The paparazzi are a gang of busybodies who chase celebrities around, taking pictures and asking dumb and/or snoopy interview questions. The resulting revelations are then widely publicized in a specialized medium generally referred to as "tabloids".
There is not much that can be done about paparazzi and tabloids in a free society, but there IS an alternative for the photographers of the group. Let them put giant telescopes into orbit! Each about the size of a Keck, including appropriate adaptive optics to compensate for Earth's atmosphere, and equipped with full-spectrum cameras, including infrared. With enough such satellites, they can keep all the celebrities under constant surveillance, with enough resolution to see eyelashes. Only bad weather might encourage old-fashioned in-your-face photo-snapping (but how often celebrities are ever seen outside getting drenched, anyway?).
Other tabloids, not quite so celebrity oriented, could turn those telescopes to other views, and catch the license plate numbers of UFOs, or find surviving dinosaurs hiding in darkest Africa, or catch the Abominable Snowman out for a stroll....
:)-- Vernon, May 26 2004 Keck Telescope http://www.lbl.gov/...keck-telescope.htmlThis is about as big as they get, so far. [Vernon, Oct 17 2004] Much the same idea http://www.halfbake...0_22Reality_20TV_22...but with more likely technology. [DrCurry, Oct 17 2004] Hence celestial clarity and celerity in cellulose, of celebrities.
can you tell I got a new dictionary?-- dentworth, May 26 2004 'boned for encouraging the cult of celebrity, hack journalism and spy satellites.-- DrBob, May 26 2004 [dentworth], thanks for the tip (fixed).
[DrBob], that's OK! I posted this idea partly to see how it would go over. The idea does have a couple of good points. For example, politicians are celebrities, too, and they DESERVE to be watched!-- Vernon, May 26 2004 who stole Vernon's account? this can't be right?
seriously though with the supposed coverage of satellites how does anyone or anything big go missing, shirley they could watch tibet for the yeti.-- engineer1, May 26 2004 We could just have better privacy laws. Free speech doesn't have to include pictures. I'm not convinced it should include any details of peoples private life really.
(And if the media didn't have such sway over the way people vote then better privacy laws might actually happen).-- RobertKidney, May 26 2004 random, halfbakery