It is a grim world that we live in these days. Violence from the cartoons, climate change, avian flu spreading... you get the picture. I don't particularly enjoy reading the news anymore. I love news that tickles me and yet surprises me. Claude Shannon was so right about the information content of a message. I = log2(1/P) was it ? (Information content of a message is inversely proportional to the probability of it's occurence, for the uninitiated.)
The best such piece of news I read today is about Conan O'Brien, my favourite late night TV host and Finland's president Tarja Halonen meeting up for Valentine's day. Conan found out one day that his viewership in Finland shot up meteorically because he looks like the presidential candidate Tarja Halonen. The resemblance is uncanny and Bollywood-esque too, like a pair of twins separated at the "Kumbh Mela". I couldn't stop laughing the first time I saw a picture of the two together. They do say that there are two people with the exact same face somewhere in the world. I wonder where the other person with my face lives, although for that person's sake I hope she isn't a girl. :)
These days I frequent the Reuters website to read a section that is called "Oddly Enough". It is an assortment of the most bizarre news stories of the day. Yesterday ofcourse it co-incided with the headlines too. I am alluding to the story of Dick Cheney shooting some guy in Texas during a hunting excursion. There's my good deed for the day, helping you while away those precious minutes at work and yet improving your productivity.
No comments:
Post a Comment