Don't Touch That Dial

    This article was inspired by a technical error I can't replicate through writing, nor refer to in official documentation (unless I missed something). The overhead digital projector in one of the classrooms I attend, in between displaying its computer signal and a neutral, soothing blue screen displayed something curiously familiar: tv static.

you may be familiar...

    For a brief instant, the "snow" felt oddly comforting. It made me think of old movies in the basements of old houses. It reminded me that Hunter Thompson liked to fall asleep to white noise (white noise, side note, actually having some therapeutic benefit?). It made me wonder if my teacher needed to climb on the roof and adjust the antenna. 

    Then it hit me: what the heck? Technically speaking/as this helpful reddit page explains, tv static was originally the cause of an internal mechanism within the television: the amplifier, normally in charge of boosting whatever signal it received (from the antenna), found itself with nothing to boost. As a result, whatever low grade hum is normally generated by the television's inner workings but content to stay in the background found itself thrust on to the big screen; random bits of electricity translated through a (literal) series of tubes.

    None of those components are part of the computer => projector => screen setup described above. Which means that someone intentionally programmed a different, digital error to replicate the symptoms of an error of yore. Programmatically speaking, said error seems to have been programmed in within the HDMI cables themselves. Specifically, whenever one of them suffers a faulty "handshake". As you can see, this technical error kicked off a philosophical inquiry around the question of "...but why?" Why take the extra time to create an extra layer of representation around an issue? 

    Unfortunately, this question may be somewhat sophomoric; the likely answer is in the question itself. Without any proof, I would wager it was created specifically to lend an extra layer of representation to aid in user debugging. Specifically, in this non-investigative reporter's opinion, it was used to create the aid of giving "comfort" to the user, as they go about the process of trying to fix their utility.

    Think about it: a brand new display for a brand new type of problem hits an incredibly raw nerve, leaving us feeling vulnerable and terrified. Need proof? Look no further than the infamous "Blue Screen of Death". Likewise, no matter how familiar the type of problem may be (in this case, a faulty connection), an unfamiliar error display (ie, an empty black screen) could easily leave the user feeling immediately overwhelmed and frustrated. 

    This is where the benevolent HDMI programmers have mercifully decided to lend their creativity and compassion to us, their mere users, as we bumble ineptly through their technologically forbidding world.

    I'm exaggerating above (or maybe patting myself on the back as an aspiring programmer). But on a more philosophically-grateful note, it is fun to think about the ways the creative (and even humorous) side of programming has been extended itself to the world of disfunction. Early-00's webtoon series HomeStarRunner and N64 platformer Conker's Bad Fur Day both had a lot of fun (vulnerably?) sharing in the very real feelings of frustrations that come with failures of technology.

    But, although not humorous, and created sixty years ago, my favorite example of reveling in fictional technological failure is still Star Trek: The Original Series. A poignant blend of case for techno-optimism and case against techno-determinism, the show invited viewers (in the sixties!) to dream of pocket-sized wireless communicators and medical scanners, and told tales of societies growing complacent around tidy but lethal war games, or human hubris allowing scientific achievement to run amok (or worse). 

    Thanks to the constraints of television, viewers were able to grapple with these questions and still rest easy knowing that the ship's heroic Captain Kirk, would save the day in the end. "But how," I can hear you ask, "did he do that?" Oddly enough, a good deal of the time the answer involved Kirk following his human intuition (over someone-else-of-power's blinding ambition), and destroying the technology that was on a path of destruction.

    The reason I bring this up is: remember, it was the sixties. The show was set two hundred years in the future, featured space travel as a core concept, and frequently protested racial injustice with an undying belief that "by then" it would be a thing of the past. And yet: within the show when a computer breaks, it breaks the way a computer would break, if it was (still) operated by reels of tape.

    Don't believe me?

    I love this show. And it's always cracked me up (hell it still cracks me up) that for all of its forward thinking, its physical machines were stuck in the past. At least, that's what I've always assumed; that the malfunctioning motors represented a lack of imagination on some writer's part. 

    After hitting that replicated tv snow, however, I feel that much less intellectually superior. Maybe my instant ability to "debug" the issue the machines were displaying (despite my never having lived among their working counterparts) is actually a testament to that writer's power of imagination - and storytelling. Maybe in the end I was the one who needed to learn to be, oh let's say, a little more human... 

   Does this mean 'lesson learned'? Is this when the credits roll?