It may only work with DLP, which can use specific filters in the color wheel optimized for the screen. It may "sorta" work with an LCD projector, at reduced brightness, as the screen will absorb a significant portion of the light the projector puts out-- but leave the strong R, G, and B peaks. Exactly how much light would be lost is tough to say-- we don't have enough info. I'd guess a significant amount.
The real question is if the screen works as well as it says, would the resulting dimmer image still be high-contrast enough to watch? It may work out that truly black blacks make even a screen 75% dimmer watchable.
And you're right, that stupid graph *should* show RGB reflections from the ambient light as well.
This seems to be a common question in the comments here. To represent white, a TV (or projector or monitor or LCD) uses three colors to reproduce all of the colors. It works nicely because our eyes are sensitive to just three specific colors-- red, green, and blue. When you mix bright red, green, and blue light, it looks white. "Real" white, however, is light at ALL frequencies across the spectrum, including lots which we don't have receptors for.
"But if we can't SEE the other colors, why does it matter that the screen BLOCKS those colors?" you might ask... and it's a decent question. The color receptors are not perfectly isolated, but rather a sort of "bell curve" graph of sensitivity centered on a particular color, so there is some response outside the specific RGB wavelengths, although attenuated. Additionally, the rods (as opposed to the cones, which are there for the color) are sensitive to luminance only and used for low-light vision.
So essentially, although we can SEE the ambient light at non-RGB frequencies, we only NEED to see the RGB frequencies from the projector to get a good representation of all the colors, because we only have the three RGB-centered color detectors. And because of this, we can throw away all the excess light, which we can see but does us no good as it is unnecessary to represent the colors in the video.
To recap: Our eyes pick up three colors, but also some other wavelengths. Because our color vision is made of three colors, we only need those three to represent most of what we can see. (Hence RGB video) Because our eyes' "RGB filters" aren't perfect, but rather a gradual curve, we see other frequencies of light. However, we don't need those other frequencies to make an RGB video image, so all they do is make our projector screen too bright to see the pretty colors.
Even shorter: Three sensors in the eyes, three colors on the display. Everything else just gets in the way.
Extra credit: You may have noticed that if our eyes pick up more frequencies than are represented by RGB video, then RGB video must not be able to display all colors. This is absolutely correct-- the color gamut of RGB is smaller than that of the human eye. CMYK printing has a smaller (but slightly different) gamut than RGB, even. So no matter how fancy it is, your digital camera, TV, and even film camera cannot truly represent all the colors we can see. Which is odd to think about-- someday, I'd like somebody to publish a book of colors we can't see in video or print-- but it would have to be in print, so I'm not sure how they'd do it. Custom non-CMYK ink, I guess.
The pseudo-white you get by mixing pure red, green, and blue does not suddenly become a "real" spread-spectrum white. It only looks that way to us because the color receptors in our eyes pick up those three wavelengths, so we can't tell the color is any different.
(Note that this is not the *whole* story, but it's close enough for a general explanation of why a filtered screen is a cool idea.)
Reading the article (although it is a little shy on detail) suggests it is bandpass filters in addition to what you suggest. I'm not sure why you think you need more than R, G, and B to produce all the colors present in RGB video. To reproduce the entire visible color gamut, you'd need more than RGB-- but RGB video has already reduced the color gamut significantly from what you can see. And, conveniently, consists of exactly three narrow wavelengths of light, and nothing else. Your suggestion that images require "many wavelengths of light" is completely incorrect. You'll have issues if your only source of ambient light is a bank of computer monitors, though, as they'll fall right into that nice RGB range.
I'm not sure they'd put too much dependence on angle, either-- most projectors these days are designed with an enormous optical offset (The popular Sanyo Z2 can be offset by 1/2 screen width and 1.5 screen height) and digital keystone correction (Allowing for projector placement even farther outside the offset range by correcting the shape of a picture projected at an angle). Lots of people use projectors but don't have a room situated so that the unit can hang conveniently from the ceiling dead center.
The aeron digs into your legs? Are you, or was the previous user of the chair a huge fatass? I suppose it's a matter of personal preference, but the whole point of a suspended mesh is that it distributes the weight more evenly than a normal chair. The only way I can see one digging into your legs is if you weigh so much that you bring the front edge of the mesh into contact with the front edge of the chair rim.
