Enabling Audio Inputs in Windows 7

(for you attention-deficit types, here's the quick version: check the "Listen" box in your Sound --> Line In Properties --> Listen tab. For the full story, keep reading)

Here's the problem: ever since I built my new PC (my first with Windows 7), I couldn't hear anything that was plugged in through the "Line In" jack.

To make things worse, I could actually SEE audio coming through the inputs. The "Recording Devices" dialog box showed my Line In with a happy little green 'LED' meter blinking away. But still, utter silence from my speakers.

This is not an issue that would bother many PC users, but I happen to absolutely require audio inputs. Not only do I make music (using old-fashioned gizmos like guitars, analog synthesizers, and microphones), but I also like to be able to transfer vinyl and even cassette recordings from time to time.

My first suspect was the "High Definition Audio" part of the equation. I knew that all of my sources were analog rather than digital, and I assumed High Definition meant digital. So I wasted time trying to install AC97 drivers, and disabling the HD ones.

Of course, it didn't help...but what it DID do was remove the happy blinking "Line In" element from my Recording Devices, so I was actually farther away from a solution than when I started. One Restore Point later, I had the LED back but still no sound.

I won't bore you with all of the little tweaks that I tried (in the BIOS and the OS), but nothing brought any joy.

However, I did get a big clue when I plugged in my headphones to the front-panel headphone jack...at first, no sound, but when I selected headphones as the output preference in WinAmp, I was treated to heavenly music (well, Cradle of Filth...the exact opposite of heavenly music, really). And the headphones were listed as a High Definition device, so my alarm bells went off.

Hmm, the HD Line In reacts to audio (happy green LED) and the HD Headphone jack works fine with my beat-up old Grados (the best headphones in the world, BTW, for less than a hundred bucks). Maybe this HD audio thing is just a red herring?

Yup. HD audio is simply a specification developed by Intel, it has nothing to do with digital vs. analog sources. I'd been barking up the wrong tree the whole time. But that knowledge alone didn't solve my problem...

What finally solved my problem was a combination of desperate experimentation and re-interpreting Microsoft's 'helpful' instructions.

When you open up the Properties dialog from the Sound --> Recording --> Line In dialog, you'll see four tabs: General, Listen, Levels, and Advanced. The message reads "You can listen to a portable music player or other device through this Line In jack."

Now, I can think myself right out of a good thing. I interpreted this to mean that you could reassign the Line In to serve as an output if necessary. Not being a portable music player guy since the days of the Sony Walkman, I just skipped that section entirely.

Too bad, because the answer was as simple as checking the "Listen to this device" box. Voila! I had sound coming through the Line In jack, ready to hear and record.

Yep, it was more or less staring me in the face the whole time -- I must have passed by that section a dozen times while trying to get the audio to work correctly. Okay, I can complain just a little -- why would this option be disabled by default, and why would it be buried and rather (to me, anyway) confusingly described?

But all-in-all, the solution was really easy. So easy that I felt silly about spending an entire morning combing message boards and installing/uninstalling device drivers. In my defense, I just kept reading complaints from others with more or less the same setup and results, and it seemed like a bigger problem.

Hopefully this post will help at least a few other dumbasses like me who need to be reminded to start with the small things!

Exact Dates of the End of the World

April 12th, 2010 by jlphillips

• 70 AD: the fall and desecration of Jerusalem ended the world, according to the Preterists. Whoops.

• 500: Hippolytus of Rome worked out the Biblical ’6,000 year rule’ to apply to this year. For more fun with that same figure, keep reading.

• 989: Halley’s Comet always brings impending doom. Just ask Mark Twain.

• 1000: very little of an apocalyptic nature happened this year, aside from a bunch of Christians getting worked up about the rather flexible millennium date.

• 1874: the Jehovah’s Witnesses begin a long and lucrative career of predicting Armageddon, starting with this year. BTW: it didn’t happen.

• 1878: It didn’t happen this year, either.

• 1881: no, really…the JW’s were on a roll.

• 1910: again? Well, if you Witnesses say so.

• 1914: people are probably starting to wonder about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

• 1918: we like the four-year cycle, but could the Jehovah’s Witnesses maybe split it up into a summer apocalypse and a winter apocalypse?

• 1925: about this time, people may be forgiven for hoping that the world ends just to shut the Jehovah’s Witnesses up about it.

