As you celebrate Independence Day today, please take a moment to think about the men and women of our armed forces, past and present, who have willingly risked, and all too often lost, everything to defend our freedom. I worry about America, but there can be nothing very wrong with a country that continues to produce men and women like them.
08:43 – Today also marks eight years for us being Microsoft-free. We’ve been using free software exclusively since 4 July 2004.
Today, Barbara will get started on labeling close to 4,000 containers, enough for 60 more chemistry kits and 30 forensics kits. Meanwhile, I’ll be downstairs, packing up the 30 chemistry kits that are in-progress and making up solutions for 60 more, as well as the first group of solutions for the forensics kits.
15:39 – AmEx security just called me to report that there were questionable charges made on my card. They’re issuing me yet another new card. This happened Christmas Day of 2011, and it’s getting to be really annoying. The questionable charges both occurred yesterday: a $1 charge by Groupon and a $585 charge by Crucial/Micron.
The Groupon charge is completely fraudulent. I have never charged anything with Groupon or given them my card number. The Crucial/Micron charge is fraudulent in the sense that I didn’t make it, but because I have done business with Crucial using that card, AmEx couldn’t void the charge. I’d ordered a $30 memory kit from Crucial/Micron a couple of weeks ago. So tomorrow I have to call Crucial/Micron and give them hell. They weren’t supposed to retain my card number. If they didn’t, how could they have placed that $585 charge yesterday? And why did they place a $585 charge when I hadn’t ordered anything?
The local town did the fireworks last night but I was busy watching “A Shock to the System,” a droll twenty-year-old murder story starring Sir Michael Caine. It was OK, but not great.
And another patriotic holiday co-opted by media and commercial hogwash, like Memorial Day, really just another day off now for swilling lousy beer and pigging out on propane-grilled whatever.
Dennis Marburger 4 July 06:31
When Americans Understood the Declaration of Independence
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo232.html
” The Declaration of Independence was the ultimate secessionist or states’ rights document. “Governments are instituted among men,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, for the sole purpose of securing God-given, “unalienable” rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Moreover, governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed” and nowhere else. And “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . .If Americans ever began celebrating the real meaning of the Declaration of Independence, then they would embrace the Jeffersonian rights of secession and nullification as a means of fighting back against governmental tyranny. They would also withdraw their support for the U.S. government’s aggressive wars of imperialism in the Middle East and elsewhere, along with its hundreds of military bases on every continent on the planet. They might even begin an opposition to being plundered by the incredibly corrupt military/industrial/congressional complex and its main funding sources, the Fed and the income tax.” – Tom DiLorenzo
“
I think any reasonable person would agree with that. Of course, as we’ve discussed recently, there aren’t all the many reasonable people.
I think things will reach the breaking point eventually, and citizens will revolt against our federal government, but I don’t think we’ve reached that point and probably won’t for another 20 years or more. Still, there are encouraging signs, such as state governments telling the federal government to get stuffed.
Agreed, Bob, except I don’t think it will take twenty years; sure, if nothing major happens, but I agree with Gary North and others that the Great Default is coming and any number of other events could accelerate this process.
As you say, there is hope, though, and as Jerry Pournelle says, despair is a sin.
It is a breath of fresh air to live here in Texas where the socialists are put into their apportioned places (certain congressional districts) and are not allowed to roam free range.
I mark meeting several of my son’s fellow marines in the 1/7 battalion as a high point of my life. Brave and scared young men, starting out in life and many trying to support families in California and Arizona (expensive places to live) and volunteering for combat duty for the combat pay.
I went to France a couple of years ago and walked on Gold and Utah beaches and looked at the cliffs that Rudder’s Ranger scaled. Brave, brave, brave men and we lost a lot of them that week. I’ll be enjoying my 97% fat free hot dogs later today in their honor.
Never forget that it takes government to start a war. That’s one of the main reasons I’ve been an anarchist since I was about 5 years old. Of course, churches are the second means of controlling people and forcing them to act against their own interests, which is why I’ve been an atheist since I was about 5 years old.
Today…we celebrate…OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!!
