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I accidentally watched some TV the other day. Having not seen any regular programming for at least a year, I was amazed at how much ... dumber it has become. Al
by neals 9y ago
I accidentally watched some TV the other day. Having not seen any regular programming for at least a year, I was amazed at how much ... dumber it has become. Also, why did we sit through so many commercials for so long? It feel a little like a twilight zone episode, where we sit there watching a box telling us what to buy.
- bastawhiz 9y agoEvery year when I go home for Christmas I watch TV with my parents and I'm always astounded that they pay more money than me to get access to worse content, and it has ads. It's really astounding that folks put up with it.
- otakucode 9y agoI have the same experience. I visit my parents about once every other month and usually end up watching a show or two with them. The programs are amazingly childish junk, the kind of stuff that disturbed me most about high school enshrined as sport. And the advertisements just never stop. If anyone has any doubt what the goal for Comcast will be now that net neutrality is gone, it will be to make Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc cost more than the Comcast On Demand stuff (which has ads you can't fast-forward through, a tiny selection, etc). So once it costs you $12 to watch 2 movies on Netflix instead of $12 to watch movies all month long, then they will feel that the playing field is 'fair'.
- itronitron 9y agoI haven't watched cable since ~2009 and no longer subscribe. Not only are the shows just bad, but the image quality is terrible. If ISPs drag down the streaming video services then I hope Netflix returns to a robust DVD distribution model. IF not then I'll just buy DVD box sets before I support extortion.
- DubiousPusher 9y agoI think TV remains popular with certain people largely out of ease of use. You can just turn it on and you don't have to make a decision about what to watch. It's always there. Also, changing would require learning something new. People genuinely find learning to have a level of discomfort so they avoid it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/learning-hurts-your-brain/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/learning-hurts-your-...
- macintux 9y ago> You can just turn it on and you don't have to make a decision about what to watch. That...doesn't jive with the limited exposure I've had to cable television. Hundreds of channels and very little good on, I suspect people waste a lot of time flipping through.
- __jal 9y agoYep. Visiting relatives frequently involves me watching them flip channels until I can't take it anymore and go read. Having never owned a TV myself, I'm actually considering buying one now. The fact that shows are actually getting better, combined with how easy it is to wait for other people to be a filter, combined with no ads makes TV actually attractive to me for the first time since I was like 5. But still zero reason to pay for cable.
- macintux 9y agoWhen the digital transition took place, my TV sat idle for about a year until a line of severe storms rolled through and I decided making it usable again made some sense. Went out, bought a nice directional antenna, bought a converter box from a friend, turned it on. 5 minutes later I realized I had zero tolerance for ads shouting at me, boxed everything up, and eventually took the TV to recycling. (It also nearly put me in the hospital, big CRTs are big.) My iPad and Netflix/iTunes are all I need. Someday maybe I'll get a 13" iPad Pro and stick it on a wall, but I doubt it.
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- Spooky23 9y agoI think the “Frosty the Snowman” special on live TV ran almost 90 minutes... the commercials were agonizing. Also, kids are consuming a lot of highly effective YouTube ads.
- viraptor 9y agoGetting rid of adverts on yt for all family is $10/mo, which I'm thinking is not that crazy. It's also a part of Google music family subscription for $15/mo - you get YouTube Red included.
- nuclearchicken 9y agouBlock Origin and similar other add-ons, plus some hostfile entries largely mean I don't see any ads anywhere. I also block them on my router for extra diligence. They simply don't get called. The way it's supposed to be.
- aembleton 9y agoHow do you block them on your router? I'm using Pi-hole but I still get Youtube ads through my Chromecast.
- nuclearchicken 9y agoLook at Ad Free Time. You have to have certain routers. I don't use a Chromecast or any other device like a Roku, so dealing with them is an unknown for me.
- nasredin 9y agoDD-WRT firmware (done via hosts file). You can also runs pixelserv that will return a 1 pixel image so you don't get any errors.