• 1975: they gave us a 50-year break (which included WWII, which was chock full of apocalyptic signs) but those scrappy Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t done yet.

• 1982: “The Christ is Now Here”, according to the Tara Center, who later state that He’s not ready to reveal himself after all.

• 1984: Orwell buffs and Jehovah’s Witnesses alike considered this to be a significant year. Unless Van Halen is the antichrist (not unproven), they were probably all wrong.

• 1994: Nostradamus tries posthumously to beat the Jehovah’s Witnesses record for most failed predictions. Luckily, he’s much more vague and obscure, so he’s never really wrong…

• 1997: No, really, the Christ is Now Here, according to Share International (a.k.a. the Tara Center). Interestingly enough, The Christ (a.k.a. Maitreya) tops the list of several groups who believe him to be the Antichrist instead. Either way is okay with us — we still get apocalypse!

• 1998: This is the year, says Nostradamus and others (and maybe not even him). For example, Eli Eshoh proved that the Rapture was going to happen, and by golly, it did (didn’t you notice?). We’re still not sure who were raptured, but those of us Left Behind should watch out for 2028. Two ends of the world for the price of one? Good deal!

• 2000: the change of the millennium makes a great date for the End Times. However, even the Y2K Bug turned out to be little more than a minor inconvenience.

• 2003: Ah, those wacky Zetas. They seemed so sure, and now Nancy and the rest of the earthworm-eaters simply claim that the Pole Shift of May 15th, 2003 was some sort of smokescreen or conspiracy, and the real day is still coming. But they won’t say when.

• 2008 2009 2010 2011: The Lord’s Witnesses (absolutely NOT Jehovah’s Witnesses, despite strikingly obvious similarities) are pretty sure that it’s all over one of these years. Well, as long as there’s still a World War I veteran alive, we’ve got nothing to worry about…so at least a year or two. Additionally, Harold Camping of Family Radio is pretty sure it’s all over in May. Or maybe October. Either way, he’s 100% sure.

• 2012: a very popular choice lately (and will probably remain so, up until the end of December). The basis for this date is Mayan calendars, Nostradamus, and sunspot predictions — and possibly a savvy marketing campaign by the Cults and Survival Gear coalition.

• 2014: Hey, this one comes from a Pope, so it must be true. In 1514 Leo IX gave us 500 years. You’d think that would be long enough to get our act together, but noooooooo…

• 2017: and then there’s the “Sword of God Brotherhood” (great name) who will be the only ones surviving this year, tasked with repopulating the planet. Hopefully there’s a Sisterhood as well. Or not…

• 2028: Eli Eshoe again. Anybody left after the great Rapture of 2008 (remember that?) and the ensuing tribulation (i.e., now) has until 2028 to prove themselves. Get to work.

• 2240: the Talmud says that the world as we know it will only last 6,000 years, starting with the creation of Adam (which apparently happened about 5770 years ago…sorry, Lucy). The Talmud is pretty discouraging about how much fun our final two centuries are going to be, but the world after Armageddon should be very nice.

• 2280: the Qur’an gives us 40 more years than the Talmud, according to Dr. Rashad Khalifa and a computer-assisted numerical analysis of the holy text.

• 3797: this one comes from Nostradamus, but so have quite a few other dates (past and future). Just in case this was the year that he really meant, clear your schedule.

NOTE: in April, I wrote this for my job; they just needed something for one of their domains, and this more or less fit the domain's theme.

It wasn't really meant to be read, in the usual sense. However, in August, someone actually read it, oddly enough...and even more oddly enough, liked it. So they Tweeted it, and it began making the rounds, ultimately ending up on StumbleUpon, where a whole lot of people oddly enough liked it.

Suddenly, on December 1st 2010 I think, the page got over 45,000 views in a day (which is good, right? I don't even know anymore...) and my employers decided it was too high-profile to suit their needs. The page remains in its original location (as well as in a few plagiarized locations -- it is the Internet, after all!) but without some of the usual 'details' that our websites offer.

I love that many people have read and enjoyed this piece (and a special thank you for the nice comments on https://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.signsofwitness.com%252Fexact-dates-of-the-end-of-the-world). I don't feel bad that I didn't make more money off of it, or that nobody knows that I wrote it, or that a few other people are using it without permission. I just wanted to re-post it here (as part of my Greatest Hits, lol) to be able to remember the event no matter what happens to the original domain.

