obssessed about non-existent threats to your health. Then you will feel good, proud even, it may be almost an epiphany. You will then be ready to own any of the many gadgets that makes modern life so filled with purpose.
is that the same organisation that produced The X-Files, Futurama and The Simpsons? Is it the same organisation that gave us Fight Club? I guess some parts of it must cater for different audience profiles? Now the good news, being exposed to any sort of television show does not have a detrimental effect on anyone no matter how stupid the show is or how stupid the demographic is. I have been watching television for a long time now and can reveal that the true purpose of TV is to run adverts, to make you want things that you don't need. The bits in between the ads are there to expose people to the ads.
It is an almost universal misconception that this is the other way around. Clear evidence can be found in any long running bit between the ads - the
1960's show The Fugitive - 119 episodes of unanswered questions with lots of back story - generated loads of ad revenue and ran until is was no longer making money. In the 21st century they've reworked the same concept, stuck the characters in a different location, thrown in lots of science fiction, mumbo jumbo, relationship crap, handsome young men, attractive young women and loads of great ad revenue is generated. Lost - or almost any other show you could think of.
Now, about that fancy new jet plane the military have built...
The answer to this sort of thing is to remind yourself that state school is a prison for the young specifically intended to cut them off from society for at least 8 hours every day. Then you could reflect on how successful all of those privately educated children are.
I am a lecturer. I attended a selective state grammar school in the seventies which became comprehensive (I am sure this neo-stalinist word cannot be properly turned into a verb in English, but I await suggestions!) about half way through my time there. When it was a grammar school you won a place there by achieving a high score in the state IQ test - wealth was not a factor. By the time the first wave of lumpen-proletariat had reached second year, Latin and Greek had been abolished and you could only take 2 science subjects for higher grade. You had to choose an arty farty activity instead of a third science subject. This way everyone achieve a grade in finger painting at the very least.
care for the 1,826 million children (I have included all of them for simplicity) in the world under the age of fifteen. 150 for each child per annum, the UN could foot the $273,900,000,000 bill from the world gdp of $ 65,610,000,000,000 and still have loads of change. Or perhaps they all really do need a green plastic computer? We could ask them.
A report on scientific research from scientific organisation on anything that remotely involves polar bears = vitriolic series of postings .
So I hazard a guess that no new light will be shed on anything here.
Perhaps our slashdot illuminati Overlords could move these ad trawling sections to a healthy debate in a pub? I could suggest one in Govan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govan where we might possibly see the active use of... slightly more diplomatic language and a certain modicum of decorum. But bring your own RPG and don't wear a football top.
Sensible slashdotters can help bring an end to this sort of page by making sure you have adblocker in your browser extensions.
for over a year now and I far prefer it to XP, even though XP did have many qualities I was comfortable with. I think the fundamental aspect of a Linux Desktop is that you have far greater absolute control over what is happening beneath the surface of the GUI. The only applications lacking in Linux are Indesign ( I have Scribus but there is no comparison) Photoshop and Dreamweaver and none of these have alternatives with the appropriate professional edge. Having said that I have been using photoshop and indesign in VMware and I think they work fine - there is a very slight decline in speed but this is made up for by the fact that Ubuntu boots in about One minute (when I do reboot it, I just hate to see that uptime number go down) and XP boots into VMware so quickly it's photons are in danger of hitting those from it's shutdown. Now that alone is worth the very tiny amount of technical effort require to set up VMware. I haven't migrated Dreamweaver yet - just so many tedious passwords and settings to work on - but I will. Honourable mention must also go to the rather idiosyncratic but peerless MS Acess - the little database that could. Adobe Premier while a tad bloated is also rather useful and slightly better documented than the equally peerless cinelerra - which I do like but often feel you need a brain the size of Manhattan to use it. The only thing that prevents me turning our laptop all Linuxed-up-to-the-max is that it has a wifi that defeats human reason - had it working about twice so far and just got bored. Also my partner has an iTunes account (spits) and that particular worst-piece-of-garbage-ever-written has sadly no real substitute - Amarok needs an iTunes Store account but I guess chances of that monopoly breach are slim. And no, I won't be running iTunes in Vmware - I have telephone directories I could be reading. I should also mention the unremitting geek-joy of remote desktopping my main pc from my tiny ipaq while lying in bed watching CSI and then running MS Access in Vmware (fortunately you can zoom in!).
