I'm from Argentina, and I can say that even though giving computers to students that didn't have access to one at home is an excellent thing to do, the sad truth is that many times cases like this are rare exceptions. Often the teachers and students public schools aren't taught how to incorporate these computers into their learning. Maybe they want to, but the lack of connectivity in many areas leaves students unable to partake in virtual classrooms, which is especially worrying considering that this group of students effectively couldn't receive an education for the better almost a whole year (at least).
You can't expect to miraculously boost a kid's education by giving them a computer when they don't have internet connectivity at home, and missed a whole year of school due to covid. Many families can't afford to pay a monthly fee to an ISP.
I still believe that this will be beneficial for many, nowadays having a computer opens up a lot of opportunities, but it can't replace a quality education, and magically fix a flawed education system.
The silly thing about the whole "no internet so can't distance learn" is that people have been doing correspondence schooling long before the internet was popular. The homeschooling community in the US has quite a few tools even for very hands-off parents and Australia has been doing it over the radio/mail for a long time.
Blaming poor internet availability is just an excuse for failing to look at what's out there and adapt.
My grandfather earned his college degree via mail order around 1900, and liked the idea so much he spent the rest of his career as a salesman for college correspondence courses. He met my grandmother via selling her engineering courses. (I always laugh when people tell me women couldn't be engineers in those days.)
He started his career as a coaler on a steamship, probably one of the worst jobs at the time. Correspondence courses were a way up for people who could not afford attending college.
I’ve always wondered though, online learning today catches a lot of shit. I’ve heard from certain people (most notably tradition engineers) that they would never take seriously someone who got a degree online, even if it were ABET accredited.
Did correspondence courses come with the same sort of negative stigma in their time?
I completely agree. That's why I mainly blamed the education system. I never said these computers are a bad idea. But if they don't properly implement any of this technology, the number of students that benefit from this are smaller. There's always the ones that discover new and interesting things on their own, and maybe even make a carrier out of them, like the music production examples given here, programming, digital art, etc...
This could have been implemented in a better way. That's all I'm saying. It's still good that there students are getting access to computers at home. Even if 25% of them can take advantage of this, that's still a huge number of people.
this kind of thing unfortunately is an old issue, people think they can just dump computers (or musical instruments as another example) on students and it will be enough
as usual, its the hard work to set up the infrastructure, courses, support etc for the students and teachers that is needed and almost never gets done
as they say, the music isnt in the piano, same with computers
> people think they can just dump computers (or musical instruments as another example) on students and it will be enough
It was for many of us, at least in some ways. In the 80's when we got an Amiga 500 our parents had no idea what to do with it, it was up to us to learn and read the books it came with. That meant a lot of games but it also came with plenty of creativity software from music programs to basic. The same was true with music, we had a keyboard in the house and some kid friendly music sheets so I was playing regularly from about the time I could reach the keys. I can only imagine how much joy I would have had from a rasberry pi beginner kit.
You can't dump computers/instruments on kids and expect a full general education, but you can expect the curious ones to pick things up and learn if they have access.
I think like any new technology, there will be an extremely limited number of early-adopters, who figure things out, and then through social-osmosis, help others. It's not until at least the second generation that things really start to pick up. I suspect, had tablets and smart phones not really taken off in the last 5 years (which is a global miracle that should be further examined, although the devices are locked down pretty hard) this netbook program would probably have been all the more impressive. It's hard to look at a 7 year old, dumpy netbook and think it was a good idea, but at the time this was lightyears ahead of what was available to the general public, and put computers in a lot of families hands, that might not otherwise, have used one.
I had both a computer and a piano “dumped on me”. I learnt the computer by reading the book that came with it, going to the library to get more books and occasional buying a magazine.
The piano I started off with by trying to play along to TV theme tunes and songs i heard on the radio, then I started making my own music up. That was 40 years ago and I still make music just about every week if not everyday.
Does IPFS do a good job of intermittently-online mostly-offline nodes with potentially non-linear updates?
Been spitballing the same concepts but with mobile phones (on a person or stashed on aircraft doing their weekly freight/mail run) where unused space is the bandwidth. Can move hundreds of gbs at zero cost but meh latency, as you’re imagining.
Not by default. You need to figure out how to connect to the network, which works great if you know how to reach other nodes - but in the small cell scenario? I don't believe they have a reliable local network discovery.
In my experience, IPFS doesn't even do a good job of fully-online updates. Maybe my setup was bad, but I couldn't get it to reliably and quickly discover content on other nodes that were definitely online.
I would say lack of home internet could even be an advantage. Because the moment new demographics go online en masse, big internet corporations start salivating.
Without home internet no distractions, no dopamine hijacks, no content control issues, most importantly no imperative for parents to gain technological familiarity if they want to protect their kids. Kids could simply use school internet for research, download the relevant content, do the deep dive at home like they would do with any book from a library.
In addition to what the other responder said (the Amish generally have some tech stashed away for use when necessary), a part of being Amish is being part of a community of other Amish people. Just like in a Orthodox Jewish community you will see Sabbath mode elevators on Saturday, Amish communities have access to services that bridge the internet and their moral code. There are services that will print stuff from the internet and have it sent to you, or an outsider accountant that manage your internet-accessible financial services. They are not really cutting the internet or its consequences from their life but rather in some cases cutting out their direct interaction with the internet.
In Europe, more and more banks have been slashing opening hours and the number of clerks at physical locations, or even closing locations outright, because customers are expected to do nearly everything through online banking. Many forms of interaction with the state require using their online portal, and even if you visit the government office, they may just show you how to do what you need through the online portal instead of helping you directly. Programs to assist people who do not have a phone and internet, now focus on giving those people a phone and internet; there simply isn’t willingness to make technology optional for that tiny demographic that eschews internet use.
Yes, the Amish have managed in the USA so far, but I think that even those days are numbered. Just as many Amish already own mobile phones, though they limit their use and keep them stashed away most of the time, they will be forced to do online things, too.
Much like the Amish will probably have a community mobile phone rather than a personal one a good middle ground for the rest of us could be public libraries. Government services and banking typically don't need frequent access so you don't need a personal internet connection just for them.
I'm ashamed to admit I didn't think of this earlier recently when I needed some printing/scanning done. I went and bought a cheap hp cloud printing (they don't even come with cables anymore) abomination. After trying to get that to work, screwing around with HP accounts, configuring a cloud printer from a linux desktop, installing an app on my phone, etc I ended up going to the local library and got it all done in 30 minutes It was cheaper, easier and better option for something I need to do a few times a year.
The problem with recommending public libraries is that government and banking services may require specifically a mobile app on one’s phone, not a website that can be used from any library computer.
>Programs to assist people who do not have a phone and internet, now focus on giving those people a phone and internet
This is smart though, since it costs very little to give someone a smartphone with internet these days (ALDI talk in Germany is 8€ a month with a bit of data, a cheap smartphone maybe 100€).
Trying to keep up a service that <0.1% of the population uses costs a lot more.
Having grown up here I think a lot of people would freak out if you had to use computers for services. The town I grew up in doesn't even let you pay taxes online in 2021.
I saw some article suggesting that actual computer savviness is on the decline among people under 18 as well due to the growth of iPads and phones as the primary compute platform for the younger generations.
The idea behind OLPC was in fact that students would be able to gain a lot of insights on their own just by being in contact with their own computer… it was never a requirement that they had to be used effectively in the classroom.
I’m from Argentina and saw kids using their computers while sitting in front of a house, hanging (like kids do) and thought that was beautiful. Also saw a girl using hers in the park while her father pushed her little sister in the swing. Those kind of images are inspiring and it’s a shame the program was cut.
Did you read the full article? They've already restarted the program.
> Conectar Igualdad was supposed to end definitively in 2018, but the next year saw a new government come to power. The netbook program has since experienced a rebirth as a part of a bigger project. “Last year, we released the Juana Manso Federal Plan,” said Marés Serra, the general manager at Educ.ar. “And even though we do not have enough funds to cover every grade for now, we have returned to the model where the student owns the computer.”
The lack of internet is a huge problem still, especially considering they call them netbook.
The "one laptop per child" program put some thought into the connectivity problem. They actually designed their machines around the idea of distributing content via meshing and intermittent "sneakernet" deliveries.
Sadly, the price/performance wasn't quite there in the mid-2000s, but it seemed like they had some good ideas:
> The "one laptop per child" program put some thought into the connectivity problem.
OLPC was also ruggedised, had replaceable parts and had things like crank charging for areas with no/little power, it was a well thought out machine all around. Even in developed countries there are many that can't afford the internet, electricity and repairs required so it's a shame to see schools go with regular lapotops or even worse, premium tablets. One of my nephews had an optional programming class that required an Ipad, it's the worst option in just about every way.