You like what you like, I guess. I'm not sure why you'd have issues with the chair cutting into your legs, though, even if you found the shape uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the wrong size, or used by someone heavy enough that the mesh got stretched out?
I'll agree with you wholeheartedly on the internet use, though. Policies like that make it impossible to get your work done, even if they're well-intended.
Quite positive. It was one of the very first carts I had, and I still have it and two C64s (one so old it's pre-rainbow logo, and one late-model 64C) but never owned a Vic-20. I even have a (water damaged, sadly) copy of the first issue of Compute's Gazette.
I saved for two years on my paper route to buy the 1541-C that brought me out of the tape-drive era.
I didn't mind the idea of sidetalkin' on my phone. In fact, one of my biggest gripes about the treo 600 is that there's a good half-inch chunk of real estate on the front face that could be used for a larger screen or (god willing) some landscape-mode buttons if it weren't occupied by the speaker. Why not put it on the side? Or the back? Or anywhere but where you're trying to cram a screen and full keyboard.
I think the sidetalkin' hype has blinded Nokia to the major problem with the device-- namely, that it sucks for games. They did listen and fix the cart-swap issue. But they didn't do anything about the tall/narrow screen or the lousy game selection.
Since we're picking nits today, I should have said "a force greater than mg" rather than "a force greater than g," since g is an acceleration rather than a force.
Again, you're wrong, as I was trying to point out clearly and without attacking you. Just capitalizing "CAN'T" and "NOT" doesn't make it so. I was careful to point out in my post that doing things this way is impractical currently. There is no way to do it with a chemical rocket for the reasons you state-- the more fuel you carry the more fuel you need to carry, etc...
That doesn't mean it's impossible to putter into space at 1mph under constant thrust. Just saying "but we can't build it that way now" doesn't mean physics forbids you. Newton's laws are quite clear-- if we apply a force that is greater than g in the opposite direction, we'll just hover. If we apply a bit more, we'll move slowly away from the Earth.
You COULD just add the speed later. Again, as I said in my post but which you apparently ignored in rebutting me-- it's impractical now, especially with chemical rockets. But there is nothing preventing it in physics. Just in budgets.
This is a silly argument, though-- I'm saying "the laws say it's possible, but it's damn expensive to build" and you're saying "It's impossible because we couldn't afford to build it." You're wrong, but the difference is a small semantic one, not one with your understanding of the physics. It's possible. Just not likely, and damn expensive.
Your #1 is misleading again, which is what the original poster was trying to point out. Escape velocity is the speed you'd have to be going at the earth's surface if you were going to reach orbit if you weren't going to be accelerating en route. This is akin to throwing a baseball into orbit-- it has to be going as fast as it needs to when it leaves your hand if it's going to reach orbit.
It is also true that escape velocity must be reached at some point or the object will fall back to earth *if it is not being acted on by another force*. It would be possible to operate under thrust for the entire duration of your trip-- and as long as your thrust is just a hair above g, you'll gradually rise. You could thrust your way into space at 1mph, if you had the fuel for it. This isn't practical currently, and of course, you fall right back when you turn your engine off.
All I'm (and the original poster) are trying to point out is that telling "laypeople" that you have to reach escape velocity to leave earth is not the whole truth. You can leave as slow as you want and pick up the orbital velocity later, or just hover on your engines and never pick up any speed at all. Not that you'd want to.
Shows how much you know-- the original poster is correct. You're either not old enough to remember, or had a C64 late enough that the disk drives were cheaper and the software was more commonly on disk. For a long time, though, there were tons of games available on cartridge-- I had Zaxxon, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Jupiter Lander, among others.
And it just gets tougher-- we don't even *know* who voted for the DMCA if I remember correctly. The vote was done in some sort of "name not recorded" procedure, so there's no way to know which ones are the idiots/beholden to industry and which ones stood up for our rights.
I've had good luck finding dimmable CF bulbs in standard sizes, as well as with reflector fittings for recessed ceiling bulbs from TCP. It's been several years since I bought them, so you'll have to do your own search for a retailer.
