Get rid of all the cathode ray tubes!

I just realized that in the course of a normal day I no longer have to deal with cathode ray tubes (CRTs).

Over the weekend while relaxing in my hotel at my family reunion in Branson, Missouri, I found the worst CRT television set I had heard in quite a while. Every time I would change the channel, the set would emit a piercing high-pitched noise that my parents could not hear. My brothers and I felt tortured by it, especially my youngest brother Jon.

At Olin, Prof. Gill Pratt taught me that the high pitches associated with CRTs are horribly annoying to young people but are impossible to hear in old age due to a lifetime of overexposure. But I think that may change in the near future.

CRTs are not a wonderful technology. They have created a worldwide chemical disposal problem and they eat up energy in a wasteful large form factor made of shatter-vulnerable glass. But finally they have started to get replaced by better technologies like plasma, LCD, and organic LED (OLED) displays.

Every day, the only displays I usually interact with my Apple monitor, Dell laptop, and my parents’ new little HDTV, all of which are LCDs. Thus, I haven’t heard that infernal high-pitched whine in some time. Now I find that I have fewer headaches and often feel more relaxed.

So my challenge to you is to find a CRT monitor in your life and consider transitioning it to a better technology. You just might make your life a little more pleasant.

02:26 AM | 4 Comments

Comments

  1. but grant…how does one dispose of a crt properly?

    austin on

  2. That’s a good question. I still haven’t found a good, safe way to do it. I guess donating it is probably the best option. Or maybe just using it on a server where you keep it off most of the time and only pop it on when there’s a problem.

    Grant Hutchins on

  3. I have not looked at an lcd that gets the same rich color contrast as a crt. Colors that are real close end up washed out, like #f1f1f1 on top of #ffffff.

    JustaGuy on

  4. In almost related news, supposedly there was a shopkeeper somewhere who wanted to keep the young kids out of his shop, so he started playing this high-pitched sound that only young people could hear, and it worked. They left.

    Spencer on