What does Suno mean for us producers & musicians?

 I've been thinking about this for a month or two now, and there is still a lot to process (obviously).  In a way for us musicians and producers, it feels like a "pencils down" moment... The teacher looks at the clock, stops everyone, and we all have to hand in our work, wherever we are at.  We either wrote good/recorded songs that made a splash, or we are now going to drown in the sea of auto-produced stuff that people are about to unleash on the world of music consumption.  The reality we are about to witness is one where disposable songs are literally created on the spot by an app for an ephemeral job posting, a birthday wish, or tomorrow morning's alarm clock sound... And then maybe never played or heard again.  The value of a song is on a different level altogether, one that is hard to relate to... And it seems unlikely we will ever live again in a world where so-called "classics" are made, or at least where everyone agrees on them as such.  The quest of breaking the barriers of producing great music, something that I have literally been training half my life to do, is over.  The barrier doesn't exist anymore, for anyone. 

That's kind of a bleak outlook.  But there's another side to this.  The fact that music making will now be a fully democratized commodity actually secretly elevates some particular aspects of music making. Consider the fact that making music without AI (especially weird stuff that is really outside the bounds of what AI is good at), will now be at a premium.  Humans will remember, and even seek out stuff that exists outside the norm.  We can think of the New Wave movement, in the early-mid 80's, as being sort of an analogous shift.  The LinnDrum was invented, MIDI, tons of studio automations... All of a sudden, there was a new sound and it was extremely low cost / high margin.  The big labels pushed it hard and it found its way to saturation, which led to... The punk music movement. This direct response was the antithesis of all that. It rewarded grass roots, real instruments, garage sound, edgy lyrics, people working their asses off without a $1M advance, just for the love of the craft.

If you carry that out, it's believable that people are still going to look toward bands and songs that are outside AI in some way.  I'm not trying to be a luddite here - being an AI collaborative band is something that will be very interesting (and, as far as I know, still yet to be any sort of a Zeitgeist), but the thing people will latch onto is: "this doesn't sound like AI!"...  Specifically, once everyone has access to make and (knowingly) hear generated music, it will immediately follow that real people, w/ real instruments, shot on real video cameras - making real music that is catchy and says something meaningful - will be held in higher regard because of the scarcity laws.  Mistakes, imperfections, even un-exciting, monotonous aspects of a song being allowed... flies in the face of everything I have seen in generated music thus far.  It will stick out like a sore dick in a whorehouse, and "no news is bad news".  

I really like the idea of the hybrid approach.  Write music from the heart, use AI to complement your skill set, create something that transcends, and be transparent about how you did it.  People love to know the process.  One of the things I have enjoyed the most about my friends playing with Suno is when all of the inputs are disclosed ("I made a recording this way, used a click, slider 1 at 25%, added style cues of blues + 4 on the floor backbeat, added lyric corrections", etc.).  The only thing greater than people's hate for being deceived is their love for being brought along for the ride of making a song. This is how some bands born on Youtube have gotten to be so big.  They don't just make the music, they take you on the journey and share the human experience.  At its core, making music is a very human experience, and that doesn't have to stop just because someone involved AI.  I would love to watch a video where someone makes a great record using elegant, judicious applications of AI within the process.  It's fair to say that, within our combined skills, we have decent musicianship, production, and to various extents, recording and mixing, but we lack in some areas like arrangement and repeatability.  If we use AI to fill in that gap, but show how we used it to make a great song, then learn and play it for people and bring them joy, that's a win.

So far this year, the stock market seems to be headed towards rewarding companies that have defensibility against AI takeover, and I think this theme dovetails perfectly within the music regime.

 

Building the ChordCaster Stomp: A Peek Inside My New Harmonizer Pedal

Every once in a while, a project grabs you by the collar and refuses to let go. For me, that project has been the ChordCaster Stomp - a compact, musician‑friendly harmonizer pedal built around a Teensy microcontroller, a custom audio front end, and a handful of ideas that have been rattling around in my head for years.

I wanted something that didn’t exist yet: a pedal that could grab a single note, understand the musical context, and generate harmony that feels intentional rather than robotic. Something that could switch between diatonic intelligence and unapologetically synthetic fixed‑interval parallel harmony. Something that guitarists, synth players, and experimentalists could all use without needing a theory textbook.

So I built it.

Here's a very quick & low effort demo of it in action. I plan to put together a full tour at a later date.

The Hardware: A Custom Brain in a Custom Box

The first prototypes ran on a Teensy 4.1 with the standard audio board - great for development, but not something I’d ever want to ship. Once the firmware stabilized, I moved everything over to a Teensy 4.0 and started designing a custom audio board to match the needs of a real pedal.

The stock Teensy audio board is a solid reference, but it’s built for general‑purpose use, not guitar. I needed a proper high‑impedance input buffer so the pedal behaves like a real instrument input, not a line‑level consumer device. I needed a cleaner, more robust line output that plays nicely with amps, interfaces, and other pedals. And I needed a compact layout that fits inside a stompbox enclosure without a rat’s nest of jumper wires.

So I kept the heart of the Teensy audio board - the SGTL5000 codec - and rebuilt everything around it. The digital side stayed almost identical: I²S for audio, I²C for control, clean 3.3V rails, and the usual decoupling. But the analog side is all mine: a JFET input buffer, proper AC coupling, a stable output driver, and ESD protection so the pedal doesn’t fry itself the first time someone plugs in a cable on a static‑heavy stage.

The USB port is panel‑mounted, too. No more dangling micro‑USB connectors waiting to snap off.

Harmony That Feels Musical

The ChordCaster Stomp has one job: turn a single note into something bigger. Hit the footswitch while you are playing a single note - the pedal “grabs” the note you’re playing and holds the harmony until you release. It’s like a freeze pedal, but for harmony. Great for ambient swells, pads, or turning a single note into a chordal drone. That's the basics, but there are many variations available, which is sort of where the fun begins:

Diatonic Mode

This is the “intelligent” mode. You pick a key and a musical mode (major, minor, modal mixture), step on a footswitch, and the pedal chooses the correct harmony interval based on the scale. It’s the kind of harmony that follows you around like a well‑trained bandmate - always in key, always musical, but keyed off only the notes you want it to pay attention to.

Fixed‑Interval Mode

This one is pure attitude.

Instead of following the key, the pedal applies the same interval no matter what you play. Want everything harmonized a major third up? Done. Want parallel fifths like a medieval monk with a distortion pedal? Go for it. Want to stack weird intervals and make synth‑like textures? Absolutely.

This mode ignores theory and just does what you tell it to do.

