Well....The division of the FAA in charge of licensing private space launches is AST, or Associate Administrator of Space Transportation. AST was origintally an independent government agency created by the 1984 commercial space act. It's job was to make the process of obtaining a launch license far easier by making it the one stop shop for all licensing needs. Previously you had to deal with many seperate government agencies to obtain all the nessesary permits for a launch. The 1984 Commercial Space Act says that OST (Office of Space Transportation) had the exclusive authority to issue or deny launch licenses and that they be a clearing house for all other agencies.
During the Clinton administration, OST was folded into the FAA as a department, where it became AST.
Recently, some confusion arose as to whether these new suborbital vehicles, which go to space but are shaped like airplanes and take off and land like airplanes, would be the jurisdiction of AST (the space folks) or AVR (the regular airplane folks at the FAA). A bill has just been introduced in the Senate to clarify the legislation set out in 1984 to include suborbital vehicles. This is discussed in our previous press release here: http://www.xcor.com/CST-2003.html
FAA does not have authority over 'all known space' (hi Larry:)..the job of the agency is only to protect the uninvolved public. In addition to protecting the American public, the United States has signed an international treaty which makes it partly responsible for the 'maximum probable loss'worldwide in the event of a disaster that kills people on the ground. This is mostly referring to large vertical launches, i.e. Boeing satellite launches out of Vandenberg, but can also apply to smaller vehicles as well.
Healthy regulation that promotes the industry is a GoodThing(tm) and part of AST/OST's mandate is to promote the industry. We are all helping to write the new regulations and make them safe and sane for both industry and the uninvolved public. Most people don't remember but the FAA got started when the maturing airline industry begged to be regulated so that the fly by night folks wouldn't taint the safety record of the reliable majority and thus scare off travellers. The only issue with the airline regulations is that they are very technology specific, and these new space planes use cutting edge composites and completely new engines that the FAA's airplane division is not equipped to handle, but the AST department is. Talk to your Senate leaders and endorse the HR 3245 bill, which clarifies AST's jurisdiction over these vehicles. ( http://www.xcor.com/HR-3245.html )
Well, we have a non-exclusive agreement with Space Adventures, the company that helped broker Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth's rides in Russia. They are currently selling tickets for suborbital flights and I believe they currently have over 600 reservations, some paid in full and others are partial down payments.
Range safety is okay for big expendable and some reusable launch vehicles, but not for small, winged reusable launch vehicles. There are sufficent abort modes to eliminate the need for this in all but extreme cases.
The whole idea behind this is not to eliminate regulations entirely, but establish regulations that are just enough to keep the industry from hurting the uninvolved general public. Too much rules are bad, not enough rules are bad. There is a terrific middle ground. In fact, a lot of us would PREFER regulation, so that the image of the industry isn't tarnished with really bad accidents that could have been prevented with a little sanity checking and due dilligence.
We have one! It's this wonderful place called the Mojave Civilian Flight Test Center that sits next to an Air Force test range called Edwards Air Force Base.:)
n addition to what's in the article, I have my own observation: the default action now for companies is to run out and get a business method patent - not because they believe it will make them money, but to prevent others from getting the same frivolous patent and suing them. It's become necessary as a means of survival under the current interpretation of the laws. My guess is that's why netflix.com got their patent on DVD rentals. They saw what was happening to Ebay, etc, and didn't want to get buried under that kind of litigation. Pretty sad. I think the law is broken and that ruling needs to be overturned or superceded.
According to the wired article, information about politicians is posted anonymously, and the politician always has a chance to refute the claim. The claim and the reply are always kept together, no information is removed.
There is system to rank the credability of the contributors to keep things in check, similar to epinions' trustworthiness ranking system.
However, this could still be open to widespread abuse with a coordinated effort. A person posting a comment could be backed up by hundreds of people vouching for his or her integrity, and even if the politician replies denying the claim, the damage is already done, which is the whole point behind a smear campaign.
The lesson is, be weary of all information you receive from anywhere. Everything is suspect and most of the details of information you receive about things you did not witness in first person is probably 90% incorrect. Did you ever do that experiment in school where you whisper a phrase around in a circle of people and by the time it comes back to you it's completely different?
It will be interesting to see how this page plays out, to see if it is compromised by hundreds or thousands of people with an ajenda. It's hard to pick up on subtle slanting of information until it's too late.
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
They cost after 10 messages per month unless you pay the extra $4 or $5 a month flat fee for unlimited SMS. I doubt that Cingular's own spam would count against that, that would just be too evil.
