Jan 03

Creating Software Synthesis: Twenty-Years Ago

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

I began 1992 with several good clients and interesting projects, but by the second day of the year all of my most important thinking pivoted towards the nominally implausible, if not impossible, goal of securing a music synthesizer development contract with Intel. Picture, in effect, the smallest and largest computer companies in the world attempting to work together to utterly revise the means through which the computer would create sound, and how the elimination of the “sound card” would indeed play itself out in the industry throughout the 90′s. After my seminars in February, progress and commitments were made; roadblocks reached then breached; there were precipitous connections, deep mindshares, exemplary business conduct, a lot of good faith, until finally, on December 31, 1992—under pressure from a year-end fiscal program reset—the contract between Intel and my newly-formed Seer Systems was signed. Lesson One: It can take a year to get to the bottom line.

How did it go, and why does it matter? The invention of real-time software synthesis arising from decisions and strategies made throughout that preoccupied year created a technology so thoroughly ubiquitous it is hardly noticed. Almost without exception, you today listen on your computer, phone or PDA by way of software audio algorithms to program material that is in turn largely made by software audio editors and instruments. This lets popular audio take less space, less power, sport more flexibility, and occasionally even sound good—depending on how the designer allocates the local computing resources. Initially deployed within the operating system, laptops, then game boxes, phones with custom ring tones, and now, cloud-based distribution; all and more would not be possible without this invention of real-time, host-based synthesis. What exactly that means can be deliberately left vague for now, because the story in fact begins with neither Intel nor I knowing that actually was to become the vision for which we partnered.

Two decades allows me some liberty to disclose the strategies we employed to create this abundantly productive relationship, lasting for three years—before being cut short by their argument with Microsoft about control over the CPU’s vital interrupt mechanism. Seer Systems had created for Intel the technology which caused the industrial equivalent in brinksmanship of the Cuban missile crisis. In reality the issue was more subtle than prima facie tactical control of the CPU: the strategic question for Intel was actually how fast Microsoft’s developers could be encouraged to exploit all the processing power that Intel had begun forecasting, creating, and that had reached its initial statement in the Pentium. The fact is, Microsoft did not demonstrate a real-time software synthesizer until well after that settlement with Intel within which all of Seer System’s Native Signal Processing code was transferred. Moreover, in the later 90′s Intel still called upon Seer to continue exerting pressure upon Redmond and the industry by exploiting new processor instructions for audio, and by supporting the release of SeerMusic (implementing my ’274 patent). Continuously challenging their audio and music intransigence since 1993, admittedly my developments were intentionally designed to be unwelcome by Microsoft. This antipathy contributed much background to our eventual litigation.

Two decades also allows room for error and excuses, both to be guarded against; though to some degree within unprecedented creative developments—such as positioning Intel to credibly enter the synthesizer business—inexperience justifiably earns offset credits. In abundant cognizance that no one does anything like this entirely alone, I look forward to introducing several of the brilliant strategic and technical contributors to the effort which, after twenty years, as implausibly but strategically continues to this day.

Confidentiality Agreements blanketing most of my work may cause inescapable vagueness. But I will be looking to teach lessons, not tell tales. Finally, I am never happy with the first post(s) of a piece. More likely, expect a half-dozen initial versions as the medium of the browser massages subtleties of the message. This re-writing seems an unavoidable part of my process: Sons of Sam, about an exceedingly complex issue, withstood over three dozen overhauls in nuance within the three days that it attracted a third of this site’s page views last year. (This one only required 32 33!)

Music Technology
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Jan 16

2012: The Ordeals of Insight

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

Besides the November elections, for many of us the biggest ordeal in 2012 will likely be campaign-level carpet-bombing by ‘insights’ about 2012. The slapstick articles aligning The Mayan Calendar, the obligatory Nostradamus, and The End of Days. The thick but vacuous best-sellers. 66.6% of the pre-GED History channel. Yes there is a rare galactic alignment due. Will it rearrange the continents, somehow make the ignorant insightful, solve or end all of our problems? Unlikely.

