Computer Problems

The boys have OLPC laptops - laptops designed for children. They are, in many ways, great machines. They are fairly childproof, they don't have a hard disk, so they don't mind being dropped, they are pretty waterproof, there are no sticky out bits to break off and no holes to shove stuff into. They can't get viruses, and if they can, you can wipe the operating system and reinstall with a memory stick, and the whole process takes about 20 minutes. (Obviously, you only use Google Docs and Gmail, so there's no worries about it not saving stuff).

One tiny drawback that they have is that the mouse pad doesn't work if it's even a tiny bit wet - our children aren't bad at washing their hands, but they're not great at drying them, so this is occasionally a problem.

On Sunday we were driving in the car (coming back from Monterey, but that's another blog post). Alex was using his computer (that's another thing about OLPC computers - great battery life) in the car when suddenly, and without warning, he vomited on it, himself, the car, and anything else in the vicinity. We stopped (conveniently he did it just before a car park with bathrooms to aid in cleaning up) and started the clean up process.

We'd finished when we realized we hadn't cleaned his computer. And we couldn't see it. Then Daniel said "My mouse doesn't work on this computer, because it's wet."