I use SMS sparingly so I don't pay the extra fee. It's hard enough keeping those phone bills down to a reasonable level with all the FCC surcharges and whatnot.
Don't sign up for a mycingular.com account if you have a Cingular Wireless phone. I was (inaccurately) told by a Cingular operator that in order to get an email address (email -> SMS) for my phone I had to create an account on cingular.com.
A few months later I got a spam text message on my phone from a third party advertiser targeting cingular wireless users. The only way that could have happened is if Cingular sold my info. I was fuming mad and wrote Cingular's division headquarters. I received a phone call in response to the letter, and the woman said I did not need a cingular.com account for Email -> SMS gateway, and the only reason to sign up for mycingular.com is to download ringtones and such. (and there are far better places to get those) She cancelled the cingular.com account for me on the spot.
So beware if you do sign up at cingular.com - Cingular SPAMs you from third party advertisers!
To Cingular's credit, they were very responsive after I sent the letter.
Unfortunately though, I just got another junk message from Cingular themselves the other day, I can't even remember what they were advertising. If that happens again, it's one more nail in the coffin for them. Although I wonder if I'll get the same thing no matter what carrier I choose these days.
I wonder how long it will take before spammers start bruteforcing phone numbers at mobile.mycingular.com. (that's the email -> phone gateway, yourphone#@mobile.mycingular.com)
As a professional photographer and visual effects guy, I have to disagree with you. This is a religious war that comes up frequently, so I'll be practical and hopefully brief.
When comparing pixels to film, the actual pixel resolution is only part of the equation. Yes, standard color CCD arrays use an offset-overlay technique to interpolate more resolution in the final image than any of the single color channels has. The exception to this is the Foevon chip, which has full color in every pixel, and the very high end systems you mention above.
The huge, HUGE advantage of digital imaging that you have not mentioned is grain. The spatial resolution (or how much detail is actually in the picture content) is actually very poor in 35mm, especially in less-exposed areas. If I accidentally underexpose my digital image by one or two stops, I can use a level adjustment to recover a near-perfect image with very little grain, and plenty of detail in even the darkest areas. If I try that with a 35mm film scan, it will be extremely grainy, even from a very low ISO film. The reason 35mm gets by is that at full frame from a reasonable viewing distance and at a correct exposure, the softness, gamma, grain and falloff present a nice pleasing picture.
In every day practical use, I find that a 6 megapixel standard CCD (not foevon) producing a 3k file has better detail than the average 35mm image. Downsampled to 2k and it's an extremely sharp, excellent 2k image. Right now I even have a 3 megapixel (2k) image from an older camera on a billboard just outside of town, it's about 15 feet across, looks really nice! Average viewing distance is a big factor as well.
Most digital visual effects for 35mm and features finished to anamorphic 35 are rendered at 2k resolution. A few years ago I did most of the animation on a 35mm film spot for American Express. It was rendered at 2k and transferred to 35 and it looked gorgeous. If you have very sharp spatial resolution in your 2k image (such as computer generated imagery where every pixel is sharp and perfect) you will not gain much of an advantage going to 3k or above. The only thing that kind of resolution is useful for right now is IMAX. I dispute the idea that 35mm has 4k of useful pixels. After about 3k you won't percieve any practical difference.
CCD technology will not be able to replace film (35mm) for at least another 5 years, if ever.
5 years for widespread distribution is practical. "ever" is ridiculous.:)
Remember, when talking technology, think about practical application and end results. pixels don't exist in a vacuum. (but when they're on a CRT they exist in a vacuum tube!:)
Personally, I'd like to see variable frame-rate 2k to 3k systems for regular movies, and 4k - 5k digital systems for IMAX sized projections, using a format that can be created and previewed on desktop PCs with very fast disk arrays and hires monitors. (check out IRIDAS for an excellent digital cinema and desktop hires playback system, including 3D!)
> But for $6,000-$8,000, you can encode the film for digital (to) play our circuit, and I think some distributors will be interested in doing that."
And where does this money go? Is that an estimated price for someone who doesn't know what he is doing to pay a post house to encode it? Can you not do the encoding on your own PC? I use the Windows Media 8 command line encoder with WM8GUI free interface to do my windows media encodes right now. Will I not be able to do that with the particular WM9 format this system wants?
What is the actual resolution of this system? Sounds like they are just using a nice SVGA projector with a PC stripped down to play back the files reliably at full screen.
