Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-31 חוט Ram-on Agmon




שלום עומר. 
אכן, לכל אחד סגנון המתאים לצרכיו, אבל נגזר גם מההיצע של המידע. 
נכון, תמלול של הרצאות, הוא דבר טוב, מהרבה סיבות. 
נכון, הכל סביב הקוד הפתוח שהוא הנושא שעמותת המקור שואפת לשפר. 
נכון, זה יפה שאנשים מתנדבים על מנת לקדם את הגישה של אנשים עם מוגבלויות
לקוד הפתוח. 
כל זה, בהקשר של היקף המשאבים הנדרשים לביצוע פרויקט. 
אני האחרון שאגיד למישהו לא להתנדב, אני רק חושב שאם מתנדבים כבר, כדאי
לעשות את זה באפקטיביות הרבה ביותר האפשרית. אולי יש אנשים שהרצון לתמלל
הרצאות בוער בעצמותיהם, אבל כאשר יש כל כך הרבה משימות וכל כך מעט מתכנתים
ופעילי קוד פתוח, אולי אפשר לשקול אלטרנטיבות. 
בעיני, אישית, זו לא המשימה החשובה ביותר. לא כי אני מזלזל בצרכים של
אנשים עם מגבלויות שמיעה או בהרצאות שניתנו, אלא שלדעתי יש מקורות נוספים,
נהדרים וזמינים להפליא כבר עכשיו. 
יום טוב. 
רם-און. 

Omer Zak wrote:

  שלום רם-און,
קודם כל, וזה הדבר החשוב ביותר:
כל אחד לומד בסגנון אישי המותאם לו.
יש אנשים שמתאים להם ללכת להרצאות.  יש אנשים שמתאים להם ללמוד לבד מספרים.
ויש אנשים שמתאים להם לפתח את הכל בראש שלהם וצריכים רק לקבל רמזים
(הפיסיקאי זוכה פרס הנובל ריצ'רד פיינמן הוא דוגמא לאדם מהסוג השלישי).
ובפרט, נובע מכך שזה שאתה לא מפיק תועלת משאלות ותשובות לא אומר שאחרים לא
יפיקו מזה תועלת.

נקודה נוספת היא, שלא כל דבר מתפרסם בספרים או מאמרים או באינטרנט.
לפעמים מרצה יכול לספר בהרצאה בע"פ על התנסות שהיתה ושקשורה לחומר, מבלי
שיוכל לכתוב על כך במאמר.

במיוחד בהרצאות של Larry Wall, הן כמו יצירות אמנות.  אני לא רואה אותו
עורך את ההרצאות שלו משנים קודמות ומפרסם אותן כמאמרים.  או שהן עוברות
תמלול או שלעולם לא אדע מה הוא אמר בהרצאה.

ובקשר לעמותת "המקור":
1. Perl זו שפת תכנות שממומשת על ידי תוכנות חופשיות.
2. המתנדבים שביצעו ויבצעו תמלול הם אנשים מעולם התוכנה החופשית, וגם
ההרצאות שיתומללו בעתיד יעסקו בנושאים מעולם התוכנה החופשית.
3. תוכנת עזר לתמלול, שאני רוצה לגרום לפיתוחה, גם כן תהיה כמובן תוכנה
חופשית.
האם צריך עוד קשר לעמותת "המקור"?
  --- עומר

On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 18:22 +0200, Ram-on Agmon wrote:
  
  
שלום עומר וכולם. 
אני אישית לא בטוח בתועלת של דיבוב הרצאה. עד כמה שאני מבין, הרצאה היא
למעשה סיכום של מאמר עם היכולת להרחיב בהתאם לדרישות הקהל. 
אני חושב שהערך של השאלות הנשאלות במהלך הרצאה לא בהכרח שווה את היקף
המשאבים הנדרש כדי לבצע את הדיבוב. 
כאשר אני נדרשתי לחומר מהרצאות, הפקתי תועלת רבה מהשקפים של ההרצאה, ואם
היו חוסרים, השלמתי לבד. 
אני לא יודע מה היקף המשאבים הנדרשים לדיבוב. עד כמה שאני מבין את "רוח
הקוד הפתוח" אם העבודה צריכה להיעשות, זה על ידי מתנדבים. 
וכאן אני לא ממש מבין מה הקטע של עמותת המקור ואיך היא קשורה לזה. 

יום טוב. 
רם-און. 


Omer Zak wrote: 


  On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 12:51 +0200, Ofir Carny wrote: 
  
  
  
I think transcribing is important, not only for human accessibility
purposes, but also for software accessibility (e.g. translation
services, web crawlers) which adds a lot of functionality. And I think
that any software that can ease this process is a good thing.


  
  On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 22:04 +0200, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
  
  
  
I think searchability is an additional benefit for the general public.


  
  Ofir and Daniel, thanks a lot for this suggestion!

Everyone else:

1. Please continue to brainstorm more ideas how textual transcripts can
be useful for the general population, not only for the deaf.  So far we
have:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Searchability (when one looks for a particular passage in the
lecture).
- Web crawling for Web search engines.
- Ability to use Babelfish & Co. to translate into another language.

2. All Lecture club Webmasters (HAIFUX, TELUX, BIUX, Jerusalem, Perl,
Python, etc.), please:

In the Web page which features the lecture recording audio files, please
add request to help in transcribing parts into text, citing the above
non-deaf-related benefits.

Suggest to start with marking the times where new sections start and
adding section headings (with the relevant keywords).  This would not
very useful for me and other deaf persons, but would provide 80% of the
benefit of full transcription to you busy and fun-loving hearies, with
less than 20% of the effort; and then maybe some people can be motivated
to fill in whole sections.

For now, the transcription process can be supported by Wiki with time
marks, like the way Larry Wall's lecture's transcription process is
being carried out.

  
  
  
BTW, I'm curious, are video recordings of lectures lip-readable?


  
  Not more or less than lipreadability of talking head type TV programs.
Their lipreadability is well known to be inadequate, so subtitles
(captions) are always needed.

  
  
  
Daniel

Omer Zak wrote:




  How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
which people with normal hearing may get.
For example:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Maybe other benefits, which occur to the c

Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-30 חוט Omer Zak
שלום רם-און,

מכתב זה לא נכתב בלשון דיפלומטית בלשון המעטה.

אני בהחלט לא מסכים איתך.
לדעתי תמלול של הרצאות מסוימות זו משימה חשובה ביותר.
יש כמובן הרצאות, שהתמלול שלהן אינו באותה דרגת חשיבות.
אבל הרצאות כמו זו של RMS או זו של Larry Wall הן חשובות לתמלול, כי לעתים
הן מביאות תובנות חדשות, שלא יזכו לפרסום במאמרים אחרים.

תמלול של הרצאה של RMS נמצא ב:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/torino-rms-transcript.en.html
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060330094249412

ואם אנשים לא היו טורחים לתמלל אותה, זה היה מקפח אותי ואנשי מקצוע חרשים
אחרים בצורה הלא-נסבלת, שבה קופחו עוורים כאשר התחילו להשתמש ב-GUI בעבודה
עם מחשבים אישיים.

