My picture of a ripped XO keyboard, which I posted on the olpc forum, was picked up by engadget, gizmodo, the eee pc blog, and pocket-lint. The comments on those articles lodge a number of accusations against me:

1) I should use a better camera and I'm an incompetent photographer. Huh? I think the ability to appreciate which camera is fastest, most readily available, and able to convey the information is pretty sophisticated thinking, but here's a fancy picture. Check. Of course, I think you'll agree the information conveyed by the photo really didn't change using a DSLR, macro lens, and putting it near an open window on the north side of the building so as to get that nice large-source sidelight.

2) People allege I live in a McMansion, my child is spoiled, I gave it to a child too young, and African kids won't do this because they'll be beaten. Even if I could live in a McMansion, I wouldn't, but I was an officer in the Navy for seven years and now I'm in medical school, so there's no McMansions in my near future. We live in a 3 bedroom slab in an average post-War burb full of three-bedroom slabs. We are living on student loans and I'll owe the Navy yet more time after medical school. When the Navy ships us off to someplace else for my residency, and possibly more time on a ship, hopefully we can sell the house at not too much of a loss. My wife and I agree we'd like to live in a more interesting neighborhood when we move. Living in New Orleans, post-storm, my son spent most of his first year of life an internally displaced refugee in College Station, Texas, where we crammed the four of us and my parents into their three-bedroom slab. We don't watch TV, there's no video games, both kids sleep in one room (after College Station they seem to prefer it, and the third bedroom is a study/guestroom), and their toys are relatively few and focused on creative play: lego, brio, drawing supplies, the creme-de-la-creme is an old chalkboard my dad rescued from a dumpster when I was a kid. Everything is blessed by my wife, a pediatric occupational therapist who works full-time with learning-disabled children. My son, thankfully, is quite bright and now three. He doesn't yet understand the monetary value of individual items and he is possibly the kindest child I've ever met. I left the computer out for my six-year-old daughter to play with, she got bored, went to play in the dirt outside; I was studying. I'm pretty sure he was just curious. Kids, they aren't nasty, nor do they understand the consequences of all their actions. That's part of what they learn. Anyone who says the African kids will take care of these computers because they get the sense beat into them has an awfully low valuation of people and an awfully high valuation of machines.

3) I've been accused of deliberately doing this and blaming my son. Um, no.

4) So what was my point? Well, for starters, it seems there really should be spare parts and high-failure rate parts should be identified. I could have sent it back and gotten my money back, it was within the RMA window, but I'd rather my kids get to play with an XO. If anyone knows how to fix these keys, I'd take that, but I've never heard of a rubberized anything this complex being easily or adequately repaired. Second, I really think I had a better idea for a keyboard design, which I posted in my original article. In fact, I even provided a letter-art diagram in the post on the olpcnews forum.

On the up side, I'm glad to see the new media companies sourcing their photographs.

I think Negroponte is trying to do right. I'm not sure, but it seems like OLPC may have bitten off more than they were ready to chew. I still think he's doing his best and all the people who spent braincells complaining about my picture or generally making completely non-contributory comments about the OLPC project in general should have spent those brain cells on the OLPC wiki or scrapping together some lunch money to buy an XO so they too could contribute to the learning process. If anything, I regret letting my original irritation leak through, but, if it gets OLPC to release some replacement keyboards, I'd really appreciate it.