Be sure you check out the celebutards on twitter who hate this sucky, racist country. Then vow to never give them your dollars ever again.
http://www.twitchy.com
No need to repeat my rant against mindless State-sponsored jingoism that gets people killed for no good reason; I also loathe and despise the scum (yeah, I saw that stuff on twitchy earlier thanks to Drudge) who apparently have nothing but contempt and hatred for this country and its people like the politicians they worship and grovel before. They aren’t fit to breathe the same air as the men and women from Gold and Juno beaches, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe San, or the Sandbox; why don’t they get the fuck out and be done with it.
Techie question of the day/week/month, whatever: for you camera and video people here:
What’s the best portable camera or tablet device for taking really good, quality videos and transferred to whatever kind of computer? I have seen nice comments about the IPad but would prefer not to enter the Apple Garden if possible.
I’d buy a Canon HD camcorder with an external audio input. That’s uncommon in inexpensive units nowadays, although it’s really important if you want your high quality video to have decent audio. The mikes built into camcorders are very poor. You can buy a decent wireless audio system with a lavaliere mike for maybe $150 and it makes a huge difference. With the external audio jack, you can also use a shotgun mike that yields worlds-better audio than a built-in mike. Also, fast high-capacity SD memory cards are so cheap nowadays that there’s no point to getting a camcorder that records to tape or a hard drive.
As to processing, I tried a Mac that my editor loaned to me. I wasn’t impressed. I use several Linux apps, with primary editing done with Cinelerra, which is a professional-quality editor (even some Hollywood production companies use it) but easy enough to use on a simple level even for someone like me who doesn’t know anything about video editing. I should warn you that the interface is unusual.
Thanks, Bob! I will look into it forthwith and I appreciate the tips on the audio, memory cards and Linux apps.
My brother the banker tells me that there is serious fraud ongoing out there in the wild. I do not have write access to our personal and corporate checking accounts because of this. I really like signing checks as that is the last bastion against fraud.
Credit cards, I have no idea how to protect against fraud. AMEX is the best but as a retailer, we really pay high fees when we take it, almost 5%. The base fee is 3% plus another 2% in other fees. Since we do not physically take the card (always over the phone), we always get hit with extra fees and these are $2,000 to $9,000 transactions.
My cousin is a banker, and he says there is no checking of signatures on checks, so the only protection from signing a check comes if there is an investigation; and it takes a law suit before they will hire handwriting experts to compare signatures. By the time you spend money on legal, it could be more than the fraud in the transaction.
I don’t know how the German system works behind the scenes, but it has been totally electronic for decades, and the only misstep I am aware of, is when somebody transfers money from their account to a wrong account, by entering incorrect numbers. Actually, I don’t know how that can really happen, because when you punch in the number of, say, the water company account, before it transfers, it tells you the name of the account associated with that number, and if it is not the water company, then you back out of the transaction. Still, one member of the family repeatedly did not check who the money was going to, and sent money to strangers. The only cure for having done that, is the honesty of the person who received the money to return it to you.
Then there are the Japanese, who transfer money with their cell phones.
Another scorcher of a day—in my backyard, over 100°F at 75% humidity. The print has faded on the thermometer above 100, so I can only guess when it gets hotter than that. Central air is not keeping up. Normally I keep it at 76° during the daytime, but today it is 79 and still climbing. Compressor has been running continuously since around 10:00 this morning. No relief in sight.
In fact, the jetstream is going to travel way north of Bill, so he may get some of this oppressive weather. Hope the air in his house is in good working order. Our nighttime lows have been well above 70°. This summer is working up to be worse than last summer, because it is drier and nights are warmer.
I don’t get much but paperwork done on these days. I can stand working outside in cold, but not heat. Never have been able to.
I have been pointing out to people around me how there are no bugs, anywhere. Nobody has noticed, but all seem concerned when they look around and do not see any insects, either. I’m sure it is the lack of water, not any lack of bug sex. They have just died out from heat and no water anywhere. It has been about a month since our temp has crossed the dewpoint, which would yield condensation water for bugs on the ground. The ground is parched and as hot as black pavement in places.