> OLPC was also ruggedised, had replaceable parts and had things like crank charging for areas with no/little power, it was a well thought out machine all around
Both were ideas which even basic calculations tell you aren't viable.
In addition, your other claims like "ruggedised", "replaceable parts" contradict what I saw with OLPC XO. I would say the product was a one-off that had almost no consideration for long term reuse. Things like the wifi bunny ears prove that the product was driven more by marketing tacticians rather than reality and cost. Honestly, my opinion is that OLPC was a huge scam to take money from unwitting unsophisticated developing country funders who didn't know any better and waste it in swanky offices in One Cambridge. It was one of the worst options about how to expend public funds.
Even today parents' groups focus on getting computer hardware into schools, without regard for educational software. They end up being a 2021-version typewriter class.
Apparently 600,000 OLPCs were distributed - I'm curious about any educational results, beyond e-waste.
At the moment though this would be way easier with a plethora of ARM boards that are both low cost and powerful. Also with star link there would be a way to solve spotty internet access in remote areas. What is needed I suppose is a way to integrate this with preexisting organisations in the area.
I was working a project where the BOM was to be at most 50 bucks. It is kind of difficult to hit that number. Ironically while the board was cheap it was all the additions to make it a full computer that ended up ruining the idea. That was even before we add in any profit margin. Add in a screen, keyboard, mouse, power supply, and so on. It adds up quickly. What was a 15-20 dollar computer is now 70-80 or more plus paying someone to put it together.
Could it be kept fairly close to $50 if it was simply a "box" with a few relatively high speed USB ports and an HDMI connector?
I know this wouldn't be a "laptop", but with a cheap-ish monitor, keyboard and mouse... it's a small PC. Perhaps with a slightly older CPU which doesn't need super fast RAM, there could be... 2Gb of RAM or more?
Of course the newer RaspberryPi boards are pretty close (and in terms of RAM, even better) to this....
Oh we got 'close'. But the issue was it felt like 'oh yeah we need X' that X would be 2-3 more dollars, and so on. Really at this point the board is the 'meh' part of it. When you are at this price point. Something like an extra USB port becomes a larger portion of the bill. Also at this price point something odd happens. Your support costs also grow much faster. As you will attract more people to the platform at a lower cost. So your margin is not there. Also when you build 1 or 2 you can do that in an afternoon. But when you want 10k of them it becomes a bigger issue of simple things like 'how do I get these into the cardboard boxes', or 'where do I source 10k power cables that are not garbage'.
I'm from Argentina as well and I believe this attitude is exactly what's wrong when people critiqued this program.
Yes, we _know_ it's not going to fix a flawed education system. There's not a person in this entire country who has ever believed otherwise, and using it as a critique of the program has been nothing but a strawman.
We live a in a world where everything is done online. If the only objective this achieved is that kids are now familiar with a computer without having learned anything else, it's still fantastically successful. They know how to load a spreadsheet. They know basic UI paradigms that allow them to navigate crappy government or banking web pages. They come of age using social networks that they will be able to leverage for work and productive connections in the future.
The issue of connectivity is related but ultimately a distraction too, as a single poor wi-fi or 3G connection is still good for watching low-quality Youtube videos or reading tutorials.
It's a middle-of-the-road country with inadequate distribution of services. The resources devoted to this program can't be put to infrastructure. And imperfectly devised program where teachers can't use computers doesn't change the fact that computers are so damn useful that you don't depend on a teacher to learn how to use it, especially with naturally resourceful children.
I'm also from Argentina, and about 6 years ago I worked in a public school.
I think giving computers to children is good only if the quality of education they receive is good. I saw many children using their government-given computers to play GTA san andreas and Counter Strike while they were in the middle of a class, and the teachers didn't do anything about it because the government forbids them to take reasonable disciplinary measures (A teacher wants a child to pay attention during a class? Good luck, there's not much he/she can do) and also the goverments forces the teachers to make everyone pass every exam because "it is stigmatizing" for the children to get a bad mark on a test.
What I comment sounds absurd, but I have no reason to lie about it.
So, even if I consider it can be benefical to give computers to students in some conditions, in Argentina it's not well implemented.
> I think giving computers to children is good only if the quality of education they receive is good.
This is 100% false.
A computer allows them to watch YouTube and see tutorials on everything they may want to learn. It _forces_ them to learn to how read and read quickly to digest all the information they get on social networks. It allows them to know that there are such things as spreadsheets and document editors.
This is so much more important than many classes that it can't be understated how critical this is. If these children instead had to go to private computer literacy classes when they turn 21 because they need to write a CV or access a government website, they will have wasted away a ton of potential.
All the children mentioned in the article did not have a good education, but they had a tool that enabled them to make do without it.
Yes, I agree, there are many advantages. Still I saw various high school level children who were able to get a torrent and launch GTA San Andreas in their computers, but at the same time they were unable to read in a fluent way and of comprehending texts.
I mean, autonomous children, and children with certain interests can learn a lot just by having a computers, while others won't learn much. But still, the exposure to a computer is helfpul for all of them.
I was too extreme in what I expressed. Both having computers and good education are positives.
Sure, but it's worth wasting 99 laptops if even we manage to enable one child to get a better education, and that's even before considering that the other 99 laptops are probably not going to be wasted either.
Yes, and the way you do that is by increasing their chances of being able to integrate productively into the rest of the economy. How do you think a person who knows how to send emails and open Google Docs stacks up against a person who doesn't?
I understand your point and share it. Still, I believe you have no idea about what happens in Argentina's educational system. I share what a teacher explains about her experience in Argentina's schools. It's in spanish, but I believe that twitter has a translate function. The thread starts here https://twitter.com/sonripink/status/1407088057778647053
> the sad truth is that many times cases like this are rare exceptions.
Well, giving a computer to someone doesn't turn them into a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs just because they own it. Depends on the attitude of whom receive it.
You could say that most of the people will use it for fun and you entertainment.
On the other side there are people who will use to uplift themselves and that's something that has to be appreciated.
The truth is that these young man, without a computer wouldn't be in this situation today. So even if is an exception is still good to see that.
> giving a computer to someone doesn't turn them into a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs just because they own it.
The point isn't to make every one of these kids a Bill Gates, it's to prevent the Bill Gates among them from living a life of poverty because they couldn't get a computer early enough.
That's your point, my point is the one of the comment.
And I guess the government didn't give the PC to everyone because "oh we need to stop our Bill Gates to run out of the country". But rather, their interest was to give equal opportunity to those in need.
>Well, giving a computer to someone doesn't turn them into a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs just because they own it.
I read this comment, I read the article and can't stop thinking what if Zuck were among these kids them maybe we could admire him as a musical talent like L-GANTE (link from the article)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SacHyFb_j1o
Well I learned to program and how UNIX systems worked from having a computer and a library. Today you wouldn't really need the library if you have an internet connection.
What's the point? Indeed that's your attitude and is ok.
At my age when I was in school the whole class had a computer (like 25 of us). Today of that class only 3 work using computer everyday.
The second part of my comment explain that if you've the right attitude and interest then a computer can help you, if you don't is just another tool like your fridge
That their family would use it for daily needs instead of a computer.
Poor people can't think in long terms as they're struggling with their daily needs thus it makes sense for them to solve these rather than think what if my kid would turn into a rich man thanks to it.
It was a good program that felt like it was made for one part of the country without thinking of the rest.
I've heard stories of people in Jujuy receiving a computer that didn't have electricity at their house
The amount of people who don't have access to electricity in Argentina is minuscule compared to the total number of children who are aided by computer literacy. This is just nitpicky.
You are entirely right, even to the last point, but I think the first half of it needs some more support.
The truth is that most of the average or privileged people in the developed and developing world won't do anything extraordinary with their computers either.
If giving at least one tool to the disadvantaged, that others can pretty much take for granted, allows the few among them that would pursue their talents with it is already a step up from the status quo.
They absolutely will. And I'm sure many kids, when introduced to computers took full advantage of them. Learning new skills and being able to integrate themselves better into this digitally dependent world. These cases more than make up for the ones that only used their machines to play CS 1.6
The government announced that they will be reopening this program and begin distributing computers again. I really wish them the best of luck even with a global semiconductor shortage because, especially nowadays, those that don't have access to a computer get severely limited in their possibilities. I was only ranting about how this program could have been better implemented at the schools.
I think a lot of comments here are seriously undervaluing the humanities and arts. These machines lead to the creation of some very popular music, allowed many more to find an outlet for personal expression and that's a huge success on its own, regardless of other formal learning outcomes.
