Comment - It's all still pretty complex, especially with less-expensive DVD recorders soon hitting the market. And who knows what's going on with HDTV? This article says that we may soon be able to get over-the-air HDTV tuners built into new TV sets, but we may not be able to legally record HDTV shows!

Someday, maybe all this mess will be cleaned up. You'll get a digital stream of bits into your house, and a computer will sort it out into video shows and Internet.

News - More colleges go for astronomy over the Internet: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/edlife/12BBGUT.html

Comment - This article points out that low computer and hardware prices mean that students can observe via the Internet and not have to actually go out into an observatory at night and peer through an eyepiece.

With my Starry Night program, for example, I can zero-in on a little obscure galaxy on the screen, click a link and get an image of the galaxy displayed over the Internet. Why bother looking outside?

I think we're close to the point where the only people who are actually looking at the night sky "real time" with their eyeballs are hobbyists.

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11:25:10 AM