Earthday Everyday! Making Sound Decisions and Being Green

I'll start with a very brief note regarding my recent foray into the "switcher wars" - my recent post was not meant  as an endorsement of any one manufacturer over another. I have great respect for AMX, Biamp, Crestron, Dtrovision,  Extron, and quite a few other entries in the commercial-av alphabet. Also, note the new disclaimer; all opinions expressed on this blog are those of your humble pixel-and-ink-stained wretch and exactly nobody else. That said.... on with today's post.

The NYC Subway - a green way to travel!

Happy Earthday +1/365th everyone! We'll celebrate by recycling yesterday's holiday and talk briefly about how we in the commercial AV world can be green.
Yesterday's earthday discussion brought a question to mind: what can we do to be environmentally conscious in our industry? It's a simple question without a single simple answer. There are choices from equipment specifications and design considerations through personal choices in how we fill our roles. Some are easy, some less so, but there are many ways to make a difference.

Equipment
This is the obvious one that will leap to most people's minds when they hear "green AV" and there are more and more options from which to choose. From the pun with which I titled this post, I'm sure you'd guess the first one:  high-efficiency "Class D" amplifiers.  This technology not only saves on energy, but the higher efficiency means less waste heat and, therefore, less fan noise. Some Class D amplifiers, such as Extron's XPA series or Crestron's MP-AMP series, are completely fanless! This means that in educating end-users as to why this is a good choice there's the added benefit of eliminating fan noise in addition to energy savings.

Class D amplifier topology. Courtesy of Extron Electronics

What's a Class D amplifier? The short version is that it is a switching amplifier usually using some form of transistors followed in series with some kind of filtering to give a smooth waveform. The long version is outside the scope of this post. Perhaps a discussion for another day? The important thing is that it's a technology very much in vogue because of the potential for energy efficiency, and is available in quite a few high-quality commercial products. Crown Audio's CDi series, to give another example, consists of high-efficiency class-D amplifiers.

Projectors are another area with intriguing new choices; quite a few manufacturers have developed lampless hybrid LED/LASER projectors. Aside from the injection of coolness the word "Laser" adds to anything, these not only use less energy but don't rely on the replacement of physical lamps some of which can, if not disposed of properly, be a source of toxic waste.

As an aside, sustainable technology often has benefits beyond energy conservation, and these benefits need to be explained to clients. This is especially true given the relatively few professional AV products which have the kinds of certifications that can help earn LEED points. Given that LEED is the metric by which most commercial projects show their dedication to environmental sensitivity it becomes somewhat of a challenge to sell the benefits of environmentally sensitive choices which don't earn LEED points. "It isn't as loud" is a nice little extra reason. The Extron and Crestron products also feature plenum-rated enclosures for placement above a suspended ceiling (with the added bonus of not violating any fire codes!) Lampless projectors have a much flatter light curve with respect to age, so one doesn't need as bright a projector to compensate for eventual decline.

Personal Choices
This is the less obvious, and less "sexy" side of being green in this industry; the little day-to-day choices we all make seem small, but can add up. Here are two small steps we can all take:

I'll confess - some days my desk looks like this. Some days
the fact that there's a wood surface beneath the paper
needs to be taken as a matter of faith.

First, save a tree - think before you print. I carry a tablet and smartphone onto which I can upload PDFs, write notes, and even make quick markups. Marking up a PDF rather than a physical copy might take a bit of getting used to, but it saves paper as well as clutter. Don't print your email unless there's a good reason. Etc, etc.



Second, travel as greenly as possible. Take the subway instead of a cab. Take public transportation to the office if you can. And, dear to our hearts in the commercial AV world, try to use videoconferencing rather than force people from distant cities to physically attend meetings.

A Final Word

Avoid wasteful packaging. Pack your cat in the smallest
box possible.

We're all on this planet together, and while the big problems of curbing carbon emissions and reducing energy use might seem daunting small steps add up. Think about making sustainability as much a part of your thinking as speaker coverage or video content delivery. Educate yourself so you can educate your clients and co-workers. Take a step.

