Postdoc E: It 's a great idea .
Grad A: OK , um , let 's move on to electronics .
PhD B: Ah . Great .
Undergrad D: d we we out of tape out of disk ?
PhD B: No , we 're doing we 're doing great .
Undergrad D: I I was looking for the actual box I plan to use , uh , but I c all I could I couldn't find it at the local store . But this is the the technology . It 's actually a little bit thinner than this . And it 's two by two , by one , and it would fit right under the right under th the the the the lip ,
Grad A: Yeah , does everyone know about the lip on the table ? It 's great .
Undergrad D: yeah . There 's a lip in these tables .
Postdoc E: Nice .
Undergrad D: And , it oc I p especially brought the bottom along to try and generate some frequencies that you may not already have recorded .
Grad A: Clink ! Clink !
Undergrad D: Let 's see  see what it does to the But this was the uh just just to review , and I also brought this {comment} along rather than the projector so we can put these on the table , and sort of w push them around .
Grad A: And and crinkle them and PhD B: What ?
Postdoc E: And th " that " being a diagram .
PhD B: What ?
Undergrad D: That that 's the six tables that we 're looking at . These six tables here , with with little boxes sort of , uh , in the middle here .
PhD B: I see .
Postdoc E: OK .
Undergrad D: Which es would I mean , the the boxes are pretty much out of the way anyway . I 'll - I 'll show you the  the cro this is the table cross section . I don't know if people realize what they 're looking at .
PhD B: You trying to screw up the m the microphones ?
Grad A: Yes . He is . Absolutely .
PhD B: I mean th
Undergrad D: Well why not ? I mean , cuz this is what 's gonna happen . You got plenty of data . I won't come to your next meeting . And and and you So this is the box 's Grad A: Get your paper off my PDA !
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: Yeah , let let the record show that this is exhibit two B .
Undergrad D: That 's right . " Or not to be " . Yeah , yeah .
Grad A: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Uh , the box , uh there 's a half inch lip here . The box is an inch thick so it hangs down a half an inch . And so the the two head set jacks would be in the front and then the little LED to indicate that that box is live . The the important issue about the LED is the fact that we 're talking about eight of these total , which would be sixteen channels . And , uh , even though we have sixteen channels back at the capture , they 're not all gonna be used for this .
PhD B: Hmm .
Undergrad D: So there 'd be a subset of them used for obviously j just use the ones at this end for  for this many . So Excuse me . you 'd like a a way to tell whether your box is live , so the LED wouldn't be on .
PhD B: Right . All the lights .
Undergrad D: So if you 're plugged in it doesn't work and the LED is off that 's that 's a tip off . And then the , uh would wire the all of the cables in a in a bundle come through here and o obviously collect these cables at the same time .
Postdoc E: That 's good .
Undergrad D: Uh , so this this notion of putting down the P Z Ms and taking them away would somehow have to be turned into leaving them on the table
Grad A: Right . Well , we wanna do that definitely .
Undergrad D: or or Right .
Grad A: So .
Undergrad D: Right . And so the you we just epoxy them down or something . Big screw into the table .
PhD B: Velcro .
Undergrad D: Uh , and even though there 's eight cables they 're not really very big around so my model is to get a a a p piece of Grad A: Sleeve .
Undergrad D: yeah , that that stuff that people put with the little you slip the wires into that 's sort of shaped like that cross section .
Grad A: Oh . OK , not just sleeve them all ?
Undergrad D: Yeah . I 'm I 'm r a I 'm going up and then I 'm going down .
Grad A: And leave them loose ?
PhD B: No .
Postdoc E: That looks like a semi - circle .
PhD B: Yeah . It 's like a it 's a sleeping policeman .
Grad A: Whoo !
PhD B: Speed bump !
Postdoc E: Sleeping pol
PhD B: Speed bump .
Grad A: Speed A " sleeping policeman " !
Undergrad D: Yeah , it 's like a speed bum An
Postdoc E: Speed bump . That 's good . There we go s
Grad A: Cool .
Undergrad D: And they 're ac they 're actually ext extruded from plastic .
PhD C: What is Undergrad D: They sorta look like this .
Grad A: Oh .
PhD C: What does that mean ?
PhD B: That 's the s that 's British for speed bump ,
PhD C: Is it a speed bump ?
Undergrad D: So that the wires go through here .
PhD B: yeah .
PhD C: Wow .
Postdoc E: Oh , is that right ?
