TDDPirate’s Ideas

קרן רמון הכריזה על תחרות בין הצעות לפרויקטים פורצי דרך, שישפיעו תוך 5 שנים על חייהם של לפחות 5 מיליון ישראלים.

עולים בדעתי ארבעה רעיונות כאלה, שחלקם דורשים כיפוף חוקים כדי להכנס למסגרת התחרות.

• תצוגה חזותית של אותות דיבור - ישפיע על חייהם של כ-7000 ישראלים חרשים, כיפוף הכללים הדרוש הוא לקבל פרויקט שישפיע על לפחות מיליון חרשים מכל העולם.
• חפירת מנהרות עמוק באדמה וחיים בהן, כדי לפנות מקום לחיות בר וצמחיה על פני כדור הארץ. יאפשר לישראל לקלוט עוד מיליון יהודים ויותר בלי שתהיה צפיפות בלתי נסבלת. הפרויקט ידרוש יותר מ-5 שנים כדי לגרום לשינוי משמעותי.
• שינוי חברתי כך שיהיה מעמד חברתי גבוה יותר למי שיש לו יותר מיומנויות שעוזרות לשרוד ולהתאושש מאסון טבע או מעשה ידי אדם, במקום למי שמפגין יותר צריכה ראוותנית. קורסי הכשרה לכל הציבור ימומנו על ידי חברות הביטוח שמוכרות ביטוחים נגד האסונות למיניהם. ישפיע על כלל האוכלוסיה.
• בתי מחסה לחתולי רחוב - לא רעיון שלי. ישפיע על כל מי שיש חתולי רחוב באזור מגוריו וזה כמעט כולנו.

הפרס הוא קורס באוניברסיטת הסינגולריטי.

אני מתלבט. האם להגיש הצעה אחת? האם להגיש את כל ההצעות שהן רעיונות שלי? האם בכלל להגיש הצעה? האם לא תהיה בעיית נגישות בקורס או בביצוע הפרויקט הזוכה לאחר מכן?

The Ramon Foundation announced a contest among proposals for breakthrough projects, which will affect the lives of at least million Israelis within 5 years.
I have in mind four such ideas, part of which require some rules to be bent in order to be admissible to the competition.

• Visual representation of speech signals - will affect the lives of about 7000 Israeli Deaf persons, the needed rule bending will be to accept a project which will affect the lives of at least million Deaf persons from all over the world.
• Digging tunnels deep in Earth and living in them, to free room for wild animals and vegetations on Earth surface. Will enable Israel to absorb another million Jews and more without incurring unbearable congestion. The project will need more than 5 years to cause a meaningful change.
• Social change so that high social status will be granted to whomever has more survival and disaster recovery after natural disaster or human-made disaster, instead to whomever demonstrating conspicuous consumption. Training courses for the entire populace will be financed by insurance companies which sell insurances against the various disasters. Will affect the entire population.
• Hostels for feral cats - not my idea. Will affect anyone whose neighborhood has feral cats and this is almost all of us.

The prize is a course in the Singularity University.

I am agonizing over it. To submit one proposal? To submit proposals for all my ideas? To submit a proposal at all? Won’t there be an accessibility problem in the course or in subsequent execution of the winning project?

ישראל זק תרפ”ז - תשע”א

לימדת אותי לכפול ולחלק כשהייתי בגן. אחר כך שכחתי איך מחלקים עד שלמדתי בבית הספר.

השגת לי צעצוע שמחירו היה מיליוני דולר - CDC6400 שהיה המחשב המרכזי של האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים.

בזכות השבתון שלך, הייתי בארה”ב וזכיתי לטייל שם בתקופה שבה ישראלים עדיין לא הרבו לטייל בחו”ל.

יום אחד הבאת הביתה מכשיר טלפון שבעזרתו הצד השני יכל לשלוח לי מסר על ידי קוד מורס. הנסיונות לא עלו יפה כי אני ואלה שניסו לשוחח איתי טלפונית לא היינו מיומנים בתקשורת מורס.

כשהייתי בתיכון, פתחת חברת ייעוץ גיאולוגי ועזרתי לך בתכנות. לאחר שנים, הנסיון שלך בצד העסקי של הייעוץ הקל עלי את המעבר מעובד שכיר לפרי-לאנסר עצמאי.

ליווית אותי בתקופה שבה התחלתי לנהוג ברכב, מה שהקל עלי את ההשתלבות בתרבות הכביש הישראלית.

כשכתבתי את עבודת המסטר שלי, קבלתי ממך עצה להוסיף לה רשימת שאלות להמשך המחקר.