About that Crestron/Extron/AMX "Shootout" video

For those not following the commercial AV field, this happened last week. Crestron released two videos on their site, comparing their Digital Media switching system to "similar" (more on this point later) offerings from rivals AMX and Extron. This first came to my attention not through Ravepub's write-up on it or even from Crestron, but in an email blast from Extron accusing their competitors of chicanery in rigging the test. Are their accusations true? I'm not sure, but don't know if it really matters.  From where the industry stands now, Extron is clearly a bit behind AMX and Crestron in availability of products. Crestron and AMX are very close to each-other, with each leading in some areas. Would I be interested in a third-party neutral "shootout" between the three (and perhaps others)? Perhaps, although switching speed and performance are not the only metrics, and there are other intriguing options on the way for some spaces.

Form Factors, Specifications, and More
Before we discuss tje performance issues, we need to look at what each side is actually offering. After all, a high level of performance is a bit of a moot point if a device lacks the capability for which you're looking. The Crestron shootout compared Extron's DXP with a Crestron DMPS and AMX Enova. It's a fair comparison on the Crestron/AMX side; each is an "all-in-one" unit comprised of a digital video switcher, audio mixer, and control system, each has HDBaseT (Crestron's DM 8G+ and AMX's DXLink) inputs and outputs, local HDMI inputs and outputs, and a variety of analog video inputs.

The Extron device, on the other hand, is a simple HDMI matrix. It lacks the audio breakaway, integrated control processor, and integrated amplifier of the other products. Reviewing the devices for actual design into a system, I'd completely ignore Extron on this one. They have their places, but this sadly isn't one of them.

So far as Crestron and AMX are concerned, in form-factor and capabilities it's very close. AMX has an edge in that they have an onboard scaler for each local output as well as scalers integrated into all of their DXLink receivers. Crestron has a scaling receiver option, but you'd need to add an external scaler if you want to scale your local output. Crestron does have an option with built-in acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) for conferencing applications. I've not had the opportunity to test this, but it's an intriguing option for small conference rooms and might sometimes save the need for a full DSP.

AMX also claims one more advantage; energy use. The DGX and DVX are presented as being more energy  efficient than competitors. They have their own comparison tool, the DVX Energy Calculator which compares a DVX to a conventional system and a "non-AMX Presentation Switcher". It's pretty much an open secret that the non-AMX PS is a Crestron DMPS. AMX claims about a 4:1 power savings in active mode and over 10:1 in standby mode - a big issue considering that these units will usually be always on. (Why are they always on? Because the control processor is built in. If you power it down, there's no way for the system to power itself back up!) With today's increased emphasis on sustainable technology this should be an issue, the lack of an Energy Star of similar certification or the ability to earn LEED points makes it a harder case to make, even though it is a real advantage.

A test set-up at Crestron's training facility

Performance aside, which of these would I suggest? It depends. In a control-system-agnostic environment, Crestron has an edge on cost, AMX on onboard scaling, Crestron with AEC (if needed), AMX in energy savings. The latter pushes the needle towards AMX for me, but not so dramatically that I'd not consider Crestron a very viable alternative.

About those Videos
I'm not getting into Extron's accusations of outright cheating; I'm not a forensic video analyst, I am disinterested in engaging in a frame-by-frame analysis, and as I said, it's an apples to oranges comparison.

The innards of an AMX Enova DVX

What did interest me is is that the set-ups for the Extron and AMX comparisons are different; for one, they added extra hardware (an HD Scaler) in the latter, while giving the option of not scaling as a benefit. This strikes me as dishonest in the least. The second is that they used two outputs of their test generator to feed both units. I have no idea how EDID and HDCP keys are handled by this sort of unit; it's quite possible that it needs to negotiate both keys and get a "best common" in order to sync. Interestingly, the only times Crestron appeared faster was when showing the test bars - a source shared between the two systems. I'd be very interested in seeing the same demonstration with truly separate sources.

Conclusions?
I don't have one as of yet. We have, at the very least, two great products from two great companies. Performance between Crestron DM and AMX Enova is close enough that "one switches faster" is most likely not going to be the deciding factor, but simply one factor amongst many. The videos should be taken as what they are: marketing. Would there be value in an independent "shootout"? Perhaps, but as stated before, that ignores real difference in form, capabilities, power consumption, and other factors. Going farther, in a larger install these systems would be part of a larger infrastructure, including control programming, remote asset management, and other factors.

Is it ironic that the discussion of Extron's video lead to a discussion of everyone but Extron?