- viraptor 9y agoUblock doesn't cover mobile devices though. And even if you block it on the router, once you leave the house it's only available via vpn. And if you're going that far and making it available for your whole family and are on the hook for support... Maybe it's easier to just pay a few bucks a month. (Unless you're really enjoying doing it by hand, I guess)
- the_common_man 9y agoWell, this is true for most of the netflix series and must content out there (youtube etc). They just pump out show after show tailored for binge watching. The whole thing is just dumb.
- QAPereo 9y agoYeah, but you never have to watch what you don’t want, including ads.
- draugadrotten 9y agoIf you believe you are not watching ads when you watch Netflix, you need to look into the product placement in their shows. Drinks, watches, cars, clothes, all brands and even quite a few locations... it is all paid for, to entice you to buy.
- QAPereo 9y agoSure, and it makes me squirm a bit, but I can’t stop PP. even better reduces how much time I spend thinking critically about how I’m being manipulated, which is just a relief. Except for product placement, and I suppose billboards, I just don’t see ads anymore. I don’t hear them in my music, they only exist as product placement in my television and movies, I don’t see them online. I’ll take that reduction any day, and just accept the total elimination is unlikely.
- chc 9y agoProduct placement and ads both serve the purpose of promoting something, but they're not really the same thing at all. I mean, both cars and bikes serve the purpose of transportation, but I don't think many people would argue that driving a car is basically riding a bike.
- gozur88 9y agoThe line gets fuzzy when scenes are added to the show purely for product placement. In my mind that's an ad.
- nostromo 9y agoThere's a feedback loop in play: Smarter people stop watching TV > TV adapts to the new demographics to fight over dwindling ratings > TV becomes dumber > Even more smarter people stop watching TV
- ironic_ali 9y agoSo, is TV the Nigerian Prince of media now, because only the less mentally/technically able fall for its low brow offerings?
- EpicEng 9y ago>I was amazed at how much ... dumber it has become I had the same reaction this Thanksgiving when I was at my Dad's. I don't think it actually has become dumber, we're just not used to it anymore. I felt like I was watching commercials with a bit of content sprinkled in. I cut the cord about six years ago.
- bogomipz 9y agoIt's amazing how many channels do "in show" advertising as well. It started with station logo water marks and now its amazing to see how much of the lower right hand corner of the screen is seen by networks as acceptable to use for advertising another show while the current show or sporting event is running.
- emodendroket 9y agoI don't think TV was actually less stupid in the past, but boy do I get sick of watching the same commercials fifty times watching a football game.
- redial 9y agoIt might not have been, but the comparison makes it more evident.
- emodendroket 9y agoI don't follow, but I think what's more likely at work here is nostalgia glasses.
- nostrademons 9y agoI suspect regular programming isn't getting dumber, the alternatives are just getting smarter. When I look at the crap I watched as a kid in the 80s (which included a good amount of 70s reruns), basically all broadcast TV today is far superior. But the competition for broadcast TV isn't "no competition" now, it's the Internet, and computer games, and Netflix. The entertainment industry has been blown wide open by the Internet and computers, and so now they have to compete with thousands of alternatives instead of just having 3 channels to choose from. Naturally, quality goes up. When I was a kid, the "rots your brain" videogame that my parents would only let me play at friends' houses was Super Mario Brothers. Now, my "rots your brain" pastime is Factorio, which is a game where people are literally designing chips in: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/2vqzlx/8_bit_alu_with_registers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/2vqzlx/8_bit_alu_... https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/4aijlw/here_is_my_small_implementation_of_a_memory_array/ https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/4aijlw/here_is_my...
- gozur88 9y agoIf you step back a bit from that game you realize it's tickling the same mental circuits you use in programming. If I had kids I'd definitely try to get them interested. SpaceChem even more so.
- ahelwer 9y agoThis unfortunately makes Zachtronics games a non-starter for me. Software development and Zachtronics games is a fast track to burnout. Their last two involve literal programming.
- gozur88 9y agoYeah, that's true. I enjoy a bit of SpaceChem, but I think it would be better for non-programmers and for discovering kids who had the aptitude.
