Don't Be Afraid of Infinity

A long time ago, people were puzzled by the meaning of the number zero. Until around 400 B.C. to 300 B.C., most people thought it was a mysterious idea to imagine a number that meant nothing. It took a while for the concept of zero as a real number to gain widespread acceptance.

“It began to take shape as a number, rather than a punctuation mark between numbers, in India in the fifth century A.D.,” says Robert Kaplan, author of “The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero” (Oxford University Press, 2000). “It isn't until then, and not even fully then, that zero gets full citizenship in the republic of numbers.”

Today, it seems hard to believe that people couldn’t grasp the idea of a digit representing nothing. Yet many people now have a similar incomprehension with the inverse of zero, which is infinity. Are you one of those people?

Here’s how you’ll know. What is 1 (or any other positive number besides 0) divided by 0?

If you answered “it can’t be done” or “undefined,” then you’re among them. But you’re not alone. If you ask 25 entertainment technicians, about three or four of them will give the same answers.

The truth is, you can divide any number by zero, and the answer is the inverse of zero, or infinity. Another way of asking the same question is: If you have a pie and you divide it among zero people, how long will it last? The answer, of course is forever (an infinite amount of time). 

So why is 1 ÷ 0 = ∞ such a difficult concept to wrap your head around? Probably because very early in your life, you were told that you can’t divide by 0. It would have been more accurate to say that, if you think about the concept of infinity at such a young age, you head might explode. But chances are, if you’re reading this now, you’re probably much more mature than you were back then. It’s time you realized the facts—any number divided by 0 is infinity. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Your calculator can't express it either, and most people seem to think computers and calculators are infallible. They aren't.

Why does this matter to entertainment technicians? The answer can be revealed by Ohm’s law, which says the current is the voltage divided by the resistance of a circuit or component (I = V/R). Unless there is at least some resistance in a circuit (R is greater than 0), then any voltage at all will cause an infinite amount of current to flow, and it would take a very large conductor to carry it all or the conductor will melt if the fuse doesn’t blow or the circuit breaker doesn’t trip.

Infinity is a big number, but you’re a big person now. You can handle it.

Sorry For Your Luck

I was sitting in meeting of the PLASA Technical Standards when, out of the mouth of Richard Nix came pure gold. We were talking about what's commonly called "best practices" in the entertainment industry and whether or not codes and regulations are followed, and how that all relates to accidents. 

If there's an accident, he said, then the logical place to start asking questions is, "Did you follow code?" If not, then the next logical questions are: "Did you know there are applicable codes? If no, then sorry for your luck. If yes, then sorry for your luck."

I thought it was good enough to make a flow chart, and here's what it looks like:

The bottom line is, know and follow the codes and regulations. Above all, be safe.

Jay O. Glerum's Final Act

In 2002, I was at USITT in New Orleans talking to a person in the Focal Press booth. Focal Press is a well respected publisher of technical books, and I had always wanted to write for them. I was trying to convince the nice lady that they should let me write a book for them, but she didn’t know me from Adam. Right in the middle of the conversation, a tall mustached man politely interrupted us and said to me (well within earshot of the person to whom I was speaking), "Excuse me, but I just want to say that I really enjoy your writing," or something to that effect. He shook my hand as he spoke, I thinker him, and off he went. As soon as he left, the lady turned to me and said, “Oh my God, do you know who that was?!" I didn't. "That’s Jay Glerum. We’ve been trying to get him to write for us for a long time.” 

Jay O. Glerum (1939—2014)

I was able to wrangle my first contract to write a book for Focal Press after that event. I don't know how much Jay’s endorsement had to do with it, but it certainly didn't hurt! We soon became good friends and we often taught classes at the same events. He was an enormous influence on me and an untiring supporter of my work. 

The last time I saw him was at USITT in Fort Worth last March (2014). He pulled me aside and very matter-of-factly told me that his cancer had returned, and that he was not going through chemotherapy. I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. Though he spoke plainly and clearly, I didn’t really grasp the full impact of what he was telling me. 

When I got back to my hotel, I sat down and contemplated what I just heard. I researched the type of cancer he told me he had, and gradually came to the realization that what he actually told me was that he was dying. I sought him out the next day and thanked him for all he’s done for the industry, and for me personally. That was the only time I ever saw him get emotional and fight back tears. It was all I could do to do the same.

His wife Sallie sent me an email saying, "Jay breathed his last breath yesterday, June 26 (2014). He left peacefully, for which I am extremely grateful since his cancer was beginning to be extremely painful."

Jay was a true inspiration to me and countless others. Even when he knew he was terminal, his focus was still on helping others. One of his final acts on earth was to further the cause of safety in the industry. He put together a list of important rigging standards and asked me if I would send him a list of electrical standards so he could include them. He was due to present a panel on industry standards and he wanted a complete list to talk about. 

