the darkerside to rants

I am sure the internet, as always, will be full with “this was 2010” or some such, not to mention the “traditional media”.

So why not?

On the global scale, things that I am aware of but that don’t necessarily directly affect me I would have to say the biggest news was Wikileaks. Not so much because of what they released (or are releasing) as in the way the media and politicians have reacted.

To put it mildly: It was and is a pretty shameful spectacle.

Like or don’t like Julian Assange, but at least the man seems to have principles and stick to them. He also gave Wikileaks a face and that seems to have galled some of the earlier Wikileaks supporters.

The good thing that may come out of it next year is another leak site, if they will be as principled as Wikileaks seems to be under Assange remains to be seen.

But I still wonder how much of an impact this will really on our day to day lives. It seems the internet is split between people who support Wikileaks and it’s mission and those who (mainly) see it as an attack on the United States. Again, I am sure, 2011 will give us more answers to that as media and internet loudmouths will jockey for a new position trying to either take Wikileaks down or support it.
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I admit it. I came late to the “new” TopGear hype, not until late 2008 did I discover Jeremey Clarkson’s ode to the automobile. I had heard of it before, but I thought it was pretty stupid (a motoring show that is). And you know what? The first season of the re-designed TopGear really wasn’t all that great, it was very much like what you would expect from a motoring show but then there were hints of greatness.

Fast forward eight years and 15 Seasons later and TopGear, the original one, is apparently the most downloaded program on the planet. Now that’s an achievement. Not only that but TopGear has gone on to spawn copies in a variety of places, Russia, Australia and now (again) in the US.

So what is it that makes the original TopGear so great? The answer to this of course is probably different for everybody but I think there are a few core principles that TopGear has nailed:

The Presenters

In it’s currently lineup they are together since Season two. You have Jeremy Clarkson as the “leader”, Richard Hammond as his sidekick and James May (aka Captain Slow) as the resident Geek.

What all three of them have though is really good Chemistry. They are all “boys at heart” and TopGear clearly plays on and off this.

They all are accomplished journalists too and although Richard Hammond is hosting Total Wipeout he still writes columns and does serious stuff as well. Overall the Team just works.

The Presentation

There is a remarkable amount of work that has been put into creating TopGear, the production values seem high, and not only because they have high-end sports cars but rather really good cinematography, editing and scoring.

In part the BBC’s blanket music license helps in creating this feeling, but kudos have to be given to the editor and director of photography (DP).

It is FUN

Yes, it needs to be stated here. The three presenters are big kids in a candy store and they aren’t ashamed of having fun. This is where it clicks the most with me, those guys get to do things that most guys watching on TV would LOVE to do. We live through their experiences. How can this not be a great program.

Enter TopGear USA

There were already two aborted attempts to bring TopGear to the US, as of this November the History Channel of all places has commissioned one series. The show follows very closely the original, which on the surface sounds like a good idea, but in reality it makes it hard not to compare the two. So far, the strengths of the original have proven to be the weakness of the US version.

The Presenters

The US version has Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust and Rutledge Wood as the presenters. I admit: The only person I knew (somewahat) was Adam Ferrara, though not in the context of motoring.

Those three are clearly modelled on the original cast, with Ferrara filling in for Clarkson, Foust for Hammond and Wood for May. The only problem is: They aren’t.

I don’t mean that they aren’t those three guys, obviously, but the archetype that is associated with the three original presenters isn’t there either.

Ferrara is not Clarkson. Their personality and attitude is completely different. Where Clarkson has a lot of hard corners and in general is a very imposing person Ferrara comes of as being washed with too much fabric softener. The writing on the show tries him to be “the tough guy” but you can see he is struggling with it. He just cannot be mean like Clarkson can without coming off as a complete asshole.

Then there is Foust, a Hammond (aka Hamster) he is not. He clearly fits better into his role than Ferrara does but I mostly put this down to a similar physical type (albeit taller) than Hammond. His presentation and talking still comes off as someone who is reading someone else’s script (more about this a bit later).

