Tag: television

It Is What It Is

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

I was in a gathering of folks when a dispute escalated between a husband and wife over what has now become the title of this article.  During our discussion someone recited those words and the wife divulged how much she hated that statement.  After quietly listening to the exchange for a few moments, the husband spoke up and said:  “Well that must be more proof of how opposites attract, because I LOVE that phrase and I say it all the time!”

Which may have been part of the reason why the wife disliked the expression, but I wasn’t about to go there.

Instead, I mentioned how that particular shibboleth of sorts was surely defined in the minds of the beholders.  On the one hand, its utterance could be an excuse – even a fatalistic expression derived from laziness or defeatism.  Or, like the purveyor of produce in Ayn Rand’s epic tome, “Atlas Shrugged” – when Dagny Taggart asked the grocery vendor why she didn’t move her product from out of the sun and into the shade and her reply was:  “Because it’s always been that way”.

Oh, the world sucks?  Of course it does.  Why bother.

It is what is.

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Stunning Video Reveals Why You Shouldn’t Trust Anything You See On Television

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/09/2016 13:54 -0400

In recent years, many have voiced increasing concerns with their ability to place trust in official data, and have faith in conventional narratives.

And for good reason: just yesterday a University of Chicago finance professor, while being interviewed at the Ambrosetti Forum, said that it is all about preserving confidence and trust in a “rigged game”: “if people are told enough by smart people on television that the economy has been fixed, and the market is a reflection of the fundamentals, then they’ll blindly support anything the Fed does.”

But while the saying “don’t believe everything [or anything] you read” and “trust but verify” may be more appropriate now than ever, the following video is an absolute stunner in its revelation of just how deep “real-time” media deception can truly go.

In a recently published paper by the Stanford lab of Matthias Niessner titled “Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videos“, the authors show how disturbingly easy it is to take a surrogate actor and, in real time using everyday available tools, reenact their face and create the illusion that someone else, notably someone famous or important, is speaking. Even more disturbing: one doesn’t need sophisticated equipment to create a “talking” clone – a commodity webcam and some software is all one needs to create the greatest of sensory manipulations.

From the paper abstract:

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IGNORANCE, OBESITY & APATHY EXPLAINED IN ONE CHART

No wonder propaganda works so well. Bernays would be proud.

What they don’t show is that during the 18 minutes of thinking, the mindless masses are thinking about what TV show they are going to watch, what their next entry on Facebook will be, whether they can have an ass like Kim Kardashian and whether they should eat one or two bags of Cheetos with their 2 liter bottle of Coke.

 

18 years ago, on November 21, 1996, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed November 21 as World Television Day “in recognition of the increasing impact television has on decision-making by bringing world attention to conflicts and threats to peace and security and its potential role in sharpening the focus on other major issues, including economic and social issues”. So what better day to dispel the myth of television as an endangered species?!

Sure, people do spend a lot of time using smartphones, tablets and other devices. They might even spend more time with these devices than they do watching TV, but that doesn’t mean people no longer watch TV. According to the latest edition of the American Time Use Survey, an annual study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average American spent 2 hours and 48 minutes watching television each day in 2013. That is not only more than half of Americans’ total leisure time, but also more than it was ten years ago: in 2003 the average daily TV dosage was 2 hours and 34 minutes.

It is certainly true that the way people watch television is changing, and linear television as we know it may not be around forever, but for now television remains alive and well. To paraphrase from the great Mark Twain: the reports of TV’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Infographic: Watching TV Is the No.1 Leisure Activity in the U.S. | Statista

You will find more statistics at Statista