provided the dynamo of technological advancement in society is in some way related to scientific breakthrough. The real world does not appear to bear this out, since what we considered advancement is a phenomenon of the existing economic system. The right discovery has to appear at the right time or it falls by the wayside as being unprofitable. The slavery-based imperialist economies of the past relied on captive expendable human labour and looting. There was no compelling need for mechanical transport when slaves could carry you, no need for extensive infrastructure when the roads were primarily intended to enforce the rule of the empire through the rapid movement of armies. Nor was there any extensive profit in consumer retailing when the majority of the population, locked into feudalism did not have the surplus income to spend. The Romans had an extensive and often surprising level of technology that the traditional teaching classical history fails to address at a high school level. They had fast food similar to burgers but no extensive empire-encompassing franchise with the motto "Id amo", nor did their technological abilities extend much past properly constructed water and sewer systems and roads for the majority of the populace. They had all the resources both physical and intellectual to develop into a technologically advanced society but they did not and could not. It was not until much later, long after the system that was the Roman Empire had vanished, after the Black Death devastated the populations of Europe that feudalism ended and human labour became a valuable resource. It was at this point the cost effectives of machines became apparent and people were willing to invest time and money in their development and make a profit. The profit part doesn't necessarily appear as the direct result of new knowledge or research. On the contrary, some of the finest example of our technological advancements, anti-biotics and anti-malaria for example are a direct result of military strategic planning and had nothing at all to do with either venture capitalism or pro-bono publico development.
So yes, The Singularity just like The End of History, (or dare I suggest even the Flying Car!) might be very pleasant but also equally difficult to either pin-down precisely or predict accurately.
"What? You mean like, here on slashdot?" James ejaculated, running his hand along the tapestry bindings of Helena's Prada chaise longue. "Because if we are, I am absolutely convinced that everyone who is anyone shall consider it a tad incestous!"
Toaster Books is an imprint of The TankTopToolKit Corporation. All rights reserved - cue that exciting David Newman fanfare from the start of 20th Century Fox Movies.
engage a pro bono and use your time in the witness box to introduce every single piece of evidence you or anyone else can think of to prove the case, subpoena the entire board of directors and introduce the public to their Naval Division. I should imagine the tabloids will devour this case. M'lud I would like to submit exhibit a) as evidence for the defense - The McLibel Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mclibel I would hazard an ejimacated guess, however, that it will never go to trial. The again, perhaps the present government is in need of a circus to distract everyone from their present poor standings. What could be better than a cult of goats?
on the basis of available research, I should imagine a couple of fair-haired celebrities are more likely to make a reappearance long before the Tasmanian Tiger does. After all it worked for Ripley... eventually.
Neither this software nor any other, nor cheap laptops will ever have any impact on the education of children or anyone else. The reason the Socratic Method of teaching (questioning and debate to greatly simplify it) has existed for more than 2000 years is because it works. When Socrates used it he had an arena of interested students who in their search for knowledge questioned him and proposed arguments. Their collaboration in producing documents on wax tablets or playing the lyre communally had the following measurable impact on their learning: zero.
We learn by asking questions that are important to us. Teaching leads the child to ask questions that may or may not turn out to be important to them (although I'm going to give you a free pass on calculus) but will equip them with the skills required for employment.
This is the fundamental purpose of the industrialised method of teaching children on the grand scale where they are incarcerated in school from the age of 4 to 16 (I'm using my native Scotland as the model here, other rates may vary.)
