I've been expecting an announcement like this since at least 2002. I was at a recruiting event at Sun back in late 2002 and it was pretty obvious to me then that they had lost their way. They had no killer products or even rumors of such, they'd gone through a number of rounds of "cost cutting" measures (read: layoffs) and they were focused on yesterday's technology or pie-in-the-sky ideas. But, big things have a lot of momentum and can coast for a long time before reality hits. And, for some, reality will only hit when they feel the frigid waters of the north Atlantic.

(This'll be my last comment on this as I've had this discussion oh-so-many times with people like you and I get tired of it)

OK, so they don't have internet access today and they can't check the weather. Who's to say the PCV's next project won't be to set up a wireless network? Who's to say they won't soon be getting telephone and dial up in his area? There are a lot of amazing things going on in this area. Here's one of my favorite: Jhai. Granted, you did point out one thing they can not do today with computers which I stated they could, what about all of the other things? Spreadsheets? Students learning? Bookkeeping? Computers are multipurpose tools. Not having an internet connection does diminish the value of them but, as I demonstrated when I was a PCV, by no means eliminates their value.

Building/buying PCs requires a lot of planning and execution. Having lived in the rice fields of central Thailand and spent many days traveling back and forth between my village and Bangkok, I know this from personal experience. It is not easy and this PCV should be commended for his efforts.

There is a big difference between buying a bottom-of-the-line PC over the internet here in America and buying a PC in any developing country. When I was a PCV I did not buy bottom of the line PCs because I knew they would be obsolete way too quickly. We ended up with 35 mid-level machines and we assembled them ourselves. part of this was due to cost and part due to my desire to teach people.

I can not speak for Togo but I can say that here in the US and in Thailand is is almost always cheaper to buy the components and assemble a machine yourself than it is to purchase a machine of the same specs. When I was a PCV that difference was about $300 but machines were expensive in Thailand at the time. When I last built a box here in the US I did a lot of research and saved about $200 building my own machine. Of course I spent my time instead of my money by assembling these machines but I enjoy it and when I was in Thailand I taught a group of students how to do it. Several of them went on to technical school/college to pursue computers - directly because they were exposed to them. Until I came along they had never used or knew anything about computers. So we saved money and built capacity. Pretty good value if you ask me.

The last point I will address is the one which makes me mad because it is clear to me you have not done any research before making such asinine comments as "Really clueless scam".

I suggest you head back to Aaron's blog. Click through to see his project listing on the Peace Corps site. Now, I used to be the director of the Peace Corps Partnership Program - the part of the Peace Corps he is using to help fund his project. If you actually read and research, which you clearly haven't, you might find that the PCPP raises a lot of money for PCVs in country and there is a lot of oversight of these funds. Oversight includes the staff here in Washington, DC accounting, accounting in-country by Peace Corps Staff, project oversight, project reviews, etc. You could even do a FOIA request to learn more about the oversight on a particular project if you wanted. Like I said, I know all this because I used to be director of that program and I fielded many a complaint by donors and Volunteers alike that we added too much red tape. I agree, there is a lot of oversight but it is necessary to maintain the integrity of the program.

In one of my parent comments I mentioned that "in-kind" gifts are not all they are cracked up to be. Early on when I was a PCV I solicited used computers and they were a serious headache. Some worked, some didn't and they all broke fairly quickly. It was just as easy/hard (depends on your point of view) for me to raise money as it was to secure funds to buy parts to build computers so I fairly quickly shifted to soliciting funds - just like Aaron is doing.

Like I began this post with, this'll be my last comment in this thread. I've dealt with many people like you in the past and I doubt anything I write or any link I direct you to will convince you of the truth of what Aaron is doing or the Peace Corps does. but I also doubt you have ever actually been to a developing country, slept under a mosquito net, had (or risked having) Dengue fever, malaria or dysentary. I doubt you have ever spent days traveling on hot, dusty buses through parts of the world where no westerner has ever trod. I doubt you would ever do any of these things because it is much easier to sit in your basement disparging people on Slashdot who are doing all of these things. It is people like you who REALLY need to read The Ugly American because you represent the typical American the book portrays.

~ZanderMander