He asked me to help him make it "an ongoing, living document." He closed with the phrase, "Keep the faith" Here is Jay's final contribution to the industry:

Click here to continue reading.

My Seiki 4K

4K is on the way. You've seen 4K displays at trade shows, like the one on the Coolux stand at LDI showing their media server, and it's likely that you will start to see them in video production circles. I decided I would get one as a second monitor for my workstation for a couple of reasons. First of all, a large 4K monitor would provide plenty of real estate to display several different windows on one display. Secondly, I heard that Seiki 4K TVs are cheap. I did some research and read several reviews, almost all of which had good things to say about the Seikis (and it's the same brand Coolux had at LDI, so I had seen one in person).

I opted for the 39" (diagonal measure), which is 34" wide, and since I'm viewing it from about 42" away, I have a viewing angle of about 44 degrees. That's slightly larger than the 40 degrees or less viewing angle recommended by THX, but it's much less than the 60 degrees viewing angle recommended by some people. I think it works great as is. Or I should say, I think it is going to work great at that viewing distance.

I say that because, although I've had the TV connected to my computer for a couple of weeks now, I have not been able to get it to display anything higher than a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The problem is my graphics card, or so I thought. 

I have a GeForce GTX560 SC 2G graphics card in my computer that I bought about three years ago. I couldn't get it to output HDMI to the display, so I assumed that it was too old and that I needed a new graphics card. How do you find the right graphics card?

I started doing some research and I quickly confirmed what I had long suspected; that it's very difficult to find the right graphics card based on manufacturer's specs. The specs are filled with terms that might make sense to someone, but not to me. Seriously, does anyone really know how much better a graphics card with 4.3 TFLOPS will perform compared to one with 3.79 TFLOPS? Or one with 2048 stream processors versus one with 1792? Not me. So I just looked for a graphics card that is capable of 4K resolution (4096 x 2160) and had as much video RAM as I could afford. I narrowed my options and then started reading reviews. When I read a review that said the Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB is the "best bang for the buck," my interest was piqued. This is a graphic card built by Gigabyte based on the AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics processing unit (GPU), and out of 124 reviews, 84 people gave it five out of five stars. I had my chosen card. I thought I would save a few bucks and bought a used one for about $150, which is less than half of the price of a new one. Since Gibabyte warranties their graphics cards for three years, I figured it was a safe buy.

Maybe I should have paid the price for a new one because when I got it, there was a problem. I installed it fairly quickly and easily, but the HDMI output didn't work. I swapped the cable and tested the HDMI input to the monitor using another source, and I was convinced the problem was with the graphics card. I called tech support (which was not a bad experience at all) and they suggested that I flash the BIOS with the latest software. After a 24-hour glitch (their server was down for a whole day), I downloaded an app and the BIOS file, but it wouldn't install. I kept getting an error, so I had to send the card in for repair. 

In the interim, I was using the VGA output from the built-in graphics card on the motherboard to my second monitor (the Seiki 4K). When I ran a program with any graphics, like the grandMA2 onPC along with grandMA 3D visualizer, there was about a one or two second delay between the time I would click on a button and the action would occur. That kind of latency will drive you crazy and it makes the program almost completely unusable. But it's the perfect illustration of why we pay a lot of money for a good graphics card. 

Actually, we don't pay nearly as much as we used to for high performance graphics cards. About five to seven years ago, I researched a graphics card that was recommended by a software manufacturer, and it was $1500. I opted for a much cheaper one, which worked well enough. The last card I had before the HD 7950 was a GeForce GTX560 SC 2G, and it cost about $200 new. It actually still works well. In fact, after I removed the HD 7950 to send it for repair, I reinstalled the 560 and I decided to update the BIOS. In the process I learned that it actually supports 4K resolution, and for a brief moment I thought I would get to see 4K on my monitor for the first time. But it wasn't to be. It turns out that my CPU, which is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor, doesn't support the new BIOS, so no 4K for me, for now at least.

I thought about buying a new processor so I could update the firmware and output 4K. I did some research (there's always more research to do!) and I found that if I replaced the CPU, I would also have to replace the motherboard because the system requirements to support 4K output from the 560 calls for a chip with an AM3+ socket, and I have an AM2+ motherboard. But the prices are very reasonable—about $100 for a new CPU and only about $60 for another motherboard. Since I already have two graphics cards, both of which are 4K capable, maybe I'll build another workstation. They're getting more scarce since most people are migrating to tablets and smart phones.

In the meanwhile, I'm still waiting for my 7950 graphics card to come back from being repaired. More to come...

Arduino Anyone?

