<div dir="ltr">This whole "why would you need a USB in mongolia?" conversation shows how out of touch some people on this list are with the people the project is trying to reach. <br><br>People live miles and miles away from one another (in Mongolia), and it is entirely normal to travel to your friends yurt or yer or house with a horse and want to plug in your USB stick -- especially if your mesh isn't connecting due to the distance and you don't have internet because a) no one in your family has a computer b) your house keeps moving around c) it'd be too costly.<br>
<br>Also, assuming people want to be able transfer files/objects/things between mac, *nix, windows etc and assuming the lack of a reliable network it makes perfect sense. Even if all the computers you want to do transfers between have wifi, you can't expect a kid to set it up / get the mesh working / get homenetworking working... it is just easier to use a USB stick.<br>
<br>Case: I am a teacher, I wrote some things on my old second hand desktop PC at home. I don't have internet at home, because I don't get paid enough as a teacher and my house doesn't have landlines and wimax isn't there yet. I want to give my students this thing I wrote, next morning in class so they can follow my lecture etc. more clearly or go do reading at home.<br>
<br>Hence, student, or teacher, I need a USB stick.<br><br>Deniz<br><br>p.s. Mikus I hope this helps with your question: "I'm trying to think of why a kid would want to save files to a USB key." and provides a counterpoint to:<br>
<br>"I think that "objects" (e.g., 'files') ought to be transported between systems via network connections, rather than via USB "sneakernet"."<br><br>What do you do in Mongolia when people move around after herds, half the houses in the capital are yurts/yers, and there are no reliable network connections? Your "ought" is simply not possible.<br>
<br>p.p.s Marco, you're a stuck-up asshole :)<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:21 PM, Bastien <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bastienguerry@googlemail.com">bastienguerry@googlemail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="Ih2E3d">Mikus Grinbergs <<a href="mailto:mikus@bga.com">mikus@bga.com</a>> writes:<br>
<br>
>> Tagging isn't as much of an issue as being able to save files<br>
>> to a USB key easily.<br>
><br>
> I'm trying to think of why a kid would want to save files to a USB<br>
> key. Normally, except for off-loading objects to a school<br>
> repository (a process about which I know nothing), 'files' would be<br>
> kept at the XO itself, and not on removable storage devices.<br>
<br>
</div>Maybe we should not only think in terms of purposes, but also in terms<br>
of causes: what makes children want to save files to USB stick?<br>
<br>
What I've seen is that children wants to save to a USB stick because<br>
they are told so by teachers, and teachers wants to save to a USB stick<br>
because they often lost files and are afraid of losing more...<br>
<br>
(I've not seen a school server in action, so I cannot discuss whether<br>
saving to a USB looks safer for teachers/children than saving to a USB<br>
stick.)<br>
<br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888">Bastien<br>
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