“A mad rush happened this morning when the gates opened at 7 a.m. at the Richmond International Raceway for Henrico County School’s $50 i-book [sic] laptop computer sale. The much-anticipated computer sale started at 9 a.m. but many people came late last night to wait outside the gates in line,” NBC12 News (Virginia) reports.
“When the gates finally opened, several people were hurt with scraps and bruising as the crowd rushed in. One woman with a one-year-old child pushed in, but her stroller was crushed in the rush,” NBC12 News reports. “The County is selling the 1,000 surplus computers to Henrico county residents because it has switched from i-book [sic] to Dell computers. People wanting to buy a computer must prove they live in Henrico County and are only allowed to buy one computer per person.”
Direct link to the video (RealPlayer) here.
[UPDATE: 1:20pm ET: The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a slideshow of the event and stampede here: http://media.gatewayva.com/photos/rtd/special/ibook/index.htm ]
MacDailyNews Take: Somehow, we can’t imagine the good people of Henrico trampling each other to get four-year-old Dells when the time comes. The Henrico School System will most likely be paying some company $50 per Dell laptop for recycling/disposal. And NBC12, get the name right. It’s “iBook.” It’s quite a simple thing to get right, but it looks really stupid when you get it wrong. (We’ve worked in and consulted for TV stations for a good number of years. Trust us, most of the people working at your local TV station aren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack.)
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Woman wets herself to keep place in line for $50 Apple iBooks – August 16, 2005
Henrico closes $50 Apple iBook sale to general public; only Henrico residents can buy – August 03, 2005
Henrico moves $50 Apple iBook sale to Richmond International Raceway due overwhelming demand – July 28, 2005
Apple announces 30,000 iBooks deal with Florida’s Broward County Public Schools – July 27, 2005
Henrico residents object to public sale of Apple iBooks – July 26, 2005
Henrico County Public Schools to sell Apple 12-inch iBooks for $50 each on August 9th – July 25, 2005
Henrico blasted for choosing Dell laptops with Windows XP over Apple iBooks with Mac OS X Tiger – May 09, 2005
Henrico school officials on Apple to Dell switch: The logo will change, but the tool is the same – April 30, 2005
Henrico school board dumps Apple Macs, picks Dells with Windows – April 29, 2005
Henrico County Apple iBook plan in jeopardy? – April 02, 2005
Survey shows support for Henrico iBook program with ‘lukewarm support’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – March 07, 2005
Henrico poll finds students are using iBooks successfully – February 11, 2005
Henrico iBooks raise concerns among some parents – May 28, 2004
Henrico high school laptop program to continue, but will it still feature Apple Macs? – February 24, 2005
More schools experience Windows virus, worm problems while Macs just keep working – August 22, 2003
A tale of two school systems: Windows schools crippled while Mac schools unaffected – August 21, 2003
I hope someone is videotaping this to make an iMovie called “Gold Rush”!
Or something like that.
Gee, Apple should use this in their advertising campaign!
Sheesh!
– DogaDoga
on one hand, its nice to see folks so interested in owning the most advanced consumer computing system in the world…
on the other, that’s just disgusting to see people behave that way.
Typical. The computers are no good, but all these stampeders want one. The school district people are thick.
MDN – I believe if they were selling dells for $50 – people would buy those too.
Everyone wants something for free, or remotely close.
Henrico County School District is run by a bunch of idiots. First, the could have easily sold the iBooks for $100, or more. And, secondly, they could have avoided the mad rush by forming a line and handing everyone a ticket with a number. And, if you more proof, they switched from iBooks to Dells.
Stupid, stupid people running our schools!
“on the other, that’s just disgusting to see people behave that way”
Greed brings out the worst in humanity.
hell, just look at the war in Iraq!
Please, please, “JJ” — pull your head out of your ass. Or out of the Henrico School District’s ass. Or out of your own ass. It doesn’t matter which. Look — no one (even the morons running the School Board down there) would even try to sell four year old Dell’s. Those things would be so useless after four years in de hands of those students that they’d be better off using them as lunch trays. Hey, I keed. I keed because I LOVE de retarded.
Especially when they run school districts.
