Media – Page 7 – Spinor Info

Christian mom makes $5k/month… on FOX News

Apr 052009

Whatever my opinion is of the “fair and balanced” editorial policies of FOX News, I had no reason to doubt that the company itself was a legitimate business.

Until now.

As I was searching for news on North Korea’s failed rocket launch, one link I clicked on was that of a FOX News posting on this story. The page came up, along with the usual series of ads… except that one of them looked more than a little unusual. Not the kind of ad you expect to see on a legitimate Web site.

It said, “Christian Mom Makes $5k/M”. And sure enough, it’s a scam. The Web site, registered in December 2008, just reeks of fakeness; fake life story, fake testimonials, further postings “disabled due to spam”. Not to mention that what it actually sells, the so-called “Google Home Business Kit”, is not worth anything… you can make money with Google (google.com/adsense) but you don’t need to buy any “home business kits” to do so, and you’re unlikely to make $5,000 or even $500 a month.

So perhaps FOX was duped when they accepted the ad of a scamster? I was tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt but then I scrolled to the bottom of the page where this ad was repeated along with two other advertisements. One was titled “I’m Happy I Lost My Job”. Same idea: fake Web site, fake testimonials, $5,000/month, Google Home Business Kit. The person this Web site supposedly belongs to claims to have come from the Ottawa area. Does this mean that the ad was, in fact, geographically targeted because my IP address puts me in Ottawa, and any scamster knows that I am more likely to believe an ad if it comes from my local neighborhood? I have a proxy server in the US, so I tried reaching the FOX Web site through that server with a different Web browser. Same result, same three ads. I even tried to run the browser on that remote server (painfully slow, through an X-Window connection) and still, the same ads came up. So the Ottawa thing is perhaps just a coincidence.

Compared to these two ads, the third link, which was for a teeth whitener ranked #1 by Rachel Ray (presumably I’m supposed to know who Rachel Ray is; hmmm, let me check, Rachel Ray is the title of a novel by 19th century English novelist Anthony Trollope, but there is a television personality named Rachael Ray, presumably that’s who they meant) almost seems legitimate. (Of course if it had been authorized by the real Rachael Ray, they’d presumably have spelled her name correctly.)

So what does this tell us? I can think of several possibilities, most quite unflattering to FOX News and their viewers. For instance:

FOX News are scamsters, working together with other Internet con artists, ripping people off;
FOX News don’t care where their money comes from and accept ads without screening from Internet con artists;
FOX News accept ads specifically targeted at people colloquially described by the derogatory term “white trash”.

But the real question is, what does this say about the quality of the news they deliver?

HD stupidity

Technology, Television No Responses »

Mar 212009

I am watching a documentary on BBC World.

BBC World is available here on basic analog cable, which is the only kind of cable I am interested in having in the house. (Mainly, I am put off digital cable because of the need for separate set-top boxes, but DRM also doesn’t help, not to mention the nasty habit of the box to wake up in the middle of the night to perform an OS upgrade, clearly demonstrating that I am not in control of equipment that is in my house.)

However, BBC World is, it appears, a high definition (HD) broadcast, so on analog cable it appears with a black stripe on the top and the bottom of the picture.

This particular documentary, however, was apparently shot in standard definition. So BBC World chose one of three options, each less than perfect: instead of cropping the picture at the top and the bottom, or introducing black stripes on the left and right, they decided to stretch the picture horizontally. Why so many people prefer a distorted picture over black stripes, I have no idea.

But this means that on my standard analog cable, I get a standard definition show that appears at less than standard resolution, vertically compressed, distorted, with unnecessary black stripes at the top and the bottom. Isn’t HD just glorious?

HD madness

Fortunately, as I tend to watch TV on my computer, I always have the option of stretching the video window vertically and get a picture with the correct aspect ratio. This option is not necessarily available on ordinary televisions.

Behind this ridiculousness is the insane decision to change not just the resolution but the aspect ratio of HD broadcasts. Why, you might ask? Very simple. If the aspect ratios were the same, most people could not tell the difference between standard definition and HD even when the broadcast was true HD, which often is not the case (older shows, and even some newer shows, are shot in standard definition.) So how do you convince people to buy HD anyway? By making it apparent that they have a “better” television set because it is wider.

And this has been done before. Back in the 1950s, when movie studios were seriously worried about the competition of television, they changed the aspect ratio of Hollywood movies, intentionally making them incompatible with the standard 4:3 aspect ratio of NTSC/PAL television. What is amazing is how well they managed to convince the public that a wider picture is better, providing yet another example of just how easy it is to manipulate people.

