Vyoos

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

News is a quirky beast, and shaping it can be a bit like building a sand castle with quicksand.

Like everything in today’s instant information world, news is not always what it’s supposed to be, and often it doesn’t finish the way it started.

News is man bites dog – the unusual, the quirky, the rare and the wonderful. Today, however, news is also a commodity, a manufactured oddity assembled on the production lines of political and celebrity marketing ambition, polished by media industry reporters and packaged by editors.

By the time it reaches you, the consumer, it can have the same relationship with the original story that beer has with hops; that the sun has with a telescope.

The line between news and entertainment is fading. Even the serious, and seriously ethical, presenters of news, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, have reporters and readers who speak with exaggerated tonal stresses, a journalistic equivalent of canned laughter.

Did we mention journalism? It’s a dying art, slowly suffocating under a growing need to help people not to think.

image: www.mediaaccess.org.au

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Consumer opinion

Email this Post to a Friend

Today's news: US nuclear weapons scare

January 15th 2010 23:22

There has been a security scare at the super-sensitive Pantex nuclear weapons assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas.

Officials locked down the plant, which maintains the safety, security and reliability of the US nuclear weapons stockpile, and initiated security procedures after receiving a report that two men wearing camouflage gear and carrying weapons had been seen across the road from the factory.

The plant was briefly shut down as a "precautionary measure", an official said.

The full force of local security and law enforcement then swung into action, and quickly determined that the two men were duck hunters.

"There was not a threat to the Pantex plant assets, workers, or the public, and the plant is now returning to normal operations," Pantex said in a statement.

The men "were just doing what people do around here", said Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry.

The two men suddenly "had a lot more company than they were planning on", Sheriff Terry said. No charges were laid as the men both had permission to hunt from the local landowner.

Reuters

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: North America, US, Odd Spot

Email this Post to a Friend

Today's news: Fare's fair

January 14th 2010 02:52

There are an estimated 13,000 taxis in New York city

It's an ongoing saga: person leaves valuables in New York cab, cab driver finds person and returns valuables.

The latest involves a 72-year-old Italian tourist named Felicia Lettieri, a young taxi driver named Mukul Asadujjaman, and a large purse containing about US$21,000 in cash, jewellery worth several thousand dollars and some passports.

Asadujjaman, who is a native of Bangladesh and is studying medicine in the US when he isn't driving taxis, found the purse on the back seat of his cab, and inside it found an address for the Italian tourist group of which Ms Lettieri was part. Asadujjaman borrowed a friend's car and drove about 80 kilometres to the address, only to find no-one there. He left his phone number, drove home, was contacted, and drove all the way back to return the purse.

He then declined to accept a reward, saying his Muslim faith prevented him doing so.

In 2007, Osman Chowdhury, another Bangladeshi driving cabs in the US, returned a bag containing diamond rings worth $500,000. He had to track down the owner in Texas.

And in 2008 Mohamed Khalil, of Egyptian background, dropped a passenger at Newark Liberty Airport, and later discovered the passenger had left a violin in the cab. When he tracked down the owner and returned the violin, he learned that the man was Philippe Quint, a world-famous violinist, and that the violin was a Stradivarius, made in 1723, and worth about US$4 million.

As well as a cash reward, Quint gave Khalil a 30-minute private performance and then invited his entire family to Quint's next performance, which was at Carnegie Hall.

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Happy Spot, Human nature, North America, US

Email this Post to a Friend

Today's news: Google smacks China

January 13th 2010 01:42

Google has accused China of hacking into Gmail accounts, and has threatened to walk out of China as a consequence.

Google has just issued a statement saying it has uncovered a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China". The email accounts targeted were those of human rights activists

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (5)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, China, Politics, Technology

Email this Post to a Friend

Today's news: beer goggles

January 11th 2010 21:41

Too much beer does not affect your ability to get a woman's age wrong, according to a British study.

The study at the University of Leicester had researchers showing a group of people — half of whom were sober and half of whom had consumed varying amounts of alcohol — images of females meant to be 13, 17 or 20

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Beer, Law, Psychology, Romance, Sex

Email this Post to a Friend

Top job

January 5th 2010 22:44

There are about 24,000 windows in the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, and the contract to clean them has been won by an Australian company.

The company, named Cox Gomyl, designed and built a US$7.35 million window-washing system for the Dubai megatower. It will take about three months to clean the whole building. The cleaners will rely on three things to do the job: state-of-the-art, 16-tonne cages which travel along tracks fixed to the outside of the building; personal electrolyte packs and custom-made clothing which resembles a space suit; and, for the actual cleaning of the windows, a bucket, a sponge, soap and water

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Middle East, Dubai, Technology

Email this Post to a Friend

Who wants to be a solitaire?

January 4th 2010 00:11

Technology is marvellous with so many amazing things achievable nowadays. For example, just how deprived were our grandparents who lived in a time when, if a loved one died, it was not possible to turn their remains into a diamond?

Today it is. Just go to www.lifegem.com and see

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (3)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Consumer opinion, Odd Spot, Technology

Email this Post to a Friend

How cool is this?

December 22nd 2009 20:09

Adam Ferrier has a bright future in his chosen field of consumer psychology, whatever that is.

Ferrier, whom we should call Dr Ferrier because he has just completed a PhD at the University of Western Sydney, chose as his thesis subject something far more cool than the usual. His study was: what makes people cool

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Human nature, Psychology

Email this Post to a Friend

Obama gets it right

November 19th 2009 02:09

When US President Barack Obama met Japanese Emperor Akihito in Tokyo last week, he both shook hands and bowed.

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Leadership, US, Politics

Email this Post to a Friend

Don't lie to me, Argentina

October 11th 2009 22:09

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, for whom freedom of the press has become politically inconvenient

There are two reasons for a national government to introduce legislation establishing ownership and other regulatory controls over the media. The first reason is to prevent monopolies — nobody wants Rupert Murdoch owning everything. The second reason is to muzzle critics of the government.

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (10)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Politics, Argentina

Email this Post to a Friend

February 2010

1 Posts

January 2010

6 Posts

December 2009

1 Posts