Delay for the All-Digital TV Switchover

Further Update: In Second Vote, House Delays Digital TV Transition -- This is ridiculous!

Digital TV Switchover Delay Gathers Steam in Congress


I started looking for an article to use for class several days ago (and, by the way, did not even notice until now that the DTV situation was the subject of one of the suggested articles!), so the one above is now outdated. The situation has changed, as the House has voted down the bill to delay the rollout:

House Kills Bill to Delay Switch to Digital TV


This is still an issue I want to comment on. I used to work as an IT support person, and I still act somewhat in a support role at my job as a library assistant. The DTV rollout is not so different from any technological change that has to be implemented. From my understanding of the measures taken by the Federal Government to facilitate the rollout, such as an informational campaign and coupons to rebate consumers of the digital converter boxes, there was a lot of thought put into helping U.S. citizens upgrade to digital TV. The television networks and local stations also are taking part in informing the public about the change. It has been in their best interest to make sure that the most people possible had upgraded by the deadline so that those without a digital television or cable could still watch their programming.

So Obama is worried that around 6 million homes will wake up to snow on their TV screens, which is the basis of his support of a delay. This is, I believe, representative of a misguided ideal about the role of Federal Government. And it makes sense, as he is a member of the Democratic Party. (And I am too, but I lean very Libertarian). Let's take care of those people who are ignorant of the coming snow on their TVs!

There are obvious support issues that will come to pass with the rollout. People who have thus far remained ignorant of the situation will have to get the information that 60 million or so other households have already gotten and acted upon. Those 6 million homes might be full of panicked people without benefit of their main information source. It might take those people an entire week to figure out what's going on and get their television service back. What if in that week there was a disaster in which the citizenry needed to know about what was going on, and the consequence for their week without TV was greater than not being able to watch "Lost"?

I thought that's why everyone had a radio available somewhere in their house or car, in case of an emergency.

The only way to get those 6 million households on board is to just pull the plug. Over time the number of snowy TVs will dwindle. People need to be allowed to figure out how they will be a part of the current information age. Although I agree that more rural and poor areas need to have infrastructure developed for internet access, and even possibly have this infrastructure funded partly by the government, it seems over-the-top to worry about a lack of television that can be fixed quickly and cheaply.

Better IT Needed for Our Executive Office

Obama Gets His BlackBerry, but What About Facebook?

This article in PC World describes the variety of IT troubles encountered by the Obama Administration due to bureaucracy and a seeming lack of imperative by the Federal Government's IT staff to update the existing state of White House technology. The president is now allowed his Blackberry, albeit with super-encryption and restrictions on its use. However, the email accounts for Obama and his staff were not ready for use when he took office, there is a ban on instant messaging use, and the whitehouse.gov site is not being maintained to the standards that Obama's previous sites have been. Also, the future of Obama's successful means of disseminating information to net literate citizenry through facebook, youtube, and flickr are in question.

I would agree with a paranoid government in a dangerous age that we need massive security for the digital information produced by the Executive Office. I know in my own life that anyone with the know-how and desire could find out almost everything I think, experience, and do. This is because there is practically no security on most of my internet activities. I'm sure that there are many more with the desire to know what the president is up to than those who care about my activities, and that of those there are some with the know-how to bypass quite a lot of security.

But this is an exciting time technologically, as information can be disseminated instantly to a far-reaching population. And there is no time like the present for the IT of the White House to get in step. This is a time when our economy is a shambles, we are at war, and a civil rights movement is underway. Momentous change is taking place and not only do we have the right to know what is going on, but the technology exists for any of us to get on a computer (or an XBox, or a Wii, or a cell phone) and find out RIGHT NOW. How embarassing for the government that I can find out the latest NFL trade announcements online before seeing the texts of executive orders our president has signed!

Effects of Video Games on Children

Psychiatrist Examines Video Game Play on Children

This article is a press release for a new book written by Dr. Kourosh Dini, a psychiatrist who has worked with children and adolescents in relation to gaming behavior and its effects. The book, Video Game Play and Addiction: A Guide for Parents, examines all sides of a contentious issue that continues to concern parents, medical groups, the media, and the highest legislative body of the U.S. ("Congress Ponders Videogame Warning Labels").

In the book, Dr. Dini, a gamer himself, not only covers the often cited issue of video game addiction and influence on violent behavior. He also presents the research on the effects of video games on development of improved learning and communications skills and on the development of empathy.

I'm personally interested in the subject matter of this book because I am a parent of both teenagers and a small child, and I am also a gamer myself. My own computer gaming history as a child began with a teacher sometime in kindergarten or first grade loading a game called "Space Invaders" on a TRS-80 computer. Later, after my father purchased the first model of IBM-PC, I voraciously found puzzle, adventure, and primitive video games to play. A fond memory is my father and I working for weeks to figure out the original Zork I adventure developed by Infocom.

I've always encouraged my kids to play video games of all sorts. I know that to learn the rules of a game and play it successfully is in itself an important learning experience. Doing so helps even the youngest children develop reasoning skills. This is true of any game, not just video games. When my youngest was two, I sat her down to a chess board and taught her the names of all the pieces. I would take one color of pieces, and she would take the other, and we would take turns putting our pieces somewhere on the board. No, this wasn't chess, nor was it competitive, but it laid the groundwork for teaching her some gaming concepts in the future, and it emphasized the always important skill of being able to take turns.

There are many examples I can give of game playing by my children, but I will use my now four-year-old's gaming experience to demonstrate the extremely positive influence that computerized games have on children. She has a character on the MMORPG World of Warcraft named Taena. She made all the decisions regarding the development of the character such as name and appearance, with us helping actually click in the right places. We taught her how to move her character around, and how to fight the monsters. When she plays, she often needs our help because it is a complicated game and she can get stuck on walls and fences when she walks around. But she is still able to do things in the game for herself before she gets frustrated with it.

Playing this game has given her experience with technology that will be all-important in her future. The interface of World of Warcraft, when broken down to its basic concept of using the keyboard and mouse as the cause to create resulting effects, gives her experience with how to manipulate computers in general. The world she lives in will never go back to a time when it was unnecessary to understand how to interface with a computer.She also is able to use World of Warcraft for the oldest and arguably most important childhood activity: pretend play. My husband had left her playing while he prepared dinner. He came back into the room and found her in a dining area of one of the game's many Inns. She had sat in one of the chairs and was pretending to have a surprise party with the characters that were in the room.

Another interesting experience related to her World of Warcraft play was when one of our cats died. She was very sad about it, and we were trying to explain the death to her and how we would always remember Sabrina but that she wasn't coming back. "Not like in World of Warcraft," she said. "Dead people come back because that's a game. Sabrina is gone because she's really dead." An interesting statement from a four-year-old considering lawmakers and medical practitioners would like us to believe that violent videogames blur the distinction between fantasy and reality for teenagers!

The last example, though there are many more, that I will give of the benefits I've seen videogames have for my daughter is from when she and I were looking at the games that came with our new laptop. We started a game I had never played before, and I was having trouble at first figuring out what to do because I didn't read the instructions. Just as I figured it out (a marble had to be put in the appropriately colored hole by using the walls, and a "marker" to draw walls), she shouted out "You draw around the ball to put it in the hole!" She was able to flex her reasoning "muscles" to figure out the game, and in fact did so as quickly as the adult she was observing play the game. Reasoning skills take practice and experience just as much as raw intelligence, and games provide an opportunity to use those skills.

If Dr. Dini's book is as fair-minded about its subject matter as the press release indicates, it should be required reading for Congress before voting on any further videogame related legislation.