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Staysopen.com January 2007 Find things to do late at night! I began this as a fun side project. It still needs a bunch of work, but the nuts and the bolts work. |
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NACBA.org January 2005 I have been doing consulting work for NACBA for quite some time now. I am responsible for just about everthing web-based, but my main tasks relate to membership management. |
| OLPC Sucks |
| Posted : 2008-12-17 04:32:59 - Comments (13) |
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For those that do not know who or what OLPC is, let me fill you in. It is a company whose mission is to give cheap but durable laptops to children in disadvantaged countries. No doubt a noble goal on the surface. I thought mostly positively about this company until today when I saw this advertisement: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7o505_skills-the-right-to-education_lifestyle Now, after seeing this advertisement, I really cannot say I have any respect at all for this company anymore. I do not really mind that there is crude imagery used to evoke in me pity or guilt or compassion or whatever emotion they are working to agitate. Frankly, it is a good thing for sheltered people, like most everyone in this country, to see imagery that is informative to some degree of the harsh realities many people face in other places around the world. We have it good. They do not. We should try to understand that. What irritates me is how the imagery is used to convey a message. The message reads for me: buy a kid in Africa or Asia a laptop and you will be helping to stop child prostitution. Are you serious? Really? Is that really the message I am supposed to get out of this? Unfortunately, I think it is. I mean, how else do you interpret the advertisement? Maybe you are thinking, "well Mark, why is that so unreasonable?" I guess it is no surprise that I will now tell you why I believe that message is rubbish. The message is fallacious because these laptops will do absolutely nothing to stop child prostitution or kids working in factories or whatever. At least not for a really, really long time. It does not matter how many damn laptops we pump into a country. The types of kids exploited in the advertisement are kids that will NEVER see the laptops. There is a reason why kids work in factories or as prostitutes, and it is a sad reason. These kids are the poorest of the poor. It is all they can do to put food on the table. These are horrible practices, but they work within a strongly rooted framework. Are there better ways? Of course there are, and laptops do not even come close to getting at the core of the problems. You cannot just throw random technologies at a people and expect everything to get better. The type of solutions that are needed are ones that starts at the bottom and fundamentally reshapes the way these people think and operate. The change these people need does not start with the children, in this case. The children have no control on how their childhoods play out. So, these laptops will be given to kids that are poor, but not to kids that are as poor as the kids portrayed in those horrible conditions. There is no question that these laptops will be a positive influence for the many children that are fortunate enough to receive them. But, do you really think that OLPC is targeting guerilla encampments as the choice demographic for their laptops? I think not. The people in those conditions are probably considered lucky if they have power for some part of the year. It is just too inconceivable. The bottom line is that tactics like these just suck. They are aimed at stirring our emotions, but the message they deliver is a lie. Not only is it a lie, but it is a lie that works to solidify the view that all we need to do is throw random things at needy people and everything will work itself out. I believe as much as anyone that technology is an invaluable tool, but it is a tool that needs to be honestly introduced and then used under the proper circumstances. What I see in OLPC is a desperate attempt to keep afloat while Microsoft and friends saturate the market. I understand the marketing, but come on guys, there really is a better way. |
| Death for the sake of death |
| Posted : 2008-12-01 17:59:32 - Comments (1) |
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Since I spend time on news sites nearly daily trying to keep up with worldly events, I have inattentively been following the recent news from Mumbai. It is hard not to notice the attacks as the pictures and gruesome details are mercilessly plastered across the front page of most major news organizations. Such portrayals are inherently emotive, eliciting strong opinions from nearly everyone following, regardless of whether or not those opinions are vocalized. I have an opinion of the events that have transpired. And since I am sick and unable to sleep, I shall go out on a limb and share my opinion. The supposed Pakistani aggressors attacked the wrong group of people. Do I mean that they should have attacked Chinese or Peruvian or Polish tourists instead? No, that could not be further away from what I mean. What I mean is that the group of people that are most likely to be sympathetic and understanding of the beliefs to which the attackers subscribe are the very people that they targeted and killed. Hear me out on this. Tourists are people that, in large part, travel for pleasure. The inference here is simple. As a tourist, you do not travel to a place you would not want to visit. For such a large personal financial investment, you do not travel half way across the world unless you are connected in some way to the place you are visiting. That connection might be intrigue, family, or one of a multitude of other possibilities. In most cases, the connection is positive and the interest is real. These are people that do not exemplify the stereotypical evil American; the evil American that the attackers should want to eliminate. So where does that leave us? It leaves us wondering, why were these people attacked in the first place? Objectively, I think that question can reasonably be answered without much effort. The first part of the equation is a misconception on the attacker's part. They view America as a symbol, a cohesive whole. The concern is less about the actual views of large segments of Americans and more about a simple characterization that easily summarizes a potential set of beliefs that are contrary to their own beliefs. This is not such a terrible thing to do. Everyone is guilty of this type of behavior. It is easy to find at least one thing to hate and then vilify about any given thing we come across in the world. Sadly, getting the hate is trivial. They attack us because they hate us. Cannot say I really blame them. The second part is the location of the attacks. The motivation here is practical and resource limited. It is too hard to attack the real thing, so attacking a substitute instead suffices. This is not to say that America is fabulously secure and impervious to attack. The contrary is likely true. What it really comes down to is making due with a very fixed set of resources. Hence, regionally based tourist hot spots are the prime locations regardless of how relevant they are. The mentality always amazes me. In essence, to think, "we are going to stick it to them by mutilating a negligible quantity of them." Any death is an occasion for sorrow, but the unavoidable truth is that even a few hundred deaths are the smallest of a fraction of a percent of the total population. Realistically, a couple hundred deaths abroad are unnoticed by the larger population. In whole, the methodology is fundamentally flawed. The reason is that a people are changed through the careful erosion of deep seated ideals by slowly and progressively disseminated propaganda. Confrontation works largely to reinforce a stubborn bolstering of the same ideals that the confrontation is working to undercut. All said and done, have the attackers accomplished anything meaningful? Well sure, they left a scar on India that could take some real time to heal. Aside from the obvious financial woes from repairs, this ordeal has the potential of putting political strain on the region, especially with Pakistan. Did they actually do any damage to America? No, they really did not. Their actions populate the headlines of our news media for a short while, but the memory will not be lasting as the vast majority cannot be bothered for any extended period of time when far more important events like Christmas and American Idol are just around the bend. They erred by attacking us in a place that most Americans could not care less about. And so the title is fitting: death for the sake of death. Because really, from an American perspective, death is about all that was accomplished. |