But where in the article is being stated that a computer would replace quality education? The article is just describing an unexpected artistic scene development.
Budgeting for equipment is easy. In the US because of how funding works budgeting / getting one off grants / short term taxes for equipment is often one of the easier (relatively) things to do. Meanwhile maintenance, training go by the way side.
Training humans is hard, that always is the hard part.
What's the mobile phone situation like for poor families? When I was in Myanmar a few years ago, the phone was the way to get internet access. No computer in the home but a smartphone was.
I think it makes sense even if 1 out of 100 will find it to be a deal breaker in their education. The returns you can get from that 1% migth pay for the 99% waste.
You mention about lack of connectivity.
I agree with you, that it is not just the device, but the good quality connectivity, that creates this 'jump' in availability of educational content / etc.
Is the government making good concentrated efforts to get that solved ? Or is the broadband availability is mostly allotted to the efforts of private enterprises ?
This is a great piece, but to go meta for a second: Rest of World is a NYC-based magazine started recently to cover social/economic issues with a focus on tech, specifically ignoring the US/Canada/EU.
It is one of my favorite magazines now for sharing a perspective on some countries I don't often think about and some that I do (RoK) but don't often get to hear about from typical western news.
Here's one of my favorite pieces recently: what the home office and pandemic work-life looks like for folks in Tehran, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Philippines, Bangkok, Dhaka, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Seoul.
Founded by Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of Eric Schmidt (co-founder of Google/70th richest person in the world). Just FYI. I like the idea of the publication but I wonder how unbiased it could be with a background like that.
> Founded by Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of Eric Schmidt (co-founder of Google/70th richest person in the world). Just FYI. I like the idea of the publication but I wonder how unbiased it could be with a background like that.
Good to know, but I think it's taking it too far to say that Sophie couldn't be unbiased. Are children so bound to their parents? Are you so bound to think like yours? To support your parents' endeavors? Some do, but many don't.
I suppose I am a bit cynical but looking at the founder’s background I’m guessing she had some funding from somebody to get this venture off the ground. Would be shocked if her family connections didn’t play a part in getting this thing started.
But well, yeah, her CV and places she's worked (and got salaries from) at is impressive, some of that surely is helped (whether she wants it or not, it's how others are influenced) by the fact who her father is.
I live in Colombia and am working to get more Latinos / Latinas in tech. I've started giving Macbooks to students and it's helped a lot. Lots of students don't have good development workstations. Macs are incredibly expensive here because of import taxes.
If you have an old Macbook that's in good working condition and would like to donate it, let me know and I'll make sure to get it in the hands of a Colombian student that's working hard to learn programming.
A career in tech can be a transformative life event for a Colombian (and their extended family).
Why would you give children used Macbooks that are incredibly expensive to repair if you're out of the range of an Apple store and not really user-serviceable when you can give them even cheaper used corporate Lenovos for a fraction of the price that do things just as easily but have far more availability of spare parts?
Like Daishiman, I'm also from Argentina, and I think his point is that Macs are prohibitively expensive here (more than in say the US, here they are hard to buy, expensive, and you pay a lot in taxes), so using Macs for a program meant to teach & reach lots of kids doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not about the OS or the computer type, but about the cost and access to repairs when they break down: you must keep the costs low or the whole program will become unfeasible.
My 5yrs old kid wants to listen Khea / Duki / Londra all day (I don't, so it's limited :( ). I don't see a lot of connection between listening to music on YT and a career in tech (or my son is going to have a career in tech?)
>> ... Macs are incredibly expensive here because of import taxes
> This sound like a great opportunity for the government to do some good.
Cut the taxes that fund the services poor people depend on, such as education, health care, transportation, etc., so that they can have cheaper computers and Apple can net more profit?
If this is a tariff it's not meant to fund things, they're a poorly thought out attempt to develop local industry.
If it's a VAT it may be funding something, but VATs are not theoretically sound and do make a lot of things expensive, like computers, that you'd actually want to be cheap. (The reason they're used is that they're very effective because it's hard to dodge them.)
Do you have some evidence about these particular taxes? 'All taxes / tariffs are bad' is not an argument. That they are imperfect does not make them bad, or everything is bad.
In the fifties and sixties every school child in Detroit got musical instruction. They loaned me a violin and my sister learned the flute. There was a music company downtown that would sell your parents used instruments on a payment plan.
Out of all that came Motown, a strong rock scene (Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and more) and the birth of electronic music. Not to mention scores of excellent session musicians as well as a vibrant club scene.
By the seventies the music program was cut due to budget concerns and that downtown music store went out of business.
Could it happens again? Detroit just announced a program to give every teenager a remanufactured laptop and subsidized Internet. There would be more if the schools restarted music instruction but poor kids can be pretty resourceful;<).
I may be mistaken, but as a synth head, the stories I heard placed the origins of Techno, House, and the birth of Electronic Dance Musicin the decline the post Motown / Rock / Disco era. Early drum machines and rhythm machines, including the Roland TB-303 and TR-808 were not well regarded in the studio for music that was performed via traditional instruments. Many studios, producers, and musicians purchased these state of the art devices for several hundreds of dollars (equivalent to thousands, today), then sold them very cheaply to pawn shops and secondhand stores in cities, because few musicians liked they way they sounded. It was then the youths who picked these up cheaply that started using them on their own right, and embracing their untraditional sound.
I'm sure the musical education was a big factor, but I wanted to point out this other part of the story - it relates well to TFA. Most of us in the first world would scoff at using a 10" netbook with 1 GB of RAM, even if it were free. Similarly many musicians scoffed at using drum machine, even if were free compared to a costly studio drummer.
Not even nitpicking - someone reading the original comment who doesn't know about music history would read that and think the USA created electronic music which is so unbelievably far from correct it's cringeworthy.
US created disco (NYC), funk (NOLA), house (Chicago) and, simultaneously with Germany, techno (Detroit). US is also where many very crucial synthesizers were built, especially Moog (the rest of them came mostly from Japan). I don't think it's far fetched to say that US has been a birthplace of what we now know as electronic music.
PS. Saying this as an European, into electronic music of all genres since 20 years.
Go ahead be my guest and nitpick ;<). Obviously I meant techno not electronic music. I am a fan of Kraftwerk and I believe they are one of many German electronic music bands.
You are correct about techno. I didn't mention MC5 (one of my all time favorites) because only boomers know them. Iggy Pop is an Ann Arbor kid though he came to fame at Detroit clubs.
I believe they still run programs like this in the richer parts of Michigan. I've been out of the Michigan educational system for a few years now, but I think Howell and Albion still loan instruments. It's pretty heartbreaking that Detroit is struggling to pay contractors to remove mold from the classroom when 100 miles away they're giving away musical instruments.
Just gotta throw this out there: Bob Seger went to the same high school as I did (and Iggy Pop), and that high school is in Ann Arbor.
Which also had quality music instruction at all levels of education, at least through the 90s, and had Detroit just down I-94 for somewhere to go and become a pro at it.
Both Bob Seger and Iggy Pop became famous performing at the famous Grande Ballroom. Along with Ted Nugent, the MC5, Alice Cooper and many, many more.
The Grande like many Detroit buildings is an absolute wreck. Any other city would have led restoration efforts of this famous Rock temple before now but the city lacks funds and it's in the worst area of the city.
As I said, having Detroit as a place to go pro was a big plus. I just had to give proper credit to my alma mater for those two! For that matter I went to two high schools, and shared classes at the other one with Andrew WK, so Ann Arbor is still turning out rock gods.
The Ilitch family restored the Fox Theatre in the 80s, so it's not impossible to imagine the right philanthropist doing the same for the Grande Ballroom. Fox is right downtown, however, and as you indicated, Grande Ballroom is... not.
And because of Motown you have Neil Young, the Blues Brothers films, Dave Chapelle's unflappable impressions of Rick James, Rodriguez (kind of?), the list goes on!
I have no idea how big of a difference this made. It's not like there are violins or flutes in those genres, and a large problem with kids learning orchestra instruments is they're not very useful for playing the music the kids are listening to, so they're somewhat uninspiring.
1) Just please don't call any random working class neighborhood a slum? That's not very helpful.
2) Given the poverty is a central theme on the article, it could have been good to at least in passing involve the Popular Orchestras program that does specifically target low income townships and neighborhoods all over the country trying to involve them in the classical music world and providing them with tools to better cope with their reality through music.
I think we shouldn't call any place a slum. They should be all "neighbourhoods".
Slums, villas, favelas, end up being treated differently and things that would be unacceptable anywhere else (such as police entering your house without a warrant) become perfectly normal.