Book Review - Without a Summer

In Without a Summer,  the third (and final?) installment of her Glamourist Histories, Mary Robinette Kowal continues the story of her magical alternate Victorian England while reminding us why we read about this time period in the first place. For those new to Kowal's work, the series began with Shades of Milk and Honey, a Jane Austen-inspired regency romance with the added fantasy element of glamour - the ability of certain naturally gifted individuals  to create semi-permanent illusions and otherwise effect the electromagnetic spectrum through direct manipulation of the aether. 

The previous volume, Glamour in Glass, left protagonist Jane Vincent literally bloodied and bruised after her part in the war effort but otherwise near the apex of personal and professional success with a marriage to a thoughtful and intelligent man and a great measure of success and fame as a glamourist. The one loose end, dangling since the end of the first book, is the continued lack of marriage prospects for Jane's prettier but otherwise less talented younger sister, Melody. So, when presented with a fortuitously-timed commission, Jane and family head to London thankfully leaving her mother behind. This is thankful to the reader as well as to the characters; the mother was a little bit of a one-note melodramatic hypochondriac whose appearances began to feel a touch tiresome in contrast with the other more complex and richly drawn characters.

In London, the weather proves to be a major topic of discussion and running theme through the book; as the title suggests, the action takes place in the year without a summer, a historic cold spell likely caused by a major volcanic eruption. We're still in the early stage of the industrial revolution and Luddites are smashing looms in the streets while London's coldmongers (glamourists who work with heat and cold rather than light) are scapegoated for the unseasonable cold. Weaving these details of social and economic disruption throughout the novel is one element that makes the Glamourist Histories stand out from many Victorian fantasy novels; the time period is interesting because we stood with one set of economic and social realities behind us, a different set before us, and no clear path to navigate the change. The coldmongers of this alternate London are often young, made sickly by the nature of their work, underpaid, and unappreciated. Yes, it's a fantasy element, but they are as real as coal miners and garment workers of yesteryear and the underage employees of some electronics factories even today. At a time when a new layer of technology is again disrupting the economic and social order this feels very relevant.

Without a Summer also deals with rising religious plurality in England, and Kowal pulls no punches in showing us how even the most sympathetic characters can be driven by ignorance and, yes, bigotry. After hearing about them for the past two books, we meet Vincent's family. And, about two-thirds of the way through, we get one of the most delightful kinds of moments in fiction: a revelation that a fundamental assumption we'd made turns out to have been wrong, and we're forced to look at past events and a wel-established character in a new light.

It ends on a positive note, with the door cracked open just enough that I'd suspect another sequel is possible, but well-enough wrapped up to walk away satisfied should Kowal choose to wander someplace else next. If you'd not read the Glamourist Histories as of yet, do so!

Very highly recommended. Four stars.

Playtime - The World is Not as it Appears!

I attacked a post office this morning.

Before you call the FBI and I end up on a government watch list, I should explain. You see, it was really the Post Office, but I was actually attacking a portal rather than the building itself or, more specifically, the resonators controlling that portal. For those not in the know, this is part of Ingress, Google's augmented reality game (ARG). It's still technically in closed beta, but they've been trickling out invites to join at a pretty steady pace since late last year. And, while there are flaws, it's an intriguing concept for gaming, storytelling, and even marketing. I've faded into and out of and back into it again,  seduced by the ease of picking it up and the temptation to climb the ladder and simultaneously pushed away by the level of grinding and frustration. (Grinding is an expression mostly dealing with computer role-playing type games. It denotes the act of repeatedly fighting the same challenges to gain the experience and equipment needed to progress in the game. Ingress can feel very grind-y at times. More on that later).

The game starts with the premise that the secretive Niantic corporation has been performing experiments with a new form of matter/energy called "XM" or "exotic matter". There's a science-fictional back-story regarding XM, "portals" through which this energy flows, mysterious extra-dimensional entities called "Shapers" which can influence people's thoughts through the XM and a vast global conspiracy keeping everything quiet. As an ARG, the story and "game board" are not given as expositional flavor text but are woven through various websites and in-game discoveries. New features and rule-changes are introduced as short videos, website links, and audio recordings discovered at various in-game locations - the aforementioned portals. When you sign up, you're given a choice of joining the Resistance - dedicated to protecting humanity from the Shapers - and the Enlightened, who believe that the Shapers can offer us great gifts if we have the courage to embrace them.

