Birmingham, AL totally confused by OLPC purchase

We knew we were in for some rough chuckles when Birmingham, Alabama signed up to provide an OLPC XO to every K-8 student last December, but we didn't think they'd be this silly from the get-go: apparently the mayor's office, which negotiated the deal, is now saying the school board needs to add WiFi to every school for the laptops to work. That's news to us -- the mesh-networking XO was designed to be used in rural parts of the developing world, after all -- but we're still puzzling out what mayoral advisors John Katopodis and Bob McKenna meant when they said they're "trying to make the whole city WiFi," or where they got a quote of $39 per school to enable wireless access. Of course, the only response from the school board was one member who worried about students accessing porn -- which seems to be a real theme with the XO -- but for some reason we're not at all surprised that bureaucratic officials have totally missed the point of the OLPC project.

[Thanks, Jay]

[Blake Bowen @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:41PM]

What? There are schools without wi-fi?

[Kyle @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:46PM]

Umm, you do know these laptops are for African children, right?

My family bought one of these since if we buy one, one gets donated. It's better than nothing, but these aren't exactly the best computers in the world.

[adam @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:25PM]

You're not from the southeast are you? We do wear shoes...but the Medial School I go to just got WiFi (other than the one totally inconvenient spot where no students actually were) a year and a half ago.

[adam @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:27PM]

*Correction: MEDICAL school (I can diagnose...just not type)

[austin @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:33PM]

@adam
what southeast do you live in?

what medical school do you go to?

there has been wifi at my school since 4 years ago, in the southeast.

[Blake Bowen @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:48PM]

Actually I'm from Warner Robins, middle GA.

[austin @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:26PM]

o, semi-rural georgia. great baseball, no wifi. thanks for supporting the braves and their farm system with your great baseball. we really appreciate it here in atlanta

[Kweenie @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:50PM]

I'm IN Atlanta and we just got WiFi at my college.

[Chris @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:50PM]

I will repeat the statement I first said when this issue came up:

Larry Langford is a huge idiot.

Yours truly,
Birmingham Native

[davidcsawyer @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:14PM]

As a fellow Birminghamian, I have to agree wholeheartedly: Larry Langford is completely incompetent.

[pathogen @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:13PM]

He's done more then most in their entire terms, some good some wtf ? I'm starting to warm up to his nonsense politics.

[Chris @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:27PM]

I just can't take a man seriously who actually wanted to put top hats and canes on all of the street lights so signify that we are the "Magic City"...

[Seoultrain @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:51PM]

The South just never gives itself a chance, does it?

[John @ Jan 23rd 2008 6:56PM]

$39 per school? Are they each going to get half a wireless router?

[Nathan @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:08PM]

I think the school district does it's shopping at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-WGR614-Mbps-Wireless-Router/dp/B00008SCFL/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1201133171&sr=8-3

As an IT professional, I believe that I would literally die from laughing if I saw that this router was the "core" of the wifi network at a school.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:42PM]

my sons school internet core is a frickin 40 buck linksys router!! I've seen it myself.

[CubeGuy @ Jan 24th 2008 12:41AM]

They could be getting a bulk discount. =/

[chrisaroz @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:05PM]

$39 makes sense. One cheap router hooked into the net to get started, and then the mesh part of the XO gets everyone else on... right?

[Nick C. @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:14PM]

This stupidity is one reason I am moving out. To get away from the ghetto that the mayor is about to turn the rest of the city into. Its a shame when the mayor of the city is one of the cities biggest crooks, not to mention an idiot like Chris said. Oh and the $39/school is probably possible, but after Langford puts his hand into the pot, it will probably cost about $3.9k/school, since most of that money will end up in his pocket. Sorry to rant about the poor politics! Hopefully this will help with the education problem in the local schools, if the kids parents don't hock them for drug money!

[patrick @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:46PM]

I moved to California from AL over 13 yrs ago. Ain't going back anytime soon. California will let you in if you claim refugee status. lol

[Ipaq3115 @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:18PM]

whats a "student student"?

[Nicholas Christian @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:21PM]

Hmm... good question Ipaq! Maybe Langford wrote this himself on one of his new OLPC laptops that he stole from one of the kids.

[CharlieX @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:27PM]

Sweet Home Alabama! Where the OLPC is so bluuueeeee!

[Joseph @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:28PM]

Does this mean they are replacing the Apple II?

[BBritton @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:40PM]

Larry is an idiot. That is true.

First a dome stadium for a city that cannot support it, then city-wide wifi based in churches, now the OLPC for every k-8 student! Oh yes... how about that nice extra 1 cent on the sales tax?

Let's not forget a city that is almost bankrupt, cannot pay its bills, and that's having to close down MANY schools.

Thanks Larry for making the city I live in a worse place. I personally cannot wait until you get your ass busted by the feds.

[cmonkey @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:42PM]

Yes, you can mesh the XOs together, but to get the whole lot of them on the internet, you either need an 802.11s access point attached to a server, or just just regular old 802.11g. Since 802.11g is the only one of the two options that is available, it makes sense to choose it.

[digitallysick @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:43PM]

3rd world countries /alabama its the same thing as you can see

[tmbflyer @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:57PM]

Hey, I live in Mobile, Alabama. This state has no shortage of intelligence or culture. I would appreciate if the stereotypes would stop.

