AC to DC by 2020?

I’d heard about the upcoming transition from analog to digital TV signals, although I hadn’t really paid attention to the date (February 17, 2009) since I don’t actually watch TV. What did pique my interest was the fact that the U.S. government is offering subsidies to households who do not procure a digital TV before the switchover date. If you still “only” have an analog TV, you can get a $40 coupon for a converter to enable you to continue getting your TV fix. No, wait: one TV per household certainly doesn’t satisfy our modern demands! That might require that the whole family watch the same show at the same time. But those clever guys at the Department of Commerce (guess who wants you watching more TV?) are one step ahead: you can now get this subsidy for two TVs per household! Now that’s America in action. We’ll show the world who’s a first-world country, and who can’t even get their constituents one TV per household.

The real point of this post, though, is about a different mandated transition that I recently discovered. By 2020, the DIRECT initiative mandates that all public and private power grids in the country be converted from AC to DC power — and by 2030, all new devices must be able to plug into this DC power bonanza without needing a converter. DIRECT stands for Development Initiative for Return to Edison Current Technology, and it’s sure to have Tesla rolling in his grave. When did this happen? Why wasn’t I told? This is a change that could have real potential for affecting my life!

I wasn’t told because apparently it’s all … an April Fool’s joke. The above link is to Lauren Weinstein’s column in the April issue of Communications of the ACM, in which it is presented without apology or caveat (although with the title “A Current Affair” and an exceedingly poor pun in the final paragraph). Googling to find out more about the “initiative” revealed its positioning as a satire piece. So what I learned today was: don’t trust the ACM! At least not in April. :)