Interesting Links for 17-07-2013

[andrewducker]

• This is what it looks like when you replace photographers with iPhone-wielding reporters
  (tags: newspapers photography )
• Why different polls show Labout 9 points ahead, and tied with the Conservatives
  (tags: politics uk polls )
• The Perfect Robot: A graduation speech
  (tags: comic education )
• Dementia Rate Is Found to Drop Sharply, as Forecast
  (tags

Comments

[errolwi]

The dementia one looks really hopeful, thanks.

[brixtonbrood]

It does, but they didn't mention increasing obesity rates - I wonder how they factor into the calculations (although of course if you're only looking at 90 year olds then very few will be obese).

[lil_shepherd]

Just when you think the Vatican can't get any siller...

[andrewducker]

Towards infinite silliness!

[danieldwilliam]

Do you get de-merits for following the Arch-Bishop of Cantabury or one of the Pope parody accounts?

[a_pawson]

......they go and canonise Pope John Paul II after the church decided he did indeed perform two miracles - both of which occurred after his death!

[steer]

Re the reporters one:
I looked through the Tumblr which compares the professional versus the non-professional side by side in columns.
http://suntimesdarktimes.tumblr.com/
I'm not into photography. I couldn't tell which one had the professional photographers and which one had the iphone guys. I think there's a lot of stock photos and professional photos sourced everywhere (sometimes they had the same photos).

[simont]

Mmm. It doesn't seem to me that I can fairly judge the photography from that Tumblr, because it's putting each day's front pages up against each other with completely different stories, rather than showing the photos going with the corresponding story in each paper.

I suppose in terms of picking a photo that'll sell the entire paper to someone, choice of which story to put a big picture of on the front page is also an important factor, but at that point I think you've moved beyond criticising the photography into criticising the marketing strategy. (Unless, I suppose, the staff photographers are/were also the people making those decisions? Perhaps my ignorance of the roles in a newspaper office is letting me down.)

In the first case where I did see photos of the same story, it seemed to me a clear win for the Sun-Times (with the non-pro photographers), because both papers had the identical shot of the missing boy but the Sun-Times was showing people actually digging him out of the sand while the Tribune showed a picture of his

[steer]

Exactly as you say I think... I thought there was one case with a clear winner and it wasn't the pro photographers. It seems that in practice the strategy works well at least for the photos we can see so far but I don't know enough to say and it's just from looking at a small number of photos.

[mair_aw]

That 'budget' looks very odd to me.

$100/month for cable/phone, and no heating?

$250/month for car payments/insurance?

$27/day spending money? I guess that includes food as there is no food in the budget, but still.

Really?

Here is my minimum wage budget:

1 Week / 16 hours work:
£80 : rent
£15: food
£5: pub after bellringing

Remaining hours work (my hours last summer in a pub and last winter working with flowers were quite variable):
- moar food
- cake/lunch out with friends
- savings (mainly towards books, clothes, holidays)

Wifi is included in the rent, TV is not (but surely there's iPlayer if I ever wanted to watch anything, I never have), I top up my phone with £10 every 2-3 months (and use skype for calls where possible), don't run a car.

[skington]

They've corrected the list with one that includes heat, apparently. And it might not be a completely stupid idea.