I've often lamented that I'm too cheap to be an early adopter of technology. The Palm Pilot was obsolete before I dove in ad bought the M105 handheld, but when the Zire71 was released, I was quick to get my order in. Zire72? I ordered one for my wife -- the special edition with a gold stylus. Now I'm on a Palm Centro and loving it. The jury's still out on the new Palm Pre. Verizon isn't diving in, so it doesn't matter to me -- yet.
When it comes to larger computers, I live WAY back from the cutting edge. I build yesterday's desktop for 1/5 of the cost of a cutting edge system, and it's still pretty blindingly fast enough for me. But I wish I could have the faster 2500.00 cutting edge ride with obscene graphics and slick looks. Nope, I'm still running on a beige box here. :-)
But when the word came down that the TV was going to go dark -- that got me hopping. If the signal's gonna stop, you HAVE to do something about it, right?
I see a forced conversion to digital as a reason to jack the prices on TV's, and from what I've seen, it's worked pretty well. The Digital converter box voucher was a nice touch, and I got mine and went out and bought my two boxes. I had to pay more than the voucher was worth -- No surprise. But I'm ready. When the country goes digital in two weeks, I'll be right there with all the other early adopters. Every one of ... wha? What's that you say? Congress what? June?
NO!
Anybody remember the impending change to the metric system in the US? Any day now, right? WHAT HAS THIS COUNTRY GOT AGAINST FOLLOWING THROUGH!?!?!?!?
So congress got wind that some people didn't bother to get prepared. Despite the three years of lead time. Despite the generous voucher program putting money in the pockets of electronics firms who tossed off barely adequate converter boxes to sell to a captive audience. Despite the parade of oddly timed and entirely too short to be useful 'digital tests' that rewarded us with green or red screens, depending on how well we'd done at preparing our sets to reap the digital signals from our airwaves... Despite the continual countdown messages from our local TV stations, Congress found out that some people in this country weren't going to be ready. Awww...
So here I sit with my converter boxes and antennas all paid for, and Congress pushes the date out to June 12th. Just a couple weeks before Father's Day, hint, hint. But when that day comes, will we be any more ready? I doubt it. Nothing forces readiness, people, than taking away the safety net! Turn off the signals, and those who aren't ready WILL GO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
I'll believe the digital transition is coming when I see it actually happen. Just please, oh please, don't turn this into another metric system conversion.
Just do it.
There, I feel much better now.
Click on the title up top to check out the article from the local paper. The senior center can't get a good picture on their TV and doesn't want to pay $50 for a digital converter, why? Because they're out of money after purchasing that Wii? Stupid photo setup. Lame excuse. Did we mention there were three YEARS to prepare?
Just do it.
