Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
See all you left-wing freaks, I’m not such a hard-hearted jackass after all. John C. Dvorak has some words about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) thing, and they’re not kind. Throughout his blistering screed against OLPC, I’m relating to his words only tangentially…sort of “on the fence,” you might say. My conflict is that from what I’ve seen, real technological progress follows when the tools are scattered to the four winds, rather than hoarded within an elitist cloister. Egalitarianism — I’m fer it. My own beginnings were pretty humble, so I figured I’d be a hypocrite if I were again’ it.
But then he comes to this…
Every time I bring up this complaint to my Silicon Valley pals—usually as we race down I-280 in their newest Mercedes-Benz S Class sedan while listening to their downloaded music from their iPod to the car’s custom stereo—I get flak. They tell me, “It’s a start. Computers will save the world from poverty. You are just jealous you didn’t think of the idea.”
Yeah, that’s it. I’m jealous.
Ooh, I think we’ve all run into that one from time to time. I mean, all of us except those who are on the latest bandwagon all the time.
And then he goes on, into this segment which I found to be delicious…
We see an incredible deer-in-the-headlights Leslie Stahl puff piece about the device on 60 Minutes. No one says it’s a crock. Instead, only the minutiae of implementation and whether Intel should be allowed to make a similar machine are questioned. During the show, Stahl makes the idiotic claim that this is the first laptop in history on which you can read the screen in broad daylight. So much for fact checking. Then there is a tremendous push to get the public to take part in the “Give One, Get One” promotion. “I want one!” says a cohort of mine in a podcast. Apparently, he is going to toss his Mac PowerBook and use this. Who is he kidding?
Curious, isn’t it, how often we are caught saying crap that has not so much as a corn-kernel of truth in it, just for the sake of getting along with others.
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I saw Negroponte flogging the OLPC laptop in an extended interview with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN last weekend (not this past weekend). Lamb didn’t cut Negroponte any slack and asked a LOT of pointed questions. All I can say is Negroponte is a damned good salesman… and he is most definitely enthusiastic about his program. The interview lasted about an hour and Negroponte never blew a single line.
Me? I tend to agree with Dvorak. The lack of a wireless infrastructure in the targeted Third-World areas plus the abysmal literacy rate leads me to believe the OLPC project is doomed. What good is a laptop if the user can’t read? (And is hungry, on top of it all.)
- Buck | 12/10/2007 @ 14:17