🚀 go-pugleaf

Ah, Gordon, I wish I'd realized you put this on the net, and not just email, as
I only emialed my reply (I read mail first). I didn't bother to file my reply,
so how about you posting it here for me, just to be fair?

And next time, please don't Cc: to my mailbox. I get 20-odd pieces of mail a 
day, and I don't need to read it twice.

Suze
trifid@agora.rain.com

In <1591@ucl-cs.uucp> G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:

>What I may be trying to say is that you may be able to put up a solar
>cell, with a $50 (that food for ~100 days in some areas) terminal and
>a modem, to push data down a telehone line "reliable for 3 hours a
>day", but where are you are going to buy or exchange or cannibilise
>spare parts for any part of the equipment that breaks down?

What you are actually saying is a lot of trash, viz don't let
anyone start because it is conceivable that something might
possibly go wrong with their equipment and this could not get
fixed.

You have not the slightest idea of what can be done with a "mirrors
and string" approach, and this represents a very disappointing
but not atypical attitude from someone in a high-tech country. If
you encourage something to get off the ground, you'd end up surprised
at what results could be achieved, if you kill it because the sky
might fall on your head, you get nowhere.

Mike
--
Mike Lawrie
Director Computing Services, Rhodes University, South Africa
.....................<ccml@hippo.ru.ac.za>..........................
Rhodes University condemns racism and racial segregation 

Indeed. As I replied in email to Mr Joly (when I thought his article was a
private letter), somehow Africans managed to get Jeeps, and parts, and fuel, 
etc., when they realized how useful they were. As soon as they realize how
useful this is, they will find a way.

Besides, in a world whrere barter is still commonplace, and women do much of the
work *we* think of as "man's work", the concept of $100 is nothing like it is in
a culture where money is the *only* medium of exchange....

As an aside:
My favorite SysOp started her BBS five years ago on a Commodore-64. She was a

mere data-entry clerk, with NO technical experience. Since then she has  
expanded her board into one of the most popular in our 1 million-person metro
area, and learned how to build computers out of spare and used and re-condition-
ed parts (because she still can't afford a NEW one the size she needs). Last
weekend she installed a second hard-drive with a little help from a user, to
handle the expected traffic she will be getting as a Fidonet node.

She offers all this service absolutely free...(although we have all chipped in
money, spares, or barter when a modem  has "died" or some such minor disaster).
She does it because she enjoys knowing all of us, and doing something useful
for others. She also arranges two or three local parties a year so we can meet
each other if we wish. One of her users is blind, by the way. I'm sure lots of
people told the blind user she couldn't do this either...

My friend isn't a technician, a businessman, an academic, or a student. She 
isn't even slightly rich (by US or European standards) in fact, she may have to
move because her landlady is raising her rent. According to a lot of you, she
can't exist...

Yet I'm sure there are people of roughly analogous character all over, as long
as no one tells them what they're doing is "impossible" they'll just do it...
as soon as they see a motivation that makes sense in *their* context.

Suze
trifid@agora.rain.com