The conspiracy in commercial television

Needed a title for this one...

Spent more than a normal amount of time watching the tube. Now, I recently ranted about the fact that they have to make 1 hour shows to get some story content across. Seems that is now eroded! At least in Canada (my next rant will be about the CRTC) it seems. The producers of our so called entertainment have such a subtle way of eroding the entertainment content that if you watch it regularly you never see it.

OK, cut to the chase! Since when did all the programs quit 5 minutes before the hour and start commercials? I thought my clock was wrong the first time, but now I see it all the time. First it was the little icon in the bottom corner telling us constantly what channel we were watching. Then the sticking of the credits off in a corner while they tell us about the next shows. Now it's the actual shortening of a show by 5 solid minutes.

Now we all know the real purpose of TV is to sell us crap. The fact that they chose to let us watch some pretend drama is only a side effect! In my delusional state I actually believe that the next phase will be when commercial time actually exceeds the actual story time. Hey, I predicted the home computer thing in the 70's! It scares me to think this time I will be right. But then again, I never believed that we would see commercials in movie theatres. But I had to be told that as I never go to movies. I do spend far to much time alone don't I ....

SUV manufacturers to make "rollover proof" vehicles

Ah, come on now! This is just a little to off the wall. Rather than make the vehicles properly (or teach drivers) they are going to let a computer take over. If the vehicle starts to become unstable and start to roll over the computer will take over and straighten it up.

Now, image the scene, you are loosing control on a curve and your choice is make the vehicle unstable (and possibly roll over) or smuck right into a cliff. Your computer takes over, straightens you up and {crash tinkle...}.

Hey, there are some things I want to be able to control!

tw

Bloggers are ignorant?

A librarian in Alaska writing in the local paper slammed bloggers as ignorant. Who the hell does he think he is in some safe local paper slamming something he obviously knows nothing about?

I agree some, perhaps most, blogs are just trivial rants. But, that was the true purpose of the internet when it was given to the educational institutes of the world. It was to be a place where we could exchange information and thoughts. Not a place to sell us a product like the commercial entertainment network (read television). Now granted, some blogs might be ignorant. But, ignorance is an objective view. And a lot of literature that was condemned as ignorant has gone on to be classical. Personally I would much rather read someone's "ignorant rant" than watch 60 minutes of crass commercialism mixed with some fantasy pretending to be reality on the tube!

And on that subject, all programs that used to be 30 minutes are all now 60 minutes. Ever wonder why? Simple, by the time you add the commercial content you don't have enough time in 30 minutes to tell even a plausable story!

So, keep on blogging. Even if you are called ignorant (which someone is probably calling me right now) you at least have the balls to put your thoughts out there for everyone...

In case you too want to comment directly to the perp that started this here is a quote from the article
"Greg Hill, a director of Fairbanks North Star Borough libraries, Alaska, has shared his views on bloggers in a piece in the local rag, the News-Miner"

tw

Data mining is actually here!

Well, my warning was too late. There is already a mainstream data mining firm selling information that can be harvested from the www.

Check out www.abika.com and see what they sell.

Don't say I didn't tell you so!

tw