If Your OS Ran a Restaurant

If Microsoft ran a restaurant, your favorite food would no longer be compatible with your favorite utensils. After messing with it for 45 minutes (during which the wait staff says helpful things like "have you tried going to the restroom?"), you're able to eat just enough to call it a meal. Plus, there's one on every corner...but not quite as many as there were a few years ago.

If Apple ran a restaurant, the decor would be trendy, the music hip, and the menus stylish (although called "Guidebooks" for some reason). The waiters (known as "Prophets") would tell you what to order and how to eat it, while praising your individuality and creativity. You spend most of your time doing anything but actually eating. The bill (or "Greeting Card") would be half again as expensive as a comparable meal elsewhere.

If Ubuntu ran a restaurant, it would be pretty much the same as any other restaurant, just cheaper and faster. You'll need directions to get there. It would be set up like a buffet and there would be a wide variety of food, but it would all taste kinda bland...and you'd have to enter your password every time you take a bite. After it's over, you are filled with an inexplicable feeling of pride that lasts until you're hungry again, at which point you'll probably go somewhere else.

Online Gambling...On Grades? (extended remix)

It has the feel of a viral hoax, but it seems legit -- or as legit as a company that allows students to wager on their grades can be.

A company called Ultrinsic lets students put money on their college classes, betting that they can achieve specific grades. The odds are tougher for higher grades, of course, so (for example) a $10 bet that you'll get a C may pay off at even money, while wagering on an A may bring in a 2 to 1 payoff (we're only guessing at the actual odds; the Ultrinsic website is somewhat stingy with the details, at least to non-members. The blank FAQ page is also fun).

Ultrinsic is gambling that most will interpret this as an incentive, obviously resembling parents who pay their children for good grades. They're not alone; a number of school districts are picking up on the idea of dangling cash in front of children to motivate better grades. A Chicago high-school-level program offers $50 for each A, for example, and the "Learning Makes a Difference Foundation" is actually paying children to go to after-school tutoring.

Interestingly, the only relevant scientific study shows that money does get results -- and kills interest. A University of Rochester study showed that college students who weren't paid to solve puzzles generally kept at it once the study was over, while the paid group almost exclusively abandoned the puzzles completely. This begs the age-old question: would you still do your job if you weren't paid for it?

That question may be too simplistic, of course. Obviously the benefits of a well-rounded education generally exceed the benefits of the average job (most of which consist of proprietary skills and a familiarity with the internal bureaucracy).

Or do they? It's a poorly-kept secret that colleges are even more than ever little more than a sandbox for 'potential workers' and 'potential consumers'. The motivated ones tend to be much less interested in learning than they are in setting themselves up for a decent-paying career, and of course the less-motivated ones subsist on a diet of experimental extracurricular indulgence and trendy, fact-free theory courses (in which agreement with the professor's world-view is usually worth at least one grade higher). Ultrinsic may be simply a minor side-note to the elevation of commercial pragmatism over true learning and personal growth.

This year, Ultrinsic is expanding from offering its 'service' to two colleges (NYU and Penn) to a moderately whopping 36 colleges (including Princeton and Rutgers). The company's CEO, Steven Wolf, refuses to name the investors, or how much they staked.

He also denies that this is online gambling, using the word "incentive" as often as possible. The website compares the company to businesses that offer bonuses for employees that find ways to cut costs, or to insurance companies that offer discounts for certain healthy practices (the website does not have a single instance of the words "gambling", "gamble", or "bet", though the phrase "motivational wager" is used).

Of course, Ultrinsic needs to verify your details, so they'll need your school email and access to your school records. And you'll almost certainly need to provide them with an official transcript (so if you're at a school that charges per transcript, there goes a chunk of your winnings right there).

Objections are surprisingly sparse at this point, though there is some worry that professors could trade grades for a cut of the profits. Minimizing such worries is the size of the payoff, which is rather small even in the best outcomes. The most that the company offers is the four-year parlay, which could potentially net the student $2000 for a 4.0 GPA (though at the 38 colleges served, $250 per semester is less than one percent of expected costs. It will buy about ten cases of beer, though).