Regardless of who's doing it, I'm very interested in a system like this, even to just get things kick started. Why not have M$ pay for something that nobody else will pay for right now? Might as well do something useful with all that Windows/Office money. If the concept catches on, there will be plenty of easy competition. They're not exactly doing anything special here, just spending money to put computers with projectors in theaters, and setting up a pipeline for delivery and distribution.
In the incredibly unlikely event that LOX vents into the cockpit, Just crack open the canopy for a bit. The EZ-Rocket is a subsonic vehicle limited by the do-not-exceed speed of the airframe (about 195 knots) so you're not going all that fast, especially when gliding.
Also, there is a large manual lever the pilot can pull to dump the LOX out the back. We've actually done this on a safe abort flight, to lighten the airplane for an early landing. (go here for details about that flight.)
(For casual readers, note that we are talking about the currently flying test-bed, the EZ-Rocket, and not the Xerus supersonic, suborbital space vehicle)
We're making good progress right now on
a lot of the underlying technology and
subsystems. We won't be able to set a
schedule for the full vehicle until we
get some more investment money in the bank.
Should take about 18 months from funding
to first flight, and another 18 months after
that to complete the flight test program.
We don't need too much -- million dollar
class investors are what we're looking for.
Altering the substantive content of news photos is like altering the facts in the story, and is a journalistic no-no. Small corrections for contrast and minor dodging and burning are acceptable (an example of what I think is not acceptable is when that image of O.J. Simpson was burned out to make him look really evil on that magazine cover...)
Photography is already biased enough depending on what you LEAVE OUT of the photo, or how you juxtapose certain elements, or use telephoto to change the size-distance ratio of objects. Use a long enough lens, and it looks like the kid running across the street is about to be bowled over by the tank, when in fact the tank is a block away.
Anything other than news photos and it's fair game.
We are not currently an X-Prize contender. If the X-Prize is still available when our Suborbital vehicle is complete, it is conceivable that it could be modified to meet the requirements of the X-Prize. XCOR is more focused on the immediate possibility of revenue generating service from the Xerus spaceplane.
For more information about our Suborbital program, visit our suborbital page at: http://www.xcor.com/suborbital.html:) --Mike Massee
XCOR Aerospace
We actually have proposed educational uses just like that for our 15-lb thrust N2O-Ethane engine. Sort of a kit that can be assembled and tested by teacher and students. Such a project requires funding, however, and we have not gotten the requisite interest yet.
We tried many so-called "high performance" igniters and that was the one that worked the best. The 400 lb-thrust LOX-Alcohol engines on our EZ-Rocket use a spark plug from a go-ped. We only need a very small spark plug. The plug ignites an igniter engine, which is basically a miniature rocket engine inside the big rocket engine. After the igniter is lit, main propellants are allowed in to the chamber for main ignition. One of the key advantages to our engines is a safety interlock system to prevent main propellants from pooling in the main chamber before ignition, which is a primary cause of explosions, or "hard starts" as they are referred to in the industry. We have had thousands of runs without any hard starts.
Plasma screens have really short burn in times, if you put a computer desktop on it you'll have permanent ghosts where the static objects on your desktop are in notime.
People who buy them as televisions have to be very careful to avoid burn it, that's why they have grey vertical bars instead of black when watching 4:3 television on a 16:9 display. The technology just isn't quite there yet.
As a photographer and digital effects artist, I can't do anything mission critical on an LCD screen. The gamma is all wrong and it changes depending on your viewing angle. It's also very harsh on photographs, in terms of contrast and edges.
However, I prefer LCD screens for reading text. The square pixels and sharp edges lend themselves to that sort of purpose.
The interesting thing is that eventually everyone at home will be looking at my photos online with LCDs anyway, so it can't be ignored.
I just hope that as an artist I'll still be able to get CRT screens until LCD's have advanced to a point where they are acceptable, or DLP or other promising technology has taken over. I personally swear by the Sony 21" FD trinitron. We still use CRT's for everything in the effects industry, however I have seen the (very nice! IMHO) 22" Apple cinema LCD displays being used at a print studio facility in San Francisco that was producing the Macy's christmas catalog while I was visting. I asked them about the color and gamma shifting issue and he said "Yea, we just have to make sure and look at them dead center, and then it's okay." And in the final checking room, there were computers with CRTs and hoods on the monitors for fine tuning anyhow.