The field of play  - links I placed from the NYPL
to Grand Central Station, NY

And what are these "portals"? They're locations and landmarks in the real world, which you need to approach by physically walking to them with a GPS-enabled Android phone (this is Google's project. Apple and Blackberry users need not apply!). Once you get within range (about 40 meters), you do a few things:
-"hack" the portal - shaping its XM into in-game items.
-Deploy a "resonator" on the portal. You receive resonators by hacking, and a cluster of 8 resonators fully powers a portal for your team.
- Link the portal to others. Link lines that make up triangles create control fields which impact your team's overall score.

What makes it challenging is that the other faction is competing for the same portals, to create the same fields. If you find a portal already claimed, you have to attack it with single-use bombs called "bursters". There's an experience bonus for creating links and fields, and half as much for destroying them. Earning experience allows you to use more powerful items and create longer links.

That's the game in a nutshell. What makes it work? There's a cooperative aspect which is quite appealing; there are various in-game limitations that encourage or even mandate group play. There also is a "level cap" at 8. This is a source of frustration for high-level players who can be lacking in goals, but it prevents the discrepancy between newer players starting out and those who've been around a while from getting too large. It seems possible to "catch up" no matter how late you joined and how sporadically you play.

It's also sometimes possible to see some really amazing feats. At one point a group of players in California accomplished this:

It must have involved not only several players, but someone would have had to physically travel to the portal at each corner of the triangle. And yes, that's nearly the whole state of California.

So what are the problems with the game?

First, while there is what appears to be an interesting story, the more one looks the thinner it appears; whatever narrative arcs there are move very slowly and the whole thing reminds me a bit about the old joke about writing a series rather than a novel; instead of a beginning a middle and an end there's a beginning and a middle and a middle and a middle and a middle. The story, in other words, can't end without ending the game. So, everything I talked about - building control fields, the global MU score, the battle between Resistance and Enlightened - those are all just window dressing. Some days the Resistance leads, some the enlightened leads, but in the end it's like a baseball game with infinite innings; being ahead today only means what you decide it means.

It also means that an epic feat like the giant California control field can be undone by one person attacking one spot, with no long-term impact on the game.

This brings the next interesting thing to me, and what's interesting as a writer and even a designer of technology; absent a real "winning condition" people tailor their gameplay to their own local goals. So, rather than build fields players will make "farms" of high level portals to collect items, and deliberately avoid connecting them into fields to make them less appealing targets for the opponents to attack. In-game chatter becomes more war-gamey than in-character; people follow the overall story to some extent or other, but mostly talk strategy and tactics.

There's also a fair bit of wrestling with ones GPS and, again, a fair bit of repetition. Still, there's just enough promised change - and in-game events - to keep things lively.

Where the war-gaming dominant community and game have really come together is for in-game special events; there'd be a post on social media somewhere about, say, a Niantic Corporation operative being spotted at a Duane Reade drugstore (all Duane Reades have portals in them; this is one of the most overt examples of using the game as a marketting tool), and the next week a challenge was announced - the team that controlled the most Duane Reade's at a certain time would win some advantage in-game. What followed was an extraordinarily coordinated plan of attack. I didn't get to participate (I'm a very casual player, with the job, kids, and family eating up the time that some people seem to have to wander around attacking portals), but the recap was pretty amazing; an under-manned Enlightented team managed to hold dozens of portals and handily win the event with the assistance of a player sitting at home monitoring the battle on a PC and directing traffic. It was a moment in which game play, social elements, and the creativity of the playing public combined to create something that otherwise couldn't exist. So what is the bigger lesson here? Technology, including the growing ubiquity of GPS enabled phones, can continue to give us be ways to pay, work, and tell stories that wouldn't have been available to us otherwise. That people will use what you give them in their own way, for their own ends.

 And, most importantly, the world isn't what it seems. The shapers are out there, waiting for us. Should we welcome them, or fight them?

Certifiable? Certified!

One valuable service provided by Infocomm, the trade organization for the audiovisual industry, is a system of certifications for audiovisual professionals. Last week I passed a career milestone in earning my CTS-D (Certified Technical Specialist - Designer) certification. So what are these certifications, why do they matter and, most importantly, what do I do next?


