At 2:56 PM 2/18/96 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote:
At 06:13 AM 2/16/96 -0500, lmccarth@cs.umass.edu wrote:
I'd be interested to see the documentation of the number of peasants in the U.S. (or elsewhere) who have done anything like this. Documentation of the number of peasants who could manage the technical details would also be interesting.
Actually, it only takes a million or so out of the world population to make restrictions impossible. That will certainly be achievable. ...
My wife attended the World Women's Conference in Hai Rou, China (as staff supporting their Apple computers). She reports that the "killer application" demonstrated there was email. Women in extreemly poor countries of the world were interested in communicating with each other about solving local problems (e.g. Clean water supplies). The demand is there. These people are not stupid. They can learn. I expect to see the village email computer build on "obsolete" donated machines start to become a force in the next century, the same way the village TV and cassette player have played a role in the last decade. Regards - Bill