עיתוי הערתך ובחירת ההתכתבות, שעליה הערתך מגיבה, גם מראה על התנגדות לא
עניינית לנושא תמלול הרצאות.
ההתכתבות היתה על חיפוש סיבות נוספות כדי להצדיק את המאמץ הכרוך בתמלול
הרצאות, חיפוש שלשמחתי נחל הצלחה.  זה לא כמו להתקיף התכתבות שמבוססת על
עקרון ה-"מגיע לי".

במקום לסייע במציאת שימושים נוספים לתמלול הרצאות, שהיו יכולים לסייע
לקידום התוכנה החופשית, בחרת להתקיף את הרעיון הזה ולרמוז (בלי דוגמאות)
שיש שימושים אחרים לזמנם של מתנדבים.

דרך אגב, אני מבין שיש מחסור במתנדבים לפעילויות מסוימות של עמותת המקור
(חברי ועד חדשים וארגון אוגוסט פינגווין 5).  כאשר מחליטים במודע לא להשקיע
בנגישות, זו גם החלטה מודעת לוותר על הפוטנציאל של מתנדבים מציבור האנשים
עם מוגבלויות.
 --- עומר

On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 01:13 +0200, Ram-on Agmon wrote:
> שלום עומר. 
> אכן, לכל אחד סגנון המתאים לצרכיו, אבל נגזר גם מההיצע של המידע. 
> נכון, תמלול של הרצאות, הוא דבר טוב, מהרבה סיבות. 
> נכון, הכל סביב הקוד הפתוח שהוא הנושא שעמותת המקור שואפת לשפר. 
> נכון, זה יפה שאנשים מתנדבים על מנת לקדם את הגישה של אנשים עם מוגבלויות
> לקוד הפתוח. 
> כל זה, בהקשר של היקף המשאבים הנדרשים לביצוע פרויקט. 
> אני האחרון שאגיד למישהו לא להתנדב, אני רק חושב שאם מתנדבים כבר, כדאי
> לעשות את זה באפקטיביות הרבה ביותר האפשרית. אולי יש אנשים שהרצון לתמלל
> הרצאות בוער בעצמותיהם, אבל כאשר יש כל כך הרבה משימות וכל כך מעט
> מתכנתים ופעילי קוד פתוח, אולי אפשר לשקול אלטרנטיבות. 
> בעיני, אישית, זו לא המשימה החשובה ביותר. לא כי אני מזלזל בצרכים של
> אנשים עם מגבלויות שמיעה או בהרצאות שניתנו, אלא שלדעתי יש מקורות
> נוספים, נהדרים וזמינים להפליא כבר עכשיו. 
> יום טוב. 
> רם-און. 
> 
> Omer Zak wrote: 
> > שלום רם-און,
> > קודם כל, וזה הדבר החשוב ביותר:
> > כל אחד לומד בסגנון אישי המותאם לו.
> > יש אנשים שמתאים להם ללכת להרצאות.  יש אנשים שמתאים להם ללמוד לבד מספרים.
> > ויש אנשים שמתאים להם לפתח את הכל בראש שלהם וצריכים רק לקבל רמזים
> > (הפיסיקאי זוכה פרס הנובל ריצ'רד פיינמן הוא דוגמא לאדם מהסוג השלישי).
> > ובפרט, נובע מכך שזה שאתה לא מפיק תועלת משאלות ותשובות לא אומר שאחרים לא
> > יפיקו מזה תועלת.
> > 
> > נקודה נוספת היא, שלא כל דבר מתפרסם בספרים או מאמרים או באינטרנט.
> > לפעמים מרצה יכול לספר בהרצאה בע"פ על התנסות שהיתה ושקשורה לחומר, מבלי
> > שיוכל לכתוב על כך במאמר.
> > 
> > במיוחד בהרצאות של Larry Wall, הן כמו יצירות אמנות.  אני לא רואה אותו
> > עורך את ההרצאות שלו משנים קודמות ומפרסם אותן כמאמרים.  או שהן עוברות
> > תמלול או שלעולם לא אדע מה הוא אמר בהרצאה.
> > 
> > ובקשר לעמותת "המקור":
> > 1. Perl זו שפת תכנות שממומשת על ידי תוכנות חופשיות.
> > 2. המתנדבים שביצעו ויבצעו תמלול הם אנשים מעולם התוכנה החופשית, וגם
> > ההרצאות שיתומללו בעתיד יעסקו בנושאים מעולם התוכנה החופשית.
> > 3. תוכנת עזר לתמלול, שאני רוצה לגרום לפיתוחה, גם כן תהיה כמובן תוכנה
> > חופשית.
> > האם צריך עוד קשר לעמותת "המקור"?
> >   --- עומר
> > 
> > On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 18:22 +0200, Ram-on Agmon wrote:
> >   
> > > שלום עומר וכולם. 
> > > אני אישית לא בטוח בתועלת של דיבוב הרצאה. עד כמה שאני מבין, הרצאה היא
> > > למעשה סיכום של מאמר עם היכולת להרחיב בהתאם לדרישות הקהל. 
> > > אני חושב שהערך של השאלות הנשאלות במהלך הרצאה לא בהכרח שווה את היקף
> > > המשאבים הנדרש כדי לבצע את הדיבוב. 
> > > כאשר אני נדרשתי לחומר מהרצאות, הפקתי תועלת רבה מהשקפים של ההרצאה, ואם
> > > היו חוסרים, השלמתי לבד. 
> > > אני לא יודע מה היקף המשאבים הנדרשים לדיבוב. עד כמה שאני מבין את "רוח
> > > הקוד הפתוח" אם העבודה צריכה להיעשות, זה על ידי מתנדבים. 
> > > וכאן אני לא ממש מבין מה הקטע של עמותת המקור ואיך היא קשורה לזה. 
> > > 
> > > יום טוב. 
> > > רם-און. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Omer Zak wrote: 
> > > 
> > > > On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 12:51 +0200, Ofir Carny wrote: 
> > > >   
> > > >   
> > > > > I think transcribing is important, not only for human accessibility
> > > > > purposes, but also for software accessibility (e.g. translation
> > > > > services, web crawlers) which adds a lot of functionality. And I think
> > > > > that any software that can ease this process is a good thing.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 22:04 +0200, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
> > > >   
> > > >   
> > > > > I think searchability is an additional benefit for the general public.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > Ofir and Daniel, thanks a lot for this suggestion!
> > > > 
> > > > Everyone else:
> > > > 
> > > > 1. Please continue to brainstorm more ideas how textual transcripts can
> > > > be use

Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-28 חוט Omer Zak
שלום רם-און,
קודם כל, וזה הדבר החשוב ביותר:
כל אחד לומד בסגנון אישי המותאם לו.
יש אנשים שמתאים להם ללכת להרצאות.  יש אנשים שמתאים להם ללמוד לבד מספרים.
ויש אנשים שמתאים להם לפתח את הכל בראש שלהם וצריכים רק לקבל רמזים
(הפיסיקאי זוכה פרס הנובל ריצ'רד פיינמן הוא דוגמא לאדם מהסוג השלישי).
ובפרט, נובע מכך שזה שאתה לא מפיק תועלת משאלות ותשובות לא אומר שאחרים לא
יפיקו מזה תועלת.