Arpeggiator Mode

This is the mode I didn’t realize I needed until I built it. Instead of playing all the harmony voices at once, the pedal cycles through them one at a time, turning a single note into a rhythmic, evolving pattern. The tempo is fully adjustable: you can dial it in through the menu or simply tap the second footswitch to set it on the fly. It’s a surprisingly expressive feature - great for ambient pulses, sequencer‑like textures, or adding motion to otherwise static chords. It feels less like a harmonizer and more like a tiny, obedient arpeggiator living under your foot.

Other Features

Beyond that, it features multiple outputs, reverb, FX and lots of other goodies.

The Idea: A Pedal That Understands Musicians

I’ve always loved harmonizers, but most of them fall into two camps:

1. Too simple - fixed intervals only, no musical awareness

2. Too complicated - menus, presets, MIDI, and a learning curve that scares off half the people who might enjoy them

The ChordCaster Stomp sits right in the middle. It’s musical, but not fussy. It’s expressive, but not overwhelming. It’s smart, but not bossy.

You turn the knob, pick your mode, and play. The pedal does the rest.

Where It’s Going Next

Right now, I’m refining the PCB layout, tightening up the analog noise floor, and polishing the UI so it feels natural on stage. The firmware is already solid - the Teensy 4.0 has more than enough horsepower for real‑time harmony, and the 360K of flash I’m using fits comfortably.

Once the hardware is locked in, I’ll start thinking about enclosures, graphics, and maybe even a small production run (but no promises).

For now, I’m just enjoying the process of turning an idea into a real, playable instrument.

If you’ve ever wanted a pedal that understands harmony the way you do - or the way you wish your bandmates did - the ChordCaster Stomp might be exactly what you’ve been missing.

The software is available on my Github, if you want to "check it out" (haha)

An Alternative Take on AI Doom and Gloom

 I've purposely held my tongue until now on commenting about "AI" (or, more specifically as has come to be known, GAN or Generative Adversarial Networks).  It seems like it is very in-style to complain about how it has made a real mess of things, it is displacing jobs, the product it creates lacks soul, it's going to get smart and kill us all, etc. etc.  But I'm not here to do any of that. Rather I am going to remind everyone of how amazing a phenomenon it is to watch a disruptive technology becoming democratized

From the time of its (seeming) introduction to the public at large, around November of 2022, to late 2023, the growth and adoption rate has been nothing short of explosive. It features the fastest adoption rate of any new technology ever, by a broad margin.  To give a reference, the adoption rate for AI image and text generation, real-world uses, in just 12 months is comparable to all of that of the another disruptive technology, the World Wide Web, taking place between 1995 and 2001 (6 years), and smartphones between 2009 and 2013 (3 years)*.  It seems like we are seeing a halving approximately every 10-15 years.

The mind blowing thing about this is, it would not be crazy to expect that the next similarly disruptive technology (presumably genuine artificial intelligence, known as Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI), to happen in the next 8 years (10 years from 2022), and will have an adoption rate of as little as 6 months.  

Yes, the current state of affairs is pretty ugly.  But so was a Tripod or Geocities webpage in 1995:

Side note, If you like that, be sure to check out the Geocities Archive for more fun snapshots of the mid 90's.

Back to my original point. When something new and shiny comes along, everyone wants to play around with it according to their own ideas of how to make it work for them, but it's not until the technology (and our mindset) matures a little, and an infrastructure is built.  In this case, HTML and web servers, and search came a long way before the World Wide Web was as usable as it was even in 2001.  Right now it seems that people think, for example, a good use of generative AI is making photos of Tom Hanks on acid in Walmart.  

Or replacing every business website with AI generated blurbs, featuring keywords they want to own in Google SERP.  Sure, the internet is going to be ugly, or even debateably, broken for a while.  But we haven't yet started to see a systemic infrastructure that bolsters the real power of this technology, and brings it to the users. 

Ultimately, will it be a great thing for humankind? Obviously, that is yet to be seen.  But I am hopeful and excited, if for nothing else than having a front-row seat.  

*Summary based on statistics obtained from PEW research and my own conclusions which admittedly may have been influenced or skewed by my personal experience

The Hellscape that is Google’s Web in 2023

Alternate title: "were we better off in 2015 2007?"

Time now for another anti-capitalist, “get off my lawn” posting for all the folks out there who won’t see it anyway, because they don’t read real blogs for the reasons specified in this very article.

The web has existed for 30 years now. One would think our ability to access information on it would keep getting better. However, I watch as web search is instead devolving every year, to the point where people are giving up and hoping for the next thing.  While this sounds dire, this kind of behavioral change has historical precedent. Remember running your own mail or web server, or better yet, having a phone that you might actually answer calls to, even if you don’t recognize the caller’s number?  Yes, those ideas are gone too. It's all thanks to the uncontrolled thirst for advertising.

Let’s walk through the experience of someone doing a simple Google search for “how to control poison ivy”.  The desired outcome would be to find a great testimony of someone who dealt with this personally, who goes on to procedurally list the approach(es) that worked for them.  

What you actually get: 

• The first result will be some company peddling their weed control poison 

• Followed by a bunch of weird “People also ask”  items with dropdowns that may or may not provide the answer to your actual pursuit. 

• Further down the SERP, you are immersed in a mine of “sponsored” pages with AI generated articles. Unless you fancy yourself a prospector, you can most likely simply discard the first 5 or so results in the Google SERP, which are “sponsored” garbage.

• By the time you hit “bottom” (wherever that is), you have lost hope in finding anything from a real person without some kind of bias.

Now, let’s say you, dear victim of post-modern web search, find and click on a promising result with an abstract showing, what appears to be, an answer to your question.  Buckle up, my friend.  Here’s what awaits you:

1. Site cookie acceptance dialog

Ahh yes, thank you so much GPDR, for making sure my privacy is respected.  Every single site uses third-party cookies to track my data for, you guessed it, more advertising. But like Batman, the GPDR is here to ensure the safety of Europeans (and by extension, the world) by enforcing all to click on a full page modal dialog (note: created by the very site designer who wants to track you).  You get to choose:  “Accept cookies”, “Leave Site”  (AKA “Get bent, content is not available if we can’t track you”), or sometimes most favorably, “view without accepting cookies”. When you select this option, the site may come up in its entirety and not track you! At least… not using cookies.  If you trust them.  People who just want to read a couple of sentences of content, without reading and thinking for a whole minute, are trained to simply click “accept”.

2. Great, you’re on the page.  Wait, here’s a popup in your face about cookies!

Do you want the site to send you notifications? Goodness lord, do NOT click yes on this. The result is pretty much akin to installing a malware taskbar into your browser in 2009.