I'd say unless you also started calling Retiro -which holds one of the oldest actual slums, Villa 31-, Flores, Floresta, Colegiales, Paternal, San Justo and Avellaneda slums, hosting a couple sketchy places does not a slum make.
I grew up in there and up to a couple years ago when I emigrated I visited regularly. Yes, it is a dock workers neighborhood packed with immigrants, not a cool location with 5 usd empanada-in-a-jar type restaurants but it's not a slum unless everything is.
I remember one day in Boca I went out to the grocery store and noticed a curious deep round dent in the metal counter. "What's that?" I asked the cashier. He looked a little embarrassed, then a bit proud. "A bullet hole," he explained.
Boca is also where Gastón Aguirre lived (and maybe lives), the guy who went on national TV to criticize the Canadian tourist who made him world famous for filming his attempted armed robbery, defending it as "thinking of getting money for my son": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EIkCTkcrDA
When I moved to a sixth-floor walkup in Boca I discovered mushrooms growing from the ceiling where a hole was blown open in the roof. Later I learned that our downstairs neighbors were cocaine dealers, and their customers had robbed one of my roommates in the stairwell. I moved out not long after.
I agree that there's a significant difference between Boca, which was historically a slum but is now just a dangerous, poor neighborhood, and Villa 31 or Isla Maciel. But Boca, with its unbelievable levels of police corruption, its place of honor on lists of the most polluted places in the world, and its ongoing violent crime problem, is very different from Retiro, Flores, and Colegiales.
We were clearly warned by people at the shops and the restaurant what streets what and what not to take in broad daylight. Being Argentinean and looking Argentinean, not some expensive camera strapped around the neck expensive brand clothing tourist screaming "I'm not from here" without a word.
There are worse places, of course. And people get robbed in San Telmo in broad daylight as well.
OT, but... While working on One Laptop Per Child, there seemed potential to disrupt science education content. Science researchers who normally wouldn't prioritize contributing to education content, were being drawn in by the possibility of rapidly reaching millions instead of thousands of students. The "build it and they will come" of a massive new and empty app "store". Plus the context of non-commercial "change the world" Open Education Resources.
So that didn't happen. And more recently, maybe if VR/AR had taken off more sharply, there might have been a similar effect. But no.
So here in the future... I don't know how to quickly convey just what wretched dreck, err, how wonderfully better content could be. How about this: Kindergarten through undergrad, students are told the Sun is yellow, in textbooks and outreach. Then an infinitesimal few finally get an "oops, sorry, nope, our bad" from a graduate class on common misconceptions in astronomy education. Incoherent dreck, err, opportunity for wonderful improvement, doesn't begin to describe current content.
So my question is, does anyone know of vaguely similar potential for disruptive improvement in the quality of science education content?
Instructor performance art focuses on specific students, and limited outcome goals, under severe resource constraints. Science education research focuses on isolated deployable improvements. But "big interdisciplinary creative mashup of improvements, catalyzed by massive collaboration of research expertise"... isn't a thing, isn't something we're set up for, or incentivized to do.
But it's what I'm interested in. So, any thoughts?
Not exactly relevant to your post, but I'm dismayed by the number of people who refuse to believe that water is blue. I don't mind that nobody knows that, it's an obscure fact, but the fact that they refuse to believe something that explains a bunch of everyday phenomena (like the color of the sea) makes me sad.
Nod. Color is often taught starting in preK, and yet even first-tier physical-sciences graduate students, asked "What color is the Sun?", often answer with something like "it doesn't have a color" or "it's rainbow color", suggesting wide-spread deep misunderstanding of color. It seems teaching of color isn't going well.
So what might better look like? Phones/tablets are used preK on. Phones with multiple front cameras could permit a clip-on spectrometer to provide a simultaneous normal view for orientation, making it more accessible. UV and thermal IR cameras are increasingly inexpensive. Light engines for spectra synthesis regrettably seem less readily available? So what might a Kish-accessible spectrometer app look like? What might a spectra-centered preK-2 learning progression for color look like?
It seems at least vaguely plausible that color might thus be taught successfully. Imagine that were true, and gave you early-primary students with a firm grasp of color. How might that then be used, to teach other topics better? UV protection; warm clothes and insulation; Earth's thermal-management BBQ roll, cold clear nights and mountains and deserts, greenhouse gasses; ... ?
> refuse to believe something that explains a bunch of everyday phenomena
Integrated explanation of everyday phenomena does not seem a focus of current education. So perhaps refusal might reflect a lack of familiarity and comfort with such reasoning?
Is it blue or green?[1] Are you just seeing the blue liner many pools have? Or reflected blue sky? Or maybe something added to the pool water? Working from limited data can be hard. If you've only ever seen one or few pools...
Googling for questions and associated discussion, is one way to look for common conceptions. So I googled "what color is water"[1], and the top snippet of "Is water green or blue?" was this gem[2]: "Water isn't inherently blue; our eyes and brains interpret water as being blue because water molecules absorb reds, greens, oranges, and yellows—thus leaving only shorter-wavelength blues and violets unabsorbed to reflect back for our eyes to see." Lol.
Maybe it's like bluebirds, which are popularly scientifically said to not actually be blue because the way they're blue comes from a refraction effect.
There are conceptions around color being an inherent property of an object, independent of the light coming from/to it. "The book is purple". Turning off the lights doesn't mean the book has changed color, and now is black. And it still is a purple book, even when under red light it looks red. Sort of "object's potential color if lit with white"?
If one thinks an object is the color it reflects, then add confusion about refraction, and one might easily get to "it looks blue but really isn't".
Science education echos stories, and sometimes those are less than wonderful. Like tabloid journalism narratives, missing the point and leaving readers confused and misled. As with "color from refraction, constructive and destructive interference". IIUC, that interference is mere description of wavelength-dependent differential bending - you still need to absorb the colors you don't wish emerging. But emphasizing "it's not pigment color, it's structural color!", rather than their similarity, can parse as reflection/absorption vs refraction, and conceptually interbreed with real vs apparent object color.
Stories like [1]. The "constructive interference" is "cancelling out" wavelengths, which "is why your eyes perceive" blue. Rather than say, here's one of several mechanisms for pigments to color objects.
Absolutely unintended consequences, but at the same time, part of a long history of musical scenes developing out of access to (comparatively low-end) technology, and doing the best with what you have:
- Many early UK grime beats (by folks like Benga, Dizzee Rascal, So Solid Crew, Ruff Sqwad) were produced on a Playstation (software: MTV Music Generator or Music 2000)
- (originally pirated copies of) FL Studio running on student or family computers are more or less directly responsible for developments in mainstream US rap in the past ~15 years
- the ultimate one of these is the idea that looting of music stores in the 1977 blackouts led directly to the birth of hip hop in NYC - but this is probably apocryphal and most of those early DJs were just "misusing" their parents' stereo equipment
The themes of reggaeton include objectification of women, and the trivialization of intimacy and relationships, as well as the human experience at large.
Most reggaeton lyrics follow this structure:
1) I saw a female
2) I am aroused
3) Sexual innuendos
There is almost no difference between the mechanics of "perreo" (from Spanish "perro", dog, meaning "dogging") and rubbing yourself against another person in a sexual manner.
Now, in a more constructive tone... people creating music is a good thing. I hope that these artists persevere, and eventually find ways to create music about themes that elevate the human experience beyond the pursue of the sexual act.
- Jazz. Do you really want to know what Betty Boop was actually about?
- Rock and roll
- Hard rock
- Pop
- Disco
- Tangos
- Any Latin dancing music.
- Any Latin-American ballad/copla since 1930.
- Dirty Medieval limericks from Europe.
Some one from Spain (Castille) earlier than the US itself:
Todas las mujeres
tienen en el obligo una rosa
y un poquito mas abajo
la cueva de la raposa.
All women have
in the belly button, a rose.
And a little further down
the fox' hole.
Not every rock and roll song is about attraction and sex innuendos and follow a predictable structure. The themes of rock songs cover a variety of topics and situations.
Same with many of the other genres you mentioned.
Then, the way you dance to those genres doesn't consist solely of dry humping your dance partner.
I find it interesting that you dismissed sex/reproduction as not being part of the human experience. I can think of no other act more fundamental to the human experience, save breathing and eating.
Well, sex in reggaeton is often seen as an end on itself, rather than a form of companionship, or a way to progressively cement a relationship, or create a family... It's just attraction and sex.
The genre seems very focused on those 2 things only, leaving out many other aspects of relationship building. It's as deep as Pikotaro's song "Pen Pineapple Apple Pen".
I thought it was awesome what these Argentinians were doing when I moan about the processing power of my oldish MacBook Pro. And I was impressed with the phrasing of the raps.