Though it may not sell well, I suggest 2012 will be a year as any other—like the weather itself—no more predictable, no less chaotic. There will be hurricanes in Florida. Of the hundreds of daily earthquakes, a few will merit news coverage. Mountain lion will be spotted in deer habitat. Accidents will happen. An Italian sea captain will inexplicably use a half-billion dollar ship as his personal surfboard. And sure, Iran seems deliberately provocative of military intervention, but even this kind of confrontation is hardly unprecedented for the historical Persia.

So, one of the best results for which to hope is that on January 1, 2013 a segment of the population will look around at their hysterical collections of hysterical popularbacks and magazines, reflect on their time wasted listening to hapless commentators, decide that they have been conditioned for the last time by the publishing industry and media outlets, and declare their mental independence from them.

Perhaps then the perennial, beguiling, idle cliche’ about “the shift in consciousness which the planet is about to undergo” can finally be laid to rest in favor of a less selfish, indolent, and oblivious awareness of world events that recognizes rather than substitutes for activism.

Now that would be revolutionary, because I suspect that the exploited and starving billions sleepless from gunfire in the night are not waiting for supposed bourgeoisie ’shifts in consciousness’ arbitrarily linked with The Mayan Calendar to liberate or feed them. More likely, they would justifiably regard such insightful light-worker missionaries walking among them to be irrelevant, if not insane contributors to their ordeals.

 

Commentary
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Jan 15

SJL Arrests Another Cell Phone Shield Hoax

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

You are not going to get any names because I promised my counterpart confidentiality.

Over the holidays I noticed in an otherwise reputable catalog one of those $30-dollar cell phone add-ons promising to protect you from virtually all radiation. I jumped on it. The marketing manager proved to be extremely reasonable and open to discussion. He even offered to send me one to examine. I declined, because it was pointless in the absence of the claims documentation. (And I could pretty much predict what I would find—a small coil or capacitor, maybe a tiny IC.) How do you test a featureless hoax?

Of course, that the device’s claims could not actually be substantiated made my job easy enough, but specifically upon learning the following, the gentleman without hesitation removed the item from this year’s catalog, with my deep thanks and appreciation.

  • If you check the fine print that comes with the phone, it recommends non-use as the best alternative.
  • Besides that, the best safety is a wired headset because it moves the transmitter away from particularly your head. (On the argument that the wires still carry radiation, acoustic headsets are available, but a bit arcane for general use.)
  • Bluetooth comes in a very weak second because it permanently mounts a transmitter on your skull.
  • Even if you protect yourself via any of the above measures, you are still exposed to ubiquitous towers and everybody else’s phone (and wi-fi), so how can that little button possibly protect you in a real environment?
  • The cell system is actually already set up for minimum exposure because they want you to have maximum battery life.
  • The system controls the power each phone sends, according to the conditions: if you have line-of-sight to a tower, your transmission power will be low. But if you are in marginal conditions, much farther away, or particularly, within a car, the system must crank up the power from your phone—and into you.
  • Therefore, adding anything to the phone at best blocks its multi-band antennae and at worst detunes them, in either case counter-productively driving more power into your head.
  • Finally, depending on the provider, cell systems typically operate by millisecond-rate switching over a range of two-dozen different channels. And, in multiple bands from 800 to 2100 MHz. This makes talk of somehow simplistically counter-resonating ‘cell phone radiation’—falsely reifying into a simple sound bite what is in fact an extremely dynamic and complicated process—well, simply ridiculous.

Now of course, SJL has worked intensely developing technology that formerly made the same claims. But we have not made them. If there is such an effect, it is totally unproven. And there is no solution involving linear thinking: shielding with the phone won’t help (which is what your car is). You aren’t going to talk many people into wearing protective tower-climbing or lineman suits, nor metal-screened wetsuits with grounding straps. The only way to theoretically cancel an electromagnetic wave is to generate one of equal frequency and opposite phase exactly in line with its approach. Practically, under controlled conditions with a few signals this is quite difficult, and under uncontrolled real-world conditions, impossible. Considering the variety of signals with which you are bombarded as you move around (literally, thousands), do you think a deftly-priced sleek $30 plastic puck contains the required light-speed supercomputer?

The science and the evidence just isn’t there, and I was extremely glad to earn agreement on this point to the benefit of both the seller and their loyal customer base.