- joombaga 9y agoInteresting. Looking back at the toys I played with growing up, and how quickly I want to move onto new software development problems, I'm inclined to agree, but I wonder if there is some balance. Perhaps variety is the key. KSP is good for rocketry and light physics. Anything good for Chemistry?
- hkmurakami 9y agoI only started watching west wing least year. I was shocked that network tv could produce something so smart, balanced, thoughtful, albeit 20 years ago.
- macintux 9y agoThere have been some astonishingly good television programs to come out of broadcast television. West Wing, MASH... Wait, I'm sure there have been more. Right? Yeah, never mind.
- wu_tang_chris 9y agoFrasier
- scarface74 9y agoDidn't Frasier have a laugh track? I can't watch anything with a laugh track.
- devmunchies 9y agoYes. I tried watching it after moving to Seattle (cliché, I know), but couldn't bear it because of the laugh track.
- dudul 9y agoGranted, but it was still a very good TV show. Actually liked it better than Cheers.
- labster 9y agoStar Trek. I mean, for certain values of "astonishingly".
- macintux 9y agoStar Trek gave us a few excellent episodes. I don't think any of the series have been excellent overall, although I'm probably in the minority opinion in that.
- hyperbovine 9y agoThere's a shitload of product placement in Netflix and (particularly) Amazon original content. They're still telling you what to buy, you just don't notice it as much.
- eloisant 9y agoI still prefer to watch Frank Underwood telling me how good Monument Valley is than having my show stop and sit in front of old fashioned ads.
- JetSpiegel 9y agoAt least ads are honest and you can tune out. Product Placement is like a landmine, I'm watching the show when they spring an ad out of the blue and kill any semblance of suspension of disbelief.
- nasredin 9y agoAnytime I notice an overtly blatant product placement (e.g. 3 second shot of a logo), I feel like I discovered a mole (as in double agent). There's a certain feeling of "Gotcha! I still got it. Can't full me, Diet Coke". Also good shows and movies do not do this. Never once noticed product placement in The Wire or Breaking Bad, Pontiac Aztec notwithstanding.
- lagadu 9y agoDepends a lot on implementation. My example: Netflix at the beginning of shows sometimes says something to the tune of "contains product placement". Several times now once gotten to the end and notice that it didn't stand out to me. It makes me suspicious, was it there all along and I just got advertised to without noticing it? Was it not there this episode? Am I becoming complacent and not noticing product placement as much as I used to?
- zerocrates 9y agoI really wondered about his political acumen and general well-being when he insisted that PS Vita had "all the games."
- Osiris 9y agoBroadcast has to cater to the largest possible audience while streaming services can create content for niche groups. There's no competition for time slots.
- gozur88 9y agoIs that still true? My parents must have over a hundred channels.
- mike741 9y agofor some perspective, Youtube has an estimated 46,000,000 channels. there are over 7,000,000,000 people in the world 100 channels is not even close to enough, especially when they're all funneled through the same 2 or 3 providers
- pixelcloud 9y agoThat type of advertising is fairly ineffective at "convincing" someone to make a purchase. Compared to more modern advertising techniques (like Facebook or Google) and their advertising resulted in me making a 100k purchase of software. The TV cannot market particular seminars, or blog posts that I might find relevant to what i'm doing right now, but google and FB can. It's scary and interesting.
- Drdrdrq 9y agoOk, I have to ask - what kind of software was that?
- pixelcloud 9y agoMonitoring software (elastic, splunk, etc..). That stuff is expensive!
- intopieces 9y ago>where we sit there watching a box telling us what to buy This is no different from YouTube or Facebook. Except those services follow your personally and make shadow profiles of your preferences and sell them to other companies. Is that really better?
- 1_2__4 9y agoYes, yes it is. I’m astounded your conflate broadcaster cable TV ads with the stuff we see on, say, YouTube. They seem very different to me
- detaro 9y agoProbably depends on your usage pattern. When you see Youtube ads on a newly setup machine (pre ad-block install...) or something else which won't have a good tracking profile, it seems a lot like TV ads: soda, cat food, body lotion or deodorants or something of that nature, video games.
