Two quotes for "the day that's in it"

[dianeduane]

Stand them next to each other and see which one you like better. I know the one that I prefer. (And not just because the source was Irish, either.)

Quote 1:

"If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection, and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type..."

Quote 2:

"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not."

Footnote: "...The $100 laptop [for developing countries] running on a free Linux operating system -- not on Microsoft Windows -- is being built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's media guru Nicholas Negroponte with support from Microsoft rival, search giant Google. ...Some of the low-cost devices are expected to include a hand-cranked generator so that they can be charged-up in developing countries where electricity is often scarce. The generators are expected to yield about 10 minutes of computer use for each minute of cranking.

"...One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organization created to further the cause of the $100 laptop, has said 5 million to 15 million units will be launched via pilot programs in China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. The organization is expected to start rolling out the laptops in 2007."

Tags: computers, hand cranked, crank, developing countries, George Bernard Shaw, Bill Gates, $100 laptop, sounds like not all the cranks are on computers

Comments

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

That second one has been one of my favorite quotes ever since it was used in the documentary From the Earth to the Moon.

I think these laptops are a wonderful idea--and it's amazing how far electricity production/storage capabilities have come since I was a kid. I remember even in my teen years going to science museums where they had the bicycle that was hooked up to a light bulb and you had to pedal extremely hard for 90 seconds or so just to get the filament in the bulb to glow for a few seconds. Now you can power a laptop for 10 minutes on 1 minute of cranking. Wow!

[posicat.livejournal.com]

Quote 2 is very close to my heart, even though I read it for the first time today.

Having supported two parents who just need to get on the internet, and check email, and do some limited word processing, I can say these $100 computers should be usefull enough. The hand crank is necessary in villages that don't have power.

I wonder if Bill Gates has spent so much time marinating in technology that he can no longer see just how little a computer the average person needs to get thing done. My mom gets by happily on a PII/300 which coincidently is the same processor my Linux server runs here at home.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I think Bill Gates is like the buggy-whip manufacturer: he can see his market disappearing, and he's getting very unhappy. There's no way a $100 computer can support the $200+ per computer that Microsoft expects to get.

That $100 computer is much more powerful than the one on which my ex-brother-in-law wrote his first couple of books (one on the Polish Solidarity movement, the other on the Militant Tendency group). It's also more powerful than the one that Terry Pratchett used for writing some of his Discworld novels. It's more powerful than the computers that took the Apollo spacecraft to the moon. It's more powerful ... but you get the idea.

Whether it would be hugely useful in the communities for which it is intended, I don't know. But I'd rather let those people decide whether they would have a use for it than to patronisngly decide that they couldn't.

[hypatia.livejournal.com]

Agreed wholeheartedly. The idea that the latest Gatesian fripperies are more useful in the middle of nowhere than something basic and self powered seems to be a staggeringly pointless contribution which makes Gates look anxious at the prospect of a large Linux user base building up.

It is a project I watch with considerable interest.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

There are cell phones that are more powerful than the computers that sent the Apollo spacecraft safely to the moon.

I agree though, that Gates is so upset because there is no way that these computers are ever going to be running any micro$oft products. Like the people they are intended to serve would buy a micro$oft product instead of, say, feeding their family for a year anyway.

[fiveforsilver]

Of course the second quote is fantastic, and one of my favorites, right next to "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (attributed to Arthur C. Clarke)

I question the idea of OLPC, but I don't know enough about the world and those countries and their peoples to have a reasoned opinion, so I withhold judgement.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing these with great interest. Don't know about the third world, but most London schools only have one or two computers per room outside the dedicated IT suites. If we could get something like this with (hopefully) some science applications and a basic data-logging program built in they would be VERY useful.

[azurelunatic]

Heck, I'd like one of those for *me*. (Or, to attach the power supply to a machine I've already got, preferably Allegra for portability reasons.)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Bill Gates has definitely shot himself in the foot with that one, it's being very widely spread and every organisation with anything to do with low-income families and societies has now been turned against him. Particularly since the cost of the computer is small compared to Office ($500), WinXP ($400) and the other Windows applications he thinks are necessary for a "decent computer".

(As for a machine where a minute of cranking gives 10 minutes of work, I want one! Hook it to one of those model traction engines and have a steam powered computer...)

[ailbhe]

"Let them eat cake" was a much *pithier* way of saying the first thing.

[kengr]

Bill Gates, regardless of the impression he wishes to give, has always been about "I want my money" first and foremost. Somewhere in storage I have the ancient issue of Dr. Dobb's where he was complaining about piracy of "his" BASIC interpreter back in 1979 or so.

Not that I'm in favor of piracy, but the *way* he made the arguments was irritating as hell.