Trivial/Light News Items (1 Viewer)

[Generator]

I feel like helping out the new mod on block, so here's the thread for all those trivial news articles. Be it an unusual tale or a piece of light news, post it here!

I'll get the ball rolling with a personal favourite.

Erik the Red skipper 'Iceman' kills shark with bare hands

October 24, 2003


An Icelandic fishing captain, known as "the Iceman" for his tough character, grabbed a 300 kg shark with his bare hands as it swam in shallow water towards his crew, a witness said today.

The skipper of the trawler "Erik the Red" was on a beach in Kuummiit, east Greenland, watching his crew processing a catch when he saw the shark swimming towards the fish blood and guts - and his men.

Captain Sigurdur Petursson, known to locals as "the Iceman", ran into the shallow water and grabbed the shark by its tail. He dragged it off to dry land and killed it with his knife.

"He caught it just with his hands. There was a lot of blood in the sea and the shark came in and he thought it was dangerous," Frede Kilime, a hunter and fisherman who watched from the beach, told Reuters by phone from Greenland.

Icelandic author and journalist Reynir Traustason, who knows the trawler captain, said the act was typical of the man.

"He's called 'the Iceman' because he isn't scared of anything," he said. "I know the people in that part of the world. They are really tough."

Edit: Whether this thread is used or not, I don't mind, because I'm happy enough just posting the Iceman link for what must be at least the fourth time.

 

[011]

Every last 5 minute segment on ten news.

Tee hee.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

[stickied]

Thanks Generator - I think this should help reduce the level of spam. Posts about penis-severing and cannibalism now have a new home

As for people ignoring it, with time people will hopefully learn. In the meantime we can at least move any trivial/trashy news into here.

edit: we can't move them without messing the order up actually

 

[Rafy]

too many stickied threads btw......


Anyway, thought this was quite impressive

A Japanese psychiatric counsellor has recited pi to 83,431 decimal places from memory, breaking his own personal best of 54,000 digits and setting an unofficial world record.

Akira Haraguchi, 59, had begun his attempt to recall the value of pi - a mathematical value that has an infinite number of decimal places - at a public hall in Chiba city, east of Tokyo, on Friday morning and appeared to give up by noon after only reaching 16,000 decimal places, the Tokyo Shimbun said.

But a determined Haraguchi started anew and had broken his old record on Friday evening, about 11 hours after first sitting down to his task, the paper said. He reached the 80,000-digit mark after midnight on Saturday. A photo showed him with eyes closed, face contorted in concentration.

Pi, usually given as an abbreviated 3.14, is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. The number has fascinated mathematicians for centuries.

Aided by a supercomputer, a University of Tokyo mathematician set the world record for figuring out pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places in 2002. Researchers say that calculating pi to more than about 1000 places has not much purpose in maths or engineering, although mathematicians have done so to test the accuracy and capability of supercomputers.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

We may have to make a subforum for these light/trivial threads, as I have just discovered that you cannot move them into this one without completely messing up the timing

 

[Rafy]

Yeah, unfortunately one of the limitations of the vBulletin moderation options. (And most forums ive used for that matter)

A subforum could work. In fact it could work better than a mere thread. Although it could encourage some spam thread so that would have to be watched...

 

[loquasagacious]

The danger I think is a dedicated sub-forum becoming a pseudo-NS...

 

[Generator]

For such unusual and light-hearted articless, I don't think that starting anew would be that much of an issue.

 

[Meldrum]

This is the pits.

What defines "Light" news? Is it, as I suspect judging by the bulk of NCA&P posts, of a non-political nature? If so, buggery.

 

[Rafy]

Well not just non-political, but also something that dosent really address a social, ethical, political, religious etc issue. Of course major news items that dont address any of these probally wouldnt be "light" either.

 

[Meldrum]

I look forward to furrowed debates over whether an article constitutes triviality.

Such as this one - (http://www.smh.com.au/news/people/whats-the-goss/2005/07/05/1120329446896.html) about Angelina Jolie. Whilst externally it is a descript of Jolie's life, it also raises debate over the power media has in constructing and deconstructing people.

Every article, whether deemed trivial or no, has wider implications.

Perhaps the focus of this thread, as you so describe it, is not lighter news. Perhaps it should be re-threaded as "News Without Discussion" NWD...a more fitting title.

 

[transcendent]

http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/07/04/1120329371482.html

Although I feel that this article is important to me personally, most others will feel it is trivial. I'm concerned about Katie's health. My opinion of scientology has dropped dramatically.

 

[Rafy]

I look forward to furrowed debates over whether an article constitutes triviality.

Such as this one - (http://www.smh.com.au/news/people/whats-the-goss/2005/07/05/1120329446896.html) about Angelina Jolie. Whilst externally it is a descript of Jolie's life, it also raises debate over the power media has in constructing and deconstructing people.

Every article, whether deemed trivial or no, has wider implications.

Perhaps the focus of this thread, as you so describe it, is not lighter news. Perhaps it should be re-threaded as "News Without Discussion" NWD...a more fitting title.

Well in that case the focus of the thread on its creation should be the 'wider implications', with the article used to highlight elements of that issue. (Not the article acting as the actual point of discussion)

 

[MoonlightSonata]

We intend to make a subforum to contain all the light/frivolous news items, as this thread is going to be too messy. We do not want to remove such news items altogether - but we want to move them to one side of the forum because it is very irritating for most people to come here looking for some decent discussion and be met with threads all over the place with such topics as "man swallows own tentacles", or other articles of no real consequence.

This does not mean censorship; it means categorisation for the benefit of everyone.

 

[Rafy]

A sensible move MS.

And to add to what i said about what constitutes 'light, trivial' news, just use your common sense.