For now, my ultimate dream monitor is still the Sony FW-900 24" widescreen CRT display, and it's down to about $2k now.
The cavity at any given point in your wall, if it's to code, is about two cubic feet, surrounded by wood and plaster. Unless you had a magically powerful fan in your PC you won't be getting any circulation at all, because you're pressurizing a fixed cavity. Furthermore, the tube isn't insulated. This is a really silly idea. However, if you vented it *outside*, then you're talking something useful.
Ecliptic, the folks who brought you the Delta IV and shuttle cameras, also sponsored us with a camera which I installed on to our EZ-Rocket, currently the world's only privately owned, manned rocket powered airplane. The new videos can be seen here. They are from this year's AirVenture airshow in Oshkosh, WI. My favorite video is the re-light, there's great vertical action and lots of good views of the airshow. There is also an older rocketcam video from our home base in Mojave, CA. Enjoy.
Slashdot Mirror
Well....The division of the FAA in charge of licensing private space launches is AST, or Associate Administrator of Space Transportation. AST was origintally an independent government agency created by the 1984 commercial space act. It's job was to make the process of obtaining a launch license far easier by making it the one stop shop for all licensing needs. Previously you had to deal with many seperate government agencies to obtain all the nessesary permits for a launch. The 1984 Commercial Space Act says that OST (Office of Space Transportation) had the exclusive authority to issue or deny launch licenses and that they be a clearing house for all other agencies.
:)..the job of the agency is only to protect the uninvolved public. In addition to protecting the American public, the United States has signed an international treaty which makes it partly responsible for the 'maximum probable loss'worldwide in the event of a disaster that kills people on the ground. This is mostly referring to large vertical launches, i.e. Boeing satellite launches out of Vandenberg, but can also apply to smaller vehicles as well.
During the Clinton administration, OST was folded into the FAA as a department, where it became AST.
Recently, some confusion arose as to whether these new suborbital vehicles, which go to space but are shaped like airplanes and take off and land like airplanes, would be the jurisdiction of AST (the space folks) or AVR (the regular airplane folks at the FAA). A bill has just been introduced in the Senate to clarify the legislation set out in 1984 to include suborbital vehicles. This is discussed in our previous press release here: http://www.xcor.com/CST-2003.html
FAA does not have authority over 'all known space' (hi Larry
Healthy regulation that promotes the industry is a GoodThing(tm) and part of AST/OST's mandate is to promote the industry. We are all helping to write the new regulations and make them safe and sane for both industry and the uninvolved public. Most people don't remember but the FAA got started when the maturing airline industry begged to be regulated so that the fly by night folks wouldn't taint the safety record of the reliable majority and thus scare off travellers. The only issue with the airline regulations is that they are very technology specific, and these new space planes use cutting edge composites and completely new engines that the FAA's airplane division is not equipped to handle, but the AST department is. Talk to your Senate leaders and endorse the HR 3245 bill, which clarifies AST's jurisdiction over these vehicles. ( http://www.xcor.com/HR-3245.html )
Link to their website. :) More Q&A about XCOR suborbital stuff on our site: here.
--Mike
Range safety is okay for big expendable and some reusable launch vehicles, but not for small, winged reusable launch vehicles. There are sufficent abort modes to eliminate the need for this in all but extreme cases.
This is correct. The way the game of nations work, at least for the United States, is that the country is responsible for what its citizens do abroad.
The whole idea behind this is not to eliminate regulations entirely, but establish regulations that are just enough to keep the industry from hurting the uninvolved general public. Too much rules are bad, not enough rules are bad. There is a terrific middle ground. In fact, a lot of us would PREFER regulation, so that the image of the industry isn't tarnished with really bad accidents that could have been prevented with a little sanity checking and due dilligence.
-Mike
n addition to what's in the article, I have my own observation: the default action now for companies is to run out and get a business method patent - not because they believe it will make them money, but to prevent others from getting the same frivolous patent and suing them. It's become necessary as a means of survival under the current interpretation of the laws. My guess is that's why netflix.com got their patent on DVD rentals. They saw what was happening to Ebay, etc, and didn't want to get buried under that kind of litigation. Pretty sad. I think the law is broken and that ruling needs to be overturned or superceded.
exactly, it's like having neighbors informing on each other. How many will be honest and how many will use it for a vendetta?
The U.S., as a function of population percentage has more people in prison now than the Soviet Union did at the height of power.
There is system to rank the credability of the contributors to keep things in check, similar to epinions' trustworthiness ranking system.