- intopieces 9y agoYouTube ads don’t tell you what to buy? Or, they aren’t displayed on something box shaped? If you mean the ads are better quality, then that’s even worse. Better ads mean you’re being told what to buy... more effectively.
- rifung 9y ago> If you mean the ads are better quality, then that’s even worse. Better ads mean you’re being told what to buy... more effectively. I suppose it depends what you mean by "better quality". I have seen ads which were effective in making me think something was a good product only to discover that it's not upon further research. On the other hand, I have seen ads which were really good in the sense that they showed me something that I would not have otherwise found and that I genuinely like. If it matters to anyone I work for Google (Cloud) so maybe I'm biased in my stance on ads. That being said, I am guilty of using ublock origin so I like to think I hate annoying ads as much as anyone else.
- andrewprock 9y agoIt's important to remember that the percentage of time devoted to commercials has been increasing over time. 1950s: 13% Pre-cable: 18% Pre-web: 22% Pre-Youtube: 24% Now: 30% As alternative forms of media have become available, the value per viewer hour has decreased, so the total amount of time devoted to commercials has increased.
- Fnoord 9y agoTry surfing without your adblocker for a moment (or if you don't use one: try surfing with one for a moment). You'll see a whole different WWW than what you're used to. Including websites like YouTube and news sites being referred to from HN. With Netflix, you pay for an all you can eat sub without commercials. Newssites and newspapers should do the same. It allows for two viable ways to pay for content: either paying directly, or paying via advertisement/your time. The old model of e.g. cable TV is akin to having one's cake and eat it too. Its outdated, and superseded. The only reason it still exists is because the legacy is being used due to habit ie. people who don't know yet about on-demand services like Netflix. Probably tons of babyboomers + elder. If we want to put the nails in the coffin, we gotta 1) unsub to cable TV as much as we can 2) not use it as much as we can 3) stimulate and help these lagging groups to get on with the program.
- 1337biz 9y agoWhat I am having trouble with is how to argue the switch for people like my parents who are not interested in any fictional content. Netflix and Amazon have still very little (talk, game, political) shows, the reporting is mostly not day-to-day and so on. They would probably watch five documentaries that are relevant to their interest, a few classical concerts but then what?
- TulliusCicero 9y agoWe're actually in a golden age of good TV now...but it's also true that there's plenty of garbage on.
- krylon 9y agoSturgeon's law at work...
- grepthisab 9y agoThis happened to me as well. I stayed in a hotel last week for a night, and watched a movie on TV. I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith on some channel, maybe MTV or FX. Literally every seven to nine minutes of movie, there were five minutes of commercials. It wasn't even enough time to really get into the movie before a commercial appeared. It was really a let down. Makes me happy I haven't paid for cable in many years.
- osteele 9y agoNicholas Negroponte joked that there's a “brightness” setting on the television, but it doesn't work.
- GnarfGnarf 9y agoAbsolutely: I cut the cable a couple of years ago. I refuse to watch commercials. When I do stumble on regular broadcast TV, it feels like the commercials take up 50% of the time. Note that I don't mind smart or funny commercials. I will actually seek out reruns of the old "Hi I'm a Mac/PC" and watch them with delight. (And I'm a PC user :o).
- anonytrary 9y agoTV really is dumb now. Maybe it always was, and we're just now realizing how dumb it is. That is, maybe we're getting smarter and are getting used to better tools. TV is a one-way channel, meant to be consumed. Desktops, laptops and mobiles are all two way channels, meant to be interacted with; superior to the TV model in every way. When all you have is TV, though, you can acclimate yourself to all kinds of rubbish. I'm sure in the future when we have a superior protocol or way or doing something, we'll look back and wonder why we thought X was ever a good idea.