3. Okay, you are reading some of the article.  Every blog-type article that ranks in the SERP seems to necessarily start with 2-3 paragraphs of awkward and formulaic cursory BS about why people search for what you searched for, all the things that happened when they tried to fix it the wrong way, etc… I’m guessing, to satisfy some unwieldy SEO requirement.  Scroll, scroll scroll!

4. Been here for 10 seconds? Decide whether you want to sign up for our newsletter! Again, a modal dialog box that you can’t look past. Disclose your email or (find a way to) close it.

5. Now… This article is actually getting good. You are close to getting real information, you can feel it!  Oh, hey, wait, it’s: Videos That Start Automatically!  Like Space Invaders, videos and other popup ads descend on you with increasing aggression over the next 30 seconds or so, narrowing your view inside an already minuscule viewport (assuming you had the audacity to do this on a phone). These abominations turn your quest to find urgent information about poison ivy into a horrible game of Whack A Mole. But harder than that, as you have to find and then tap a tiny (and intentionally obscured) ‘x’, in order to close the video/ad popup that obscures what you are trying to read.

6. Read a single glorious paragraph, and you will be rewarded with a chunk of random affiliate links and ads.   Was that the whole article? Is this the end?  Oh wait, no! There's another paragraph.  These places make Geocities and Tripod websites of the early 2000s look organized and well presented. It’s certainly reminiscent of the unanimously dark period of the WWW, when everyone was implementing their site with frames - certainly at least as offensive, if not more for its brazenness.  And we are not talking about hokey tabloid sites here, this is happening on trustworthy local news stations, local forums and bulletin websites, even school websites, trying to compensate for their insatiable SEO and web hosting costs.

What happened to the authentic articles and blog posts, written by the lowly peer web denizen of yore?  They are all but gone, as Google search algorithm continues to raise the bar for such simple sites to be included in the SERP with any reasonable ranking…  Leaving only the most insidious ones, created by a team of corporate content creators who are backed by a department full of SEO engineers who only have one job: to make this page go to the top. Yes,  a SERP for a given keyword set contains only one top result, and getting to the top is a zero-sum game.  With heavy competition for SERP dominance, it's a race to the bottom as companies copy each others' successful approaches, using them to shill their wares by sprinkling misinformation and links that serve only to redirect honest visitors.  Google Panda (2011, 2021) was, ironically intended to address over-optimized, ad-ridden sites, but instead appears only to have resulted in new spins of canned websites in which ads are carefully disguised as content… At least, in ways that are not outwardly apparent to a dumb web crawler.

It is painful, although not entirely unexpectable, the degree to which Google is a willing participant in this parade. They have answered the fierce call by shareholders for revenue growth by turning the SERP into a 10 ring circus. Searches that once yielded several page results at the top, with useful summaries and first hand authorship, now look as bad as any social media site - as videos, news items, shopping links, and irrelevant “People also ask” Q&A style items (ostensibly based on others popular searches, but triggered by a single stupid keyword in your search). These oddities appear in our faces, and feature sales-driven hyperbole and propaganda that panders to the most vulnerable among us. Every click feeds the bottom line of these advertisers, and in doing so, strengthens the machine to further pollute our attempts to gather useful and simple facts.

To what refuge have people turned as this debacle has unfolded?

Any refuge in this trying environment has experienced its ups and downs.  Take Reddit.com, one website where users developed and willingly invested their knowledge, and created a brain trust. Now reddit is slapping them in the face, by asserting uncompromising control and issuing a litany of new restrictions based on ensuring that information on Reddit is used only for their benefit, which boils down to ad-driven revenue.

High performance AI chatbots have recently surfaced, and people are desperately flocking to them as an alternative.  What’s not to like? Finally you can again ask a question and get a straight answer, (ostensibly) without being bombarded by ads! Even if it’s wrong, or based on a biased point of view.  These nascent tools have been rushed to the people before any effective ethical guardrails can be put in place.  It’s difficult if not impossible to know the source, or whether they are correct. The whole thing subsists on datasets that take massive liberties on  privacy and intellectual property rights. What’s worse, it’s a safe bet that If not now, very soon, the responses will be just another advertising circus.

What is there to do?  

Get back to the fields!  Start your own website! Write that blog post.  Keep content alive, and don’t let the web consist solely of advertising.  Let's form a web ring, like it’s 1997!  A new kind of search engine is needed, one that looks at the web a different way.  One that isn’t driven solely by advertising.  One that doesn’t squander the quality of its performance for the sake of shareholder value.  Bring back community-driven, crowd-sourced spirit. Wikipedia has done it with the world’s most comprehensive encyclopedia.  Let’s do something like that with web search!

GWSMO and Outlook Version 2303: Can't select "From" Addresses When Composing New Message

I found a bug/incompatibility with GWSMO (Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook, the Google Workspace sync integration for Outlook).  Here's what I found:

Steps to reproduce:

• Install Outlook 365 Version 2010 (I'm using click-to-run build Build 15726.20202)
• Test with a Google user that has multiple Send Mail As addresses configured properly under "Accounts and Import" tab in Gmail settings.
• Install GWSMO from .EXE using recommended settings. Follow the steps to authorize with your Google account via OAuth/browser
• Allow at least 5 minutes after everything is installed for GWSMO synchronization to progress far enough for Google account settings to propagate to Outlook
• Click on "New Message" in Outlook
• Click the From: dropdown to select one of the alternative send addresses
• Observe that the list of available addresses matches the list of Send Mail As addresses in Gmail settings

• Close Outlook, go into Windows Control Panel->Mail and remove the profile.
• Remove Outlook from the system
• Install Outlook Version 2303 (build 16227.20004)
• Repeat above steps to install GWSMO and configure Outlook, allow to sync, start a new Email, and click the From: dropdown
• Observe that now the list of available addresses does not appear when you click From:

Google believes this to be a UI issue with Microsoft Outlook, and thus would not look into it.  They told me to let Microsoft know about it, but I have a pretty good idea what they are going to say. Either way I didn't see anything about this issue anywhere on the web, so I decided to post about it.

So Much To Know...

I once spent an inordinate amount of time with a friend of mine, who I consider to be a master of recording & sound engineering.  He has been at it for decades, paid his dues, and worked with some greats.  He executes his craft with the utmost care and caring... (something I have come to realize is what separates the true pros from the learned hacks). Anyway, I remember watching him in do his thing in the studio as I assumed the role of a quiet observer.  Despite his obvious adeptness and ingenuity, he would always play the part of the  Absent-Minded Professor, as opposed to the James Bond smooth-operator type.  I think it was partly a schtick to make people feel more at ease, but there was a genuineness and willingness to be vulnerable, as though allowing himself to be human probably made the job less fatiguing.   I distinctly remember my favorite phrase of his.  On a couple of occasions, while turning knobs and fixing some problem, in a wonderous voice he would declare, "so much to know..." 