Which brings me to Wood. He clearly is a copy of May, he is a geek, but not a car geek. He comes off as the little kid that was always teased in school but now finally is in the limelight and is so awestruck by it that he can’t help but constantly have a stupid grin on his face announcing to the world: “I can’t believe they let me do this.”

So, individually they are not living up to the expectation / character, but it gets worse, there does not seem to be a lot of chemistry. Yes, TopGear (the original) is a scripted show, in the sense that they do lay out the course of a “race” or “event” and they have certain “presentation segments” but the difference seems to be that the original cast gets to write it’s own lines. The US team though seems to rely on other writers and it shows. The delivery is coming of as wooden most of the time, it doesn’t matter if it is a “flippin remark” or a presentation. Wood especially comes off as “wooden” in most of his presentation to a point where I am wondering why they actually hired him in the first place.

None of the US presenters seems to feel comfortable in being in the limelight, they all come off as stiff and uncomfortable and although some reviewers said it is getting better beginning with Episode three I can’t quite see that. Last nights Episode four was just as bad as previous ones.

The Presentation

Okay, so we have the presenters out of the way which gets me to the visual presentation itself.

Firstly, there is a huge change with the music, not too surprising considering that music licenses are expensive and History isn’t that big a network, fine, I can live with that.

Where it gets painful for me though is when I look at the way the show is shot. This starts from camera angles to focus pulling to general “look” of the show.

My reaction after the first episode was:

“TopGear (UK) is high gloss (car) porn, while TopGear (US) comes off as a cheap webcam show.”

Unfortunately this hasn’t changed. Watching last nights episode (and then briefly skimming through some older (Season eight) episodes of the original TopGear makes this quite clear. Where the original has smooth focus pulls, nice use of gradient filters and a flow to each of the videos the US version comes off like a high school project. Fast snap focus, jump cuts and an overall feel of aimless editing. It all feels disconnected and badly edited.

I know many people are saying that the first two Seasons of TopGear UK weren’t that great either, and they are right. But the difference is this: TopGear UK started anew, they tried to create a new type of car show and they succeeded. TopGear US does not try to re-invent the show format, they are trying to copy it for the US market and they do fail miserably in the process.

It is NOT Fun

Which brings me to the final verdict though. The show just isn’t fun. The things mentioned above are a big part of it, but worse to me is that judging by the shows I have seen as well as the preview for the rest of season one I can’t help but feel that someone at TopGear US went through 15 seasons of the original and then decided which episodes / stunts / films were cool and then set out to re-create them with a much more limited budget.

So, having seen the original a lot feels like a re-hash. Maybe that’s not fair to the show as I am sure there are many people in the US who have never seen the original (though it has been broadcast on BBC America), buy for me this is a problem. Not only because it is a re-hash (which is fine, there are only so many things you can do with cars) but rather because it allows me to directly compare how they have done things and the reality is this: The US remake comes off cheap and amateurish.

So what would need to change?

That is an excellent question. I think a few things are in order:

Presenters 

Have them write their own material, forget about the archetypes that were established in the UK version and let those guys find their own inner “petrolhead”.

Get a decent DP

Seriously, or if you can’t afford one, then have your current one watch all of the original UK episodes. What makes TopGear look so good is not expensive cameras or special effects, it’s knowing how to light the scene and use the camera.

Get Creative

Stop aping the original show (now there’s a theme going) and start thinking of your own stunts / ideas. Come on America, you went to war to not be beholden to the Brits and now you’re just aping them?

Also: What makes the original work so well is that Clarkson is the top dog. No doubt about it, he has the arrogance to pull it off. TopGear US lacks a “core”, find one.

Final Verdict

If you don’t know the original, watch it, there is much worse out there (especially if you’re a car enthusiast), if you have seen the original…. Well, I’d say don’t bother. I think after four episodes I am done with it… Besides, the new season of the original starts soon.

 

I admit it. I loved the first game in the series. It was utterly cool to force grab a Stormtrooper or two and fling them off the walkway to their doom. In general, what made that game was the ability to wield the “awesome” powers that the jedi and Sith have.

