Progress Report 1, lessons from kids

So I figure the weekend is a good time to give progress reports and write thoughts. You can expect something each Saturday or Sunday.

I think that getting a working prototype that will be worth selling completed by April 15 is probably the most serious technical challenge I have faced. I'm not a programmer. I don't know how to make a windows program without using expensive proprietary software tools. I don't know much about digital audio technology. I just understand the physics of sound and have a really cool really simple program that I want to write.

Here is what I have learned so far:

• It's nice to have a partner. Denis (V. Seletskiy) is just as excited about all of this as I am and perhaps more capable.
• Sound is transduced by the microphone from vibration into voltage oscillations. The sound card converts those oscillations into a digital signal by sampling them at some rate (the rate ought to be faster than twice the highest frequency you care about by Shannon's theorem and the highest frequency we can hear is about 20kHz so 40kHz and above is fine) with each sample just changing a voltage amplitude into a digital number. The digital numbers are typically 8 or 16 bits in length and I think that you may be able to choose the format.
• There is a nice audio programming library (http://www.portaudio.com/) available for free for real time manipulation of sound. They make no licensing restrictions on products compiled with their library so I am more than grateful.
• I still am not sure what happens to the sampled data while it is being taken or how the input and output functions work. I don't know if certain file types are generated automatically or if it is put into some kind of buffer or what. And I don't know how to find out.
• I don't know anything about programming for windows. If you know of any resources that would help me with either side, that is with the user interface or with the real time manipulation of sound, please let me know. I want to make that deadline.

Lessons from kids.

This first one is from when my little brother Andrew was about 3 or 4. We wanted to do something and he needed to finish his food first so I asked him to hurry. "Okay!" he said. So he took a bite and chewed frantically and started running around the table. Then he got another bite and ran around the table more. He felt like he was hurrying. But he ended up going slower than before. I thought it was hilarious but I also tried to remember it so that I could notice if I ever did the same thing.

The second one is from this morning. Kate didn't want to help us clean the house. Actually she wanted to but didn't want to be cold so she couldn't leave her blanket. I ran to get her her coat but she couldn't get it on because it was too small. Then she couldn't clean because Abby made Kate's bed but not how Kate wanted it. But she couldn't redo it because taking apart the bed would be like messing up the room and we were trying to clean. So I pulled off the covers for her so she could make her bed. Then she hid under the sheet and couldn't make it because she was stuck. I got her unstuck and . . . you get the idea. The thing is I think she half believed her reasons. And she was miserable the whole time. I sat her down and taught her the concept of lying to herself about what she could do by telling the story of her morning. Then she started working and stopped finding reasons why she couldn't and she was remarkably cheerful. Happy. Gay. And productive. So the question is "How much do I do that to myself?"

Until next week,

Doug