אתה ואמא ניהלתם אורח חיים שלא הדגיש את החומרנות וצריכת הראווה. המותרות שלכם היו לטייל כמעט בכל חור נידח בעולם. לכן גדלתי בתחושה שכסף לא יהיה מה שימנע ממני להשיג מה שבאמת חשוב בחיים. היה פתרון תקציבי ללימודים בקולג’ גלאודט כך שיכלתי לבחור לא ללמוד שם לא בגלל שיקולים כספיים. עזרתם לי לרכוש דירה מיד כשידעתי איפה אגור. בחרתי לא לעבור ניתוח שתל שבלול אבל דאגתם למימון, כך שאם הייתי רוצה, הייתי יכול לעבור ניתוח זה - גם בתקופה שלפני שהניתוח נכלל בסל הבריאות.

פרויקט הטלכתבים, להנגשה לחרשים של רשת הטלפונים לפני יותר מ-25 שנה, נזקק גם לכל מיני קשרים עם כל מיני בעלי השפעה. פעלת רבות מאחורי הקלעים. אצלנו מקובל להתגאות כשלא נזקקים לקשרים בשביל להצליח. אבל זה היה פרויקט שבשבילו זו היתה מצווה לנצל כל קשר שאפשר ולהפעיל כל השפעה פוליטית שצריך.

לאחר שנים קראתי את ההיסטוריה של הטלכתבים בארץ שבה הכל התחיל - ארה”ב - והתחושה שלי היא שבסך הכל בישראל הכל הלך לנו יותר בקלות מאשר ליוזמי הטלכתבים בארה”ב.

בניגוד להרבה אנשים אחרים, לקחת על עצמך את האחריות לאפשר ולהקל על התקשורת איתי. אני לא זוכר שאי פעם תיקנת לי את הדיבור, ואני זוכר פעם שאמרת לי שכשאני מרגיש בנוח אני מדבר יותר ברור. השקעת את המאמץ בלימוד ואימונים בדיבור מרומז ותמיד היה לי קל להבינך כשדיברת אליי, פרט כמובן לשבועות האחרונים שבהם כבר היית עייף מדי בשביל זה.

אני זוכר שהיו נסיבות שונות בילדותי שבהן לא הבנתי מה הולך ומה רוצים ממני - עד שבאת והסברת לי בבהירות מה הולך שם.

מאז שהטלכתב נכנס לחיינו, היית שרות הממסר שלי, לתיווך ביני ובין אנשים אחרים שהייתי צריך להשיגם בטלפון. לשמחתי הצורך שלי בשרות הממסר הלך וירד עם השנים, עם שיפור הנגישות התקשורתית של הציבור הכללי, הודות למסרונים ולדואר אלקטרוני.

תודה לך, אבא.

Israel Zak 1927-2011
You teached me to multiply and divide when I was at kindergarten age. Later I forgot how to divide until I relearned it in school.
You obtained for me a toy which costed multimillion dollars - CDC6400, which was the central computer of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Thanks to your Sabbatical leave, I was in USA and got to travel there at a time in which Israelis still didn’t travel abroad as much as they do today.
One day you brought home a telephone which had the means to let the other side pass a message to me by Morse code. The experiments were not successful because I and my conversation mates were not proficient in Morse communications.
When I was at high school, you opened a geological consulting company and I helped you in software development. Few years later, your experience with the business side of consulting eased my transition from employee to self-employed freelancer.
You escorted me when I started to drive a car, making it easier for me to integrate into the Israeli road culture.
When I wrote my M.Sc. thesis, you advised me to add a list of questions for further research.

You and mother had lifestyle, which did not emphasize materialism or conspicuous consumption. Your luxuries were to travel to almost every distant hole in the world. Therefore I grew up with the feeling that money will not be what’ll prevent me from achieving whatever is important in one’s life. There was a financing solution for my studies in Gallaudet College so I could choose not to study there not due to financial considrations. You helped me buy an apartment as soon as I knew where I’ll live. I chose not to undergo cochlear implantation but you secured financing for this, so that if I wanted, I’d be able to get this operation - even before the operation was included in the Health Basket.

The TDD Project, for making the telephone network accessible to the deaf more than 25 years ago, needed also all kinds of pull with all kinds of people with influence. You did a lot behind the curtains. It is our custom to be proud when pull is not needed in order to succeed. However it was a project for which it was mitzvah to exploit every exploitable connection and pull every available rope. Several years later I read the history of the TDDs where everything started - USA - and my feeling is that overall it was easier for us than for the TDD innovators in USA.