I agree, though-- I have replaced all my heavy-usage bulbs already. All that remains is short-use lights like that bathroom bar, or the odd endtable lamps in the bedroom that take small-socket bulbs. Honestly, if everyone in the US would just replace the bulbs in their garage with CF bulbs the next time they died, the pwer saved would be staggering. Lowes has 5-packs of 11w "60w equivalent" CF bulbs for $15-- it's hard to argue with that.
I'm using several dozen of them and have always been a big proponent of them, but there's still some issues.
A lot of bulb sizes/wattages/types people use in their houses aren't available. If you can find dimmable G40 decorator globe replacements where the ballast is unobtrusive enough to use in a chrome bathroom fixture, you'll have solved one of my missing-bulb issues. The other is small-socket bulbs for chandeliers and oddball lamps with sufficient wattage to make light. I found low-output small-socket CF bulbs at Ikea, but at 7w they aren't bright enough to replace the 40w/60w ones I'm using (7w CF is roughly a 25w equivalent).
Next up, in a few places I need instant-on at full brightness. ALL of the varieties I've tried fall into three categories: not instant-on, needs significant warm-up time, or both. My girlfriend is not cool with the 10-minute warmup period for the bathroom mirror lights, but it's okay for the basement. Know any instant-on, instant-bright CF bulbs in a dimmable, hidden-ballast G40 globe?
And finally, although they seem to be lasting far longer than my normal bulbs, they don't age the same. Instead of a catastrophic failure, they just get gradually dimmer over time. For now, I'm dealing with this by moving the dim 4-year-old bulbs into the basement fixtures, and putting newer ones upstairs. It would be nice if they could maintain their brightness more consistently.
Despite their problems, I use them just about everywhere in my house, except for the bathroom, hanging lights, and small-socket lamps. I can't recommend them enough. I just need more varieties and better performance for a few touchy locations to get my whole house converted. I'm saving 500 watts on basement lighting alone. That 10-bulb bathroom vanity bar would save another 300 watts if I could find something to fit it.
Man, I thought everybody had that. Last time I went to buy PC speakers (two years ago) I picked up a cheapo logitech set with four surround speakers and a subwoofer for $50. I guess I hang out with too many other gaming dorks. Beyond movie-watching, it's a large help in games, as you can tell by sound which direction someone is shooting at you from.
Very true. If the original, and any prints made on film are gone or beyond salvage, then we're stuck with what we've got. Nonetheless, I suspect you will see a great deal of HD content appear from the movie industry's backcatalog once the HD format stabilizes and becomes semi-affordable.
Movies, for the most part, are already "HD" or better in their original film formats. All that will be required to make true HD versions of these will be to go back to the reel and re-digitize them to 1080i or 720p, instead of to 480p.
Not all HD content is filmed with HD digital equipment, either. Alias, for example (which broadcasts at 720p) is filmed with, well, film.
35mm movie film is significantly better in effective resolution than 480p, and anything filmed that way will have little trouble making its way into the HD world.
I think you have your health priorities backwards. If you eat so much you're wearing out your jawbones, you are one huge, fat, diabetic son-of-a-bitch by now. I suggest calling someone to fetch your prying-bar to get you out of your huge chair.
I do believe they did. The new N-Gage QD is a plain old front-talkin' phone. The n-gage.com site even cites the "non sidetalkin' design" as one of the features of the new version.
Perhaps I am being trolled, but hey... sometimes you gotta bite.
Funny how cars work. I was feeling a minor (and rare, for me) twinge of patriotic guilt over buying a Honda Civic, until I realized it was made in Ohio. Except for the CVT transmission, which was made in Japan. It's pretty funny that my japanese car was largely made in the US, while your american car was largely made in other countries.
Nonetheless, we can both snicker at people putting $100 worth of gas into their 50-gallon SUV tanks, while we top up for $20.
Slashdot Mirror
It may only work with DLP, which can use specific filters in the color wheel optimized for the screen. It may "sorta" work with an LCD projector, at reduced brightness, as the screen will absorb a significant portion of the light the projector puts out-- but leave the strong R, G, and B peaks. Exactly how much light would be lost is tough to say-- we don't have enough info. I'd guess a significant amount.