It's stuck with me because it's true about so many things, no matter how much of a master of your craft you are - there is always more to know.  So much more.  I've worked in IT and done various software development for about 30 years now, and yet that's been the theme for me lately - as I try to wrap my head around newer (to me) concepts such as containerization, full stack application development, and more.  I should have started learning these things about 10 years ago, so I have to play catch up.  But it's enough to make me feel old. 

Anyway, follow along as I may post some perspectives on (but not limited to) the following concepts, as I learn them:

• React/Mongoose/MongoDB
• Python/Flask/PyMongo
• Docker
• Kubernetes Clusters, K3S for high availability scalability, management thereof
• Tying all this together: MicroSaaS development and deployment

RANT TIME: Why do replies to a message I sent go to my spam folder?

Despite what one would think/hope, sending a message to a given address does not inherently give Google a high confidence that a reply from this address is expected (and, for example, that it should bypass spam checks). I have confirmed with Google's tech support that there is no way to automatically have this happen. The user can do the following:

1. Add the address to your contacts list in Gmail.

2. Check spam folder for replies, and mark it as "not spam" if something ends up there, which should influence the fate of future replies received. I can also approve an address at the domain level, i.e. if it is a big vendor or similar. I've had to do this with several of our Chinese vendors. I regularly ask engineering and purchasing to give me a list of the supplies we deal with, so I can approve them as a preventative measure.

For what it's worth, all of the false positive instances of reply -> spam we have experienced have involved the sender's email server having a problem. In the most recent case, it appears that the sender IP address appears on at least two internet blacklists. Since that is beyond my control, but we are trying to do business with these people, I can only add the domain to the approved senders list so that future replies from them should bypass the checks. However, if another company with a problematic email server replies to one of us, their message could very well still end up being marked spam.

Since Google can't help us, I am trying to figure out some kind of human process to defend against this, but to getting to a 0% false positive rate looks kind of ugly.  One idea I had is to make a script that is invoked when a user sends a message, and somehow adds the recipient address  to their contacts and/or some sort of approved sender list. 

Has anyone done this?

Windows 10: Get rid of Microsoft Teams Auto Startup (from a script)

Situation:

You have installed Microsoft Office on your computer.  Whenever you logon to the computer, you see a Microsoft Teams splash that asks you to login, which you have to close every time if you choose not to login.

Possible remedy:

You can go into task manager, click the "Startup" tab, click Microsoft Teams, right-click and disable.  However, this doesn't work permanently as it will come back if you update or reinstall Office.  Also, other users who login to the computer will still get the Microsoft Teams thingy loading automatically at startup.

"Real" fix:

Add this to a user logon script, such as your domain logon script*:

REM Delete Microsoft Teams Auto startup reg key 

reg delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /v "com.squirrel.Teams.Teams" /f

That second bit is all supposed to be on one line.

*if you don't have a domain logon script, you can just put this in a .bat file and stick into 

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

Now every time someone logs in, the Teams startup will be automatically removed, so that will be the last time they see it.

Scammers can bypass your Google Workspace Safety Checks

A major source of headache for system administrators these days, and has been for some time, is the uptick in phishing messages that fake the sender address so it appears to be from someone within your organization. If you are like me, this is one of the things that keeps you awake at night. Organizations using Google Workspace can take advantage of a safety feature that purports to prevent this from reaching users. You can access its settings from within the admin console under Apps->Gmail->Settings->Safety.

Unfortunately, there are still a ton of legit e-mail servers that don't authenticate, so that safety feature is not going to be very helpful.  However you can enable the checks that detect someone trying to send a message with an employee's e-mail address, your domain (or a variation on it) or even an employee's name.  These are very common attacks, and such checks regularly prevent nefarious messages from reaching our end users.  

The problem is, due to a poorly-planned filter architecture on Google's part, this whole mechanism can be bypassed, allowing a spoofed message to end up in a spam queue that is managed by an end-user.  

Google Workspace Filter Architecture places spam filters and queues ahead of "safety features" such as spoof checks.

As you can see in the diagram above, the spoof checks are effectively circumvented when they are sent to a group.  A moderator will see the message in the group's spam queue, AKA "Pending messages".  If they approve the message, it will then go through the safety checks, but by then the group manager has already seen it, and may act on it.

Cordova-plugin-ble-central without BACKGROUND_LOCATION permission

Happy New Year.

I have been developing a Cordova app on Android that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).  To accomplish this, I have been using Don Coleman's cordova-plugin-ble-central.  This is a neat plugin with a pretty simple API that lets you do serial communications over BLE. It is compatible with both Android AND iOS.  It's installable with NPM, but I recommend you get it directly from his Github.  The one on NPM seems to be broken on newer Android devices.  The issue  is that Google now requires ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission if you are using bluetooth, and the one on NPM is older and hasn't been updated to request this permission.  But that's not really what this post is about.

My app is essentially a remote control for a light.   All I am trying to do is communicate over bluetooth when the app is in the foreground.  However, the Don Coleman plugin demands the BACKGROUND_LOCATION permission (presumably this would be required if I was trying to continue to send/receive data notifications while the app is in the background).  The problem is that this permission comes with some fairly hefty declaration requirements if you are trying to get your app into the Play Store.  For example, you have to make a video demonstrating the feature in your app that makes use of this functionality.  As I stated earlier, I have no such feature so it will be impossible for me to get my app to pass review.  

The only solution I could see was to fork Don's plugin and remove the BACKGROUND_LOCATION permission.  So far it seems to work.  If you have a similar problem, perhaps you can benefit from this version of the plugin as well.  A couple of things:

1. In case it doesn't go without saying, if your app is in the background, you will not be able to do Bluetooth communication using this version of the plugin.
2. I have only made changes to the Android side. I don't know if the iOS side still somehow requests BACKGROUND_LOCATION permission.  If it does, I will ultimately need to address that as well since my app is going to be available for both platforms.

So here it is: High Tech Harmony's cordova-plugin-ble-central without BACKGROUND_LOCATION

To use it, go to your Cordova build folder of your project and do the following:

(only if you have Don's plugin already)
cordova plugin remove cordova-plugin-ble-central 

cordova plugin add https://github.com/HighTechHarmony/cordova-plugin-ble-central

cordova clean android

cordova build android

Read this if your DJI Spark is "Hopping" (erratic behavior)

My DJI drone has had this issue with my DJI Spark where, when I try to take off, it will  sort of hover, but then "hop" up and down.  It heads toward the ground and then seems to recover.  When it is heading toward the ground, the obstacle avoidance alert is going off.

