I am jazzed about the OLPC project. As fellow Front Range Pythoneer Duncan McGreggor points out, it's one reason why Python will rule the world. And Duncan really hits the nail on the head in hoping that the kids who get these funky green laptops will have a formative learning experience the way so many of us coders did when we were young.

I know the small OLPC team is going gangbusters, despite fielding random requests from consumers as well as developers. Nonetheless, I made my impassioned plea for why I can contribute good software to this revolutionary learning project.

They put me on the developer list! So I have a shot at getting one of the green laptops to work on, which will be a lot easier than farbling with Sugar on my Xubuntu distro and just hoping my Python code will run fast enough on the actual hardware.

Developers are only borrowing the hardware, and as Nicholas Negroponte has pointed out repeatedly, this is a learning project, not a computer project. Nonetheless, I fully admit I feel like a kid on Christmas. [1] Just the prospect of receiving XO hardware has me motivated to flesh out the ideas I have for mesh-net games and mapping tools, and to stick closely by their mailing lists and developments.

I often boast about working at Array BioPharma. I have a stellar boss and a great team to work with, but overall the best thing is that every line of code I write is actually used, by scores of chemists, often within minutes of when I check it in. That is motivating. The prospect of helping children in developing countries to teach themselves how to learn is basically the same motivation increased exponentially.

Now let's get it done!