Had crock-pot duck for holiday dinner. The duck was from Milford, Indiana, up near ‘the region’ (area close to Chicago). It is the first time I have had duck since returning from Germany, and I won’t do that anytime soon again. Duck in this country is super fatty. Actually, I have a hard time understanding why America avoids fat and has fat-free this and ‘light’ that, but yet they really, really fatten up all their animals for market. Duck and pork in Germany are very lean, and there is only one way to get ground beef: extra lean. If it is too dry for you, they have stuff called Gemischt—a mixture of ground beef and ground pork,—but I dare you to get even a teaspoon of fat or grease from the cooked Gemischt. The duck I fixed did not look fatty, but the whole crock-pot was just filled to the brim with grease when the duck was done. I could not even eat the veggies thrown in with the duck, they were so grease-soaked.
I concur with RBT on the video recommendations. He is right on. You did not mention what you will be shooting and editing; if it is something beyond home movies, I can attest that the heavier and bigger the camera, but better the results for pro use. Prosumer or pro Canon, Panasonic, or Sony equipment works best in such circumstances, but are very pricey. You need some heft to a camera to do smooth work when it will be handheld.
As Bob suggests, always look for a camera with external audio input. Few consumer cameras have them.
We still use cameras with built-in videotape decks—DV or digital Hi-8. The reason is that we cannot stop recording, but must go continuously for as long as possible—in our case 90 minutes. Tape solves a lot of problems for us, including the necessity of archiving the recorded material for a reasonable length of time, which would be super-expensive if we had to do that with SD cards. Tape cost is still a fraction of SD. Also, when SD cards are run at the equivalent quality rate, only the largest and most expensive cards will record for 90 minutes. We just cannot stop proceedings every 20 to 40 minutes to change SD cards. 90 minutes on tape, however, is a good point when everyone is ready for a break, anyway.
I am still high on the Kodak Zi8, but it is no longer manufactured, and finding one may be problematic at this point. It is a good pocket video camera for home use, but problematic for more serious use, as it is the shape of a cell phone, not a conventional video camera. Nevertheless, we use it for emergency backup if there is a problem with our equipment (very rare), but our Zi8’s are mounted on a tripod on essentially a “locked shot” for our uses.
Cinelerra is very capable as an editor, but as our host mentions, does not use the interface convention of mark timeline, cut, copy, paste. It is very non-intuitive, but still is quite capable. Its interface is very much like the Linux audio editor, Ardour. Not sure who came up with the interface for those two applications, but they sure figured out a way to make a 2 hour edit job take all day.
My brother says that the bank fraud is coming over the net and they are writing checks to themselves if the account has write access. Generally people do not find out until their next statement, if then, unless the checking account bounces a check. The fraud dudes do not do wire transfers as that triggers a phone call in most cases. But those checks that you write over the net are bad news since there is no signing, etc. All they have to do is guess your checking account password and bang, they are in.
Bob and Chuck (and anyone interested)
Bearing in mind that “pricey” is anything above $500 for me these days)
What say you to this:
http://www.squidoo.com/camcorder-with-external-mic
Oh, I should mention that I would be shooting fairly short pieces of potential newsworthy events and incidents and would need to be very close to the action, so to speak. And occasionally broader events, like natural weather stuff, mass insurrections being put down by police and military, militia training exercises and the like.
I gave up on Amex years ago. I used to have one of their Gold Cards, but a lot of places wouldn’t accept it because of the significantly higher commission they charged. Saw a sign at reception in a hotel in England that I stayed at, something like this:
Dear Guest, in order to keep our costs and rates down we prefer payment, in the following order
1. Cash
2. Cheque verified by bankers card
3. Mastercard/Visa
4. Amex/Diners.
A lot of places charged extra if payment was by Amex, and that just kept increasing. I challenged Amex about this, they said their merchant charge was “competitive” with other cards, which was a bareface lie.
The last straw was when the increased the card fee by $10/year *and* introduced a $10 fee for the previously free rewards program. For that straight out greed I cancelled and just used my Visa card.
Amex? Who needs them?
Yep, except you probably want the similar model without internal flash storage. That 8 GB of internal flash costs you about $100 extra. IIRC, this model is the same as the one you’re looking at but with no internal memory.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/838776-REG/Canon_R300_VIXIA_HF_R300_Full.html
For a mic, here’s what I use.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3656-REG/Azden_WLX_PRO_WLX_Pro_Wireless_Lavalier.html
Although that may not be appropriate for what you’re doing. It’s really for micing someone who’ll be speaking on camera. You might do better with a decent shotgun mic.
