Tag: TV

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Computing TV

Playboy TV content played on children’s television

BBC News reports that adult content from Playboy was accidentally played out on children’s TV.

TV bosses in the US have apologised after preview clips of the Playboy channel were accidentally played out on two children’s channels.

“We’re very, very sorry it happened – we know parents are concerned,” spokesman Keith Poston told local news station WRAL.

“It took about an hour or so once we were notified of the problem to actually get it fixed.

“It was a technical glitch and unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels,” he added.

The error occurred on the Kids On Demand and Kids Preschool On Demand channels where clips from Playboy TV appeared in the top right hand corner.

I suppose it could have been a glitch, but if it was then it was by accident the worst possible mix up of TV programming possible.

Also it seems to have taken quite a while for it to have been fixed once they had been notified. Could they not have simply taken the entire channel off the air?

It seems more likely to me that this was a deliberate and malicious act by somebody, perhaps a disgruntled former employee, that has access to the computer system used to automate the process of putting content on air.

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TV

Lost: Which dead people are really the man in black

It has been established that the Man in Black is the Smoke Monster and has now taken the form of Locke.

Illana says that since Jacob is now dead that the Smoke Monster cannot taken any other form other than that of Locke. http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Substitute

Back in episode http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Man_Behind_the_Curtain Ben follows his mother into the jungle and then has a meeting with Richard who asks whether his mum died on the island?

We now know that the Man in Black can take the form of dead people whose corpses are on the island

But what about people who died elsewhere?

Can Jacob perform that feat but the Man in Black cannot? Was the vision of Emily Linus a manifestation of Jacob?

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TV

How did Hurley get out of his car?

With all the mysteries that are confounding people in Lost it seems that for many people that THE most important question of Season 6 is:

How did Hurley get out of his car after parking so close to Locke’s van?!

To my mind that’s an easy one, he got out on the passenger side.

In this parallel timeline his best friend Johnny instead of deserting Hurley when he found out about the lottery win and running off with Starla, the girl Hurley was in love with, instead remains his best friend and becomes his driver.

Hurley is such a nice bloke that he gave his arsehole former boss Randy a job – of course he’s going to have given Johnny a job too. And what better job than getting to hang out with your best friend and drive him around all day. Johnny is Turtle to Hurley’s Vincent Chase. And Johnny is a pretty skinny guy so would easily be able to get out of the driver side after having parked so close to Locke’s car.

When Hurley meets Locke in the car park Johnny had probably just gone off to get some fried chicken or something so the scene looks a little incongruous.

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TV

A Timeline of the ‘Lost’ Universe

The New York Times have produced an interactive Timeline of the ‘Lost’ Universe to help us Lost addicts keep straight in our heads the non-linear flow of the events of the previous five seasons.

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Reviews TV

24 Day 8: 9pm – 10pm

The subplot involving Dana and her criminal ex-boyfriend continues to annoy me with the stupidity of both the character and the plot. Not only is she endangering national security by allowing this to distract from critical work but she’s allowed herself to be blackmailed into becoming part of a criminal conspiracy.

Would her access of an NYPD computer network not be logged and cause questions to be raised? Plus is it likely that CTU would have a legitimate reason for the creation of a keycard to access an NYPD secure warehouse. Then all this is compounded by the fact that she then gives him a secure comlink so that they can communicate. Firstly there is no way that CTU would allow their staff to take equipment like that without having to sign it out and secondly any communications over their network would surely be logged if not actively monitored.

The subplot involving the radiation poisoning of the Russian mobster’s son is almost as bad. The doctor informs the elder brother that the patient has received a dose of 400 rems, not necessarily fatal although a slightly higher dose did kill Harry K. Daghlian Jr. and states that a bone marrow transplant is needed. So far so good, but then the doctor talks about administering drugs to flush out the radiation and warning that radiation is transferable through bodily fluids. Complete rubbish unless the guy ingested some of the uranium there is no radiation in him to need flushing out or that could be transferred to anyone else in his bodily fluids.

