EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW story

Reuters is not traditionally known for eye-catching, interestingly fresh smart headlines. So this story comes as a pleasant surprise.

Imagine yourself in 20 inches of pig manure?

Read it here:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-02-22T154353Z_01_L22674021_RTRUKOC_0_US-GERMANY-MANURE.xml

CNN's new look

CNN International has gone in for a style change. The new look starting from this week has an uncluttered simple look. Infographics are timely and dynamic, especially not intrusive.

The logo has also gone in for a change and now placed at the upper left hand corner. Colours have also been smartly used with only a basic colour scheme being implemented. i.e. White on black and red backgrounds. Updates or breaking news has stopped appearing in the ticker space and appear on a timely basis in larger font than usually was.

Apparently, a survey of viewers threw up the fact that viewers have been increasingly wary of too much information been thrown at them. It had also led to multiple attention seekers in a limited space. The use of multiple information is understood in a financial television channel but the uses are limited in a general news one. It is interesting to note that Bloomberg's unique split screen is still the favoured one amongst traders accessing television news. The new look, however, has been widely appreciated.

The snapshots of the channel have been attached to this mail. Should serve as a good study for television professionals.

Pictures courtesy - BBC World

Gagged Google

Google – the all goody final frontier in corporate sliminess finally succumbed. In order to gain a toehold in the burgeoning Chinese market, it bowed to the diktats of the authoritarian regime to censor the accessibility of information. Here is an example that should clearly demonstrate ‘new’ censored search results. Click on the two links:

Standard Google image search for “tiananmen”
China Google image search for “tiananmen”

Curiously, if you spell Tiananmen wrong (Tiananmen/tienanmen…) you get the same results on both the Chinese and the standard Google search engines.

Try it and have another bad day!

-Inspired and got the above links courtesy Saumyadeb Chakraborty

Countering cold logic

Scout put up a cool link on her blog. Ghetufool did the remaining deed of letting people know she did. The link leads to a bot which generates a picture with random words culled from one’s site.

Got me thinking. Being a huge fan of logic, I realized that how random pieces of code can lead to art. Art has more or less been a challenge to logic or order for that matter. Arty types have challenged institution, questioned rules and screwed order – not necessarily in that order. There has been some talk on how human perception of beauty or art for that matter can be deduced to a ratio of 1:3
A binding principle in the design of ancient buildings, statues of Gods, the layout of temple complexes – all have been designed knowingly or otherwise based on this principle. The idea is even supposed to apply in the attractiveness quotient of human beings. The best example of this is supposedly Tom Cruise.

Something related to it, I was thinking along the following lines – Can irrational actions counter logical or strategic actions? Say, for example in chess. An opponent has his own game plan and strategy. That is based on a large extent on what he expects his opponent to logically do faced with a situation he creates. What happens when the opponent does not react in a logical manner and does actions which seem, at least on the surface, as irrational actions? How do you counter a mad man? Think the answer is simple? An inkling of this possibility can be seen in the alleged match between Bobby Fisher and Staunton played online at the ICC. Two other coincidences – they involve both the chess and the madman element in the above argument :)
Fischer in this example played seemingly foolish illogical opening moves. In one game he moved ahead all his pawns and cupped it in another game by directly exposing his king. Now the fact that he won all the games against an accomplished grandmaster should give an inkling of the possibilities in the above argument.

So ending on that note, I leave you to mull over this. The next time you call something foolish or illogical – think again! :)