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: I never heard that .
Grad A: That 's really cruel .
Undergrad D: So .
Postdoc E: Ah !
Grad A: OK , so that Undergrad D: s So it would c basically go on the diagonal here .
PhD C: It could go either way .
Grad A: So why do we have sixteen channels instead of like some fewer number ?
PhD B: Yeah .
PhD C: I guess .
Undergrad D: Uh , because the PhD B: How else are you gonna distribute them around the tables ?
Undergrad D: Because they 're there .
Grad A: Well , OK , let me rephrase that . Why two each ?
PhD B: Oh , because then you don't have to just have one each . So that if t if you have two people sitting next to each other they can actually go into the same box .
Undergrad D: Yeah .
Grad A: OK .
Undergrad D: And to See , thi this is really the way people sit on this table . Th
Grad A: OK .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: Uh . Dot , dot , dot .
Postdoc E: Which means two at each station .
Undergrad D: Well that that 's the way people sit . That 's how many chairs are in the room .
Postdoc E: Yeah .
Grad A: Alright .
Postdoc E: Yeah , I 'm just saying that for the recording .
Undergrad D: Yeah .
Grad A: Right .
Undergrad D: Right .
Grad A: OK .
Undergrad D: And certainly you could do a thing where all sixteen were plugged in .
Grad A: But then none of these .
Undergrad D: Uh if if you ha if you had nothing else .
Grad A: Right . N none of these and no P Z Ms then .
Undergrad D: Yeah . Right . Right . I agree .
PhD B: Only if you had Well it depends on this box , right ?
Undergrad D: Oh , true enough . And actually , at the m my plan is to only bring eight wires out of this box .
PhD B: Exactly .
Grad A: Oh , I didn't understand Undergrad D: This this box Thi - thi thi this box is a one off deal .
Postdoc E: That being the wiring box .
Grad A: Oh , I see , I see .
Undergrad D: Uh . And , uh , it 's function is to s to , uh , essentially a wire converter to go from these little blue wires to these black wires , plus supply power to the microphones cuz the the he the , uh , cheap head mounteds all require low voltage .
Grad A: So so you 'd imagine some sort of in some sort of patch panel on top to figure out what the mapping was between each d of these two and each of those one or what ?
PhD B: Hmm !
Undergrad D: Well I w I I the simplest thing I could imagine , i which is really , really simple is to quite literally that these things plug in . And there 's a there 's a plug on the end of each of these these , uh , ei eight cables .
Postdoc E: What PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: OK . Each of the blue wires ?
PhD B: But there are only four .
Undergrad D: An - and there 's only there 's only four slots that are you know , in in the first version or the version we 're planning to to build .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: Yeah .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: So that that was the whole issue with the LED , that you plug it in , the LED comes on , and and and you 're live .
Grad A: Oh , then it comes on . I see , I see . OK , good .
Undergrad D: Now the the  the subtle issue here is that tha I I haven't really figured out a solution for this . So , we it 'll have to be convention . What happens if somebody unplugs this because they plug in more of something else ?
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: Well the there 's no clever way to let the up stream guys know that you 're really not being powered . So th there will be a certain amount of looking at cables has to be done if people , uh , rewire things .
Grad A: Right .
PhD B: Yeah , I mean , we I had that last time .
Undergrad D: But .
PhD B: But uh there are actually that you know , there 's an extra there 's a mix out on the radio receiver ?
Undergrad D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: So there are actually six XLR outs on the back of the radio receiver and only five cables going in , I had the wrong five , so I ended up not recording one of the channels and recording the mix .
Undergrad D: How interesting . D did you do any recognition on the mix mix out ?
Postdoc E: Hmm .
PhD B: No .
Undergrad D: Wonder whether it works any PhD B: But I subtracted the four that I did have from the mix and got a pretty good approximation of the @ @ .
Undergrad D: Got the fifth ?
Grad A: You g
Undergrad D: Cool .
Postdoc E: Oh , how great .
Grad A: And did it work ?
PhD B: Yeah .
Grad A: Did it sound good ?
PhD B: It 's not bad .
Undergrad D: Is it is PhD B: It 's not bad ,
Grad A: Wow .
PhD B: yeah .
Undergrad D: Ain't science wonderful ?
Postdoc E: That 's amazing .
PhD B: Yeah .
Grad A: So what 's the schedule on these things ?
Undergrad D: So PhD B: But , you always Postdoc E: Wow .
