Whereas they just hook up an IR lamp and use the exact same lighting control procedures every stage tech knows blindfolded. Brilliant!
38kHz IR is an extremely mature technology. The transmit and receive sides are made in huge volumes, complete with integrated modulators and demodulators. There’s a receiver in basically every piece of consumer A/V equipment and a transmitter in almost every remote control. You used to be able to buy them at Radio Shack!
That is not what the manufacturer says: “Our wash works with a standard professional lighting rigging yoke and DMX 512.” [1]
Wash is the name they use for the lamp which sends the controlling signal.
They have a RF variant where they put the bands on each seat before the show. THOSE bands are individually addressed with RF, and their position known in advance to the setup. (If you move a band to another seat you'll mess it up). They have a special device that transmits RF across the whole venue. That device probably has a DMX hookup to take commands to transition to certain pre-programmed scenes and/or animations, and commands from a USB-connected PC.
https://i.imgur.com/Di09aD2.jpeg
It sounds like each band can be a part of (at least) 2 "groups", with the example showing groups 1-18 assigned to each stadium section, and 1-9 going all the way around from the first row to the highest/back row.
It's not hard to imagine that they've mapped each of those groups to a DMX channel, with the value indicating the color, and/or flash pattern, etc. Even if you're limited to 512 distinct groups (a single DMX universe), that's a lot of granularity. With that, any lighting designer/operator can use their console of choice to do scene and sequence programming -- no special training needed.
I wonder if the RF system has enough bandwidth to show a movie or an animation at a decent frame rate, because that would be a neat effect.
The DMX part would be like any other light: a pair of channels controls the coordinates to which the transmitter’s gimbal aims, one channel selects a color, one channel selects a command, a channel or two set some other parameters, etc. And the electronics in the transmitter unit convert all this to actual servo commands and to the encoded IR signal. There wouldn’t be a channel to select the active vs inactive state of the IR modulator, as entertaining as that would be. (DMX has a maximum frame rate of 44Hz. Following some links, the PixMob bits are 694.44 microseconds long. RS485 is plenty fast to carry the baseband signal, but DMX isn’t.)
(It’s been awhile, but I have operated DMX-controlled moving lights. And yes, of course I’m speculating.)
This is a bit tiresome. :) Our conversation so far (paraphrasing)
You: “it is not DMX” Me: “it is DMX, here is the source” you: “i still imagine it is not”
Why is it so hard to believe that the effects are selected “in band” using DMX? You can imagine all you want all evidence points at that it is indeed just DMX.
Here is a video where they describe the system: https://youtu.be/CPqup9_I_dU?si=voLX4gAidOcOVJJ0
For very clever reasons: (from the article) Since they are projecting infrared with moveable projector they can sweep effects around the stadium, and cover the projector with cut outs to make things like hearts.
I'd bet good money that these things respond to standard DMX color codes. https://astera-led.com/wp-content/uploads/DMX-Values-for-com...
Want to hack the system? Look into whether they are using wireless DMX. Probably not, but if they are you might be able to take over the individual instruments. And I mean own them because such signals are never encrypted and the lamps won't be in a position to be rewired during the show.
Yes, you could hide your band under your hand, now it’s not glowing like everyone else’s… congrats you feel left out.
I mean the components in this one are a few bucks at most, right?
But on second thought, I think there might be an actual scenario to worry about: Activists hijacking the system to show political messages.
For that they'd "only" have to beam the IR to a small spot of the room (but with much higher "resolution" than the normal effects). As long as the symbol/text/whatever is still legible enough that people recognize it and can take pictures of it, they'd have achieved their objective.
Something like this might be possible with a much weaker, purpose-built emitter that could be hidden under clothing. Too much risk and effort for some dumb dick joke, but thinkable if people have some kind of political motivation.
As a "bonus", the first blame would probably fall on the unfortunate people whose wristbands lighted up with the message, while the real perpetrators - the ones with the emitter - remained hidden.
There is an easy fix as well though: As the system "paints" with digital signals and not light, the old lighting rule that colors mix only additively doesn't hold anymore - so you could add a "don't light up for the next 10 seconds" command to the wristbands and just have the stage beam that command continously whenever no effect is wanted.
Oh, the horror
My understanding after reading "King" by Jonathan Eig (a fantastic biography btw, highly recommend to everyone) is that they didn't do that kind of stuff. They marched alongside traffic and were so non-violent that they allowed themselves to be hit with dogs and high-pressure water hoses without responding.
Rosa Parks especially was not like most "activists" today. She clamly and peacefully kept her seat on the bus. Maybe the former Google employee activists who refused to leave the conference room would be similar here, though there are of course differences.
I consider myself an activist, and I believe strongly that people need to help raise awareness because there is far too much ignorance and apathy out there, but I agree with GP and siblings that many of the activists today are harming their own cause by being obnoxious. Raising awareness in an empathetic way is the right way to do it, not trying to bully people into agreeing.
Rosa Parks “got in the way” by not leaving a seat she wasn’t legally allowed to sit in. She disrupted the flow of the white passengers. Today people would say “why doesn’t she protest elsewhere? She’s just getting in the way of bus riders who are trying to get to work.”
Sit ins were lead by MLK. People would go into restaurants, order food, and refuse to leave until they were served, despite being told they had to leave because of (legal) race laws. Today they’d be told they should protest elsewhere, that there is a time and a place, and they are hurting their cause by creating a disturbance.
Thoreau explicitly states you have a moral obligation to oppose unjust laws, etc. and resist governments, etc.
Empathetic awareness raising is one way and often not sufficient.
Read kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
1) determine if an injustice is actually being committed 2) attempt to talk with those committing the injustice to resolve it 3) prepare spiritually for non-violent resistance to evil 4) engage in non-violent resistance, protest only after all other means are exhausted, be prepared to be beaten and do not fight back, and 4 is only a means to get back to 2 — to open negotiations and discussions to restore justice.
