protonic.blog

Because of serious eye problems that almost caused me to lose my sight, I was inspired by Dr. Lahav’s work in software development for the blind and visually impaired. In 2000, Dr. Lahav has studied the use of a diagnostic and remedial adaptive computer tool to help students with low vision decrease their spelling mistakes. The results showed a clear change in the student’s performance, from phonetic writing to process writing; a gradual evolution to automation in spelling and model word retrieval; and the central role of the computer tools in improving the student’s performance.

Dr.Orly Lahav of Tel Aviv University’s School of Education and Porter School for Environmental Studies wanted to give navigational “sight” to the blind, and so Dr. Lahav has invented a new software tool to help the blind navigate through unfamiliar places.The blind and visually impaired often rely on others to provide cues and information on navigating through their environments and Dr. Lahav’s new software tool will surely improve their quality of life!

Click here to read about this new software.

Throughout the developing world, Internet access can be scarce because of the expense. Universities in poor countries can only afford low-bandwidth connections and most students only have access to sluggish dial up connections. Vivek Pai, a computer scientist at Princeton, has been able to boost the utility of these connections by creating Hash Cache, an extremely efficient method of storing frequently accessed web content on a local hard drive instead of using bandwidth to retrieve the same information over and over. Current caching technology requires large hard disks with lots of RAM to hold data and to store an index that contains the address of each piece of content on the disk. The electricity and bandwidth that is used is expensive and scarce in the developing world.

Hash Cache gets rid of the index and RAM by transforming the URL of each Web object, which can be an image or a block of text on a web page, into a shorter number using a hash function that correlates with a hard disk memory address. Hash Cache uses a unique hash function because the number that the function produces defines the exact spot on the disk where the corresponding Web object can be found. The hash is used to directly compute the location so the index is not required. Just enough RAM is needed to run the hash function and to retrieve a specific Web object.

With Hash Cache, a classroom with pretty much any kind of computers….. even old ones, can store a large amount of data.

Hash Cache will be licensed so that it is free for non-profit use, but future commercialization may be allowed.

Hash Cache is being tested at the Kokrobitey Institute in Ghana and Obafomi Awolowo University in Nigeria.

As you may already have noticed in the proto.boards, we’ve started placing per-click ads on the external portions of the site. (we’re trying to avoid ads in the main area of the site, and hoping that it does not come to such!)

This is necessary because all protonic.com is volunteer-based; expenses are funded by donations, and hosting costs are quite expensive – we have a large number of clients, and all of the tickets and computer profiles stored adds up to quite a bit of space and database usage! Unfortunately, we’ve received fewer donations lately, and as such, out-of-pocket expenses are increasing… If this continues for too long, we may not be able to keep protonic.com above water!

If you’ve recently received help and made a donation, then a hearfelt thanks! If not, then please do consider making a donation here! Any amount helps keep the site running for a little longer.

One teenager in the United States has suscessfully unlocked the iPhone, and got it to work from AT&T (The ‘locked’ and only provider) to T-Mobile. The teenager sold the unlocked iPhone and got a new Nissian car for it. He has more details on his blog here: http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2007/08/iphone-has-been-traded.html

Marshmallows are very versatile; pop one between your toes next time you are giving yourself a pedicure.

“Portrait of a Friend”

I can’t give solutions to all of life’s problems, doubts, or fears.
But I can listen to you, and together we will search for answers.

I can’t change your past with all it’s heartache and pain, nor the future with its untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.

I can’t keep your feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall.

Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your laughter.

Your decisions in life are not mine to make, nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask.

I can’t prevent you from falling away from friendship, from your values, from me.
I can only pray for you, talk to you and wait for you.

I can’t give you boundaries which I have determined for you,
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow, room to be yourself.

I can’t keep your heart from breaking and hurting,
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces and put them back in place.

I can’t tell you who you are.
I can only love you and be your friend.

-Unknown

I do not know the source nor do I know of the veracity of this story… But it provokes thought.

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved. “I want to repay you,â€? said the nobleman. “You saved my son’s life.” “No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel. “Is that your son?” the nobleman asked. “Yes,” the farmer replied proudly. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll grow to be a man you can be proud of.” And that he did. In time, Farmer Fleming’s son graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the nobleman’s son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin. The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son’s name? Sir Winston Churchill.

Someone once said:

“What goes around comes around.
Work like you don’t need money.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching.”
*****
Update from Wikipedia:

It is a Fable
The popular story of Winston Churchill’s father’s paying for Fleming’s education after Fleming’s father saved young Winston from death is false. According to the biography, “Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution” by Kevin Brown, Alexander Fleming is quoted as saying that this was “a wonderful fable”. Nor did he save Winston Churchill himself during WWII. Churchill was saved by Lord Moran, using sulphonamides, since he had no experience with penicillin, when Churchill fell ill in Carthage in Tunisia in 1943. The Daily Telegraph and The Morning Post on 21 December 1943 wrote that he had been saved by penicillin. It is probable that, as sulphonamide was a German discovery, and there was a war with Germany, that the patriotic pride in the miracle cure of penicillin had something to do with this error in reporting.