Who runs this place. Henrico County School District are bunch of idiots. The people are nuts and who suffer in the end the kids. By both worlds, one the schools going to sorry Dells and two the poor kids almost get kill trying to get a $50.00 computer. Man, this is stupid. Why didn’t Henrico County School District just let the student who had the ibook in the first place keep them. How much can you gain by selling a bunch of computers at $50.00 a pop. It’s a sad sad world we live in. We will see a year from now, how them Dells are working. Look like some job openning in the future on that school board and going to need IT people to fix those Dells too. Thats more taxes for them. Man I love this Henrico County.
Why not just do a public auction to get a fair market price out of them? For $50, you’d have to be dumber than the school officials (who switched to Dells) for not picking one up.
I just did a search on eBay for a 500 MHz iBook. Working ones are selling for over $300 and broken ones (for parts) are selling for over $150.
They really should have sold them for market price and then used that money to buy new ones and then see how much they really cost….
” . . . I keed because I LOVE de retarded.
Especially when they run school districts.”
Truer words were never spoken by a dog.
And “hammer” — stick to the topic. Don’t we have enough good fodder for discussion in just the Mac world? This Henrico County idiocy alone is providing a wealth of material.
NBC12 will have Apple i-book experts in the Call12 Center tonight from 5-6:30 p.m. to answer all of you i-book questions. Call tonight, 345-1212.
What would an i-book expert be able to say about Apple iBooks?
that’s not hammer, that’s hammertime
and anytime is a good time to talk about an immoral war that puts our soldier’s in harm’s way.
the whole pretense for the war was a lie.
Hate to say it (well, no I don’t), but sometimes this is what you get when your government is administered at the county level. It’s just too far removed from the direct control of the people. I much prefer the process here in New England: Whether it’s Town Meeting (smaller towns) or Mayor & Council (cities and bigger towns), there is little to no power at the county level.
County government = bloated, out-of-control, and unanswerable buffoons running your lives. Just look at this idiotic school board.
“that’s not hammer, that’s hammertime”
hammer, hammertime . . . tomato, tomahto.
Just get off the board with your pedantic vitriol.
It just proves that Apple is really starting to show how good they are. I don’t see this kind of reaction to PC’s that are on sale that’s for sure.
i got friends and family in iraq.
i guess you can say i have a vested interest.
unlike you, “voltaire”
then again, maybe you have oil stock. so your interest is vested in this war too.
Maybe Jim Turley can call them to ask for help with his i-pod.
“And “hammer” — stick to the topic. Don’t we have enough good fodder for discussion in just the Mac world? This Henrico County idiocy alone is providing a wealth of material.”
yeah stop blaming me for someone elses post.
MW ‘record” as in, for the record my post said “Greed brings out the worst in humanity”
why does everyone care so much? A laptop, regardless of brand would be eagerly grabbed at by users for 50$. People don’t care… they just want a good deal in the good ol’ US of A.
I would dearly love to be able to know what is going on in the heads of the doofuses who switched to Dells right now. Think this will give them a clue they made a really stupid decision?
MacDailyNews, of course they would stampede to get 4 yr old Dells just as they did for the iBooks. ANY computer for $50 will generate this kind of nonsense, and you know it. Most of these people wouldn’t even know an iBook from a Dell anyways, so don’t make them out like they are shrewd computer experts!
“How much can you gain by selling a bunch of computers at $50.00 a pop”
well, lets see.
$50 x 1000 = $50,000
I guess about that much.
Of course they stampeded.
The old AirPort cards in those machines, which are no longer made, are worth at least $50 on their own!
hammertime, I suppose you run an oil-free household? No? Bike to work? No? Work on developing solar panels or some alternate technology? No? Are an expert on the geo-political situation of the world, specifically with reference to nuclear powered nations? No? Have you even thought about any of these things? You complain about the war, and how the pretense was a lie, without even a half-baked understanding of what’s really at stake. Then you glibly throw out comments about oil, as if that sums up your righteousness. All without having a clue about any bigger picture. Get some education, and think about the real-world implications of your hazy, feel-good philosophies. Millions of people die in the middle-east constantly. It’s not some big deal, like it is here. The whole worldview is completely different from yours and mine, and very hard for us to understand. Until you at least make an HONEST attempt to understand some of this, you are just an ignorant voice shouting with the crowd that you happen to like, without really knowing why or what is true.
mw: plans, as in yes, there are plans and agendas – but what’s yours?