Julie's News Round-Up

Evening all!

Welcome to Wednesday's blog post, today I thought I would do a brief news round up on a couple of this weeks biggest news topics for you all to end this week's blogging.


Hurricane Irma 

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks then you'll know all about hurricane Irma that has devastated islands in the Caribbean and has most recently touched down in Florida and some surrounding States including South and North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. The hurricane has reached Florida having left a trail of destruction in the Caribbean where 40 people have been reported to have lost their lives. Since Sunday when the hurricane first hit Florida as a Category 4 storm, more than two dozen lost their lives including those in a nursing home where the storm cut off their air conditioning unit. As well as people losing their lives, millions are still without power in Florida and neighbouring States. While the storm has since weakened in the area, there's no doubt that the worst is still not over, with residents and indeed holiday makers left to pick up the mess Irma has made and to assess the sheer level of destruction she has left.

While watching these harrowing scenes on TV and seeing the satellite maps on the news, there was no doubt in my mind that this was a bad storm. Once you see a huge satellite swirl coming right towards your home town on the map, there is no need for further convincing; a storm's coming, get the F out of it's way or prepare in an apocalyptic style bunker with years worth of supplies. Right? Well for some, that big swirl doing the dance of destruction didn't hold some people back, oh no! I'm talking about the news reporters and correspondents. I'm not in America right now so I've not seen the destruction and I have not got regular access to American news channels but I have since caught up with some of the footage on Youtube and I have to say, WHAT ON EARTH ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING?! The news reporter links to a correspondent who, when you see them, is being utterly battered by the hurricane force winds and the slashing rain, not to mention one reporter who was in fact hit by debris flying at him at over 100mph! Then after witnessing these correspondents flying around like candy wrappers in an up-draft and struggling to string a coherent sentence together, the correspondent hands back to the studio where the reporter looks at the camera dead on and warns people to not go outside!!
1. How hypocritical and 2. How utterly dangerous and unnecessary. It's a shame for me to say this but this isn't just confined to the US, the UK does it and no doubt every other country does this too. It's pure sensationalism and most of all it's nonsensical. In the end it's worthless because you could end up losing the correspondent, never mind being able to hear anything that's being said.

Click on the video below to see the sheer ridiculousness from the correspondents covering hurricane Irma's antics

Why have we got to have a correspondent fighting to stand up and speak to prove that it's windy? Why have we got to have a woman wading about up to her waist in a flooded street to prove to everyone watching that it's been raining a little bit? We know! Chances are we're experiencing it ourselves, we're hearing it from others affected by it or maybe, just maybe we actually trust that scientifically backed weather warning and don't need someone defying death to back up the facts. While I say this, I've watched a 17 minute compilation of news correspondents reporting on Irma and I have to hand on heart tell you all, I laughed. I laughed hard. I laughed at the sheer stupidity of what I was seeing, I laughed because of the dumb things they were trying to say and show viewers. One example I watched was a man wearing swimming goggles (he had me at the goggles to be honest!) fighting to stand up right and turned the camera round to show a pole wobbling in the winds. I mean c'mon! How utterly ridiculous. Risking being blown to Kingdom-Come just to show a pole wobbling? I think he just wanted to show his goggles off personally! While I'm laughing, I'm also wondering on a serious note how much these people are getting paid to do this? And why someone isn't stopping this pure sensationalism. I know if someone asked me to stand out in conditions like that and deliver a fully comprehensive report, I would tell them to shove their offer right where the sun doesn't shine! I don't care what you want to pay me, there is no way I'm being blown about like Mary fucking Poppins and putting my life in danger just to confirm to everyone with no sense of irony- 'hey, it's windy, don't go outside!"

I hope that one day, news corporations will see sense and not put their correspondents in danger so willingly. But hey, in today's society, I have more chance of winning the lottery.


iPhone X.....tremely gimmicky

The next iPhone: The iPhone Gimmick

Another week, another iPhone. Ok I exaggerate but you get my point. Not only is it the frequency that's exhausting, but the gimmicks they pack the iPhone with that make it practically.....well, impractical. With the iPhone 7 (and the S, and the A, B, C, D...E...F.zzzzzzzzzzz) the big scandal was the absence of a headphone jack. Why get rid of the headphone jack? I know everything is going wireless now and it's a trend that's clearly going to take off...eventually but for the consumers of present day, having no headphone jack just doesn't make any sense and as you have to have an adapter for them which is tiny, if you were to lose that, then it's another remortgage to get a replacement. Now for the X. The latest on this is that it's all screen meaning that it'll be a completely "immersive experience" for the iPhone X buyer. How do you suppose this "immersive experience" will be achieved? No home button. Getting rid of the very thing iPhone users have clung onto for years and now not only will the headphone jack be missing, but their beloved home button will be missing too. What on Earth are they doing? Not only that but they've added a new face recognition piece of functionality. Not content with the existing and perfectly fine fingerprint scanning tech, they've pushed this boat out a little further in the pursuit of the gimmick-guzzling techies. But have they pushed the boat out too far with this functionality? Even the demo guy at the iPhone X's launch couldn't get the facial recognition to work. It's not even out yet and there is already a glitch, Christ that's got to spell bad news for the future and the launching sales of this phone! If Apple's very own folk can't get their heads (or shall I say faces) round this thing, then it's even worse news for the poor people who end up buying one of these things. The release date is published as being November 3rd but don't rush....no really don't. If you feel compelled to buy an iPhone X at least wait until it has the capability to recognise the smug mug that bought it.


And with that Apple bashing, I'm off. I'll see you back here on Monday evening for more but for this week, that's all folks! Have a great weekend