The greatest “harm” to a cause is often passive silence.
Sitting by and critiquing activists is often a pastime of folks who stand to benefit from the preservation of the status quo and who have no real desire for immediate change.
Here is King reading his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
Worth the 50 minutes to listen.
I still intuitively see a difference between staying in the seat you paid for and got to first, and using a restaurant/diner the way it was intended, and people blocking traffic (which often includes hitting/attacking cars that try to get by). To be more equivalent though, I think Rosa Parks would have had to block the white passengers from getting on the bus, or the sit-in would block everybody from entering/patronizing the establishment. Had they done that, I think things would have turned out very differently because (rightly or wrongly) they cease to be sympathetic and reasonable figures in many people's eyes.
Other than that, I'm in full agreement with what you said. Also thank you for the Letter from Birmingham Jail read in his own words. So good :-)
Of course, they weren’t served and were often drug out and beaten or had dogs turned loose on them or sprayed down with water hoses.
I hope you enjoy Kings reading, it really should be required before anyone posts MLK quotes or memes.
You had to quote "got in the way" so even you realize what a bad rebuttal it is. And sitting in a seat designed to be sat in is not getting in the way, not even a little bit. (Standing in the middle of traffic is actually what most people consider 'getting in the way')
> Sit ins were lead by MLK. People would go into restaurants, order food, and refuse to leave until they were served
So people went to an establishment that expected, and was designed, to serve patrons. And they "got in the way" by sitting at a table? Your words lose meaning when they're disingenuous.
> Sitting by and critiquing activists is often a pastime of folks who stand to benefit from the preservation of the status quo and who have no real desire for immediate change.
You ruined whatever tenuous point you were trying to make with this line. Blocking traffic for hours and hours because "my protest is more important than ANYTHING ELSE" is such an entitled, arrogant way to think.
They weren’t legally allowed to be there.
It wasn’t designed for them.
They would actually take up all the seats and yes, they would prevent the “people” ie the white folks who the seats were designed for, from using the infrastructure for what it was intended - to serve white folks.
In my view, it’s entitled arrogant to assume that your subjective view is reality.
Sitting down is getting in getting in the way of privilege, which she nailed. Sitting in a seat isn’t actually getting in the way of anyone.
“Wasn’t designed for them” really makes you sound like blacks butts are different than white butts. I mean, what the fuck?
Imagine I come to your home and sleep in your bed.
I’m preventing you from sleeping and I’m trespassing.
You might not understand the actual impact of these laws.
When folks did sit ins they were actively preventing other people from using those services.
And these services were not for black folks.
Again, a white person goes to a diner and can’t eat because it’s filled with black people who refuse to leave until they are served. It’s against the law for them to be there, because they are black.
The spaces were designed for whites, like the drinking fountain that says “white only”.
your selective memory of King and Parks is a disservice to their legacies. in "Letter from a Birmingham jail", MLK warns us about the kind of performative activism you espouse: https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-.... here's where you should pay attention:
> I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.'
> Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
- MLK
I sold my first software internationally at age 10; but I attended my first anti KKK protest on my dad’s shoulders at age 5.
Grateful I had people in my life who exposed me to direct action, freedom of speech and assembly, and I understand that the importance of helping others struggle for freedom.
You really sullied what was otherwise a very powerful comment with this unnecessary and unfair personal attack against GP.
In some ways this is an interesting microcosm of the activism we're discussing, where people take a worthy and often powerful cause, and self-sabotage it by being arrogant, condescending, and rude to the people they are trying to convert.
I do understand that, absolutely, and my ears aren’t deaf.
So you’re saying the protesters are justified in belligerent and deviant behavior because their cause is just? According to whom?
“Deviant” behavior.. this is civil disobedience.
If they didn’t have a voice how are they able to awaken protesters to their cause?
Edit:
You can find more here: http://www.moonbaseotago.com/cheaprf/
I then prime now'd a univeral remote to the arena. I had arena wifi for my work but I was in the stands. That didn't work (didn't pick up a signal). So that night I diassembled it and verfied it was basically a moulded wristband, micro, ir, leds, battery and connectors. so I next day'd an IR Toy to the arena. I was able to read a signal but couldn't reproduce it. It was kinda hard to live code during the event and my batteries kept dying.
I tried again the next year but got bored after that. It was annoying to have the setup at the ready when they flashed the lights especially as that was usually during the biggest moments of action. So I just sat back and enjoyed the show.
(joking of course as that's not what is happening here. I am truly highly concerned about the loss of general purpose computing, but I also love poking fun at myself and group)
I confess that I had to read this three times before I got it. And now I'm amazed at the times we live in. I was impressed enough that I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but I can order something on Amazon and possibly get it the same day, but being able to order something delivered to a public place and know that it will get there within hours just blows my mind.
For all the bad things you can say about Amazon, achieving this level of logistics is insane.
They call it a portable transmitter.
I could see a venue renting these to people for the night. They could outfit them with a kill switch remotely if people abuse it.
Or have them tethered in the VIP areas.
Not sure what a "5G/IOT network" is, nor what vaporware claims "wristbands assigned to seats".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR#NR-Light_/_RedCap
complex, expensive, difficult to deploy, doesn’t account for all factors (highly congested cellular networks are common in medium to high dense areas).
Reminds me of a few consultants I have had the “pleasure” to work with.
People get used to building with the tools in their tool belt. When a problem arises that is better served with another tool, especially when working at a “lower level”, even if it’s more simple overall which this clearly clearly is, many many people are blind to it. I guarantee that you’ve done the same thing at least once.
Then on their next project those engineers get paranoid, and try to solve every problem before it happens.