Archive for the ‘OLPC’ Category

OLPC Penguicon Roundtable notes

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

 Benjamin Mako Hill (Penguicon Guest of Honor, OLPC Common Resources developer, and of other fame) joined us, so the roundtable started with a 15-minute Q&A with him (I hope he was ok with that; the panelists (Frank Schreiber, cmdln, and I) hadn't really come up with a game plan for ...

OLPC Roundtable at Penguicon 2008: Links

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

Links relevant to the post I will make shortly: Benjamin Mako Hill Benjamin Mako Hill's entry about Penguicon BMH after Negroponte's remarks OLPC changes and uncertainty OLPC developers are not open source fundamentalists Disruption and Hope Back to the Roundtable: cmdln's detailed write-up of Mako's comments at the start photo 1 photo 2

Penguicon 2008 Overview

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Due to unavoidable circumstances, I was unable to make it to the con (in Michigan) until Saturday night, but I did make it to the Giant Singing Tesla Coil and the Hampster Dance, and then was able to assist with the making of 6 liquid nitrogen ice cream flavors that night.   From midnight until past 2 am :  mint irish cream triple chocolate cinammon orange creamsicle vanilla raspberry another chocolate soda slushies Sunday, ...

Sustainable Development and Software

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

I've used the tag "sustainability" (on Connotea) for close on to two years to organize and track articles about ecology,  esources, and other matters concerning living on the earth in the future.  A few days ago, without thinking about that, the phrase "sustainable development" popped into my head during a discussion of the future of OLPC.  I like my use of that phrase, ...

Co-Paneling at Penguicon 2008

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Penguicon 2008 is almost here!   Guests of Honor include Jono Bacon (Ubuntu Community Manager for Canonical), Benjamin Mako Hill (Debian/GNU, MIT Media Lab, Free Software Foundation, Ubuntu, Wikimedia), and Vernor Vinge (multiple-Hugo-winning science fiction author, computing visionary).  I'll be participating, too!  I'm on two panels, both on Sunday, April ...

Exhibiting Linux and XOs at FOSE

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

This Thursday, I helped out at the Tux.org booth at FOSE.  Tux is the name of the Linux mascot penguin.  TUX is a network of Linux User Groups (like the Northern Virginia group to whom I presented the OLPC XO user interface, journal system, etc. in February).  FOSE is the ...

OLPC Resources

Saturday, February 9th, 2008

This is from the talk last week:OLPC RESOURCES One Laptop Per Child Website Wiki Forums (developers and users, some critics) OLPC News not affiliated with OLPC! Blog Forums (mainly users, fans, and critics) OLPC Learning Club - DC OLPCLCDC Blog OLPCLCDC Wiki (at OLPC) OLPCLCDC Forum (at OLPC News) Email list Meetings Me Tech blog:  (here) Forums and OLPC wiki ...

Tour of OLPC at NoVaLUG: How We Did

Friday, February 8th, 2008

Jonathan Blocksom and I were pretty happy with how our talk went at the Northern Virginia Linux User Group last Saturday.  There were over 30 people there, and we got  questions  throughout  (and  into  the parking lot).  I had to slow  myself  down  when  I  talked  too  fast or moved the  mouse too fast ...

Why Fix a Clock

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Just added a little config management perspective on the OLPC New Users wiki page.  I hope to cover a CM perspective on electronic voting software here tomorrow.

My “Tour of OLPC” at NoVaLUG on Feb. 2

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

I'll be giving a presentation on the OLPC XO laptop on Saturday morning at the Northern Virginia Linux User Group, at  the same swanky Oracle auditorium we met at the last time.  I'm hoping that Jonathan Blocksom will be there to talk more about the developer end of things; I'm ...

Community and Ownership issues for Knowledge Gardening

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

What happens when an organization tries to foster a community, but there's disagreement between them (and/or within the community) over priorities, principles, and procedures of knowledge management? Not that most of them are quick to identify them as knowledge management issues, but many of the recent organization-community conflicts I'm aware of ...

Last Day to Give One, Get One XO laptop

Monday, December 31st, 2007

Unless they extend it again, this is the last day to get your own One Laptop Per Child laptop (by paying for two). I have enjoyed mine more the more I've used them -- I got one with Paypal and the other by ordering over the phone (credit card). ...

OLPC News meetup followup: XO v. ASUS Eee

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Thinking about these two machines again, there are a few observations I can make even though I didn't actually drive an ASUS Eee myself. Learning and Discovery: That's what the XO is all about, and it shows, for good or ill. The ASUS Eee seemed more of a scaled-down ...

OLPC News DC Meetup A Success

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

... even if the XO mesh/wi-fi wasn't.  At the peak of the get-together, there were 25-30 people talking with each other and looking at all the different laptops, tablets, e-book readers (and one step-powered portable emergency power generator).  OLPC News write-up, pictures, and links to many more pictures will give you the ...

Breaking News: OLPC News Meetup in DC Wednesday Night

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

I'm going to the One Laptop Per Child meetup in DC tomorrow night (6 pm). They'll have 3 or 4 XOs there (formerly known as 100-dollar laptops), demonstrating the mesh networking and other delights. Mike Lee is also bringing an ASUS Eee PC for comparison. They're encouraging ...

XO on the way, One Hopes

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

Woke up early yesterday to order an XO through the OLPC Give One, Get One program. For why, see my One Laptop Per ... Christmas? entry. Bonus: now one gets a year's free T-Mobile WiFi subscription along with one's XO! The previous mail from laptopgiving.org had specified ...

Laptops and Learning

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Regarding my One Laptop Per Child entry, I know some folks are skeptical about the value of this project.  I don't mind skeptics.  Healthy skepticism is useful.  I do wish the naysayers who seem to imagine OLPC is going to pitchfork laptops at people would go and read up on ...

1 Laptop Per … Christmas?

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

I've been following the development of One Laptop Per Child with interest, even before I saw one up close in April. I like their Learning Vision, their open source approach to the hardware, software and content (freedom to tinker), and the hardware features (designed to be durable and useful ...