Yet another reason to get angry with Bill...

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 19 March 2006 15:20, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> > It has a crank, and takes C cell batteries. One of the comments
> > made by the OLPC staff is that this laptop may be the first
> > artificial light source available in some places it will be
> > distributed.
>
> Not to rain on the parade, but, if it's the first artificial light
> source, then there's also a good chance that no one can read at a
> sufficient level to make use of the laptop.

Let's not make the mistake of assuming that rich/poor is a binary 
problem. It's a spectrum with all values in between.

Some places are so poor they don't have pencils. So they shouldn't buy 
laptops they should buy pencils and paper instead. The really rich 
can look after themselves (and probably are already). There's a huge 
segment that have the basics covered already - kids can read, there's 
a school and somehow knowledge does get transferred. They are ready 
to introduce the kids to computers but can't afford 100 desktops. 
That's where this laptop can slot in. It's an interim step to be 
sure, but any computer is just an interim step between the previous 
one and the next one
-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five