Paul Saffo, writing in the City Brights section on SFGate.com, doesn't want to throw away his analog TV set. It sounds as if he really isn't interested in a converter box for it either─he doesn't want to lose the “snow.”

“Digital TV is wonderful, but there is one feature from the age of Analog TV that I will miss – snow,” Saffo wrote. “Yes, that warm white hiss that appeared whenever reception was bad, or a station went off the air. Snow isn't noise; it is signal, and the first humans to realize it won the Nobel Prize.

Take a moment to read his entire article - Save that old TV - there's a message in the 'snow'. In case you are wondering, Paul Saffo is a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering, teaches at Stanford University and holds degrees from Harvard, Cambridge University and Stanford University.