JG-TC.com > Features > Analog vs. digital, what does it all mean?

TODAY'S HEADLINES

SPECIAL SECTION

ONLINE POLL

ONLINE EXTRAS

Shop Smart, Shop Local

SITE TOOLS

OTHER LINKS

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Tuesday, October 7, 2008 9:17 PM CDT
Analog vs. digital, what does it all mean?

By MARY JANE COARTNEY

We talk about being bilingual. Little tots who have a nanny who speaks another language have no problem with whichever language the baby sitter happens to use. I have a computer. I am almost as computer illiterate as if I had never seen one of the critters.

I only use the word processor and play some solitaire. I never was very good at shuffling or dealing cards

As I read the daily paper, there are messages at the end of most every article telling where to learn more about the above by clicking on at some.com. What do people do who haven’t a computer?

For some months almost every day, and every station there is an urgent message that next February television will no longer be analog but will be going to digital television.

I have not bothered to find what analog is. It sounds like something as serious as strep throat. So, last week my mail carried a couple of the important red cards. My shoppers turned them in along with some pictures of former presidents. Today a couple of grandsons hooked up the television near my chair and the one in my bedroom. It was nice to have the air conditioner out of the window only three days after the furnace came on automatically without even asking.

Analog has been banished from this house. I can watch who knows how many other stations besides the half dozen that used to come in clearly before the warnings fogged up the reception on my favorite programs.

Not long ago, two nice young lads took pictures of me sitting at my computer. Ron said the clutter looked like Andy Rooney’s desk. I had to wait for a taped showing. Analog was on vacation, or there was a power outage.

The instructions that come with anything any more are given in two or three other languages. I am amazed at how many words have become a part of our day to day usage. I am also amazed that I had no idea how to plug in the little black box and how I had to search to find the instructions that should have been easy to find in plain English or should I say plain American?

This house has had problems with objects disappearing. There was the big balloon that hung near the ceiling for several days while I waited for it to come down low enough for me to grab the ribbon. It disappeared one day when I was away from home. I never did get a look at my picture that Martha had printed on the mylar surface.

We searched through the waste basket by my chair as well as through another sack of trash, but my remote control was another item that did a disappearing act. Remotes are replaceable. Now there are two more ‘remotes’ in this house for the pixies to carry away to their hiding places.

Other items are smaller. There was a button off. Sewing is something that was as much fun as reading. But I learned to sew using a thimble. There was an unsuccessful game of “Hunt the Thimble.” It is almost as hard to sew a button on without a thimble as it is to thread a needle with the shaky hand of an elderly person.

Each day the sun drops below the horizon a bit earlier. This year some one decided to have daylight time last an hour longer.

Tonight there will be such a wide choice of television programs that I may decide to watch instead of reading.

Decisions, decisions even with the longer lived light bulbs. We never get too old to learn.

Add your comments

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Not already registered?
Then click Here.

Comment policy:

JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.

In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.

We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.

No comment may contain:

* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.

If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.

Rockin Rotty wrote on Oct 13, 2008 7:00 PM:

" I feel your pain.

Remember when we felt like one of the privileged folks, when we got our first electric antenna rotor, & we no longer had to go outside & turn it with a wrench?

The good ole days - where have they gone. "

medic57 wrote on Oct 13, 2008 8:30 PM:

" We just reached out the window.

Besides, who, in this day and age has to even worry about not being digital, That I know of, you can't buy an analog TV for the last few years. "

Mike P wrote on Oct 13, 2008 10:26 PM:

" Recently some markets out east, switched early, to test the dropping analog and going digital issues. Digital signal is weaker, and doesn't have the same range. Channels some had were lost, and a few they didn't suddenly were there. Thousands of calls, were received from that test, and they estimate the national switch, will have close to the same results, with thousands of folks from large markets, loosing their long favorite stations.

I had hundreds of channels, on sattelite, and for 50 a month, still often had nothing but a hundred channels to surf, to find something, and do it again, when the show concluded. I went back to the antenna, several years ago. Trirty to fifty bucks, can be put to beter use, than carpal tunnel from wearing batteries in universal remotes out.

My rural phone line connects to the internet at 26k, if I am lucky. It took over a year, of staying on the phone company, to get it from the 14k, I had just a few years ago. Twenty six, is much better, as long as large files aren't tansfered, it works.

The paper might want to disable that hotlink to some .com, unless it has checked it out. If someone finds something objectionable, or gets a virus, from a link posted on the papers site, it wouldn't go well. A pinch of common sense, makes ignorance seem less prevalent, sometimes. "

jrhendren wrote on Oct 13, 2008 11:09 PM:

" I have a problem with stores making, although some small, profits off of something we have no control over. The government says, "Everyone has to go digital, go buy a converter. Here is $40 bucks to help." Now the cheapest I have seen have been $49.99 so they are cheap, but why should the cost the consumer $10.00 dollars even. Sounds a lot like when insurance was mandated and insurance prices went up. If the government is going to force digital, then converters should be provided. "

getoffmylawnstupidkids wrote on Oct 13, 2008 11:42 PM:

" Let's think about this... if you have "new" technology. How about READING THE DIRECTIONS!!!!!! "