However, the biggest flaw in the model seems to be that the company also offers "insurance", which pays if you fail; sure, you can make more money successfully betting on good performance, but it's hard to argue with a sure thing. After all, you can sometimes fail by accident, but you can pretty much count on failing on purpose -- which is why sports pros betting on themselves is generally considered to be a no-no!

Preamp Intro

note: I originally wrote this as part of an application for a writing job with an online magazine...I doubt there is any legal reason why I couldn't reprint it here, but I'll hedge my bets and state that I'm certainly willing to remove it at the request of the magazine, should any conflict arise...

An amplifier's purpose is to take a quiet signal and make it louder. A preamp is merely an amplifier that precedes the main amplifier. The typical function of a power amplifier is to output a signal to a set of speakers, and frequently is designed to handle very specific signal levels –- typically, a line level signal. Therefore, any device that outputs a lower-level signal must be brought up to line level for the amplifier to operate properly.

If you have ever selected a component on your system and noticed a drastic drop in volume compared to the other devices, you have a device connected which may require a preamplifier. Nearly all turntables, for instance, have phono outputs that must be amplified prior to the speaker amplification stage. Additionally, most microphones and electric instrument signals require a preamp, but rarely will such devices be used in a serious home theater system.

Dedicated phono preamps are common, ranging from very inexpensive utility boxes all the way to extremely expensive audiophile units. The latter are typically designed with a specific model or range of turntables in mind, a “matched set” which should bring out the best qualities of both. A high-quality preamp will improve the sound of even lesser-quality turntables, but only to a certain extent; don't expect to get the same results from a 30-year-old Sears record player as you would from a Music Hall turntable. Similarly, running that audiophile turntable through an inexpensive utility preamp will work, but it will probably fail to do justice to the subtleties of vinyl.

More commonly used are combination source-selector/ preamps, which allow the listener to integrate all home theater components and specify the amount of gain (signal boost) applied to each source. These form the backbone of any serious home theater setup and tend to provide many features in addition to pre-amplification. This is usually where the actual processing occurs for stereo and surround systems, and may also contain the DACs (digital/ analog converters) that will define the quality of your high-definition listening experience. One may consider this component as taking the “raw” sound from each source and turning it into the final, polished mix that is sent to the power amplifier and speakers. Even if the attached components are line-level already (and thus do not require signal boosting), the preamp will almost certainly add character, clarity, and space to the sound.

Occasionally, you may find a component which purports to output a line level signal and yet has a noticeably different volume range than the other components in your system. Professional or audiophile audio devices have rigorous standards to combat this very problem, but consumer audio and home theater equipment standards can vary much more drastically. A telltale sign of questionable signal levels is the hum or noise apparent in the signal when boosted to a volume comparable to the other equipment in your setup. Sometimes the culprit Is an amplifier stage within the component itself; a common example is a television or portable device (mp3 player, etc.) connected to the system. A preamplifier may assist with troublesome signals from such devices, especially if the preamp uses some sort of noise filtering and cancellation, but often you may find that replacing the questionable component with a higher-quality alternative is a better permanent solution.

Preamps come in both the solid-state and tube variety. For many serious listeners, a preamplifier using vacuum tubes (or “valves”, depending mainly on your side of the Atlantic) is absolutely necessary for the ways in which the tubes can enrich the sound, especially to mitigate an overly “stale” or “brittle” digital sound. While there is still healthy debate over the real benefits of tubes, many discerning listeners testify to the added dynamics and warmth. Detractors argue that tubes add an inherent distortion and “color” to the sound, and tend to be more expensive and fragile, while solid-state preamps should provide more accurate sound reproduction and an increase in general durability. Regardless, there is no lack of high-quality, well-regarded preamplifiers of either type. As always, let your own ears (and needs) be your main guide

Anger Management Sample

Parent Center Brochure

I contributed my proofreading and editing skills to a brochure that Katherine Mendel-Phillips created for her Parent Center at Elaine Wynne Elementary School.

Unfortunately, Blogger does not support uploading or embedding Acrobat (.pdf) files, so it was necessary to export to an image file to view on this site.

Clicking on either image will allow you to view in higher resolution; it is a tri-fold brochure template, but I do not recommend attempting to fold your monitor screen to view as intended :)

The PlayStation Audiophile Hype

Lately I've been seeing several articles (like this one) which help spread the myth of the original PlayStation as an audiophile's dream bargain. It's a tempting idea- and there's no doubt that the quality matches or beats most consumer CD players out there. However, that's not saying too much...

