Left-handed Complement

MUDGE’S Musings

One of this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©‘s favorite topics for the past few months, the One Laptop Per Child initiative of Nicolas Negroponte and his non-proft spin-off from MIT, is back in the news today. Here are many of our previous posts:

Today, the “Give One, Get One” “civilian” donation program has been extended.

By RODRIQUE NGOWI | The Associated Press

12:10 AM CST, November 23, 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A promotion in which a customer buying a $188 computer in the U.S. and Canada automatically donates a second one to a child in a developing country was extended until year’s end, organizers said Thursday.
The “Give One, Get One” program will now run through Dec. 31, instead of ending on Nov. 26, according to the One Laptop Per Child Program, a nonprofit spinoff from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Always felt that two weeks was artificially short — after all the end of year gift/donation period lasts all the way to the end of the year.

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

One Laptop Per Child extends promotion until year’s end — chicagotribune.com

Of course, Newton’s law makes mandatory an equal and opposite reaction to the mostly positive news generated by this program.

From a site not before encountered comes the following two recent curmudgeonly observations, and we always make room for a fellow contrarian:

from the soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations dept

The One-Laptop-per-Child project, which the press is still referring to as the “$100 laptop” despite the fact that it now costs twice that, finally began rolling off the assembly line this week. What’s most striking about the effort is how dramatically Nicholas Negroponte has had to scale back his formerly lofty ambitions to get the project off the ground. He initially said that they’d need 3 million orders before they started production.

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Techdirt: Dramatically Scaled-Back OLPC Begins Production

from the isn’t-technology-supposed-to-get-cheaper? dept

I’ll admit it. I’ve never quite understood the rationale behind the $100 laptop (or OLPC or whatever it’s being called these days). Yes, it’s a noble goal to get technology into the hands of people around the world with the hope that they can do something productive with it — but a big top down attempt to build something without much actual user feedback seems destined to fail.

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Techdirt: Price Of The $100 Laptop Going In The Wrong Direction

Many a time, lofty goals founder on the shoals of the real world. Okay, $100 became $188, but one wonders what exactly has happened to the dollar itself in the several years since this project was born.

We know what happened to the dollar: it has lost much ground vs. the rest of the world, thanks to our kill-taxes-but-spend-stupendously administration of George III. One might imagine that had the project been denominated in Euros that its final cost might well have stayed closer to its initial target. So that feels like petty and carping argument.

MUDGE is still prepared to give OLPC the benefit of the doubt — the lofty goals thing deserves at least that.

And as we’ve been suggesting in this space,

I would think that people who would find a $399 purchase with a 50% charitable component affordable might also wish, as the story suggests, to donate the PC they’re entitled to a (not third world, but certainly third rate) school in this country.

God knows that there are pockets of the third world within these preciously regarded borders of ours, many within our biggest cities. Then it becomes a $399 charitable contribution, serving to further education among the deserving needy in our own country as well as beyond.

If this promotion serves to prime the production pump, so as to assure economic deliveries to the nations like Peru and Mexico and Italy (for Ethiopia — now that’s fitting!) that have committed to the project, then it’s absolutely worthwhile.

As the giving season is well upon us, why not add OLPC’s “Give 1, Get 1″ to your planning (orders to be taken Nov. 12–26); and as MUDGE recommends, just make that slight adjustment and you can call it “Give 1 (there), Give 1 (here).”

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Geopolitics, musings, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.