Posts by mark taslov
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I accidentally took this still the other day on a video shoot, seems to fit the theme.
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If looking to purchase, a lapel mic may be best fit for purpose, but try/test/listen before you buy if possible.
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Access: Feelgood Flicks, in reply to Russell Brown,
but he does the thinking.
Yeah it’s noticeable and appreciated. Cruising the boards at IMDB.com I stumble upon many links to reviews, but so often there is too much focus, as you say, on the media around the films and in those instances I’m also often left with the feeling that what I’d just watched was more about the reviewer’s schtick than the movie itself, so happening on a reviewer delivering the goods in detail as Jimmy is, will save time and money. Based on Jimmy Brown’s My Old Lady Review I feel confident that it’s exactly what we’ll enjoy.
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Cool work Jimmy, the audio was a little quieter than the clips, the best level above was in the Jimmy’s Hall review. There’s a bit of room sound that can only be alleviated by getting the mic closer to mouth (by whatever means necessary) and perhaps adjusting your positioning in the room to minimize unwelcome audio reflections. It may also be worth checking the pitching of your voice in relation to the room’s resonant frequency, as this can alter things significantly, e.g. my room here has a 120 hz boom which resonates when I hit sympathetic frequencies. These acoustic features can sometimes cause us to unconsciously or consciously adjust the tone we speak at to emphasise the boom or minimise it as need be. Mic positioning and proximity will have the biggest influence.
Also by the sounds of that squelchy artifact there is(?) some noise reduction processing going on, I’m not sure if this is adjustable. if so, a little bit of hiss may be preferable if you can find a happy middle ground. Having said that, I had no pressing issue with the sound, it was all clear and audible. Great reviews, of those three films I’ve only seen Saint Vincent, after watching the film I’d been left feeling that I should have liked it but I hadn’t, and I couldn’t quite work out why, your review absolutely nailed why.
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For sure Deepred, which presumably sounds innocuous enough to someone who’s never had an account hacked, that’s the distinctly black and white interpretation of what I ambivalently feel to be murky shades of sickeningly uncomfortable gray. At its darkest troubling reaches this encompasses the hacking of the Slater’s computer, the IT circles for whom knowledge of this kind of occurrence would seem relatively routine, the exposed conspiratorial actions of Ministers and notable high-flyers, Ministerial obfuscation, invasive and heavy-handed police action. Through the gray-scale, we see journalists publishing the hacked data, the question of protecting criminals or protecting sources, all the way up to the light; well meaning nominations for New Zealander of the year, crowdfunded legal support, inquiries and sanctioning of culpable parties.
This is not a good vs evil screenplay: the potential outcomes of the litigation would seem to be either a finding that sanctions police conduct of this ilk or a precedent which empowers journalists to protect hacker sources. One might easily argue that the latter is nothing to concern myself with, my conversations are not of public interest. However thousands of New Zealanders communications do at some point or other – and sometimes quite routinely – touch on issues of public interest, were this Russell who’d been hacked our framing would naturally be considerably different, were it a council worker from Trentham perhaps not so much.
The fundamental issue for me is that hate him or hate him Cameron Slater is a private citizen, and private citizens should expect reasonable protection from cyber incursion of the nature carried out. If they engage in cyberbullying, intimidation, defamation, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice then the relevant laws must be strengthened and enforced.
Which is not to say I don’t understand the importance of this test case to the heady world of journalism but at what price? Is sacrificing the citizenry’s cyber security to the journalistic feeding ground a fair trade off? Do we want to encourage the publication of hacked info and by proximity hacking itself? Looking downstream neither outcome presents notable appeal.
I understand the importance of Hager’s insistence on protecting his source in this case, but again, this comes at what cost to other sources and stories contained in the confiscated hardware? If preserving one’s professional reputation and integrity comes at the expense of one’s professional career and livelihood then what is left? I have no doubt that those with the the most to gain from Nicky being waylaid by this intimidation are those who would be exposed in his future work. In a truly civil society the police would have first approached Nicky to initiate discussion about Rawshark, Rawshark who will be enjoying another Christmas unblemished by pending litigation, confiscation et al.
The law has always been a bit of an ass, but it’s our only ass. Robbing Peter to pay Paul will not suffice as a long-term answer to pressing issues, so I guess, at the end of the year, what I’m thinking is that if Nicky were to suddenly do a U-y and begin cooperating with police in their investigation, in these most novel of circumstances, then I wouldn’t think any less of him, there are sources and there are sources.
Anyway I best probably leave it there.