Jack’s impersonation of a German arms dealer was not all that convincing even if he did have a lovely graphical display for his encrypted bank transfer that went via multiple accounts to prevent it being traced.

Encrypting Locations Alpha 4 All Accounts Verified

Good scene with the CTU sniper taking out members of the Russian gang but did they seriously believe that a German arms dealer would come alone to a deal like this.

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TV

Lost Season Six Promo

Lost returns to our screens this week for its sixth and final season and ABC has released a promo that of course poses more questions than it answers. Like who are the two new characters with the large hourglass and who are they giving a chance to redeem themselves?

Also The Guardian asks Matthew Fox How will Lost end?

Categories
Reviews TV

24 Day 8: 8pm – 9pm

Not much security related in this episode but still lots of ridiculousness and illogical situations.

The Russian mobster’s son is dying of radiation sickness but he refuses to allows his other son to take him to the doctor. Really not much a doctor could do anyway as there is no cure a doctor can only alleviate the symptoms with anaesthetics (to relieve the pain) and antibiotics (to prevent infections due to the compromised immune system). If he is dying why not put him out of his misery?

Of course number one son ignores his father’s sage advice and not only takes his brother to a doctor but then tells the doctor it’s due to weapons grade uranium. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that it is not medically relevant to know what isotope it was that caused the radiation sickness.

I love Jack’s hypocrisy, Renee is no more unstable and brutal than he’s ever been. Even her death wish is not that far removed from some of his behaviour in previous seasons.

The subplot regarding Dana’s mysterious past stands out so far as the most stupid element of this season so far. Would CTU agents be allowed unsecured cell phones at work? Apparently her past involves being an ex-con, as an accessory to murder! Then her ex-boyfriend seems to be succeeding in his plan to blackmail her into violating CTU security to give him classified documents that he can sell. I think that for any sane person that the risk of being caught and tried as a traitor would be a far worse scenario than merely losing one’s job.

How did the nuclear material get smuggled into the US and how do they propose to smuggle it out again? Since 9/11 there have been great strides in outfitting US and borders with radiation detection equipment and under the Container Security Initiative foreign ports that are shipping containers into the US, so this would appear to be a nigh on impossible proposition in the real world. Ironically the CSI according to Misha Glenny in his book McMafia has created a situation where it is now easier to smuggle goods into the US because foreign officials can be bribed to overlook what a container might have in it as long as it does not have nuclear material.

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TV

Passwords in House M.D.

In Episode 17 (Season 5): “The Social Contract” of House M.D. there is a throwaway line about how Wilson never password protects his patient files.

The context is that House has sent Taub to discover what Wilson is up to behind his back instead of going to the Monster Truck Rally with him. Taub brings back a bunch of print outs of deleted emails including one exchange between Wilson and a fellow oncologist from another hospital which included a patient file that couldn’t be printed out because it was password protected.

I’d be very worried if doctors were not routinely encrypting files let alone merely password protecting them if they are sending them via email.

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TV

David Simon interview in Vice magazine

Vice magazine interviews David Simon about The Wire, politics and his new TV show Tremé.

Categories
Comics TV

Why hasn’t Gotham Central been adapted into a TV series?

Marc Bernardin of the io9 blog asks Where’s My Goddamn Gotham Central TV Show?.

I have to agree. Not only is Gotham Central one of the best written comic book series of the last ten years but it is ideally suited to be adapted into a television series.

Gotham Central is a police procedural whose story focused not on Batman but instead on the Gotham City Police Department and the difficulties of its officers living and working in Gotham City replete with supervillains and also having to deal with less fantastical stuff such as corruption within in their own department.

There were rumours at the time of its publication that it might be adapted into a television series but following the failure of Birds of Prey it was decided by Warner Bros. Television not to pursue the project.

But that was before the success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. They could and should capitalise on the renewed interest in Batman and Gotham City and as police procedurals are a staple of US television I believe it is not all that much of a gamble.