Posted on 08/03/2007 10:59:28 AM PDT by Froufrou
Billionaire Carlos Slim said he doesn't care if he is the world's richest man and promised to donate hundreds of thousands of laptop computers to Mexican children.
The Mexican telecom mogul pledged Thursday to donate 250,000 low-cost laptops to children by the end of the year and as many as 1 million in 2008, saying "digital education" holds the key for Mexico's poor.
Slim is listed by Forbes as the world's second-richest man with holdings worth $53 billion, but some financial analysts say he may have overtaken Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates as the world's richest.
• Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center.
Speaking to foreign correspondents on Thursday, Slim said the ranking meant little to him.
"That's water off a duck's back to me," Slim said. "I don't know if that (the ranking) is correct, if I'm first, 20th, or 2,000th. It doesn't matter. It's all the same."
"I think that what's important is to see that a professional or business activity isn't incompatible with personal or family life," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Probably old models that he couldn’t sell at CompUSA.
Not really related to the thread, other than the laptop i’ll post a link to uses some of the same manufacturing techniques to minimize size.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3829
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Hands_on_with_the_ASUS_Eee/
It’s better than the free laptops from the MIT program, and should be a a pretty good first laptop for students.
Quote:
One of the biggest news stories out of this year’s Computex wasn’t of a new chipset, GPU, or graphics card, but rather of the announcement of the ASUS Eee PC, a small, slim, and light portable computer that is priced at $199. Introduced by Jonney Shih, Chariman and CEO of ASUS at Intel’s keynote address the first day of the show, the Eee PC has already made headlines world wide.
The Eee PC’s main competition is the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project that originally aimed to bring to market a laptop priced at $100 for children in developing countries. However, the OLPC project has seen numerous delays and even a price increase to the $170 range.
If he really wants to help Mexican children he should try to bring them capitalism and democracy.
I enjoy Mexican food, does that qualify me for a laptop????
Works for me!
They have cell phones and monster trucks, they probably already have laptops.
What the hell, he’s part of the Mexican elite that have pirated the resources of the Mexican people for many generations, so giving the unwashed a small “tip” to keep them smiling for a short while seems a good investment prior to next week’s looting.
He got rich by paying giant ( $25 million + ) bribes to the despicable Salinas brothers for government monopoly industries.
How could he repudiate his own business plan?
Time to buy stock in Dell and spanish language porn.
How about tuition & food instead of laptops, in order for the kids to get past 3rd or 4th grade? (which many do not).
/s
At least now they can all go buy Civilization IV and play the role of King Montezuma of the Aztecs.
If Slim really wanted to help children, he would help their parents. Unlike Bill Gates, who has created thousands of multi-millionaires, tens of thousands of millionaires, and enriched hundreds of thousands, Slim has perhaps enriched a few dozen who were already rich, while the vast majority of his workers are minimum wage, with little chance of ever being more than that.
But it is not just enriching Mexicans that will help, it is to create the mood that wealth is even more enjoyable if others are wealthy, instead of the belief that it is only enjoyable if you alone are wealthy in a sea of poverty.
This is the old European disease that Mexico suffers from.
As long as Mexicans are willing to tolerate or even accept poverty and failure, except in those who had a chance and blew it, Mexico will never amount to much.
Hard work, school, and ambition should be all any Mexican needs to become a millionaire. Pretty much as it is in the US. There are lots of people willing to do it, and lots more who are willing to do it halfway. And they should have the chance.
Did you see Apocolypto? I heard it was gore to the extreme.
And electricity/batteries
Aboslutely ROTFLMAO!!!
That’ll cure their dysentery!!
What a freakin idjit!
A less corrupt government would be even better.
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