Posts by Jonathan King
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(still withheld, though WETA and Warners seem to have seen it)
Small note: 'WETA' is not a synonym for 'Peter Jackson's Film Production Company'. WETA Digital is a Visual FX company, WETA Workshop is a design and practical effects company ... I expect neither were involved in any of this directly. Wingnut is Jackson's film company.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Russell Brown,
alarmed by Equity’s bid to get its private casting notes to try and contest the cast of non-New Zealand actors
Oooh, I'm trying so hard not to get drawn into this again ... but this bit made my jaw drop when I saw it in the papers. For Equity to ask for written reason why every actor was not cast in a production is just ... mental.
I've waded through hundreds of auditions to cast a handful of roles, and I can tell you there are a million reasons why someone isn't cast -- the most common one being that they just aren't quite 'it'. But no way would I a) write down those reasons for every person, and b) let anyone else see those notes -- what a ghastly betrayal of trust for the actors auditioning that would be! Shame on Equity for even suggesting such a thing. But then it's clear that they were asking for that to be vexatious, not to actually find work for their members.
And, as Craig has pointed out, hypocrisy much? We -- and probably they [Equity] -- are quick to cheer when one of ours lands a gig overseas.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to wendyf,
Heston "..from my cold, dead hands."
I prefer to remember Heston saying "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape."
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However exactly it went down with Ira, here's what they should be called on:
When told Keith was printing a story they shut the kiosks down instantly ...
But when told about it last week by some bloke asking were they interested in knowing (or, sure, paying for that knowledge) they did nothing! Why not?
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Matthew Poole,
And there are 700 possible points of compromise.
Then why are they confidently telling (distressed and anxious) people on the phone that their privacy hasn't been breached? They simply have no way of knowing, right?
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Emma Hart,
Also, hearing that the files were writeable (editable).
Holy. Shit.
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To extend (flog?) the car metaphor -- this wasn't change-the-oil difficult it was reverse-into-a-car-park difficult.
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Incredible (and depressing) to hear Katherine Ryan and Katrin Evans saying to each other "well, I don't know if you or I could do it, but it seems if you know about Computers it's not that difficult ...".
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
It’s amazing what you can write when they’re just words covering paper
Egg-zackly. "Excellence" is a word rendered almost entirely meaningless by being endlessly hammered by this kind of PR-speak.
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Bravo, Keith – brilliant work.
While Keith was working on this, here’s what the Dom Post had on its front page on Saturday:
ANIMALS BEHAVING BADLY …
• A rhinoceros at Auckland Zoo was having mud applied to a head wound when he took fright, catching the keeper’s ankle and knocking him into a wooden post.
• A child was bitten by an otter while leaning over an enclosed barrier.
• A wallaby being restrained kicked a keeper in the arm at Auckland Zoo,
• A capuchin monkey escaped twice but was quickly captured.–
Incredibly people seem to still not grasp the enormity and ineptitude of all this: the privacy woman on the radio saying “we need to investigate to see if any info has been accessed …” – it’s been wide open for so long surely it’ll be impossible to tell what has been easily accessible for quite some time.
And a bit sad how proudly MSD are saying “there was a hole flagged a year ago and the system was completely rebuilt."