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YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button (Seriously)
teh31337one writes "YouTube always has had a way with pranks. Some time in the last hour, the world's largest video portal activated a new button on some videos that looks like a tiny soccer ball. Clicking it will activate an endless, incredibly annoying sound that sounds vaguely like a swarm of insects. Or, for anyone who has been watching the World Cup, like the dreaded vuvuzela — an instrument commonly played in South Africa at football (soccer) games. South Africa is, of course, the host country for this year's World Cup, and fans watching the games have been subjected to the vuvuzela's mindless drone for hours on end. The noise is so annoying that television networks have taken measures to filter it out, and guides have popped up showing viewers how to block it from their TV sets and computers. I'm not seeing the button show up on all videos, but it is definitely appearing on some clips that aren't soccer-related."
Why is it that all of these big web giants are doing stuff like this? It has been enough with Youtube adding the "like" button to mimic Facebook when upvoting or downvoting made more sense. But now we have Google automatically adding backgrounds to the search page when you don't want anything to change because it's distracting and works as it is already.
Not that the web should be completely static, but it's annoying when you have change for the sake of change in widely used sites.
Dreaded? Incredibly annoying? Come one, it's just a trumpet. I get the feeling that after all the prophets of doom predicted the stadiums wouldn't be finished and the fans would be murdered by criminals, they have nothing left to complain about except the little trumpets.
This is my new favourite internet meBBBBBBBbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttTTTTTT.
i have never understood why some people take such great pride in hating something
The one legacy the vuvuzela will have after the World Cup is the future exclusion of South Africa from ever again hosting any international sporting event.
That bastardised version of the blessed game Rugby, that Americans call Football, should really be called Throwball.. :-)
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Haha, I have always thought that American Football is the "pussy" version of Rugby.
A couple of weeks ago I went to Clermont-Ferrand and had the opportunity be there when their team won the France Rugby Championship. As it was on a weekend, I went to the central place to watch the game and the people. Ignoring the fact that people smell, I had a very nice time.
After watching the game I reassured my thoughts about American Football... oh how I would love that the "tough" American Football players had a go against one of these Rugby teams. They will run scared!
And about other places not having Baseball or other sports, GP could not be more wrong. Where I am from, Baseball is also quite famous and American Football is more or less viewed, but nothing like Football to unite all people and have a great time.
BTW, I find really funny how Americans name their events as if they related to all the world (like world series).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
...sometimes I think soccer was invented by suburban parents. It's kind of like the perfect politically correct game for kids in that they get to run around for a couple of hours and get tired, so they can go home peacefully, and not chew the legs off the furniture. You don't have to be exceptionally tall, or strong, really there's no physical requirement other than being able to run around and kick a ball. Often, no team actually wins, so there's no tears. And when somebody does win, they can easily console their child by saying, "well, you only lost by one point," or something close to that.
This is just one man's opinion, don't flame me bro.
That's what I was asking myself all the time, then with every single FIFA World Cup I am reminded why:
Incompetent referees: US being denied TWO game winning goals in TWO different matches (no refs, those weren't off sides). Brazil scoring a goal after a double handball (that fucked CIV for sure). Villa from Spain slapping a Honduras player: no infraction (should have been a straight red card)! And I won't even mention the hand of Henry. While most major sports have evolved to use video replay, not the FIFA! No sir! And even if you have clear video of players blatantly cheating, the FIFA won't do shit: see Ireland being fucked over by Thiery Henry and France. The FIFA is so stuck up and stubborn that even when Henry said: "Yes I cheated", they didn't do a thing.
Cheaters: Asshole Italian (De Rossi, I know, I am shocked too, Italian divers, who would have tought?! He did same exact thing in 2006.) dives in the Kiwi penalty area to get his team a penalty shot. I am pretty sure Italians have discovered a new force in nature because being pulled back from your shirt, somehow miraculously they fall forward! Endresult: Kiwis are fucked. Italy, France and Brazil along with Christian Ronaldo are masters of diving. As soon as one of their players is touched, they dive. Couple this with incompetent referees and a broken referee system and you got a clusterfuck of bad calls.
