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I was trying to watch some of the archived shows that are available with my DirecTV Now account. Their 72-hour and on-demand playback features have been getting a back seat, and are still very unreliable.

Eventually I gave up and just went to a pirate site to watch the shows. WOW. The pirated shows happen to be commercial-free. An episode of a 30 minute sitcom is about 22 minutes. So 8 minutes - more than 25% of the playtime - is commercials. Some episodes are only about 20 minutes long, meaning 33% of the playtime is commercials.

I didn't remember there being this many commercials when I was a kid (I cut way back on my TV watching after high school). Sure enough, commercial time was less than 20% in the 1970s and 1980s. I may just continue to watch the shows on pirate sites. I've already paid for the licensing rights to view the shows, and the service I paid for is failing to deliver them. So by my reckoning it's not really piracy; I'm just doing what I have to to get what I paid for. If it happens to be commercial-free, so be it.

I don't know how accurate this is but interesting if true...
http://www.waynesthisandthat.c...

Most of the time I watch via PVR or streaming so my perception of actual commercial time is a bit skewed.

No, because it's unlikely you'll completely ignore the ad if you mute the TV or ignore the web ad because it still registers in your peripheral vision, sometimes you'll notice it by accident.

It is stealing if you read a magazine where the postman, following your instructions, has used scissors to cut out all the ads from it. That analogy is similar to this case.

That's a fantastic idea! Let's make the postal service relevant again!

So, am I to understand by your very narrow definition, heading to the kitchen to make popcorn, going to the bathroom, or in any way removing ourselves from the vicinity of the television while commercials are on is stealing, correct? Because the advertisers went to all the trouble to create and send us those obnoxious little video clips, helpfully sprinkled throughout video we are actually interested in seeing (and 'stealing' as much as 30% of our time to do so) we are obliged to participate? Fat chance, buddy. As one poster mentions, how long before an obligation to watch becomes an obligation to purchase? Oh, wait, it already is for online advertising, since the customer is footing the delivery bill...

You know what the most common comment from new Netflix users is? How much time they save watching their favourite shows. 20 minutes per half-hour episode, 40 minutes per hour-episode. If we added up all of the time that commercials have wasted out of our lives, I think the average person would be surprised (and probably quite angry) at the result.

We've paid enough. We're taking it back.

I cannot comprehend this entitled attitude. on cable tv you see ads. in a magazine or newspaper you see ads. before movies you see ads. during movies you see ad placements. so it's not like Netflix is proposing a crazy new concept

I cannot comprehend this apathy about the ongoing invasion of every bit of space and time by attempts at mind control. ("Buy! Buy! Buy!")

Once upon a time you actually could pick up some magazines and see very few ads, or even none at all. There were not ads before movies. Product placement was inconspicuous or non-existent. There was even less ad time on broadcast TV -- one guy estimates that the time spent on commercials more than doubled since the 1950s.

Ads as we know them are memetic toxins. Anyone unconcerned about them is unconcerned about their own mind.

This is not the link I was looking for, which showed detonation _inside_ the device casing, but it's a start:

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/abombs.html while

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_photography gives some good background reading, references, and links.

What the folks at UCLA have done seems pretty neat for getting real-world results (but maybe I'm easily amused.)

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/commerciallength.htm for a piece on pop-ups, logos, and increasing time given to standard commercials. When I was a lad a half-hour TV show was about 26 minutes; last I looked, more like 17 1/2. Haven't owned a TV in five years and didn't use it for two years before that. I now watch a half-dozen shows from Hulu and some of the networks' sites.

Seems like every time I look at the local cable company, everything's fifty bucks: digital cable, telephone, "high-speed" Internet. I got a "deal" from Time-Warner for Internet for $35, 7 down, 1 up. Real-world mileage varies.

Clearly you have never googled "stack lenses" or seen a lens coupling adapter or seen this guy's rig.

You just need find a set of lenses that reduces the chromatic aberration but still has a decent plane of focus. Lots of people have done crystal clear shots.

If stacking lenses doesn't work, then ophthalmologists have some explaining to do:)

What the hell is an evangelion? Related?

At least according to Widipedia, one third of an hour-long show is taken up by commercials.

Good explenation of MPD