נקודה נוספת היא, שלא כל דבר מתפרסם בספרים או מאמרים או באינטרנט.
לפעמים מרצה יכול לספר בהרצאה בע"פ על התנסות שהיתה ושקשורה לחומר, מבלי
שיוכל לכתוב על כך במאמר.

במיוחד בהרצאות של Larry Wall, הן כמו יצירות אמנות.  אני לא רואה אותו
עורך את ההרצאות שלו משנים קודמות ומפרסם אותן כמאמרים.  או שהן עוברות
תמלול או שלעולם לא אדע מה הוא אמר בהרצאה.

ובקשר לעמותת "המקור":
1. Perl זו שפת תכנות שממומשת על ידי תוכנות חופשיות.
2. המתנדבים שביצעו ויבצעו תמלול הם אנשים מעולם התוכנה החופשית, וגם
ההרצאות שיתומללו בעתיד יעסקו בנושאים מעולם התוכנה החופשית.
3. תוכנת עזר לתמלול, שאני רוצה לגרום לפיתוחה, גם כן תהיה כמובן תוכנה
חופשית.
האם צריך עוד קשר לעמותת "המקור"?
  --- עומר

On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 18:22 +0200, Ram-on Agmon wrote:
> שלום עומר וכולם. 
> אני אישית לא בטוח בתועלת של דיבוב הרצאה. עד כמה שאני מבין, הרצאה היא
> למעשה סיכום של מאמר עם היכולת להרחיב בהתאם לדרישות הקהל. 
> אני חושב שהערך של השאלות הנשאלות במהלך הרצאה לא בהכרח שווה את היקף
> המשאבים הנדרש כדי לבצע את הדיבוב. 
> כאשר אני נדרשתי לחומר מהרצאות, הפקתי תועלת רבה מהשקפים של ההרצאה, ואם
> היו חוסרים, השלמתי לבד. 
> אני לא יודע מה היקף המשאבים הנדרשים לדיבוב. עד כמה שאני מבין את "רוח
> הקוד הפתוח" אם העבודה צריכה להיעשות, זה על ידי מתנדבים. 
> וכאן אני לא ממש מבין מה הקטע של עמותת המקור ואיך היא קשורה לזה. 
> 
> יום טוב. 
> רם-און. 
> 
> 
> Omer Zak wrote: 
> > On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 12:51 +0200, Ofir Carny wrote: 
> >   
> > > I think transcribing is important, not only for human accessibility
> > > purposes, but also for software accessibility (e.g. translation
> > > services, web crawlers) which adds a lot of functionality. And I think
> > > that any software that can ease this process is a good thing.
> > > 
> > 
> > On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 22:04 +0200, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
> >   
> > > I think searchability is an additional benefit for the general public.
> > > 
> > 
> > Ofir and Daniel, thanks a lot for this suggestion!
> > 
> > Everyone else:
> > 
> > 1. Please continue to brainstorm more ideas how textual transcripts can
> > be useful for the general population, not only for the deaf.  So far we
> > have:
> > - Much shorter files, faster to download.
> > - Ability to speed-read by busy people.
> > - Searchability (when one looks for a particular passage in the
> > lecture).
> > - Web crawling for Web search engines.
> > - Ability to use Babelfish & Co. to translate into another language.
> > 
> > 2. All Lecture club Webmasters (HAIFUX, TELUX, BIUX, Jerusalem, Perl,
> > Python, etc.), please:
> > 
> > In the Web page which features the lecture recording audio files, please
> > add request to help in transcribing parts into text, citing the above
> > non-deaf-related benefits.
> > 
> > Suggest to start with marking the times where new sections start and
> > adding section headings (with the relevant keywords).  This would not
> > very useful for me and other deaf persons, but would provide 80% of the
> > benefit of full transcription to you busy and fun-loving hearies, with
> > less than 20% of the effort; and then maybe some people can be motivated
> > to fill in whole sections.
> > 
> > For now, the transcription process can be supported by Wiki with time
> > marks, like the way Larry Wall's lecture's transcription process is
> > being carried out.
> > 
> >   
> > > BTW, I'm curious, are video recordings of lectures lip-readable?
> > > 
> > 
> > Not more or less than lipreadability of talking head type TV programs.
> > Their lipreadability is well known to be inadequate, so subtitles
> > (captions) are always needed.
> > 
> >   
> > > Daniel
> > > 
> > > Omer Zak wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
> > > > which people with normal hearing may get.
> > > > For example:
> > > > - Much shorter files, faster to download.
> > > > - Ability to speed-read by busy people.
> > > > - Maybe other benefits, which occur to the creative minds so abundant
> > > > among Hamakor members?
> > > > 
> > > > This is another approach to solving the problem of justifying the effort
> > > > of transcribing lectures.
> > > >   
> > 
> > --- Omer
> >   
> 
> -- 
> הודעה זו נכתבה באמצעות תוכנה חופשית בלבד. 
-- 
I am the Cochlear Corporation of the Borg.  All resistance is futile.
Deaf Culture is irrelevant.  YOU SHALL BE IMPLANTED.
My own blog is at http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in

Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-28 חוט Ram-on Agmon




שלום עומר וכולם. 
אני אישית לא בטוח בתועלת של דיבוב הרצאה. עד כמה שאני מבין, הרצאה היא
למעשה סיכום של מאמר עם היכולת להרחיב בהתאם לדרישות הקהל. 
אני חושב שהערך של השאלות הנשאלות במהלך הרצאה לא בהכרח שווה את היקף
המשאבים הנדרש כדי לבצע את הדיבוב. 
כאשר אני נדרשתי לחומר מהרצאות, הפקתי תועלת רבה מהשקפים של ההרצאה, ואם
היו חוסרים, השלמתי לבד. 
אני לא יודע מה היקף המשאבים הנדרשים לדיבוב. עד כמה שאני מבין את "רוח
הקוד הפתוח" אם העבודה צריכה להיעשות, זה על ידי מתנדבים. 
וכאן אני לא ממש מבין מה הקטע של עמותת המקור ואיך היא קשורה לזה. 

יום טוב. 
רם-און. 


Omer Zak wrote:

  On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 12:51 +0200, Ofir Carny wrote: 
  
  
I think transcribing is important, not only for human accessibility
purposes, but also for software accessibility (e.g. translation
services, web crawlers) which adds a lot of functionality. And I think
that any software that can ease this process is a good thing.

  
  
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 22:04 +0200, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
  
  
I think searchability is an additional benefit for the general public.

  
  
Ofir and Daniel, thanks a lot for this suggestion!

Everyone else:

1. Please continue to brainstorm more ideas how textual transcripts can
be useful for the general population, not only for the deaf.  So far we
have:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Searchability (when one looks for a particular passage in the
lecture).
- Web crawling for Web search engines.
- Ability to use Babelfish & Co. to translate into another language.

2. All Lecture club Webmasters (HAIFUX, TELUX, BIUX, Jerusalem, Perl,
Python, etc.), please:

In the Web page which features the lecture recording audio files, please
add request to help in transcribing parts into text, citing the above
non-deaf-related benefits.

