Character, for some people, is defined by adversities. How people act and react to difficult situations says a lot more than their words do about what or who they are. Many philosophers and psychologists have harped on this.

Anyone can talk the talk. That is quite easy — there are some who can talk quite convincingly enough and sell “pulvoron” to a man dying of thirst, or cellphone load to one starving to death — but unless you were a poet, words cannot move mountains. Nor can they start a revolution, unless you were a Rizal who could and did face a firing squad.

But walking the walk, that is something else.

Challenging the deskbound

About a couple of weeks ago, Acer Philippines gathered a band of Manila-based IT pencil-pushers and brought them all to the island of Bohol. The company’s media challenge, which has had four editions so far, has become an annual summer ritual for NCR-based technology writers and journalists.

This year’s version was highlighted by nerve-wracking activities at the Danao Adventure Park (www.eatdanao.com), an ecotourism and extreme adventure center operated by the local government unit of Danao, Bohol. This fun (some would say foolhardy) set of activities includes mountain trekking, ziplines, and of course the granddaddy of them all — the Plunge.

The last one combines elements of walking the plank (a pirate’s one, that is), bungee jumping, and a gigantic swing. We had a blast. Thanks, Acer.

OLPC to OTPC?

One Laptop Per Child, the nonprofit organization founded by IT industry stalwart Nicholas Negroponte, has given up its idea of producing a sub-$100 laptop for children in the world’s poorest countries. OLPC now plans to produce a $99 tablet PC with microprocessor vendor Marvell Technology Group Ltd., maker of the Moby tablet computer.

OLPC has sold millions of the green and white XO laptop, the original netbook, in countries such as Afghanistan and Uruguay for about $200, double the group’s announced target price of $100. It was the cornerstone of the group’s grand dream of providing millions of poor children with a computer each.

While this move might prompt the organization to change its name to OTPC (as in One Tablet…), it could also allow the group to attain its quite admirable goal.

World Meets iPad

As their American counterparts did a month or two earlier, thousands of Apple die-hards massed outside Apple shops in Australia, Japan, and several major European countries last week. Long lines of Apple faithfuls, some of them braving the elements and lack of sleep, formed outside Steve Jobs’ retail outlets. Each of them hoping to grab an iPad or two before supplies would run out. Such a devotion to a gadget or device that in a year or two would become a glorified paperweight befuddles the mind. And yet, for an ever growing number of Jobs acolytes, especially those of the true, dyed-in-the-wool variety, no other course of action is possible or thinkable.

Yet, the iPad is fast becoming a phenomenon that extends far beyond the borders of the Mac and IT worlds. Aside from creating a new computing category, it may also hasten the netbook’s demise, and maybe that of the Flash.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.