But of the two examples I clicked through, one focused on violence and the other objectified women. But the sample size of people they profiled was tiny. Maybe if they sought out a female music producer they'd find the Argentinian Grimes?
I don't think there's any particular reason to expect women's music to be better than men's. There's a huge variety of music here; the Argentine music scene has been amazing since long before Conectar Igualdad (which Stallman mocked as Condenar a Maldad for its inclusion of Microsoft Windows).
I'm not sure what to recommend out of the current generation—it's too new for the gold dust to have settled out from the panning, and I have a hard time enjoying trap, reggaeton, and cumbia villera, even if it's Las Culisueltas—but I can strongly recommend Charly García, Fabiana Cantilo, Bersuit Vergarabat, Vanesa Butera, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Maria Elena Walsh, Patricio Rey y los Redonditos de Ricota, Mercedes Sosa, Sumo, Pappo, Las Pelotas, Divididos, Damas Gratis, La Renga, and Soda Stereo (and anything else by Cerati). If you're more looking for the idiot/asshole type, you might enjoy Fito Paez or Andrés Calamaro (whose La Parte de Adelante really beats the entire trap/rap genre when it comes to demeaning women, on par with the Stones' Under my Thumb or Brown Sugar, but is an earworm in a way nothing from the Stones ever managed to be).
Going back further, of course Argentina is famous for tango music from the 01930s, which retains a small following and had a Tango Nuevo revival in the early 02000s with bands like Gotan Project, Supervielle, and Bajofondo; and Argentine folk music with its chacareras, chamamés, and candombe is an inexpressibly rich tradition that sounds like nothing else, today represented by musicians like el Chaqueño Palavecino and previously by Atahualpa Yupanqui.
(Looking at these lists there's a glaring gender imbalance; I think this is a result of machismo in Argentine culture denying opportunities to talented women rather than biases of my own.)
So if the new generation of trap musicians achieve great things, I'd look for the causes more in the century of musical excellence that preceded them rather than in the excellent Huayra GNU/Linux or the rest of Conectar Igualdad.
> when I moan about the processing power of my oldish MacBook Pro
I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt humbled by that very same thing! I frequently find myself focused on why my machine can't run the latest-and-greatest piece of music software, when I really should be focusing on making music with the tools I have available.
Ah the US puritism, that can spit blood all over the screen and show bodies being cut in half, but goes crazy when someone talks about natural stuff in human nature.
this is also adds more to the importance of recycling electronics. I always try buy used thinkpad's to give to my folks back in africa. because end of day thinkpad's are excellent hardware and will continue to be. plus easily repairable. hopefully one day, someone I give a thinkpad to, will use to nurture some talent.
The article touches on it only briefly, but the subtle irony here is the government has starved Argentines of consumer tech for decades (via protectionist trade policies). So to me this could be described less as a "sparking of a renaissance" and more like the opening of a floodgate.
I'm from Chile and over there is plenty of these generic artists which ALL of them sound alike and contain basic lyrics and music. Hardly monetizable without previously dumbing down the listener, which would happen as they had pretty much flooded the online music platforms. Government start giving these guys eInk devices instead of netbooks which they will use as genetic noise generators.
Similar computers were given away to almost every venezuelan kid in school during the venezuelan oil bonanza around 2009-2012 [1], a big number were also given during 2013-2014 period.
Since 2013, Venezuela entered into a huge economical crysis. Resulting in people not being able to afford to buy a pc or laptop so the "Canaima" / "Canaimita" laptops where their only alternative to own a computer.
Nowdays, all those kids (now grown) are still using their laptops, most of them already at University level, Imagine people at universities using 2012 notebooks with 10inches screens. They are perfectly working and you can easily fix them as there is so many parts on mercadolibre [2]
As a side note, all the laptops were given away with a linux version mantained by the govt [3] so kids were somehow forced to learn basic linux, wich is kinda cool, eventually most got to install windows on the laptops by themselves, take note that it was of course pirated windows/office, so the kids at least learnt how to properly set up their laptops.
The laptops pretty much became part of venezuelan young generation culture, getting to a point that facebook groups started appearing of people sharing games supported by the laptop [4] some other groups of people modding the laptops and so on.
In fact, one of the biggest youtubers (LowSpecGamer) [5] started his crusade of -low specs gaming- using one of these laptops.
This story, for me, proves to me again- significant things are possible if people have more liberal access to a computer and internet, and better resources in general.
The fact that many potential great artists, scientists, developers, musicians are lost to poverty, and for not having access to tools is mind-numbing.
That's cool, but wasn't the Renaissance having masters teach kids from very early age their art intensively every day. Youtube is a poor substitute for that kind of learning, since most videos don't go into in-depth and don't provide critical feedback to the pupil.
>Youtube is a poor substitute for that kind of learning, since most videos don't go into in-depth and don't provide critical feedback to the pupil.
I agree with the latter point but not the former. Many, many YouTube videos on many, many subjects are sufficiently in-depth. I remodeled my garage and built my home office in it largely with knowledge I learned from builders and tradesmen on YouTube. Practices like drywalling, installing and leveling doors, sealing concrete, changing light switches and receptacles, and doing trimwork are some of the things that I knew nothing about and then learned how to do well enough for me to WFH at the start of the pandemic.
In the world of music, and especially hip hop, production and mastering YouTube is perhaps the best school on the planet. The amount of knowledge being uploaded and viewed daily is absolutely a world wonder.
And while YouTube authors and creators aren't able to give critical feedback directly from their channels, usually, some do[1][2][3]... and even if they didn't, it's not like there is a shortage of places on the internet to get critique on your art.
2. Well-known hip hop producer Kenny Beats holds beat battles on his Twitch, this video is from a contestant who regularly enters the contests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djLT5OQbHpw
3. Music reviewer Anthony Fantano routinely does amateur track reviews with his fans and followers on Twitch, live: https://twitter.com/theneedledrop/status/1405171034538582017 (Sorry, no VODs on his Twitch that I can see... which is common for music-centric channels unfortunately)
I've never heard of learning directly off masters as being part of the Renaissance? People have been learning directly since ancient times but it doesn't scale.
In fact I'll go as far as to say a requirement for masters to teach students is an inhibitor to widespread learning and the invention of the printing press is what allowed us to avoid this. Similar to the revolution that the internet is creating.
I'm not disagreeing with you totally. Just want to point out that learning from a master, has a lot of benefits that you are overlooking. It's not necessarily about the absolute number of people that learn some skill at some novice level. The Renaissance, especially painting, was about having elite level of skill. That kind of skill needs to be taught intensively from early age, and get feedback when you are doing things wrong. Often with self directed learning the problem is "you don't know what you don't know". And you get stuck too often.
For example, if you want to be an elite soccer player, ideally you will start at a very young age, and you will need a coach to give feedback and other players to play again at increasing competitiveness you can practice against. You can't get to elite level from watching youtube alone. In fact, the role of the coach in some ways is to filter out the people that are not making progress due to even things as unfair as natural physical ability. Selecting for those players and letting them pass on through the club system is how we arrive at someone as skilled as Ronaldo.
The vast majority of us aren't learning from masters; we learn who moderately qualified teachers who do what they can.
Nothing from what I learned in Uni prepared me to actually be a software engineer, yet here I am (as well as most of us who are reading this, I assume).
The world's progress doesn't depend on a few exceptional people, but it does require a competent majority.
Now that you mention it, it is kind of strange that Renaissance is capitalized in the title of the HN submission, when it isn't in the article. Oh well.
When I think of an artistic renaissance (lower-case), I think of emerging from a fallow period into a new, productive, innovative period. The article makes the case that this is what happened in Argentina as a result of these netbooks. I can't say if that's true or not, but the word choice is reasonable to me.
And while I am unaware of the music scene of YT, you can get access to world-class tutorials in CS topics- from MIT, Stanford, etc. They are as good as any.
And, yes, critical feedback is very important, but while you cannot properly substitute the feedback you get at unis, you can learn to live with and benefit from internet forums, groups, subreddits, etc.
You can't expect to miraculously boost a kid's education by giving them a computer when they don't have internet connectivity at home, and missed a whole year of school due to covid. Many families can't afford to pay a monthly fee to an ISP.
I still believe that this will be beneficial for many, nowadays having a computer opens up a lot of opportunities, but it can't replace a quality education, and magically fix a flawed education system.
Blaming poor internet availability is just an excuse for failing to look at what's out there and adapt.
He started his career as a coaler on a steamship, probably one of the worst jobs at the time. Correspondence courses were a way up for people who could not afford attending college.
Did correspondence courses come with the same sort of negative stigma in their time?