The real question is if the screen works as well as it says, would the resulting dimmer image still be high-contrast enough to watch? It may work out that truly black blacks make even a screen 75% dimmer watchable.
And you're right, that stupid graph *should* show RGB reflections from the ambient light as well.
This seems to be a common question in the comments here. To represent white, a TV (or projector or monitor or LCD) uses three colors to reproduce all of the colors. It works nicely because our eyes are sensitive to just three specific colors-- red, green, and blue. When you mix bright red, green, and blue light, it looks white. "Real" white, however, is light at ALL frequencies across the spectrum, including lots which we don't have receptors for.
"But if we can't SEE the other colors, why does it matter that the screen BLOCKS those colors?" you might ask... and it's a decent question. The color receptors are not perfectly isolated, but rather a sort of "bell curve" graph of sensitivity centered on a particular color, so there is some response outside the specific RGB wavelengths, although attenuated. Additionally, the rods (as opposed to the cones, which are there for the color) are sensitive to luminance only and used for low-light vision.
So essentially, although we can SEE the ambient light at non-RGB frequencies, we only NEED to see the RGB frequencies from the projector to get a good representation of all the colors, because we only have the three RGB-centered color detectors. And because of this, we can throw away all the excess light, which we can see but does us no good as it is unnecessary to represent the colors in the video.
To recap: Our eyes pick up three colors, but also some other wavelengths. Because our color vision is made of three colors, we only need those three to represent most of what we can see. (Hence RGB video) Because our eyes' "RGB filters" aren't perfect, but rather a gradual curve, we see other frequencies of light. However, we don't need those other frequencies to make an RGB video image, so all they do is make our projector screen too bright to see the pretty colors.
Even shorter: Three sensors in the eyes, three colors on the display. Everything else just gets in the way.
Extra credit: You may have noticed that if our eyes pick up more frequencies than are represented by RGB video, then RGB video must not be able to display all colors. This is absolutely correct-- the color gamut of RGB is smaller than that of the human eye. CMYK printing has a smaller (but slightly different) gamut than RGB, even. So no matter how fancy it is, your digital camera, TV, and even film camera cannot truly represent all the colors we can see. Which is odd to think about-- someday, I'd like somebody to publish a book of colors we can't see in video or print-- but it would have to be in print, so I'm not sure how they'd do it. Custom non-CMYK ink, I guess.
The pseudo-white you get by mixing pure red, green, and blue does not suddenly become a "real" spread-spectrum white. It only looks that way to us because the color receptors in our eyes pick up those three wavelengths, so we can't tell the color is any different.
(Note that this is not the *whole* story, but it's close enough for a general explanation of why a filtered screen is a cool idea.)
Reading the article (although it is a little shy on detail) suggests it is bandpass filters in addition to what you suggest. I'm not sure why you think you need more than R, G, and B to produce all the colors present in RGB video. To reproduce the entire visible color gamut, you'd need more than RGB-- but RGB video has already reduced the color gamut significantly from what you can see. And, conveniently, consists of exactly three narrow wavelengths of light, and nothing else. Your suggestion that images require "many wavelengths of light" is completely incorrect. You'll have issues if your only source of ambient light is a bank of computer monitors, though, as they'll fall right into that nice RGB range.
I'm not sure they'd put too much dependence on angle, either-- most projectors these days are designed with an enormous optical offset (The popular Sanyo Z2 can be offset by 1/2 screen width and 1.5 screen height) and digital keystone correction (Allowing for projector placement even farther outside the offset range by correcting the shape of a picture projected at an angle). Lots of people use projectors but don't have a room situated so that the unit can hang conveniently from the ceiling dead center.
The aeron digs into your legs? Are you, or was the previous user of the chair a huge fatass? I suppose it's a matter of personal preference, but the whole point of a suspended mesh is that it distributes the weight more evenly than a normal chair. The only way I can see one digging into your legs is if you weigh so much that you bring the front edge of the mesh into contact with the front edge of the chair rim.
