On Tue, Mar 21, 2006, Omer Zak wrote about "Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]": > However, introduction of audio recordings, without immediately > accompanying them with textual transcripts, has the effect of > disfranchising me and other deaf software developers, making us less > human, less valuable than you hearies. In the long range, this can > adversely affect also our being able to be employed (or get freelance > projects) and earn money.
Omer, while I feel your pain, I fail to understand how this is any different from what happens in real-life presentation, where you DO NOT have transcripts of the talk, just the slides that accompany them. If you already are used to somehow understanding real-life presentations (e.g., by reading the slides and asking the person next to you for clarifications), can't you understand recorded presentations (which are accomapnie with slides) in a similar manner? I agree with you that we should do whatever possible to not add additional burdens to deaf people, but there's no point in pretending that there won't be things that will be useful only for hearing people. Similarly, all software that deals with music, mp3 playing, and so on, is only of use to hearing people - but I don't suppose you say we should ban that as well... > This is similar to the effect on the deaf of introduction of telephones > in the latter part of 19th century. Before telephones, the deaf were > almost equal to the hearing. However, telephones put a large distance > between the hearing and the deaf. Only in recent years, did this gap This is extremely ironic, because Alexander Graham Bell is wildly seen as a supporter of the deaf. By the way, a different way to look at it is that before telephones, the *blind* had a very hard time because communication was done through letters and telegrams, and the telephone was a blessing to them. In other words, each new medium is a blessing for one part of the population, and all-in- all is a blessing to everyone because now everyone can use one of these medias to communicate (the blind can use the phone, the deaf can still write letters). The deaf and blind shouldn't lament the fact that they can't use one of the two media, but rather be happy that they can use the other one... At least, this is my opinion. > 1. Suppressing audio recordings would solve the discrimination problem, > but would not be good for the blind, busy people (who would like to > listen to the lecture while they are stuck in traffic jams), as well as > hold back technological progress. I'm glad you see this "solution" as nonsensical and can lead to absurdities like the mp3 example I gave above. > 3. The solution which I suggest is as follows: > After the lecture is recorded, make the recording available only to > volunteers, each of whom is to agree to transcribe say 5-minute or > 10-minute segment of the lecture, in exchange for early access to the > lecture and for giving them credit for transcribing it. Once the > transcribing work is done, make the audio recording and the textual > transcription available together to the Web surfing world. > [If the lecture is in English, the transcribers can first run > speech-to-text software on it and then manually fix its mistakes.] This is a great idea. Now it's up to you: round up the volunteers and start distributing work! > 4. Maybe there is another solution of which I did not think? The best thing to do is to write a Hebrew speech-to-text software! I'm not saying it is easy (very far from it...) but it's the best thing for the long run. My belief (which I outlined on this list about a year ago) is that in the future, speech interfaces will be much more common than they are today, and free software will absolutely need text-to-speech and speech-to-text implementations. -- Nadav Har'El | Tuesday, Mar 21 2006, 21 Adar 5766 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A man with a watch knows what time it is. http://nadav.harel.org.il |A man with two watches is never sure. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