Suggest to start with marking the times where new sections start and
adding section headings (with the relevant keywords).  This would not
very useful for me and other deaf persons, but would provide 80% of the
benefit of full transcription to you busy and fun-loving hearies, with
less than 20% of the effort; and then maybe some people can be motivated
to fill in whole sections.

For now, the transcription process can be supported by Wiki with time
marks, like the way Larry Wall's lecture's transcription process is
being carried out.

  
  
BTW, I'm curious, are video recordings of lectures lip-readable?

  
  
Not more or less than lipreadability of talking head type TV programs.
Their lipreadability is well known to be inadequate, so subtitles
(captions) are always needed.

  
  
Daniel

Omer Zak wrote:



  How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
which people with normal hearing may get.
For example:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Maybe other benefits, which occur to the creative minds so abundant
among Hamakor members?

This is another approach to solving the problem of justifying the effort
of transcribing lectures.
  

  
  
--- Omer
  


-- 
הודעה זו נכתבה באמצעות תוכנה חופשית בלבד. 




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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-22 חוט Omer Zak
On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 12:51 +0200, Ofir Carny wrote: 
> I think transcribing is important, not only for human accessibility
> purposes, but also for software accessibility (e.g. translation
> services, web crawlers) which adds a lot of functionality. And I think
> that any software that can ease this process is a good thing.

On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 22:04 +0200, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
> I think searchability is an additional benefit for the general public.

Ofir and Daniel, thanks a lot for this suggestion!

Everyone else:

1. Please continue to brainstorm more ideas how textual transcripts can
be useful for the general population, not only for the deaf.  So far we
have:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Searchability (when one looks for a particular passage in the
lecture).
- Web crawling for Web search engines.
- Ability to use Babelfish & Co. to translate into another language.

2. All Lecture club Webmasters (HAIFUX, TELUX, BIUX, Jerusalem, Perl,
Python, etc.), please:

In the Web page which features the lecture recording audio files, please
add request to help in transcribing parts into text, citing the above
non-deaf-related benefits.

Suggest to start with marking the times where new sections start and
adding section headings (with the relevant keywords).  This would not
very useful for me and other deaf persons, but would provide 80% of the
benefit of full transcription to you busy and fun-loving hearies, with
less than 20% of the effort; and then maybe some people can be motivated
to fill in whole sections.

For now, the transcription process can be supported by Wiki with time
marks, like the way Larry Wall's lecture's transcription process is
being carried out.

> BTW, I'm curious, are video recordings of lectures lip-readable?

Not more or less than lipreadability of talking head type TV programs.
Their lipreadability is well known to be inadequate, so subtitles
(captions) are always needed.

> Daniel
> 
> Omer Zak wrote:
> 
> >How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
> >which people with normal hearing may get.
> >For example:
> >- Much shorter files, faster to download.
> >- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
> >- Maybe other benefits, which occur to the creative minds so abundant
> >among Hamakor members?
> >
> >This is another approach to solving the problem of justifying the effort
> >of transcribing lectures.

--- Omer
-- 
Every good master plan involves building a time machine.  Moshe Zadka
My own blog is at http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html


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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-22 חוט Geoffrey S. Mendelson
On Tue, Mar 21, 2006 at 02:01:46PM +0200, Omer Zak wrote:
> 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, I disagree with you. I understand the situation you are in, and
the benefit that having them presented in text, video (so you could lip
read) or signed video. For those that are not familar with the term it
means a picture in the corner of a person translating the lecture into
sign language, and has nothing to do with PGP. :-)

However there is value to the world in general to have the audio recordings,
or podcasts as they have become called, posted as soon as possible. Since the
lectures are, I assume in Hebrew, they would be as worthless to me as you.
This does not detract from their intrinsic value. 

Yes, there would be more value to them if they were available in text, or
English or Russian translation, etc. 

While I think there should be some effort made to accommodate you and other
people who need extra effort to be accommodated, I don't think they should
be delayed because they are not.

Since I really don't know much about the educational system here, I can't
be more precise, but is there a school for teachers of the death that
might provide as part of their training an on site signer? 

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED]  N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667  IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/

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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-22 חוט Daniel Vainsencher
Omer, it sounds to me like the only objection is to the question of 
motivation. I don't think anybody will mind if the software that helps 
transcription merely exists and is usable by whoever may want to 
contribute by using it. Then if there are good enough reasons for it to 
happen, it can.


I think searchability is an additional benefit for the general public.

BTW, I'm curious, are video recordings of lectures lip-readable?

Daniel

Omer Zak wrote:


On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 19:33 +0200, Alon Altman wrote:
 


  I fully agree with Orna on this. This is against the FOSS spirit. If at
all, the government should be supplying the deaf with the tools to
transcribe audio when needed (in the US they do via "relay calls"). A free
software approach to this issue would be similar to what project guntenberg
uses (http//www.pgdp.org/) which is cutting the work to small peices for
volunteers to work on, WITHOUT limiting access to the originals.
   



The suggestion to tie access was only one possible solution (and bad one
due to technical reasons) to the problem of motivating volunteers.
Other suggestions are welcome.

 


However,
even this may not be cost effective. The community as a whole will benefit
more from these volunteers' time if they would have contributed in other
means, such as writing software or localization, which outweighs Omer Zak's
personal wishes to hear a lecture.
   



My personal wishes?!

My inconsidrate whim to be included in the community rather than be
excluded?  After all the effort my educators spent on me in getting me
to study in normal schools and learning to lipread and speak to my best
ability, with the goal of integrating me in the wide community.

If any of you is parent of a deaf child, you probably find it difficult
to accept that your deaf child should have access to Sign Language and
be part of the Deaf Community.  It is probable that none of you is
parent of a deaf child, but you probably know relatives or friends who
have deaf children and are faced with the dilemma of trying to integrate
their child into the wide community versus isolating them in the Deaf
Community.  Ask those parents what they want for their children (but
without trusting vaportechnological wishes for technology which solves
all problems and which is just hiding behind the corner).  Then look at
them straight in the eye and tell them that their deaf children will not
be able to access the content of the lectures recorded in audio files.

About 10% of the general population have varying degrees of hearing
impairment.  While my degree of hearing impairment is the fate of about
0.1% of the population, few percent have sufficiently bad hearing to be
unable to benefit from, or avoid coming to lectures.

You do not see other people with disabilities, but they exist.  This
E-mail message is being BCC'ed to few deaf software developers, who
currently do not feel enough self-confidence to participate in the Free
Software related meetings, discussions or forums.

Consider that some of those people might contribute to Hamakor's pool of
volunteers, for tasks and projects which are not related to deafness.
But they cannot contribute without access to the information, which they
need in order to contribute.

 


  "Discrimination" is not a problem here. There will always be people for
which the information will not be accesible, say people who don't know
English, or people who do not have a programming background.
   



I refuse to accept this attitude!

A better attitude would be "yes, this is a problem.  Let's continue
looking for a good solution to the problem".  I do not accept the
attitude of "let's do nothing, and leave people with 'difficult'
disabilities out in the cold".