Battlestar Galactica

Television No Responses »

Mar 212009

I’m done watching the very final episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Wow. Now this is what science fiction television is supposed to be like. When I saw the pilot movie back in 2003, I simply wondered, how on Earth they could possibly make something this gripping out of the “re-imagining” of a cheesy early-80s space opera? But they did… and the show never wavered in quality. I am sad that it’s over, but I respect their decision to finish the show the right way.

Phony outrage

Economy, Media, Politics No Responses »

Mar 172009

This phony, populist outrage over the AIG bonuses is really becoming ridiculous. They make it sound as if AIG’s top executives just took the bailout money as bonuses and ran with it. But that’s nonsense. First of all, the bonuses in question amount to barely 0.1% of the bailout that AIG received. Second, there are managers and there are managers… the ones getting these bonuses, are they the top level managers responsible for AIG’s demise, or are they the managers running, say, a successful branch office of AIG insurance?

Of course answering these questions might require some investigative journalism, some thinking, some hard explaining… not the kind of stuff the soundbyte journalism of the cable news universe likes. Glad I am not going to be home tonight, as I will not even accidentally watch the populist tripe of Lou Dobbs on CNN as he, no doubt, will take his turn at expressing outrage. Now if instead of spewing indignation, he actually took the trouble of locating a typical AIG executive who received a bonus and sat him or her down for a meaningful interview… of course I am quite willing to bet that this is not going to happen, not on CNN nor anywhere else… with the possible exception being BBC News.

Still mourning the CBC

Radio No Responses »

Feb 172009

I’ve been listening to a Hungarian public radio station, Radio Bartok, much of the day today. There was some serious classical music there, and by serious, I mean something other than what you would expect to hear from the Boston Pops. There was an arts news broadcast. There was a classic radio play (Ferenc Karinthy’s “Steinway Grand“, a hilarious “play in one act”). In short, there was culture.

Culture that used to be there on CBC Radio 2, too. Until it was at first slowly eroded, and then completely destroyed last fall.

I used to be proud of CBC Radio 2. Whenever I traveled, in the US or in Europe, I always proudly spoke of the quality of our public broadcaster. Alas, those days are gone. Now, I am just ashamed.

And annoyed. Annoyed because neither the CBC’s masters nor its critics really “get it”. The former demonstrated their utter contempt toward their listeners when they attempted to placate them with Internet-only playlists that have no hosts and no commentary, nothing that would give them life. The latter, by bemoaning the fate of classical music on the CBC, not realizing that a lot more was at stake; indeed, that many of the old programs that we mourn were not exclusively classical either, but had a well-balanced mix of music of all genres, so long as it was music worth playing, that is, to a civilized, educated audience.

The ratings are in…

Radio No Responses »

Dec 292008

… and CBC Radio 2 is not faring well. After the cultural vandalism by its bureaucrats last September, the ratings of Radio 2 here in Ottawa are down by a full one third compared to the same period last year: in 2007, the market share of CBOQ was 5%, now it’s down to 3.3%.

The theory behind the revamping of Radio 2 was that by going for the lowest common denominator, pop music, Radio 2 will attract a bigger audience and will better represent Canada overall. What was forgotten was that it is not the mandate of a public broadcaster to be popular… commercial radio already does that. The public broadcaster should be the guardian of high culture (and if that sounds elitist, maybe it should be) not a promoter of pop culture.

The ratings prove my point.

Ratings of CBC RAdio 2 in Ottawa

By the way, some people argue that it’s wrong to promote music written by middle aged white men. (Not that the CBC was exclusively about music written by middle aged white men. I learned a lot about jazz, Canadian folk, South American music, African music, and more on the “old” CBC.) Anyhow, when I hear that argument, I feel the urge to respond by asking, are you also upset that science classes teach the physics or math of middle aged white men? That engineering schools teach the engineering of middle aged white men? For better or for worse, much of our world’s science and technology was developed by Europeans, and until recently European civilization was very male-oriented (some argue it still is.) This doesn’t change the validity of, say, Boltzmann’s thermodynamics, Einstein’s gravity, or Feynman’s QED. Why should it be different when it comes to music? Is the music of Beethoven less valuable because there weren’t that many symphonic orchestras in the 19th century (or even today) in sub-Saharan Africa? I don’t think so. In any case, if we think that an area of science or culture is dominated by middle aged white men, the correct solution is not to banish their contributions, but to make sure that they become accessible to others… which is precisely what the CBC is no longer doing. Now that’s real “elitism” in the most pejorative sense of the word.