This could have been implemented in a better way. That's all I'm saying. It's still good that there students are getting access to computers at home. Even if 25% of them can take advantage of this, that's still a huge number of people.
as usual, its the hard work to set up the infrastructure, courses, support etc for the students and teachers that is needed and almost never gets done
as they say, the music isnt in the piano, same with computers
It was for many of us, at least in some ways. In the 80's when we got an Amiga 500 our parents had no idea what to do with it, it was up to us to learn and read the books it came with. That meant a lot of games but it also came with plenty of creativity software from music programs to basic. The same was true with music, we had a keyboard in the house and some kid friendly music sheets so I was playing regularly from about the time I could reach the keys. I can only imagine how much joy I would have had from a rasberry pi beginner kit.
You can't dump computers/instruments on kids and expect a full general education, but you can expect the curious ones to pick things up and learn if they have access.
The piano I started off with by trying to play along to TV theme tunes and songs i heard on the radio, then I started making my own music up. That was 40 years ago and I still make music just about every week if not everyday.
Probably impractical, India 4G connections seem to have been very succeful.
- used "FTP via email"
- connected via a national call ($$) to a shell account
- used pine to copy+paste email text into local files and vice-versa
- assembled segmented files by hand, then decoded and decompressed
- all on a Mac Portable
Been spitballing the same concepts but with mobile phones (on a person or stashed on aircraft doing their weekly freight/mail run) where unused space is the bandwidth. Can move hundreds of gbs at zero cost but meh latency, as you’re imagining.
Without home internet no distractions, no dopamine hijacks, no content control issues, most importantly no imperative for parents to gain technological familiarity if they want to protect their kids. Kids could simply use school internet for research, download the relevant content, do the deep dive at home like they would do with any book from a library.
At this point I'm not at all sure what people do or make there except they eat a lot of beef.
Yes, the Amish have managed in the USA so far, but I think that even those days are numbered. Just as many Amish already own mobile phones, though they limit their use and keep them stashed away most of the time, they will be forced to do online things, too.
I'm ashamed to admit I didn't think of this earlier recently when I needed some printing/scanning done. I went and bought a cheap hp cloud printing (they don't even come with cables anymore) abomination. After trying to get that to work, screwing around with HP accounts, configuring a cloud printer from a linux desktop, installing an app on my phone, etc I ended up going to the local library and got it all done in 30 minutes It was cheaper, easier and better option for something I need to do a few times a year.
This is smart though, since it costs very little to give someone a smartphone with internet these days (ALDI talk in Germany is 8€ a month with a bit of data, a cheap smartphone maybe 100€).
Trying to keep up a service that <0.1% of the population uses costs a lot more.
And by old I mean > 55-60.
The Internet isn't what gives meaning to life.
https://lmgtfy.app/?q=What%27s+the+name+of+the+Australian+ra...
In reference to COVID... nobody was prepared for distance learning because why would they?
I’m from Argentina and saw kids using their computers while sitting in front of a house, hanging (like kids do) and thought that was beautiful. Also saw a girl using hers in the park while her father pushed her little sister in the swing. Those kind of images are inspiring and it’s a shame the program was cut.
> Conectar Igualdad was supposed to end definitively in 2018, but the next year saw a new government come to power. The netbook program has since experienced a rebirth as a part of a bigger project. “Last year, we released the Juana Manso Federal Plan,” said Marés Serra, the general manager at Educ.ar. “And even though we do not have enough funds to cover every grade for now, we have returned to the model where the student owns the computer.”
The lack of internet is a huge problem still, especially considering they call them netbook.
Sadly, the price/performance wasn't quite there in the mid-2000s, but it seemed like they had some good ideas:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop...
Maybe the mesh networking could have worked better if it were used exclusively for distributing small files, like a P2P Whispernet.
OLPC was also ruggedised, had replaceable parts and had things like crank charging for areas with no/little power, it was a well thought out machine all around. Even in developed countries there are many that can't afford the internet, electricity and repairs required so it's a shame to see schools go with regular lapotops or even worse, premium tablets. One of my nephews had an optional programming class that required an Ipad, it's the worst option in just about every way.
No, it did not. The crank charger was never supplied commercially, it was purely a marketing tactic. Same as the Potenco Pull-cord generator http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/Hand_Crank , http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/YoYo
Both were ideas which even basic calculations tell you aren't viable.
In addition, your other claims like "ruggedised", "replaceable parts" contradict what I saw with OLPC XO. I would say the product was a one-off that had almost no consideration for long term reuse. Things like the wifi bunny ears prove that the product was driven more by marketing tacticians rather than reality and cost. Honestly, my opinion is that OLPC was a huge scam to take money from unwitting unsophisticated developing country funders who didn't know any better and waste it in swanky offices in One Cambridge. It was one of the worst options about how to expend public funds.
I would call it a pipe dream to inflate the status of Negroponte.
Since children and education were involved, that's worse than a scam.
People who focus on OLPC hand-chargers simply can't see the forest for the trees - the OLPC was a piece of junk with no educational software.
The OLPC was an effort to make a new general-purpose computer platform, whereas a sane plan was to write educational software first.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Our_software
Even today parents' groups focus on getting computer hardware into schools, without regard for educational software. They end up being a 2021-version typewriter class.
Apparently 600,000 OLPCs were distributed - I'm curious about any educational results, beyond e-waste.
I know this wouldn't be a "laptop", but with a cheap-ish monitor, keyboard and mouse... it's a small PC. Perhaps with a slightly older CPU which doesn't need super fast RAM, there could be... 2Gb of RAM or more?
Of course the newer RaspberryPi boards are pretty close (and in terms of RAM, even better) to this....
Yes, we _know_ it's not going to fix a flawed education system. There's not a person in this entire country who has ever believed otherwise, and using it as a critique of the program has been nothing but a strawman.
We live a in a world where everything is done online. If the only objective this achieved is that kids are now familiar with a computer without having learned anything else, it's still fantastically successful. They know how to load a spreadsheet. They know basic UI paradigms that allow them to navigate crappy government or banking web pages. They come of age using social networks that they will be able to leverage for work and productive connections in the future.
The issue of connectivity is related but ultimately a distraction too, as a single poor wi-fi or 3G connection is still good for watching low-quality Youtube videos or reading tutorials.
It's a middle-of-the-road country with inadequate distribution of services. The resources devoted to this program can't be put to infrastructure. And imperfectly devised program where teachers can't use computers doesn't change the fact that computers are so damn useful that you don't depend on a teacher to learn how to use it, especially with naturally resourceful children.
I think giving computers to children is good only if the quality of education they receive is good. I saw many children using their government-given computers to play GTA san andreas and Counter Strike while they were in the middle of a class, and the teachers didn't do anything about it because the government forbids them to take reasonable disciplinary measures (A teacher wants a child to pay attention during a class? Good luck, there's not much he/she can do) and also the goverments forces the teachers to make everyone pass every exam because "it is stigmatizing" for the children to get a bad mark on a test.
What I comment sounds absurd, but I have no reason to lie about it.
So, even if I consider it can be benefical to give computers to students in some conditions, in Argentina it's not well implemented.
This is 100% false.
A computer allows them to watch YouTube and see tutorials on everything they may want to learn. It _forces_ them to learn to how read and read quickly to digest all the information they get on social networks. It allows them to know that there are such things as spreadsheets and document editors.
This is so much more important than many classes that it can't be understated how critical this is. If these children instead had to go to private computer literacy classes when they turn 21 because they need to write a CV or access a government website, they will have wasted away a ton of potential.
All the children mentioned in the article did not have a good education, but they had a tool that enabled them to make do without it.
I mean, autonomous children, and children with certain interests can learn a lot just by having a computers, while others won't learn much. But still, the exposure to a computer is helfpul for all of them.
I was too extreme in what I expressed. Both having computers and good education are positives.
Well, giving a computer to someone doesn't turn them into a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs just because they own it. Depends on the attitude of whom receive it.
You could say that most of the people will use it for fun and you entertainment.
On the other side there are people who will use to uplift themselves and that's something that has to be appreciated.
The truth is that these young man, without a computer wouldn't be in this situation today. So even if is an exception is still good to see that.
The point isn't to make every one of these kids a Bill Gates, it's to prevent the Bill Gates among them from living a life of poverty because they couldn't get a computer early enough.
And I guess the government didn't give the PC to everyone because "oh we need to stop our Bill Gates to run out of the country". But rather, their interest was to give equal opportunity to those in need.
I read this comment, I read the article and can't stop thinking what if Zuck were among these kids them maybe we could admire him as a musical talent like L-GANTE (link from the article) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SacHyFb_j1o
At my age when I was in school the whole class had a computer (like 25 of us). Today of that class only 3 work using computer everyday.
