For some reason I have the tv tuned to the news channel when I'm getting ready to start my day in the morning. I guess I'm just used to having the pleasant drone of sex scandals and disaster stories in the background when I get dressed.
However, when a story or scandal gets too repetitive it can get pretty annoying. I understand that sometimes celebrities have sex, and of course I'm as shocked and appalled as anybody, but can I take a break from the scandal du jour for a day or two?
The idea is for a button on your remote, possibly labeled "SMITE" that you push when a news story you don't want to hear about any more comes up. The tv would then automatically switch channels whenever this particular story popped up again. Additionally, you could program in trigger words and sentences like "Kardashian", "Sex scandal", "...raised a few eyebrows when..."
It's not that I want to shirk my civic duty to keep appraised of who or what's in Kim Kardashian cooch this week, I'm just saying I wouldn't mind taking a break now and then.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 01 2011 HONEY! WAKE THE KIDS, CALL THE NEIGHBORS! http://ac360.blogs....eal/?iref=allsearch [doctorremulac3, Jul 02 2011] I never bother with these types of stories. This is why I listen to NPR.-- RayfordSteele, Jul 01 2011 That's fine, but not good for getting waken up in the morning with all the loud fanfare and stories like "Are cannibalistic satanic rituals the hot new fad among teens? You parents will want to stay tuned for the story you can't afford to ignore."-- doctorremulac3, Jul 01 2011 It also has a tivo-like gadget to edit out the ad's.
As far as actually sitting down and watching tv, for me it's Mythbusters, South Park, the History Channel and Science Channel. I'm guessing about five bucks a month worth of watching despite the bill being about $250 for the cable/internet package. If it weren't for those tv shows I'd be one of those annoying people who proudly proclaim (with their eyes closed and eyebrows arched) "Uhh we don't have a tv in the house." To which I always say "I've got one in every room." Just to kill the conversation so we can all go our separate ways.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 01 2011 Bayesian spam detection for TV. [+] for //possibly labeled "SMITE"//-- mouseposture, Jul 01 2011 I'm sure there would be a way, to introduce a small delay into the program, pool it as data, run voice recognition over it and convert haram phrases to something less tedious, then run that through the tv.
It'd save switching channels and for example converting David Cameron into someone who just says "F**k the poor" repeatedly in a Geordie accent...and the Cillit Bang guy would just say "I smell of poo".
Alternatively, this has already happened and when George W was saying "my fellow Armenians...." it just got corrected out..-- not_morrison_rm, Jul 02 2011 Not sure what percentage of programs have closed captioning but I think most news programs do. You could tap into that with your word search.
Alternatively, you could have the news programs themselves assign codes to their stories. They could then tally the amount of times a particular story's smote by an audience and stop running it if nobody's interested.
You could also have something like a bun button when you want to hear more about a particular story. Interactive rating of shows by viewers is really big now. Netflix always asks you to rate a show or movie after you've watched it.
So maybe the idea should be "Bun/Bone Button For Your Remote"
Watch this idea backfire on me when in a year or two I put on CNN and hear "Welcome to Kardashian 24 Hour News, all Kim Kardashian, all the time. You viewers wanted it and we give it to you."
In that cases there's always the off button.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 02 2011 //stop running it if nobody's interested// It would be lovely if the newsreader stopped in mid- sentence when the real-time Nielson's dropped below a threshold. Perhaps adding "Oh, to H*ll with it."-- mouseposture, Jul 02 2011 And show an audience interest meter running in real time behind him. Perhaps attached to some kind of mild electric shock device attached to his chair. The more audience apathy, the bigger the shock.
Make the guy improvise to make it more interesting.
"Economic indices for the fourth fiscal quarter were...AHHHHH! UH, WHERE IN NO WAY EFFECTING KIM KARDASHIANS BREASTS! Uh. The ample shapely breasts of the talentless trollop were not sagging like the... stock market AHHH! BUTT IN TIGHT JEANS!!!... LIKE SHE BOUGHT AT THE MARKET... only the clothes market not the... one with the stocks... like... where... uhhh... (turns to look at the falling audience interest meter) KIM KARDASHIAN... might buy stocks... she might buy stocks with money she... earned... AAAAAHHH! POSING IN PLAYBOY! POSING NUDE IN PLAYBOY!"-- doctorremulac3, Jul 02 2011 random, halfbakery