11 Feb
2000
11 Feb
'00
2:50 p.m.
On Fri, Feb 11, 2000 at 10:50:37PM -0000, Eric Smith wrote:
I've been thinking about taking my closed caption
decoder project, which
was formerly used in a hack to automatically mute the audio any time
O.J. was mentioned (the O.J. Mute-o-Matic, tm), and turn it into a device
to automatically find programming with high violence or "mature audience"
ratings.
I can't *believe* what a great idea that is!!!! I'll sure buy one!
Y'know, I'll bet I'm not the only one who'd be willing to pay
substantially
extra for a TV (or cable/satellite converter box) that had this scan feature
built in. It would serve the censors right!
My college roommates and I used to talk about projects like this, but the
idea we tossed around involved just searching for a high percentage of "flesh
tones" (so it would have been racist no matter whose flesh it was tuned for),
so it would have been very prone to error. As it was we had to read through
the monthly "skin guide" from the cable company, and establish a
"SkinCon"
rating for a particular night of TV (5 = nothing on, or worse yet, Grace
Jones in Vamp, 4 and down meant some decent R-rated stuff, to get below 3 you
have to cheat and rent a video), and performed regular "skin scans" of the
premium movie channels to see if any interesting scenes were on right now.
OK maybe we were a tad obsessed...
John Wilson
D Bit