So, let's retweet something here real quick; go read this, optionally taking it seriously: No Longer Free in a Digital World.

All caught up? Great. Here's why I barely care enough to laugh at this. Let's change a couple words here and there, and see if the story has a different outcome....

Here we were, my horse and carriage and I, happily growing older together. But then the paper newspaper I receive in week-at-a-time bundles every once in a while reported that the world is changing. Immediately, I rushed to the town square to telegraph a number of establishments, but all for naught: the Seven Eleven, or Eighteen, or Seventy-seven, or whatever the kids are calling it had suspended their telegraph service in favour of something called a voip; fortunately [a term I use in irony], Western Union were good enough to allow me access to their devilinfested oral network to 'ring' a few places and enquire. As I was already beginning to fear, the first such business denied supplying a trough at which I could refresh my horse; the next wasn't sure my horse and carriage together would fit within one of their cement parking stalls, and wasn't interested in stepping outside with my measurements to find out; the third, speaking in tongues, uttered a number of syllables, a portion thereof I was able to relate to language: 'Dude, what, horses, joking, have another beer'. And so, reluctantly, I now set down my charcoalstick aside my parchment and stab out into this modern world to negotiate the purchase of a motorised carriage which I already perceive lacks an 8Track player, instead being installed with something called satellite radio and iPod USB port; already, I'm led to understand that this motor-car, we'll call it, uses water, as horses do, but also a form of liquid averaging two dollars and thirty cents per the gallon!

Okay? Same fundamental whimper? I thought so too.

Gah! That horrid newer model from around 1981! Smaller buttons! Less clunky switches! Replacement of A through X with 14 through 37! Why, Cthuhlu: Why...!

Look. Science marches on. I know: it's a shock. Particularly to those living in mediaeval villages like the Bronx, whimpering online that a system in use since the late thirties is evolving. But, these things happen. And, yeah: they can be annoying. Especially to those of us who have had cable since about 1975, when there were theoretically thirty-six channels available through a blue and white trilevelled clunkbox. Of course, we're more annoyed because, for the last six months, every damned network has been dropping their HD feed to SD to cram in a ticker warning us—twice—that both luddites lacking a television made since the Reagan Administration will have to acquire a converter to receive digital transmissions starting—thank hell—finally next week. The vexation of those meaningless alerts nearly detracted from the general coolness of the idea itself.

The idea itself? Simple. From DTV2009.gov on them thar intarwebs:

Why Is the Digital Transition Happening?

Are we clear on all that? Yes? No? Maybe? Let's break it down.

DTV is to ATV what broadband is to dialup, sorta: more. More channels broadcast outside cable, including devoted AmberAlert bullshit, which for hell's sake had better keep those Do Not Drown updates off my screen when I'm watching something meant for smart people; also, with the extra room, there will be slots open for additional free channels. An analogy: once upon a century, you could listen to 99FM, 102FM, 105FM, and so on; today, you can listen to 99.1, 101.9, and 105.3, as well as 105.5 and 105.7 and 105.9. Because radio's digital. Free radio. Not SatRad. Just the feeless stations available through your Zune. Because the Zune's digital, and your dusty, atticbound Zenith was analogue. Okay? Fundamentally, television's catching up [it always has to, being newer], moving away from Channel 2 [ghosted on 3], Channel 5 [ghosted on 4 and 6], Channel 8 [ghosted on 7 and 9], Channel 10 [which would ghost over Channel 8's ghost at Channel 9, if Channel 10, being PBS, weren't too weak to compete] and Channel 13 [ghosted on 12], with a few more channels up in the UHF range: UPN and WB and U62 and whatever. I know: UPN and WB merged; but I'm into a triplicate of choice before ending at Yankovic's sadly fictional channel.

This is good news. For luddites. If anything ever can be. Yeah: you've got to replace some of your gear, kinda like you have to replace the occasional tube once the bank are old enough that it takes your television set two full minutes to warm up and let you see that fluttery, rolling, black and white image coinciding with the sounds the magical machine has been making since you strode across the room to pull at the On Switch. But that's life. Upgrade a little, and you can go back to wasting it watching that infernal contraption your parents told you would rot your brain.

Or, optionally, shut that goldurn thing off and go play in the front yard until dinner.

More later....

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