[Sugar-devel] The future of Sugar on XO-1s

[Adam Holt]

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 10:04 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:43 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Adam!
>>
>> On 1 April 2016 at 01:24, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>>
>>> In Haiti XO-1s will be dominant across many schools for years and year
>>> to come.  Similar to Tony's description, but these typically will be using
>>> 32GB SD cards -- thankfully these are incredibly affordable.
>>>
>>
>> What is the typical price the XO-1 units you are prepping for Haiti? Cost
>> of postage + 32Gb SD card + repair (volunteered labor?) + distribution to
>> Haiti?
>>
>
If I told you the "deployment" costs are close to Zero and all the real
costs reside in constructionism nurturing, you'd be forgiven for (1)
refusing to believe the truth and/or (2) nailing me to Seymour Papert /
Sugata Mitra's Cross ;)

So instead I will say that the masculine/military word "deployment"
demonstrates a completely upside-down, twisted, wrong-headed, and genuinely
catastrophic helicopter view of international community development -- both
inside schools and outside of schools.  As Nicholas Negroponte famously
said "training is for dogs" insisting the XO required no accompanying
training (ironic if indeed it's true as I'm told that Nicholas Negroponte
was promised free+unlimited education of his choosing til age 30 or so by
his wealthy family?)

And sad when Dogs I see in Boston here have far better nurturing (and much
higher budgets) than many of Haitian kids I was working with only weeks ago
-- we are great at training+unleashing dogs, but when we open our hearts to
training Haitian teachers and unleashing Haitian kids?

If Nicholas is Googling us, I encourage him to write us with his latest
ideas of unleashing Learning Machines beyond schools, when that noble idea
(academic nobility's idea, never let the data get in the way of a good
theory) of taking laptops home remains am uproarious fantasy, in the
countless poor schools I've visited, no matter how obsessed they are with
doing the right thing (Uruguay begin one of the only exceptions, where
societally-broad social cohesion was so strong, that many kids actually did
take XO's home for a while anyway...)

Don't get me wrong Negroponte is far from a ConstructioNazi, his
ConstructiVista views are far-reaching in fact, and his wealthy friends'
utopian feelings are the reason we are all here whether we admit it or not
-- with the luxury to even be able to talk about XO-1's astonishing
survival and ongoing trajectory!

Which brings us back to the mythology around "deployment" costs, condom
costs vs. wedding ring costs.  Whereas Mark Battley is his poetic
brilliance long ago suggested we ease the military-minded males away from
Flirt+Forget "deployments" towards Flirt+Courtship+OMG Marriage
"implementations", which is at least a step in the right direction.
Something even males understand, while wincing!  (The idea being that
certain marriages are "poorly implemented" being understandable to the most
antisocial of all...perhaps even better understood those further down the
autistic spectrum, who grew up with bad teachers and worse parents, all the
more aware of what they are missing...)

So Love (which fundamentally underlies all teaching/learning) is not a
victory march, and Love never will be.  But before I go completely LGBT on
the different nurturing skillsets required to nurture meaningful
constructionist communities (living, breathing "deployments" that actually
LEARN from themselves...let's save that for another day, as we have Plenty
;-)  Til then, just one little lesson we need to take more seriously during
our next decade:

*"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time, but if your
liberation is bound up with mine then let us walk together."*

Kudos Chris Leonard for bringing these very tough issues into the trenches
(indigenous languages being the ONLY way to bring literacy to the world's
youngest/poorest, so they later _can_ learn French/English/Spanish etc) and
especially those still fighting the good fight in the field every moment
that allows KishwerA - AnishM - TonyA - SebastianS - LauraV - TK - SoraE -
JanissaB - KevinG - RabiK - GermanR - JenniferM - NickD - IanT - GerriL -
Mike Lee...............and oh yeah Elaine Negroponte last but not least,
for humbly but consciously choosing to exit her ex-husband's infamous
helicopter which brought us all here, but taking this less-travelled but
far more conscientious path instead~


