Editor's Turn

Will Work for Food

Unemployment amongst CPMT members has increased markedly in the last year. This is not based on some elaborate survey done by tech business companies but rather is based on the weekly calls many of us are getting from admired colleagues who found themselves in the wrong part of the org-chart of a company that was rapidly downsizing to avoid bankruptcy. The last few newsletters featured the IEEE web site built to help those in search of a job, but I would like to dwell on actions that every CPMT member should be glad to take.

First, find out all about that particular company's lay off and future prospects. This will help you in discussing the job market with all the others that call you for help.

Second, agree to be a reference (by phone or by letter). There is nothing more assuring to the recently uprooted than to hear past partners agreeing to support them in their search.

Third, relay any contacts with possible openings that you know about. This information beats cold calls or email every time.

Of the 12 searchers for new jobs I have encountered in the last 3 months I was able to provide meaningful contacts with openings to 5 of them. In one case I could go over and talk to the manager with an opening and within a month all the interviewing and negotiations were over. In another case several targeted contacts revealed there really wasn't a match even though it appeared so on the surface (this is useful by eliminating wasted effort even though it is not so satisfying). In a third case a long lasting option was established but the searcher decide to pursue something closer to home. In another a position with reduced salary (-25%) was found but the decision is not yet made. In the last an understanding was reached where the individual has 4 months to decide whether to abandon a job that has become a bit shaky. However, in the other 7 cases I could only perform steps 1 and 2 and wish them luck.

So do we help each other out of some kind of tribal loyalty. Certainly we have more empathy for those that have similar skill sets, but there is also the knowledge that the world economy (everyone) can be helped by keeping every wealth creating engineer as busy as practical. It is also well known that everyone that you help find a job will be ready to help you when your own Waterloo comes around. Let's face economic reality, it only takes a few mistakes by your upper management to put even the most respected engineer on the chopping block.

Copyright Law

As I pointed out a few issues ago, I am an avid Internet radio listener. Under the flag of music copyright (a flag flown by lawyers) the U.S. based radio stations have mostly disappeared (I am listening to a German Jazz station while I type this).

As an engineer I tried to figure work-arounds to the draconian methods being applied to limit use of copyrighted music just by the "big market players." Schemes such as private Internet music sharing/stations with encryption might be practical amongst handfuls of people, similar to the common practice of loaning CDs amongst friends.

But what about developing computer generated music similar to the recent photo realistic movies such as "Final Fantasy," "Shrek," and the basic theme of "Sim-one" where one can sometimes forget the characters are not real. So imagine feeding centuries of classical music scores plus samples of many conductors styles into a computer capable of synthesizing or recreating from samples the many instrument sounds. Variations could be part of the algorithms so a radio station (computer) would never exactly repeat a performance. No fees to recording companies or musicians by radio stations--- meaning that there would be far fewer on-air advertisements in the U.S. For those using their own computer one could have an interactive conductors baton and glove so you could point to the instrument section you wanted louder and create your own timing.

Well this is a far from a trivial task but if greedy lawyers for greedy media companies keep the market value of music high than it won't take many years for companies to come out with software products. However, the more important task may well be the human singing voice. It would be nice to be able to point to a song and a particular style and have it belted out by your computer. Performers might then spend more time with live concerts and less time feeding large media companies. Computer generated music might ignite a market for the large local talent market for live performance and let thousands of computer generated radio stations fill every nook of silence. How far is this away? Even today some software can do a fairly good job of reading books aloud. Can singing be far behind?