Posted by Andrew
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:28:00 GMT
I read a lot of news. Actually, that’s not true. I filter a lot of news. Actually, calling it “news” might be pushing it a bit. I read a lot of article based information.
It doesn’t actually consume that much of my time to do so, either. Going through the actual filtering process takes me about three seconds per article. Actually consuming things that I’m interested in takes up a bit of time, but it’s time well spent if you ask me.
So yeah, you get the idea. I get the feeling that the majority of people could count the sites which they regularly consume on their hands, some might be pushed so far as their toes. This perhaps gives an impression of how much I trawl through to get to the good bits. If you’re interested in exactly what I’m reading, that will have to come later.
Tags feeds, googlereader, news, rss | no comments
Posted by Andrew
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:46:00 GMT
Today was a pretty big day in my calendar. Once a year I clean my room, and today was that day for this year. It wasn’t your standard get-enough-stuff-off-the-floor-so-I-can-get-to-my-bed-without-dying type clean, either. I completely moved every piece of furniture in my room, and my room has an entirely new layout. Not since I moved into this room in 1998 has something like this happened in my room. It’s quite a nice feeling.
The problem now is: I feel like I should redecorate. You remember my giant poster which I put up in March last year? I think it’s time for another one of those… Or two, or three, or four. The question arises: which images should I use? I have a bunch of pictures strewn across three galleries: kerplode.com, gallery.mootpointer.com and my flickr account and I’m looking for some help to choose which ones to put up.
I’ll leave this open to comment for a couple of days and post the results next week.
Tags cleaning, news | 1 comment
Posted by Andrew
Thu, 15 Dec 2005 04:10:00 GMT
An interesting article came up on Boing Boing this morning. It justifies my idea for the Independent News Network quite nicely I think.
The article asks:
Suppose the mainstream media, fed up with the buzz bloggers keep getting and with bloggers criticizing their stories, decided to exact revenge. They initiate a vigorous copyright enforcement strategy, launching a barrage of lawsuits against bloggers as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has done to music file sharers. What would happen?
An interesting question, I think. What if us bloggers didn’t have to exist solely on the scraps from the mainstream newsmedia? What if we had some more resources to work with and more staff and co-colaborators? What if we had a set of researchers who could assist bloggers in getting the information they need instead of having assumptions and guesses.
Bloggers frequently copy large chunks of mainstream media articles and some of us copy pictures we find on the Web. Bloggers don’t have a team of photographers and artists, so they snag images from the Internet.
But what if we did? What if we basically made a place where a blogger could propose a story which the editing staff and depending on the merits of the story and the reliability of the writer we assign resources.
It sounds a lot like a traditional media outlet, with an editor deciding what goes in. Wrong. The editor should only be doing two things.
- Screening for hoax stories and for other crap
- Have the final say on who gets resources.
The readers should be able to rate stories, giving the writer credits. A writer who has more credits is more likely to get the resources he requests for a story. A story should only not be added to the site if it is a hoax or contains considerable amounts of slanderous material.
This is all from my head and straight to the page. What’s in your head?
Tags ideas, media, news, rants | no comments
Posted by Andrew
Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:21:00 GMT
Yes, it’s that time again folks, time for another outrageous idea! I’ll start with the backstory.
I was looking to make an editorial post about the whole Cronulla thing the other day and I got down to the business of grabbing images of news sites. After reaching the ABC site, I saw that their images were sourced from Getty Images so I had a browse around there to see if there were any cheap images I could buy.
Alas, the one I looked at would have cost me a tidy $250 to use. Obviously I gave up on that idea. I went down the tangent of investigating freelance photography for a bit and then got to a point where I had gone so far from the blog post that I had completely lost inspiration and all reasoning for the post. Of course, this post did not die in vain.
This whole thing got me thinking. What if I were to create a network of personal blogs to form a sort of independent news network. The people could post about their lives as much as they wanted, but when they covered something newsworthy, or an editorial, they give it a special tag. I have a central site which aggregates all the member blogs, but only displays posts with certain tags.
This means that there is some sort of independent news source which is in fact tapping a network of news sources. I’d plan that the news posted wouldn’t just be recycled posts like you see on most blogs (yeah, including mine), but interesting scoops, editorials and feature articles. I suppose it would be a centrally moderated, more organised version of Digg. I benefit by taking credit for making something cool and everyone else benefits because they get more clicks onto their sites.
The general reading public benefits because they get access to independent news and a more grass roots (perhaps youth oriented) perspective on the world. I suppose I could also open it up to non-blogger contributions as well.
The more I think about it, the cooler it gets (in my head at least).
Thoughts?
EDIT: I did neglect to mention the reason this linked to stock photos. If I work out some sort of subtle advertising system, we could get some revenue from that, perhaps even sponsors then, on top of hosting we could afford such luxuries as stock photos for particularly good articles. That will come once we get some stuff going and an editorial staff of some sort to purchase the photos and such.
EDIT 2: Also of note is that the audio scrapbook idea is still alive, it was just that I was overwhelmed by the huge amount of support (read 3 people), so I’m not quite sure what to do with that.
Tags ideas, news, ramble | 4 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Andrew
Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:16:00 GMT
Apparently, someone has designed an audio device which emits high frequency noise to repel people under 20. I have to say this concerns me. I don’t think any person should be subject to noise which is designed to cause annoyance. Basically, the idea is that over time you lose your higher frequency range of your hearing, so a 15 year old lout will be able to hear the pulsating ringing, but the 30 year old legitimate shopper will not. That’s all very well, but what about the 15 year old legitmate shopper, or the 3 year old child shopping with their mother?
I just don’t think this is thought out well. Apparently the unit is limited to 75dB, but I’m not sure how that figure is rated as higher frequency sound means more energy which means more possible damage. Apparently a higher power model is also in the works, for “emergency situations” but really, if anyone turned that on around me I’d be off to the nearest cop shop to get them charged with assault. For me, my ears are my greatest asset, they are extremely sensitive and have been for a long time, which dad enjoys telling me whenever I note a subtlety in music or something.
If people want to keep teenagers from being nuisances, then do something about the cause, not the symptom. If you have teenagers causing trouble in the area, then open a youth centre or try and get them educated or employed. Don’t assault their ears when they come near your shop. That’s only going to further their discontent with society. The more I think about this idea, the more I think it’s stupid and sadly representative of todays view of the teenager.
I suppose there is not much more to say about that, I’ll probably post some news about me later, when I get bored of my music assignment.
Tags audio, news, rants | 5 comments
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