I had forgotten the smell of burning solder until today. My soldering iron used to be within arms reach most of the time, and I knew the resistor color code by heart. But the last time I needed those things, I think I was wearing a leisure suit, or maybe bell bottoms and Beatle boots. Soldering is like riding a bike except the pedals (terminals) are much smaller and harder to reach (see). I dug out the old soldering iron and dusted it off for a new project. What is the project?


I've been curious about Arduino and Raspberry Pi since they came out a few years ago, and when Simon Newton created Open Source Lighting Control Software that runs on Raspberry Pi, I had to check it out. Little by little I've been piecing together the hardware and software, and eventually I want to be able to control anything with DMX and get feedback via RDM using Arduino and Raspberry Pi. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how ambitious of a project this is, and I won't know exactly where I'm going until I get there. The only requirement is that it's fun, and I hope you will come along for the ride.


I've already assembled an Arduino, flashed some LEDs on and off with it, and I just got some parts in from Adafruit, including an Arduino stepper motor shield (in Arduinoland, a "shield" is a daughter board or a PC board that attaches to the motherboard) and a stepper motor. The reason for the soldering iron is that I had to solder the headers onto the stepper motor shield to attach it to the Arduino. It was quick and easy, and I had my stepper motor running in just a few minutes. I haven't done much with it yet, but little by little I will take over control of the entire earth via DMX, RDM, and Arduino. Won't you help? What shall we take control of first? Please add your comments.

Tools of the Trade

by Richard Cadena
Last week, like many times before, an eager, young lighting professional asked me for advice about how to reach his goals as a lighting designer. And just like all those times before, I searched deep in my lexicon looking for the magic words that would inspire him and propel him down his path to the top of the industry.

In his eyes I saw the same vortex of hopes, dreams, and desires that I had when I was in his shoes. And much like the way I felt back then, I sensed an eagerness in him to dispense with the inconvenience of a long and arduous grind up the ladder of success. Where is the magic bullet, I imagined he was thinking, that will pierce the armor of time and difficulty, and to make all things great happen post haste? Why can’t I be knighted into a posh gig with a huge salary and all the respect and admiration it affords?

I wish that I could shield every person like him from the harsh glare of the real world and excuse him or her from all of the hard work and long hours that it usually accompanies. Failing that, the next best thing is to offer a set of tools that will give him/her the best shot at finding what they’re looking for. The kit of tools I’m thinking of would include some magic beans, some elixir, potions, salve, and other remedies. Read on.

1. The magic beans will shade you against the heat of the real world by sprouting a deep love for and a fascination with your chosen field, because work you love is no work at all. When it’s in full bloom, you’ll be in full stride and you won’t break a sweat. "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." - Rumi

2. The elixir will heal the blemishes of your failures and give you the courage to stretch your wings and try to fly, knowing good and well that you could crash and burn. Whether you fail or succeed, the elixir will help you to emerge at every turn as enthusiastic as ever. "I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge." - Igor Stravinsky

3. The potion will make you immune to the sting of your errors by erasing your memory of the mistakes you make without erasing the lessons you learn from them. It will give you the courage to take reasonable risks without preventing you from making mistakes so that you will have the benefit of knowing what does and doesn’t work. As Pablo Picasso once said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how not to do it.”

4. The salve will sooth the ache of following a crooked path. The unknowing seek the shortest distance between two points—where they are now and where they want to be—and the knowing know the shortest possible distance between those two particular points is a crooked line along an impossibly unpredictable precipice of a precarious career. "Rightly conceived, time is the friend of all who are in any way in adversity, for its mazy road winds in and out of the shadows sooner or later into sunshine, and when one is at its darkest point one can be certain that presently it will grow brighter." - Arthur Bryant

5. The remedy is a capsule full of determination. When you take a full dose, you’ll know that failure is just a milestone on the road to success. Everybody experiences failure from time to time, but successful people don’t let it stop them. http://bit.ly/create-persist

6. The infusion of mentoring is the best inoculation against an anemic career. You are unique and there is no one answer to all the questions you’ll have on your journey. Find a mentor who has been down the road you travel and seek advice when you need it.

What has worked for you in your career?

Essential Standards for Entertainment Industry Professionals

By Jay O. Glerum, author of "Stage Rigging Handbook, 3rd Edition"

In 1980, at a session on Rigging at the USITT conference in Kansas City, a member of the audience asked, “Where can I find the standards that cover rigging in our industry?” 

The answer was “nowhere.” There were no standards because no one had written any. That question, however, prompted a long series of actions by USITT and ESTA (now PLASA) that resulted in the first rigging standard being approved by the American National Standards Association (ANSI) in 1999. There are now over 40 standards covering a multitude of subjects in the entertainment industry. Due to the generosity of Pro Sight Specialty Insurance, copies of the standards are now available at no charge and can be downloaded from the PLASA Web site, www.plasa.org. (To go straight to the published documents, click here.) 