However, this could still be open to widespread abuse with a coordinated effort. A person posting a comment could be backed up by hundreds of people vouching for his or her integrity, and even if the politician replies denying the claim, the damage is already done, which is the whole point behind a smear campaign.
The lesson is, be weary of all information you receive from anywhere. Everything is suspect and most of the details of information you receive about things you did not witness in first person is probably 90% incorrect. Did you ever do that experiment in school where you whisper a phrase around in a circle of people and by the time it comes back to you it's completely different?
It will be interesting to see how this page plays out, to see if it is compromised by hundreds or thousands of people with an ajenda. It's hard to pick up on subtle slanting of information until it's too late.
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
---Mike
They cost after 10 messages per month unless you pay the extra $4 or $5 a month flat fee for unlimited SMS. I doubt that Cingular's own spam would count against that, that would just be too evil.
I use SMS sparingly so I don't pay the extra fee. It's hard enough keeping those phone bills down to a reasonable level with all the FCC surcharges and whatnot.
Don't sign up for a mycingular.com account if you have a Cingular Wireless phone. I was (inaccurately) told by a Cingular operator that in order to get an email address (email -> SMS) for my phone I had to create an account on cingular.com.
A few months later I got a spam text message on my phone from a third party advertiser targeting cingular wireless users. The only way that could have happened is if Cingular sold my info. I was fuming mad and wrote Cingular's division headquarters. I received a phone call in response to the letter, and the woman said I did not need a cingular.com account for Email -> SMS gateway, and the only reason to sign up for mycingular.com is to download ringtones and such. (and there are far better places to get those) She cancelled the cingular.com account for me on the spot.
So beware if you do sign up at cingular.com - Cingular SPAMs you from third party advertisers!
To Cingular's credit, they were very responsive after I sent the letter.
Unfortunately though, I just got another junk message from Cingular themselves the other day, I can't even remember what they were advertising. If that happens again, it's one more nail in the coffin for them. Although I wonder if I'll get the same thing no matter what carrier I choose these days.
I wonder how long it will take before spammers start bruteforcing phone numbers at mobile.mycingular.com. (that's the email -> phone gateway, yourphone#@mobile.mycingular.com)
--Mike
When comparing pixels to film, the actual pixel resolution is only part of the equation. Yes, standard color CCD arrays use an offset-overlay technique to interpolate more resolution in the final image than any of the single color channels has. The exception to this is the Foevon chip, which has full color in every pixel, and the very high end systems you mention above.
The huge, HUGE advantage of digital imaging that you have not mentioned is grain. The spatial resolution (or how much detail is actually in the picture content) is actually very poor in 35mm, especially in less-exposed areas. If I accidentally underexpose my digital image by one or two stops, I can use a level adjustment to recover a near-perfect image with very little grain, and plenty of detail in even the darkest areas. If I try that with a 35mm film scan, it will be extremely grainy, even from a very low ISO film. The reason 35mm gets by is that at full frame from a reasonable viewing distance and at a correct exposure, the softness, gamma, grain and falloff present a nice pleasing picture.
In every day practical use, I find that a 6 megapixel standard CCD (not foevon) producing a 3k file has better detail than the average 35mm image. Downsampled to 2k and it's an extremely sharp, excellent 2k image. Right now I even have a 3 megapixel (2k) image from an older camera on a billboard just outside of town, it's about 15 feet across, looks really nice! Average viewing distance is a big factor as well.
Most digital visual effects for 35mm and features finished to anamorphic 35 are rendered at 2k resolution. A few years ago I did most of the animation on a 35mm film spot for American Express. It was rendered at 2k and transferred to 35 and it looked gorgeous. If you have very sharp spatial resolution in your 2k image (such as computer generated imagery where every pixel is sharp and perfect) you will not gain much of an advantage going to 3k or above. The only thing that kind of resolution is useful for right now is IMAX. I dispute the idea that 35mm has 4k of useful pixels. After about 3k you won't percieve any practical difference.
CCD technology will not be able to replace film (35mm) for at least another 5 years, if ever.
5 years for widespread distribution is practical. "ever" is ridiculous. :)
Remember, when talking technology, think about practical application and end results. pixels don't exist in a vacuum. (but when they're on a CRT they exist in a vacuum tube! :)
Personally, I'd like to see variable frame-rate 2k to 3k systems for regular movies, and 4k - 5k digital systems for IMAX sized projections, using a format that can be created and previewed on desktop PCs with very fast disk arrays and hires monitors. (check out IRIDAS for an excellent digital cinema and desktop hires playback system, including 3D!)
