RE: Baseline capabilities

At 07:56 AM 10/19/00 -0700, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>...the question of whether distributing old technology to those who need 
>to be running the new stuff is helpful...

If the "cost" of putting it to use is based on the usual U.S. notion of 
per-hour effort making the new purchase economically valid, you're possibly 
right. "need to be running the new stuff" makes the assumption that this is 
some kind of zero-sum affair. What people who might benefit *extremely* 
from using anything is far more important than some hypothetical (but 
unobtainable) "new stuff" could provide. Although we are about the Web, 
which clearly requires some fairly high level of techno stuff, the use of 
email, newsgroups and such on the internet is something we should be more 
tolerant of. A 386 with a modem running DOS is better than a slate with 
chalk. My travel budget for one F2F is (obscenely?) higher than most of the 
world's folks' annual income. All the kids in Abbysinian death camps might 
like to have the use of some of the stuff in those dumpsters, once they've 
gotten enough food to press the keys.

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Thursday, 19 October 2000 10:58:04 UTC