[Air-L] help on africa and computer donations (1. Climate2.Insects . . . )

[Alex -Vipowernet]

P.S. Do any students on this list actually compute in
the wild, offline, offgrid???

I am reminded of the first Micro I ever used - and described in my book "Alex Randall's Used Computer Handbook"... Microsoft Press 1990. 

It had a handmade wooden case, CP/M operating system and it was powered by generator attached to a pedal bicycle. Pedal hard and you could compute.  Relax and the data would disappear.  

I ran the East West Education Development Foundation from 1990 to 1995 and placed over 6,000 donated computers all over Africa and Asia and the former Soviet Union. We faced all these issues of dust, power grid problems, language barriers and the confiscation of computers by the police. 

One of my human rights workers in Africa got busted so frequently and had his computers confiscated that we gave him a huge pile of broken Macs.  He kept the real data on a laptop with removable HD at home and left the broken Macs at the office so the cops could cart them away and try to figure out what they contained... 

There is no barrier that can not be overcome. 
The computer is the current evolution of intelligence on this planet.  
Millions of years of evolution prove that nothing stops this drive to inquire. 

Right now I computer in the US Virgin Islands where the electrical power is sporadically off, spikes are frequent and the internet comes and goes. I have never had cockroaches eat my motherboard... 

Alex Randall
Professor of Communication
University of the Virgin Islands