Ph.D. dissertation about Deaf entrepreneurs

Yesterday I spent all day reading Sue Ellen Pressman’s Ph.D. dissertation “A NATIONAL STUDY OF DEAF ENTREPRENEURS AND SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR CAREER COUNSELING”. As far as Pressman and I know, this is the first time such a study was undertaken.

I have a methodological note: the study claims to be based upon a representative sample of the deaf entrepreneurs in USA. However this claim is not supported by the methodology used. The sample was self-selected by consent to answer a questionnaire, and by being member of (or known to) Deaf and hard of Hearing Entrepreneurial Council (DHHEC) i.e. included in DHHEC’s mailing list.

There also seem to be few non sequiturs. Most entrepreneurs had some postsecondary school experience (some of them having college degree), but it does not by itself imply necessity of postsecondary school experience for success in business. Similarly, the fact that most of the entrepreneurs use voice to communicate with hearing customers and employees – does not by itself imply that voice is necessary or advisable for business success.

The following study findings are not obvious:

  • Deaf entrepreneurs usually had hearing employees and hearing customers.
  • Percentage of college graduates among Deaf entrepreneurs is higher than that among hearing entrepreneurs.
  • To communicate with hearing employees and customers, about 60% of the Deaf entrepreneurs used writing.

I made the following mental notes upon reflecting upon the study:

  • Cultivation of relay services goes together with development of deaf owned businesses.
  • There is a problem (not mentioned in the study) of lack of mutual trust among the Deaf in business, at least in Israel.

The Israeli police will turn hearing aids into a popular fashion

For me personally, this is not a rant, because I use neither hearing aids nor MP3 players.

Recently, the Israeli police began issuing citations to people, who cross roads while listening to music using MP3 players.

The news item about this subject (written in Hebrew) has several talkbacks asking what about deaf people, how will the policemen tell hearing aids apart from MP3 players, and generally complaining about the screwed up law enforcement priorities of the Israeli police.

One possible consequence of the new policy is that MP3 players, which look like hearing aids, and earpiece, which look like hearing aid earpieces, will become popular – as people will try to impersonate as hard of hearing in order to evade the 100 NIS fines associated with being cited for crossing a road while listening to music.

A P2P Web site was blocked in Israel with practically no publicity

The httpshare.com P2P Web site was blocked by the three largest Israeli ISPs, yet this fact received no publicity in Israel and I found out about this only from Slashdot.
More details – in: IFPI gets Israeli ISPs to block Hebrew peer-to-peer site.
I found that technically, the blocking was accomplished by directing httpshare.com to 127.0.0.1.
My biggest shock is from the lack of publicity this blockage received inside Israel – none of the Internet news Web sites and no blogs, which I follow, mentioned this.

On the perils of journalist interviews

In spite of my boring, depressing, isolated and small life, I nevertheless managed to get my 15 minutes of fame more than once over the years. At the 1980’s, newspaper news items appeared about the Israeli TDD project, of which I was one of the leaders. There was even a brief TV appearance. I was also interviewed at 1991 about my life as deaf. In the early 2000’s, my name was again mentioned more than once as associate of someone else, who was interviewed as a Deaf businessman.

There was even an interview, about my work in Intel as a deaf engineer, which yielded no publicized article because I insisted upon reviewing it beforehand for inaccuracies.

With the benefit of hindsight, I am startled to realize that I did not come to grief due to grave inaccuracies in those interviews and exposures. Those interviews were mostly arranged by people, who were experienced in public relations.  So the journalists probably got good coaching. One of the interviews was printed almost verbatim from the transcript of a chat I had on the computer with a journalist and then I printed and gave her at end of the interview (this was before the era of Internet chats).

Unlike me, Sarah Hornik was upset by a newspaper interview, which had serious (from her point of view) inaccuracies. She at least turned this trauma into a learning event.

The “Intelligent Design” Battle

In USA, there is now a battle between science supporters and “Intelligent Design” supporters over incorporation of “Intelligent Design” in science education standards. See, for example, Creationism in the Classroom: Florida and Texas, Then the Nation.

Due to the fundamental role of evolution in understanding biological processes, may I suggest that venture capitalists, investors and businesses specializing in medical, pharmaceutical and biotech technologies – boycott districts, states and countries, in which the educational establishment promotes “Creationism” and “Intelligent Design” over objections by scientists.

Furthermore, it would be a good idea to move existing factories out of those regions, in which the educational establishment does not meet its duty of educating, in science, future employees for those establishments.

2008 Mar 04 update:   see also Creationist Biologist Says Civil Rights Violated by Employer’s Insistence on Evolution.  This is a case, in which a research establishment, in which evolution plays a fundamental role, was sued by a creationist, who was asked to resign from his job there after revealing his creationist beliefs.

Brainstorming about electric car energy source

As I was reading yet another article about Shai Agassi’s Electric Car project (a Google search turned up several references, such as The Electric Car Acid Test and Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars), I asked myself what if we could design a “liquid battery”.

