Interlaced Blinds and Your Flight from Environmental Justice

Any video nerd or TV buff knows what interlacing is: it's a way of removing every other line of video picture in order to save on transmission bandwidth. All television programs for decades were interlaced until the 2000s-era of HDTV streaming. Sounds boring? Who cares, right? But only in the crazy 1980s was interlacing made into an art form:

Do you see all those strikethrough lines in the mountain, which I'm assuming is supposed to be Half Dome in Yosemite National Park? Good job, you don't need glasses. In the '80s this became a definitive design trend. Even Windows -- you know, the operating system that runs on your PC -- started out more like window-blinds than actual windows. Look at the "O" in the center of the picture, and you'll see those interlaced blinds popping up.

You just can't get away from them, even when you shut off your computer and throw it off a cliff in anger because you hate Bill Gates and all the money he made off of you. You drive back to town in your DMC Delorean hoping to "phone home" to E.T. the whole sorry story of how you contributed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but since Apple is still trying to figure out how to make a Macintosh and hasn't invented an iPhone yet, you have to look for a Pacific Bell payphone instead. The only problem is that this isn't really the 1980s, but my fictional 2016 blog version of the 1980s, so instead of Pacific Bell on the payphone, you see AT&T. And now we come to the point: those interlaced blinds just came back to haunt you!

Yes, the Interlaced Blinds Monster knows who you are and what you've done. In terror you hang up and turn the crank hoping to get your change back from the phone call. With a horrible empty feeling now lining your stomach, you walk into the nearest Bob's Big Boy and sit down at a booth. The back of your neck is hot because you're wearing a thick denim jacket and the mullet you forgot to cut. Well, you say to yourself, at least you're safe now. With a breath of relief, you look at the TV playing in the corner. The Olympics are on, and -- gasp! -- the Interlaced Blinds Monster is BACK!

There's no help for it. Interlaced blinds are everywhere. The only thing you can do is to kill yourself and reincarnate thirty years later in the good ol' 2010s, when -- uh oh, this is terrible! It can't be! The '80s are making a huge comeback. You now have an iPhone, but your carrier is AT&T, and the Interlaced Blinds Monster still rears its ugly head!

Hey, at least they're 3D now, so maybe you're safe. You look back at the table to finish your burger, only to find that the restaurant has turned into a Chipotle Mexican Grill and there's a burrito in front of you. You finish it up -- it tastes pretty good -- and then you realize you forgot to get something to drink. Knowing you need to update your habits for modern audiences, you head to Starbucks and order a Pumpkin Spice Latte, non-dairy. You haven't set up Apple Pay on your phone yet, so you whip out your credit card, and -- your heart stops -- MasterCard hasn't changed its logo since the 1980s.

That's it, you say. I am going to kill the Interlaced Blinds Monster once and for all and send it back to the flaming pit from whence it came. But where is that, exactly? You do some research on this new Internet thing that everybody says is so cool and discover that the Interlaced Blinds Monster can become an acronym, so hereafter it will be known as IBM. According to Emblemetric, IBM was the first company to use interlaced lines/stripes in its logo, and every other tech copy-cat company for the next ten years followed in its wake.

The fight is over; there's no going back. IBM has taken over the world, and you can't escape. Therefore, cut off your mullet, put on your skinny jeans, and bury yourself in Snapchat. Welcome to 2016. Remember that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is mostly the result of fishing debris, so go vegetarian and stop feeling guilty that you chucked your old '80s computer into the sea.