__/ [ Sinister Midget ] on Monday 26 June 2006 15:12 \__
> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71153-0.html?tw=rss.index
>
> FILLMORE, California -- Happy Ivy doesn't have a bathroom or a
> kitchen in the bus he calls home. He does, however, have a
> video-editing station.
>
> Living in a squalid, Woodstock-style bus parked in a Fillmore,
> California, orange grove, the 53-year-old homeless man charges a
> power generator from a utility shed and uses Wi-Fi from a nearby
> access point. From this humble camp, he's managed to run a
> 'round-the-clock internet television studio, organize grassroots
> political efforts, record a full-length album and write his
> autobiography, all while subsisting on oranges and avocados.
>
> He claims he created one of the first handheld computer scanners and
> played a major part in the data transmission industry in the early
> 1990s. "I've always been trying to stay up on internet technology,"
> Ivy said.
>
> .....
>
> Many of those now living without a permanent roof over their heads
> have cell phones in their pockets or laptop computers at their hips.
> While people living in shelters and alleys have found it difficult
> to cross social divides, the digital divide seems to disappear on
> the streets. Nearly all homeless people have e-mail addresses,
> according to Michael Stoops, director of the National Coalition for
> the Homeless. "More have e-mail than have post office boxes,"
> Stoops said. "The internet has been a big boon to the homeless."
I read it a few days ago, but couldn't find any direct relationship to Linux,
apart from the OLPC initiative.
> Imagine if the $100 laptop made it into the hands of some of these
> people (not like the ones mentioned, but the ones that don't have
> access to things like the ones mentioned).
No change of XP _Home_ Edition, eh?
> Now imagine if His Buttcrustness had his way and they could only run
> machines with Windwoes, be forced to pay for licenses, forced to pay
> extra for additional connections to their servers, etc.
Don't forget that Gates is a philanthropist. Having run software houses out
of business, through third-round tactics, he can now have programmers on the
street beg him for money. And if he feels like it, he might as well start
bobbing and tossing a coin.
Like Ballard once said, it's like those crooks who steal from society and
give back for self glorification. The gift from a guilty conscience.
> Not that this sort of thing is a panacea for people on the streets. It
> best serves those who have had a run of bad luck, not those who are
> drunks, dug addicts, sick mentally, etc.
Microsoft often adopts the strategy of a drug dealer. A free sample gets you
dependent for life. Turning a blind eye to piracy is just one element of
this contention.
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