I am a teacher, I am not terribly impressed by a lot of my colleagues but in their defense - no machine or application can do what a teacher does. This is why so many great creative minds were produced in the last century in the post-war period - people had the freedom to think.
Of course by the sixties school boards were squandering valuable financial resources on TVs, movie projectors, film loops and other idiotic assorted garbage to the detriment of spending money on traditional classroom resources - books, desks, chalk and teachers and by this time the career was held in such contempt and so poorly paid that the schools were filled with the empty-headed using sociologically based - learning by screaming or whatever dumb theory of the day was popular and all conducted in the language of political correctness.
A quick look at some figures (freely available on the Scottish government website) shows how much the Scottish states spend on education from a GDP of approximately 56 billion GBP.
expenditure per primary school pupil 2700 GBP total =18900 GBP from P1 to p7 amounting to almost 8 billion GBP for the nation
annual expenditure per high school pupil 3900 GBP total 19,500 from year 1 to year 5 amounting to 6 billion GBP for the nation
Have a look at any private schools (curiously called public schools in Britain) where the paying customer determines what is considered a successful curriculum.
The have computers where they should be, in the computer classes.
While it is a perfectly laudable concept to provide the children of developing countries with inexpensive laptops, the idea that this will be the lever of improvement of their life and living conditions is not borne out by any of the already existing evidence. Children of the developed nations already have laptops and a vast choice of free educational material and applications available to them. They do not make any use of this, preferring instead to fill the legion of social websites with mindless drivel on par with what another generation used to scribble on the covers of their school notebooks, their folders and when the opportunity was available the desks or the toilet walls. They have mobile phones too - almost every single child in the United Kingdom owns a mobile phone. They again have such a low level of understanding of the phones that there a few capable of converting any audio file to a ringtone and are perfectly satisfied with the idea of buying one for 3 quid (plus subscriptions - service providers rates may vary.) The phones like the notebooks are mere communication devices, devoted to txt messages and filming gang beatings or bullying. The romantic notion that a new wonder technology would provide unimpeded access to the world of education is not new, it was the crux of sales promotion for televisons in the late fifties and early sixties. All you need to do is read any tv schedule to see how this panned out or ask a school student when was the last time they watched Prime Ministers Questions or Cspan. For those keen on the OLPC concept, well there are more than enough people committed to that cause here on slash dot for them to form themselves together and create a true open source concept that cannot be influence by anyone, governments, Negroponte or Bill Gates even.
However for anyone wishing to actually improve the life and the living conditions of the young people in question, my suggestion would what all the evidence demonstrates - raise their health standards - this brings with it economic growth and a stable society. Take the 100 bucks concept and instead of using it for OLPC, provide each of the children with $100 dollars worth of health care. You don't need to take my word for it either, a very short search on Google will provide all the necessary data. Then after this monumental milestone in human civilisation finally occurs, we could think about the computers, instead of what is happening just now, a futile discourse on the rights and wrongs of organisations we have no control over.
Sadly not yet updated for the latest version of Firefox, but always amusing when you think you clicked on something important that turned out to be an Ivy-Leaguer's spring break pictures of a really stooopid drunken party.
What? No? Happens to me all the time...
You can also eliminate loads of timewasting (ie not on slashdot) and delete your existing web2 social network accounts. In the reason field select "other" and enter "I am leaving the Internet forever". Curiously this will result in lots of real phone calls and messages from the friends you never knew you had, telling you that your Bebo (fill in social website name) account is not working.
The Earth as a managed system can easily support 18 billion people and all the other plants and animals.
Just wanted to mention this before slash dot fills with Casandra's whom I last heard whining about the population explosion (yeah that old pile of horse manure, when really they were worried about the population explosion amongst the great unwashed) after Alvin Toffler published his rather popular but well dodgy Future Shock.