The facts are: Sony put some decent-quality RCA jacks on the back of the unit, and some good DACs (digital to analog converters) inside. These DACs are as good or better than those used in most consumer CD players, which on its own makes a $5-50 used PlayStation a great deal (if it's been kept in usable condition, of course).

For the non-nerds, here's a really brief (and necessarily imprecise) summary of digital and analog audio:

Analog means sounds reproduced by physicial (almost always electromagnetic) signals. Your turntable and tape deck are analog by nature. All speakers are analog. Electric guitars are analog. Anything that plugs in and makes sounds must be ultimately analog.

Digital means that the sound is represented by binary information. Imagine a picture of a song made up of either black or white dots...that's digital. Things like resolution and bitrate tell you about how accurately the picture matches the original. That's why something sounds better, or can sound better, if it has more dots to work with...compare "Warrior needs food badly" to your iTunes, for example.

Any real-world sound that is recorded and played back on digital equipment (whether it's an iPod, the PC that you're reading this on, a DVR or any number of other things) has to be transferred to digital format and back again. This process requires DAC's (remember? digital to analog converters). The quality of the DAC is the single most important factor in sound quality for any piece of digital equipment. Analog signals are put through the DACs on the way in (during the recording process, or when you hook up an analog source to your system) and then again on the way out (to whatever you use to actually hear them). Cheaper, poor-quality DACs are probably why anything you can buy at WalMart sounds like crap, but there are plenty of other reasons as well...

For instance, the quality of the hardware makes a big difference. Perhaps not as much as the idiots who buy or sell Monster Cables will tell you, but a 1/8" headphone jack made of chrome will never be able to match a set of gold-plated RCA jacks (BTW: be aware of the sensitivity of gold-plated jacks...if not completely shielded or covered, they're likely to pick up just about anything from 60 cycle hum to local radio broadcasts...the Best Buy salesman probably won't tell you that ).

On most console systems, there are proprietary A/V connections. Meaning that there's one plug that's a different shape than any other plug in the world, and it usually has all the audio and video combined into a bunch of tiny wires within. Sometimes you get a little extra: the PS2's, for instance, have an optical audio out; this is digital, so there's no quality issue at all- whatever you're plugging it into will determine how it sounds, because that's the component that has the DACs...get it?

By including discrete RCA jacks on the PlayStation, Sony gave us a nice option. And it seems like the jacks are pretty decent...better than my 1991 Fisher bookshelf system, anyway...but again, that isn't saying much. They're probably not as good as the ones on most high end consumer or "audiophile" systems, but I don't know this for sure...I don't have the data to compare quality-conscious hand-soldering to whatever the production process may have been at the Sony PlayStation factory.

All of this info is useless without a listening session to compare the results. My PlayStation does sound pretty darn good...but I don't have audiophile equipment for a real side-by-side. In fact, my best piece of audio gear is a pair of $60 Grado headphones (highly recommended, by the way). And it's true that I hardly ever play CD's anymore, unless I'm ripping them to my hard drive.

Let's qualify all this: my musical education came from scratchy LPs on Radio Shack turntables, and second generation cassette tapes. Still, I understand the power and detail that a clear and powerful audio system can add to the listening experience...I just don't think spending thousands of dollars per component is necessary, unless you're fond of showing off to the other snobbish and wastefully affluent audiophiles. If you really do love music, spend all that discretionary income on live music instead...

So I do recommend the PlayStation for anyone, whether you're an audiophile or an audio vile. I doubt you're 'saving' thousands of dollars (as most of the recent posts imply), but you're probably spending a few hundred less than you'd spend on anything comparable.

Editing and Proofreading

One may certainly argue that the internet has rejuvenated the use of words. Email has brought back the art of letter-writing, to a degree. At the very least, one must summon atrophied writing skills in order to leave annoyed fanboy complaints and tangential post replies.

Still, many (if not most) sites would benefit from a refresher course in language and composition. Of course, we may temporarily excuse those who are struggling with an unfamiliar language (whether from youth, disability, or foreign origins). The rest of us, however, should make an attempt to recall our basic skills in these areas.

