On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Jeroen Hellingman (Mailing List Account) wrote:

Michael,

In five years time, I've seen telephone coverage in my wife's home island in the Philippines raise from almost nothing (the nearest phone was a six kilometer walk from her home; at the beach you had to give them one day notice if you wanted to pay by creditcard, such that an employ could go to town to phone the CC company) to a much higher level -- everybody seems to be carrying cell phones now, and the entire province is dotted with telephone poles.

So, what you are telling me is that the Philippines has moved from the half of the world without telephone service to the half that now has phone service. Right? Still, half the people in the world still have the kind of phone service you describe as being there 5 years ago, or worse. . . . I would have to guess that half the people in the world did not use a phone at all in the last year.

You can have pre-paid cards starting as low as 35 cents, and you can actually send even smaller amounts of load by text message. I single text message is 2 cents, and far more popular than actual phone calls, that are very expensive at 15 cents a minute.

However, you can probably get more communication done in that minute than in one text message and four replies, unless they let you send huge emails like some we've just been through.

I've taken up an item on the 100 dollar laptop on my website, http://www.bohol.ph/, but $100 is more than a month income for most families in Bohol.

Yes, I just mentioned something similar in a separate note, we will probably have to pay for those $100 laptops and give away so many of them that they become so ubiquitous that people don't steal them. Michael PS

On the other hand, sending refurbished computers from here to schools in the Philippines is more expensive -- I send about 10, with mixed success. Some schools didn't have light fixtures, so could only use them at day time. ..., and ants get everywhere...

Sory, I must have missed something, couldn't you use computers just from the light from the monitors?

Jeroen.

Michael Hart wrote:

...

Let's not forget that 50% of the world doesn't even have phone service if any kind at all, much less narrow or broadband Intneret.

I'm still targeting the world from the bottom up, much like the $100 laptop that we all hope for, inexpensive cellphone service, etc.

On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Jeroen Hellingman (Mailing List Account) wrote:

Michael Hart wrote:

...

So, what you are telling me is that the Philippines has moved from the half of the world without telephone service to the half that now has phone service.

Not exactly, as I don't have the figures. Just saying that phone coverage has come within reach of many more people, and has done so very quickly, and I believe the same trend is true in many countries. Cellphones are booming business all over Africa as well. Your 50% may, hopefully soon be history.

Yes, I received an email from a cellphone user who was in the middle of the Serengeti Plain I may have mentioned earlier, who used PG eBooks on that phone, but I would still have to say that most Africans have never made a phone call. I was HOPING the 50% thing might have changed by now, but the latest figures still show half the world would have to go out of their way to make a phone call, sadly to say.

...

...

You can have pre-paid cards starting as low as 35 cents, and you can actually send even smaller amounts of load by text message. I single text message is 2 cents, and far more popular than actual phone calls, that are very expensive at 15 cents a minute.

However, you can probably get more communication done in that minute than in one text message and four replies, unless they let you send huge emails like some we've just been through.

Well, you and I can agree on that, but scarcity of money sometimes leads to uneconomical decisions. As anybody who has been in a developping country can tell by the tiny sachets of shampoo, soap, and other care products on sale in every corner. Never ask what they cost by the liter. In the mean time, the Filipinos send on average 1.5 message per day; that is over 100 million messages.

Yes, I see a similar smallness of toothpaste tubes in Eastern Europe when I go there, so I always pack a few family size tubes when I go, same with soap, and everything else. . .but food is not expensive, as they have to have food. "Neveer ask what they cost by the liter". . .cute, I'll save that one!

...

Yes, I just mentioned something similar in a separate note, we will probably have to pay for those $100 laptops and give away so many of them that they become so ubiquitous that people don't steal them.

Well, just like cell phones, such gadgets will remain a target for thieves. Personalize them, give them unique numbers that cannot be changed, and let them advertise where they are when switched on via WiFi, and you could fairly easy trace them back, just like cell-phones, if producers and providers would cooperate.

Of couse, even if you traced them down, they might not give them back easily. "This food belongs to" [local warlord's name]. . .as seen on various reports from sites where the UN, etc., dropped food for famine.

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Sorry, I must have missed something, couldn't you use computers just from the light from the monitors?

Ever tried to find the on switch in pitch dark?

Never had any trouble doing that. . .harder to find the stranger keys, even in the light from the monitor. I used to work all night sometimes when others were sleeping.

I love my wife's village in the middle of nowhere, as there is no light whatsoever to veil the stars.

At least you can SEE the stars! Light pollution is SO rampant even in my podunk location that you can't see much of anything except on the clearest nights, except perhaps the dozen or two brightest objects. I can remember standing out in this same street right here and watching Sputniks, Explorer, etc., go overhead, but I couldn't do that now. I even saw Sputnik III come down, and I wasn't even looking for it, just happened to be out. It's a different world now. . .I can only see the Big Dipper on the clearest nights, and Cassiopiea isn't recognizable.

Jeroen.

Michael

Walter van Holst wrote:

Oh, and by the way, she is in need of affordable science and math textbooks for teaching purposes. Having Shakespeare is all nice and dandy, but literature is not the foremost education priority over there. Last time I checked there weren't any available through Gutenberg at the pretty basic level they are needed.

Regards,

Walter

You might want to look at http://textbookrevolution.org/