Searching the internet, I found forums littered with a gazillion about "Fly Away" issues. I do NOT consider this is a FLYAWAY issue.  It seems like there are so many issues that are blanket described as "Fly Away", and while I suppose it is possible you could lose your drone as a result of this, it is most likely just going to hit the ground straight below, worst case.  I can technically fly it around, but it is fighting me the whole time.  The obstacle avoidance alert is intermittently on and off. The drone will ascend okay, but it descends VERY slowly (which is kind of scary if you get any sort of real altitude).  Also, at random it will just start heading vertically downward even though I didn't command it to.  Again the obstacle avoidance sensor beeping when the problem is occurring. Sadly I was not able to get this anomaly on video for a better description.

This issue cropped up seemingly out of nowhere. One day it flew fine, I put it away, next season I took it out, and it flew like crap.  I could occasionally get a problem-free flight out of it, but I never had any real confidence in it.  So for the last 2 years, I have been basically not flying my DJI Spark drone, due to this weird behavior.

After months of pondering (and letting my warranty lapse), I contacted DJI.  I described the issue and they recommended I send it in  to DJI for paid repair.  On the repair estimate, it said that the drone had crashed:

"After carrying out the damage assessment, we found that the unit has physical impact damage, unfortunately the damage that is not caused by product malfunction is Non- warranty repair; We'll either repair it or replace it with a product that's new or equivalent to new in both performance and reliability after payment has been received. For more information, please visit (http://www.dji.com/service/policy) - DJI North America"

The bit about impact damage was BS. I am the only one who has ever flown this thing, and I baby it.  The most I have ever done is buzzed a wall.  It has never impacted anything.  My guess is this is what they write on anything that gets shipped to them that doesn't fall under "warranty repair".  But I had no other viable options so I told them just to go ahead.

Weeks and $150 + shipping later, I got my drone back with a slip saying they replaced the vision system.  And lo, it did fly correctly... For a few (gentle!) test flights.  Then one day I took it out to fly and it started doing the hopping thing again.  I tore my hair out, ready to scrap this noisy money pit.  One last time I refocused my Google search terms to include "hopping", and that's when I hit the jackpot.  I found a handful of postings on DJI's forum of people who seemed to have the exact same problem. While there were a ton of the usual unhelpful responses (i.e. "Get rid of it! Sell it to me!"), I saw a couple of postings saying that the issue was solved by replacing the props. At first I just wrote this off.  Why would props make any sort of difference as to how the craft would fly (other than, maybe, FLY or NOT FLY)?  Okay maybe "FLY but be LOUD"...  But this post got my attention.  after a while, I realized I had the following options:

1. Throw away drone?
2. Buy a full set of genuine DJI props, and then throw away drone after proving it makes no difference.

So I did the latter.

And it worked.

WTF?!?!?

So naturally I now have some new questions.  How the hell is this behavior really caused?  One idea I had is that excess prop vibration somehow causes the obstacle avoidance sensor to falsely trip. 

Then there is the issue of the earlier "repair".  This was obviously the problem all along. It seems that DJI was more than happy to take my money to "fix" the craft, when the only issue was the props.  Think about it, there must be thousands of people who have experienced this problem, and I'm sure DJI customer service has enough data to recognize this as being a prop issue right off.  But either they didn't, or they chose not to tell me.  I would give them the benefit of the doubt, but then they did tell me they found "crash damage".

Anyway, lesson learned.  If your unit is out of warranty, think twice before sending it in to DJI for repair.  The only guarantee appears to be that you will pay them a hefty repair fee.

Defuddling JamKazam Vol. 2: Don't believe everything you read

I feel that one of the most important things to get out of the way are the truths of many, many claims and misnomers that are floating around on social media - no doubt a common issue with very rapid adoption of a complex tool.  We'll do this Snopes.com style.  Here are some, in no particular order:

Claim: "You Can't Use WiFi with JamKazam"
Status: Partly true
Explanation:
Well, you CAN use WiFi.  But it's better if you use an ethernet cable.  For starters, the nature of WiFi is that it tends to deliver packets via different physical transmission paths, which causes them to arrive in the wrong order.  On the other side, these packets have to be queuing them into a buffer (temporary holding tank for data), and reassembled into a contiguous stream.  Then they are released for you to hear. Ethernet cables require less of this action to be required, so JamKazam uses a smaller buffer, and therefore you end up with lower latency.  Now consider that most people have total shit WiFi setups at their homes, and using WiFi becomes an even worse choice.  Bottom line is, use an ethernet cable.

Claim: "You need the best internet plan available"
Status: Very unlikely
Explanation:
JamKazam is, contrary to what seems to be a rampant believe, not very bandwidth intensive.  It is the equivalent of a video conference call.  If someone is using solid audio gear, and having problems with latency or "choppiness" (which is a very vague description), it is most likely their computer or networking gear that is at fault.  It is very likely that the computer or router is on the edge of what it can handle in terms of load.

Claim: (Windows user) "You need to download ASIO4ALL"
Status: Very unlikely
Explanation:
Your audio interface hopefully has a native ASIO driver available from the manufacturer's website. This is what you should use.  If they don't, you can try ASIO4ALL, which is a third-party, lower latency wrapper for Windows' standard (high latency) WDM drivers. In some cases it works, but in most cases it doesn't seem to work very well.  It is definitely a second choice.

Claim: "A Chromebook is a viable cheap laptop option"
Status: False
Explanation:
While a Chromebook is, in fact, a laptop, Even if the processor power was enough, it does not run Windows or MacOS, which as of this writing are the only supported operating systems.  Chromebooks run ChromeOS, so, no go. If you are looking for the cheapest machine you can buy new that still has enough power, it's probably going to be a mini desktop computer, like the Intel NUC (bring your own monitor/keyboard/mouse).

Claim: "You need USB 3 (aka USB 3.1) ports"
Status: False
Explanation:
USB 2.0 max throughput = 480 Mbps
Even if you run 192KHz @ 24 bits < 10 Mbps
The latency of USB 3 is not improved over USB 2.0.
Even if you are using a 100 Mbps USB Network Adapter, JamKazam will not come close to saturating your connection.

Claim: "You need a (quad-core Intel Core i7 or other crazy CPU) if you want JamKazam to work as well as it can."
Status: False
Explanation:
You do need a real bit of processor power.  Practically speaking, I'd say, minimum dual core Core i3. Preferably a quad core Core i5 or better.  But to be fair, the amount of peak processor power you actually need for JK varies with how you are using it.  I've actually tested it with a Core 2 Duo from 2011, and it was "enough processor power to have a jam session".  Just barely.  As you add musicians, and use features like the video stream or Jam Tracks, that is when you will exceed your processor power, and when that happens, the result is NOT pretty.  Basically it's a sea of loud sparks and crackles in yours and everyone else's headphones.