>>
>>> The resilience/repairability of the XO-1 laptops is the absolutely
>>> fascinating part. Regardless if historians of technology will look down
>>> their noses from the Rich West's / Rich East's de facto preference for
>>> one-upmanship (throwaway cute gadgets).  Or conversely if they will look
>>> back from Poor/Southern Nations' de facto environmentalism/repair
>>> principles -- purposefully appropriating and re-appropriating a
>>> technologies beyond their intended use.
>>>
>>
>> I think idea of the extra screws in the lids was a good one :)
>>
>
> Mary Lou Jepsen's idea.
>
>>
>>
>>> Generally if the mouse issue is solved on early XO-1 laptops (where
>>> early 2007/2008 touchpads were overly annoyingly erratic) then these
>>> laptops continue to long outlast their projected 5-year-lifespan -- if the
>>> culture of learning & electricity are real -- not just adding a USB mouse!
>>> I was one of several who did not believe in 2007 that a 5-year-lifespan was
>>> at all feasible.  But I turned out to be completely wrong.  And then some~
>>>
>>
> A layer of Scotch tape remedies the trackpad problem in many cases.
>
>>
>> Having played with an XO-1 more over the last weekend than I did when I
>> got one in 2008, I must say that I think the interaction with the XO in
>> eBook reader mode seems an interesting opportunity. A non-pointer based
>> computer could still have a lot of life in it.
>>
>> You later said,
>>
>> Repair of keyboards/ears and occasional screens is of course also an
>>> issue when usage is very physical among those who won't give kin(esth)etic
>>> learning a break, as every librarian for the last hundred years has known
>>> ;-)
>>>
>>
>> I also wonder what can be done with a XO-1 without ears, or without
>> keyboards :D
>>
>
> The keyboard is more robust than most think. In PY and NE kids repair them
> by putting paper over the buttons under the rubber membrane.
>
>>
>> The 5 year lifespan idea is interesting!
>>
>> Later in the thread Tony said,
>>
>> It will be difficult, but essential for the community to find people who
>>> are willing to take on the challenge of maintaining and, where possible,
>>> expanding the educational experience that the XO can offer.
>>
>>
>> Okay, sure, but for how many years does this make sense for XO-1s? I
>> think probably another 10. That is to say, the actual lifespan of the XO-1
>> product is not 5 years but 20, that we are now at year 10, and there's
>> another 10 years to go.
>>
>> I'm pretty happy with that as an answer to my original question: "sunset
>> planning" for Sugar on XO-1s means figuring out a plan for keeping all the
>> XO-1s out there useful for _something_ for another 10 years.
>>
>> This planning has to be done in the context is what is expected to happen
>> in the next 10 years. RMS has categorically given up on thinking about what
>> might be about to happen, and refuses to answer speculative questions about
>> the future publicly because it is a sure way to look foolish. But I don't
>> mind looking foolish, so I'll say that what I think is about to happen in
>> the next 10 years :)
>>
>> A lot of the people in the global south are going to get access to cheap
>> solar electricity, cheap Android computing devices, and some degree of
>> cheap network connectivity.
>>
>
> Not until the XO-4 is the power footprint really that we were initially
> targeting.
>
>>
>> I think this will happen because, as the rate of profit continues to
>> fall, then, to try to survive, all state capitals will seek to create the
>> kind of pervasive mass surveillance now enjoyed by the richer states; and
>> whereas the larger asian states have rejected support from western
>> big-capitalist mass advertisers (great firewall blocks in China for a
>> while, zero rate stuff recently in India) the poorer states will welcome
>> them (or their eastern counterparts.) Anyway, my point is not to rabbit
>> hole on historical materialist futurology :)
>>
>> What about the other XO models? I expect they also have a 20 year useful
>> life. When were the last big purchases of XO-4s?
>>
>
> We don't have these data, but for the most part, the design details didn't
> change regarding robustness and a number of improvements were made.
>
>>
>> Are Peru and Uruguay still buying XO-4s for each year's new school
>> pupils? Given what I can peek at from relatively recent videos of schools
>> in those countries, it seems they are not.
>>
>
> My last conversation (6 months ago) with Ceibal suggested that they were
> replacing XOs with other hardware.
>
>>
>> So, another prediction from me that is probably wrong: OLPC will not
>> produce another hardware design.
>>
>
> There were rumors circulating, but I have no knowledge one way or another.
>
>>
>> Does anyone know why the "XO Infinity" became the "Infinity"?
>>
>
> Marketing.
>
> The "Inifnity" machine is being developed by OLPC AU, not OLPC
> Association. No continuity between designs or design teams, so it is a
> complete unknown. Its "modular" design makes me suspicious since modular
> generally means more connectors, which are points of failure. But there are
> no data.
>
>>
>> As usual the real challenges are far more social than technical:
>>> deliberate right-sizing of content/activity planning for the community in
>>> question (we are building a more content-rich version of HaitiOS from Sugar
>>> 0.108 and OLPC OS 13.2.7) while aligning peer-mentoring with
>>> adult-mentoring, and of course pressure from national testing around Grade
>>> 6-or-so in almost every country.  These mammoths-in-the-room epic
>>> challenges keep eternally popping up for a reason (and sometimes even
>>> getting answered!!) Human Patterns across most all developing world
>>> communities, on all continents.
>>>
>>
>> I see no problem with national testing. If kids are well educated, they
>> can pass such tests without much preparation :)
>>
>
> If only it were that simple.
>
>>
>> PS Dave, read through http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Reuse_checklist if you
>>> want to do a time-lapse overhaul refurb like http://youtu.be/daVDrGsaDME
>>>
>>
>> Great video :) I'll focus on software for now, but this kind of checklist
>> is awesome :D
>>
>>
>>> -- we even got the security guards involved in helping us out in such
>>> physical repair/upgrades in a restaurant in Haiti less than 2 week ago --
>>> works far better than Miss/Mister Universe posters I guarantee it :}
>>>
>>
>> :D
>>
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>>
>>
> -walter
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>
> --
> <http://www.sugarlabs.org>
> <http://www.sugarlabs.org>
> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ <http://www.sugarlabs.org>
> http://unleashkids.org !
>
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