L"Hello, World" // Enter the Audio Fool

Perhaps it's some kind of initiation ritual.  An obligatory indoctrination task that each new blogger must go through.  An arcane tradition whose origins are soon to be lost to the recesses of time.  Surely the only reason we do it is because tradition demands it, but I prefer to think of it as the online equivalent of the nervous presenter stepping up to the microphone in a crowded conference hall and uttering, in a voice 20dB too loud, tinny from running through too many gain stages, those first unforgettable words:

"Is this on?"

Ahem.

I'm calling this column "The Audio Fool" because I really don't know that much about audio.  I know this because I work with some of the most brilliant minds in the production of digital audio today, and when I stand next to them, I feel like a fool, dancing and fumbling around trying to grasp the concepts like some stage magician's marionette, or a cat who can't quite reach a firefly.  Even so, working with audio is what Microsoft pays me for, so you'll see more than your fair share of information about how computers make sounds.  Who knows, you might even learn something.

Finally, I am a code monkey by trade, so you'll also see articles on programming.  I work in C++, and though I dabble in nearly every other language created, my Win32 API is much better than my .NET.  My heroes at MS are Raymond Chen, Steve Rowe, and Larry Osterman with whom I've had the pleasure of working.  I share a lot of design and code philosophies with these people.  Maybe, when I get big, I'll get a call-out in their blogs.  ;)

Oh, and I'm just geeky enough that I think I can get away with the title of this post.