[DDN] $165 laptop

[arthur richards]

$100 laptops is a business strategy dressed as charity and help.
   
  Having said this, suppose 200 million young (for example, african) children buy each a $100 dollar laptop, where is this $20 billion dollars going to come from and where is it going to? The so-called $100 dollar laptop initiative is a business strategy which has very little benefit to the continent of africa for example - why?
   
  The sales proceeds are sucked out of the continent which is already hard pressed for funds and foreign currency.  If they must help third world children to have access, what they need first is a decent education and ability to fund that education. Then you have all the other add ons of being able to have at least two meals a day, access to clean water and much more.
   
  Arthur

Pamela McLean <pam.mclean at ntlworld.com> wrote:
  
Dear Claude

I just read your email - belatedly - while trawling through messages 
that came while I was away. I thought it was interesting both to me and 
and also to members of learningfromeachother. We have recently been 
discussing issues around the $100 laptop there. I wondered about 
forwarding your email to them - and thought that as it was to a list and 
not private it would be okay to do so. Of course as soon as I had 
pressed the "send" button doubts crept in - so I'm writing 
retrospectively to let you know, ask your permission (and to apologise 
if I have done the wrong thing), and to ask the general question "What 
is the netiquette of copying between lists?"

Pam


Claude Almansi wrote:
> Hi All
>
> I got a new laptop at CHF 200.- ( $165) yesterday - well, "new" in
> the sense of "another". Second-hand actually, a Digital HiNote ultra
> 2000 (1). Sure, the model has been around for almost a decade, I won't
> go cavorting around Second Life or super-special-beta-testing any
> secret super-special-new-fangled internet TV software with it - But
> what the heck? the owner used it very little,it's light, it's fast,
> it doesn't overheat, and the battery has good staying power.
>
> I've chucked most programs and temporarily installed firefox, which
> gives me access to google docs for text editing and spreadsheets (2).
> And I have asked on the forum of the local Linux Users' Group if
> someone would show me how to replace the dubious Windows Me that came
> on it with some version of Linux, and at what price. Then *maybe* I'll
> add some other programs than firefox to it.
>
> This is not a dig at the $100 laptop. There arent enough folks who
> underuse their laptops and then sell them off to get a new model, to
> cover the needs, probably. But why not have both possibilities?
>
> Best
>
> Claude
>
> 
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