So now in 2010 Lucasarts comes out with a sequel, trying to continue the story. But did they actually succeed?

I quickly jumpted back into the first game, also on the 360, to remind myself of what I liked about the old one. Then I quickly fired up the new one.

First perception? The graphics look much better than in the first one. More “lifelike” and in general more polished. The old Force powers are back and you are even given a handful of new ones (more about this later). The first ten minutes or so left me impressed with the desire to continue.

THE STORY

Now, not trying to spoil the story I can safely say it continues where the last game left off, nice to see that they found a (not completely stupid) way onward.

Having said this though, the story isn’t anything special. It does not “reveal” anything big and it merely tries to hit all the check marks along the way to a “Star Wars” ending. It does so though in style, with pretty explosions and well executed effects for the force powers.

THE GAMEPLAY

This is where the game has let me down quite a bit.

First and foremost I think the controls are horrible. They weren’t overly precise in the first game, but they are utterly horrible in the sequel. It turns down into button mashing and hoping you have enough Force power juice to take out that enemy.

In theory you should have a nice balance between your powers and your lightsaber skills. In reality though I mostly used push and light sabre combos when I encountered enemies that I couldn’t beat by using the Force.

Which brings me to the next, and much bigger problem. The difficulty curve on the game is harsh. From “easy” to “medium” (which they recommend as default) it is a huge step. What makes this even worse though is that the increase in difficulty mostly stems from more and tougher enemies, not from smarter Ai.

The AI in general is pretty crappy, they either swarm you or they stand aimlessly around occasionally taking a shot at you that can be easily deflected with the sabres. So most enemies really are just decoration for you to toss around. Fun for a while, but after a while it becomes boring and annoying.

In later levels it becomes so hard even on medium that I found myself ultimately lower the difficulty to “easy” and ending up just blasting through the game. I did not intend that, I actually ended up raising difficulty in between only to get my ass kicked. Now maybe it’s old age (I am not as young as I used to be) but I would say the problem in this game is balance.

VERDICT

Can I recommend the game? Yes and no. If you are good with frustration, can live with a small number of enemies and are willing to wildly button smash to get a story that is roughly on par with what George Lucas has punted out over the last two decades then by all means go for it.

If you just look for a fun way to toss Stormtroopers to their death you may be better off getting the old game or just wait until this game goes into the bargain bin.

Total rating: 5/10

I am typing this from the YMCA “public” internet and for the first time I actually encounter a content filter.

It is interesting that the YMCA uses “websense” to police where people can go. Clearly, the Y is a private institution, but seriously? The site wasn’t an offensive one, nor was it showing any content that could be “distressing” people and yet, the Y elected to block it.

Of course there are easy ways around this, I could set up a proxy at home and tunnel all my traffic through there, or just bypass their internet completely and use my tethered iPhone to get onto the net.

So why am I posting this? Because I find it rather disappointing that the Y feels the need to police it’s members. Shame on you.

Past Peak Oil Travelling Towards Transition Animation from Anita Sancha on Vimeo.

I have not owned a notebook in almost three years. My last one was a Powerbook G4 bought in 2005 just before Apple dropped the PowerPC platform and went all Intel on us.

I kept using the Powerbook for a while longer, but it becamse clear quickly that Apple was doing their best to try and force people into the Intel fold ASAP. With 10.6 they effectivly have achieved it.

I did buy another Mac though, a new MacPro as I had done most editing / working from home anyway and the need for a portable computer didn’t seem that pressing.

Then Apple decided to turn all of the Notebooks into appliances, fusing the battery with the Computer, this killed it for me. If I am on a mobile computer I want to have the ability to swap out the Battery when need be, I am not a Hipster who uses his Computer to importantly type away at a coffeeshop pretending to be writing the next great Canadian Novel about the hardships of today’s 20something.

So I abstained.

Over the last few months though there were a few times where I could have really made good use of a mobile computer. As technology goes though, things are quickly progressing and as such I was holding out. The iPad looked interesting but suffered from the same "Apple disease" they seem to have acquired ever since the iPhone really became a hit, plus it is in essence an Internet Consumption device, not a mobile computing platform (and yes, I know a-many will disagree with me on that one).