- chiefalchemist 9y agoI'm going to send your comment to the NFL (on be half of all the anti Kaeperick morons who blame him for the lower ratings). Even the British PL (football aka soccer) has a small # of adverts.
- grawprog 9y agoI know what you mean. I watched a show the other day that was actually made to air on network tv. I'd forgotten about tv reality. Most shows being made nowadays don't feel like they're set in tv reality any more. It was weird to watch something so firmly made for primetime television as opposed to Netflix or something else. I can't remember the last time I watched an actual 'television' show. It gave me this odd nostalgia and made me realize just how much things have changed. I also got this weird unrelated sense of relief that i'd never have to watch a movie on TBS ever again. I don't know why this thought came up but all these memories of watching butchered movies as a kid came back as I watched the happy go lucky, fcc friendly 'tv' programming.
- kohanz 9y agoI can't be the only one who finds it far more disturbing that the average child watches nearly 3 hours of TV per day.
- Too 9y agoIt's that same feeling you get when you go to the internet on a computer without adblock. How do people stand it?
- Nicholas7900 9y agoHacking a phone, a server, a Database or a computer does not depend on programming language, but exploit the existing vulnerabilities. If you mean by create Windows virus/trojan/malware, them are generally written in Visual C++ (VC++), and you can learn it by buying books for basic knowledge and go to practice. so i think adrian lamo uses c plus or v plus for hacking. I don't know why every one talk about COMPOSITE HACKS, We are not the only Hackers online, but if you like to know what hackers use i can tell you , to hack web site for example you need script python or Perl or ruby ... but its not the important part because first you should know what you will do and then it will be easy because maybe you will found some code in the internet like here Exploits Database by Offensive Security , so there is a different between someone who hack by using tools and code already done and someone who found "zero days" bugs and expel hacking. FOR URGENT NEED OF PROFESSIONAL HACKING SERVICES, You can contact Us directly via """"compositehacks@gmail.com""". We'll Definitely Fix Your Problems. YOU CAN ALSO CONTACT US FOR CREDIT CARD TOP-UP. 100% LEGIT.
- flohofwoe 9y agoTV is not getting dumber, it's just your brain recovering from the abuse ;)
- creep 9y agoI actually had this conversation with my partner's mother a few weeks ago. She likes to watch cooking competitions in the kitchen while baking. Not having watched television for a few years, I was amazed at the audacity of commercial programming-- firstly, how can anyone be so stupid as to not boycott a product after seeing such mindless, assuming shit, but secondly and most importantly, how can advertisers be so arrogant as to assume the general populace is stupid enough to buy into their crap with these awful commercials. The mother then informed that it's always been this way, so I looked up a few old ad compilations from the 90's and early 2000's. She was right. I'm not sure about the television programming itself-- drama, "real-life" shows have always been a hit. I remember when I did watch television, I did so hoping to numb out whatever responsibility I had to do at the time with something non-thinking enough to be calming, but dramatic enough that it wouldn't bore me. The result is the crap they've been airing for years. And I realized again that advertising is all about subconscious influence. Doesn't matter how fucking stupid the commercials are, it matters that you've seen it. Television is mindless in the way that it lulls you-- you'll soon forget what happened, because nothing much happened, and you weren't really paying attention because the programs don't allow you to process everything consciously (in fact, that's because there's nothing to process-- afterall, all of it is laid out to you clear as day. This is what happens next, susie does this for this reason, the resolution you are about to see is expected under the paradigm we've constructed, etc). If you watch the same rehashed concepts everyday, the same commercials, it will stick in the subconscious, and some time later you'll be shopping in the supermarket and pick up a pack of Charmin toilet paper for no goddamn reason even though they market their flushable rainforest corpses with bears who complain that the paper is sticking to their assholes. You make that decision to buy in a split second because you hate grocery shopping and you don't have a lot of time to debate over prices because you still have a dozen other items to pick up. How do you choose? Those bears are cute, something tells me this toilet paper is extra soft and clearly that's something I should want out of a decent quality toilet paper... idk throw it in the cart.