The only authentic antidote of which I know is correct information, starting with Cross Currents by Dr. Robert O. Becker. For an introduction to the realpolitik and regulatory issues I recommend Cell Towers by Blake Levitt.

Finally, I’m obliged to remind everyone that SJL has a patent pending through which it is hoped the technology can be developed to address this very serious issue non-linearly:

StanleyJungleib’s Channel – YouTube

 

Stanley Jungleib Laboratories, LLC
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Dec 19

Thank you Christopher Hitchens

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

I took my early writing lessons from Bertrand Russell and H.L. Mencken, the former having mastered the understated, and latter the overstated, culturally-indispensable duty of iconoclasm. Until finding Hitchens it seemed the rising tides of U.S. conformism and fundamentalism had erased the last vestiges of journalistic criticism. Like Mencken, we witnessed Hitchens cross the line occasionally even with his colleagues. But like Mencken, we understood his impatience was informed by the sufferings he witnessed, the duplicities he discovered, and his zeal for vigorous, rational, evidence-based debate. In both writers, polemic may guide but bombast is only a deliberately obvious last resort …

“If you care about the points of agreement and civility, then, you had better be well-equipped with points of argument and combativity, because if you are not then the “center” will be occupied and defined without your having helped to decide it, or determine what and where that is.”

… while attending to our evolutionary reliance upon dialectic:

“It is idiotic to believe that consensus is the highest good… In life we make progress by conflict and in mental life by argument and disputation.”

“Again, it is a matter of how one thinks and not of what one thinks.”

Pondering my sympathies for these three models, I yesterday found myself saying something ridiculous: “Damn. Now that Chris is dead someone has to fill his shoes.” Merely that he might enjoy the utter audacity of such a remark sustained my laughter. Today the appropriate rejoinder emerges obvious: the obligation enures to each of us, in fact, as (even before his illness was reported) he concluded Letters to a Young Contrarian:

“Beware the irrational, however seductive.

Shun the “transcendent” and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself.

Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others.

Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.

Picture all experts as if they were mammals.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity.

Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Suspect your own motives, and all excuses.

Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

Journalists hoping to best Hitchens’ legacy must realize they will never be able to blog their way there. They must courageously test these principles in the back alleys and on the front lines of world conflict, mirroring as doggedly and lucidly to us as did he all the wrongs traceable to national or personal irresponsiblity or crippled thinking, that can indeed be uncovered by informed and determined individuals.

Like Mencken and perhaps Russell, Hitchens successfully modeled the transmutation of his personal quirks and failings into widespread respect—largely through his own self-acceptance. Finally, in the tradition of the peripatetic Hemingway, Hitch’s exemplary endurance and prolific output leaves lessons indispensable for the budding, future contrarian; for whom we must also wish his character to heed tolls loudly.

Commentary
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Dec 03

Cognitive Radio is Here

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL)—the mothership for U.S. ham radio—just reported an FCC action which should interest all observers of wireless policy. Medical devices have become miniaturized to the point where they can communicate within the body. As this is indubitably noble work, they have been authorized to use certain radio frequencies. What is initially surprising is that while we would traditionally expect these devices to be given an exclusive, protected spectrum, instead they must share it with other radio services. The full story [please follow the link below] contains important details and implications for all radio operations.

http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-grants-secondary-service-allocation-to-wireless-broadband-medical-micropower-networks

Reviewing the article for the non-ham, FCC’s main job is to prevent radio interference. It divides different radio uses into “Services.” When a Service has a secondary allocation, in most cases its receivers must tolerate and defer to signals from the primary Service, and to the extent it creates any disruption there, a secondary must cease transmission. The ARRL was concerned not just to defend its own secondary spectrum, but humanitarianly and justifiably concerned that classifying medical devices as secondary, where they might be legally exposed to significant power from primary or other secondary Services such as ham radios could be dangerous. FCC’s response was politically bold, technically profound, and its significance can not be overlooked.

The first hint comes with mention of ‘spectrum-agile radios,’ and the other shoe drops with Genachowski’s saying: “MMNs [Medical Micropower Networks] have been shown to reliably operate in spectrum shared with other services and are a model for making more efficient use of radio spectrum by using advanced technologies such as monitoring the quality of the radio link, switching frequency bands, notching out of interfering signals and error correction coding.”

