One Laptop Per Child pledge

[Bill Ricker]

> The laptops of the MIT project don't have a lot of resemblance to the
> disposable, fragile, overpowered 1st-world toys you find for sale at
> the big box stores. Their design criteria lead them to choose the
> laptop form factor. I haven't followed the project in detail, but I'd
> suspect there were good reasons: portability for personal ownership,
> minimal power consumption, etc.

Right on all points, as I read it.

For those willing to RTFA ... this weeks news and the mother-lode ...

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news?OpenDocument
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2006/05/one_laptop_per_child_first_pho.html
http://www.laptop.org/

Rehabbing obsolete desktops will only help the part of the 3rd world
that has compatible power grid -- and would not be highly efficient of
anything except helping us get rid of toxic waste computers. If you
want to do something useful with the old desktops ...

Those of you who want to act locally ... do so!

Putting Linux on recently-old desktops for local underfunded schools
would be possibly more useful, if the School IT department doesn't
have a "MS-only" policy. Probably easier to find local social-service
NGOs and other independent non-profits that will take them. Tom
Limoncelli recommends helping your local non-profits with the spare
time his Time Management for Systems Administrators will give you
[http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/timemgmt/ http://isbn.nu/0596007833/],
but outsource their mail and lists and websites to free webservices so
you can focus on the important stuff.

People who are actively rehabbing computers for the American
underprivileged need your help ... and they don't need really obsolete
486's or P1's, and do like laptops.
http://www.tecschange.org/donations/donation-faq.html
http://www.epa.gov/NE/solidwaste/electronic/reuse.html

-- 
Bill
n1vux at arrl.net bill.n1vux at gmail.com