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Name: Aaron Gabow (agabow)

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Questions/comments about the syllabus or project handout:


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Project Title 1:MusicMaker

Brief Description
The basic idea is to try and cram as much possible studio-level music 
production software into an application. The focus wouldn't be as much editing
existing sound files as it would be to create new music. This would not be
really some emulator of a single instrument, like "Rebirth", but something that
allowed for the construction of various types of musics, be it hiphop, 
electronica, or something else entirely. Features would include multi-track
recording, sampling and looping, drum machines and instrument synthesising.

Identify Local Users:
The large number of C.S. students who view themselves as musicians. There would
be a slant towards the want-to-be-musicians and producers who might not know
a large amount of theory.

Assign a 1-5 score for these criteria (assume 1 is high)
        Useful to others: 2
        Has specific users: 2
        Can be scaled up to PC product: 1
        Divisible:2 
        In C++ on Suns: 4 (sound on the suns using c++ isn't that great_

        Overall:2

Pros: There are a lot of people who would like to produce various forms of
music using the electronic media.

Cons: I am not entirely sure about the project's feasibility.

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Project Title 2: Black Box

Brief Description
As neuroscience moves more and more towards looking at multiple electrodes
from a single recording, there needs to be better software that allows for
the viewing (preferably in real-time) to view various data.

Identify Local Users:
A large amount of the neuroscience department is looking at multi-unit 
recordings, and they mainly use Unix boxes. There is a branch who would 
definitely like to look for new ways to visualize the data to help future 
patients with neural implants train to control their prothestic devices.

Assign a 1-5 score for these criteria
        Useful to others: 1
        Has specific users: 1
        Can be scaled up to PC product: 1
        Divisible: 2
        In C++ on Suns:2

        Overall: 1

Pros: This product could do something that is unique not just for the 
Suns, but across all platforms. 

Cons: The requirement for real-time analysis might mean that some
code would need to be more in C than C++.

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Project Title 3: Prophet

Brief Description
A 3d real-time strategy game based around the standard themes of increasing
ones own power and harnessing resources. However, the hook would be your
resources were masses who you managed to put under your sway.

Identify Local Users:
Gamers, particularly those interested in something based on a format other
than shoot-'em-up. The ultimate goal is to take the cerebral nature of
a strategy game and apply some social perspectives to it.

Assign a 1-5 score for these criteria
        Useful to others: 3
        Has specific users: 2
        Can be scaled up to PC product:1
        Divisible: 1
        In C++ on Suns:1

        Overall: 1

Pros: Games are a good thing. The idea is fresh and allows for a lot of 
AI and psychology to determine how effective your persuassion tactics 
would be.

Cons: AI never really works.

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Project Title 4: Cycle Saver

Brief Description
Takes the idea of Seti at home and expands upon it. There are plenty of 
departments that have lots of data to be processed, but never efficiently
use their computers when the leave them sitting on all night. This project
would allow for a very general client-server application that could assign
chunks of data that get distributed across the network, worked upon, and then
have the data stored. The ideal situation would be that a user could write very
 quick specs on what the data chunks were, the type of equation to be applied,
and the data set itself, and the generic app could then just start the data
processing.
Identify Local Users:
There are a lot of users in various science departments who could use this, 
particularly if it could be multi-platform.
Assign a 1-5 score for these criteria
        Useful to others:1
        Has specific users:1
        Can be scaled up to PC product:1
        Divisible:3
        In C++ on Suns:3 (doable on the suns, but if it was just for them,
	its use drops)

        Overall:2

Pros: This could allow for questions that might be too time consuming to
look at now to be explored.

Cons: I don't know if this is complex enough for 10 people. It depends 
on how distributed the problem solving would be. 

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Project Title 5:Web Data Base

Brief Description
A straight-forward web database for various users with standard C.R.U.D. 
features.
Identify Local Users:
Various groups that need to store there data but have several members in their
project that all use different computers. This applies to a large number of
research groups that have distributed labs.
Assign a 1-5 score for these criteria
        Useful to others: 3
        Has specific users:2
        Can be scaled up to PC product:1
        Divisible:3
        In C++ on Suns:3

        Overall:3

Pros:Somewhat usefull.

Cons:Not all the original and done by existing products (though
I don't know if on the Suns)

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