Claim: "Turn off your video, it adds latency"
Status: Partially True
Explanation:
The video can have no impact, or a lot of impact, depending on a lot of factors.  The specific claim that it adds latency seems to be a little bit of a generalization, as though latency is the only evil one experiences on JK.  In fact, what it really does is add a ton more data that JamKazam has to coordinate which, if you or anyone in the session is on the edge, will very definitely result in a variety of problems - latency being only one.  Playing with the video on is more fun, but it's best to assume it is going to be a luxury and not a guarantee.  If everyone is getting good results, then congrats and enjoy - but it seems to vary with each session and the participants.

More parts coming soon!

DeFuddling JamKazam Vol 1: What you really need

Intro

This is the first installment of a series on demystifying JamKazam for newcomers.  As previously mentioned, there are video tutorials and a pretty good forum that can help you get through the setup step-by-step. You can start with those.  There is also a Facebook Group, Subreddit, etc. where people are chatting about their JamKazam experiences.  I would stay away from those for a little while - there is some helpful info, but also a lot of misinformation. Once you are up and running, you can explore those in-depth discussions, and weigh what you read with your own experience.

Another word of warning: Unless you have a working home studio already, you are very likely going to have to spend some "real" money to get this running.  It could be $50 for a few odds and ends, or it could be around $1,000 if you just have a guitar and an internet connection.  It really depends.   If you want to jam online, listen to my advice and the things I tell you not waste time with, and forge onward my friend!

To that end,  I am here to give my perspective on some of the concepts that people seem to be missing, which help a lot.  I have been using JamKazam for many weeks now.  I have tested it on various equipment and I have assisted many musicians with getting their JK setups tweaked.  At this point pretty much every session I get into has very tolerable latency and basically no dropouts.  There are a lot of seat-of-the-pants "experts" out there who think they know what you need to have in order to make it work.  Here are some of the conclusions I have reached about what is required.

Equipment

Computer

The first thing you are going to need is a decent laptop or desktop computer running Windows or MacOS. Sorry folks - this is not going to run on your iPad, iPhone, Android, or even a netbook.  Dual core Intel Core i3 minimum.  It doesn't have to be new, but a good rule of thumb would be something made in the last 5 years.  

Ethernet Cable to Your Router/Modem

Believe it or not, this seems to be the deal breaker for a lot of JK tire kickers (I guess its a sign of how dependent we have become on WiFi). There are real reasons why using an ethernet cable will result in lower latency, and a good JK experience depends on the lowest latency possible.  Even if you are jamming fairly distant from your router, you can buy really long ethernet cables - I saw a 200' one on Amazon for around $20.  Anyway, again, we'll get into this more later, but just know that if you have to use WiFi, you may not have a good experience and end up deciding that JamKazam is not worth using.

Audio Interface

No, you can't use your computer's built-in sound for JamKazam.  An audio interface is like an advanced sound card that converts sound to/from bits that your computer can manipulate.  Even though your computer has some built-in capability already, it is not designed for the performance you need for JamKazam.  Currently, the best interface for JamKazam is the 3rd gen Focusrite Scarlett.  The "Solo" (one mic input, one instrument input) is $109 - that is, if you can get one (but of course right now they are all on backorder because everyone is buying them for online jamming).  There are certainly other audio interfaces that will work, but YMMV. We'll get into that later.

Headphones

You will want to have a good set of over-the-ear headphones.  If you are looking for a recommendation, the Audio Technica ATH-M50x is a favorite of mine. You can get by with earbuds, but if you do, I feel sorry for you. A good set of headphones can make you forget you are not in the same room together with other musicians.

Microphone

No, you can't use your computer's built-in microphone for JamKazam.  Even if you could get this to run through your proper interface (you can't), it's going to pick up all kinds of sound from your computer.  And for two, come on, that mic is going to be garbage.  A good dynamic microphone like the stalwart Shure SM-58 is probably the best option here.  In a pinch you can communicate your USB chat mic/headset, but it's going to make you sound like garbage when you are talking or singing.

Instrument DI or Microphone(s)

If you are playing guitar or bass, keys, etc., you will ideally want to use a pedal or DI box.  Having  a lot of room sound is not conducive to a good mix for you or anyone else in the session (honestly, this is the case even if you are jamming in the same room, but don't bother telling the guitarist who brings his Marshall half stack to rehearsal).   You will plug this into one of the the inputs on your audio interface. 

If you are a drummer, a popular option is to use an electronic kit.  Obviously that is not going to work for everyone.  On a real drum kit, you can use an entry level mic kit like the Samson 7-kit. These typically run about $300-$400.  You can also get by with a couple of SM-57s (see the Glyn Johns configuration). Run these into a mixer and then plug the mixer into your audio interface.

Effects (Optional)

You may wish to have some effects on your vocals or instrument(s). The best and simplest way to do this is to run an outboard effects unit before the audio interface.  Examples of this include your effect pedal chain or a rack mount processor of some sort.  Other methods, such as running effects on your computer, are technically possible but at best complicated, and at worst, induce too much additional latency and/or stealing too much CPU from JamKazam.

If you have all of the above needs met, you can move on to getting setup. In the next installment, we will discuss the concepts that make all of these specifications important.

Next Post in Series: Don't Believe Everything You Read

JamKazam: Online Jamming for Quarantined Musicians

This is month 2 of Armageddon for musicians.  If you are one, or know someone who is, you are aware that they are climbing the walls because all of their shows, rehearsals, and even jam sessions have been taken off the table since March.  Playing together online using Zoom or Meet sounds like a great idea, until you try it and find out no one can line up the rhythm due to the inherent delays.

Enter JamKazam - the service for jamming online.  Musicians sign up, login, and can jam with each other for free. And it uses a different method of delivering audio to each other, so it actually works! Sounds great, right?  Well this service has been running since 2015, and the world is just finding out about it now.  What gives?

The barrier to entry is fairly high.  Make no mistake about it, achieving success with JamKazam sessions is not for the faint of heart.  If you are expecting to download an app to your phone, set it on the table, and magically play along with your buds from all over the world, move along.  That is not even close to what is going to happen here.  You need the right gear, the right settings, a lot of patience, and ability to adapt.  But if you can get through the process, real-time jamming is waiting for you on the other side.  My guess is that there has not been a critical mass of tech-savvy musicians who were motivated to stick with it.  But as my friends and I have joked, "wow, who knew all it would take to stimulate the online jamming economy is a global pandemic?"