Netbooks had fascinated me for a while, small, powerful and exciting. Only problem was, the ones I tried weren’t really powerful enough for me, main problem being memory, or rather lack thereof.

On the weekend though I finally bit and bouth a Netbook, two actually.

The first was a Toshiba 305N, at $450 quite an expensive netbook. My joy lasted all but an hour, as I installed the tools that I needed I realized quickly that the thing was way too underpowered, no way that I could do even basic photoediting on it. So back it went where it came from.

In it’s replacement I bought an acer Aspire 1830T.

To call it a netbook is probably a bit of a "lie". The little thing is quite well equipped. 11.6" screen, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB HDD and even an HDMI output.

It works very well indeed, I did some on the fly photo editing in Lightroom with images from my Panasonic GF1 and it did it well.

The small trackpad is a bit of a concern for me though as especially the gestures don’t always seem to work. Apparently the driver supplied by Dell works better but I haven’t installed it yet. The problem could very well be the touchpad, mine is made by Alps and online many people complain about the funcationality of it, while the ones with the Synaptic verson seem to be happy as clams.

This being a netbook and going with the latest style it has, unfortunately, a glossy screen. If I would hate myself I would very quickly need to overcome this, even as I type, in a semi dark room, the screen and bezel are so shiny that I can see myself. Oh, I need a shave I guess, thankfully if I am ever stuck at the side of the road with no mirror this won’t be a problem. The Computer screen will do just fine.

Another point of complaint for me is the keyboard.

Firstly, the keys are flat, which makes it hard to "feel" where you are, but this you can get used to.

Worse is how the keyboard has been laid out. For some reason someone at Acer thought that having a full sized CAPSLOCK key was necessary, but the shift key on the left hand side was cut in half. The end result? I often hit the \ key instead of the shift key, which then has me struggle back the text and fix it.

On the right hand side a similar brainfart seems to have occured. Instead of having the return key wide at the bottom (you know, the way IBM original laid out the keyboard on the Selectric typewriters), the Acer engineers thought it should do so at the top, instead in the lower par they squeeze in the copy of what they had done on the right, meaning, more than once instead of a line break, I get this: \

Yeah, nice, if I need to escape that would be handy, but mostly I write texts in an editor, not computer code or on the shell.

I am sure in time I will get used to these quirks, but honestly, if Acer would have addressed these it would be THE perfect computer to take with you, the build in SD card reader has proven useful as well, no juggling with card readers or USB cables, just pop out the SD card from the camera and plug it into the notebook and you’re good to go.

Pros:

- Small Form Factor, light too.
- Powerful, can replace most notebooks "on the go".
- Six hours of battery life (they claim 8, but I think that would only be possible without any wireless.
- Large HDD and screen resolution (1366×768)

Cons:

- Glossy Screen (not only reflective as hell but also fingerprint attracting)
- Awkward Keyboard layout
- Temperamental touchpad.

Verdict:

If you are looking for a small, portable computer with lots of power you probably will be hard pressed to find anything similar for the price. My model comes with the i3-330UM CPU but in the US they will also sell you one with an i5 and 500GB HDD.

As of yesterday I own an Acer 1830T, testing a variety of tools. I haven’t worked on a Windows machine in almost a decade (as in: owning my own) and it is an odd sensation to come back to it.

The main gripe I have with the Asus so far is some of the keys are set in odd places, resulting in some accidental key presses. I am sure I will get used to it sooner or later. Otherwise it’s fast and can even 1080p video.

So yes, finally I do own a notebook again, has been three years, wonder if I’ll regret that sooner or later.

Or rather the tired and old “Film vs. Digital” cost thing.

Last week I was asked to put in a proposal for film photoshoot. This was supposed to be a whole day affair with up to 15 models doing “lifestyle” shoots for a product. Groovy.

My initial proposal came in at $2510 plus HST.

