Washing and Spin Drying Your Brain (CNN's X across Cheneys Face)

The Omegaletter ^ | Nov 22, 2005 | Jack Kinsella

[Bon mots]

Oh - my - gosh. Tell me that that isn't for real.

Yes, it's for real. Niger Ennis was very graceful in his indignation. Imagine if a right-wing network did that for Jesse or Al...

[guitfiddlist]

Your X across the CNN graphic is the perfect way to respond to this. You should make that into a bumper sticker - I'd certainly buy one.

[BigCinBigD]

I guessed warp three off the top of my head. :)

[ViLaLuz]

I did some researching. I am stunned. Innis is a class act - something Je$$e and Al-sharpton aren't.

[wolfcreek]

I think it's the equivalent of the childish act of egging a house or spray painting graffiti. Of course, that's the audience they're playing to.

[No Blue States]

If I had a bumper sticker maker I would make us both one for free. Thanks!

[ReignOfError]

Even if there is a legitimate way to do this, why did it "happen" to occure during Cheney's speech?

He's the Vice President of the United States. The executive branch and Congress are both controlled by Republicans. On a purely random basis, any random event is more likely to occur during a speech by a Republican.

[proud American in Canada]

This is beyond disgusting. In a way it's even worse than Rathergate because it uses an unconscious attempt to persuade people of something.

[proud American in Canada]

LOL, I love that t-shirt.

Are they for sale? If not I'm sure some enterprising person will do that -- and I'll buy one.

[ReignOfError]

But why does the smaller writing under the "X" say "Transition appears over 5 frames"? Anyone?

In a TV control room, there is a "preview" channel and a "program" channel (a bit simpllistic, but bear with me). For anything involving motion, the director begins the animation on the preview monitor, and then switches what you see on the screen over to that at the appropriate moment. Sometimes, there's a circular countdown like the ones you see on old movie reels. Sometimes, it's bars and tone with the seconds ticking down. I've never seen a big black X, but it doesn't surprise me much. I have seen bars, countdowns and static on screen many, many times when things get a little out of sync. It happens far more often on cable news, which has 24 hours to fill, than on the Big Three, where they have all day to plan a half hour newscast.

Whatever the type of countdown, there's something to let the director to know when he should push the button. That's how you get a smooth transition without a stutter or a black screen.

As far as Rush's challenge to Fox News, I doubt they can prove how easy it is to do intentionally, because it isn't easy to do intentionally. I have never seen any piece of control room equipment with a "flicker intermittently for two frames at a time" button on it. Unless someone managed to keep his fingers on two buttons at once, alternating between them, while having a grand mal seizure, I don't see how this is operator error or an intentional prank. There is no control room equipment designed to do that, because it's not a feature anyone wants.

And spare me the "subliminal message" jazz. First, there's no clear scientific evidence that subliminal messages are at all effective. Second, you're going to tell me that if it's going on, in an era when it's easy to zoom in on a single frame of video, no one has noticed before? Or that dozens (to be extremely conservative) of people could design, build, and operate a subliminal message system for CNN without anyone leaking word?

Even if -- for the sake of argument -- CNN went to all the effort to build in that capability and then never used it, do you think they'd bust it out for a mid-afternoon speech by the Vice President instead of during the State of the Union, when the audience is twenty times larger and the stakes are higher? Or that they'd use a cryptic black X with "transition begins after 5 frames of black" in unreadable type under it, instead of something simple like "LIAR" in big bold type?

The most plausible explanation, to me, is that some piece of control room equipment spazzed (to use a highly technical term) and started scrambling the signals. An intermittent error that would be difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce. If you've ever worked with very large files on any type of computer, you'll know that performance gets erratic after a while and errors become more common as you go along. It helps to reboot every now and then to reboot the caches and let the machine run disk and memory diagnostics.

I've had to chuckle at some of the attempts in the last couple days to read a deeper meaning into the X, whether it's a call for assassination or "Manchurian Candidate"-style brainwashing. Please, folks. Sometimes an X is just an X.

[CyberAnt]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527940/posts

I still do not believe the "X" was accidental!