Excellent, that looks like what I need and thanks for the additional tip about the internal memory savings; rather spend that on a mike.
Later, to choose on those two Linux editing apps. And any other apps anyone may care to recommend.
We just had a little wave of t-storm activity here which cleared the air, thankfully, as it was pretty sticky, though not as sticky as that in Tinytown. Temp dropped about fifteen degrees, from 79 to 64. Interestingly there was a power hit which briefly and partly shut off the computers and the shortwave but not the keyboards, mice or the lights. And internet had been mostly out for a couple of hours BEFORE the storm hit, when it was probably still in upstate NY across Lake Champlain. While it was booming above me and the rain was coming down in sideways sheets the internet was up and running great, go figure.
Any scientist types here care to explain that or is it just luck of the draw?
BTW, that $1 charge on a credit card is usually just a test to see if it will go through. They may be getting ready to really hit you tomorrow if the card were not canceled. And it may say Groupon but that really sounds like a a scam to me. We pay a minimum charge of $2.50 for a credit card purchases but I’ll bet Groupon gets a way better min charge and rate than we do.
My feeling is that you will be happy with any camera by Canon, Panasonic, or Sony—Sony if it is prosumer or higher. We have trouble with Sony equipment that is consumer grade. Never have any trouble with our Panasonic equipment—it just keeps on ticking. A small camera like the one you linked to, will be harder to handle than a bigger one, if you are going to shoot handheld. Not sure if there are rigs that allow you to shoulder mount smaller cameras, but I would definitely recommend shoulder rig cameras for handheld work. Basically, what you describe is the same as TV news shooting. You might want to look up what is being used these days.
RØDE Microphone is an Australian company with a very good reputation among a lot of people. For critical work, there is a huge difference between condenser mics and dynamic. Not sure I am expert enough on what would be best for your situation. Condensers pick up every sound around, even stuff you cannot hear with your own ears. We use small condenser lavaliers (I did not choose them; they were in the package when I started work), and they pick up every pencil drop, every cough in the room, the whoosh from every air conditioner duct, low frequency rumble from trucks passing outside—everything. Ordinarily, it is not much of a problem, as those sounds are covered up by normal speech. But if we get someone who speaks quietly, those sounds can sometimes become quite noticeable. Now maybe that would be a plus in your situation.
When I work on a pro assignment, ordinarily we always use Sony pro cameras, TRAM mikes for lavalieres, Shure portable audio mixing equipment. Almost always have a separate sound man. Sorry, I don’t know what we use for a shotgun mike, but it is mounted on the camera with a windscreen attached. Sound from that is recorded on a separate track and mixed in later, if needed.
Then, back at the ranch, we edit on the latest fast Macs with Final Cut Pro for video and Pro Tools for audio. That is pretty much the pro standard these days. Editing equipment and software has come waaay down in the last decade, but a suite like that would be a minimum $5k investment. Worth every penny, IMO.
But for the legal work, we cannot justify that kind of overhead. It brings about 1/5th the project billing of a pro assignment. So we use prosumer equipment in our packages and rent stuff (and people) for the pro assignments.
My cousin’s bank forces a password change every month. It is a real PITA, but maybe that is a good scenario if password cracks are the main method of stealing money these days.
In eliminating checks, the German system eliminated the “Pay to the order of” part. If you want money to be paid to someone else, there are only 2 ways: withdraw the cash from your account and take it to them personally; or transfer the money directly from account to account. None of this stuff of ‘paying the bearer’ or sending payments through the mail that can be stolen and potentially cashed by a thief. I have long believed that we should adopt that system here, and require everyone to have a bank account to receive and pay money. That would create tracks that would make it almost impossible to steal money from someone else’s account without being able to connect the transaction to a real person (the thief), and it would eliminate a lot of the problems with foreign illegals. If you don’t have a bank account, you cannot get paid or pay anyone else. Not many businesses are going to pay in cash, unless they are a cooperative part of the foreign illegals problem, and making them go to such trouble would likely raise the bar high enough to keep many of businesses from participating in hiring illegals with no bank account.