The breakdown was as follows:

Basic Shoot cost (up to 8 hours): $700
Film (20 rolls total including processing): $400
Scanning ($0.50/frame): $360
Post Production (estimate 90mins per roll at $35/h): $1050

Today then I was told that the shoot was delayed and that my pricing was “too expensive” and that the budget is $500 (something I didn’t know initially, if I had I wouldn’t even have bothered) and as much as they like my film shooting style, they will have to go with someone who does digital (as it was implied, this HAD to be cheaper, no film, you know) and also can bring a whole pile of lightening equipment.

Wow. I am not sure if I should shake my head or feel insulted.

Let’s look at this from a business perspective. My total time commitment on this shoot would have been at least 38 hours, that is the 8 hours for shooting and the 30 hours for post processing, not counting me going to the location, the cost of equipment etc. You get the idea.

The cost for equipment isn’t any lower shooting digital, if anything because digital equipment is expected to be replaced every two to three years the cost for equipment has to be recovered much quicker, say, within a year. On a $3500 digital camera (with an okay lens) that means for those $500 shoots you need to do an awful lot, and there aren’t any time savings, I already calculated less than 3 minutes per frame in post and considering the shooting environment and the ideas that were presented to me this could be underestimated.

Add to this that the expectation is that whoever will do this gig for $500 will bring along a whole whack of light equipment which is not cheap and will also take a long time to set up. Meaning: most likely much more than eight hours on location(s) (yes, that’s a plural S, the idea was to shoot at several different locations, which also means all the equipment needs to be broken down and transported to a new location, then set up again).

So, whoever will be doing this for $500 will, at the end of the day, have earned nothing beyond a warm and fuzzy feeling. S/He may have paid of a bit of the equipment, but there will be zero profit, zero eating too.

The funny thing is, the guy who asked for the quote produces an actual, physical product. He would not just hand it out to people on the street for free, he wants to make some money. So he calculates his cost, then adds a percentage on top and then sells it for that price. Meanwhile, he expects the photographer to work for some charity money.

This is why I think photography as a line of business is dead, as digital downloads have destroyed (or at least badly injured) the music distribution industry, so has the idea that “digital is cheaper” and “everybody has a camera”. I have heard this a few times before where people put in proposals for wedding shoots only to be told that it was too expensive and that Uncle Herb has a Digital Camera and he’s not that bad, so he’ll do it instead.

If you look at my above list I do have $750 in direct film related cost (film + scanning), but the reality is that if I would shoot digital I would have worked this in via “equipment rental”, because those HDDs, Memory Cards and new digital bodies every few years aren’t free either. It IS a business and if I do it, I do it to make money, not to get a warm and fuzzy feeling about being allowed to work for someone for nothing.

Am I miffed at being not hired? Not really, it isn’t my line of business per-se. I make money somewhere else at a much higher hourly rate, but I am somewhat surprised (okay, not really) that a business person who should know about cost and profit margins, thinks that for $500 someone could do this shoot for him and make money off of it.

Obviously there are always people out there who will try to get something for nothing, but I have the feeling that this is more the rule than the exception these days when it comes to photography, unfortunately.

Ah yes, an old box camera and a cheap Chinese film and yet…. I like it. Even though it was shot out of a moving car.

Yesterday was “Pride Parade Day” and I got out and shot a few photos.

In general I have to say I found myself rather disappointed this year. It wasn’t a very campy event (not that the previous years were really raunchy) and it seems most of the floats were corporate ones, used to advertise themselves, still a bit mind boggling to watch this whole thing.

The funniest thing must have been the Conservative Party’s “float” though. It was one convertible with the party logo on the side, a guy at the wheel and someone else walking on the side, that’s it. The NDP showed up in force and even the Liberals managed to get a group together, but man, that Conservative attempt to appeal to this group of voters was dead before it started. I found it so sad I didn’t even bother taking a photo.

My general feeling with the event yesterday was that they are hurting badly for money, they had signs everywhere asking for donations for the parade as well as telling people it costs half a million dollars to put it on. Side effect of the economy?