Comment by benbreen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benbreen | Hacker News Reader

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You'd be surprised. A good friend of mine is an Afghan who grew up sleeping on a dirt floor alongside his 5 siblings. When he was 15, his parents sent him off to their family village in order to fight the Taliban.

I first met him at our PhD program orientation in the US. He speaks four languages and and is one of the most well educated people I've ever met. Granted, he's an exceptional person but by no means of a unique one.

Edit: can't help sharing something that just happened last week, I was with my wife in Athens, where she had just started her thesis research, interviewing Afghan refugees in one of the big Greek refugee camps. She befriends a 17 year old Afghan kid named Javad, no family or money, speaks nothing but Dari, and one of the first things he asks her is "can you send me a PDF of an intermediate to advanced level mechanical engineering textbook?" We're planning on sending him an ipad with a bunch of PDFs and sci hub articles.

I realize these are just two personal anecdotes but they have definitely changed my mind on this subject. Curious people tend to be curious regardless of their life circumstances.

This is not a terribly substantive comment, but a Kindle Fire might make a little more sense than an iPad. I'm thinking it's less likely to be stolen, more likely to have extra available charging cables.

I wouldn't have guessed this, but after looking it up it seems the battery life of the iPad mini is advertised at the same length as the Kindle Fire.

That's an awesome story. How was Javad planning to receive / read the PDF? Or did he want a paper copy?

His cell phone. He buys data 5 euro at a time from a shop in the town or goes to cafes to download English and engineering textbooks. That's what my wife's thesis project is about - specifically figuring out the best ways to share useful information with refugees who have cell phones but not much else, especially women who might not have a chance to go out in public much, or have a formal education. It's not my field at all but I find her work to be fascinating.

If you're interested, This American Life just did two whole episodes from a Greek refugee camp. In the second episode they interview a guy who patched into a power line under a tree to charge 6 cell phones at once! The group that both TAL and my wife were talking to is really doing good work, they're called the Greek Forum of Refugees.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/592/a...

This is a salutary anecdote which I wish we could convey to all those people who think that having a smartphone makes you "not poor". It's the exact opposite: it's so useful that even people who have not much else will go through hell or high water to keep their link to the world.

Wow, mind = blown a bit.

What a great thesis project, I hope something good comes of it. It's incredible both how much resolve people can have to change their circumstances and how detached I am from parts of the world and society sitting here in my kitchen on my MacBook.

Please have your wife check out http://www.oc4d.org/

Wouldn't a Thinkpad be a better idea ? You can get used ones for fairly cheap.

Recommending an x220 with a new battery / ssd / ram. Probably still cheaper than an ipad.

Although the ipad / or I'd suggest android tablet may be the better way to go. Charging from battery packs is easier than a laptop.

The thinking behind giving an iPad mini is purely just because we have one lying unused in a drawer. Here's an excerpt from what he actually had to say (rough draft translation by my wife from Dari so the wording is a little off, I.e "mechanical physics" should be mechanical engineering):

https://twitter.com/resobscura/status/761285673672409090

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