Undergrad D: Uh , well I was wrestling with th with literally the w number of connectors in the cable and the  the , uh , powering system . And I I was gonna do this very clever phantom power and I decided a couple days ago not to do it .
PhD B: Hmm !
Undergrad D: So I 'm ready to build it . Which is to say , uh , the neighborhood of a week to get the circuit board done .
Grad A: Mm - hmm . So I think the other thing I 'd like to do is , do something about the set up
PhD B: See
Grad A: so that it 's a little more presentable and organized .
Undergrad D: I agree .
Grad A: And I 'm I 'm just not sure what that is . I mean , some sort of cabinet .
Undergrad D: Well I can build a cabinet . The the difficulty for this kind of project is the intellectual capital to design the cabinet .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: In other words , to figure out ex exactly what the right thing is . That cabinet can can go away . We can use that for for uh kindling or something . But if you can imagine what the right form factor is . Dan - Dan and I have sort of gone around on this , and we were thinking about something that opened up in the top to allow access to the mixer for example .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: But there 's these things sticking out of the mixer which are kind of a pain , so you end up with this thing that if if you stuck the mixer up here and the top opened , it 'd be it 'd be fine . You wouldn't necessarily Well , you s understand what I 'm Grad A: Yeah , I understand .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: the the you can you can start start s sketching it out ,
Grad A: So .
Undergrad D: and I can certainly build it out of oak no problem , would it you know , arb you know , arbitrarily amount of Grad A: I need a desk at home too , alright ? Is that gonna be a better solution than just going out and buy one ?
Undergrad D: Well , the as we found out with the the thing that , uh , Jeff bought a long time ago to hold our stereo system the stuff you buy is total crap . And I mean this is something you buy .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: And and Grad A: And it 's total crap .
Undergrad D: It 's total crap . Well , it 's useless for this function . Works fine for holding a Kleenex ,
Grad A: Right , Kleenex and telephones .
Undergrad D: but it Right .
Grad A: Um , so yeah , I g I guess it 's just a question , is that something you wanna spend your time on ?
Undergrad D: Oh , I I 'm paid for .
Grad A: OK , great .
Undergrad D: I have no problem . No , but w certainly one of the issues is is the , uh is security .
Grad A: Hmm ? Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: I mean , we 've been been been lax and lucky .
Grad A: Lax .
PhD B: Yeah . Yep .
Undergrad D: Really lucky with these things . But they 're not ours , so PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: the , uh the flat panels .
PhD B: Oh , yeah !
Grad A: I 'm telling you , I 'm just gonna cart one of them away if they stay there much longer .
PhD B: Well w yeah , exactly .
Undergrad D: Uh , let the record show at uh at f four thirty - five Adam Janin says Postdoc E: Wow . Tempting .
PhD B: We 'll know we 'll know to come after .
Postdoc E: Tempting . Yeah .
Grad A: So , um , j uh , then the other question is do we wanna try to do a user interface that 's available out here ?
PhD B: Sorry ?
Undergrad D: Slipped almost slipped it by Dan .
Postdoc E: Use - user interface Grad A: A user interface . I mean , do we wanna try to get a monitor ? Or just something .
PhD B: Oh ! Sure .
Postdoc E: Oh .
PhD B: Well of course we do .
Grad A: And how do we want to do that ?
Postdoc E: You mean like see see meter readings , from while sitting here .
Grad A: J just so we see something .
Postdoc E: Wow .
Undergrad D: How about use the thing that um ACIRI 's doing .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Which is to say just laptop with a wireless .
PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Sure .
Postdoc E: Oh .
PhD B: Which we 'll borrow from them , when we need it .
Undergrad D: What 's wrong with yours ? If we bought you a a PhD B: Oh , a Applecard . Sure . Right . Yeah , you could use my machine .
PhD C: Well Undergrad D: What ?
Grad A: I have an IRAM machine I 've borrowed and we can use it .
PhD B: I or the Undergrad D: N no , I 'm I 'm I 'm serious . Does does the wireless thing work on your Grad A: Wait , isn't that an ethernet connection or is that a phone ?
PhD B: Uh , that 's an ethernet connection .
Grad A: Well PhD B: It 's going next door .
Undergrad D: Yeah no no I 'm a I I I ain't joking here .