Unlike several other people, you accepted the responsibility to facilitate the communication with me. I do not remember any occasion in which you corrected my speech, and I remember that once you told me that when I feel relaxed, I speak more clearly. You invested the effort into learning and practicing cued speech and it was always easy for me to understand you when you addressed me, except of course for the last few weeks during which you were too tired for this.
I remember various circumstances during my childhood, in which I did not understand what was going on and what people want from me - until you arrived and explained clearly what is going on there.
Ever since the TDD entered our lives, you were my relay service, to relay messages between me and other people whom I needed to contact by telephone. Happily, my need for the relay service was lessened over the years, with improvement in telecommunications accessibility of the general population, thanks to SMS and E-mail.

Thank you, father.

שעת כדור הארץ והחרשים

ביום חמישי 24.3.2011 שעה 20:00, שוב יכבו את האורות לשעה כדי להעלות את המודעות לאיכות הסביבה.

ושוב, אצטרך להחרים את האירוע כמו שהחרמתי אירועים דומים בשנים קודמות. וזאת למרות תמיכתי ברעיון השמירה על איכות הסביבה.

הסיבה - בגלל חרשותי, אני צריך אור ואביזרים חשמליים שונים כדי לתקשר עם אנשים אחרים.

קישורים נוספים (additional links):

• The Earth Hour and the Deaf
• The Earth Hour and the Deaf (again )

Today I was in Weizmann Institute of Science, to attend a popular science lecture.  The lecture’s topic was “The role of molecular traps in plant behavior”, and the reason I went to this particular lecture was because Mrs. Rina Tzoref arranged for it to be accessible.

The subject was put in the context of the Green Revolution, which freed humanity from hunger due to shortage of agricultural produces.  However, population growth continues and agriculture needs to be even more efficient.

Currently, out of the theoretical yield, only about 60% gets consumed by people.  The other 40% are lost to weeds, pathogens (fungi, bacteria, viruses), insects and other animals.  In addition, it is also necessary to defend plants against plagues.  For example, the pathogen involved in the 1845-1849 Irish Potato Famine has made a comeback.  There is also a new pathogen from Africa, which infects wheat plants, and against which there is no currently known cure.

Therefore, it is very interesting to know how do plants defend themselves against pathogens and insects.  Most of the lecture dealt with those defense mechanisms.

After attending the August Penguin 2010 conference, Ilana Benish wrote (in Hebrew) about the benefits of Free Software for people with disabilities.

I would like to make also the following points:

• Working on Free Software projects, like working on any volunteer work, is a way for software developers with disabilities to prove their worth to prospective employers.  This can serve to overcome prejudices and resistance by prospective employers, especially those who were burned by people who proved to be capable of drawing a salary and incapable of delivering results.
• Like working on other self-benefit projects, working on relevant Free Software projects can empower people with disabilities, who can now help themselves rather than rely upon other people to help them.

Other people blogged about the conference, so I’ll be very dry and technical.

I served as the accessibility coordinator of the conference.  In addition to myself, I arranged for accessibility for two more people with disabilities - blind woman and a deaf+parapelgic man.  I reached the trivial conclusion that it was much easier in previous years, when I needed to arrange for accessibility only for myself.

IRC

Before the conference, it was suggested that we’ll try to arrange for lecture transcript straming to the Internet, to benefit people who cannot attend the event in person.  I bought into the idea when I realized that it would make the lectures accessible to deaf-blind people, who bring with them laptops with a Braille display.

Originally, I thought that I’ll not have the time to figure out the technical details.  However, since I was laid off two weeks before the conference, I had ample time to deal with the challenge of lecture transcript streaming.

During those two weeks, I went through the whole process of evaluating and selecting a transcript streaming method, and settled on IRC.  Then, I evaluated few IRC clients, until xchat was chosen.  Finally, I figured out how to configure the IRC channel to meet our needs.

However, all those efforts came to naught because the wireless network at the conference blocked IRC and opening IRC had to be arranged ahead of time instead of at the last minute.  Alternatively, I could have used a wireless modem, but I was not prepared for this.

The chosen IRC client had the problem of wasting columns on uninformative nickname of the speaker on the channel being followed.  For the next August Penguin, a special-purpose client should be developed.  It will take care of all details of reserving a channel and it’ll allow text entry and display in an optimal way for the task (lecture transcribing and real-time streaming of the text).

During the process, I got help from several people.  A thank-you letter should be found in the archives of the discussions@hamakor.org.il mailing list.

Other Problems

In addition to the IRC problem, the laptop got stuck once, losing the transcript of the quick lecture about Free Software in Education.

The notetaker and the deafies sat near one of the lecture hall’s entrances, and it turned out to be a noisy place until the door was closed.  As a result, the notetaker missed parts of what was being spoken in the lectures.

As far as I am aware, everything else worked flawlessly.

Power Splitter

I brought with me a power splitter with three sockets.  I was amused to notice that people with laptops, who sat near us, needed the electrical power to recharge their laptops.  So all three sockets were in use.