Just buy an old Sinclair C5, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 make a few minor adjusments to the frame, gears, pedals, wheels, body, stereo system and satnav. Slap an old 3.5 turbo-diesel engine recycled from your nearest scrap dealer, fill the tank with rapeseed oil (you will of course have to add a tank.) and you have a completely environmentally friendly dragster - sitting astride the engine should get you to the office or school at speeds approaching 300kmph, before the wheels melt. Or you could always ambitiously attempt mach 1.2 in the jet-engined modded version http://www.jetpower.co.uk/c5home.htm and of course obligatory youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNPsANagISE
After years of study I feel only one voice has summed up this entire academic discipline: Tyler Durden: "Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
Of course the baby boomers now colonising slashdot will surely remember that Gareth wotsisname Thomas screwed the whole series when he went off on a Luvvie sabbatical to spout Welsh poetry somewhere probably in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Then the BBC shot everyone in the end - yes everyone, which I considered abuse of the audience at the time.
BSG was on around that time and to be honest, I think the re-imagineered version is quite good, if you can make a cup of tea during the scenes where characters engage in Shatneresque soul-searching. But once again, like so many American shows it is no more than a post modernist metaphor for the present day.
A bit like Doctor Who, the continuing story where you can't be a character unless your wearing Burberry or are representative of some minority group. You can tell it is Science Fiction though, cos although it is all shot in Wales, it never seems to rain...(obligatory old-git section now follows.)
Doctor who was of course much scarier in the sixties, when I were a lad, long before slasher movies Sam Rami, Tobe Hooper and Hannibal Lector - but then we were all so young and innocent then....
I wish, I wish I had said something funny or informative in this post... No wait! They should do a remake of Dr Who and the Web of Fear. Now that was classic tv and curiously coincided with England winning the World Cup in 1966.
CUE: sounds of the fourth wall breaking. With apologies to the elipsis.
Slashdot Mirror
the Obama backlash. Welcome to the world of Realpolitik where if you don't bother to vote, you voted for the winner.
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Housewives ever done done for us?
Brought us into the world!
From the forthcoming movie "Life of Geek Brian"
flying pigs.
...and take it back to the shop.
Tell them that you have far too light a grasp on reality to own such a technologically powerful piece of equipment.
Then you should volunteer to help all those starving and sick children in the world, I would try Africa first, it's always in the news.
After about eighteen minutes you will experience a gradual realisation of how, once, your life was so shallow and empty that you filled it with material things and then obssessed about non-existent threats to your health.
Then you will feel good, proud even, it may be almost an epiphany.
You will then be ready to own any of the many gadgets that makes modern life so filled with purpose.
Hang on a minute! Isn't this just a reworking of the classic Playboy© readers letter about how to keep the stylus on their expensive hi fi free from dust and dirt?
Damn you Troll, you damn you all to hell!
is that the same organisation that produced The X-Files, Futurama and The Simpsons? Is it the same organisation that gave us Fight Club? I guess some parts of it must cater for different audience profiles?
Now the good news, being exposed to any sort of television show does not have a detrimental effect on anyone no matter how stupid the show is or how stupid the demographic is. I have been watching television for a long time now and can reveal that the true purpose of TV is to run adverts, to make you want things that you don't need. The bits in between the ads are there to expose people to the ads.
It is an almost universal misconception that this is the other way around.
Clear evidence can be found in any long running bit between the ads - the 1960's show The Fugitive - 119 episodes of unanswered questions with lots of back story - generated loads of ad revenue and ran until is was no longer making money. In the 21st century they've reworked the same concept, stuck the characters in a different location, thrown in lots of science fiction, mumbo jumbo, relationship crap, handsome young men, attractive young women and loads of great ad revenue is generated. Lost - or almost any other show you could think of.
Now, about that fancy new jet plane the military have built...
Does Sarah Connor know about this?
The answer to this sort of thing is to remind yourself that state school is a prison for the young specifically intended to cut them off from society for at least 8 hours every day.
Then you could reflect on how successful all of those privately educated children are.
I am a lecturer. I attended a selective state grammar school in the seventies which became comprehensive (I am sure this neo-stalinist word cannot be properly turned into a verb in English, but I await suggestions!) about half way through my time there.
