Editor's Turn

Thank your fellow-members for providing the great news and photographs for this issue. For example Len Schaper, Rao Bonda, Rao Tummala, Nobuo Iwase, Naoaki Yamanaka, Merrill Palmer, Ralph Russell, Elke Zakel, Luu Nguyen, Kristine Martin, Jack Balde, Margie Ballinger, Al Puttlitz, Jerry Witter, Ma Jusheng, Alina Deutsch, Paul Wesling, Xiaoming Xie, Chi Leung, and Marie Ericsson. This issue was also an example of the increased productivity that comes from the Internet: last minute location of an award winner from their home web page, checking details of many upcoming meetings, finding price of books, and checking on process for becoming a Senior member of IEEE. Also a big Thanks to those who called or emailed their reasons for liking a paper or a web version of this Newsletter and any CPMT publication. I am pleased so many read and benefit from our publications, even though there is no uniform vote for the right future format for these publications.

During the last month I had the honor of writing recommendations to two members of CPMT that have accomplished much and are being nominated to the "Fellow of the Institute" rating. It was rewarding to pause from the daily list of chores we all must perform and stand in awe of decades of professional and volunteer accommplishments of some of our members. Most engineers take their progress as work-as-usual even though it often adds up and makes a big difference to our profession and economy. We can not celebrate all the time but we must mark our change in kind a few times during our careers. One way we can all recognize the progress of our CPMT colleagues is to help others achieve the Senior Member standing (first apply for yours at https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/smforms.htm). Remember that if a member has 10 years of activity in IEEE fields (including years of Graduate Education) they probably qualify for this title.

Once again there were many activities competing with the editing of this newsletter, my income producing job and my income losing tax filing being the two major ones. However, I have added yet another diversion which dilutes any editorial focus --- Internet Radio! Just after learning to control my hourly desire to surf for any changing world and financial news on the internet, now I am faced with thousands of radio stations that sing out to be sampled. Most cities have approximately 50 local broadcast radio stations which used to seem like more than anyone could want. However, by finding Internet schedules for thousands of radio stations all over the world (and a few just originating in "https://-world") one can easily saturate their waking hours. It reminds me of the first time a child sees the shelves of their city's library and realizes they will not be able to read everything that is written.

So what surprises and changes has this surfing resulted in? First there is the happy discovery that most of the best jazz stations were in Germany and England (Jazzradio.net, soft jazz FM). Second was the discovery of stations unlike those in my home town: RTR-FM in Perth Australia has some really great music, comedy, and talk shows that are worth the diurnal phase change. KAOS of Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington also has comedy and excellent radio personalities selecting music and commentary. Third was the discovery of lots of continuous music stations with focused music taste: classical, new age, techno; for example, when stressed at work I now can put "Astreaux World" softly on my computer speakers. The beauty of radio is that one can listen while driving a car or washing the dishes. If the data stream is music, one can listen while doing any solitary task. One strange unintended consequence of this is that by keeping German Jazz radio playing softly throughout the night one wakes up in the morning magically knowing the weather in Europe. Other consequences might be corporate bandwidth shortage as more engineers go mellow (one could always burn a CD with MP3 versions of a radio station over-night) and the loss of local supporters for broadcast stations (particularly those with lots of on air advertisement interruptions).

Technically it is possible to use a 56Kps dial-up modem to listen to stations but this eats up about 1/2 your bandwidth and does tie up the phone. The happiest web radio listeners seem to be those with DSL or TV cable hook-ups or University/company large Internet pipes to their desktops. In the PC world the common media "browsers" include NullSoft WinAmp MP3 player, Windows Media Player, and RealPlayer. Websites that let you find the radio stations of your dreams include Broadcast.com, The Green Witch, Imagine Radio, Realguide-stations, Spinner.com, KRS Radioworld, Netradio network, Radio Spirits, Sonicnet Flashradio, Yahoo Radio, Vtuner, and Live365. I use the last two a lot and also just do a web search on call letters if I happen to know what I am looking for.

So will Internet radio be used for good (make engineers more productive, globally informed, and emotionally stable) or for evil (distract engineers or give them liberal arts tendencies)? Will we soon have CPMT radio? Stay tuned.