The second part of my comment explain that if you've the right attitude and interest then a computer can help you, if you don't is just another tool like your fridge
Poor people can't think in long terms as they're struggling with their daily needs thus it makes sense for them to solve these rather than think what if my kid would turn into a rich man thanks to it.
Good thing we have people like you that understand poor people and can make decisions in their name and all. Where would they be without you.
The truth is that most of the average or privileged people in the developed and developing world won't do anything extraordinary with their computers either.
If giving at least one tool to the disadvantaged, that others can pretty much take for granted, allows the few among them that would pursue their talents with it is already a step up from the status quo.
The government announced that they will be reopening this program and begin distributing computers again. I really wish them the best of luck even with a global semiconductor shortage because, especially nowadays, those that don't have access to a computer get severely limited in their possibilities. I was only ranting about how this program could have been better implemented at the schools.
Training humans is hard, that always is the hard part.
I suspect most students who learned remotely got a lot less out of it. It'll be interesting to see what standardized tests show.
Is the government making good concentrated efforts to get that solved ? Or is the broadband availability is mostly allotted to the efforts of private enterprises ?
It is one of my favorite magazines now for sharing a perspective on some countries I don't often think about and some that I do (RoK) but don't often get to hear about from typical western news.
Here's one of my favorite pieces recently: what the home office and pandemic work-life looks like for folks in Tehran, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Philippines, Bangkok, Dhaka, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Seoul.
https://restofworld.org/2021/heres-what-working-from-home-lo...
Good to know, but I think it's taking it too far to say that Sophie couldn't be unbiased. Are children so bound to their parents? Are you so bound to think like yours? To support your parents' endeavors? Some do, but many don't.
But well, yeah, her CV and places she's worked (and got salaries from) at is impressive, some of that surely is helped (whether she wants it or not, it's how others are influenced) by the fact who her father is.
* Khea / Duki / Cazzu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ0D_QD_DhM
* Paulo Londra (PG lyrics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPpELzyP4rw&ab
I live in Colombia and am working to get more Latinos / Latinas in tech. I've started giving Macbooks to students and it's helped a lot. Lots of students don't have good development workstations. Macs are incredibly expensive here because of import taxes.
If you have an old Macbook that's in good working condition and would like to donate it, let me know and I'll make sure to get it in the hands of a Colombian student that's working hard to learn programming.
A career in tech can be a transformative life event for a Colombian (and their extended family).
There is a lot of additional support I provide that's a lot more important than the computer type.
This sound like a great opportunity for the government to do some good.
> This sound like a great opportunity for the government to do some good.
Cut the taxes that fund the services poor people depend on, such as education, health care, transportation, etc., so that they can have cheaper computers and Apple can net more profit?
If it's a VAT it may be funding something, but VATs are not theoretically sound and do make a lot of things expensive, like computers, that you'd actually want to be cheap. (The reason they're used is that they're very effective because it's hard to dodge them.)
Out of all that came Motown, a strong rock scene (Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and more) and the birth of electronic music. Not to mention scores of excellent session musicians as well as a vibrant club scene.
By the seventies the music program was cut due to budget concerns and that downtown music store went out of business.
Could it happens again? Detroit just announced a program to give every teenager a remanufactured laptop and subsidized Internet. There would be more if the schools restarted music instruction but poor kids can be pretty resourceful;<).
https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2020/04/23/detroi...
> poor kids can be pretty resourceful
They are, in fact, like every other kid!
> Out of all that came Motown, a strong rock scene (Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and more) and the birth of electronic music.
And punk (MC5, Iggy Pop & the Stooges) and funkadelic (George Clinton, etc.). Also, to nitpick, it was the birth of techno, not electronic music.
I'm sure the musical education was a big factor, but I wanted to point out this other part of the story - it relates well to TFA. Most of us in the first world would scoff at using a 10" netbook with 1 GB of RAM, even if it were free. Similarly many musicians scoffed at using drum machine, even if were free compared to a costly studio drummer.
PS. Saying this as an European, into electronic music of all genres since 20 years.
Which also had quality music instruction at all levels of education, at least through the 90s, and had Detroit just down I-94 for somewhere to go and become a pro at it.
The Grande like many Detroit buildings is an absolute wreck. Any other city would have led restoration efforts of this famous Rock temple before now but the city lacks funds and it's in the worst area of the city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Ballroom
The Ilitch family restored the Fox Theatre in the 80s, so it's not impossible to imagine the right philanthropist doing the same for the Grande Ballroom. Fox is right downtown, however, and as you indicated, Grande Ballroom is... not.
They've successfully helped Detroit by opportunistically (ie. vultures) in buying distressed properties and sports teams/stadiums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilitch_Holdings
even with the amended version (s/electronic/techno/), this still needs attention ... subthread here, from about a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093490
1) Just please don't call any random working class neighborhood a slum? That's not very helpful.
2) Given the poverty is a central theme on the article, it could have been good to at least in passing involve the Popular Orchestras program that does specifically target low income townships and neighborhoods all over the country trying to involve them in the classical music world and providing them with tools to better cope with their reality through music.
Slums, villas, favelas, end up being treated differently and things that would be unacceptable anywhere else (such as police entering your house without a warrant) become perfectly normal.
I grew up in there and up to a couple years ago when I emigrated I visited regularly. Yes, it is a dock workers neighborhood packed with immigrants, not a cool location with 5 usd empanada-in-a-jar type restaurants but it's not a slum unless everything is.
Boca is also where Gastón Aguirre lived (and maybe lives), the guy who went on national TV to criticize the Canadian tourist who made him world famous for filming his attempted armed robbery, defending it as "thinking of getting money for my son": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EIkCTkcrDA
When I moved to a sixth-floor walkup in Boca I discovered mushrooms growing from the ceiling where a hole was blown open in the roof. Later I learned that our downstairs neighbors were cocaine dealers, and their customers had robbed one of my roommates in the stairwell. I moved out not long after.
I agree that there's a significant difference between Boca, which was historically a slum but is now just a dangerous, poor neighborhood, and Villa 31 or Isla Maciel. But Boca, with its unbelievable levels of police corruption, its place of honor on lists of the most polluted places in the world, and its ongoing violent crime problem, is very different from Retiro, Flores, and Colegiales.
Also, it's mold. If you literally had mushrooms that's like an entirely different, more premium, experience.
There are worse places, of course. And people get robbed in San Telmo in broad daylight as well.
So that didn't happen. And more recently, maybe if VR/AR had taken off more sharply, there might have been a similar effect. But no.
So here in the future... I don't know how to quickly convey just what wretched dreck, err, how wonderfully better content could be. How about this: Kindergarten through undergrad, students are told the Sun is yellow, in textbooks and outreach. Then an infinitesimal few finally get an "oops, sorry, nope, our bad" from a graduate class on common misconceptions in astronomy education. Incoherent dreck, err, opportunity for wonderful improvement, doesn't begin to describe current content.
So my question is, does anyone know of vaguely similar potential for disruptive improvement in the quality of science education content?
Instructor performance art focuses on specific students, and limited outcome goals, under severe resource constraints. Science education research focuses on isolated deployable improvements. But "big interdisciplinary creative mashup of improvements, catalyzed by massive collaboration of research expertise"... isn't a thing, isn't something we're set up for, or incentivized to do.
But it's what I'm interested in. So, any thoughts?
So what might better look like? Phones/tablets are used preK on. Phones with multiple front cameras could permit a clip-on spectrometer to provide a simultaneous normal view for orientation, making it more accessible. UV and thermal IR cameras are increasingly inexpensive. Light engines for spectra synthesis regrettably seem less readily available? So what might a Kish-accessible spectrometer app look like? What might a spectra-centered preK-2 learning progression for color look like?
It seems at least vaguely plausible that color might thus be taught successfully. Imagine that were true, and gave you early-primary students with a firm grasp of color. How might that then be used, to teach other topics better? UV protection; warm clothes and insulation; Earth's thermal-management BBQ roll, cold clear nights and mountains and deserts, greenhouse gasses; ... ?
> refuse to believe something that explains a bunch of everyday phenomena
Integrated explanation of everyday phenomena does not seem a focus of current education. So perhaps refusal might reflect a lack of familiarity and comfort with such reasoning?
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=swimming+pool&tbm=isch
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=what+color+is+water [2] http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/why-is-the-ocean-different-co...
Looking for misconceptions is a great strategy, thanks!
https://wvbirder.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/bluebirds-and-blue...
(They are blue. Looking blue in white light is the same thing as being blue.)
If one thinks an object is the color it reflects, then add confusion about refraction, and one might easily get to "it looks blue but really isn't".