I must admit, FCC seems to have caught me off-guard here by doing something extraordinarily progressive. The technology under discussion is in fact called Cognitive Radio because the radios are smart. Their design departs from the traditional hardware model; more resembling a cell phone whose features change with the application. Cognitive radios go even farther though, essentially containing knowledge of their operational purpose, context and applicable regulations (which can vary radically internationally), in addition to wide sensitivity to their electromagnetic and physical environment.

In a broader sense, Cognitive Radio is extremely important to the future of communications because it seems to be the only strategy by which regulators can quickly respond to the dynamic needs of this wireless world, as well as to be able to efficiently allocate the spectrum available for maximum advantage. Politically, Cognitive Radio stands the 1934 Communications Act paradigm on its head: instead of blocks of spectrum and disparate radios built specifically for them, we’ll have one general-purpose radio constantly redefined in real-time with its privileges and limits according to the needs of higher-priority Services. The six or ten radios per person we now have—cell phones, Wi-fi, remote controls, security systems, garage-door openers, Family, General Mobile or Citizen’s Band—are in principle replaced by one device that implements whatever radio function is needed as it is needed through software. And to preserve its battery and respect other radios it will only emit the minimum radiation required to do its job.

While to the experienced ham the concept of a Cognitive radio that might offer different features depending on when and where you are may be unsettling, in ten years it could also well be the only feasible solution to the problem of constantly increasing spectrum demand. One can also look at this evolution as reinventing and distributing for each user our beloved and forgotten, problem-solving FCC Field Engineers, albeit robotically. But, challenging questions will arise. For example, what happens to short-wave listening (SWL) and radio distance (DX) operating skills if the radios are regulated to use the most reliable routes at the least power? And when all radios (that is, phones) have adaptive emergency response capability will the traditional social justification for Amateur Radio even remain or be allowed? Finally, while dynamically inter-filling the spectrum may give more users better service through fewer, lower-power transmitters, the technique can potentially raise the population’s aggregate daily radiation exposure as it is adopted by more Services.

ARRL appropriately emphasizes that much more experimentation remains to ensure the safety of MMNs under secondary status. Both the developers and the FCC seem willing to address those challenges. And no, I don’t think my Aug 19 demand had anything to do with it. Innovative programs like this require smart people rendering considerable sustained interdisciplinary effort. That they are now willing to subject their concept to the acid-test of intimately serving life itself speaks enormously of both their commitment to an urgent new vision for radio in general, and the performance promised by Cognitive Radio specifically. I wish the entire effort good luck. Its success will profoundly affect and advance radio communications policy for the rest of the century.

Radio Technology
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Nov 23

Sons of Sam

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

It is not hard to decipher what motivates malevolent University administrators and staff who choose to mistreat and attack our children. A sickening video from U.C. Regents Chair Sherry Lansing sent to U.C. supporters summarizes these rationalizations in neat totalitarian tradition: “We had information.”

What she really means is “We have aspirations.” Four decades ago, an otherwise decent scholar who authored the admirable Language in Thought and Action, launched a Senatorial campaign on the backs of students trampled upon by his violent handling at San Francisco State. He easily became a conservative darling and star—skillfully developing the nonsensical sound bite into a Senatorial win. Yet, his supporters were oblivious that the demands of leadership change utterly when you can’t just boss people around, and hard-lining ‘outsider’ Sleepin’ Sam Hayakawa with his iconic, stupid tam-o’-shanter served California with possibly the worst Senate term in history.

Fatigued by Schwarzenegger’s laughable ‘outsider’ reign, modern Californians rightly feared and rejected the ultra-unqualified hard-lining ‘outsider’ Meg Whitman—who’s platform basically consisted of jailing anyone who disagreed with her. Tomorrow we can indeed be quite thankful she lost, as even more violence would have certainly resulted.

