Work Avoided Through Extensive List-Making A classic from The Onion. FWIW I have 50 items on 6 todo lists…
Archive forMay 24th, 2001 | back to home
24 May 2001
Free computers and broadband net access… for poor folks in a Baltimore public housing project. Believe it or not, only two thirds of the residents have signed up so far.
“Residents typically wanted to know whether they would lose their place in public housing if the computer broke down. Some wanted to know, conversely, if they had to take the computer to keep their apartment.
Others did not want to be bothered, said Constance Mayfield, executive director of the program. “In a community like this, even though people are apprised of services, many are not accustomed” to taking advantage of them, Ms. Mayfield said, noting that this was just the sort of problem being sought out in the experiment.”
It seems that kids are the prime motivator… None of this is too surprising, but it is a good read.
The NSA taps fibre optic cable A story that made me say, “well, duh!” at first, I must admit, but it is interesting to read speculation of how this would have been done. And even more interesting to read, “The NSA’s budget is classified, but individuals familiar with it say it is about two-thirds what it was a decade ago, even before accounting for inflation.” I don’t know if this is misinformation (could there be an even more secret agency getting their money? Heh.) but I would have expected their budget to have gone way up not down given the new fields of the Internet and the mobile phone for them to play in…