When it was a grammar school you won a place there by achieving a high score in the state IQ test - wealth was not a factor. By the time the first wave of lumpen-proletariat had reached second year, Latin and Greek had been abolished and you could only take 2 science subjects for higher grade. You had to choose an arty farty activity instead of a third science subject. This way everyone achieve a grade in finger painting at the very least.
care for the 1,826 million children (I have included all of them for simplicity) in the world under the age of fifteen. 150 for each child per annum, the UN could foot the $273,900,000,000 bill from the world gdp of $ 65,610,000,000,000 and still have loads of change. Or perhaps they all really do need a green plastic computer?
We could ask them.
am far more in favour of a more democratic approach. But I would like to call upon our colleagues, the terrorists to make the first move.
A report on scientific research from scientific organisation on anything that remotely involves polar bears = vitriolic series of postings .
... slightly more diplomatic language and a certain modicum of decorum.
So I hazard a guess that no new light will be shed on anything here.
Perhaps our slashdot illuminati Overlords could move these ad trawling sections to a healthy debate in a pub?
I could suggest one in Govan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govan where we might possibly see the active use of
But bring your own RPG and don't wear a football top.
Sensible slashdotters can help bring an end to this sort of page by making sure you have adblocker in your browser extensions.
when you take it away from my cold dead hands!
for over a year now and I far prefer it to XP, even though XP did have many qualities I was comfortable with. I think the fundamental aspect of a Linux Desktop is that you have far greater absolute control over what is happening beneath the surface of the GUI. The only applications lacking in Linux are Indesign ( I have Scribus but there is no comparison) Photoshop and Dreamweaver and none of these have alternatives with the appropriate professional edge. Having said that I have been using photoshop and indesign in VMware and I think they work fine - there is a very slight decline in speed but this is made up for by the fact that Ubuntu boots in about One minute (when I do reboot it, I just hate to see that uptime number go down) and XP boots into VMware so quickly it's photons are in danger of hitting those from it's shutdown. Now that alone is worth the very tiny amount of technical effort require to set up VMware. I haven't migrated Dreamweaver yet - just so many tedious passwords and settings to work on - but I will.
Honourable mention must also go to the rather idiosyncratic but peerless MS Acess - the little database that could. Adobe Premier while a tad bloated is also rather useful and slightly better documented than the equally peerless cinelerra - which I do like but often feel you need a brain the size of Manhattan to use it. The only thing that prevents me turning our laptop all Linuxed-up-to-the-max is that it has a wifi that defeats human reason - had it working about twice so far and just got bored. Also my partner has an iTunes account (spits) and that particular worst-piece-of-garbage-ever-written has sadly no real substitute - Amarok needs an iTunes Store account but I guess chances of that monopoly breach are slim. And no, I won't be running iTunes in Vmware - I have telephone directories I could be reading.
I should also mention the unremitting geek-joy of remote desktopping my main pc from my tiny ipaq while lying in bed watching CSI and then running MS Access in Vmware (fortunately you can zoom in!).
provided the dynamo of technological advancement in society is in some way related to scientific breakthrough. The real world does not appear to bear this out, since what we considered advancement is a phenomenon of the existing economic system. The right discovery has to appear at the right time or it falls by the wayside as being unprofitable.
The slavery-based imperialist economies of the past relied on captive expendable human labour and looting. There was no compelling need for mechanical transport when slaves could carry you, no need for extensive infrastructure when the roads were primarily intended to enforce the rule of the empire through the rapid movement of armies. Nor was there any extensive profit in consumer retailing when the majority of the population, locked into feudalism did not have the surplus income to spend. The Romans had an extensive and often surprising level of technology that the traditional teaching classical history fails to address at a high school level. They had fast food similar to burgers but no extensive empire-encompassing franchise with the motto "Id amo", nor did their technological abilities extend much past properly constructed water and sewer systems and roads for the majority of the populace. They had all the resources both physical and intellectual to develop into a technologically advanced society but they did not and could not.
