Christ Centered Gamer

Got this e-mail today. Seems interesting though we don't watch much TV, does anyone here actually use it? Does it work?

If You Own a TV…

You can now watch it without foul language.

All because of a tiny device you connect to your TV and it automatically mutes out foul language. It's called TVGuardian, and it's on sale now for AFA supporters.

Imagine: Watching the TV shows and movies you want...without being ambushed by foul language!

As an AFA supporter...and for a limited time...TVGuardian can be yours at the special sales price of just $99. You'll even get free shipping. To take advantage of this limited time sale, or to see it in action, go to: http://www.TVGuardian.com/AFA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, as an AFA supporter, you may now receive a FREE and instantaneous access to the guide: "300 FAMILY FRIENDLY FILMS." Just click: http://www.tvguardian.com/filmguide.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For the lowest available price on TVGuardian anywhere, go to http://www.TVGuardian.com/AFA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . You may order directly from the site or through the link to Walmart.com and you'll save $30 plus get FREE SHIPPING.

The very word "profanity" comes from "profanus" in Latin, which means "desecrating what is holy."

Isn't it time your family watches TV without profanity?

With TVGuardian, there are no monthly fees!

If you've ever been embarrassed...offended...or frustrated by foul language on TV, here's your chance to do something about it.

If you've ever been angered to hear God's name used in vain, or Jesus' name used as a cuss word, here's your chance to do something about it.

Go to http://www.TVGuardian.com/AFA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Get a TVGuardian foul language filter for your family while this special sales price lasts.

Please don't miss out! This special sale only lasts three days. Go to: http://www.TVGuardian.com/AFA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or call 1-800-298-5618.

Sarcasm Begin

Oh good, because listening to someone say d*** on occasion is far worse than spending $99 on a product of dubious quality.

Sarcasm End

I like this new sarcasm thing

When I was young, my family something very similar to this. Operates on searching through the captions and and blocking off whole segments of audio if it has an offending word. It was very annoying; it made us physically angry. It made some shows just unwatchable. We eventually dropped using the whole thing. Also, despite it's overly prodigious use of censoring, it also let some stuff slip by (just the nature of closed captions and audio).

It also censored words like "balls," which led to a couple laughs at first, but then more anger.

My family used a similar device that led to a similar annoyance

Software is getting really, really good at natural language recognition. Realtime TV censoring might have improved since those days.

Then again, it might not have. I'm genuinely curious if it's clever enough to tell when it should censor the name of the Lord or if your Sunday sermon re-broadcast is going to turn into a bunch silence.

I imagine it would be, but I highly doubt these guys would be developing that sort of technology, when they have a cheaper route of searching through captions.

If there's a persistent internet connection they could be getting semantic dumps from Google which could lead to a huge improvement even with caption analysis. But I don't know enough about the technical implementations to do more than speculate. Which is why I'm genuinely curious.

If TV Guardian is doing that or something similar, I'd be interested. Not because I find profanity distasteful, that'd be hypocritical of me, but the technology would be interesting.

I would find computer monotone replacement words like crap or dang humorous

I wonder if you can program it to edit out specific words.

Or maybe entire people! Every time they appear on the screen, they look like mimes.

It could make watching the news more entertaining....