Using credit cards is really no problem in the US. This is the only country I have been in, where you do not need to carry cash. You can pay for a $5 meal at McDonalds these days with a credit card.
I always tell Americans going to Germany to be SURE to carry enough cash with them for any purchase. If you are going to take a lot of people out to dinner, better have the cash, because many restaurants—even if they have a credit card logo on the door—will refuse to take credit cards for purchases under €100, and you will be in a real pickle if you don’t have the cash to pay. I was warned about this when we first moved there, and started carrying a secret stash of €150 in my wallet, to cover such circumstances. And there were many occasions when I used it.
There is only one small little diner in Tiny Town that refuses to take Amex. I dropped my regular Amex card when the fee went over $50, but I still carry Optima, which is their no-fee card. In other parts of the world, however, Amex is increasingly no longer accepted. When credit cards first appeared, Diner’s Club was the worldwide choice, followed by Amex. But now, many European businesses will no longer take Amex. Visa is now the world-accepted standard, having pushed MasterCard virtually out of business (by hook and crook, IMO).
I always use Amex first, because I have NEVER had an unauthorized charge that was not corrected painlessly and immediately. With both Visa and MasterCard, I have gone round and round with them, and in a couple instances, the charges in question were never removed—even though they could not produce my signature for the charge in question. Not much you can do in that instance, because if you refuse to pay, they just keep adding interest and late fees to the unpaid amount that increases to obscene rates.
Fireworks still going off here in the Tiny House neighborhood. Probably will be until 01:00. Then maybe I can get to sleep.
somebody transfers money from their account to a wrong account, by entering incorrect numbers.
Happened to me by the USDA, a $540.00 charge to my aunt’s bank account. It was an electronic transaction which caused the account to go negative and I got hit with a $35.00 NSF. I had to go to the bank and sign a form it was fraud. The bank called the USDA and got nowhere. So I blocked the account for all debits, credits had to remain active because of automatic deposits. Sure enough the transaction came through again from the USDA but got immediately refused, another $35.00 NSF. Bank reversed the fee. I guess the USDA got the message as the transactions stopped.
Signatures are never checked on checks. All checks are truncated at first presentation at a bank. An electronic image is then sent to the originating bank along with an electronic debit. No physical checks are transferred anymore.
Fraud with checking accounts involves YOU proving you did not write the check. The bank does not have to return the money very quickly and you generally have to file a police report. Electronic transactions are covered by regulation E, your friend. You dispute any electronic transaction, which also includes credit cards, and the BANK has to prove you did the transaction. If the bank cannot prove you did the transaction the bank has to refund the money.
The transaction to the merchant is also reversed and the merchant is out the money. It would seem that merchants would be more inclined to verify the card information before authorizing the shipment of the merchandise. Yes, the $1.00 temporary transaction was a test to see if the card number is good. AE did right in blocking the card.
Oh, I should mention that I would be shooting fairly short pieces of potential newsworthy events and incidents and would need to be very close to the action, so to speak.
Most P&S cameras will take fairly decent video, certainly not pro quality but I was still impressed with what my cheap $129.00 Nikon S6100 was capable of producing.
Many DSLRs will now do video and do it quite well. They also have external sound inputs. The advantage to a DSLR is the optical quality is marked better than a P&S. The downside is that zooming is not easy, nor as smooth as you get with a dedicated video camera. The upside is that you get an excellent still camera.
However, many video cameras will now allow still images to be captured, some while videoing. The pictures are not as good as what you get with a good DSLR but are certainly as good, or better, than many P&S, my Nikon S6100 included.
The line between the video cameras and still cameras are blurring.
I always tell Americans going to Germany to be SURE to carry enough cash with them for any purchase.
Learned that lesson. Had to leave my wife at the eatery (as a hostage I guess) while I went to an ATM to get some money. I did debate whether letting the place keep her in place of the money was a fair exchange.
For a mic, here’s what I use.
As one that has probably spent 9.78 times what RBT has spent at B&H I can heartily recommend them for purchasing of such equipment. Excellent service and selection. Returns are not an issue. Highly recommended.