Slashdot Mirror
Watching My Neighbors Watch On-Demand TV
Josh Levin, Slate Magazine writes "I have a magical box that allows me to watch other people watch TV — their movies, their sports, their cartoons, and their hour-long procedural dramas. And sometimes, usually around 11:30 on Friday nights, their soft-core pornography... I solved the mystery by consulting online message boards. At techie sites like AVS Forum, other voyeurs described their adventures in freeloading. I was intercepting video-on-demand channels through the power of my Samsung's QAM tuner."
...he's only watching what they're watching...
Yeah, between childrens tv shows and softcore porn there isn't much that interesting, except that when they watch the nudity scene in a movie and then replay it 5-8 times.
Watching what other people watch can be fun.
I use stumble video and will often check out what my friends have watched recently, but the real interesting videos are to be found within the logs of random users.
People find and like the strangest things.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I have the lesser model of that device called binoculars lol ;) but hey don't yell at me, my neighbors are WEIRD! I gotta keep an eye on them lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I have the same thing going on with my TV. At first you think, "Wow! Free VOD!" but then you realize you have no clue when a show starts, no way to unpause if the real viewer gets a phone call or goes to the bathroom, and well... it's pointless. You end up flipping through a good 50 channels for hours having literally no clue what shows are on and no clue if that person will finish them.
It sounds neat but it's rather boring and partially stinks since you have to manually program those channels out. I mentioned this happening when the cable guy stopped buy and he seemed pretty "meh" about it.
Channels 97, 100, 115 seem to be the on-demand channels in my area.
I was showing off the ability to intercept on-demand programming to some of my friends the other day and we happened to come across some of the softcore porn being fast forwarded through. Curious to see what they were fast forwarding to, we watched for a little bit... the person fast forwarded to a dialog interlude. Our curiosity piqued, we watched a little more and noticed that as soon as the actual intercourse portion of the movie started, they fast forwarded to the next scene that included dialog.
Could we have found the only person in the world who reads playboy for the articles?
Ya know, Softcore is actually sexier, as in, more of a "turn on" than the hardcore stuff. The hardcore stuff comes across as more anatomical than anything - at least in my advancing age.
I said "cums" ...huh, huh, huh....
OK, I'm not too advanced in mental age because I still think of "Beavis and Butthead"...I said "Butt"...huh, huh, huh...heh.....heh...heh....
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
"People find and like the strangest things."
Surfing Slashdot.
Imagine sitting alone on a Friday night, no girlfriend in sight, flipping through the channels, running dead up against a soft-core channel, looking wildly left and right irrespective of loneliness, yanking at the wanker furiously hoping there is time, and then being beaten by the creep next door who started early and staring at Ma Bush staring back at you from CNN.
Having a program randomly fast forward and go back and repeat parts sounds like watching TV when my wife has the remote. Except for the porn part.
No thanks, already got some.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's not exactly the same thing, but close enough. All it would take is a prick DA and an idiot judge. Neither are in short supply.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I wonder if the author realizes that all of the over the air HDTV stations are broadcast on UHF frequencies so you need only a standard UHF attenna. Those are the loop kind or occasionally they enclose the loop in a rectangular thing. You can fold the rabbit ears down because you don't need them at all.
Still, this is interesting. I might think about running a cable feed to the tuner and see what happens. I went with OTA in the first place because the cable company wasn't carrying the local NBC and FOX stations in HD but now they are. Never even dreamed I'd get the occasional free VOD stuff.
We you got something good, keep your yap shut.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I learned how to make martinis, tie a bow-tie, and properly wear a suit.
They have had some great interviews. I highly recommend PLayboys articles.
I also look at the naked ladies.
My wife even bought me a subscription. Which I let lapse when we had children.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why does it need to be encrypted? he has no control over the show, the fast forwarding, the changing of channels. Pretty difficult way to watch TV.
Plus it's not like you know WHO is watching it.
Encrypting it costs them money, and doesn't give anybody any gain.
He is not circumventing a protection, and I would be very interested to read the opinion of any lawyer who feels this is a violation of the DMCA.
Yesh, there are a lot of stupid clients the tell their lawyers to send out notices, but they never seem to go anywhere.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
About as likely.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
HDHomeRun
Nothing else really comes close. Yeah, you can get HD tuner cards for a little less money, but they're a pain in the ass to work with and generally are less functional. An HDHomeRun is not just a tuner (actually, it's two tuners), but it's networked, so you can do everything with it that you can with a PCI tuner, but you can do it from any computer in the house.
It's a pretty brilliant little box.
Oh, and it works well with Linux, MythTV in particular. Once you start using that, you'll never go back to watching realtime TV.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who would have thought it was possible to invent something more boring than watching TV. Of course... watching people as they watch TV. Genius!
/Mike
I think I just felt the world get a little dummer.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Funny how the comcast spokesperson lies:
Cable encryption is done per channel, not per title. The problem is that Comcast's infrastructure is built on SeaChange, which is running Windows NT 4 (if I remember correctly). They just can't handle the load.
The other architectures (non-SeaChange) can handle encrypted VOD streams, but tend not to because the operator hasn't thought about it.
And lastly, encryption of VOD content is done by fiat from corporate - that's how the cable industry works. And that's exactly the kind of thing that corporate is for - to set systemwide policies like that.
Think about things like slash and yaoi, which have been getting increasingly popular for women. They range from soft- to hard-core, and while a lot of them go for the emotional side of sex and relationships, there's no shortage of just straight sex. Ok, so "straight" is probably the wrong word. Or 'Queer as Folk' - huge female audience, and that's not because they identify with the single pair of lesbians. It's not guys writing all that Sparrow/Norrington or Aragorn/Faramir fiction out there.
Frankly, as a woman my issue with actual porn in general is the same issue I have with movies in general. They're poorly made, the good ones are few and far-between. And frankly, if you're talking about limiting the misery, hardcore films at least have sex to break up the bad acting/lighting/costuming/etc. I'd have to disagree that hardcore sex is inherently violent - it's simply graphic. Maybe you're watching the wrong ones? =) Try looking for hardcore that is marketed to women... it tends to be better, all around. Especially if what you're wanting is something your wife/girlfriend/fling will watch with you.
I suppose the point I really want to make is that women are very much like men in that they're individuals. If you think you're going to "understand" women like they are some sort of weird single organism, it's just not going to happen. Interest yourself in the individual and you're more than half there.
~ Leilah