Such a “liquid battery” would really be a fuel cell. We pump in two liquids (in the following – liquid/chemical A and liquid/chemical B). As the car is being driven, it gets the electrical energy from combining liquid A with liquid B, creating a third liquid (in the following – liquid/chemical AB). Liquid AB would later be withdrawn. In a processing plant, liquid AB would be electrolyzed and separated back into liquid A and liquid B, effectively charging the system with energy.

Such a system already exists, but using hydrogen. Hydrogen is combined with oxygen to yield water. Water is then electrolyzed to recover the hydrogen for another round.

The challenge is to find chemicals (which can be liquid, gas or solid powder) A, B and AB with the following properties:

  1. They store energy when separated rather than combined, so that no single chemical will be able to release energy uncontrollably i.e. explode. So, for example, ATP (used as energy storage medium by biological processes) would be out.
  2. No one of them can release energy by combining with oxygen or nitrogen. This would eliminate the big safety risk of hydrogen.
  3. Chemicals A and B can be combined in a fuel cell to efficiently release energy in the form of electricity.
  4. Chemical AB can be efficiently separated into chemicals A and B in a power plant.
  5. High energy storage density, relative to current technologies.

Socialism vs. capitalism and the question of neutering stray cats

Few days ago I saw few hungry cats while touring Jaffa. Some people in my group had compassion for them, bought food and fed the cats. It was mentioned that street cats should be neutered, so that they’ll not have kittens who are going to lead a life of hunger and misery.

I would like to consider the issue from another point of view.

Suppose YOU are offered the choice of:

  • Being taken care of, being well fed – but you must accept being sterilized. Then you would not have progeny. There would be no future for you.
  • Being left to fend for yourself, to succeed or fail on your merits, and then you’ll be spared sterilization. Then you would have a chance for a future.

Which of those alternatives would you choose?

No matter which alternative will you choose, several people would make the opposite choice.

The problem is that before we neuter cats, we are unable to ask them what is their preference, so we do not ask them. We patronize over them and assume that we know that it is better for them to have cozy present but no chance for a future.

Or else, we allow them to have litters of kittens, most of whom would die of hunger and diseases – just for the chance that some of them will be successful in the unfriendly world, into which they are born.

This reminds me of the ideological conflict between socialism and capitalism, which existed until the 1980’s, when people hit upon the present way of combining the safety net style of socialism with exploratory capitalism.

Previously, it was believed that it is possible to have only either regime which takes care of its people but offers them no future, no reason to have a gleam in their eyes – or regime, in which people do not take care of each other, in which people indulge in cutthroat competition, in which there are several losers and few winners – but people can hope for glorious future.

The human solution does not work for cats, because humans have access to fertility control technology and can reversibly control their fertility. In the case of cats, we make the decision for them. And usually we make the decision according to our squeamishness of letting kittens die if they lose in the competition over the cruel world’s resources, so we neuter the cats.

Force fields seen as critical to advancement of human civilization

Existing discussion about total energy consumption by civilizations (such as the one summarized in Kardashev scale) neglects the accident and terror factor.

Disasters (both natural and man-made) are usually associated with uncontrolled release of energy. When a civilization deals with little energy, the scope of man-made disasters is limited. However, when a civilization has a higher Kardashev scale rating, it deals with a lot of energy. Then uncontrolled energy releases can wreak a lot of havoc. Example: meltdowns in nuclear reactors.

Traditionally, the way to mitigate against man-made disasters was to live away from dangerous locations. Dangerous locations are locations, in which a lot of energy is manipulated. However, once a civilization advances to type I or even type II, then it will be at its disposal enough energy to wreck an entire planet. Humans would have to live in far away space stations, and in those space stations use much less energy than is available to their civilization.

Therefore, development of force fields able to contain such explosions is critical to humanity survival as it strives to become a type I civilization. This is important not only because of the risk of accidents, but also because of terror acts.

Disposal of a stolen and found car

Unexpectedly, the police found my stolen car. Then it took them five days to figure out that I need to be contacted via FAX rather than via voice phone call.

Appeal to all designers of forms and office procedures: in every place you ask for an applicant’s phone number, please allow for the possibility that he/she is having a FAX machine rather than regular telephone.

When I received the FAX from the police, it reminded me of situations, like the one depicted in Isaac Bashevis Singer‘s book “Enemies, a Love Story“, in which one lost a wife long time ago, went on with life, remarried and then the lost wife showed up again. The car, which served me for several years, no longer had a place in my life.

The car was found at entrance to a settlement in Samaria. The police had it towed to a lot in Ariel (also in Samaria), which is used to store cars after accidents and after recovery from car thieves. I found that the car grew aerials – apparently to make an impression and discourage policemen from stopping the car and closely inspecting it.Borg-ified Car

Today I disposed of the car for a pittance, after having gotten an offer from a company, which buys cars for disassembly and disposal. If I were to leave the car there for few more days, while trying to round up better offers, I’d have to pay 90NIS a day as storage fee, from which only the first two days are free.

Thankfully, the official bureaucracy involved in selling off a car for disassembly consisted only of one form, filled by the lot’s attendant. If the car were to be returned to regular use, I and the buyer would have had to go to the local police station and arrange for a “car release form” (whatever it is).

A cellphone and people, who relayed for me FAX and SMS messages (first of all, my father), were instrumental in speedy resolution of the above.

Car on its last way before disassembly