Philo Farnsworth is dead
UPDATE 19 July: Who the hell is John Logie Baird?! Did he beat Philo by two years? And what the hell is "mechanical television"? Damn you, Internet, and all your useful information!
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September 7, 1927, Utah inventor Philo Farnsworth first transmitted an electronic picture to a glass screen in another room.  The birth of television.
 
It occurred to me as I walked through the Best Buy out here in Riverside yesterday looking to replace my busted CRT monitor that I was witnessing the end of the era ushered in by Farnsworth and the beginning of another.
 
Judging by the televisions and computer monitors for sale there, the cathode-ray-tube is on its way out and it's going to take Philo Farnsworth with it.  Not that anyone will care.  Nobody knows who invented TV anyway.  Ask anyone and they'll probably say Henry Ford, Thomas Edison... Mr. Wizard maybe.
 
Did I just date myself with that last one?
 
So Mrs. Pops and I decided on a flat-screen LCD monitor.  The price was low enough that we could reasonably afford it.  It's a Samsung SyncMaster 712n.  I imagine that means something to someone.
 
No more static crackle when the screen comes to life.  No more warm-up time waiting for the image to appear.  No more huge separate box for the monitor when someone buys a new computer.  The cathode ray tube's moment in the sun is fading.
 
Although I'm pretty sure the manufacturer would recommend against leaving your cathode ray tube out in the sun.
 
The new monitor purchase plus early birthday dinner for Mrs. Pops (she comes crashing out of her twenties tomorrow, a Monday she has chosen to go to work on) put us over $500 for the day.  Hooray us and our imprudent spending habits.  If I have to pawn this thing to pay next month's mortgage, you'll know, mostly by the blankness of this space.
 
But good news: the living testaments to Mr. Farnsworth's work are still available at rapidly decreasing prices.  All you need do is get someone to help you carry it out of the store.
 
 
This post on the Narcissus Scale: 2.6 (lowest one yet!)
 
 
Pops

Edit: Here's a link. .  Learning is good.  Don't do drugs.  Stay in school.




- posted by Pops @ 2:30 PM