[Gibson @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:54PM]

dumb hicks are dumb

[Gedeknepper @ Jan 23rd 2008 7:59PM]

Well, I go to a public middle/high school in the south, Florida, but anyways our HS has had WIFI for about 6 years and we've always been able to access it. It is Websensed up the kazoo but we still have it. I really wondering though, why would anyone want to look up porn at school, I mean, seriously, that's weird, just wait until you get home... jeez...

[Reader @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:05PM]

I knew more about networking than my schools "IT" ever did. All they ever said was "we have a network wide virus" when the internet or proxy would go down.

[Alexander Pink @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:07PM]

@austin

Same here, wifi for at least 4 years that I know of. UTSW.

[3rdsun @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:11PM]

porn doesn't run on the XO natively. it needs special software to access

[nerd @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:22PM]

Our mayor will be in jail before these comuters reach the kids.

[craig @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:25PM]

[John @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:41PM]

Birmingham has a domed stadium? Whatever for?

[Matt Fulghum @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:23PM]

It doesn't, yet. that's Langford's great plan for revitalizing downtown, is to build a domed stadium; I think it's a sort of "Field of Dreams" kind of thing, except that nobody in the their right mind is going to go hang out on the north side of downtown Birmingham. This OLPC deal smacks of business as usual in that town; the Arrington machine would fit right in in NOLA.

[Twitchy @ Jan 24th 2008 5:40AM]

What's the domed stadium for? Why, where else would the monorail go?

[Olivia M @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:00PM]

I go to a magnet high school in Montgomery Alabama and we still use Windows 2000. Mind you this is a technical magnet school, it makes me sick.


I wish they would realize how important it is to have up to date technology and teach us ways to use it.

[Natedog @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:10PM]

In all seriousness, the fact that it's a magnet school might be your problem. See if you can take a "tour" of your local non-magnet school and compare the tech labs. I went to a "Technology" magnet school here in Knoxville (Vine Middle) for a year and then went back to my semi-ghetto local middle school. The "standard" school was better than Vine in every category.

As to all those carrying stereotypes of southerners: just stop it. It's pretty stupid.

[patrick @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:41PM]

As a refugee from behind the cotton curtain I can wholeheartedly agree with every single slam against this poor third world country called Alabama.

It hasn't changed in 25 years. And probably never will. They just don't know better and lack any desire to be different/better. '

It's an old boy network and will remain that way. Very prejudiced and backward. As recent as the 1990's a good friend of mine was told she needed to wear more skirts to set a better example. She was the HR Director for the Birmingham News.

Stupid is as stupid does...

[Sauerkraut @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:48PM]

I'm surprised they made these so small. Looks easy to get stolen or misplaced.

[SheauxDown @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:56PM]

I'm from Hoover, AL (right outside of Birmingham, probably 20 minutes from my house) and am utterly confused about it all. My school system is consistently rated one of the best in the country, and our government is far from corrupt - instead of wasting taxpayer's money, our police department used seized drug money to pay for their new E85 SUVs.

Seeing how horribly wrong Birmingham is when they have such an excellent example right beside them is bewildering.

And I know there are plenty of shitty places in Alabama, but Hoover is absolutely wonderful, progressive, and really a great place to live. This whole state isn't fucked, it just seems only the bad stories (and Hoover High Football) get all the media coverage.

[Chris @ Jan 23rd 2008 10:40PM]

Don't take this as a bash on Hoover, yes it is one of the brighter spots of Birmingham, but corruption and Hoover have been hand-in-hand this past year.

Just sayin'...

[SheauxDown @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:06PM]

Whoa, really? Like what? I'm at UA right now, so I'm not so up-to-date on hometown affairs.

[pathogen @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:17PM]

Actually you started it because Birmingham had no retail structure to build it's infrastructure. Hoover/Trussville/280 ate that. Birmingham had to give tax breaks to the corporations just to get them to be there so people could live/spend money outside of birmingham.

[Luckybob343 @ Jan 24th 2008 11:43AM]

To everyone confused about the dome, they've been talking about doing that for over a decade. It is a pipe dream and will never happen.

Hoover has better schools than Birmingham? No joke! The respective BOEs are funded entirely by local taxes. Hoover is full of middle and upper-class households and has a ton of commercial businesses to form a nice tax base. Birmingham proper? Welfare checks aren't taxed.

Had the city been well run over the past twenty years, Birmingham could have been the next Atlanta. Instead it's looking like the next Detroit.

[Wwhat @ Jan 23rd 2008 9:59PM]

Clearly bringing these OLPC's to schools in alabama is meant to raise a new kind of kid who will then become mayors that know a bit more, theoretically.

And I think the quote of $39 is meant to represent the cost of a wireless router perhaps? because you can indeed get those for around that price, although those won't support a whole school obviously, but those are details right?

[Fallbreak @ Jan 24th 2008 8:36AM]

The South bought computers, well..it's a start....

[fuzzybee @ Jan 24th 2008 10:42AM]

Wow. There are sme ignorant comments in the linked blog. My faovite:

"The thing does not use Internet Explorer as the Internet browser, so very few web pages on the Internet will work."