Slashdot Mirror
Trimming Television to Sell More Ads
gambit3 writes: "Tech TV has an article about a device called a "Digital Time Machine", that does something called "Time Trimming", which is basically a way to cut single frames from different scenes in TV programs, which, over the course of a 30 minute program, can add up to 30 seconds, which is, incidentally, the perfect length to add ANOTHER commercial."
...if I got my tremendous penis stuck in a digital time machine?
Is your company running tools written by ma
There was a story about this a few days ago.
There was a comment like yours a few hours ago.
all your first post are belong to us!
The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits that the average AOL user's personal homepage.
Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.
Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.
R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?
Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.
R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?
Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!
R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?
Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.
R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.
Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!
R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.
ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!
At this point I pull down my pants.
R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!
ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!
R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.
ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!
R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.
During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.
Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?
R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.
Me: Why am I not surprised?
R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!
Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.
---
Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
What pisses me off is that Fox went to all the trouble to pay for Futurama and The Simpsons, and then they keep running the "NFL Postgame" over the Groening time slots. Sometimes they "join the program already in progress," i.e., roll the last scene and credits for the show that "Howie" has blathered over for 25 minutes. Retarded. Shut up, Howie. We all saw the game already.
The one hour of TV I want to see during the week, and they fill it with redundant lip-flapping that contains no new information. Fucking football.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I asked Wil Wheaton about this on his web site.
His response:
"I like l'il boys!"
There you have it.
I have no problem with advertising. If I get something of quality for more or less free, i expect to have to watch something I may or may not find interesting (And i'm of the mind that i'd rather it be targeted, than not.) Now, i'm not an expert on economics or anything, but it seems to me slashdot is a -tad- too jumpy when it comes to stuff like this. As mentioned a bit earlier, they've been doing this on radio for ages.
[Note, the below doesn't neccesarily state my views, just an interpretation of the circumstances. The comment may or may not be based in rational thought; The statement has been engineered for slashdot audiences].
Has anyone else noticed that, if you havent entered your own URL, your url is set to http://slashdot.org/? Now, in a way, that could be interpreted as slashdot branding your comment. Say, for instance, if your post was quoted somewhere, in its entirety, that would be analogus to having one of those annoying "Come read at www.yahoo.com!" banners at the bottom of a mail. Doesn't seem very slashdot-like to me. How about have it default to, say, NOTHING like it did a few months ago.. or better yet, to the slashdot meta thread?
$0.02 refundable w/ $15.00 restocking fee.
I love cock. I love to be anally raped while sucking another man's cock and fondling my own balls. I wish I had some right now...
I, too, tried to tune into the Simpsons to find it preempted about 25 minutes while they said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. What was that all about? I'm not a football fan, but it truly seemed like these guys had absolutely nothing to say and were just mandated to fill in some time. Very frustrating.
Speaking of tactics like this: Perhaps the opposite, but I've noticed something very odd on WB shows (hey, look, my wife likes them. i.e. the Gilmore Girls, etc.): Every now and then there are Matrix like slow motion/weird motion effects put in absolutely normal scenes. I noticed this first on Buffy several years ago: Often when turning there head someone with the slew dial at WB has a little fun or something. I don't know why they do it (subliminally to make it etherworldly?), but it's very disorienting.
Catchy headline - too bad I feel too shitty to write anything witty.
---
Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
Anyone notice the ridiculous amount of commercials in ENTERPRISE its seems as if the 3 minute spam is now 6 minutes, is it just me?
This blows.