Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
Heard on ABC-TV’s The Midday Report just now, during a report on this morning’s joint press conference by John Howard and George W Bush:
Newsreader: You couldn’t hide the warmth between the two men…
Reporter: It was almost “get a room” time.
Now there’s an image!
Apparently this photograph from Microsoft’s Virtual Earth is exposing some big dark secret — the shape of the propeller on a US Navy Ohio-class nuclear submarine. I reckon it’s a big “So what?”
Now the Sydney Morning Herald article is correct: the propeller design is an integral part of a submarine’s ability to remain undetected. The specific shape of the tips helps prevent noisy “cavitation”, the formation of tiny bubbles, which can reveal the sub’s location.
But let’s be real. This is one, grainy frame from a commercial satellite. The crucial propeller tip is about 4 pixels across.
The Russians, the Chinese and perhaps other people have military reconnaissance satellites with much, much higher resolution cameras — and they’d specifically target nuclear submarine bases trying to take photos. The 18 Ohio-class subs are so old they were going to be retired in 2002 — although a few are being kept on for other duties now that Destroying The World has gone out of fashion. Between them, those two facts lead me to believe that “They” already have plenty of good, clear pictures of those propellers.
And that’s assuming one of the many, many workers involved in the design, building and maintenance of the subs wasn’t persuaded to take a few happy snaps in exchange for a hand with his mortgage payments.
No, I don’t think this is revealing a deep, dark secret. I reckon it means the US Navy doesn’t care any more. But it will give the military geeks without access to classified data the chance to have a tug.
News from the UK that two TV news channels will stop bothering with the “noddies”:
You do a little news interview and, when it’s over, you then do a ‘two-shot’. The interviewee mouths a few silent nothings. The interviewer nods in mock interest (and total boredom). The camera rolls for a couple of minutes in case slivers of this weary mime are visually needed to leaven the chat.
Fakery? Channel Five News has announced it is ditching the device, with Sky only a second behind. It’s either a stirring victory for truth and honesty — or (nod-nod-wink-wink) a splendidly cynical chance to get rid of a television reporter’s most demeaning, least favourite chores.
That story says noddies are to “leaven” the chat — implying they’re to provide variety. However the real reason is to hide the edits. Editing video means there’s a “jump” as the person’s head suddenly changes position, and supposedly that’s distracting as well as revealing.
I read this change in two ways, both based on the fact that 21st Century viewers have a greater understanding of the newsmaking process.
Still, whichever is true, TV news suddenly becomes cheaper to make. I wonder who’ll be the first to follow in Australia. My bet is Sky News Australia.
Dom Knight of The Chaser has written an interesting column about retired rugby player Andrew Johns’ arrest for ecstasy possession. Nice to see someone using some rationality.
I’m guessing the folks at The Bulletin magazine wish they’d thought longer before adding this tag to the front cover this week.
Even more troubling when you remember this week’s news and Mr Jones’… erm, incident.
Monday’s piece on the Citizenship Test generated some intriguing comments in Crikey yesterday and here too — but this one takes the biscuit.
Adrian Ridgway writes: Stilgherrian must be an idiot — my eight year son old got thirteen of the sample questions right — without referencing the booklet! My guess Stilgherrian must have gone to Grammar or one of those other special schools where the only skills necessary are football and socialising with the right sort of people — he’s probably a lawyer or stockbroker these days. Or maybe an immigration broker. Latte-set liberals (small l) need to pull their heads in — being invited to become an Australian citizen is a privilege — not a right, just as Stilgherrian probably exercises the right to invite who he chooses to a party in his into his home, we as a society should be allowed to exercise the right to determine who, and under what circumstances, immigrants are allowed to enter Australia. The point of the test is not to put up a barrier to anybody, but to enshrine in law as part of the process Immigrants understand they are joining an established society, not establishing colonies. (Many apologies to Aboriginal Australia — we knew not what we did at the time).
Just how many ways can one paragraph be wrong? And I’m not talking about the typos…
I love it!