So Simple evan a child can do it
eople had warned us this would happen. After a combined total of 28 columns, we were indeed wondering I what to write about. Maybe Novem-ber just isn't a particularly inspiring month. Maybe DSP is exciting only in the warmer months. Maybe the artifice of writing about November when it's really September finally became too stressful, as we sat emptp-screencd in OUT shared despair. Actually this column has a longer history, dating back to last March's ICASSP99 in Phoenix, AZ, when we met in a hallway and commiserated about the relentlessness of tlie bimonthly column. We recalled occasional discussions about publishing the D E E S&nal Processing Magazine as a monthly periodical and secretly prayed " Not during my term. " Then, through some random wandering of the conversation, we mentioned how our children enjoyed being mentioned in the columns; how even children came in touch witli signal processing these days; and hence (eureka!), how our children could even write one of our columns! Ed Delp joined in the discussion and it eventually progressed to one of those " I'll do it, if you'll do it " conversations that can so often lead to foolhardy actions. In this case, though, the outcome is, we believe, morc enlightening than foolhardy, and does indeed say some significant things about the field of signal processing. What follows are three short pieces written by our childrcn: Ercni Icatsaggelos (Aggelos' 10-year-old daughter), Caitlin Adam (Leah's 10-year-old daughter), and Ed Delp IV (Ed Delp's 16-year-old son). We'U come back at tlie end to give our perspectives , but first, listen to the luds. What a digital signal means to me is a voice, a so~md, or an image, that is either on the computer or the Internct. What Digital Signal Processing (DSP) means to me is changing such a voice, sound, or image to help male it sound or look better, dearer, or sharper. I have learned about DSP at the conferences I have been to in Santorini, Greece, and Antalya, Turkey. Whcn I went to Santorini, I was seven years old. Two years later, this past summer, I went to Antalya. I think both coderences were interesting and fun. During dicse conferences, I learned about different kinds ofDSP. To be good in DSP you nccd to be good in math. I especially enjoyed leariling about how they use DSP in music. Alimed (the professor that tallred …