Wednesday, December 19, 2007

One Laptop Per Child ... it arrives!

So I promised many things when I started this blog. One I did not mention was that I'm kind of turning my 5 year old and 2.5 year old into techo junkies. They have long since had fully control of the Tivo recording schedule, start and stop their shows, record new shows etc. The poor Tivo is very confused, often thinks I'm a Latin (because of all the Soccer that gets recorded) pre-schooler (because of the kids shows) who likes Sci-fci (because of all the Dr. Who episodes).

The other side effect of being in technology is that sometimes you get the philanthropy urge. I first read about One Laptop Per Child when it first made a splash in the press. Seemed a real noble effort but one that seemed doomed to failure. Why? Cost. The effort to get mega-corp USA to do things not for profit... just did seem like it had the odds stacked against it. Well I was wrong, and I am very glad that I was wrong!

So our OLPC arrived today as part of the "Give one, Get one" program. Essentially to pay for 2 OLPC's, one goes to a needy cause you get the other. Not quite the $100 target price, these clock in at $200. But I figured for $400 I get a kid-ready machine that its the kids and the kids only and I get a $200 donation to write off against tax at the end of the year. Come on give me a break, a charity is just a charity!

So, instead of boring you here, I have started another blog just on life with two kids under the age of five and an OLPC.

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