What effect has the internet had on journalism?

Ever stopped to think about how the internet has completely revolutionised the art of news gathering?

In the days before the world wide web, the older generation of trained journalists would type up their story and probably dictate it to an editor in London, New York, or Berlin. Nowadays, most journalists have integrated new technologies into their news-gathering techniques as they've emerged. For many seasoned pros, covering the events during the Middle East protests like those that flashed across your screen in Cairo during the internet blackout in Egypt was like taking a step back in time. Peter Beaumont, a foreign affairs editor for The Guardian says,

"We went back to what we used to do: write up the story on the computer, go to the business centre, print it out and dictate it over the phone," he says. "We didn't have to worry about what was on the internet; we just had to worry about what we were seeing. It was absolutely liberating."

The effect on news reporting from these new and emerging technologies like the web and other integradted software platform along with social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and You Tube is considered the most clear evidence that this is a revolutionary technology: news editors – the traditional Guardian of the Fourth Estate, and in some cases, the governments that they observe – are no longer the gatekeepers to information because costs of distribution have almost completely disappeared. If knowledge is power, the web is the greatest tool in the history of the world.

Paul Mason, economics editor on BBC2's Newsnight, agrees.He uses these tools to get an angle on what's happening and what's important. "If you are following 10 key economists on Twitter and some very intelligent blogs," he says, "you can quickly get to where you need to be: the stomach-churning question, 'OK, what do I do to move this story on?'"

Of course as with everything that at first glance appears like manna from heaven, a word of caution needs to be observed, a caveat emptor needs to be understood. The danger is that you can all too easily accept an initial story found on Facebook or the web and, in an effort to get the story out, certain journalistic rules are not observed. Indeed, in 2009, American TV networks found themselves in a very public mess when they reported the "Twitter line" on the story of a killing spree by Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood US army base – that the killer had terrorist links. The details turned out to be false.

Nevertheless, it is unquestionably true that technology has changed forever not only the way journalists gather news, but also the way they publish and report it. Just as wars changed forever when journalists began to hunker down with the troops in the first and second Gulf Wars, so too reporting on things as diverse as domestic strife between spouses and what underwear Kim Jong of North Korea wears will never be the same.

Have scientists discovered how to create downpours in the desert?

It used to be a joke to say that a good salesman can sell oil to the Arabs. That said, how amazing is it to find that now the Arabs themselves have invented a way to create downpours in the desert?

In an area with billions of square acres, the dessert is not known to be the most hospitable place to live. Moreover the locals have been trying to come up with ways for centuries of changing the barren soil and making it fertile enough to grow vegetables. In a world where food prices are increasing year on year leading to food shortages, this has to be a good idea.

The recent reports show that the ruler of Abu Dhabi now claims to have generated a series of downpours. In fact, fifty rainstorms were created last year in the state's eastern Al Ain region using technology designed to control the weather.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1343470/Have-scientists-discovered-create-downpours-desert.html#ixzz1ETPqIbGL

Most of the storms were at the height of the summer in July and August when there is no rain at all. People living in Abu Dhabi were baffled by the rainfall which sometimes turned into hail and included gales and lightening. The scientists have been working secretly for United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. They have been using giant ionisers, shaped like stripped down lampshades on steel poles, to generate fields of negatively charged particles. These promote cloud formation and researchers hoped they could then produce rain.

In a confidential company video, the founder of the Swiss company in charge of the project, Metro Systems International, boasted of success. Helmut Fluhrer said: 'We have achieved a number of rainfalls.'It is believed to be the first time the system has produced rain from clear skies, according to the Sunday Times.

In the past, China and other countries have used chemicals for cloud-seeding to both induce and prevent rain falling. Last June Metro Systems built five ionising sites each with 20 emitters which can send trillions of cloud-forming ions into the atmosphere. Over four summer months the emitters were switched on when the required atmospheric level of humidity reached 30 per cent or more.

While the country's weather experts predicted no clouds or rain in the Al Ain region, rain fell on FIFTY-TWO occasions. The project was monitored by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the world's major centres for atmospheric physics.

Professor Hartmut Grassl, a former institute director, said: "There are many applications. One is getting water into a dry area. Maybe this is a most important point for mankind."

And who could argue with that?

Austerity in unequal measures? A chip off the old blog!

In an era when the word "austerity" has taken on a new and particularly poignant meaning for many, with economic times where most families might welcome a little advice on how to cut down on household bills, we find that one mom, called an "austerity mother" has her own blog - "Austerity Mum".

However, readers of the anonymous blog which charts one middle-aged housewife’s attempts to rein in spending - might have reason to suspect that the author had a different idea of hardship to many families.