For example, here is one web page which could use a little "tightening". It is by no means ruined by the language, nor is it an overly dramatic example (without searching too hard, one can easily find numerous sites with far more extensive errors in grammar and spelling). I felt it was just clumsy enough to warrant a quick bit of editing.
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from http://www.technibble.com/essential-processes-needed-to-run-windows/

Essential Processes needed to run Windows

When repairing a PC by either trying to shutdown a virus, trying to remove adware/spyware/malware or just trying to get a speed increase you need to shut down processes that run in the background. It is often nessessary to know the bare minimum processes which Windows needs to operate and it is sometimes difficult to know which ones are which, here is a list of the essential processes that Windows needs to run correctly.

* System Idle Process
* explorer.exe
* taskmgr.exe
* spoolsv.exe
* lsass.exe
* csrss.exe
* smss.exe
* winlogon.exe
* svchost.exe - (There will be a few of these)
* services.exe

By shutting down anything other than these processes, stand alone Windows should operate fine, however if any of these processes are shutdown, Windows will start to become unstable or unusable.

On most computers there will be multiple instances of svchost.exe, these control various connections on your computer wether its to the internet or within a lan. It is usually safe to switch off some of these however its not easy to determine which ones operate what so its best to leave these alone. In regards to Windows 98 and Windows ME, you can shut down everything except Explorer and SysTray to keep it running.

To shutdown a Windows process, Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, Goto the Processes Tab, Select a process and click End Process.

If you are not sure what a certain process does, then I recommend Wintasks which is a library that lists what each task does, its threat level and makes it easy to determine what is running on your (or your clients computer).

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Not horrible, by a long shot...but when your information is this important, you owe it to the reader to present it with a tad more clarity and care. All I did was correct a few errors and attempt to organize the thoughts with a bit more care. In my opinion, the new text is considerably improved- without changing the information one bit.
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Essential Processes needed to run Windows

Whether you're trying to troubleshoot suspicious behavior (a telltale sign of viruses or malware) or simply increase performance, an important step is to shut down unnecessary processes. There are many tasks that run in the background, so it is often helpful to know which are required for Windows. The minimum processes needed are:

* System Idle Process
* explorer.exe
* taskmgr.exe
* spoolsv.exe
* lsass.exe
* csrss.exe
* smss.exe
* winlogon.exe
* svchost.exe - (There will be a few of these)
* services.exe

If any of these processes are shut down, Windows will start to become unstable or unusable; shutting down any other process should not interfere with normal Windows operation- though you may notice significant changes, especially if you have background processes that manage visual settings.

Multiple instances of svchost.exe are perfectly normal; these control various networking connections on your computer (internet, LAN, etc.). Some may be shut down safely...but as it is difficult to know precisely which ones are needed, the safest approach is to just leave them alone.

To shut down a Windows process, Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, select the Processes Tab, highlight a process, and click on the End Process button.

If you are running Windows 98 or Windows ME, everything may be shut down except Explorer and SysTray.

If you are unsure of what may be running in the background, there are several resources which list the names and uses of known background tasks. For detailed information on processes that are running on your PC, I recommend Wintasks. This application will explain what any given task does, the threat level of the task (especially helpful for tracking down malware) and makes it much easier to determine what may be running on your (or your client's) computer.
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Again, not a huge difference...but it will keep the pedants off your back and hopefully avoid any misunderstandings or confusion for the reader. It's easy enough- if you're going to post something, do a last read with a more critical eye. Even better, grab somebody else and have them look it over. It may sound perfectly readable to you, but independent verification will confirm that.

the blank page

The blank page is three things:

Freedom.

Intimidation.

Emptiness.

In no particular order, but the last shall be first.

Ah, freedom. The possibilities and potentials. This white page is a window to be opened on whatever scene you can provide. Shakespeare started with a blank page, and so did Charles Schulz. Meink Kampf was once an empty notebook. The script for Star Wars was just space. Robert Frost was all snow. You could turn the world into an Eden or a peanut. Anything can happen.

The second part is good ol' test anxiety, with a heapful of writer's block. It's a blank check of a deadline. You stare at the whiteness and you fear to make even a tiny dot. Where to begin? Where're you gonna go with it? Is anything you could put on this page worth doing so?

But the blankness too is worth considering. Before inspiration strikes, before blots and typos and plain bad ideas mar this lovely nothing, it is the void incarnate. This page is everything that came before perception and all that will remain when all the words in the world lose their import. Before "mama" and after "amen". This page is all that will never or ever be.

