“Three years and counting … your TV’s won’t work unless you upgrade to digital … but we’ll help you in the transition”. That’s the message Congress decided for us last year. Why do I get nervous when the federal government says “I’m here to help?”

CNNMoney.com carried an interesting article about this proposed transition today.

Here’s how the government will help: “Congress has set aside about $1.5 billion to smooth the transition. Owners of outmoded TV sets will be eligible for two vouchers, worth $40 each, to help buy converter boxes that will enable today’s analog TV sets to receive digital signals.”

My guess is that I’ll be able to upgrade myself to digital when I figure out what needs to be done. However, I’ll bet there will be a lot of people lost in this new chapter of the digital divide.

Tags: Television
DTV
Digital Divide

Good article from Ed Oswald of BetaNews, detailing the many positive steps taken by Apple in 2005.

Tags: Apple

Wonderful picture and message on the home page of sun.com today.

Tags:
Sun Microsystems

I’m in route to California from Arizona, and am using the recently-installed WiFi wireless Internet access at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. This has been provided a free service by the City of Phoenix, which owns and operates the airport. This should be a real benefit for the people passing through this airport.

Tags: WiFi
Phoenix
Sky Harbor

CNN reported that “The chief designer of Apple Computer Inc.’s phenomenally popular iPod digital music player was named Friday in the Queen’s Honors List. London-born Jonathan Ive, 38, Apple’s senior vice president of design, Friday was awarded the title of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth.”

Congratulations, Jonathan, and thank you Apple, for your superb designs. I’m a latecomer to the iPod world, but have long admired Apple’s commitment to elegant design.

Tags: Apple
iPod
JonathanIvie

The announcement that the NSA used persistent cookies on their web site reminds me of a phrase I saw on in a worker’s cubicle at Alcoa many years ago, “Intelligence, even if artificial, is preferable to stupidity, no matter how genuine.”

Sounds like we have a case of bumbling stupidity here, not a calculated effort to spy on us all.

But, of course, we could take the popular position that the NSA is a subversive organization trying to undermine the populace. But if we take that position, we must acknowledge the Cookie Monster is an NSA undercover operative.

Tags: Cookies
NSA
Privacy
Stupidity

This brief delay makes the Sun winter break longer than I thought!

Tags: Time
Clock
Sun Microsystems

This Christmas, we discovered the coolest toy I’ve seen for a long time. Through the local Sun office, we participated in a Salvation Army Christmas Angel program. An eight year old boy we chose to help requested a Magnetix magnetic construction set, produced by Rose Art Industries. I’ve probably been living in a cave, but I hadn’t heard of these before. It is a simple concept – just several rigid or flexible plastic sticks with a magnet at each end, and a supply of steel ball bearings. Simple, but a lot of fun.

So, in addition to the set we got for the young boy, we bought some for ourselves. We’ve had a blast.

Our grandson, Devlin had a good time attaching the parts together. My 12 year old daughter was enthralled.

And I made this little sculpture, using all the parts we have.

Tags: Magnetix
Rose Art
Christmas

I’m taking a look at Bloggar, a freeware blogging client that I hope will make my blogging adventure a bit easier. If this message magically shows up on my blog, my first test will have been successful.

It worked. Wahoo!

Jonathan Schwartz is listed on the

AO/Technorati Open Media 100 – the “power list of bloggers, social networkers, tool smiths, and investors leading the Open Media Revolution.”

Congratulations, Jonathan!