Google News in Hungary

Internet, Media No Responses »

Dec 262008

At last, Google News is now available in Hungarian.

CNN and math literacy

Health, Mathematics, Pop culture, Television No Responses »

Dec 222008

This is not what I usually expect to see when I glance at CNN:

CNN and integrals

It almost makes me believe that we live in a mathematically literate society. If only!

The topic, by the way, was a British Medical Journal paper on brain damage caused by a dancing style called headbanging. I must say, even though I grew up during the disco era, I never much liked dancing. But, for what it’s worth, I not only know how to do integrals, I actually enjoy doing them…

Christmas songs

Economy, Politics, Television No Responses »

Dec 222008

The other day, David Letterman had a segment called The Ten Most Hated Christmas Songs. They were well known Christmas tunes with twisted lyrics. All of them were funny, but two I found especially memorable. The first said,

“Joy to the world, George Bush is done.”

The second one was really creepy:

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
“Nineteen-twenty-nine…”

Indeed.

Good-bye, Nurse Chapel

MUD, Television No Responses »

Dec 192008

Sad news today: at the age of 76, Majel Roddenberry, aka. Nurse Christine Chapel from Star Trek and Lwaxana Troi from Star Trek: TNG, has passed away today. My she rest in peace.

Her husband, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, passed away over 17 years ago, on October 24, 1991. That date is memorable to me for another reason: it was on the morning of that day that I became a wizard of Richard Bartle’s classic multiplayer computer game, MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), aka British Legends, a game that I have ported to modern 32-bit platforms nearly a decade later and that I have been hosting ever since.

OPEC and last year’s Christmas tree

Economy, Media No Responses »

Nov 292008

I am sure this is a fine CBC journalist and her report about OPEC was interesting, but I do wonder: why did she have a dead Christmas tree (looks like leftover from last year) to her left in the background?

OPEC and last year's Christmas tree

This war is brought to you live by…

Media, Politics No Responses »

Nov 272008

Watching the pictures from Mumbai, I cannot help but wonder: when WW3 inevitably arrives, will we also be seeing live pictures and breathless news media coverage as major cities around the world turn into radioactive mushroom clouds and millions of lives are reduced to ash and smoke? Will there be a new Wikipedia article about the nuking of London, Paris, and New York City moments after they occurred, just as there is already an extensive article in Wikipedia on the 26 November 2008 Mumbai attacks?

Why I continue to miss CBC Radio 2

Media, Music No Responses »

Nov 162008

I just looked at the channel lineup of Sirius Satellite Radio. They have three classical channels: Opera/Classical Vocals, Classical Pops, and Traditional Classical. 100% Commercial Free, they say.

OK, no commercials. How about commentary? How about radio personalities that inform and entertain, tell you stories about the music you hear?

And narrowly defined as they appear to be, do any of these channels have room for something unexpected? Say, a little Kurt Weill, a little Heitor Villa-Lobos? Astor Piazzolla? A surprise piece of Canadian folk music wedged between two traditional classical pieces, such as Norm Hacking singing about orange cats?

These satellite channels, just like the CBC’s own new Internet channels, seem nothing more than glorified playlists to me. If I wanted a randomized playlist, I have several hundred CDs to choose from… lovely music, all of it, but who will show me something new?

Not the CBC, not anymore. Yesterday, while I was driving somewhere in town, I was listening to CBC Radio 2, as my car radio is still tuned to 103.3 MHz out of habit I guess. What I heard was some hapless, untalented artist’s barely recognizable rendering of an old Abba song. I grieve for a world-class radio station that has been put to premature death by mediocre bureaucrats engaged in cultural vandalism.

How much is that ticket, Mr. Terminator robot sir?

Media, Technology No Responses »

Nov 162008

It is always creepy when fact meets fiction. I’ve been watching the latest episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is a surprisingly good quality sci-fi series. I then checked on Google News if there are any news about the show’s rating or popularity. Instead, what I found was a story about a robot in Japan, greeting amusement park visitors, selling tickets, and using face recognition software to profile customers. Not only does it sound a little like Westworld, one commenter actually suggested that it might be time to call Sarah Connor to finish this one off, which is why Google News found this entry in response to my search.

Newer Entries