Intro to Subtractive Synthesis (in progress)

Subtractive synthesis is the process of creating comparatively complex sounds using only two elements: a sound source and a filter. The sound source may be an oscillator, as in analog synthesis, or a sample (often abbreviated S&S, for sample and synthesis). The filter may be any type of frequency modicfier, but by far the most common is a low-pass (LP) filter. Because the filter is removing elements from the signal, it is known as "subtractive" synthesis.

In the early days of electronic instruments (up to about the mid 1960s), the only element was the oscillator. The sound was a pure tone generated by a wave, the shape of which was the primary characteristic determining timbre. Typically, this was a sine wave, which creates a full, even tone across frequencies. Square waves, on the other hand, sound distinctively "hollow", and triangle waves more mellow or "flutey". In addition to waveshape oscillators, noise oscillators were often used. These generate random frequencies across the entire spectrum, and so have no apparent note or harmonic emphasis- though different types of noise tended to focus on general ends of the spectrum ("white noise", for instance, covers the entire spectrum and sounds much like television "snow", wheras pink noise covers more of the lower end of the spectrum, giving a more muted static).

The oscillators alone made no sound; the electrical output needed to be fed into an amplifier circuit to create a signal that could be audible through speakers. So a basic synthesizer must contain both a sound source and an amplifier. In order to control the pitch or volume of the tone produced, an additional element had to be applied (simple synths had pitches that were either permanently fixed on one note or that rose and fell much like a police siren). In analog synths, this was implemented by voltage control, and so we have the acronym VCO for voltage-controlled oscillator, VCA for voltage-controlled amplifier, and sometimes VCP for voltage-controlled pitch. These could be controlled directly using dials, or connected to a waveform generator for automatic response over time. For instance, using a sine wave as the source of the amplifier results in a sound that repeatedly fades in and out, whereas a square wave altrenates full volume with silence for a choppier sound.

The filter was added later, to make the sound more interesting and as an attempt to mimic real instruments. A static filter removes specific frequency bands, exactly like changing one of the sliders on an equalizer or the bass/treble dials on a car stereo. A variable filter can be swept through a series of frequencies (imagine moving the EQ sliders one after another) but the effect is rather subtle. Synth engineers soon found that a much more useful sound could be achieved by emphasizing the point at which the filtering begins to occur- i.e., on an EQ that would be a bit like moving the leading slider up and the consecutive sliders down. This emphasis frequency is usually called "resonance", and can be adjusted from a very subtle coloring of the sound all the way to the point at which the emphasized frequency overpowers the original oscillator (referred to as "self-oscillation"). At high frequencies this could sound very piercing indeed, and at low frequencies the bass tends to swell and distort.

Using only these elements, the sound engineer has many possibilities. When the various elements are "modulated" (i.e., altered by a cyclic variable), a vast spectrum of sounds is possible. As mentioned earlier, one may have a sine wave modulating the VCA, for regular changes in volume. Even the oscillator wave can be modulated initially, producing more irregular waveforms that can vary tonally over time. One application of this type is known as "pulse-width modulation", a common option on many synthesizers. Often the modulations will be synchronized to the tempo of the music, but they can just as easily be left random for a more "organic" effect.

As technology progressed through the 1970s and 80s, the analog elements of the synthesizer began to be progressively replaced by digital versions. In most cases, this resulted in a much more stable and efficient (and lower-cost) synthesizer, with access to things like patch memories and sequencing that had been difficult or impossible to achieve with purely analog technology. Still, many people continue to prefer the analog sound and so many synthesizers were hybrids (for instance, digital ocillators but an analog filter). When sampling began to dominate, many designers realized that subtractive synthesis structure could be utilized, with the sample taking the place of the oscillator. The amplitude, filtering, and modulation variations could be used to increase the realism of the sampled sound, as well as opening up new creative applications. This led to the term "sample and synthesis", or "S&S", a sound technology used from the mid 1980s onward.

Note: FM (Frequency modulation) synthesis and Additive synthesis also came about with digital technology. These processes use a number of variables at the basic oscillator level (usually referred to as "carriers" and "modulators") for extremely flexible tonal control. The complexity of these synthesizer types requires a separate treatment, and are significantly different in structure from subtractive or even S&S synthesizers. However, most of the FM or additive synthesizers will also conform to the subtractive structure once the oscillator itself has been defined, allowing for more standard VCA & VCF type variations.