It was not until much later, long after the system that was the Roman Empire had vanished, after the Black Death devastated the populations of Europe that feudalism ended and human labour became a valuable resource. It was at this point the cost effectives of machines became apparent and people were willing to invest time and money in their development and make a profit. The profit part doesn't necessarily appear as the direct result of new knowledge or research. On the contrary, some of the finest example of our technological advancements, anti-biotics and anti-malaria for example are a direct result of military strategic planning and had nothing at all to do with either venture capitalism or pro-bono publico development.
So yes, The Singularity just like The End of History, (or dare I suggest even the Flying Car!) might be very pleasant but also equally difficult to either pin-down precisely or predict accurately.
that the word "fanny" will light up two rather different regions of the brain depending on which side of the Atlantic you were born.
"What? You mean like, here on slashdot?" James ejaculated, running his hand along the tapestry bindings of Helena's Prada chaise longue. "Because if we are, I am absolutely convinced that everyone who is anyone shall consider it a tad incestous!"
Toaster Books is an imprint of The TankTopToolKit Corporation.
All rights reserved - cue that exciting David Newman fanfare from the start of 20th Century Fox Movies.
engage a pro bono and use your time in the witness box to introduce every single piece of evidence you or anyone else can think of to prove the case, subpoena the entire board of directors and introduce the public to their Naval Division. I should imagine the tabloids will devour this case.
M'lud I would like to submit exhibit a) as evidence for the defense - The McLibel Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mclibel
I would hazard an ejimacated guess, however, that it will never go to trial. The again, perhaps the present government is in need of a circus to distract everyone from their present poor standings. What could be better than a cult of goats?
Surely the next version is "Impudent Iguana", "Indolent Ibis" or "Itinerant Impala".
Quick, someone squat those domains.
on the basis of available research, I should imagine a couple of fair-haired celebrities are more likely to make a reappearance long before the Tasmanian Tiger does. After all it worked for Ripley... eventually.
We learn by asking questions that are important to us. Teaching leads the child to ask questions that may or may not turn out to be important to them (although I'm going to give you a free pass on calculus) but will equip them with the skills required for employment.
This is the fundamental purpose of the industrialised method of teaching children on the grand scale where they are incarcerated in school from the age of 4 to 16 (I'm using my native Scotland as the model here, other rates may vary.) I am a teacher, I am not terribly impressed by a lot of my colleagues but in their defense - no machine or application can do what a teacher does. This is why so many great creative minds were produced in the last century in the post-war period - people had the freedom to think.
Of course by the sixties school boards were squandering valuable financial resources on TVs, movie projectors, film loops and other idiotic assorted garbage to the detriment of spending money on traditional classroom resources - books, desks, chalk and teachers and by this time the career was held in such contempt and so poorly paid that the schools were filled with the empty-headed using sociologically based - learning by screaming or whatever dumb theory of the day was popular and all conducted in the language of political correctness.
A quick look at some figures (freely available on the Scottish government website) shows how much the Scottish states spend on education from a GDP of approximately 56 billion GBP.
Have a look at any private schools (curiously called public schools in Britain) where the paying customer determines what is considered a successful curriculum.
The have computers where they should be, in the computer classes.
While it is a perfectly laudable concept to provide the children of developing countries with inexpensive laptops, the idea that this will be the lever of improvement of their life and living conditions is not borne out by any of the already existing evidence.
Children of the developed nations already have laptops and a vast choice of free educational material and applications available to them. They do not make any use of this, preferring instead to fill the legion of social websites with mindless drivel on par with what another generation used to scribble on the covers of their school notebooks, their folders and when the opportunity was available the desks or the toilet walls.
They have mobile phones too - almost every single child in the United Kingdom owns a mobile phone. They again have such a low level of understanding of the phones that there a few capable of converting any audio file to a ringtone and are perfectly satisfied with the idea of buying one for 3 quid (plus subscriptions - service providers rates may vary.) The phones like the notebooks are mere communication devices, devoted to txt messages and filming gang beatings or bullying.
