A Child's View of the OLPC

Finallyjoined!!! sends us a BBC account of a dad who traveled to Nigeria and brought back an XO laptop for his 9-year-old, Rufus. Here is Rufus's review, a child's view of OLPC. "Because it looks rather like a simple plastic toy, I had thought it might suffer the same fate as the radio-controlled dinosaur or the roller-skates he got last Christmas - enjoyed for a day or two, then ignored. Instead, it seems to provide enduring fascination... With no help from his Dad, he has learned far more about computers than he knew a couple of weeks ago, and the XO appears to be a more creative tool than the games consoles which occupy rather too much of his time."

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

America scams Nigeria!

Smart kid

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"With no help from his Dad, he has learned far more about computers than he knew a couple of weeks ago."

The kid has made such a fast advancement that he has already been offered a job by Chris Hansen.

Re:Something smells...and it aint my pants

[Mr. Underbridge]

Something smells...and it aint my pants

It's your pants. Totally.

Re:Already?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> I returned from Nigeria with a sample of the XO laptop

That's nothin'. I returned from Nigeria with my late uncle's ashes and 30% of his $20,000,000 estate.

419

[NoPantsJim]

"a BBC account of a dad who traveled to Nigeria and brought back an XO laptop"

So...did he scam a Nigerian?

Finally!!

[FireNWater]

All of those third world kids will finally get up off their butts and away from their Xbox 360's and Playstation 3's!!!!

Re:Smart kid

[Anonymous Coward]

The kid has made such a fast advancement that he has already been offered a job by Chris Hansen.

Better than being offered a 'job' by Michael Jackson.

Re:Different languages

[MPAB]

Marge: Lisa, you got a letter.
  Lisa: It's from my pen-pal Anya! [reads]
  Anya: [voice over] Dear Lisa, as I write this, I am very sad. Our
              president has been overthrown and
                [voice changes to that of a man]
              replaced by the benevolent general Krull. All hail Krull and his
              glorious new regime! Sincerely, Little Girl.

My kid made the honor role

[us7892]

So Rufus is using his laptop to write, paint, make music, explore the internet, and talk to children from other countries.

Sounds like Rufus is a lot smarter than your kid. Figuring out all this stuff on his own. Before you know it, he'll be like his Dad, buying goods off the black market.

Re:Kids and computer

[us7892]

Your 3-year old is advanced. My 3-year old always clicks the right mouse button and ends up with the "display properties" dialog window. Then he smears his fingers on the LCD.

Re:419

[technomom]

Dear Sirs,

The Central Bank of Nigeria is now in possession of 500 "One Laptop Per Child" that is earmarked for our schools. Unfortunately, our minister of education recently died in a tragic car accident. You have been named as his beneficiary and will be responsible for their distribution. As one of the benefits, you will be able to keep one for your own child. To release those laptops, we will need your credit card number and personal details concerning your children so that we may chat with him on our Jabber server.

Please respond to 1-888-OLP-CCON with your information.

Regards,
M'Bol Zarhari
Esteemeed Grand Puba, Central Bank of NIgeria.

Re:Interesting reading about the chat feature

[Anonymous Coward]

>I found int intriguing

Why yes, signed 32bit integer values can be very interesting from many points of view!

The miracle machine

[klubar]

The OLPC is just an amazing machine, not only is it able to connect with any Wi-Fi network (no matter how far away or how secured), instantly make your child a programming virtuoso, make them a math whiz it can also make them instantly fluent in any language. Merely possessing the machine enables them to read and speak the language of the person they're chatting with. Not even Apple is so insanely cool.

Re:Already?

[somersault]

Hahahahahaaa.. look at this country.. U R GAY!!!

[/obligatory Simpsons quote]

Re:How long will that one work?

[somersault]

Well, of course it reports all of your credit card details, fingerprints, blood type (those sharp corners aren't just due to low production costs you know!), and also all your thoughts using the built in brainwave scanner. Better not let your firstborn near it either, because they're programmed to fire out CDs to decapitate firstborns as a proper sacrifice (to help amortise costs).

I think I know your uncle!

[CarpetShark]

I returned from Nigeria with my late uncle's ashes and 30% of his $20,000,000 estate.

Please tell me your uncle is Bill Gates.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:How about the kids in Iraq? Any OLPCs there yet

[default luser]

South Africa, The Iraq, and the Asian countries still need a lot of help from our education over here before they're ready to get XOs and build up our future.

Actually, I think they just need more maps.

Re:Por fin... they can get ahead the EU & US

[feepness]

You should take a million of these laptops and drop them on Lima, Peru, and see what happens.

You would have millions of little laptop pieces scattered all over the place.

Let them eat laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them eat laptops.

Re:Already?

[elrous0]

You expected a Brit to go to Africa and NOT exploit the local population and natural resources?

Re:Conclusion: would be a great christmas present

[elrous0]

I've just dispatched a courier on an autogyro to the Belgium Congo to obtain me a gross of them in exchange for trinkets and cheap food. Merry Christmas!

Re:Kids and computer

[eln]

It's really not as bad as it sounds. The kid always tries to snipe, but he sucks at hiding so he usually gets pwnd pretty early. I've tried to teach him the finer points of camouflage, but the little bastard just keeps yelling about "fucking campers" and complaining that he keeps getting killed because his ping time sucks and he just won't listen. 3 year olds can be so stubborn sometimes.

Re:I think I know your uncle!

[encoderer]

uhh.. ok.

your uncle is bill gates.

Re:Kids and computer

[bannerman]

Are you kidding me? The poor innocent kid will be warped. Everyone knows Source is just a perversion of the true Counter Strike.