There are critters all over my small yard. There are probably a fair number inside the house as well, despite my best efforts.

Except for the cockroaches (which I refuse to honor by writing about) the most numerous are the "Taters". I did my requisite websearches and concluded that they can only be pill bugs, because they ball up when threatened...as well as the fact that nothing else looks even slightly similar. I was fascinated and engrossed in the sites I found that helped nail down the bug IDs: mainly www.whatsthatbug.com and www.bugguide.net , both of which I highly recommend. I couldn't bring myself to look at the maggot pages, though...

Anyway, about my Pill Bugs: they're greyish-brown ovals, about 1/2" long and 1/4" wide, visibly segmented with legs almost completely hidden underneath the body. They're so numerous that I could go outside at any time of day and find one immediately, and not infrequently do enter the house. They cause no problems that I know of, and seem to be very enthusiastic about congregating to break down any dog deposits on the lawn that I may have missed (picture barnacles on a ships' hull, unless you're easily grossed out). The young that I've seen are smaller, and pale to the point of translucency, but in every other respect mirror the adults.

The first strange thing is that both my wife and I somehow picked up the habit of calling them 'potato bugs' even though they're not even close to a real potato bug, which is a big ugly bug that I never want to see in my yard, let alone my house. Though we now know the truth, old habits die hard- thus we still refer to them, almost endearingly, as 'taters'. There seem to be many nicknames for these critters; wood lice, rolypolys, doodlebugs, and sow bugs (the latter is used only for that handicapped branch that can't roll itself up). I can remember seeing them while playing in the dirt as a kid, on the other side of the country...

The really strange thing is that I understand pill bugs breathe through gills...they're isopods, closer to crabs than to real bugs. Yet we live on the outskirts of Las Vegas, in the arid Mojave Desert. Even with the climate changes brought about by increased habitation and development, one would assume that the moist factor around here just isn't up to sustaining gill-breathers. Back in Upstate New York, where I grew up, there's plenty of wetness to be found no matter how long its been since the last rain. Here, on the other hand, even the deepest pile of compost dries out pretty quickly. Can these little guys (especially in such huge numbers) survive on the brief, thrice-a-week spurts of my sprinkler system?

The Taters belong to the favored group of critters- those that I will liberate, or at the very least ignore, when I see one inside. Most spiders belong to this group as well. Nine times out of ten, even Black Widows will get a trip out the door rather than the rolled-up magazine treatment. The odd moth that comes inside has my sympathy; personally, I'll leave it alone...but my cats make no such promise. There are other critters, however, that get an instant smushing...aside from the ones that I won't discuss, ants are always destroyed on sight, as are any flies that are clumsy enough to be hit by a nearsighted klutz like me.

The same treatment is given to another common critter around here, referred to as the "Worm on Wheels". My wife came up with the phrase, which is evocative but inaccurate- they're not worms, and they don't have wheels. They do, however, have a slender flexible body (the worm reference) and move quite fast (the 'on wheels' modifier). At first I decided they were a type of silverfish, and then I drifted more towards the earwig family, because of the pincers at the end of the abdomen. All the ones I've seen around here are black, and generally much skinnier than the typical earwig. I've also never noticed any wings (originally the name was 'earWING', according to some sources), but the classification states that only some can fly; some have wings that are undeveloped and some are hardened or carried so close to the body that they might escape my attention...and still other eagwigs may have none at all. I sympathize with people who use taxonomy regularly; classification is tricky, deciding when you need to keep looking and when the description is 'close enough'.

A few nights ago my wife called my attention to one that had become stuck in a hanging web on the patio. The poor critter twisted and coiled frantically, and finally went limp. Though I crush them as soon as I see one inside the house, I still felt a little sad for the poor tangled WoW. I just hope the spider comes back to gets a snack out of it, because it is so dry out here that I imagine dead bugs dessicate very quickly- and the average WoW doesn't look like he has much meat on him to begin with.

I could get a whole 'nother story out of the eight-legged situation...maybe sometime I'll tell you about the Black Widows, and the many other spiders with which I share my home. I could probably even manage a decent story about the intermittent ant infestations. But I will never write about the roaches.