The romantic notion that a new wonder technology would provide unimpeded access to the world of education is not new, it was the crux of sales promotion for televisons in the late fifties and early sixties. All you need to do is read any tv schedule to see how this panned out or ask a school student when was the last time they watched Prime Ministers Questions or Cspan.
For those keen on the OLPC concept, well there are more than enough people committed to that cause here on slash dot for them to form themselves together and create a true open source concept that cannot be influence by anyone, governments, Negroponte or Bill Gates even.
However for anyone wishing to actually improve the life and the living conditions of the young people in question, my suggestion would what all the evidence demonstrates - raise their health standards - this brings with it economic growth and a stable society. Take the 100 bucks concept and instead of using it for OLPC, provide each of the children with $100 dollars worth of health care. You don't need to take my word for it either, a very short search on Google will provide all the necessary data. Then after this monumental milestone in human civilisation finally occurs, we could think about the computers, instead of what is happening just now, a futile discourse on the rights and wrongs of organisations we have no control over.
Spam is of course a complex matter but anyone who wishes to avoid myspace can always install the Firefox extension amionmyspace
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6067
Sadly not yet updated for the latest version of Firefox, but always amusing when you think you clicked on something important that turned out to be an Ivy-Leaguer's spring break pictures of a really stooopid drunken party.
What? No? Happens to me all the time...
You can also eliminate loads of timewasting (ie not on slashdot) and delete your existing web2 social network accounts. In the reason field select "other" and enter "I am leaving the Internet forever". Curiously this will result in lots of real phone calls and messages from the friends you never knew you had, telling you that your Bebo (fill in social website name) account is not working.
The Earth as a managed system can easily support 18 billion people and all the other plants and animals.
Just wanted to mention this before slash dot fills with Casandra's whom I last heard whining about the population explosion (yeah that old pile of horse manure, when really they were worried about the population explosion amongst the great unwashed) after Alvin Toffler published his rather popular but well dodgy Future Shock.
According to that we were actually all dead now.
Just buy an old Sinclair C5, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 make a few minor adjusments to the frame, gears, pedals, wheels, body, stereo system and satnav. Slap an old 3.5 turbo-diesel engine recycled from your nearest scrap dealer, fill the tank with rapeseed oil (you will of course have to add a tank.) and you have a completely environmentally friendly dragster - sitting astride the engine should get you to the office or school at speeds approaching 300kmph, before the wheels melt. Or you could always ambitiously attempt mach 1.2 in the jet-engined modded version http://www.jetpower.co.uk/c5home.htm and of course obligatory youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNPsANagISE
After years of study I feel only one voice has summed up this entire academic discipline:
Tyler Durden: "Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
Of course the baby boomers now colonising slashdot will surely remember that Gareth wotsisname Thomas screwed the whole series when he went off on a Luvvie sabbatical to spout Welsh poetry somewhere probably in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Then the BBC shot everyone in the end - yes everyone, which I considered abuse of the audience at the time.
BSG was on around that time and to be honest, I think the re-imagineered version is quite good, if you can make a cup of tea during the scenes where characters engage in Shatneresque soul-searching. But once again, like so many American shows it is no more than a post modernist metaphor for the present day.
A bit like Doctor Who, the continuing story where you can't be a character unless your wearing Burberry or are representative of some minority group. You can tell it is Science Fiction though, cos although it is all shot in Wales, it never seems to rain...(obligatory old-git section now follows.)
Doctor who was of course much scarier in the sixties, when I were a lad, long before slasher movies Sam Rami, Tobe Hooper and Hannibal Lector - but then we were all so young and innocent then....
I wish, I wish I had said something funny or informative in this post... No wait! They should do a remake of Dr Who and the Web of Fear. Now that was classic tv and curiously coincided with England winning the World Cup in 1966.
CUE: sounds of the fourth wall breaking. With apologies to the elipsis.