Today you can read from the NYT how people are buying iPads. I have a few thoughts I want to share with you here.
When I was in my twenties I refused to use computers to solve mathematical problems because I thought one lost control of the problem. Even if a solution was found with a machine, one wouldn't learn important lessons.
Now I think that position was wrong. Yes, one could walk to the Himalayas and gain wisdom, but give me a break, it is OK to use tools. Humans have been using tools since the beginning of time. After forty years these devices are all over the place, the only way they will disappear is if we experience a collapse of civilization. Even with the recent demolition of houses in Detroit, indicating some kind of collapse, there is hope that something will grow in those plots in Michigan. People die, but humanity keeps on trucking.
Now I want, that more poor children around the world can put their little fingers around any toy we can give them. Time and time again we have demonstrated our ability to appropriate our tools and grow to the potential we are capable of. Professor Nicholas Negroponte started a crusade several years ago, to put in the hands of all children of the world a one hundred dollar gizmo that allowed them to program computers. The iPad is not there yet, it is five times more expensive than Negroponte's goal; but you know how prices go. Today we are one step closer to the professor's dream.
Science for the People; good work Steve Jobs!
p.d. Steve Wozniak already has his toy.
When I was in my twenties I refused to use computers to solve mathematical problems because I thought one lost control of the problem. Even if a solution was found with a machine, one wouldn't learn important lessons.
Now I think that position was wrong. Yes, one could walk to the Himalayas and gain wisdom, but give me a break, it is OK to use tools. Humans have been using tools since the beginning of time. After forty years these devices are all over the place, the only way they will disappear is if we experience a collapse of civilization. Even with the recent demolition of houses in Detroit, indicating some kind of collapse, there is hope that something will grow in those plots in Michigan. People die, but humanity keeps on trucking.
Now I want, that more poor children around the world can put their little fingers around any toy we can give them. Time and time again we have demonstrated our ability to appropriate our tools and grow to the potential we are capable of. Professor Nicholas Negroponte started a crusade several years ago, to put in the hands of all children of the world a one hundred dollar gizmo that allowed them to program computers. The iPad is not there yet, it is five times more expensive than Negroponte's goal; but you know how prices go. Today we are one step closer to the professor's dream.
Science for the People; good work Steve Jobs!
p.d. Steve Wozniak already has his toy.