Grad A: We jus
Undergrad D: I 'm serious , that that  it it PhD B: Yeah . No , no , absolutely , that 's the right way to do it . T to have it uh , just Undergrad D: It 's very convenient especially if Dan happens to be sitting at that end of the table to not have to run down here and and look in the thing every so often ,
PhD B: Yeah . And given given that we 've got a wireless that we 've got a we got the field .
Undergrad D: but just have the It 's right there .
PhD B: Right .
Undergrad D: Right ? The antenna 's right there ,
Grad A: Right .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah .
Undergrad D: right outside the PhD B: I don't know .
Undergrad D: Y I mean , we need obviously need to clear this with ACIRI but , uh , how tough can that be ? There it you 'd all you need 's web access , isn't it ?
PhD B: W we don't need X access
Undergrad D: In in theory .
PhD B: but I mean that 's fine . That 's that 's what it does ,
Undergrad D: OK ,
PhD B: yeah .
Undergrad D: great , great .
Grad A: Um ,
PhD B: So Grad A: right , so it 's just a question of getting a laptop and a wireless modem .
PhD B: With a with a with a w
Undergrad D: No , and he he had , reque @ @ my my proposal is you have a laptop .
PhD B: No . Yeah . I do !
Undergrad D: You don't ?
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah .
Undergrad D: If if we bought you the thing would you mind using it with i the the PhD B: No , I would love to but I 'm not sure if my laptop is compatible with the wave LAN thing they 're using .
Undergrad D: Really ?
Grad A: To Mac .
PhD B: Well Apple has their own thing , right ?
PhD C: He 's Undergrad D: Your new one ?
Grad A: Airport .
Undergrad D: I 'm sorry ?
PhD B: Apple has their own thing . And Undergrad D: I thought it just came through a serial p or an Ethernet port .
PhD B: Yeah , I think what I think you I think it just plug plugs in a PC card , so you could probably make it run with that , but .
Grad A: The question is , is there an Apple driver ?
Undergrad D: I e
PhD B: Yeah , I 'm sure . I imagine there is . But uh anyway there are there are abs there are a bunch of machines at ICSI that have those cards
Undergrad D: But the two t
PhD B: and so I think if w if it doesn't we should be able to find a machine that does that . I I mean I know that doesn't don't don't the important people have those little blue VAIOs that Undergrad D: Well , uh , b that to me that 's a whole nother . That 's a whole nother issue .
Postdoc E: Hmm . Hmm .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: The the idea of con convincing them that we should use their network i is fairly straight forward .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah .
Undergrad D: The idea of being able to walk into their office and say , " oh , can I borrow your machine for a while " , is is is a non - starter .
PhD B: Yeah . I see .
Undergrad D: That I I don't think that 's gonna work . So , I mean , either either we figure out how to use a machine somebody already in the group already owns , a a and the idea is that if it 's it perk , you know , it 's an advantage not not a disadvan {comment} or else we we literally buy a machine e exactly for that purpose .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Absolutely . Yeah .
Undergrad D: Certainly it solves a lot of the problems with leaving a monitor out here all the time .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: I I I I 'm I 'm not a big fan of doing things to the room that make the room less attractive for other people ,
Grad A: Right .
Undergrad D: right ? Which is part of the reason for getting all this stuff out of the way
Grad A: Yeah .
Undergrad D: and  and , so a monitor sitting here all the time you know people are gonna walk up to it and go , " how come I can't get , you know , Pong on this " or , whatev
Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . I 've I 've borrowed the IRAM VAIO Sony thingy ,
PhD C: Well Grad A: and I don't think they 're ever gonna want it back .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Right .
PhD B: You 're kidding !
Undergrad D: Well , the next conference they will .
Grad A: So . Sure .
Undergrad D: Yeah .
Grad A: But that does mean so we can use that as well .
Undergrad D: Well , uh , the certainly , u you should give it a shot first See whether you you can get compatible stuff .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: Uh , ask them what it costs . Ask them if they have an extra one . Who knows , they might have an extra hardware s
PhD B: I 'd trade them a flat panel display for it . Yeah .
PhD C: What is the , um , projector supposed to be hooked up to ?
Undergrad D: Good . Uh , the , uh Tsk . It 's gonna be hooked up to all sorts of junk . There 's gonna be actually a a plug at the front that 'll connect to people 's laptops so you can walk in and plug it in . And it 's gonna be con connected to the machine at the back . So we certainly could use that as as a constant reminder of what the VU meters are doing .
PhD B: Huge VU meters .
Undergrad D: So people sitting here {comment} are going " testing , one , two , three " !