And where does this money go? Is that an estimated price for someone who doesn't know what he is doing to pay a post house to encode it? Can you not do the encoding on your own PC? I use the Windows Media 8 command line encoder with WM8GUI free interface to do my windows media encodes right now. Will I not be able to do that with the particular WM9 format this system wants?
What is the actual resolution of this system? Sounds like they are just using a nice SVGA projector with a PC stripped down to play back the files reliably at full screen.
Regardless of who's doing it, I'm very interested in a system like this, even to just get things kick started. Why not have M$ pay for something that nobody else will pay for right now? Might as well do something useful with all that Windows/Office money. If the concept catches on, there will be plenty of easy competition. They're not exactly doing anything special here, just spending money to put computers with projectors in theaters, and setting up a pipeline for delivery and distribution.
--Mike
In the incredibly unlikely event that LOX vents into the cockpit, Just crack open the canopy for a bit. The EZ-Rocket is a subsonic vehicle limited by the do-not-exceed speed of the airframe (about 195 knots) so you're not going all that fast, especially when gliding.
Also, there is a large manual lever the pilot can pull to dump the LOX out the back. We've actually done this on a safe abort flight, to lighten the airplane for an early landing. (go here for details about that flight.)
(For casual readers, note that we are talking about the currently flying test-bed, the EZ-Rocket, and not the Xerus supersonic, suborbital space vehicle)
We're making good progress right now on a lot of the underlying technology and subsystems. We won't be able to set a schedule for the full vehicle until we get some more investment money in the bank. Should take about 18 months from funding to first flight, and another 18 months after that to complete the flight test program. We don't need too much -- million dollar class investors are what we're looking for.
Photography is already biased enough depending on what you LEAVE OUT of the photo, or how you juxtapose certain elements, or use telephoto to change the size-distance ratio of objects. Use a long enough lens, and it looks like the kid running across the street is about to be bowled over by the tank, when in fact the tank is a block away.
Anything other than news photos and it's fair game.
We are not currently an X-Prize contender. If the X-Prize is still available when our Suborbital vehicle is complete, it is conceivable that it could be modified to meet the requirements of the X-Prize. XCOR is more focused on the immediate possibility of revenue generating service from the Xerus spaceplane.
:)
For more information about our Suborbital program, visit our suborbital page at:
http://www.xcor.com/suborbital.html
--Mike Massee
XCOR Aerospace
We actually have proposed educational uses just like that for our 15-lb thrust N2O-Ethane engine. Sort of a kit that can be assembled and tested by teacher and students. Such a project requires funding, however, and we have not gotten the requisite interest yet.
--Mike
XCOR Aerospace
--Mike
People who buy them as televisions have to be very careful to avoid burn it, that's why they have grey vertical bars instead of black when watching 4:3 television on a 16:9 display. The technology just isn't quite there yet.
However, I prefer LCD screens for reading text. The square pixels and sharp edges lend themselves to that sort of purpose.
The interesting thing is that eventually everyone at home will be looking at my photos online with LCDs anyway, so it can't be ignored.
I just hope that as an artist I'll still be able to get CRT screens until LCD's have advanced to a point where they are acceptable, or DLP or other promising technology has taken over. I personally swear by the Sony 21" FD trinitron. We still use CRT's for everything in the effects industry, however I have seen the (very nice! IMHO) 22" Apple cinema LCD displays being used at a print studio facility in San Francisco that was producing the Macy's christmas catalog while I was visting. I asked them about the color and gamma shifting issue and he said "Yea, we just have to make sure and look at them dead center, and then it's okay." And in the final checking room, there were computers with CRTs and hoods on the monitors for fine tuning anyhow.
For now, my ultimate dream monitor is still the Sony FW-900 24" widescreen CRT display, and it's down to about $2k now.
--Mike
Every time I see the title of that new game I think of the hugely awesome Amiga game by (I think) Psygnosis.
The cavity at any given point in your wall, if it's to code, is about two cubic feet, surrounded by wood and plaster. Unless you had a magically powerful fan in your PC you won't be getting any circulation at all, because you're pressurizing a fixed cavity. Furthermore, the tube isn't insulated. This is a really silly idea. However, if you vented it *outside*, then you're talking something useful.
--Mike
--Mike
www.xcor.com