FISTFULAYENTwo Ways to Spend $400
If you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket, you could:
a) Pick up a new Amazon Kindle
[I had to delete the crazy Amazon video because it took forever to load]
I don’t hate this as much as most people I’ve seen talk about this do, but I don’t have any need for it, either. I just don’t need that many books on my person at one time. Maybe when it gets Mojo, Thrasher, and The Economist I’ll pick one up.
b) Buy two OLPC laptops, one for you and one for a kid in a developing nation.
For those who have been living in a cave, for the past five years Nicholas Negroponte has been working with a team in an effort to construct a durable, full-featured, $100 laptop for third world use. He’s looking to flatten the world further by giving kids in third world countries the ability to shop for daily bargains on woot.com. I jest a bit, but am a believer that this could have a material affect on the culture and economy of the countries where this program is instituted.
I think I’ll hold off for now, but when Lucinda is a little older I’ll definitely take them up on this offer. Maybe I’ll save myself time with holiday gifts and just give kids laptops in the name of friends and family this year.
ian
Dima wrote:
Great post! I am advocating the same idea
Posted 23 Nov 2007 at 8:52 pm ¶
defmonk wrote:
Did it. I think this really matters. We’ve dug ourselves a huge hole. Two-world geopolitics are unsustainable in the timeframe of existence. Technology can save our asses.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 2:18 pm ¶
cristobal wrote:
Sal’s arrived last week. It’s under the xmas tree. I’m looking forward to the camera and running the OLPC emulator on my machine and hopefully the mesh networks will find each other so we can collaborate on stuff. Though he’ll be sad that there is no flash support for his favorite site – starfall.com
Posted 23 Dec 2007 at 11:47 am ¶
SteveR wrote:
Came across this blog post (via Fake Steve Jobs) and remembered your Xmas post. Seems like all is not well at OLPC, buying them is the best use of your philanthropic $$. I don’t know enough about the subject to pass judgment, but further analysis seems warranted. The part about sending 300,000 laptops into the wilds of Peru with ZERO staff to manage the deployment seemed especially FUBAR.
http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
Posted 14 May 2008 at 4:19 pm ¶