Playacting: Kaká being sent off with with double yellow card because Keita from CIV was "writhing" in immense pain on his head after being touched in the chest. I wish I had this insane ability of Kaká, just touch someone and this dude is in mega pain! Oh and let's not mention Miroslav Klose from Germany sent off as well because of obvious play acting from the serbian side. His first yellow card was completely unwarranted.
Every single game, watch players agonize in pain as if they are dying, 20 seconds later they are back on their feet and trucking along. Now watch a hockey game with a player receiving a puck in the face, losing a few teeth, bleeding, sits down on bench a few minutes, gets patched up and goes back playing. All this without one single moment of agonizing in pain, and I am willing to bet he was in infinitely more pain than the football player. Football is slowly becoming a joke, becoming almost as bad as WWE wrestling. The difference between WWE and football is that football is only partially acted out versus WWE is all acting. This is very unfortunate because the game is beautiful, but it's being ruined by a federation, the FIFA, stuck in a 1920 mentality and of course by the hordes of players who abuse the system to cheat.
PS: GO ORANJE!
There's no evidence that the degree of popularity of football in a society contributes to greater levels of violence and racism.
It is perhaps defensible that popular football provides a focus for the violence and racism already in a society, but that's a very different thing than causing violence and racism.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
You are only seeing the downsides because you choose to ignore the upsides; how many people's quality of life becomes better due to these games? There is more to life than just work work work after all.
Also, saying that football causes violence and racism is like saying the Ku Klux Klan caused violence and racism - they don't, they're just an excuse to be violent and racist. If your people weren't already violent and racist, football wouldn't cause them to behave that way.
If the biggest complaint to come out of the first world cup in Africa are the cheap noisemakers, I'd call that a win. Sure, your typical South African may be upset that people are complaining about the horns, but the organizing committee has to be thrilled that people are not complaining about violence, a lack of organization, or any of the other things people were worried about when South Africa was announced as the host.
It's not about stubbornness, it's about corruption. Bear in mind that FIFA is a predominantly French organisation, or it would have the letters in a sensible order. As it stands you can fix a game by bribing one person, who always has plausible deniability that he was unsighted or some other bullshit.
When England or the USA win the final with an Argentina style "header" - that's when FIFA will introduce video replay - retroactively.
P.S. Were you looking for your bike?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The FIFA could give each team three video decisions (like the three substitutions they have) challenge opportunities. When a team notices a ruling against them that has serious consequences (red card, goal disallowed, handball, etc...), they can stop the game and ask for a video ref's ruling. It would only interrupt games something like six times max per game. Yes it would lose a bit of fluidity but for the integrity of the sport, video replay is required.
Also, post play, referees could go through the footage and identify divers and play actors. Those will be sanctioned post game with red cards and/or suspensions. Worse, if they notice chronic play acting or diving from a team (I am looking at you Italy!), then they could suspend the entire team.
Unless the FIFA starts reclaiming the integrity of the game with serious sanctions against players and/or teams, the game will be plagued by cheating, diving and acting.
There's a difference between using correct punctuation (i.e. an apostrophe) and following style guidelines (i.e. italics, underlining, etc.). It's a little less pedantic to complain about punctuation than style.
A physically slow kid playing football is very much like a physically weak kid playing rugby: unless he *vastly* compensates for his shortcomings in other areas he's going to get himself and his team owned, and hard.
But perhaps you just don't notice because in the US the competence level in football is fairly poor to begin with, so as long as you've still got two legs you aren't that far from the average. In a country like Argentina however, you'd be fucked.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Well, there are many people who don't consider them boring (of course it also depends on the individual game). And usually a game just is 90 minutes.
Have you ever watched a tennis match? That's long and boring!
Really? Also I suspect it's not really a separate argument, but only some way to state the following argument:
Why should they score more points? The more points you score, the faster it gets boring, because soon it's more or less clear which team will win. If there are few points the game is generally open until close to the end.
I don't understand this point.
I disagree. But even if that were the case, that would be no argument against the game but only against the players.
Not all of them. But again, that's a problem of the refs, not of the game.
Some fans riot. And then, that's just coincidence. If there were no football, they'd choose any other reason to riot (maybe another sport, maybe something completely different). It's definitively not the game's fault.
Again, nothing about the game itself.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.