Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Far more annoying than either of these are the fucked-up popup "slide window" ads that obscure the bottom 1/3 of every fucking video on Youtube these days.
I've taken to just clicking the Download Helper button and downloading whatever video to my desktop, so I don't have to see those stupid annoying ads and can actually see the video I was looking for.
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'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.
No, I'm not a "leecher."
On the other hand, I came to see the video. If they want to run a 5-10 second bit before the video plays, like many other video sites do, I have absolutely no problem with that. They need their advert money, fine. If they want to put ads down the right side, as long as they're not neon flashing crap or those annoying expanding "a truck runs all across your screen covering up the article you came to read" flash ad crap, fine.
Where I get annoyed is that the ads are actually BLOCKING MY VIEW OF THE VIDEO. Many times, it's blocking my view of a foreign news clip or something else that has subtitles (like Auto-tune The News), which means the subtitles themselves are getting blocked.
Google/Youtube needs to learn: STOP FUCKING COVERING UP THE VIDEO. It's damn annoying and no, it does NOT make me more likely to buy the advertised product. Far from it, I'll get even more pissed off if I mis-click the tiny-ass little "x" button to get the fucking thing to go away, and then either have a new page popup happen, or have my browser wander away from the video entirely.
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.