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Comment Re:For those getting pitchforks ready (Score 2) 153

New home or apartment construction is more air tight than it used to be and companies cheap out and don't install real exhaust vents over stoves.

I've heard this touted as the reasoning, and it seems plausible at first glance, but I don't that better ventilation is going to make a significant difference for the following reasons:
1) In my personal experience, people tend to only turn on vents when what they are cooking is smelly or smoky in some way. The hazards as I understand them are from the burning methane itself, which is largely odor free
2) There's really no way to determine how well a hood is set up and how well it ventilates, even when it is ventilated to the outside. No doubt it is better, but by how much? Has anyone studied this? I'm unaware of any standard regarding this or any reasonable way of measuring.
3) There are situations where "proper" ventilation is pretty much impossible. What do you do in this case?

In order to properly address this issue we'd have to acknowledge the hazard, which a lot of people seem to be resistant to. I don't think we're doing anyone any favors by blaming bad construction.

Comment Could be Interesting (Score 1) 99

I'm fairly certain this will be more trouble to enforce than they are bargaining for, and may have some knock on negative side-effects.

However, assuming it isn't a complete failure and social media use is decreased substantially, it may provide some interesting independent data about childrens mental health and social media use.

Comment Re:TV will do this next (Score 1) 316

Then we'll see "self pix" like remote TV reporting. No need for a camera person to tag along and no need for a remote van with that tall transmitter tower that can get mixed up with the electrical wires overhead.

This has already happened. Around here (one of the top five markets, and on the national 24/7 news channels, for that matter), they are constantly airing footage shot by viewers. Sure the quality is bad (technical issues like exposure, rolling shutter, etc), the composition is bad (not shot by someone who knows how to frame a shot or tell a story with video), and the overall experience is bad, but people love to see their name and video on TV so they'll even give it away for free. The station gets video for free that they otherwise wouldn't have access to, so they're thrilled as well. It's win-win or lose-lose, depending on your perspective.

Many stations send out one person, a reporter/camera person combo rather than the traditional two person camera operator and reporter team. I'm sure it's a bit awkward holding the mic and camera while asking questions, but it's significant savings (at the expense of, in my opinion, compromising content, something another poster mentioned from Thom Hogan's article about this). Similarly, a lot of newscasts are heavily automated. This leads to a lack of flexibility and occasional problems with on-air content, but stations have generally decided that those compromises are worth it in exchange for downsizing.

I can't say they're completely wrong; those are business decisions to save money at a time when there's little money going around anyway, but it's also cheapening the product and putting out substandard quality. I believe that content is king and that at some point, people will turn to the news that has actual reporters reporting along side compelling, quality video. But that's just me, and the past five or so years has worn hard on my theory.

Note that I work in TV, regularly edit material that airs nationally, worry about what my job will look like in ten years, but I don't do news.

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