A musing on cable cards

Cable cards that plug into your television for HD signals are supposed to be the wave of the future, but it's very slow going. This week I had a cable card installed in my Sharp television in Nevada City (http://www.nevadacitychamber.com/history.htm), Calif., and was told by the Comcast cable guy that I was only the third person out of 10,000 subscribers in the county to get one. One reason cable TV companies don't like them: The companies can't sell you pay-per-view movies without a clunky digital box. A cable card sure reduces the clutter around your TV, though.