Infocomm has two levels of certification. There's the basic CTS (certified technical specialist) and the two advanced ones for the installer (CTS-I) and designer (CTS-D) tracks. While there are some very talented people in the industry who remain uncertified and, truth be told, some decidedly less talented people with certifications, there is value in a set of standards for what an AV professional should know. Carrying a certification says that an individual took the time to gain certain core knowledge, spent the effort being tested on it, and made a commitment to keep their certification current through continuing education (Infocomm requires a number of "renewal units" to maintain their various certifications). It says that an organization has made an effort to train their workforce and make sure that training is recognized.  I've been lucky to work  for companies which put a high value on training and education, so have been able not only to acquire certifications but to maintain them through continuing education. For the uninitiated, what are the AV certifications? And where do I go from here now that I've climbed to the top of the AV certification ladder (OK, it was only two rungs. The AV Certification stepladder).

The CTS is a basic, entry-level certification. I've explained it as knowing how to speak the language of AV. A holder of a CTS should (amongst other things), know the difference between balanced and unbalanced audio, different kinds of video transport (composite, component, DVI, Displayport, etc), and the names and standard pin-outs of common connectors used in the AV industry. This is a great introduction to the world of AV, and denotes enough knowledge to be a competent helper-technician  or draftsperson at an AV firm (assuming some knowledge of drafting). A CTS by itself doesn't measure enough capability to run a jobsite as a lead technician, but does indicate that if someone asks you to terminate a mic cable you'd not have to ask what kind of wire (single pair 24 AWG), what kind of connector (XLR), and which pins go where (2 is plus, 3 is minus, 1 is shield).

At the next level - the top of the stepladder - are two choices. The Installer track is just what it sounds like - everything you need to be a lead tech. From cable terminations (including hands-on testing) to rack building to final testing and commissioning of a lead system. I've known several installers with CTS-I certifications. Those who've put in the effort to get that far are the kinds of technicians who can run a job site themselves. This isn't a certification I'd likely ever achieve; I've done my share of installation, testing, and commissioning, but it's never been my primary role and that's not likely to change. Now that I'm on the consulting side of the industry I'm even less likely to be "hands on" to the point where the installer certification is appropriate.

This brings us to the -D which I just earned. As you'd expect, the skillset leans towards design. There are things like projector brightness calculations, acceptable image size for different viewing tasks, lens throw calculations, amplifier power, and the dread PAG/NAG equations (the last of which, to be fair, the test actually gives you in a little pop-up window. There's a minimum of formula memorization required). There are also quite a few questions - enough that you'd not pass the test without them - on process. What goes into a program report. When submittals are sent and who has to approve them. The relationship between specifications and drawings. Overall workflow on a construction project. Some of this is as much project management as it is AV design, but that's OK. An AV Designer who doesn't know how or to whom to communicate plans for an AV system can't really be successful. We work with technology but, as is the case with all things, we ultimately have to work with people.

So now that I've achieved a career milestone, the obvious question is "what next"? There are, of course, plenty of answers to that question. I could follow up with my study of project management principles on the way to a PMP (Project Management Professional) from the Project Management Institute. The last time I was looking into project management study was several years ago when I didn't have the required amount of experience to qualify for the higher certification. Now I do, and a refresher on those skills is always valuable. I'll talk more about project management, perhaps, in a later post. This won't be my next stop, but is on the list. What is the next stop? One trend in AV is a blurring of lines between AV systems and network-based unified communications - especially in the corporate realm. This sometimes blurs the line between the AV and IT disciplines and many AV professionals - myself included - lack the depth of knowledge to intelligently weigh the benefits, drawbacks, and IT requirements for various communications systems which would be integrated with an AV project. With AV and IT converging, it's a good time for us all to learn at least a bit about eachother's space.



So, I'm now filling my head with things like the OSI model, network routing, private vs. public IP addresses, CISCO switch commands, and the like. It's genuinely fascinating to better see how data gets to where it's going once it leaves through that RJ45 jack in the back of your PC, and I'm looking forward to this part of the journey. There will, perhaps, be more of it in this space later. In any event, the technology field is much like the rest of life in that there's always something new to learn.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Feminism, Writing, AV Design, and other Modern Sports

This will be a wide-ranging post containing writing, politics, and hint at writing. If you've come here looking for AV and nothing else, you might want to skip to the last paragraph; this isn't a political blog or a feminist blog, but there are times I touch on both. This is one of them.