Today I was in Memograph in Petah Tikva, a medical diagnostics institute to which my health fund refers patients who need to have their ankles (and some other body members) X-rayed or subjected to ultrasound examination.  I needed to have my ankle X-rayed.

I arrived at the place to find a long and overdue queue.  The delay was about an hour and half.  I gave the X-ray requisition form and Form 17 to the receptionist and told her that I am deaf.

Then I waited.  The wait was made more bearable thanks to the coincidence that three other Deaf men came for their own tests, two of whom I already knew and the third was a new acquaintance for me.  It was nice to pass the time chatting with them.

About the time I was due to enter the X-ray room, the receptionist surprised me by trying to hand over to me a CD which purported to have already contained my X-ray photos.  I protested and explained that I was not examined at all.

After some investigation and head scratching, it turned out that the X-ray technician called out for a Zak.  The receptionist did not realize that my shoulder needs to be tapped.  So another Zak got in - Peretz Zack, who by coincidence needed to have his ankle X-rayed as well.  His ankle was X-rayed according to the instructions in my form and he left soon afterwards.

After the confusion was clarified, I was called in and had my ankle X-rayed.  Some time later I got the CD and analysis results - which I hope that they indeed correspond to my own ankle rather than to Peretz Zack’s.

As I walked back home, I analyzed the event.  The mistake was due to the following:

1. The patients have their paperwork taken by the receptionist, who hands it to the X-ray technician.  When a patient enters the X-ray room, he is not positively identified by the X-ray technician as corresponding to the paperwork waiting for him inside the room.  A post-it paper with the patient’s name given to the patient in exchange for the paperwork would have solved the problem.
2. The receptionist was not trained to warn the X-ray technician NOT to use the public address system to summon a deaf patient, but rather to have someone tap on his shoulder.  This is more tough one, given the relative rarity of deaf patients.  Today’s get together of 4 patients was probably once in a lifetime coincidence.

From now on I’ll probably have to be on the lookout for medical records really belonging to Peretz Zack, which got into my medical files because he, by mistake, somehow assumed my identity.  At least until the medications, which I take due to my heart attack, kill him.

At 20:00 tonight, lights are due to be turned off for an hour to raise consciousness of the environment.

Again, I’ll have to reluctantly boycott this event as I boycotted a similar event two years ago, and due to the same reasons.

Everyone knows about guide dogs for blind people.

There are also guide dogs for deaf and deaf-blind people.  Those dogs are trained to alert their masters when there are some important environmental noises.

Those who serve deaf-blind people are also trained to pick up things, which are dropped on the floor, and bring them back to their masters.  This is useful since when, for example, a deaf-blind person loses his keys, he doesn’t hear the noise of their dropping on the floor and once he notices the loss, cannot easily look for them by sight.

People, who need to have such dogs trained in Israel, can contact the Ali Hope nonprofit, which specializes in such a training.

The story starts at the late 1980’s, at which time I did my M.Sc. work under Prof. Jacob Klein.  It was a strike of luck for me, as I did not set out to look for a top notch advisor, but ended up having such an advisor.

Twenty years later, as one of his former M.Sc. students, I was invited to a workshop, which was dedicated to his 60th birthday, and which was held between 21-23 June this year.  I was happy to attend it, soak some science, and meet old acquaintances.

The workshop was relatively small and intimate.  There were few tens of participants, and several of them also lectured and presented posters.  Most of them were students, collaborators or colleagues of Prof. Klein.  At the workshop’s end, people remarked about the high quality of research described in the lectures.  Scientists were also not afraid to venture forth from their zones of comfort and discuss also subjects about which they did not have all the answers.  So one could notice that some post-lecture questions were answered by “I do not know”.

Rachel Yerushalmi-Rozen, one of the workshop organizers, arranged for me full coverage of notetakers so that I could follow all lectures.  They did good enough work so that I was not bored, even though fundamental cognitive and motor limits of humans prevented them from writing down everything that was being said during the lectures.  The notetakers had to be proficient with the terminology used in the lectures, so they were students of the workshop’s organizers.

The first part of the workshop was held in Schmidt Auditorium in Weizmann Institute of Science, and when it ended, a group photo of the participants was taken.  Such group photos often end up in biographies of scientists, who participated in them.  The caliber of the workshop’s participants was such that several of them are current or future prominent scientists.

In one of the evenings we were treated to a dinner and a rare night visit in the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo (see also in the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Biblical_Zoo).  After the night tour, still in the zoo, Prof. Klein blew out candles on his birthday cake and we were treated to a presentation of photos of highlights of his life, so that the 3-day workshop would qualify also as a birthday party.