Volume 11, Number 1 of The Harrow: Original Works of Fantasy and Horror is up! Check it out!
larry borsato: Lies my wireless provider told me. is a great bit of humour about the 'quality' of the canadian cell phone state of affairs. I'm really sick and tired of my cell phone provider (fido) yet it seems to be the best. I'm thinking of just canceling it, or something. Perhaps I can get a pay per use phone... I wish there were payphones I could use :) Ah the good old days.
I just started a new thread at OLPC News about starting a Toronto OLPC user group. Come along and sign up if you're interested (even if you're not in toronto!).
The Hindu: The year when computers finally reach kids talks about the variety of options including OLPCs that are making the rounds in india, as well as the social and political issues of getting technology into the hands of children.
OLPC News: OLPC India's XO Laptop Cow Power Dynamo talks about powering OLPCs from a "Cow Power Dynamo, built from old Fiat parts and a few belts and pulleys [as] an amazing example of local innovation that we should all celebrate." With video links:
Rik has a post that compares the emate to the XO: XO Laptop versus Apple eMate. I've got 2 emates, so this was interesting to see.
Joe Barr has an interesting take, from a Linux perspective, a lot more technical, but also more of a sense of how cooooool it is, imho: Linux.com :: Hands-on with the OLPC XO laptop -- and loving it
At eBiquity, they're talking about how to make computer science more relevant with the olpc: One Laptop Per Child could make Computer Science more relevant, in response to the decline in the number of people going into computer science.
I just updated my Home Cats - a photoset on Flickr...
Slashdot | WTO Awards Caribbean Country Right to Ignore US Copyright
The WTO's recent ruling on Antigua's complaint against the US over the banning of online gambling resulted in a payment to the island nation much less than they asked for. It appears, though, that this payment was just part of the WTO's compensation package for Antigua/Barbuda. Via Kotaku, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the Caribbean country can now freely ignore US copyright laws - legally. This dispensation is apparently limited to some $21 million a year.
This is brilliant! I have no knowledge about the validity of the complaints or who is gooder or badder, but the WTO using copyright issues as a way to compensate a country is amazing, because how could you get a country to actually PAY a fine to another country? This works for me.
olpc.tv is a site of videos of children using their OLPC. Here's one of children in Uruguay.
And an article from the Indian IT magazine CIO, OLPC Heralds Era of Low-cost Computing. It will be interesting to watch how the OLPC gets taken up and discussed in countries it was intended for, vs in the Western media; similar issues, no doubt, but perhaps with a more practical and relevant spin.
Also, I liked this article, History of the World Part II where Miles Weston talks about the history of portable computing from his perspective up to the OLPC.
