You like vim? Donate to Bram Molenaar in BTC and help kids in Uganda

[Gabi]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369041/Peter-Mandelson-Africa-aid-wasted-created-army-beggars.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money

[1714921594]

1714921594

[1714921594]

1714921594

[Tachikoma]

I spend most of my day in VIM, absolutely love it. Donated

[Timo Y]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369041/Peter-Mandelson-Africa-aid-wasted-created-army-beggars.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money

Yes, I am aware of this problem.

I too believe in "Trade not Aid" but that doesn't mean I need to be a fundamentalist about it.

I am also against governments giving out aid, because them being governments, they tend to give it to other governments, which in poor countries are often not more than glorified criminal gangs.

Giving to private charities with a local presence is a different story though.  There is nothing wrong with aid in certain situations, eg. when a real emergency is being addressed.

[Este Nuno]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369041/Peter-Mandelson-Africa-aid-wasted-created-army-beggars.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money

The thing is you're dealing with the guy who makes vim here. It's pretty damn safe to assume he knows what he's doing and he isn't blindly sending thousands of dollars to some garbage charity.

VIM.

[BitcoinAshley]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369041/Peter-Mandelson-Africa-aid-wasted-created-army-beggars.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money

The thing is you're dealing with the guy who makes vim here. It's pretty damn safe to assume he knows what he's doing and he isn't blindly sending thousands of dollars to some garbage charity.

VIM.

I hate to play devil's advocate, but how does making VIM qualify one to vet charities for effectiveness?

A lot of people barely even consider that, or they see the projects the charity is doing and ASSUME they are effective. I'm not saying this charity isn't effective, I'm saying that being the VIM guy doesn't necessarily qualify him to be a good judge of that. 

I know a low of people in even higher positions than "the VIM guy" who blindly donate to Susan G. Komen for the Cure (pink ribbon campaign) without realizing that they are a bunch of corrupt shills for the cancer industry more interested in confusing people about cancer and causing secondary cancers rather than actually preventing it. Corporate behemoth. Being someone in a high place doesn't mean you automatically get +100 spidey sense when it comes to charities.
Some charities aren't even corrupt, they are just ineffective. Looking at their websites you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell the long-term effect of their projects or whether there are more effective ways to spend that money.

The best "give money to Africa" charity I have found is one that teaches subsistence farmers agriculture techniques geared to growing in drought/desert conditions, and gives them specific varieties of fruit trees that grow excellently in drought conditions. This yields results. Building water treatment plants and clinics and schools is a very western approach as we're kind of skipping past the most basic needs.

[Este Nuno]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369041/Peter-Mandelson-Africa-aid-wasted-created-army-beggars.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money

The thing is you're dealing with the guy who makes vim here. It's pretty damn safe to assume he knows what he's doing and he isn't blindly sending thousands of dollars to some garbage charity.

VIM.

I hate to play devil's advocate, but how does making VIM qualify one to vet charities for effectiveness?

A lot of people barely even consider that, or they see the projects the charity is doing and ASSUME they are effective. I'm not saying this charity isn't effective, I'm saying that being the VIM guy doesn't necessarily qualify him to be a good judge of that. 

I know a low of people in even higher positions than "the VIM guy" who blindly donate to Susan G. Komen for the Cure (pink ribbon campaign) without realizing that they are a bunch of corrupt shills for the cancer industry more interested in confusing people about cancer and causing secondary cancers rather than actually preventing it. Corporate behemoth. Being someone in a high place doesn't mean you automatically get +100 spidey sense when it comes to charities.
Some charities aren't even corrupt, they are just ineffective. Looking at their websites you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell the long-term effect of their projects or whether there are more effective ways to spend that money.

The best "give money to Africa" charity I have found is one that teaches subsistence farmers agriculture techniques geared to growing in drought/desert conditions, and gives them specific varieties of fruit trees that grow excellently in drought conditions. This yields results. Building water treatment plants and clinics and schools is a very western approach as we're kind of skipping past the most basic needs.

You make good points. I just expect the guy behind vim to take the time to choose a reason able charity before soliciting donations from the public. I could be wrong of course. If it were some random person on bitcointalk or something similar I would be much more skeptical. My thinking behind it isn't so much about him being someone in a high place, but more being someone analytical and detail obsessed.

