The CALM Act

[BadBeast]

Nice points, Trip.

Run your stereo through a hard limiting compressor with a low threshold.


Anyway, before this gets much further, I'd like to point out that there is more to a loud commercial than merely volume.

It's long been known in music production circles that if you play two separate mixes for someone, and the only difference is that mix B is 3dB louder (and you keep that a secret from the listener), they will prefer mix B.  If pushed for a reason why, they will imagine that the EQ is "brighter", or that there's more "energy" in the mix*.

The point being, there's a psychological element at play when the commercials are louder.  It excites the nervous system (which triggers the endocrine system) in ways that a low volume commercial won't.  So the manipulation isn't just "louder so it gets your attention".  The manipulation affects your subconcious in ways you aren't aware of.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

*Technically, that's true.  There is more acoustical energy when you make it louder.  Doesn't affect the mix itself, though.

I've adapted to the commercial volume thing with a 'mute' reflex (and I close my eyes during some commercials).

The big one that's pissing me off right now is the Google Chrome ad on hulu.

Fucked up memetic tricks that I've pick out so far:

Nice, catchy, upbeat music that only increases in tempo until the final "Ba-DUM', when the Chrome logo is shown.

White background, colored letters. The colors shift (stuttering, but non-random), in the Chrome logo colours, starting with mostly cool, ending with mostly warm.

The words are the beginnings of commonly known phrases, prompting your brain to 'guess the ending for a seratonin reward", much like when you remember the lyrics of a song that has just started.

The phrases start as 5 word phrases (first 3 shown), and as the tempo of the music increases, the phrase length get's shorter, AND the time on screen gets shorter (making your brain really work for those chemical rewards).

After the first few times watching it, I could actually notice my mind falling into these little games. After the third time watching it, I noticed that they'd programmed a final "guess the ending - get chemicals" response with the use of the colors and the ending logo, combined with the music climax.

Classic NLP anchoring. So I've been closing my eyes when it comes up now, but the music is catchy and recognizable enough that my brain began to anticipate the musical climax, since it was already anchored into the Logo/Catchphrase chemical reward cycle.

My new plan (I did this once and it helped):

Shout the damn phrases at the TV, re-hijack my mental flow, and insert a new ending.

What's the 2 word phrase for the Chrome logo that comes after Mish (Mash) and  Topsy (Turvy)?

"FUCK YOU!"

I take a different defensive line, by mentally rewriting the lyrical triggers that close the mesh, with my own, diametrically opposed phrases. Like instead of hearing "Because you're worth it" at the end of every L'oreal ad, I hear "Because you're worthless" instead. Or instead of "Maybe it's Maybelline" I hear "Spurious Labelling".  And for the "Injury Lawyers for you!" campaign, I hear "Perjury Lawyers for you" instead. So the whole Ad-spell still has some kick in it, but my clever polarity reversal means it kicks outwards, square in their big, saggy balls. And it works, because I never buy cosmetics, or "Swishy" shampoo. And if a "Perjuring in Court" event is scheduled, I'm quite capable of perjuring myself, thanks.


         

[Triple Zero]

BadBeast, hmm interesting, I remember we did that sort of thing all the time in kindergarten and elementary school. I wonder, maybe it was some kind of built-in defense mechanism, to subvert memetic viruses? [as opposed to just kids being kids]



Telarus, it's client-side code, your computer can be taught to handle it, especially if the ads are somehow "different" from the show. If the ads were just video like the rest of the program, you couldn't detect them, but in that case the regular video controls would work.

But that means you have something to trigger on, in theory one could have a piece of code on top of everything that could go "IF site == hulu.com AND <player controler don't work> THEN <mute audio>".

A better idea (easier to implement) is based on the fact that the ads and the real video content probably come from different servers or differ in the URL of their videostream (these URLs are used internally in the Flash player script). That means you can block connections that match the URL pattern of the ad-stream. You can do that with AdBlockPlus.

However, Hulu's (still client-side) Flash Player script checks for this. From a discussion on the AdBlockPlus forums I find that the code logic goes something like "IF <failed to load ad stream> THEN <display hardcoded message>", where the hardcoded message says something like "You're not seeing ads. Ads support Hulu. No ads makes Hulu a sad panda. Please to jump up and down for half a minute screaming about Coca Cola to wake your roommates in order to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Now might be the right moment to try out all the ringtones on your phone as well, especially that one with the frog." and apparently they blur the screen of the show for 30 seconds as well.

So instead, you need to replace the ad-stream with a video of black silence. Which is exactly what this guy describes in that same AdBlockPlus thread (he even found out you don't need a video of block silence, a serving a 0-byte flash video file is enough, as long as the URL exists).

Furthermore, a few posts further down somebody posts about a Windows application named Homer that provides an easy-to-use interface to perform such in-place substitutions of your web-traffic. The other guy used a more complicated solution redirecting ads.hulu.com to his PHP webserver. I would personally have used a local filtering proxy solution such as Privoxy or Proxomitron. It's a tough choice because you might already have installed Privoxy (for use with Tor) but it's hard to configure, on the other hand Proxomitron has a green eye-in-the-pyramid icon and truly the most amazingly tacky user-interface skin ever known to mankind and is a bit easier to configure, while Homer probably cuts the cake when it comes to ease-of-use.

(though I just saw that Homer is actually kind of limited, might better use Proxo or Privoxy)

[Telarus]

Damn dude. Nice research.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

I thought they turned the volume up for reasons LMNO explained AND for the people who leave the room to get more water, or go pee, or do whatever, so they don't miss the ever important product that they MUST FUCKING BUY.

I wrote a letter to my cable company some 6 months or so ago asking them to turn the shit down and stop assaulting my ears with this garbage. And let me tell you, it is BAD here. Every 12 minutes while I'm trying to watch family guy quietly in bed while mr squid sleeps (and i have no remote for this tv goddamnit) I hear SOMETHING EXCITING, SOMETHING DELIGHTING, SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE YOU'LL FIND IT AT FLEEEEEEEA WORLD!!!
It's fucking mind blowingly horrible, makes me hate this place that much more and fuck's sake I'll gladly spend my tax dollars on having the gov't step in and tell them to FUCK THE HELL OFF WITH THAT RACKET!

Sometimes my hands are full and I can't put shit down to get to the remote to turn it the fuck down. Sometimes I'm so tired I start hallucinating and just as I start to doze off-- UPTECH COMPUTERS WANTS TO CHARGE YOU AN OUTRAGEOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY TO PRETEND TO FIX YOUR SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!

That's the loudest of them all. Son of a BITCH. I'm suddenly jerked awake, heart pounding, eyes burning and snot flying out of my fucking nose.
They can take a years worth of MY taxes alone if it'll make this shit fucking STOP.

[Requia ☣]

Whether or not its annoying is NOT the issue here.  It's whether you think it's the government's job to be policing the volume of televised advertisements.

I say it is not their job.

The government has been policing volume levels in ads since the 70s, they're only changing the rules, not making new ones.

[Lies]

Don't watch TV. Controversy over.

You're welcome.