Going to hear SJ Klien talk was kind of a waste of time today, except that I got to play around with the laptop. I didn't really hear anything you can't find online, including people who seemingly only want to throw thinly veiled insults at the project for no other reason than they don't see the need for it. (Some guy decided to phrase his long-winded "questions" extolling the virtues of Nokia in such a way that it was hard to believe he was listening to the same presentation that I was. People really need to decide if what they're going to say will foster further dialogue or just piss people off before verbally vomiting all over everyone in earshot.)
Such douchebaggery, however, seems to miss what I see to be an important point - Negroponte and those working with him obviously think that the project will do some good in the world. Indeed, facilitating education is rarely a bad thing. Even if it doesn't work, was born of mis-placed motives, or is thriving on media attention a bit more than some people find tasteful, there's still potential for the OLPC project to spur change more positive than negative, no matter the scale. And if someone else can do it better (Nokia, perhaps) then please give it a try.
On a personal end, I'm a little disappointed that due to production constraints, lone consumers won't be able to buy them for a while. It's so completely hackable that it would be really fun to see what you could make of it, especially if all your friends got one for the easy mesh networking. I guess I'll have to wait for a while to see if the project is as successful as people are predicting. They've thought about a lot of angles, as Klein made clear, and I hope it works, but I have a feeling that things won't go exactly as they've planned.
2 comments:
here's a thought - what if we got a bunch of guys together (10? 25? I'm sure we could do it) and placed an order? Would we need a charity? A corporation? The latter we have. The former? Maybe we could form.
I'd love to get my hands on one, too, even if they ARE going to be a very expensive investment in paperweights (which I fear, but don't quite believe). Anyway, I'm serious about the group order thing. It's how we bought blank CDs my freshman year in college when they cost like a buck a pop for spindles of 250 and no one had but 2x CD burners. No reason it wouldn't work now with a little planning. And I bet we've got time.
Do you have a link to a website where I may peruse a tour schedule for this thing? If they are coming to UCLA or USC, I'd totally go.
...m
Unfortunately, they're adamantly against selling them to anyone but developing nations who will distribute through educational channels. Their reasoning is since the production is limited by speed due to cost and other factors, they want to be sure that all the standing orders are filled before they start looking at other potential markets.
As for a tour schedule, I really don't think that there is an official one. Your best bet would probably be to email SJ Klein himself through his wiki page linked in my post, or someone else on the project.
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