Enlisting volunteers for transcribing all lectures does not necessarily
come at expense of other voluntary activities of the community, because
some people do not have other skills, which they can volunteer.  For
other people this may be a gentle introduction into the world of
voluntary work.  Eventually they'll graduate to heavier volunteer work.

How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
which people with normal hearing may get.
For example:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Maybe other benefits, which occur to the creative minds so abundant
among Hamakor members?

This is another approach to solving the problem of justifying the effort
of transcribing lectures.
 --- Omer


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[Fwd: Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux:"Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
Private discussion, forwarded to the list with approval.

If the discussion triggers someone to develop a Free Software Hebrew ASR
engine (even if not perfect, but enough to save labor on transcribing
lectures), then it will be worth it.

 --- Omer

 Forwarded Message 
From: Dov Grobgeld <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re:
Telux:"Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:10:17 +0200
Hi Omer,

Indeed I ment to send my reply to the list, but made i mistake in the
sending. But never mind. I didn't read the whole thread before I
responded and I realized others said the same thing I meant to say
publically.

When working with volunteers there is no other way than begging, I
believe. And giving positive feedback. This is true of free sw
contributions, wikipedia, community volunteer work etc. If you (the
collective you) are the reciever you should smile and thank the giver
for what you received. Of course you have in parallell the right to
demand the same service should be provided by the government, social
services etc, in order not to be dependent on volunteers.

Larry's lecture was the first work I ever worked on transcribing. And
it wasn't easy, as Larry is using a special perl specific vocabulary.
When listening it doesn't really matter whether he sais "simil" or
"situal" or "sigil" (which is the word he used). But when transcribing
you really have to understand it. Which is good per se, because it
forces a different level of understanding of the lecture. The reader
as well, has the advantage of seeing the exact words, which is another
advantage of the transcription, that you can add to your list of
transcription advantages.

But the fact is a lot of times the contents is too casual for people
to bother to make the effort. Or they want to hide the fact that they
didn't understand everything. Or they might not be interested in
learning enough to give a sensible translation. Most lectures are like
irc conversation transcripts. It might be nice to read through quickly
once. But it is not something that you want to return to. (That is not
the case with Larry's talks though, which I feel are quite eternal.
:-).

I'm falling asleep so I'll stop here.

Feel free to forward this email to the email list if you feel like it.

Regards,
Dov


On 3/21/06, Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hello Dov,
> You sent the following message to me in private but I assume that you
> meant to sent it to discussions@hamakor.org.il based upon the language
> which you used.  For now, I am replying to you in private.
>
> Let's try to be creative and find a win-win solution to the problem.
>
> 1. You (the collective you) want recorded lectures ASAP, even if they
> are not accompanied immediately with written transcripts.
>
> 2. Like everyone, I was born with limited begging rights.  I can ask for
> favors and beg for volunteer time only up to a limit.  I prefer to use
> those begging rights for other purposes, if possible.  So I am looking
> for ideas for getting those lectures transcribed without my having to
> beg people for this.
>
> 3. I was trying to identify benefits to the hearing from availability of
> transcripts for recorded lectures.  Can you please look for additional
> advantages for the hearing from those transcripts?
>
>   Thanks,
>--- Omer
>
>
> On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 23:38 +0200, Dov Grobgeld wrote:
> > Some sort of compromise must be found. On the one hand, it is not
> > reasonable to deprive the hearing-abled of their perceived
> > appreciation of listening to a recorded lecture, or tie the release of
> > a recording until a transcription is ready. It would be similar to not
> > releasing a book in Swahilii until a translation was available, e.g.
> > in Swedish. I don't understand Swahilii, but I appreciate the fact
> > that there are millions of people who do. But of course I would feel
> > frustrated if there was something available just in Swahilii that I
> > would very much like to take part of.
> >
> > These conflicts don't happen daily to most of us, as we don't live in
> > an environment where we don't understand the language. But to Omer and
> > other deaf, this, I assume, is the situation.
> >
> > The problem with transliterations is that we are all volunteers, and
> > the only thing that Omer can do in this case is to ask us and hope for
> > somebody to do it. (Him asking on the mailing list was the trigger for
> > the amount of

Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Uri Bruck

Nadav Har'El wrote:

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]]":





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.


There is such commercial software for English. However, I'm not sure how 
useful it would be for recorded lectures. It requires training for each 
individual user, and the company gives a full refund to people who can't 
train the program within a certain amount of time. I know of a few 
people who are quite happy with it.







--
Thanks,
Uri
http://translation.israel.net

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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 19:33 +0200, Alon Altman wrote:
>I fully agree with Orna on this. This is against the FOSS spirit. If at
> all, the government should be supplying the deaf with the tools to
> transcribe audio when needed (in the US they do via "relay calls"). A free
> software approach to this issue would be similar to what project guntenberg
> uses (http//www.pgdp.org/) which is cutting the work to small peices for
> volunteers to work on, WITHOUT limiting access to the originals.

The suggestion to tie access was only one possible solution (and bad one
due to technical reasons) to the problem of motivating volunteers.
Other suggestions are welcome.

>  However,
> even this may not be cost effective. The community as a whole will benefit
> more from these volunteers' time if they would have contributed in other
> means, such as writing software or localization, which outweighs Omer Zak's
> personal wishes to hear a lecture.

My personal wishes?!

My inconsidrate whim to be included in the community rather than be
excluded?  After all the effort my educators spent on me in getting me
to study in normal schools and learning to lipread and speak to my best
ability, with the goal of integrating me in the wide community.

If any of you is parent of a deaf child, you probably find it difficult
to accept that your deaf child should have access to Sign Language and
be part of the Deaf Community.  It is probable that none of you is
parent of a deaf child, but you probably know relatives or friends who
have deaf children and are faced with the dilemma of trying to integrate
their child into the wide community versus isolating them in the Deaf
Community.  Ask those parents what they want for their children (but
without trusting vaportechnological wishes for technology which solves
all problems and which is just hiding behind the corner).  Then look at
them straight in the eye and tell them that their deaf children will not
be able to access the content of the lectures recorded in audio files.

About 10% of the general population have varying degrees of hearing
impairment.  While my degree of hearing impairment is the fate of about
0.1% of the population, few percent have sufficiently bad hearing to be
unable to benefit from, or avoid coming to lectures.

You do not see other people with disabilities, but they exist.  This
E-mail message is being BCC'ed to few deaf software developers, who
currently do not feel enough self-confidence to participate in the Free
Software related meetings, discussions or forums.

Consider that some of those people might contribute to Hamakor's pool of
volunteers, for tasks and projects which are not related to deafness.
But they cannot contribute without access to the information, which they
need in order to contribute.

>"Discrimination" is not a problem here. There will always be people for
> which the information will not be accesible, say people who don't know
> English, or people who do not have a programming background.

I refuse to accept this attitude!

A better attitude would be "yes, this is a problem.  Let's continue
looking for a good solution to the problem".  I do not accept the
attitude of "let's do nothing, and leave people with 'difficult'
disabilities out in the cold".