Now consider ultimate ‘outsider’ U.C. sophomore President Mark Yudof and his Texas-bred brand of justice; a former law professor who amidst spreading protests tellingly could not think to proactively direct his staff to refresh themselves on California law and precedent. While his U.C. Public Relations executes a full court press upon editorial boards around the state, simply review the U.C. Davis footage. Squint as you may, you cannot see any actual danger to these officers. They were reportedly acting under policy set by Davis Chancellor “I approved it before it blew up in my face” Katehi. The primary assailant was not a scared rookie, but a seasoned veteran with significant authority poisoning the defenseless in calm deliberation.

Having hosted what may well be a Kent State-level national catalyst, U.C. is convening task forces and holding webinars and expressing concern. They absurdly speak of ‘sensitivity training’ for those hired to flaunt their insensitivity. But ‘administrative leave’ is pro-forma, and while Yudof has commissioned an outside investigation, he has neither offered nor demanded full accountability.

As if the video is not sufficient reason for the Regents to act in concert, as if U.C. did not give birth to the Free Speech Movement and a dozen others so has not already ‘studied’ the issues for fifty years, Yudof wants his policy answers not now but in 30 days—that is, 30 news cycles—buried amidst vacation and the holidays. After all, as Sleepin’ Sam proved, you can use our children as chips in ‘Texas Hold-Em’ with impunity for at least that long, and just see what hand politics deals you.

Lastly and tragically, ultimate insider Governor Brown’s astonishing silence as he consults his polls and shops for the perfect tam-o’-shanter profoundly disappoints this writer and thoroughly reinforces the present interpretation. His staff blithely told the Fresno Bee these are “local matters.” That is over-the-top insane: even disregarding the legal and moral issues, and damage to the state’s reputation, the U.C. system is documented by Yudof’s detailed September, 2011 report to be so intertwined with California’s economy that disruptions there can ripple throughout the state potentially with a 10X effect. And now that resource is at risk by failed management.

Jerry—cute hat, but don’t snore so loudly! Instead, take this leadership lesson from your dad: “When there is no consensus, only urgency, I will speak out.”— Governor Pat Brown (Second Inaugural Address, January 7, 1963). You could start by telling us what he would have done had you the convictions—right or wrong—to have sat with those kids.

Commentary
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Nov 20

“Under Construction”

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

I have been publishing graphically via Aperture to MobileMe for some time, here:

http://gallery.me.com/jungleibstanley#gallery

Apple is closing that service June 2012, forcing the re-evaluation and gradual migration of material to this site or seersystems.com. Please forgive any broken links or redundancy during what promises to be an extended transitional period. Reminders are appreciated, to stanley@jungeib.com.

Music Technology, Photography
Nov 18

Julius Genachowski: GO AWAY!

By Stanley JungleibNo Comments

Genachowski’s incompetence burns brightly. As of November 18th, while national protests spread, he has spent his time in judicial retrospection—dismantling the bedrock Fairness Doctrine (among others) as suddenly discovered to be “a threat to free speech.” Yet, concerning contemporary free speech issues, his agency is vacant and aimless.

While FCC’s three-month search for BART’s plausible deniability plods, we notice throughout that challenged as they are to ensure both safety and rights, no other U.S. municipality has dared to cut cell phone service. COULD THAT BE BECAUSE RESPONSIBLE POLITICIANS—seemingly excluding BART and Julius’s FCC—KNOW IT IS AN ILLEGAL, DANGEROUS, and INCENDIARY ATTACK UPON FREE SPEECH?

Dear President Obama, I can understand why you would want FCC to just raise money through spectrum sales. But this admittedly under-funded agency is rapidly losing credibility. To say nothing of being oblivious to the challenges of civil media rights and contemporary Emergency Communications, it has so lost focus that local police agencies are now forced to do FCC’s fundamental job—and original raison d’être—of preventing interference to legitimate radio services, for example, from spreading pirate FM stations.

Apparently, Congress somewhat agrees with this criticism. Earlier this year I learned from Rep. Greg Walden’s office that Genachowski’s inexplicable performance was already under investigation by The House Energy and Commerce Committee; which just responded (Nov 16) by crafting legislation specifically targeted to increase transparency and efficiency at FCC. Thus, Mr. President, the next step needed to stem further embarrassment to your administration is for this wireless industry puppet to resign.

Radio Technology
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