You like what you like, I guess. I'm not sure why you'd have issues with the chair cutting into your legs, though, even if you found the shape uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the wrong size, or used by someone heavy enough that the mesh got stretched out?
I'll agree with you wholeheartedly on the internet use, though. Policies like that make it impossible to get your work done, even if they're well-intended.
Quite positive. It was one of the very first carts I had, and I still have it and two C64s (one so old it's pre-rainbow logo, and one late-model 64C) but never owned a Vic-20. I even have a (water damaged, sadly) copy of the first issue of Compute's Gazette.
I saved for two years on my paper route to buy the 1541-C that brought me out of the tape-drive era.
I didn't mind the idea of sidetalkin' on my phone. In fact, one of my biggest gripes about the treo 600 is that there's a good half-inch chunk of real estate on the front face that could be used for a larger screen or (god willing) some landscape-mode buttons if it weren't occupied by the speaker. Why not put it on the side? Or the back? Or anywhere but where you're trying to cram a screen and full keyboard.
I think the sidetalkin' hype has blinded Nokia to the major problem with the device-- namely, that it sucks for games. They did listen and fix the cart-swap issue. But they didn't do anything about the tall/narrow screen or the lousy game selection.
And in fact, we don't "hoover" at all, that being left to vacuum cleaners of a specific brand. Instead, we'd just hover. Good catch.
Since we're picking nits today, I should have said "a force greater than mg" rather than "a force greater than g," since g is an acceleration rather than a force.
Again, you're wrong, as I was trying to point out clearly and without attacking you. Just capitalizing "CAN'T" and "NOT" doesn't make it so. I was careful to point out in my post that doing things this way is impractical currently. There is no way to do it with a chemical rocket for the reasons you state-- the more fuel you carry the more fuel you need to carry, etc...
That doesn't mean it's impossible to putter into space at 1mph under constant thrust. Just saying "but we can't build it that way now" doesn't mean physics forbids you. Newton's laws are quite clear-- if we apply a force that is greater than g in the opposite direction, we'll just hover. If we apply a bit more, we'll move slowly away from the Earth.
You COULD just add the speed later. Again, as I said in my post but which you apparently ignored in rebutting me-- it's impractical now, especially with chemical rockets. But there is nothing preventing it in physics. Just in budgets.
This is a silly argument, though-- I'm saying "the laws say it's possible, but it's damn expensive to build" and you're saying "It's impossible because we couldn't afford to build it." You're wrong, but the difference is a small semantic one, not one with your understanding of the physics. It's possible. Just not likely, and damn expensive.
Your #1 is misleading again, which is what the original poster was trying to point out. Escape velocity is the speed you'd have to be going at the earth's surface if you were going to reach orbit if you weren't going to be accelerating en route. This is akin to throwing a baseball into orbit-- it has to be going as fast as it needs to when it leaves your hand if it's going to reach orbit.
It is also true that escape velocity must be reached at some point or the object will fall back to earth *if it is not being acted on by another force*. It would be possible to operate under thrust for the entire duration of your trip-- and as long as your thrust is just a hair above g, you'll gradually rise. You could thrust your way into space at 1mph, if you had the fuel for it. This isn't practical currently, and of course, you fall right back when you turn your engine off.
All I'm (and the original poster) are trying to point out is that telling "laypeople" that you have to reach escape velocity to leave earth is not the whole truth. You can leave as slow as you want and pick up the orbital velocity later, or just hover on your engines and never pick up any speed at all. Not that you'd want to.
"Nope. Just out of interest, how do you record something for someone else with TiVo?"
With the built-in DVD burner.
Shows how much you know-- the original poster is correct. You're either not old enough to remember, or had a C64 late enough that the disk drives were cheaper and the software was more commonly on disk. For a long time, though, there were tons of games available on cartridge-- I had Zaxxon, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Jupiter Lander, among others.
And it just gets tougher-- we don't even *know* who voted for the DMCA if I remember correctly. The vote was done in some sort of "name not recorded" procedure, so there's no way to know which ones are the idiots/beholden to industry and which ones stood up for our rights.
I've had good luck finding dimmable CF bulbs in standard sizes, as well as with reflector fittings for recessed ceiling bulbs from TCP. It's been several years since I bought them, so you'll have to do your own search for a retailer.