Enlisting volunteers for transcribing all lectures does not necessarily
come at expense of other voluntary activities of the community, because
some people do not have other skills, which they can volunteer.  For
other people this may be a gentle introduction into the world of
voluntary work.  Eventually they'll graduate to heavier volunteer work.

How about looking for, and listing benefits from textual transcripts,
which people with normal hearing may get.
For example:
- Much shorter files, faster to download.
- Ability to speed-read by busy people.
- Maybe other benefits, which occur to the creative minds so abundant
among Hamakor members?

This is another approach to solving the problem of justifying the effort
of transcribing lectures.
  --- Omer


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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Alon Altman


  I fully agree with Orna on this. This is against the FOSS spirit. If at
all, the government should be supplying the deaf with the tools to
transcribe audio when needed (in the US they do via "relay calls"). A free
software approach to this issue would be similar to what project guntenberg
uses (http//www.pgdp.org/) which is cutting the work to small peices for
volunteers to work on, WITHOUT limiting access to the originals. However,
even this may not be cost effective. The community as a whole will benefit
more from these volunteers' time if they would have contributed in other
means, such as writing software or localization, which outweighs Omer Zak's
personal wishes to hear a lecture.

  "Discrimination" is not a problem here. There will always be people for
which the information will not be accesible, say people who don't know
English, or people who do not have a programming background.

  Alon

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Orna Agmon wrote:

Hi Omer,

You suggest limiting the availability of recorded lectures until
transcribed. This witholding of information will only cause the recorded
lectures to be made available through other channels rather than the
official one, because information will leak. Also, at the cost of making
sure that the deaf have the lecture transcribed quickly, you suggest
delaying it for many others.

You suggest forcing people who want to listen to the lecture to "pay" by
transcribing it, while this is not their itch at all. This is completely
against the spirit of free software. You know I have volunteered in the
past to trnascribe meetings for you (from which others have enjoyed as
well), but I personally refuse to be forced to "volunteer". Even if I
refuse to volunteer to transcribe, you already plan for me as
[EMAIL PROTECTED] the job of dividing a lecture into tiny tidbits,
spreading the work to volunteers and assembling it together, if I get your
idea correctly. My work on Haifux, as well as my work on Hamakor, is all
volunteer work as it is, and this means doing about 20 times work per
lecture as I do today.

You say you "have a life" and does not have time to put in effort for this
cause (for example by writing the software to do it). Splitting the work
among athoer people does not make the work
less, rather the opposite, it has an overhead. We are not talking about
donating free computer cycles like [EMAIL PROTECTED], but about forcing actual
people to volunteer. It is like saying that every person can give 10
shekels, in order for one person to be really rich.

Obviously, you cannot do the manual work you suggest yourself. However,
this case is similar to the case where a person does not have the ability
to make a software change him/herself, because (s)he cannot program. In
this case, the obvious solution is to pay a programmer for this service.
Many FOSS - supporting companies make their living like this.

You compare the accesability of a volunteer site or a volunteer
organization like Haifux with the accesability of a public building. You
compare the transcription to having an elevator, which is the right of
those who cannot climb stairs to have. This comparison is misleading,
since when a building is built, and especially out of tax money or using a
government permit for a public place (like a cinema), this building has a
budget. Caring for those who cannot climb stairs means allocating a part
of this budget towards this purpose. Haifux does not have a budget, so
demanding hours of work is inappropriate.

I agree that you have a case when we are talking about organizing an event
with budget. But demanding "volunteer" work just does not work.

Orna.
--
Orna Agmon http://ladypine.org/  http://haifux.org/~ladypine/
ICQ: 348759096


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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 18:27 +0200, Orna Agmon wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Omer Zak wrote:
> 
> > 2. Money to pay for paid work transcribing lectures:  from where will
> > the budget come?  If there are more lectures than budget, how to select
> > which lectures to transcribe?
> >
> > 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.]
> >
> 
> Hi Omer,
> 
> The system you drive at is unstable and cannot work.

Do you have a better idea?

> You suggest limiting the availability of recorded lectures until
> transcribed. This witholding of information will only cause the recorded
> lectures to be made available through other channels rather than the
> official one, because information will leak.

I agree that this is (can be) a problem.  Need a better idea.  Maybe we
can set up a system of usernames, and when people download a the audio
recording of a lecture, the Web server will give higher priority to
people, who transcribed more minutes of previous lectures?

>  Also, at the cost of making
> sure that the deaf have the lecture transcribed quickly, you suggest
> delaying it for many others.

If there is enough motivation to volunteer, the delay will not be that
long.  The first 17:25 minutes of Larry Wall's lecture were transcribed
in 10 days by 9 different volunteers (isn't it nice that
http://wiki.osdc.org.il/ has an history page?).  And this was without
the benefit of external motivations at all.

If we can motivate people, then 1-hour lecture transcribing job should
be complete within less a week.

> You suggest forcing people who want to listen to the lecture to "pay" by
> transcribing it, while this is not their itch at all. This is completely
> against the spirit of free software.

This is similar in spirit to projects, in which the software developer
says something like "after I get $20,000 in donations/sales, I'll
release the software under GPL".  There were such projects in the past,
but I understand that they were not successful.  This did not become a
viable Free Software business model.  But this was not due to moral
problems.

One part of my suggestion was that after the entire lecture has been
transcribed, it is "unlocked" and becomes available to all comers
(including the deaf users of the textual transcription).

>  You know I have volunteered in the
> past to trnascribe meetings for you (from which others have enjoyed as
> well), but I personally refuse to be forced to "volunteer".

I know and appreciate your efforts.

>  Even if I
> refuse to volunteer to transcribe, you already plan for me as
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] the job of dividing a lecture into tiny tidbits,
> spreading the work to volunteers and assembling it together, if I get your
> idea correctly.

Nadav (in other E-mail messages) suggested that software be written to
handle those administrative details.  I already agreed to work on
writing it.  So my plans for you as a webmaster are limited to
essentially one-time tasks:
1. Install the software.
2. Decide to implement any policies needed to get the software to
accomplish its mission.

> You say you "have a life" and does not have time to put in effort for this
> cause (for example by writing the software to do it).

I do not have the time to enlist volunteers to transcribe each lecture.
This is repeating task.  Writing the software is one-time task, and the
software can be useful also for deaf people in other countries.

>  Splitting the work
> among athoer people does not make the work
> less, rather the opposite, it has an overhead.

I agree, and this is why I was glad to see Nadav's suggestion to develop
software for this purpose.

>  We are not talking about
> donating free computer cycles like [EMAIL PROTECTED], but about forcing actual
> people to volunteer. It is like saying that every person can give 10
> shekels, in order for one person to be really rich.

This is more like asking everyone to give 10NIS to help someone, who
needs an expensive medical procedure, for which no insurance is
available.

Making a lecture accessible to a deaf person is not about making him
richer than other people.  It is about pulling him from below to a level
equal to that of his hearing fellows.

> You compare the accesability of a volunteer site or a volunteer
> organization like Haifux with the accesability of a public building. You
> compare the transcription to having an elevator, which is the right of
> those who cannot climb stairs to have. 

Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Orna Agmon
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Omer Zak wrote:

> 2. Money to pay for paid work transcribing lectures:  from where will
> the budget come?  If there are more lectures than budget, how to select
> which lectures to transcribe?
>
> 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.]
>

Hi Omer,

The system you drive at is unstable and cannot work. I will relate to your
claims here both as a FOSS person and as Haifux scheduler.

You suggest limiting the availability of recorded lectures until
transcribed. This witholding of information will only cause the recorded
lectures to be made available through other channels rather than the
official one, because information will leak. Also, at the cost of making
sure that the deaf have the lecture transcribed quickly, you suggest
delaying it for many others.

You suggest forcing people who want to listen to the lecture to "pay" by
transcribing it, while this is not their itch at all. This is completely
against the spirit of free software. You know I have volunteered in the
past to trnascribe meetings for you (from which others have enjoyed as
well), but I personally refuse to be forced to "volunteer". Even if I
refuse to volunteer to transcribe, you already plan for me as
[EMAIL PROTECTED] the job of dividing a lecture into tiny tidbits,
spreading the work to volunteers and assembling it together, if I get your
idea correctly. My work on Haifux, as well as my work on Hamakor, is all
volunteer work as it is, and this means doing about 20 times work per
lecture as I do today.

You say you "have a life" and does not have time to put in effort for this
cause (for example by writing the software to do it). Splitting the work
among athoer people does not make the work
less, rather the opposite, it has an overhead. We are not talking about
donating free computer cycles like [EMAIL PROTECTED], but about forcing actual
people to volunteer. It is like saying that every person can give 10
shekels, in order for one person to be really rich.

Obviously, you cannot do the manual work you suggest yourself. However,
this case is similar to the case where a person does not have the ability
to make a software change him/herself, because (s)he cannot program. In
this case, the obvious solution is to pay a programmer for this service.
Many FOSS - supporting companies make their living like this.

You compare the accesability of a volunteer site or a volunteer
organization like Haifux with the accesability of a public building. You
compare the transcription to having an elevator, which is the right of
those who cannot climb stairs to have. This comparison is misleading,
since when a building is built, and especially out of tax money or using a
government permit for a public place (like a cinema), this building has a
budget. Caring for those who cannot climb stairs means allocating a part
of this budget towards this purpose. Haifux does not have a budget, so
demanding hours of work is inappropriate.

I agree that you have a case when we are talking about organizing an event
with budget. But demanding "volunteer" work just does not work.

Orna.
--
Orna Agmon http://ladypine.org/  http://haifux.org/~ladypine/
ICQ: 348759096


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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 16:12 +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 21, 2006 at 02:01:46PM +0200, Omer Zak wrote:
> > 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, I disagree with you. I understand the situation you are in, and
> the benefit that having them presented in text, video (so you could lip
> read) or signed video. For those that are not familar with the term it
> means a picture in the corner of a person translating the lecture into
> sign language, and has nothing to do with PGP. :-)
> 
> However there is value to the world in general to have the audio recordings,
> or podcasts as they have become called, posted as soon as possible.

Do you have another suggestion how to encourage people to volunteer to
transcribe the lectures ASAP?
Bear in mind the experience of the Larry Wall's lecture
( http://wiki.osdc.org.il/index.php/Larry_Wall_-_Present_Continous%
2C_Future_Perfect), in which only 37:53 minutes (out of 72:39 minutes)
were transcribed by volunteers.

Without a better idea, there are two conflicting values.
* On one hand, the information should be made available on-line ASAP.
* On the other hand, delaying the sound recording until the
corresponding textual transcription is available will make the textual
transcription available before Messiah's arrival day.

>  Since the
> lectures are, I assume in Hebrew, they would be as worthless to me as you.
> This does not detract from their intrinsic value.

I was going to say "There is a difference - you probably can learn
Hebrew but I cannot learn to hear" but there are some people, who have
learning disabilities which makes it very difficult for them to learn a
foreign language.  It would be nice to be able to accommodate also them.

But they can choose to live where most of the people speak their mother
tongue and lecture in that tongue.  Deaf people have a problem no matter
where they live (except for the small and rare communities, in which
there is high percentage of deaf people and everyone knows Sign
Language).

By the way, I agree to volunteer some of my time to translate (from
hebrew into English) parts of lectures, once they have been transcribed
from sound into Hebrew text.

> Yes, there would be more value to them if they were available in text, or
> English or Russian translation, etc. 
> 
> While I think there should be some effort made to accommodate you and other
> people who need extra effort to be accommodated, I don't think they should
> be delayed because they are not.

Geoff, if you do not want to delay yet solve the problem which I raised,
please suggest another idea how to encourage people to volunteer to
spend few extra minutes in order to make textual transcriptions of
lecture segments.

> Since I really don't know much about the educational system here, I can't
> be more precise, but is there a school for teachers of the death that
> might provide as part of their training an on site signer? 

There are courses for Sign Language interpreters.  This is a separate
skill from that involved in teaching deaf children.  Most of the
interpreters are not fluent in the professional terminology, which we
require, and several words do not have representations in Israeli Sign
Language.
--- Omer
-- 
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.C. Northcote Parkinson
My own blog is at http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html


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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 17:10 +0200, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> 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]]":
> > Why should I give up my own life and spend a lot of time on those
> > recordings, if the mechanism which I suggested - to ask the first
> > 6-12-20 readers to volunteer to transcribe stuff - would solve the
> > problem of recruiting volunteers?  All it requires is that organizers of
> > the lectures agree to enforce this.  After all, you need one hour to
> 
> No, it requires someone to write the software to do this. You can't expect
> the organizer of a lecture site (say, haifux) to take care of transcribing
> 20 lectures each divided into 20 parts and remember who promised to do what -
> while it's very easy to write software that does it (every downloader that
> clicks on "I agree to transcribed" is sent a 3 minute file and asked to
> transcribed it, sent reminders if he doesn't do it, and finally this
> portion is sent to another person, and so on). You also can't rely on
> the individual lectures - those often volunteer to give a 60 minute lecture,
> and after that's over, they don't want anything to do with setting up
> a site and things like that.

Bravo!
Now we are actually diving into details, which will hopefully lead to a
good solution of the problem.

I'll work on most of the technical aspects of the problem - this is
one-time effort.  I'll need help in the design part from someone like
you (Nadav) who will be representative of the prospective volunteer
transcribers.  Someone to represent the side of lecture organizers will
be welcome as well.  Someone to represent the Hamakor Web site and the
Israeli LUG Web site webmasters will be needed as well, because the
solution needs to be integrated into their Web sites.

We can also try to design a system, in which transcribers will have
incentives to put in more effort than the minimum we ask from them.
We need also a system for quality control of the volunteers' work.

Question:  do we want to provide to the lecturers also the service of
translating their lectures into English, and expose them to
international audience?  If yes, we can use the same mechanism to lock
both sound recordings and Hebrew text transcriptions until the English
translations are available.

> > I have a life, and I do not want to spend too much of my time on wars to
> 
> Your suggestion doesn't require "wars". But it requires someone to write
> software. Since free software works on the basis of "scratching your own
> itch", you need someone with this itch to go ahead write this software -
> or you can decide to do it yourself.

