Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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No football on Parabole Maurice!

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Bloody hell!

 

I can’t watch Liverpool vs Chelsea right now because G-Sport 1, the channel on Parabole Maurice which was supposed to show this match, has stopped broadcasting because Gateway Broadcast Services, the company behind that channel, has been put in liquidation since yesterday presumably because of “the current financial and global crisis.”

Of course, Parabole Maurice  has forgotten to announce this to its paying customers.

I hope that they fiind a solution to this or else bye-bye…

Holy crap!

Empowering poor people with Linux

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In today’s issue of Samedi Plus, one tiny article caught one of my eyes:

E-Inclusion Foundation: aubaine ou piège?

Le ministère de l’informatique a récemment mis sur pied un programme intitulé “E-Inclusion Foundation”. Destiné aux familles pauvres, il s’agit d’un programme de distribution d’ordinateurs “refurbished” qui ne sont plus utilisés par des pays développés.

Certains, pourtant, se demandent si une personne “computer illiterate” ne se retrouvera pris dans un engrenage négatif, dans le sens qu’il apprendra à travers des méthodes dépassées, qui ne sont plus utilisées dans le domaine de l’informatique.

I agree. But not because the computer is old as hinted.

 

The reason why I think this is not a good idea is that the computer is not important anymore. What is essential now is an Internet connection.

I wonder how many of those computer illiterates buying refurbished computers are rich enough to afford paying for a monthly ADSL subscription (please don’t mention 56k…)? Does it make sense to have a PC if you do not have an Internet connection? No! We’re in 2009 and everything interesting and valuable is online now.

One possibility

In a certain way, I prefer the Net PC from Mauritius Telecom. It’s available at Rs 4300 with a monthly subscription of Rs 490. Thirty hours of broadband Internet connection are available monthly (and this is much better than nothing.) Unfortunately, it comes with Windows, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader only. Bloody hell! As if the whole idea is to create a bunch of secretaries!

 

What would be perfect is something like the Net PC but powered by Linux with an enormous collection of open source software preinstalled (including internet, office and multimedia software and compilers/interpreters.) I believe that solution would be close to perfect and will empower poor people much more than giving them old computers with no Internet connection or a Net PC with secretarial software only.

If only I was the current Minister of Information and Communication Technology…

A new generation of politicians

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Today is an historic day: George W. Bush will vacate the capitol. Phew. How could someone with an IQ of 91* rule the world is one of the most profound questions I’ve asked myself in my whole life. And the only reason I can think of is that he cheated (or, more probably, someone cheated for him.) During his term, he started two wars killing thousands of innocent civilians and wrecked the economy of the whole planet (and he invented a lot of words.)

 

Of course, today is historic for another reason too: Barack Obama will become President of the United States of America in exactly 3 hours and 13 minutes. And I have big hopes that he will inspire countless of young, intelligent and honest people to get into politics. And the old, stupid and dishonest will have to leave. My country, Mauritius, needs that… urgently.

* this is an urban legend.