Bob Saget 2.0

theodp writes "Slate makes a pretty convincing argument that YouTube and its knock-offs can trace their roots back to America's Funniest Home Videos." From the article: "The show's stock in trade was to find the lowest common denominator and then hit it in the crotch. Consider this list of select highlights from the show's 'Best of Kids & Animals' DVD: a kid doing a cannonball onto his dad's groin, a baby running into a church pew, a dog peeing on a wedding dress, and a kid clocking his dad in the nuts with a helmet. While these clips are all certainly lowbrow, they've also got something else in common: They're oozing with family values."

Re:But youtube isn't usually funny!

[FuturePastNow]

"America's Funniest Home Videos" culled out probably 99% of the tapes they received. On Youtube, you get to see all the rejects.

Re:Slate wrong.....it IS AFV

[cubicledrone]

but there's a tone of copyrighted material out there

All of the videos on America's Funniest Home Videos were copyrighted too. Like before they were submitted even. Amazing, huh?

Yes copyright is one of the few things left that regular people can have without a board of directors approval.

For now.

German TV shows clips from youtube and co

[denominateur]

As the german private TV sector struggles to save money wherever it can (having recently survived an almost complete crash) shows such as "clip charts" have sprung up, sampling the silliness that people put up on the likes of youtube.

Re:Bob Saget 2.0?

[EReidJ]

I've got to tell you, Bob Saget is one of the most respected comedians working today. He's adored by many of the greats, passed on (Rodney Dangerfield was famously one of Bob Saget's best friends) and Penn Gillette (who featured him in "The Aristocrats"). Yes, "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Full House" were terrible examples of what he would do. But go see him in stand-up sometime; he is one of the vilest, funniest, grossest, hysterical comedians you will ever see on stage.

Re:Why is 1800 of 2000 trampoline accidents?

[Moodie-1]

If true, all it means is that trampolines are dangerous.

Re:GCD, LCM

[TheRaven64]

There is no such thing as the (finite) 'greatest common denominator.' Consider two fractions A/B and C/D. Trivially, BD is a common denominator; you can express the two fractions as AD/BD and CB/BD. If B and D have any common factors, then you can pull these out and make E, where E is the multiple of all prime factors of B and D[1]. E is then the lowest common denominator.

Since E is a common denominator, any multiple of E is also a common denominator. Let N be a natural number. NE is also a common denominator. Assume that NE is the greatest common denominator. Thus one of the following must hold (since if they don't 2NE is a common divisor that is greater than NE):

1. 2NE < NE.
2. (2NE / NE) is not an integer.

One trivially doesn't hold (from our axioms of multiplication on the natural numbers). The second can be reduced to 2/1 and then to 1 using our axioms regarding multiplication and 1 is (again, axiomatically) an integer. Since we have arrived at a contradiction, our initial assumption (that NE is the greatest common denominator for two arbitrary numbers) is invalidated. Since this holds for any N, no number can be a greatest common denominator.

By the way, I think you were confusing denominators (the bottom halves of fractions) with divisors (i.e. factors). The lowest common (natural number) factor of any pair of integers is always 1. Of course, 0.1 is also a common divisor of any pair of integers (as, in fact, is any rational number[2]), and so the concept of a lowest common divisor only has meaning in the domain of the integers. The greatest common divisor can be calculated recursively using Euclid's algorithm. There is a connection between the greatest common divisor and the lowest common denominator. In our earlier example, the lowest common denominator, E, is BD divided by the greatest common divisor of B and D. Since E is also the product of the prime factors of B and D, this leads to an efficient test for primality (which is far beyond the scope of this post but is not too hard to derive if you're interested).

[1] e.g. if B = 30 and D = 105, B = 3x5x7 and D = 3x5x7. E = 2x3x5x7. B/E = 7 and D/E=2. The final fractions would be 7A/2B = 7A/E and 2C/2D = 2C/E. You can then trivially add these two fractions together to get (7A+2C)/E.
[2] The proof of this is left as an exercise for the reader.

It's the middle of the night, so this post probably contains some typos. I think this proof works using Peano arithmetic, but I am too tired to check. It is only valid on the natural numbers; extending it to the integers it easy, but I am tired and lazy. And yes, I know I skipped a load of steps; this is meant as an illustration rather than a strict mathematical proof.

Re:Youtube Wins

[19thNervousBreakdown]

You should see his stand-up. The guy's hilarious, and his stuff is dirty as hell. He just sold out completely for Full House.

Re:But youtube isn't usually funny!

[CastrTroy]

Kind of like all those +4,+5 posts on Slashdot. :P

Re:Why is 1800 of 2000 trampoline accidents?

[twistedsymphony]

Well a lot of insurance companies wont insure your home (or at least give you a huge rate hike) if you have a trampoline on your property... next time you switch companies or insure a new place pay attension... I bet they ask you if you have one... Skateboard ramps too.

Re:Or as I used to called it...

[Xserv]

"America's Funniest Home Videos, hosted by America's stupidest comedian... :-P"

You're kidding, right? Bob Saget's stuff is NOTHING like Full House or AFHV. He didn't even write the stuff on AFHV. That was the producers idiocracy trying to keep it a "family show". I've seen Saget live on a few occasions and he's funny. Go to YouTube and look up "Opie and Anthony"... There is some recent stuff with him in it. It's great!

Xserv