I bought myself a One Laptop Per Child laptop for Christmas. Just in time, it seems, for Nicholas Negroponte's flagship to hit the rocks of the global economic slowdown.
Industry commentators are trampling over each other to point out that the idea of delivering laptops for under $100 to the third world was too dependent on economies of scale. And that snobby, elitist ideology alienated the first-world market that could have helped establish the product. And that the Sugar operating system is rubbish. And so on and so on.
Sure, I could have just made a donation without getting a laptop myself. Or I could have paid for a water pump or adopted a cow or any of a number of other perfectly good ways to give to charity. But I didn't because I'm a geek and a romantic; the symmetry of getting a dinky little laptop for myself and a random peasant at the same time, appealed to me. This is no mean feat: I'm white, liberal, middle class and not a church-goer. Consequently, I'm not likely to give much to charity. Anything that reverses this trend is a good thing.