Here are some of the suggestions for reigning in spending: thinking about how to cut the cost of family holidays she suggests forgoing private helicopter flights or canceling that half-term break in the Maldives in favour of returning to your weekend home in the French Alps.

But just when we thought we'd put those greedy bankers in their place, we find out the real author of the blog. She is in fact the wife of Ashley Unwin, the head of PricewaterhouseCoopers who has a £200 million-a-year consulting business.

Here are some extracts from the original article:

But in a move which she likened to “axing Ark Royal” she announced last autumn that she had cancelled the October break to the Maldives, although admitted she was pondering a cheaper option in Morocco.

"I even cancelled the helicopter transfer from Nice to our hotel in Ramatuelle [near St-Tropez] this Friday," she added in passing.

"Then reinstated it, then cancelled again ... watch this space.”

Her attempts to rein in her husband’s preference for £80 bottles of Aftershave from Liberty or expensive shoes also met stiff resistance.

“My suggestion about going to Clarks and changing shoes once a month did not go down so well,” she wrote.

At a time when people don't have enough money to send their kids to school, or to put food on the table for a large family, is this really what people want to read about? Excessive, out of control spending by people who wouldn't know what the real world is like if they stepped in a puddle and got their new Prada shirt wet!

Car for sale - Toyota Vios, 2005

Social whirl of a life? Thank your amygdala

I guess this is something we already knew or at least suspected. If your social life is a full of friends and family, you might want to thank an almond-shaped clump of nerves at the base of your brain.

Researchers have found that part of the brain called the amygdala, a word derived from the Greek for almond, is larger in more sociable people than in those who lead less gregarious lives. The finding, which held for men and women of all ages, is the first to show a link between the size of a specific brain region and the number and complexity of a person's relationships.

The team of researchers, led by psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, found that participants with larger amygdalas typically had more people in their social lives and maintained more complex relationships.

According to the theory, those with the smallest amygdalas listed fewer than five to 15 people as regular contacts, while those with the largest amygdalas counted up to 50 acquaintances in their social lives. Older volunteers tended to have smaller amygdalas and fewer people in their social group.

This research also corresponds with that done on primates who tend to have a bigger amygdala when they live in large social groups. However, we should be aware that a word of caution should be observed. As Lisa Feldman Barrett states,

"It's not that someone with a larger amygdala can do things that someone with a smaller amygdala cannot do. People differ in how well they remember people's names and faces and the situation in which they met them. Someone with a larger amygdala might simply be better at remembering those details," Barrett added.

What a sad day for journalism - two famous journalistic faces gone from public life - RIP

What a sad day for journalism - two famous journalistic faces gone from public life...makes you feel old...

...Brian Hanrahan -"I counted them all out and I counted them all back..." http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/20/brian-hanrahan-bbc-foreign-correspondent-dies



...and Anthony Howard with his unmistakable voice..."http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12035026"



RIP

Why can planes take off from Canada but not land in London?

Why can planes take off from Canada but not land in London? Given the temperatures are close to -20 C in parts of Canada, you have to wonder at the level of ineptness of the British authorities, the BAA, who don't seem to have the wherewithal to organise safe take off and landing procedures during this period of inclement weather. Hundreds more flights were cancelled on Monday morning as criticism of BAA's response to the recent bad weather intensified.

According to David Millward, Martin Evans and Stephen Adams of The Daily Telegraph, "Anger towards BAA – which operates Heathrow Airport – increased as the Christmas travel plans of half a million air passengers continued to be ruined."

Surely it can't be that hard to de-ice the planes' wings and the runways as countries that deal with perpetually bad weather patterns are used to dealing with such scenarios every winter?

One million passengers were due to pass through Heathrow alone this week and with warnings of further bad weather in the next few days, some travellers whose flights have been cancelled were told they faced waits of up to five days. As passengers were forced to sleep in terminal buildings for a third night, there was mounting criticism of BAA, the airport operator.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, rang Colin Matthews, the chief executive of BAA, to demand answers over why the airport had failed to cope. “I stressed the huge economic importance of Heathrow. I also expressed my hope that they would pull out all the stops to ensure that the planes get moving again. Most people realise that it has not snowed at Heathrow for some time so it is vital everything is done to get the aircraft and passengers moving again.”

BAA, which is controlled by Spain’s Ferrovial, claimed it had spent an extra £6 million on equipment to deal with snow and ice compared with last year. But with pre-tax profits expected to near £1 billion this year, the operator has been accused of failing to invest properly in equipment to cope with the extreme cold.

This reminds me of another well-known institution in Britain, Barclays Bank which, before the Credit Crunch, was making pre-tax profits of between 3-4 billion pounds per quarter. You don't have to be a genius to see that profits as usual have been put over and above the needs and indeed comfort of the customers.