OK.  Remember that the full solution requires integration of software
with organizationware and policyware.  The organizers of LUG lectures
need to agree to release sound recordings of the lectures only via the
proposed system.  Good design needs to be made to make the system
friendly for all parties involved.

> > I expect software to always have also text I/O capabilities, not to have
> > a regression of dropping text I/O capabilities.  This is not only for
> > the deaf but also for the mute and for noisy offices and the like.
> 
> Indeed, but when the day comes that "ordinary" (hearing and speaking) users
> interact with MS-Windows 2015 using a speech interface and Linux doesn't
> have it, we (free software) will be in a big problem.

I do not see a danger of this happening.  When they build elevators and
ramps in buildings to make them accessible to wheelchaired people, they
do not tear down the stairs.  The stairs stay in place for those, who
have full use of their legs.

On the other hand, it already happened to the blind that they were
disfranchised by the move from text-based software to Windows-based
software several years ago.  I do not want to see this happen to the
deaf.
   --- Omer


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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Nadav Har'El
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]]":
> Why should I give up my own life and spend a lot of time on those
> recordings, if the mechanism which I suggested - to ask the first
> 6-12-20 readers to volunteer to transcribe stuff - would solve the
> problem of recruiting volunteers?  All it requires is that organizers of
> the lectures agree to enforce this.  After all, you need one hour to

No, it requires someone to write the software to do this. You can't expect
the organizer of a lecture site (say, haifux) to take care of transcribing
20 lectures each divided into 20 parts and remember who promised to do what -
while it's very easy to write software that does it (every downloader that
clicks on "I agree to transcribed" is sent a 3 minute file and asked to
transcribed it, sent reminders if he doesn't do it, and finally this
portion is sent to another person, and so on). You also can't rely on
the individual lectures - those often volunteer to give a 60 minute lecture,
and after that's over, they don't want anything to do with setting up
a site and things like that.

> I have a life, and I do not want to spend too much of my time on wars to

Your suggestion doesn't require "wars". But it requires someone to write
software. Since free software works on the basis of "scratching your own
itch", you need someone with this itch to go ahead write this software -
or you can decide to do it yourself.

> I expect software to always have also text I/O capabilities, not to have
> a regression of dropping text I/O capabilities.  This is not only for
> the deaf but also for the mute and for noisy offices and the like.

Indeed, but when the day comes that "ordinary" (hearing and speaking) users
interact with MS-Windows 2015 using a speech interface and Linux doesn't
have it, we (free software) will be in a big problem.

Like you, I hope that serial text interfaces (i.e., "the command line") will
continue to live forever and we'll continue to be able to do almost everything
through it. This will be best for the blind, deaf, and Unix diehards like
myself :)

-- 
Nadav Har'El|   Tuesday, Mar 21 2006, 21 Adar 5766
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |-
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Today is the tomorrow you worried about
http://nadav.harel.org.il   |yesterday, and now you know why.

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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 15:39 +0200, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> 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.

I can (if I choose to attend the presentation) bring with me an
interpreter or a notetaker.  This is costly and I would be happy to
eliminate the cost, but it is another war to be fought at another time.

Deaf people visiting the Web site holding the recording of past
presentations do not have this option.

>  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),

This is not an option.

It is like expecting wheelchaired people to ask for help climbing stairs
to reach places which they want to, instead of installing elevators and
ramps.  Nowadays it is not acceptable to expect people with disabilities
to ask for help to overcome roadblocks presented by inaccessible
surroundings.  Help may not be available or competent or be delivered by
patient&cheerful people (not preoccupied with their own problems)
precisely at the moment they need the help.

>  can't you understand
> recorded presentations (which are accomapnie with slides) in a similar
> manner?

No, my hearing is not good enough.
If I buttonhole an hearing person to transcribe for me the presentation,
that person needs to be sufficiently fluent in the subject matter to do
a reasonably good job (by the way, some people had the experience of a
typist not fluent with the subject matter when they volunteered to edit
the transcripts which my typist prepared from August Penguin 4;  the
amount of work required was too big for them and they produced nothing
at the end).

> 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...

Get real, this is a lecture with subject matter which has textual
representation.  Not a concert.  Not even a lecture about
computer-generated music.  If you plan to hold a lecture about
computer-generated music, large part of which will be to demonstrate all
those computer-generated sounds, I hereby declare that for that
particular lecture, I am not expecting a textual transcript.

> > 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
[... snipped ...]
> 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.

The blind had helluva of a time from the time the telephone was invented
until MS-Windows 3.1.  Now the blind are playing catchup, and I support
their efforts (see other E-mail messages from me, and see the
accessibility lectures which I was involved with - to see that I try to
help people with all kinds of disabilities).

But empowering the blind does not compensate for disfranchising the
deaf.

>  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.

Provided that the other media is available.  In the case of the lecture
recordings, there will be no "other media" unless we solve the problem
which I have raised.

> > 3. The solution which I suggest is as follows:
> > After the lecture is recorded,

Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Nadav Har'El
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.

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Re: Recording the Lecture [was Re: Date Correction [was Re: Telux: "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation" on 26 March]]

2006-03-21 חוט Omer Zak
I would like to share with you my feelings about the planned lecture's
audio recording.
>From the fact that the volunteer work on textual transcript of Larry
Wall's lecture
(http://wiki.osdc.org.il/index.php/Larry_Wall_-_Present_Continous%
2C_Future_Perfect) was not finished so far, I understand that there are
not enough volunteers to do similar work on other lectures.

Until now, lectures in Israeli Linux/Perl/Python clubs were either
available (after the fact) as presentations or unavailable.  I felt
equal to you (as deaf person), because I could read those lectures on
the same basis as you could.

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.

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
get closed, thanks to newer technologies (modems, Internet, IM
applications, SMS).

I hope you agree with me that there is a problem!

Now, let's think about solutions to the problem.

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.

2. Money to pay for paid work transcribing lectures:  from where will
the budget come?  If there are more lectures than budget, how to select
which lectures to transcribe?

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.]

4. Maybe there is another solution of which I did not think?

  Thanks,
   --- Omer


On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 21:47 +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> We would like to make an audio recording of the lecture. Can anyone bring a 
> PDA or a digital sound recorder to record the lecture?
> 
> Regards,
> 
>   Shlomi Fish
> 
> On Sunday 19 March 2006 15:03, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > On Sunday 19 March 2006 11:30, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > > The Tel Aviv Linux Club (Telux - http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/telux/ )
> > > will gather again to hear the presentation of Vitaly Karasik about
> > > "Linux Kernel Tuning and Customisation".
> > >
> > > The presentation will take place on Sunday, 12 March 2006, at 18:30, in
> > > room 007 of the Schreiber building in Tel Aviv University. More details
> > > can be found on the site.
> >
> > I apologise for the mistake, but the lecture will take place at 26 March
> > 2006 and not at 12 March 2006 (Naturally).
> >
> > And again note that we have moved to Schreiber 007.
> >
> > Thanks for Eli Marmor and others for noticing this.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Shlomi Fish


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