please empty your brain below

As data speeds get faster, news websites get more cluttered. Ads are necessary to pay for a service but need they be so intrusive? Also why must every news item include a photo even if it does not add to the information. I mean we know the faces of major politicians
I used to be able to read all the so called news in a colleague's daily red-top newspaper between two DLR stations. I dare say I could do the same with the so-called quality press nowadays because of the spread and size of the pictures used. Same with web based news...most of which I now avoid because of the number of clicks/screen swipes necessary between tiniest bits of information.
There is always...

http://www.pagesfromceefax.net/

Shame there's no remote control.
The two niggles interact a bit. When you're half-way through reading an article and the "breaking news" flash comes up, you can dismiss the flash, but you get returned to the beginning of the article you are reading, requiring more scrolling.

It would be enough to make me go back to the good old days of getting all my news from blank ink on white paper, except for two things: the price, and the inevitable 12 hour or more uncurrentness.
In the days before 24 hour news channels, if there was an urgent breaking story, there'd be a 15-20 second news flash between programs (or if it was a live program in the middle of it) By the time of the scheduled news programs, they'd have information to impart and dissect.

Now, with 24-hour news, whenever something happens, they're all over it in an instant. But they have zero information so spend hours with meaningless speculation just to fill air time. Is that really quality reporting?
@Carl - Ads are an arms race between ad-blockers and the advertising industry.
Website designers nowadays seem to think that every page needs half a dozen pictures - even if the pictures add nothing to the story. How long before websites are so picture heavy that they look more like cartoons?

DG's site gets it right. Pictures where they add value, no pictures where they're not needed. Just imagine what the "Anorak Corner" article would look like in a modern web style: We'd have pictures of all the stations clogging up the story.
On my mobile screen, once I've scrolled down to the start of the story, I can read seven paragraphs.

On my laptop I can only read four paragraphs, despite the screen being hugely bigger.

Blame verticalisatiion.
i generally don't have time for niggles ...and as things go think it bit OTT to call this one a major one.

plus...i wonder if BA got "hacked" and they are blaming it on a "power-supply" issue?
Moderate niggle: When websites require you to click to expand the very article which you arrived to read. Presumably something to do with advertiser-driven usage tracking, but particularly frustrating is the pointless “Show more” link interrupting the middle of the second sentence of every programme description on the ad-free BBC programme description pages.
@Grumpy Anon - The consensus on the tech websites is that if BA's problems are power related, they've seriously ****ed up. A power issue should not take down entire data centres - let alone multiple data centres!
@Rich - That's even more annoying when the whole page loads, you start to read and then it disappears behind a "click here to continue" text
Similar niggle: the TFL journey planner website, which on my laptop at least, has a huge blank banner at the top of the page, so you have to scroll down even to fill in your destination, never mind to do anything more useful. Maybe it's my ad blocker and this blank space should be full of fascinating things I absolutely need to know...










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