Those that can, do...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| mvermeer Dec 06, 2007 5:58 AM EDT |
...and those that cannot, quote statistics. Poor John doesn't seem to grasp that it is knowledge, not food, that eradicates undernourishment and hunger permanently -- and more generally, changes the face of the Earth. When that first ex-OLPC user gets invited to a party in Stockholm :-) -- or why not Oslo --, John's cynicism will be long forgotten. |
| ColonelPanik Dec 06, 2007 6:08 AM EDT |
Poor John is now his name. In keeping with the spirit of wallmart, Bah Humbug.
John Humbug Dvorak. Don't worry, don't read the article, be happy. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day. Scott, stop buying your Linux magazines in the check-out aisle. |
| hkwint Dec 06, 2007 6:39 AM EDT |
Seems mr. Dvorak cannot distinguish between: Benefit concerts and any benefit-business which only raises money in the first place; in this case people raise _money_ of which a big part goes to the wrong, corrupt, persons and not the people ought to receive the benefits; research of some benefits in my country showed almost 50% of the money the Dutch people gave for the tsunami didn't reach the people who ought to receive it. It's 'lost'. Lots of it of which the NGO's know _where_ it is, are still not spent after almost two years, they are just on the bank account doing nothing. Property for poor children. If you give the children money, grown people _will_ steel it. In fact, I heard stories how grown up people in Africa break the legs of a child, the child goes begging whole day, and after the day's done, the adults collect the money from the poor children. Therefore, one of my teachers told me she always gave those children sweets instead of money: Rich corrupt people can't use sweets, so they can't take it away. In the same manner, rich corrupt people normally don't need 100XO's, except if they were to sell them in richer countries. |
| dinotrac Dec 06, 2007 6:42 AM EDT |
What's sad is that the truth of it has been demonstrated over and over and over again. I think of all the micro-capital loan programs in the world. These are programs that lend ridiculous sums of money -- maybe $500, maybe $100 to small businesses in very poor areas. Just a little bit of capital can go a long way toward making a going concern that enriches those in and around it. These PCs are the same kind of endeavor. Poor John may believe that poor people are somehow inferior in ability or character, but they aren't. They are inferior in resources. Over and over and over again, people provided with the ability to do better tend to do better. Imagine that. |
| ColonelPanik Dec 06, 2007 8:20 AM EDT |
USAID doesn't touch any project that is valued less than 8 digits.
How about that guy that got the Nobel for loaning money to buy cell
phones? When we first went to the Third-World (El Salvador) in 1980 there were men with jobs, they had the job because they owned a tape- measure and a saw. Hand saw!!!!!!! One guy showed up on market day with a "View Master" a thingy for looking at pictures in stereo. Charged 5 centavos which then was worth about a cent US. Micro indeed. Those of us in the usOFa and Western Europe have had over a 100 years to prepare us for the computer/net. People in those parts of the world where they still cook over an open fire (40% of humanity) and water comes from a community well have no ingrained ideas about what a computer can/cannot do. They will find uses that will boggle the minds of the LXers. How do you spell FREEDOM? |
| DarrenR114 Dec 06, 2007 9:33 AM EDT |
Is Dvorak even relevant anymore? He's been an MS fanbois as long as there have been any. |
| jdixon Dec 06, 2007 9:34 AM EDT |
> He's been an MS fanbois as long as there have been any. Actually, I believe Dvorak predates the Microsoft era and goes all the way back to the old 8-bit machines. He's been writing about computers for a long time. |
| DarrenR114 Dec 06, 2007 9:47 AM EDT |
@jdixon, It's true that Dvorak's been writing about computers a long time (even before there was an MS) - I'm just saying that he's also been an MS cheerleader almost as long as Ballmer. |
| jdixon Dec 06, 2007 10:23 AM EDT |
> I'm just saying that he's also been an MS cheerleader almost as long as Ballmer. Yeah, he jumped on the MS bandwagon fairly early on. I just felt it fair to mention that he does in fact know that MS is not the be all and end all of computing. I'm not sure you can say that about Mary Jo Foley or David Coursey (just to give two examples). |
| tuxchick Dec 06, 2007 10:33 AM EDT |
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 06, 2007 10:37 AM EDT |
Micro-loans. Hmm, can I find a non-Mises link? :^) http://www.lewrockwell.com/englund/englund36.html Searching on "Grameen Bank" did provide other links, but mostly to Mises.org so I won't post them. :^) I miss reading Gerry Pournell's columns in Byte. Not that I ever had enough money to buy all the hardware that worked for him, I appreciated that someone with name recognition was taking these manufacturers to task for interoperability issues. Sadly, that was the last time I read any "column" regularly. Kids do cut seriously into the "what do I read today?" time. |
| jdixon Dec 06, 2007 11:00 AM EDT |
> Gerry Pournell's columns in Byte. That would have been the Chaos Manor stuff? He's online at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/ |
| herzeleid Dec 06, 2007 12:17 PM EDT |
Quoting: Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.LOL @ TC. Hey, you stole that line from me! |
| jdixon Dec 06, 2007 12:26 PM EDT |
> Hmm, can I find a non-Mises link? Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcredit Some other hits from a Google search on micro loans: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001484.php http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_19/b3932134_... Sponsored links: http://www.kiva.org/ https://www.microplace.com/?keyword=microloan&type=0 http://www.opportunity.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=193&sr... For the Christians among the readers, your local church may fund similar programs. If not, you may wish to bring it up with others in the congregation. |
| tuxchick Dec 06, 2007 12:51 PM EDT |
sorry herzeleid! Here, you have it back :) |
| hkwint Dec 06, 2007 2:32 PM EDT |
You're almost three years too late man, actually 2005 was the year of microcredits! Coincidentally it's something our crown-prinsess (a former banker) supported back then, that's why I remember, and she visited for example Uganda (and India I believe) to look what the people over there where actually doing with the credits (sewing machines aren't expensive over there it seems, and a lot of women who bought a sewing machine made a rather successful small company!). It was in the news back then (in the Netherlands of course), and I can remember the credits being as small as $20. They were especially given to women, I remember, because some man have the bad habit to buy spirits with any money available. Almost all of the women pay the loan back with rent by the way. http://www.yearofmicrocredit.org/pages/whyayear/whyayear_lea... |
| Scott_Ruecker Dec 06, 2007 6:19 PM EDT |
Quoting:Scott, stop buying your Linux magazines in the check-out aisle. This came over the RSS feed, I quit even looking at the mags in the checkout aisle long ago.. :-) |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 07, 2007 6:13 AM EDT |
The only reason for looking at the magazines in the checkout aisle are the occasional cute chicks. |
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