I agree, though-- I have replaced all my heavy-usage bulbs already. All that remains is short-use lights like that bathroom bar, or the odd endtable lamps in the bedroom that take small-socket bulbs. Honestly, if everyone in the US would just replace the bulbs in their garage with CF bulbs the next time they died, the pwer saved would be staggering. Lowes has 5-packs of 11w "60w equivalent" CF bulbs for $15-- it's hard to argue with that.
I always thought they looked like a snake that ate a brick.
I'm using several dozen of them and have always been a big proponent of them, but there's still some issues.
A lot of bulb sizes/wattages/types people use in their houses aren't available. If you can find dimmable G40 decorator globe replacements where the ballast is unobtrusive enough to use in a chrome bathroom fixture, you'll have solved one of my missing-bulb issues. The other is small-socket bulbs for chandeliers and oddball lamps with sufficient wattage to make light. I found low-output small-socket CF bulbs at Ikea, but at 7w they aren't bright enough to replace the 40w/60w ones I'm using (7w CF is roughly a 25w equivalent).
Next up, in a few places I need instant-on at full brightness. ALL of the varieties I've tried fall into three categories: not instant-on, needs significant warm-up time, or both. My girlfriend is not cool with the 10-minute warmup period for the bathroom mirror lights, but it's okay for the basement. Know any instant-on, instant-bright CF bulbs in a dimmable, hidden-ballast G40 globe?
And finally, although they seem to be lasting far longer than my normal bulbs, they don't age the same. Instead of a catastrophic failure, they just get gradually dimmer over time. For now, I'm dealing with this by moving the dim 4-year-old bulbs into the basement fixtures, and putting newer ones upstairs. It would be nice if they could maintain their brightness more consistently.
Despite their problems, I use them just about everywhere in my house, except for the bathroom, hanging lights, and small-socket lamps. I can't recommend them enough. I just need more varieties and better performance for a few touchy locations to get my whole house converted. I'm saving 500 watts on basement lighting alone. That 10-bulb bathroom vanity bar would save another 300 watts if I could find something to fit it.
Man, I thought everybody had that. Last time I went to buy PC speakers (two years ago) I picked up a cheapo logitech set with four surround speakers and a subwoofer for $50. I guess I hang out with too many other gaming dorks. Beyond movie-watching, it's a large help in games, as you can tell by sound which direction someone is shooting at you from.
Well, there's that whole nothing-but-AAC iTunes store, and that iPod thing that plays it-- but those aren't very popular. You're right.
Very true. If the original, and any prints made on film are gone or beyond salvage, then we're stuck with what we've got. Nonetheless, I suspect you will see a great deal of HD content appear from the movie industry's backcatalog once the HD format stabilizes and becomes semi-affordable.
Movies, for the most part, are already "HD" or better in their original film formats. All that will be required to make true HD versions of these will be to go back to the reel and re-digitize them to 1080i or 720p, instead of to 480p.
Not all HD content is filmed with HD digital equipment, either. Alias, for example (which broadcasts at 720p) is filmed with, well, film.
35mm movie film is significantly better in effective resolution than 480p, and anything filmed that way will have little trouble making its way into the HD world.
I'm not kidding! It's like an orange on a toothpick!
I think you have your health priorities backwards. If you eat so much you're wearing out your jawbones, you are one huge, fat, diabetic son-of-a-bitch by now. I suggest calling someone to fetch your prying-bar to get you out of your huge chair.
I do believe they did. The new N-Gage QD is a plain old front-talkin' phone. The n-gage.com site even cites the "non sidetalkin' design" as one of the features of the new version.
Perhaps I am being trolled, but hey... sometimes you gotta bite.
Funny how cars work. I was feeling a minor (and rare, for me) twinge of patriotic guilt over buying a Honda Civic, until I realized it was made in Ohio. Except for the CVT transmission, which was made in Japan. It's pretty funny that my japanese car was largely made in the US, while your american car was largely made in other countries.
Nonetheless, we can both snicker at people putting $100 worth of gas into their 50-gallon SUV tanks, while we top up for $20.