There's been some spirited discussion about Anita Sarkeesian's return to producing her Feminist Frequency videos, with an ongoing series on sexism in video games. As a writer I find this branch of feminism interesting because it dissects the role stories play in the creation of culture. As a gamer - and I believe all gamers worthy of the name should feel this way - I appreciate seeing the art form of gaming taken seriously as being worthy of the same sort of scrutiny as literature and film. And as a man, as the father of a young girl, and as a human being I'm saddened that we still live in a world in which women are all too often seen as objects rather than independent actors in their own right.

I'll not rehash Ms. Sarkeesian's arguments here; you should certainly watch the videos for that. There are two interesting side-points that I want to talk about today. The first, and easiest one, is that a writer can sometimes send a message without intending it, and that even the simplest stories do have a message. Consider her take on the coin-op classic Donkey Kong. On the surface, there's not much to that particular story, if there's a story at all; it's an exercise in endlessly climbing the same girders and leaping the same barrels to save the pretty girl from the scary monkey. Sarkeesian makes a very good point, though, that the entire set-up reduces the "pretty girl" to a prize. If Donkey Kong had stolen, say, a bag of gold the story would read exactly the same. This is the point about objectification. So I read this and thought about it and then, through the perils of YouTube search, came across several reactions. A halfwit with a dead animal on his head. A guy who mistakes critique of the writers of the Donkey Kong video game series with critique of the fictitious characters therein. A slew of angry men doing what they thought Sarkeesian was doing: looking into a camera and complaining. (and no, I'm not linking to any of them. Look around if you want; it's not my intention to drive pageviews for mouth-breathing pre-adolescent dimwits).

What this attitude most reminds me of are the critiques of modern writing from traditionalists like Robert Frost (who likened writing non-formal verse to playing tennis without a net) and Truman Capote (who famously called Kerouac's work mere typing rather than writing). Take a moment to read some Kerouac, or Ginsberg's "Howl".

Back so soon? Take some time.

Read them carefully.

I'll wait.


OK. The first thing you notice - at least the first thing I noticed - is the seeming chaos of these works. It really seems as if the early modern poets are just tossing words around. If you try looking a bit more closely, you'll start seeing more. Kerouac seems to be grabbing images at random, but there's an underlying cohesion which hints at much more serious effort and planning than you'd have suspected him of. If you look more closely at Howl's lines you'll find them interspersed with internal rhymes, scraps of meter, and very carefully chosen words. To assume that Ginsberg or Kerouac are just throwing around words and images is the same mistake as assuming that Sarkeesian is just complaining in front of a video camera; it is to only see what is there on the surface without digging underneath and appreciating not only the work that goes into it but also the beauty of the final product. In UPenn's excellent Modern Poetry class (on the Coursera platform last month and destined to return in September) English professor Al Filreis used the adjective "wrought" for these works; it's a good one. They are made things, built things, carefully considered things. You can throw around adjectives and adverbs in an unedited stream of nonsense, but that wouldn't make you a modern writer any more than Ms. Sarkeesian's detractors are gender-conscious thinkers or, ultimately, thinkers at all.

Which brings us, long-windedly, to what I do in the AV design world. It's easy to look at an AV system, be it a conference room, classroom, or a digital signage system it all looks simple; a TV goes on the wall, speakers go where you can hear them, etc. What I've found is that the more I know, the more there is to know. I've seen plenty of spaces with video, plenty with audio. Not all appear to be designed with the kind of thoughtfulness and care that separates an AV system from a room with AV in it.

Did someone do the math to make sure you could have enough voicelift without feedback?
Did someone do the math to make sure that your display is big enough to read the kind of content it's to be showing?
Did someone make sure that the system fit nicely into the space and fit the users' needs?

Life is like that. Not only are there are relatively few things as simple as they seem at first glance, but things that you don't see and very likely never will see unless you've learned just what to look for make a difference. The slightly longer gooseneck mic do improve the PAG/NAG equations. The carefully planned breaks in meter. The emphasis of one detail over another in developing a theme. Life is complicated. Learn to embrace it, learn to look beneath the surface, and have the courage to know what you don't know.

I'll close with more modernism; experimental writer and poet John Cage took Ginsberg'a carefully-wrought text and manipulated it with an algorithm he called a "mesostic" - sort of an internal acrostic. Here's a brief excerpt of what he came up with.

