One Laptop Per Child

[Bart Silverstrim]

Rob wrote:
>> I am usually not the one to bring up these things but I feel very
>> strongly about this. Starting Monday, November 12 this website is
>> offering a give one get one deal. I believe the money will be well
>> invested. YMMV
>> http://xogiving.org/
> 
> I have to agree with many posters, this project is the most seriously 
> misdirected, biggest crock of shit I've heard of in years.
> 
> We're talkin' people in 3rd world conditions, without basic essentials 
> of life, and some idiot wants to give them COMPUTERS?!?!?   WFT?  Where 
> are they gonna get electricity to charge them, instruction in use, 
> repair, software updates, etc.  And they don't have toilet paper, so all 
> the keys on the left half are gonna go bad!

Have you read the articles on OLPC?

They're made to run on very low power.  They have batteries that can be 
crank-charged quickly, or run off small solar panels.  Somehow I don't 
think they're short on sunlight there.  The laptopgiving.org site states 
that it operates up to 2,000 recharge cycles and can be charged by 
crank, pedal, pullcord, or solar panel.

It's not like they're shipping off-the-shelf laptops to them.  While 
there are plenty of problems for these kids, the OLPC project is a way 
to try to help with education and interaction.  The units work with a 
type of automatic mesh network.  As I understand it, if one gets access 
to the Internet, they all can route to it, but even if not they connect 
to each other for social and collaborative applications.


Just because there are many third-world countries out there doesn't mean 
that someone can't try something to improve things.  Maybe it'll fail 
miserably.  Maybe it'll help give a boost to the conditions of the 
education system.

It's worse that you're in a place where you have plenty of access to 
education and information and you didn't bother to look up how the XO 
works before bashing it on the forums.