__/ [ Larry Qualig ] on Friday 17 March 2006 18:15 \__
> Lobo wrote:
>> If the OLPC computer was available for sale right now, would you buy
>> it?
>>
>> At $100
>> At $150
>> At $200
>
> Assuming these (
> http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/04/olpc-100-laptop-shown-in-final-form/
> ) were available to me (which they are not) I would *not* buy one. And
> as Roy S. pointed out in his reply, I'm not the person these laptops
> are targeting.
>
> Now if I were living somewhere in Cambodia would I buy one of these?
> That is a very difficult question to answer. I don't live in Cambodia
> and I have no way of relating how much money $100 is to someone who
> lives in such a country. What's the equivalent amount of money to me...
> $500, $5000, $10,000? But just equating it to some amount of money
> isn't a fair comparison because I already have access to healthcare,
> medicine, food, shelter, transportation, etc. My mindset of buying such
> an item is going to be vastly different than the person they are
> appealing to. I understand what this item is and what can be done with
> it. Will the Cambodian farmer understand and appreciate the benefits of
> such a device to be willing to spend $100 on it?
I'm glad you finally concur with me on that one. Remember that the OLPC was
engineered and conceived with a certain audience and environment in mind.
Cost should be set aside.
This reminds me of a fellow student who was using a machine that cost around
10,000 pounds. She used it to run Windows 2000 for daily work. The machine
was a server that had been bought by professors some years back, but was not
put to use. In terms of the price is was an overkill. The machine was _not_
designed for what she was doing and just devoured a lot of electricity. I
once told her that the machine was crying. It was begging for more work to
fulfil its potential.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: 85% of plant life in in the oceans
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