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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Today I went to the ministry of health to update my OHIP card. The guy at the counter noted that our birthdays are very close together and that we both have a watershed birthday coming up this spring. "I don't care," he said, "you're only as old as you feel." Then, when he took my picture he said, "Is that one okay with you?" I shrugged "sure." It's not like I sit around staring at my OHIP card. Then he said, "even with the frizzy hair?" Then he said, "it's winter hair." Then he said, "I know that feeling." Then he said, "not that I have any hair." Then he said, "I'd rather have frizzy hair than no hair." I was pretty much done with saying things, myself, so I left. Which is all by way of introduction to my new favourite phrase:
"graceful degradation"Which has deposed my old favourite phrase:
"accelerated decrepitude"Here's what the current issue of Scientific American says about graceful degredation in their article on the broadcast transition to digital tv:
Even if your TV can receive over-the-air digital signals, that does not guarantee you can see the pictures. Analog offers what is called "graceful degradation": people in fringe reception areas can at least see something, even if the picture ghosts or fades in and out. DTV is not as forgiving. You either get it, or you do not.Being of a fairly murky mindset I find myself quite comfortable in the fringe reception areas. I grew up in the country without cable and spent a lot of time staring at something-less-than-completely-random TV snow that teased me with rare decipherable images hinting at the storyline of Battlestar Galactica. I'd rather have a fuzzy winter broadcast than no broadcast at all.