PhD C: But I mean , that 's another that 's another possibility that , you know , solves Undergrad D: It a
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Yeah .
PhD B: That 's an end
Undergrad D: But but but I think the idea of having a control panel it 's that 's there in front of you is really cool .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: I think and uh , having having it on wireless is is the neatest way neatest way to do it .
Undergrad D: R
Grad A: I had Undergrad D: As long as you d as l as long as you 're not tempted to sit there and f keep fiddling with the volume controls going , " can you talk a bit louder ? "
PhD B: Yeah .
Grad A: I had actually earlier asked if I could borrow one of the cards to do wireless stuff
PhD B: Yeah .
Grad A: and they said , " sure , whenever you want " . So I think it won't be a problem .
PhD B: Oh , cool . OK .
Undergrad D: And and it 's a a PCMCIA card , right ?
Grad A: Yep .
Undergrad D: PC card ,
Grad A: PC card .
Undergrad D: so you can have a slot ,
PhD B: Yeah , yeah .
Undergrad D: right ? In your new machine ?
PhD C: It 's it really come down to the driver .
Undergrad D: Is it with s
PhD B: Yeah .
PhD C: I mean Grad A: Right , I mean , and if and if his doesn't work , as I said , we can use the PC .
Undergrad D: Right , i it 'll it 'll work It 'll work the first time . I I trust Steve Jobs .
Grad A: Good .
PhD B: Um ,
Grad A: So PhD B: well , that sounds like a d good solution one way or the other .
Grad A: So Jim is gonna be doing wiring and you 're gonna give some thought to cabinets ?
Undergrad D: Uh , y yeah .
Grad A: Great .
Undergrad D: We we need to figure out what we want . Uh PhD B: We 'd I think Undergrad D: Hey , what are those green lights doing ?
Grad A: They 're flashing !
PhD B: Uh - oh ! Uh - oh ! Does that it means it means it 's gonna explode . No .
Undergrad D: Cut the red wire , the red wire !
PhD B: Um Grad A: When people talk , it they go on and off .
PhD B: This So again , Washington wants to equip a system . Our system , we spent ten thousand dollars on equipment not including the PC . However , seven and a half thousand of that was the wireless mikes . Uh ,
Undergrad D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: using using these Undergrad D: And it and the f the five thousand for the wires , so if I 'm gonna do No .
PhD B: Yeah ,
Undergrad D: It 's a joke .
PhD B: that 's true
Undergrad D: I have to do PhD B: but we haven't spent that , right ? But once we once we 've done the intellectual part of these , uh , we can just knock them out , right ?
Grad A: Cheap .
PhD B: We can start  we you can make a hundred of them or something .
Undergrad D: Oh , of the of the boards ? Yeah , yeah , sure , right .
PhD B: And then we could Washington could have a system that didn't have any wireless but would had what 's based on these
Undergrad D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: and it would cost Grad A: A PC and a peanuts .
Undergrad D: Peanuts .
PhD B: PC and two thousand dollars for the A - to - D stuff .
Grad A: Yeah .
PhD B: And that 's about cuz you wouldn't even need the mixer if you didn't have the Oh th the P Z
Undergrad D: Right .
PhD B: P Z Ms cost a lot . But anyway you 'd save , on the seven seven or eight thousand for the for the wireless system . So actually that might be attractive .
Undergrad D: Right .
Grad A: Good .
PhD B: OK , I can move my thumb now .
Postdoc E: That 's a great idea .
Undergrad D: What ?
Postdoc E: It 's nice it 's nice to be thinking toward that .
Undergrad D: Oh , I thought like if we talked softer the disk lasts longer .
Grad A: Well , actually shorten PhD B: Yeah .
Grad A: There 's a speech compression program that works great on things like this , cuz if the dynamic range is low it encodes it with fewer bits . And so most of the time no one 's talking so it shortens it dramatically . But if you talk quieter , the dynamic range is lower and it will compress better . So .
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: Oh . Hmm .
Undergrad D: It also helps if you talk in a monotone .
Grad A: Probably .
Undergrad D: Constant volume all the time .
Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . And shorter words .
Grad A: Shorter words .
PhD C: Now , shorter words wouldn't would induce more dynamics , right ? You want to have PhD B: Yeah , but if the words are more predictable .
Grad A: How about if you just go " uh " ?
PhD C: Huh .
Undergrad D: Uh .
Postdoc E: That 's a long word !
Grad A: How do you spell that ?