Latest headlines: Mark Coxon on “the sacred timeline,” Gary Kayye on Sony’s AV Tech Expo, Tom Kehr on Ohm’s law, plus news from Extron
July 30, 2021 | Volume: 15 | Issue: 14
If you’re a fan of the new Loki series on Disney+, or if you’re me and you don’t know much about it because you’ve only seen approximately five Marvel movies, you may be familiar with the discussion of timelines. “What if this happened instead of that? Where would we be then?” Mark Coxon talks about this in his most recent column. If we push this conversation to the AV world, were the manufacturers we know and love predestined to make the things they do? What if your favorite mics didn’t exist? Or your favorite amp company decided to make something different instead. Where would we all be?
Next up, Gary Kayye wrote all about Sony’s AV Tech Expo. So what might this have to do with you, my rental and staging friends? GK mentions checking out the new 100-inch LCD and a plethora of projectors — things he says would work for a permanent or a temporary install. Check it out!
Finally, it’s no secret that there is some math/physics to being an AV integrator. For instance, you have to be cautious about voltage, current and resistance. You need to understand the relationship between all three and how electricity works so that you can make sure equipment works properly. If you’ve ever had a hard time conceptualizing Ohm’s law, check out the final column this week from Tom Kehr.
I just finished watching Loki, a Marvel-inspired series on Disney +. For those that haven’t seen it, I won’t include any spoilers here, just that the show revolves around a concept called “the sacred timeline.” This refers to the way we see the world and all of the potential opportunities the timeline had to branch, creating a multiverse of alternate realities. I often feel like we have a “sacred timeline” in AV, and we accept that some companies were predestined to have the roles they do today, but what if …
I took my third business trip post-vaccination today and headed up to New York City for Sony’s first-ever AV Tech Expo at its 25 Madison Ave. location. I’d say it was worth the masking, walking and mouth-sweating (inside the mask).
Alphabet Soup and Math. Not your favorites, I know. I didn’t get all this at once, but I’ll share some things that helped me immensely. First, let’s sort out these letters. Circuits have properties, and we use values to quantify those properties. There are different symbols used depending on whether we’re talking about the properties or the values, and it’s confusing when we mix two symbols interchangeably (as often happens). An engineer I respect once said, “you never use a symbol for a quantity in a formula when you are actually solving for a variable.”