Science education echos stories, and sometimes those are less than wonderful. Like tabloid journalism narratives, missing the point and leaving readers confused and misled. As with "color from refraction, constructive and destructive interference". IIUC, that interference is mere description of wavelength-dependent differential bending - you still need to absorb the colors you don't wish emerging. But emphasizing "it's not pigment color, it's structural color!", rather than their similarity, can parse as reflection/absorption vs refraction, and conceptually interbreed with real vs apparent object color.
Stories like [1]. The "constructive interference" is "cancelling out" wavelengths, which "is why your eyes perceive" blue. Rather than say, here's one of several mechanisms for pigments to color objects.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Ts7CsJDpg&t=113s
- Many early UK grime beats (by folks like Benga, Dizzee Rascal, So Solid Crew, Ruff Sqwad) were produced on a Playstation (software: MTV Music Generator or Music 2000)
- (originally pirated copies of) FL Studio running on student or family computers are more or less directly responsible for developments in mainstream US rap in the past ~15 years
- the ultimate one of these is the idea that looting of music stores in the 1977 blackouts led directly to the birth of hip hop in NYC - but this is probably apocryphal and most of those early DJs were just "misusing" their parents' stereo equipment
Would love to hear some more examples!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huayra_GNU%2FLinux?wprov=sfla1
After one year, 60%+ of the computers were never turned on again.
They sucked, it was a rip-off.
Bonus: 60% of children fall below the poverty line in argentina. A great number of these do not have 2 meals a day.
Most reggaeton lyrics follow this structure:
1) I saw a female
2) I am aroused
3) Sexual innuendos
There is almost no difference between the mechanics of "perreo" (from Spanish "perro", dog, meaning "dogging") and rubbing yourself against another person in a sexual manner.
Now, in a more constructive tone... people creating music is a good thing. I hope that these artists persevere, and eventually find ways to create music about themes that elevate the human experience beyond the pursue of the sexual act.
>2) I am aroused
>3) Sexual innuendo
Ah, yes, that never happened, ever. Unlike:
- Jazz. Do you really want to know what Betty Boop was actually about?
- Rock and roll
- Hard rock
- Pop
- Disco
- Tangos
- Any Latin dancing music.
- Any Latin-American ballad/copla since 1930.
- Dirty Medieval limericks from Europe.
Some one from Spain (Castille) earlier than the US itself:
Same with many of the other genres you mentioned.
Then, the way you dance to those genres doesn't consist solely of dry humping your dance partner.
There was a lot of sexual innuendo back in the day where obviously, today is not as scandalous. But back then, it was.
Tutti Frutti was about either anal sex, or vaginal sex from behind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutti_Frutti_(song)
I find it interesting that you dismissed sex/reproduction as not being part of the human experience. I can think of no other act more fundamental to the human experience, save breathing and eating.
The genre seems very focused on those 2 things only, leaving out many other aspects of relationship building. It's as deep as Pikotaro's song "Pen Pineapple Apple Pen".
I thought it was awesome what these Argentinians were doing when I moan about the processing power of my oldish MacBook Pro. And I was impressed with the phrasing of the raps.
But of the two examples I clicked through, one focused on violence and the other objectified women. But the sample size of people they profiled was tiny. Maybe if they sought out a female music producer they'd find the Argentinian Grimes?
I'm not sure what to recommend out of the current generation—it's too new for the gold dust to have settled out from the panning, and I have a hard time enjoying trap, reggaeton, and cumbia villera, even if it's Las Culisueltas—but I can strongly recommend Charly García, Fabiana Cantilo, Bersuit Vergarabat, Vanesa Butera, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Maria Elena Walsh, Patricio Rey y los Redonditos de Ricota, Mercedes Sosa, Sumo, Pappo, Las Pelotas, Divididos, Damas Gratis, La Renga, and Soda Stereo (and anything else by Cerati). If you're more looking for the idiot/asshole type, you might enjoy Fito Paez or Andrés Calamaro (whose La Parte de Adelante really beats the entire trap/rap genre when it comes to demeaning women, on par with the Stones' Under my Thumb or Brown Sugar, but is an earworm in a way nothing from the Stones ever managed to be).
Going back further, of course Argentina is famous for tango music from the 01930s, which retains a small following and had a Tango Nuevo revival in the early 02000s with bands like Gotan Project, Supervielle, and Bajofondo; and Argentine folk music with its chacareras, chamamés, and candombe is an inexpressibly rich tradition that sounds like nothing else, today represented by musicians like el Chaqueño Palavecino and previously by Atahualpa Yupanqui.
(Looking at these lists there's a glaring gender imbalance; I think this is a result of machismo in Argentine culture denying opportunities to talented women rather than biases of my own.)
So if the new generation of trap musicians achieve great things, I'd look for the causes more in the century of musical excellence that preceded them rather than in the excellent Huayra GNU/Linux or the rest of Conectar Igualdad.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt humbled by that very same thing! I frequently find myself focused on why my machine can't run the latest-and-greatest piece of music software, when I really should be focusing on making music with the tools I have available.
Since 2013, Venezuela entered into a huge economical crysis. Resulting in people not being able to afford to buy a pc or laptop so the "Canaima" / "Canaimita" laptops where their only alternative to own a computer.
Nowdays, all those kids (now grown) are still using their laptops, most of them already at University level, Imagine people at universities using 2012 notebooks with 10inches screens. They are perfectly working and you can easily fix them as there is so many parts on mercadolibre [2]
As a side note, all the laptops were given away with a linux version mantained by the govt [3] so kids were somehow forced to learn basic linux, wich is kinda cool, eventually most got to install windows on the laptops by themselves, take note that it was of course pirated windows/office, so the kids at least learnt how to properly set up their laptops.
The laptops pretty much became part of venezuelan young generation culture, getting to a point that facebook groups started appearing of people sharing games supported by the laptop [4] some other groups of people modding the laptops and so on.
In fact, one of the biggest youtubers (LowSpecGamer) [5] started his crusade of -low specs gaming- using one of these laptops.
If you wanna take a look of what the "canaimita" market right now is, take a look at youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=canaimita you can also sorty by new to see kids reparing the laptops or doing memes with them https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=canaimita&sp=CA...
[1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaima_Educativo
[2] https://listado.mercadolibre.com.ve/canaima#D[A:canaima]
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaima_(operating_system)
[4] https://www.facebook.com/Juegos-para-canaima-y-pc-de-bajos-r...
[5] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQkd05iAYed2-LOmhjzDG6g
The fact that many potential great artists, scientists, developers, musicians are lost to poverty, and for not having access to tools is mind-numbing.
I agree with the latter point but not the former. Many, many YouTube videos on many, many subjects are sufficiently in-depth. I remodeled my garage and built my home office in it largely with knowledge I learned from builders and tradesmen on YouTube. Practices like drywalling, installing and leveling doors, sealing concrete, changing light switches and receptacles, and doing trimwork are some of the things that I knew nothing about and then learned how to do well enough for me to WFH at the start of the pandemic.
In the world of music, and especially hip hop, production and mastering YouTube is perhaps the best school on the planet. The amount of knowledge being uploaded and viewed daily is absolutely a world wonder.
And while YouTube authors and creators aren't able to give critical feedback directly from their channels, usually, some do[1][2][3]... and even if they didn't, it's not like there is a shortage of places on the internet to get critique on your art.
___
1. Deadmau5 reviewing a track submission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY76tO4qe8Q
2. Well-known hip hop producer Kenny Beats holds beat battles on his Twitch, this video is from a contestant who regularly enters the contests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djLT5OQbHpw
3. Music reviewer Anthony Fantano routinely does amateur track reviews with his fans and followers on Twitch, live: https://twitter.com/theneedledrop/status/1405171034538582017 (Sorry, no VODs on his Twitch that I can see... which is common for music-centric channels unfortunately)
In fact I'll go as far as to say a requirement for masters to teach students is an inhibitor to widespread learning and the invention of the printing press is what allowed us to avoid this. Similar to the revolution that the internet is creating.
Nothing from what I learned in Uni prepared me to actually be a software engineer, yet here I am (as well as most of us who are reading this, I assume).
The world's progress doesn't depend on a few exceptional people, but it does require a competent majority.
When I think of an artistic renaissance (lower-case), I think of emerging from a fallow period into a new, productive, innovative period. The article makes the case that this is what happened in Argentina as a result of these netbooks. I can't say if that's true or not, but the word choice is reasonable to me.
Autocorrect.
And while I am unaware of the music scene of YT, you can get access to world-class tutorials in CS topics- from MIT, Stanford, etc. They are as good as any.
And, yes, critical feedback is very important, but while you cannot properly substitute the feedback you get at unis, you can learn to live with and benefit from internet forums, groups, subreddits, etc.