![\"i-bf422881436a7438db674d589cb8f4f9-body_snatchers.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/472\/files\/2012\/04\/i-bf422881436a7438db674d589cb8f4f9-body_snatchers.jpg?w=604\")
In just over one year from now, there is a good chance that your television will stop working. Like in that old TV show, The Outer Limits. But for real. And the frustrating thing is that nobody seems to believe it. Like how nobody believed that the earth was being taken over by pod people in that movie about the pod people.We are speaking, of course, about the coming of Digital Television.<\/p>\n
In a telephone survey in November of 1,017 people, only 48 percent said they had heard about the switch to digital television. And only 17 percent correctly identified 2009 as the year that analog television will be cut off. (The survey had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.)[source]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you use satellite or cable, you do not have to worry, this will not affect you. Also, you may already have a digital ready TV and not know it. But nearly one in five Americans will, one day, turn on their TV to watch their favorite soap or catch the news or whatever, an all they will get is a blurry picture of Donald Sutherland pointing at them. Or whatever they will put up over the traditional analog airwaves to indicate to former viewers that the end has come.When asked, in a recent poll<\/a>, “What will you do with your TV that is not connected to a cable or satellite source?” about a third did not know, about 16 percent will chuck the TV, a small percent will hook the TV up somehow to a converter, and so on.What will I do? (As if you cared.) Well, since you ask, our “good” TV is non-digital ready, and that is hooked to the cheapest possible cable source (so we get broadband, and while we do get MSNBC we do not get Fox … yea!!!). Our “digital ready TV” (this is from the combination of two households a couple of years ago) is in my daughter’s room where it is hooked to a DVD player but is never, ever used. Julia does not prefer to stay in her room and watch DVD’s all by herself.But, just as the digital tide sweeps across us, she will independently transmogrify into a teenager, and that will be the end of that. We may never see that TV, or her, again…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In just over one year from now, there is a good chance that your television will stop working. Like in that old TV show, The Outer Limits. But for real. And the frustrating thing is that nobody seems to believe it. Like how nobody believed that the earth was being taken over by pod people … Continue reading The End is Near<\/span>