$200 Linux Laptop

[Christopher Browne]

On 7/25/07, Byron Sonne <blsonne-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I'm impressed... I hope this works out well for all concerned parties.
> I wouldn't mind picking one up myself, as long as that didn't detract
> from someone who needs it more.

I'd call that the wrong argument on this - increasing demand for them
will increase the likelihood of the pipeline getting bigger.  Indeed,
the only way for ASUS to make anything off these laptops is if they
can sell a huge load of them.

> I wonder how much cost will come down as more units get produced over
> time, and tech in general becomes cheaper...

What we're tending to see is that products are getting better, over
time, to the degree to which materials technology is continuing to
progress.

A thing that is appalling me, of late, is the way that toys have
gotten so spectacularly cheaper.  Nieces and nephews have some high
expectations :-), and what irritates me is that it has been leading to
kids getting inundated under a stack of toys that today are cheap but
in yesteryear we couldn't afford.

I'm not usually very "environmental" in the usually-seen form of it,
but certainly the "Ack!  The pile of toys will collapse and injure
them!" situation is getting to me a bit.

I suppose I'm an "environmentalist" in the form of G Harry Stine's
"Third Industrial Revolution;" back in 1975, he predicted something of
the effects we're now seeing of the progress of materials technology.
He was pretty active in that area, with his involvement with rockets
(founder of the NAR) and, relevant to geekdom, as a credited technical
advisor to Star Trek: TNG.

His observation, way back then, was that materials were improving at
an accelerating rate.  We are still seeing this, as notably both
plastics and ceramics are getting better and better.  At the time,
"Club of Rome" future-prediction was looking at impending disaster,
and I think we're still seeing some similar estimations about
increases in materials usage.  (The "mountain of toys" troubles me...)

But Stine felt that his "Third Industrial Revolution" would fall out
of being able to build better things using less materials.  You don't
need a mountain of stuff (of whatever sort) if it is good enough and
versatile enough.

The automotive industry has kind of gone half-way on this; today's
cars are spectacularly better then they used to be.  Unfortunately,
it's only half-way - they are still way heavier than they ought to
need to be, and cutting down on weight would have all kinds of
positive effects (e.g. - cutting fuel consumption, reducing engine
sizes, and even the impacts of accidents).  There's a European company
working on cars that run on compressed air which are largely plastic,
and finally have genuinely different construction from what's
traditional.  It'll be interesting if that goes anywhere.

Laptops have certainly been recipients of pretty lavish improvements;
between Lenovo and Apple, their cases knock my socks off compared to
the old ones.  Better, lighter.  The one irritation is that they're
hotter - Intel has a lot to answer for on this...  ("Oh, my burning
thighs!!!")

The ASUS Eee is supposedly a bit flimsy; I'll bet it's got less
material in it than any of the old laptops that were pretty fragile in
the old days.  Give it two more years and they'll have a bigger,
brighter LCD and plastic that's stronger despite being just as thin...
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