Even this is harder to do than it may seem! I encountered this during the Modern Poetry MOOC from UPenn, and had the assignment to try it myself. Since it was election time, I went nakedly and shamelessly political. I started with Ruth Lechlitner's 1936 piece "Lines for an Abortionist's Office" and tried to bring it to the present with Akin or Murdock's names after their rather questionable views on women's rights became major news. Neither gave all that interesting a result. Then I tried again with the Akin's poorly-chosen phrase "legitimate rape"

Writing through Lechlitner's "Lines for an Abortionist's Office"

              CLose,
          officE
           brinG
              wIth
          greaT
          offerIng.
               May
          outrAged,
            buT
pain-sharp Ened,

              fRuit:
              fAt
          deeP
            thE

And then gently touched up with "wing words"

              CLose,
          officE
       to brinG
              wIth
          greaT
          offerIng.
                May be
           outrAged,
             buT
  pain-sharpEned,

               fRuit:
               fAt and
            deeP as
              thE


I somewhat liked the way it ended mid-note, and think it certainly gave a mood or a tone. More to the point, even a quick throw-away exercise like this for a peer-reviewed class took some time and effort and a few false starts to give what looks like a somewhat effortless result.

Moral of the story? (all my stories have a moral!): There's more than you see. Think more deeply and question your assumptions before judging.

AV Systems, Integration Angst, and what I did last Thursday

UCLA-based Greg Brown has been giving us something of a customer's-eye-view of the AV industry in his blog over on the Infocomm site (for those not in the know, Infocomm is the professional organization for the AV industry). He recently had a pointed two-part series on some of the challenges he's faced with AV integrators in general and in the higher-education vertical in particular. Specifically, in subsequent posts he identified two very different issues: poor design and poor workmanship. I'll leave the latter for another day, although there are some interesting things to say about that in which I'm mostly in agreement with Brown; I especially applaud his efforts to be an educated consumer capable of recognizing workmanship errors beyond the obvious (projection screen installed backwards!) to the more subtle (tie-wraps cinched too tightly in a rack).

What raised my eyebrows on his design complaints is that he identified two opposite issues: gold-plating and corner-cutting. He then raised the additional issue of unauthorized and unexpected equipment substitutions, which is a real but more minor issue. A few thoughts, of course, jumped out at me.
First is that if too much complexity is a problem sometimes and too little capability is a problem other times, then perhaps the real issue - or the only issue - isn't with the integrator. I recently left the integration world for that of consulting, making my responsibilities a bit different. 

This brings me to last Thursday; we have a healthcare client looking to deploy technology in a new facility. I saw lots of spaces labelled as "conference rooms"; some less than 200 square feet, some larger, and some divisible. Many of the latter were shotgun-rooms joined end-to-end rather than side-to-side. Standard practices seemed fairly clear; the small rooms would likely have local presentations, the larger ones videoconferencing and some kind of front-projection system. Simple, straightforward, and standard. To be sure that this was what everyone wanted, I arranged a meeting not just with the architect (my client) but with end-users and their AV support staff. We spent two hours discussing how the spaces would be used, by whom they would be used, how they would be supported, and how current spaces are used. This is part of what I learned:

1. They are very heavy video conference users. Every room was expected to have a dual-display VTC system.
2. Image quality is very important to them. Very large flat-panel displays are greatly preferred over projection systems in any but the largest spaces.
3. End-users are intelligent but not very technologically savvy. AV support personnel would be located in a different building, but be expected to access systems remotely via a network.
Etc.

This caused quite a few design changes. Dual flatpanels everywhere. No portable equipment. Ceiling microphones in the remaining divisible rooms to save end-users the trouble of having to connect hard-wired devices without local support. Yes, I can hear you out there gnashing your teeth over the idea of hanging mics from the ceiling. I don't care for it either, but they had reasons to not want wired table mics or wireless mics; this leaves relatively few choices. A number of Greg's (and other clients') issues quite likely were integrators doing a poor job. Equally many, though, could have been jobs which were doomed to failure long before anyone showed up on site and picked up tools.

The point of this story? Not asking the right questions to the right people today would have resulted in a disaster a year and a half from now when they get around to actually building it. That's one reason that  most large jobs involve consultants and part of the value we bring; it also creates a sense of continuity through system designs in various rooms and spaces.

So is the moral "hire a consultant"? I'd give an unqualified and utterly-self-serving "yes" if the consulting firm you're considering is Shen, Milsom and Wilke. Joking aside, that's not quite it; the moral of the story is that y