Keep Calm and Legislate: CALM Act Begins

It has taken a few years but the CALM () Act will begin to be enforcable today. The idea behind the law is to limit the louder volume of TV commercials from the TV show which they air around. As an avid TV viewer I can appreciate this bit of peace and calm. Parents with younger children who go to bed before they do will likely also welcome the news.

However, as I began to enjoy the idea of a more peaceful viewing experience thanks to this new law, my mind began to think back a few decades ago. I could have sworn this technology was tried on the open market before. After doing some searches on the web, I found out I wasn’t just making the idea up in my head.

The technology my mind was recalling was from 1992 and promoted by Magnavox. It was known at the time as SmartSound. Below is a link the commercial at the time illustrating the technology.

Magnavox SmartSound Commercial

I never owned a TV with this technology but if I had, and it worked as advertised, I don’t know if I would have ever thrown it out. The website eHow gives this brief summary of how SmartSound worked:

Smart Sound, introduced by Magnavox in 1992 on its television sets, is designed to reduce sudden extreme changes in volume, namely the sound of TV commercials relative to the sound of the TV shows they follow. Magnavox refers to Smart Sound as “automatic volume control” to describe the feature’s ability to monitor the sound level of TV shows and limit how much louder the subsequent commercials will play.

So why didn’t more companies pick up and run with this? That is a question we might never know. But what is interesting is it wasn’t then, it hasn’t resurfaced almost 20 years later as a feature in TV’s and now we have a federal law requiring TV stations to do the same thing the free market rejected. With the way media consuption is headed, to a more on demand, pay to view (either per viewing or subscription) it will be interesting to see how long this law will be needed after all.

Source –
Magnavox SmartSound – eHow

Words Mean Something: Sheila Jackson Lee Talks but Says a Lot of Nonsense

This woman  is an embarrassment to Houston, Texas and the country as a whole. Sheila Jackson Lee keeps getting re-elected by wide margins due to a rigged congressional district. She couldn’t sound like a bigger idiot if she tried. Seriously do a youtube search on her and witness first hand the brilliance of her speaking and thinking skills. Her latest gem is getting lots of feedback, mostly negative. If you haven’t seen it here it is. Viewing could lower one’s IQ by a few points.

What the heck is shipshod? She wants to “use that terminology”? What does that mean? Has anyone heard of a narnstarter? I sure haven’t. Of course there is the typical political garbage spin heard from the vast majority of politicians.

After viewing this atrocity I was quickly reminded of a comedy show I used to watch back in the 90’s. The name of the show was In Living Color and for a time it was hilarious. There was one skit which was brought back to my mind though. It was this one:

I don’t care what a person’s race, religion, nationality, etc… are. If someone is just trying to sound intelligent by using “big” words they are doing a disservice to themselves and those who they are speaking. Just stop speaking and do everyone a favor.

Let’s contrast her speech with one by Ted Poe:

The difference is crystal clear.

Finders Peepers: Google New Default XXX Image Blocking Draws Fire

Don’t be evil. That was Google’s motto for years. How people inside and outside of Google have interpreted it is very different. Those differing views are again colliding as Google changes how it shows image results for “adult” images.

Google has started to do something different when someone makes an “adult” image search request. Going forward Google is making users get more specific when searching for pornography using its search engine. And let’s face it, finding porn on the internet isn’t exactly hard to do.

Microsoft is not, at this point, altering it’s Bing search engine to do more enhanced filtering of generic pornographic search queries. We will see if Yahoo follows Bing’s or Google’s lead. There is also the alternative search.xxx for anyone’s pornography finding needs.

Google has released a statement regarding the change. A spokes person from Google has stated the following:

We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings now work the same way as in web search.

I think people are really missing what Google is really doing here. Let’s get to the real meat of this statement. Google says it uses “algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query.” In other words, when someone preforms a search Google is programmed to give the best results on what someone has requested. The more general the search request, the harder it is to get what the person requested. So another request is made to narrow down what the person is trying to find.

Now Google is requiring people looking for porn to think about what they are looking for and use words or phrases to narrow down their search to something more specific. This is a win for Google in multiple ways. The first, on a purely technical level, is the reduced load on their systems for performing the searches. Instead of a very broad search first search, it is more specific and should give a better chance of returning the desired results. Less work by the systems means less cost for Google for their “free” search service. Win number one.