My view of the world

Intel just pulled out of the OLPC project.

It seems that the folks over at OLPC insisted that Intel quit making any other cheap laptops, including their Classmate, which is designed for similar purposes.
This is strange.
From what I’ve read, the Classmate is not really designed for the poorest of people. It appears to be aimed and people who can scrape together the cash and at school districts, and therefore would not be in direct competition.

If you recall the OLPC project was supposed to build $100 laptops for third world kids. This price it turns out, was based on governments ordering in lots of one million. –Unless you’re in a position to bribe the right people in a major way, this is not going to happen.

With no multi-million dollar order miraculously appearing, the end result is that the absolute best price on the machine is $188 US dollars.

As I have said before. This project is designed to keep dreamers happy and to keep Negroponte feeling good about himself.

What third world government is going to spend a hundred million dollars($100 x 1 million units) on poor people?
–Most such governments are too busy diverting aide aimed at social reform to the military and pocketing almost everything else.

Why would Intel step back from potential profit, after spending all that money on R&D?
–They strike me as a for profit corporation, not a charity.

Where’s mine?
I bought one through the buy one give one program. The shipping date seems to be a bit nebulous.

It’s strange that Asus, Intel and whoever else is building a small inexpensive laptop are willing to sell to almost anyone, but the OLPC is unwilling to sell them one or two at a time so they might be used in this country. —-Say by, under funded schools.
I guess poor Americans don’t have the same PR value that poor people in other places have.
Oh yeah, that’s right. You have to buy them in lots of one million to get a price break and they whine about smaller sales.

What kind of business model is this anyway?

This is the government’s statement from the web:
At midnight on February 17, 2009, all full-power television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100% digital broadcasting. Digital broadcasting promises to provide a clearer picture and more programming options and will free up airwaves for use by emergency responders.

As a result those of us who still use analog sets are going to have to replace them or buy converter boxes.

Our government in an act of unusual generosity is offering $40 coupons to be used towards the purchase of these converter box.
The website is: The TV Converter Box Coupon Program.
Via: NTIA, U.S. Department of Commerce, USA.gov.

This is the current list of qualifying converter boxes:
* DigitalSTREAM D2A1D10
* DigitalSTREAM D2A1D20
* Zenith DTT900
* Magnavox TB100MW9
* Philco TB150HH9
* MicroGEM MG2000
* Sansonic FT300RT
* MaxMedia MMDTVB03
* Apex DT1001
* ECHOSTAR TR-40
* AMTC AT-2016

Kinda makes ya wunder what politicians are makin’ the money this time don’t it?

I found this on the Atari Forum:

From: Azgarod

1) Uninstall all virtual drive creator programs (daemon, alohol120% etc.)
2)restart PC
3)uninstall SPTDdriver
Installation filles you can download from that page:
http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloa…st-v150-x86.exe
4)Then click start>run> than enter “regedit”
5) find and delete
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\
{E9F81423-211E-46B6-9AE0-38568BC5CF6F}
6)start>control panel>system>hardware>device manager>systemdevice>
then delete SCSI i RAIDcontroller and A347SCSI SCSI Controller (it’s not so important) and Plug & Play BIOS Extension
7)start>run> enter “regedit” and delete :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\a347scsi
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\a347bus
start>mycomputer>c:>windows>system32>drivers>
delete :
a347scsi.sys
a347bus.sys
9) restart pc
10) enjoy polish culture fantasy game - the best rpg ever
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some of these files were not present on my system, just follow the instructions to the letter and it should work. less than 10 min

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I followed the advice given above.

I defragged my drives. —-This is Important.
I uninstalled all the Alcohol120% and Deamon files, used regdoctor, and then manually cleaned all references in the registry. —-This is Extremely Important.
(I still have a couple of registry references to Alcohol that refuse to be deleted by any means.)
I didn’t have the SPDT drivers so I didn’t download the exe linked to in the post.
I patched the game to 1.2.

It’s alive…. It’s alive!!!!

Now to see how long before it crashes.
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Following this advice also cleared up a problem I was having with Windows and the unused secondary Ide on my Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard.