I just heard about this here and I am thoroughly ticked off. I’ll just post the whole message for you to read:
This morning someone came into the Clarion West house where we’re staying and stole four laptops, some bags, clothing, and possibly other items.
Of course, these are our lives, especially right now.
We are all okay, and the house is secure, even more so now, but I would like to ask the SFF community for help.
Those who lost their laptops will not be able to replace these without detriment to their financial situation. These are essential for our writing, particularly over the next four weeks.
If you would like to help donate laptops or funds to those students who had their laptops stolen, please contact Leslie or Neile at infoATclarionwestDOTorg. More donation information may be forthcoming.
Thank you.
Please feel free to repost this and to link to this.
Just in case anyone sees them:
One black Dell Inspiron 1520.
One Silver colored Sager with a 17″ screen.
One Silver/red Dell XPSm1710.
One Sony Vaio Sz780.
Please, if any of you have a few bucks to spare or an extra laptop or something, consider donating it to these folks. This is completely screwed up and unfair. I hope who ever stole the items gets locked up soon.
(Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
6 Responses
Umm … Clarion’s the really expensive one, right? They should by their own bloody laptops if they’re stupid enough to leave them unprotected, and can afford the fee for the course.
Just because they can afford the fee doesn’t mean they can afford to go off and buy a new laptop. And from what it sounds like, someone went into the house who wasn’t supposed to, which is breaking and entering. So, not their fault.
Well was the door locked? Were the laptops hidden somewhere or just left out for the casual thief?
And laptops are dirt cheap now. They could get a minimally functional one from eBay before the week is out. It’s annoying, but it isn’t a huge disaster, and I’m frankly disgusted that they’d beg like this.
…yes, because everyone in America can run off and throw down $800 on a new laptop after losing the one they already had and paying several thousand dollars for this workshop. Have you forgotten that writers aren’t loaded? Are you saying if my laptop was stolen I could just go off and buy a new one? You’re being really cold about this…they’re not begging. They’re asking for help. Not everyone has money just lying around to go buy a new computer whenever the time calls for it.
You don’t NEED an $800 laptop to write. You don’t even need a laptop. You could make do with some dodgy old electric typewriter if you had to, or some Windows 95 creation with barely any RAM. People survived before laptops, and yes, laptops have made life easier, and I would cry if mine got stolen, but yeesh … they’re writers. Creatively solve the problem. They could afford to spend that much money on something that, when it boils down to it, is pure entertainment. It’s a holiday. They’re not going to die if they don’t do it. They’re not even going to be like guaranteed publishment or anything. They are doing a course that will do nothing except make their writing better. Yes, that’s hugely important, but it’s a luxury. You and I can’t afford to go to one of these things … it won’t stop us writing. If you got your laptop stolen, would it stop you writing? No it wouldn’t, because you have to write to keep sane, so you’d find other ways to do it.
There are people starving in this world, people who are living on the streets and can’t get back into the world. There are kids who don’t get a winter coat, or shoes that fit … and these people are begging for laptops like it’s the end of the world. It’s pathetic.
I might be an IT technician, but computers do not run the world. If all the computers blew up tomorrow the human race would survive. I’d be sad, because I wouldn’t be able to talk to you, and I’d be out of a job, but I think it might actually be a good thing. People are too dependent on computers nowadays and act like it’s a right to have them.
I’m going to stop ranting now because I need to go to work. :p
Yes, because it’s not at all possible that these folks need their laptops for their jobs, right? Or maybe, you know, they paid for these laptops out of their pockets and had them stolen and need them for the workshop. (They do, by the way, because writing by hand won’t work…the workshops are intense).
If my laptop was stolen it would severely change my ability to write, yes…and if it was stolen I wouldn’t be able to talk to you on MSN or in any capacity. So you might consider that. I write slow by hand and my hand starts hurting really fast. I wouldn’t get very much writing done if I had no computer, let alone would I be able to submit to magazines easily.
And they weren’t begging. They were asking for help and the community gave it to them. Because that’s what the community does. You’re being incredibly insensitive about this whole thing. They had something stolen from them that they need, for various reasons, things they worked to earn. Just because life sucks doesn’t mean we should just crap in the faces of these people when they ask for help. It’s not pathetic: this is the SF/F community. Someday I might need the their help and if that makes me pathetic, well, we should have a talk then.