Comments on: When you can see the giraffe’s eyes, it’s already too late

By: Deanish » Check It: HijiNKS ENSUE

Deanish » Check It: HijiNKS ENSUE — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:23:27 +0000

[...] When you can see the giraffe’s eyes, it’s already too late [...]

By: honest ape

honest ape — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:26:38 +0000

@Joel-
It’s far better when one’s intellectual discourse creates silly comics than the other way around. I don’t come to this site to think about the sad state of the third world. I come to this site for gay wizards and dinosaurs.

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:11:19 +0000

Wind up radios. If you have read about just one example of the impact they can have on a local community such as in terms of regular news updates and how that allows farmers to do something as simple as judge supply and demand get better prices for their crops, then you wouldn’t underestimate the impact of more information and better education then you would be much more optimistic about the potential of OLPC and have a little more respect for the ingenuity of those in developing nations when given half a fair chance.

By: HijiNKS ENSUE a geek webcomic - updated monday and thursday » Blog Archive » Remixes for “When you can see the giraffe’s eyes, it’s already too late” (OLPC comic)

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 04:51:19 +0000

[...] didn’t get a lot of submissions for the OLPC comic remix but I think these two are the some of the best I’ve received so far. With no further [...]

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:15:24 +0000

@Sumit
I think you are right about the kids figuring out how to fix the machines, except I doubt they would have replacement parts available. A cracked LCD can be replaced with a shined up car tire. Ive seen some pretty amazing homegrown ingenuity from developing nations from pics posted online. But theres a pretty big difference in turning an old washing machine motor into a welding torch and having access to IC’s and solder and electronic testing equipment. Who knows?

@Jovin6
If MS decides to donate a $10 version of windows to the intel version (did they? I havent read up on this one) I would expect it to gain massive exposure, but at the same time poorer nations have been migrating to open source software more and more in the last 5 years.

@Denise
I think its pretty cool that my silly comics create intellectual discourse. That said, you ALWAYS need more LOLCats. Here, have this one:

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/funny-pictures-pythagora-cat-box.jpg

MATHCAT!

By: Denise

Denise — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:39:07 +0000

This thread is getting too political//deep/thoughtful.

It needs more lolcats.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/11/27/zombie-kiteh-want-brainz/

By: jovin6

jovin6 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 03:04:53 +0000

“If these nations don’t learn to support their own equipment, they’ll be caught under the corporate dominance that has helped Microsoft kept[sic] its empire.”

Come on. You can’t honestly believe this. Microsoft/Intel would like nothing better than to have these children develop the skills necessary to fix laptops. That way they could outsource tech support to Africa and wind up paying even less than they do today by importing it from countries like India.

As for “WinTel” adoption stemming from greater exposure to that platform during the learning phase, that’s just how things work. If AMD/Linux want to compete for that sort of early market share they need to provide a competitive product right now, not just one that promises to be better in the future. Perhaps they can bundle OLPCs with food rations?

By: sumit

sumit — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:33:40 +0000

Many of the companies that have sponsored this have education systems and desperately need to improve on them; countries like Peru. There are some countries that really should focus more on food that have bought into the program, but they’re backing out now since the price jumped from $100 to $188 and Intel has offered a cheaper windows based alternative with support contracts.

The big fear is Intel’s Classmate competitor could kill OLPC. It’s kinda sad when a corporation starts competing with a non-profit. The WinTel empire doesn’t really like the idea of Linux/AMD laptops in developing countries. It makes me wonder if OLPC had used Intel chips instead, if Microsoft would have teamed up with AMD to do the same thing.

These developing nations are worried about support for these laptops when they break. Intel claims to offer support, but we know how that goes. OLPC has offered training, but they need to offer more and get more volunteer instructors that will teach people not only how to use these computers, but maintain them by themselves. If these nations don’t learn to support their own equipment, they’ll be caught under the corporate dominance that has helped Microsoft kept its empire.

Furthermore kids are pretty smart. So long as the older ones had good communication paths to the Internet, I’m sure a couple of them would learn how to use and fix these devices for both themselves and others. Food is important and education is important and so is industry. You need all these factors put together to grow these countries. I hope this goes in the right direction.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:47:52 +0000

@Dean
I hope im wrong too. Honestly I was just looking for an angle to exploit for the comic. Im sure theyve thought it out better than I make it out.

@Varis
I didnt touch on that because it would have made the comic not funny. Im sure they are only going to nations with power and SOME education. My example was extreme but I was just going for the gag. Im thinking more india than african planes.

@Alan
I agree. You have to start somewhere and the textbook point is very valid. I think it will be key to see how long the OLPC’s last before needing to be fixed. At $100 it sounded like a great idea. At $200 less great. At $400 and a geek has to buy one to play with so they can send one to a foreign land, it sounded kind of silly.

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:14:24 +0000

I don’t know if the OLPC project is really a good idea, but it’s not as obviously as bad an idea as people joke. Yes, you need to feed people before you can go any further. But how can we break the cycle of poverty so they aren’t relying on handouts of food? Education is a key part of the solution.. $200 is a lot of money, but textbooks are also expensive. An OLPCs can potentially replace all of the textbooks a child will need. The textbooks can be updated and corrected without needing to print and ship a new set. Entire libraries of information can be made available to the children for a fraction of the cost of assembling a physical library.

As I said, I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But I think it has potential. It’s a shame they missed the $100 per laptop goal.