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All things considered, at this juncture, when reviewing the entire mechanism, it’s not the police preventing Nicky from going about his business, it’s not the court system vacuuming up folks’ money. It is Rawshark’s unwillingness to face the music that is the burden on the taxpayer and most notably on Nicky Hager.
And with all due respect to Nicky who I understand is professionally obligated to protect his sources, and whom is obviously in the most difficult of ethical positions, the cards don’t seem to be stacked as favorably against him as they were against the MSM who were in contact with Rawshark up until the end, Nicky has traded court dates with Rawshark, which would be fine except for the burning question; all things considered, is protecting a criminal in the public interest?
I don't wish to offend or aggravate anyone with that, these are just questions left unanswered.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Sacha,
Thanks for posting that Sacha. That was fascinating. On my initial listen I was taken by Kathryn Ryan’s (I assume she was the interviewer)insistance on categorizing Hager’s account as patronising:
"Is it patronising to say look at you silly voters, you don’t see or understand this stuff, when actually what is more important to them may well be – politicians are politicians – but this is what matters most to me or my family or this is what matters most to the country…I’m not saying don’t write the book Nicky, I’m just saying, the perception that everyone out there is all fooled by all this and is ignorant of all this is arguably slightly patronising?"
I guess that raised a couple of questions for me here outside the bubble, namely, is this a revelation about the New Zealand condition, do New Zealanders suffer an acute sensitivity to being patronised, perhaps an inferiority complex of sorts whereby receiving information necessitates an impulsive sense of subordination? Is this a national concern?
Secondly, what is not patronising about conflating all voters, minimising our concerns, and insinuating that Hager’s work does not meet the criteria for ‘what matters most to the country’?
Despite appearances to the contrary, it was largely a sympathetic interview, and I thought Nicky Hager channeled a vein and hit the nail on the head:
"…I think that people are hungry for real information and not for spin…"
On my second listen, what grabbed me was the very very slight shift with regards to Rawshark. Firstly, as context, this:
Campbell Live (August):
Earlier this year I was leaked a very large number of communications from the blogger Cameron Slater.
And this:
Media Take (S01E08-August 19th-10:30):
…Suddenly in March this year I got approached with a remarkable piece of information which could allow that story to be told and I spoke to the person who was offering it to me and said would you trust me to make this into not just news for a day, but something of value, of lasting value, which means a book, which means you will be patient and leave me for months and months to try and do it…
Now it may just be a matter of semantics, bias, assumptions, but for me there was an overriding sense in these August statements that not only was Nicky’s role in acquiring the information largely passive, but that Rawshark was some noble creature, dredging the depths, seeking only a medium for her/his truths of righteousness.
Big Year Interview (December 19th-7:20):
I had this utterly unexpected and serendipitous breakthrough when I heard about someone who was claiming to have some of Cameron Slater’s staff and I tracked them down as fast as I could and discovered that they indeed did […]I heard a rumour in the IT circles that someone was making idle boasts and normally those rumours don’t come to anything and if I hadn’t been already thinking about this subject I wouldn’t have even followed it up, but I did because I was already on that subject and I was interested.
Obviously with litigation looming this very small shift in the narrative/ elaboration is not unexpected or unreasonable, but it casts a bright light on that elephant in the room that is the idle boasting hacker, that are the complicit New Zealand IT circles, that is the New Zealand authorities inability to identify Rawshark months later compared to Sony’s hackers being identified within days, that is New Zealanders’ vulnerability not just to one hacker but to full IT circles unwilling to break ranks. That in itself is as big if not bigger than the Dirty Politics revelations themselves, again thanks to Nicky.
There is the lingering implication that in our digital lives, our Government is unwilling through contrivance, or feasibly unable to provide any sense of protection or justice whatsoever, further strengthening the argument that our digital conversations do not qualify as that which ’one ought reasonably to expect that the communication may not be intercepted’. Post election, our digital safety was certainly not deemed as high a priority as policy changes prompted by alleged terrorist threats, justified in the name of not letting terrorist threats dictate policy.
Having gone there. I agree 100% that Nicky has handled his role appropriately and with utmost care, and most importantly that his work was done in the public interest, but with both eyes pried open, the vigilante hacker Rawshark remains at large, four months later, in a population the size of a metropolitan district.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Katita,
It is our dearest wish that 2015 will see the global adoption of one very logical universal shoe size system.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Sacha,
the revelations of dirty politics are far from resolved
Undeniably true, but it's the use of passive voice that may warrant closest inspection.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Sacha,
Like I’d know, :)