There are copious tutorials available on how to set up and get the best performance from JamKazam, and a great forum that has been really active in the last couple of months, so I am not going to duplicating those effort here.  Over the next few posts, I will attempt to demystify some of the aspects of JamKazam that tend to befuddle newcomers. 

Next post in series: What you really need

New technology could prevent neighbor-spoofed robocalls if implemented

As an update to my previous post, there is apparently some movement afoot to implement a method of secure verification of caller ID info.  It is similar to how e-mail and websites are encrypted and authenticated, using certificates.

STIR/SHAKEN is a technology standard that incorporates an authentication service, a verification service, and a certificate repository.  When a call is made, the authentication certificate issued by the caller's provider is looked up by the recipient's provider, and the call info is verified as being authentic or not.

The standard appears to be designed to be implemented at the service provider level.   As I stated previously, carriers will be slow to adopt anything that will cost them money, due to the amount of power they wield, and this case is no exception.  The call for them to adopt such a standard was put out by the FCC in 2014.  Nonetheless, 5 years later some providers, including Verizon, are going public with announcements that they intend to implement this standard, which would conceivably have a major impact on the type of robocalling - and by extension, the entire robocall industry.  By preventing the misuse/abuse of caller ID information, customers can then, in turn, effectively utilize tools such as spam filters to recognize and block calls from spammy sources.

As for when this all happens, Verizon says that in March, 2019 they begin offering their anti-spam service for free for their wire-line customers, which they say supports the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication.  Even if you are not a Verizon customer, it is a good thing for it to be adopted by any of the big providers.  At worst, it will reduce the cost effectiveness of these robocalls, and the volume will begin to drop, which will affect everyone.

Let's all hope this happens without a hitch, and our telephone infrastructure can become sane again.

Robocalls are Changing The Way We Use Telephones

If you are over the age of 30, you probably remember, at least at one time, answering the phone with "Hello?" Not as in "Hello (friend's name)", but as in "Hello, who is this?"  Well, thanks to caller ID, those days are a distant memory, and thanks to Robocalls, there may soon come a day when you won't even get a phone call from someone you don't know.

Robocalls are massive amounts of unsolicited phone calls, using the help of computer autodialers.  For the poor souls who pick them up (usually the most vulnerable demographic, such as the elderly), a sales call for life insurance, extended car warranties, vacation package, or a fraudulent business proposal awaits them.  Many calls even use recorders in order to commit identity theft.

The concept of these calls are nothing new, but the sheer volume of them, and growth rate are staggering.  Many Americans complain of getting dozens of calls a day, such as the ones in this Reddit Thread. 

The "Do Not Call List" Does Not

Years ago, congress was roused to deal with this growing problem, so they came up with something called the "Do Not Call Registry".  The idea was that every American who didn't want to get unsolicited phone calls from businesses would put their info on this list, and then THE TELEMARKETERS would, before calling you, CHECK TO SEE IF YOU WERE ON THE LIST, and not call you if so.  Wow congress, perhaps you should just ask them to send a handwritten note of apology as well.  Anyway, that system works about as well as you can guess.  In fact, the List, in a sick twist of irony, probably acts as a damned fine source of telephone numbers that have an high likelihood of being answered.

Spoof Your Neighbor

Another thing that has gotten worse, and promises to drive this ship into the ground, is the use of "Neighbor spoofing".  This is when the caller changes their caller ID info to be random number, usually one in your state, which theoretically increases the chances that you will pick up.  If the caller ID information was consistent, it would be quite trivial to develop a list of calls that have been reported negatively, and compare incoming calls to it. However, the randomization of "Neighbor Spoofing" makes it impossible to detect robocalls with any degree of accuracy, when using the caller ID info alone.

Where is the FCC?

At least outwardly, this is an important issue to the FCC.  The FCC says,

"Unwanted calls – including illegal and spoofed robocalls - are the FCC's top consumer complaint and our top consumer protection priority" - From Consumer Guide on FCC.gov

They go on to say that it is "prohibited to present misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongly obtain anything of value", and is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 per violation. They say telemarketers should "Display a telephone number you can call during regular business hours to ask to no longer be called"

However, it's pretty obvious that it's gotten out of hand.  As best as I can tell, things start to break down around the following issues:

• The FCC seems to believe that most people NEED to present alternate caller ID info in order to conduct legitimate business over the phone, and that this needs to be protected.  Their statement on third party services and apps that attempt to surmount the impossible problem of robocall attacks suggests that they are almost more concerned for the businesses that call people.
• This term "telemarketers" is a quaint term with a narrow, and probably easily circumvented, definition. 
• It is impossible to track, let alone follow up on, all of the violations of these rules. There is a complaint form on the FCC page, but ironically, in order to fill it out, you have to provide info about the caller, which means you need to have answered the call. 

A Backwards View

The bottom line is that the whole system seems to rely too much on self-policing.  Caller ID spoofing legality (or lack thereof) seems to have very little impact, due to lack of enforcement.  The government wants to protect callers, seemingly more than they want to protect the recipients.  To me that is completely backwards.  The recipients are the ones who have the most to lose.  As usual, the government is bought and paid for by businesses, and they want to be able to call people and make sales.  

The solution is: Eliminate (or demote calls with) spoofed caller ID.  Caller ID info sent by callers must be verified and consistent.  This is similar to how email works.  Servers identify themselves to each other, and if they are not verified, no one pays attention to them.  The spam is still out there, but it can be classified.

Doing this would require some help from Congress.  We need legislation that stops protecting caller ID spoofing, and starts exposing it.  Telephone companies needs to require authentic and consistent caller ID info, and provide this info to their customers when calls come to them.  It will affect their bottom line, and you can bet they won't do it without a literal act of congress.

But even if you don't have a stomach for my rather socialist point of view, maybe this will speak to you: 

If you don't preserve the integrity of the telephone service, people will abandon it.  

What does the Ghost-of-Telephone-Future show us?  The net effect will be the same.  A world where all calls will be subject to white-listing or screening.  That means that, the days in which a person or company, with lawful intent, may call someone and speak to them on the first try, are effectively over.  We are moving to a system where callers must present some piece of authenticity before the call will be routed.  And eventually the robocallers will spoof that too.  The telephone system will eventually disintegrate, in favor of chat messaging apps and VOIP services that are not bound by the antiquated limitations and freedoms of the old telephone service.  If you think they won't do it, go talk to a 25 year old person. Ask them how often they intentionally use their phone to speak (voice) to another person.

Ironically, this is exactly the scenario the FCC is trying to prevent.  

A Guide to Craigslist Etiquette

In a world where the amount of trash we generate and the cost of living keep going up, while wages and employment opportunities don't, Craigslist is a God send. 