Now that we have the standards, we need to use them. A number of the standards specify how products are designed, manufactured, and tested. Purchasers and renters of these products should specify on the purchase order that the products they are ordering must comply with the appropriate standards. List the specific standard numbers and names on the order. 

This document is intended as a guide for riggers, flymen, and electricians. Reading all of the relevant standards can be a daunting task. However, there are specific sections that relate to technicians and stagehands that need to be aware of the “user” requirements and responsibilities contained in the standards. Reading and being familiar with the entire standard will help the user have a better understanding of the scope of various User Sections.  As a starting place, refer to the table below. 

The table is intended as a quick guide to help users find the sections relating specifically to their work.

The first column, STANDARD, indicates the specific standard’s number and name.  Some of the titles have been shortened due to space limitations. 

The second column, SECTIONS FOR USERS, lists the specific sections in the standard that are intended for the users of the equipment.

A checkmark in the third column, SPECIFY, reminds users that—when purchasing a product covered by the standard—the product being ordered must comply with the standard. Both the number and title of the standard should be referenced on the purchase order.

RIGGING STANDARDS

STANDARD	SECTIONS FOR USERS	SPECIFY
E1.1 - 2012 Construction and Use of Wire Rope Ladders	Section 7, Ladder Installation Section 8, Ladder Use Section 9, Worker Training Section 10, Inspection	X
E1.2 – 2012 Design, Manufacturer and Use of Aluminum Trusses and Towers	Section 3.2.4 a Repetitive use 85% rule Section 5, Use and Care Section 6, User Inspection	X
E1.4 2009 Manual Counterweight Rigging Systems	Section 6, Design Factors	X
E1.6-1 – 2012 Powered Hoist Systems	A general understanding of the entire standard. Section 11, Inspection and Testing Section 12, Maintenance	X
E1.6-2 – 2013 Design, Inspection & Maintenance of Chain Hoists	A general understanding of the entire standard. Section 4, Inspection and Testing Section 5, Maintenance	X
E1.6-3 - 2012 Selection and Use of Chain Hoists in the Entertainment Industry	Because stage hands select and install chain hoists, they should be familiar with the entire standard.	X
E1.6-4 - 2013 Portable control for Fixed Speed Electric Chain Hoists in the Entertainment Industry	This standard is in the process of being written.  Copies of various drafts are available for public review.   When completed, the entire standard is relevant to the user.	X
E1.8 – 2012 Loudspeaker Enclosures Intended for Overhead Suspension	Section 9, Instructions for the Installer and User	X
E1.21 – 2013 Temporary Ground- Supported Overhead Structures for Outdoor Events	This entire standard should be read by anyone involved with outdoor stages.  Particular attentions should be paid to the Sections 4.7, 5 and 6.	XX
E1.22 – 2009 Fire Curtain Safety Systems	Sections 11 and 12.  There are some variances with this standard and NFPA 80, and Life Safety Code 101.  Authority Having Jurisdiction, (AHJ)	Determine which code is in force by the AHJ.

ELECTRICAL STANDARDS

STANDARD	SECTIONS FOR USERS	SPECIFY
E1.15 – 2006(R2011) Assembly and Use of Boom Base Assemblies	Entire standard.	X
E1.16 – 2002(R2012) Metal-Halide Ballast Cable Configuration	Entire standard
E1.19 – 2009 Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters	Entire Standard
E1.27 – 2009 Permanently installed DMX Cables	Entire standard.	X
E1.32 – 2012	Entire standard.  Guide for the Inspection of Entertainment Incandescent Lamp Luminaries
E1.36 – 2007(R2012) See abbreviated title in  Section for Users	Model Procedure for Permitting the Use of Stage Lighting instruments for Conventions and Trade Shows  If you are doing convention or trade show work, you need to be familiar with this standard.
Recommended Practice for DMX 512.	This is a guide for electricians installing and using DMX protocol for lighting and effects control.
Recommended Practice for Ethernet Cabling Systems	This is a guide to older Ethernet systems and should not be used for new systems.
For Electricians responsible for Fog and Smoke Effects on Stage
E1.23 – 2010  Design and Execution of Theatrical Fog Effects	Entire Standard
E1.29 – 2009 Product Safety Standard for Fog Generators	Entire Standard	X
Introduction to Modern Atmospheric Effects, 4th Edition	A comprehensive guide to all types of fog and smoke effects for the entertainment industry.  Entire Document
CAMERA CRANE OPERATORS
Camera Crane Operators Handbook	Good advice on the use of a variety different camera cranes.