[etotheipi]

I hate to play devil's advocate, but how does making VIM qualify one to vet charities for effectiveness?

A lot of people barely even consider that, or they see the projects the charity is doing and ASSUME they are effective. I'm not saying this charity isn't effective, I'm saying that being the VIM guy doesn't necessarily qualify him to be a good judge of that. 

For reference.  I'm donating money to Bram Molenar.  His work has made my life 100x easier.  It's up to him to do with the money whatever he wants.  If he wants to donate the money to a charity in Africa, that's his decision.  Having made that decision publicly may change people's inclination to donate (knowing the money will ultimately go to whereever he designated), but it doesn't change my decision. 

[Este Nuno]

Also, I realize that my thinking in this case is wrong in general. And that's it's probably a good idea to question and discuss every charity, regardless of who chose it. Even if only to have similar discussions to this one so that people such as yourself can bring to light some of the issues with popular charities and their lack of effectiveness.

[asoltys]

I'm a huge fan of Vim.  Just donated 0.3 BTC

[etotheipi]

I just sent my pledge of 3 BTC: 

http://blockchain.info/tx/445d905e56c08456b0423faa77118f6c3307d629a08e7f09ea75050328b3bd3d

I assume you can trust the owner of the transaction, because I made sure it came from my own donation address.  I hope that is sufficient identity for you (you can match the address to the one on my homepage:  https://bitcoinarmory.com/).

[DeanC]

what is "vim" ?

[etotheipi]

what is "vim" ?

It's a text editor for programming that has a pretty steep learning curve.  It's terribly confusing if you don't know how to use it, but becoming proficient at it means that you can code for hours at much higher efficiency, without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard (mouse not required).

I've been using it for years, and at least partially attribute my success in developing Armory to it.  For me, it's like converting brainwaves directly in code modifications


P.S. - Maybe this helps out a frustrated newbie:  one of my biggest gripes with VIM that almost made me give up on it when I was learning, was the seemingly asanine decisiion to use the "ESC" key to exit insert mode, since it forces your left hand to leave the home keys, all the time.  I later found out that you can use Ctrl-[ to exit insert mode, and that was what I needed to be happy.  If you hated because of the escape key, give it another shot now

[rini17]

I like vim much, and would like to donate too. But I'll rather wait for the btc address to be shown somewhere officially, for example here: http://iccf-holland.org/donate.html or http://www.vim.org/sponsor/index.php

[davout]

I like vim much, and would like to donate too. But I'll rather wait for the btc address to be shown somewhere officially, for example here: http://iccf-holland.org/donate.html or http://www.vim.org/sponsor/index.php

Sure, as long as you rate me on OTC afterwards :-)

Bram said he would publish it on the vim mailing list, I didn't subscribe so I don't know if he did it yet, he asked if he could publish the address on the ICCF website which I advised him to do.

Either way, if you can't wait to donate you can e-mail him directly and/or ask Mike Hearn for confirmation (he helped convince Bram, they know each other IRL, they both work in Google's Zurich offices).

What does everyone think I should use to get the funds converted ? Since BC isn't back up yet I'm thinking about either Bitstamp or OTC (my heart goes towards OTC )

[kiko]

P.S. - Maybe this helps out a frustrated newbie:  one of my biggest gripes with VIM that almost made me give up on it when I was learning, was the seemingly asanine decisiion to use the "ESC" key to exit insert mode, since it forces your left hand to leave the home keys, all the time.  I later found out that you can use Ctrl-[ to exit insert mode, and that was what I needed to be happy.  If you hated because of the escape key, give it another shot now

QFT. This is good advice. I'm a happy user of `setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape`. I noticed the other day that google chromebooks go so far as to replace capslock with a kind of quick-search button.

[rikur]

So who pledged and didn't donate? I can easily count 12 BTC pledges and some extra donations on top of that?

[davout]

FTR : http://iccf-holland.org/bitcoin.html

[Este Nuno]

Hey, doesn't this make the charity a candidate for Bitcoin 100 now?

That's $1000 to them unless I'm missing something.

[davout]

Bitcoin 100

What's that ?

[Este Nuno]

Bitcoin 100

What's that ?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52543.0
http://bitcoin100.org/