One of the perks of living in Vermont is that we have a healthy Craigslist market, with a relatively low scam rate.  Sure, I get stood up occasionally, but almost all of the time, if I can actually meet up with someone to make a deal, everything is on the up-and-up.  I think this comes from a long tradition of bartering in a state where the climate is rough, and most of it is remote.

In the interest of keeping this market healthy, I thought I would provide a few of my rules and expectations when it comes to buying and selling on Craigslist.

Always

• Deals are cash, and in person
• At an agreed upon meeting location. Must be in a public place unless both parties are comfortable with a house meeting.

As a buyer

• Only talk to local sellers. 
• Expect to pay with cash, unless the deal is a barter/trade.
• Expect to do most of the driving, if not all of it.  If the seller offers to meet you somewhere closer, they are doing you a favor.
• Be honest about how serious you are, and when you can make an appearance.  Don't call at the last minute and cancel/try to reschedule.
• Call/text the seller again when you are leaving to meet them.
• Don't ever assume items will be held for you (but you can ask)
• If the item is sold before you can schedule a meeting, fair's fair.
• Know the market value of what you are trying to buy.  If the asking price is significantly below this value, it is at least unbecoming, and at worst, rude, to attempt to negotiate the price even lower.

As a seller

• Only talk to local buyers.
• Be honest about the condition of an item.  If you don't know something, say that.
• Ask a fair price.  Set an appointment with a potential buyer, and don't sell it to someone else before the meeting.
• Answer contacts in the order they came - first come, first serve. 
• Clearly communicate your expectations about how a deal will commence.
• Stay open and transparent with all buyers. Lying or hiding something will only lead to a sour deal.

It is okay to tell someone "well, someone's coming to look at it tonight at 7pm... if it's still available after that, I'll let you know."  If you do, keep track, and follow up.  It's NOT okay to do this: "someone is coming to look at it tonight at 7pm, but if you get here first, I'll sell it to you."

If in doubt, always stay true to your word.  

If you get into a jam, contact all the involved parties and tell them what is happening.

The bottom line is, don't piss off your buyer or seller.  There are of course situations where people are crazy and it's unavoidable, but... do unto others.  If we all work to keep the market fair, it will stay healthy.  

EVs and the Coming Oil Glut?

The other day I read this article. The author, Ross Tessien seems to have created something of a stir.  His basic premise is that the demand for EVs has already quietly started a rapid journey to 100% adoption by 2026, we have not correctly interpreted the signs yet, and all of this will amount to a historically significant oil glut as early as 2023 (when everyone realizes oil is being massively overproduced).

Here's a great, very friendly video explanation by the guys from "Now You Know". Be forewarned that all of their content seems to be heavily Tesla-centered and slightly fanatical, so they are likely to be more bullish on this hypothesis.

Despite the fact that I more-or-less believe that this is the ultimate outcome, I think there are some factors that Tessien has not considered:

1. "Gas Grab" - A subset of people who just want cheap transportation will be happy to buy and own their gas-powered cars when gas prices drop, causing a hesitation in the rapid adoption rate of EVs.
2. "Grid Crisis" - The demand for EVs will be tempered by a spike in the cost of electricity production during a window where demand exceeds supply.  It will take quite a while to ramp up our infrastructure to the extent necessary to handle an EV in every American garage, and I think that is not fully realized.

Still, even if he is off by a few years, this is still a significant prediction.  

Plasti-Dip Chevy Volt Emblems and Rims

Now that I have had my Chevy Volt for a week, I had to take care of some high priority items in order to make it driveable.  The first one, of course, was to black out the rims and gold Chevy emblems.

I used a product called Custom Wrap by Dupli-Color. It's the equivalent of a better-known product called Plasti-Dip.  You spray it on, and it peels or wipes off when you want it to (assuming you did it right).  

Wheels 

Started with some serious cleaning of the wheels.  I used Simple Green mixed with water, a sponge, and a lot of elbow grease. I chose to remove the wheels for application, but that is not expressly necessary.  In my case I didn't want to worry about over-spray onto the car or rotors, and felt I could do a better job of getting all the nooks and crannies.  I didn't mask anything at all; I just made sure to do lots of (4-5) coats on everything (including the tires) so it would peel nicely off.  The whole wheels job used 2 cans.  I put the wheels on top of an old tarp before spraying, because I heard this stuff does not come off of concrete or asphalt.  When I was done, I put the wheels on the car and drove it 100+ miles.  After that, most of the over-spray onto the tires was gone, and the rest peeled off easily.  I am the king of laziness.

Emblems

I took a little more care here and made a basic mask out of cardboard and masking tape.  I don't have any photos, but on each I basically sprayed the entire emblem plus a box about 1-2" around them.  After it dried I peeled off all of the parts I didn't want blacked out. On the front emblem, I just changed the inner bowtie from gold to black (why does Chevy still insist on having gold logos on a chrome grill?)  On the back, I left it fully blacked out so it basically disappears into the black part of the trunk around it.

I am pretty happy with how all this came out. Time will tell as far as how long it lasts, but I hear it becomes pretty stable after one week - you can even take it through a touch car wash with no anxiety.

How the Gen 2 Volt Drivetrain (Really) Works

Is the Chevy Volt a parallel hybrid or serial?  Does the engine drive the wheels after the battery is depleted?  Or does it generate electricity to run the motors, like a range-extended EV?  There are tons of opinions about what class of hybrid the Chevy Volt fits into, and there is good reason for this. The truth of the matter is, it is all of these things and more.

If I have lost you, don't feel bad. After reviewing multiple sources of information about how the 2nd gen Volt works, it seemed to be something I would never get my head around (and still haven't).  Let me try to break down what I know and give you some valuable references.

Components of the Chevy Voltec Drive System

There are 5 main components involved in the Chevy Voltec drive:

1. 1.5L ICE (Internal Combustion Engine)
2. Electric Motor/Generator A (EMG A)
3. Electric Motor/Generator B (EMG B)
4. Planetary Gear A (PGA)
5. Planetary Gear B (PGB)

How They Interact

The Planetary gear PGA is connected to EMG A and the ICE.  PGB is connected to EMG B. Both planetary gear sets are connected to the wheels, and they are connected to each other..  Together with clutches, they function as transmissions that switch and mix power from the engine, motor A, motor B, and to/from the wheels, into several possible configurations to maximize efficiency depending on the torque being demanded, charge state of the battery, and the speed of the vehicle.  It's really quite the mind-blow.  The bottom line is that, the configuration of the car can freely change from EV, to parallel hybrid, to series hybrid, and some interstitial stages having the properties of both at the same time - all seamlessly and within seconds of the previous.

For more information, check out this Youtube Video posted by Alex on Autos. It's very to-the-point and in-depth, but it does have some diagrams.