An Autumn walk near Leysin
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An Autumn walk
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A Fourteen Kilometre walk and I Crossed Paths With Just Two Other People.
Byrichard
Today I went for a fourteen Kilometre walk and I crossed paths with just two other people. It was a couple of runners and we crossed paths at just the right place as I could slip into a clearing, wait for them to pass and then continue on my way. I think this is the quietest walk I’ve been on in a while.
During the walk I saw that some fields had been harvested, that new barriers were being put up and that someone’s Mini adventure involved a bike in an open top Mini.
Before the daily walk, I continued studying CSS and after learning the basics I am learning how to fine-tune and control what CSS is doing with more granularity. The finished product is looking better and better.
Ten Days without Twitter
Byrichard
There is a video of me at the only Twestival event I have ever been to and I lay into the event for the fashionistas that attended the event. I was so disappointed with the event as a whole that I have lost my passion for going to social media events, especially when I need to travel over a thousand kilometers.
Environmental conscience is one good reason for not travelling to these events but the second is the quality of the people there. When I talked to people at the Twestival event and asked them about twitter they looked at me strangely, when I asked them about how many tweets they had written they told me from five to two hundred on average.
As a passionate twitter user and having been to a lot of social media events, tweetups and seesmeetups this really dissapointed me. The event felt like nothing more than a facade, nothing more than an opportunity for people to say “look at how trendy I am, I’m on twitter” yet not understanding anything about the ethos of the twitter way of life.
I love twitter, and I love those that use it well, I love how certain people use it the same way they use sms and other social means. I don’t like that in Switzerland I’m strange because I use twitter. I like it even less that over here twitter will never be popular. There is no reason for it because of social cohesion, but also a far smaller community.
Switzerland is about skiing, sailing, cycling, hiking, parapente and more sports. We’re not in a city. We’re in the countryside, Europe’s playground. Why be geeky when sports would be more social. More to the point everything is current. I don’t need to wait two to five years for people to adopt the sports.
That’s why I’m coming back to Twitter on Valentine’s day. (It’s also the day I got my driving licence ;-))
Day Eighteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Plumbing and Scuba Diving.
Byrichard
Plumbing and scuba diving are not unrelated. If you understand o-rings and pipe/hose connections then you’ll be fine. I dismantled a system, cleaned it, and then reassembled it, checked for leaks and then ran the tap to see if all was well. Once I saw that everything was indeed well, I struggled to place the drawers and then moved onto the next issue.
My website was hacked again so I am now writing this blog post in the day one app, rather than directly to the blog. During a pandemic it’s frustrating to find that your website is hacked because life is already limited without adding new issues.
Facebook and Twitter have still not been reinstalled on my phone. I see no reason for them to return. The beauty of not having either on your phone is that it takes longer to post something negative, so a negative thought, is abandoned .
Last night I watched two episodes of iZombie and for the first three quarters of the episode I thought I had found something that I would enjoy watching during this pandemic. Since then I’m not sure. We’ll see how it goes when I watch an episode or two today.
To Shop Or Not to Shop
I have the nagging feeling that I should go and shop today, so that I can skip the need to go tomorrow or the next day but when I check the fridge I have food for at least three days, and even a fourth. I think I still have a week of reserves so shopping is not urgent.
Is it worth going through the maze in front of the shop, to disinfect my hands, to grab a number, and then to go into the shop and get some drinks, and leave.
Back in the good old days, before the pandemic, people such as myself would think “I want a bottle of Apple juice” and we’d walk to the shop, buy a bottle of apple juice and it would take a minute or two. The same behaviour today would see you queue for half an hour. I hate queuing and because the rate of infection is not going down as fast as I would like I am happy to stay isolated.
In normal circumstances if I had seen that the sink was blocked I would have gone to buy a plunger and I’d have had some fun playing with it. Of course my goal would have been serious, but humour is useful in surreal times. “How was the pandemic for you?” “Surreal, but nice”.
I like writing blog posts because it’s like having a conversation. You start with an idea and you develop it, and you start to play and have fun, and by the time you finish writing a blog post you have cheered up. The solitary nature of this pandemic is negated for a short moment.
Day Three of ORCA in Switzerland
Byrichard
On Day Three of ORCA in Switzerland, I have decided to deactivate my account. In the last three days, I have been bullied by two people, a third tried to discredit me and a fourth reported a link for spam. As a result of these unpleasant experiences, I have deactivated my Facebook account.
Facebook used to be a network for connecting us to university friends as students, and professional colleagues in the world of work. Ever since Zynga games were allowed Facebook has been decreasingly about connecting with people, and more about compulsively checking for updates from friends that never come.
In theory, now is the time to be more active on Facebook, and I was until a few minutes ago. When I got that notification I finally had the motivation to deactivate, not delete my Facebook account.
During COVID19 the most important thing for us is to keep our mental health. As Facebook is not contributing to me feeling happier it is worth taking a step back.
“Oh, but your friends won’t be able to keep up to date with what you’re doing without facebook.”
I am still on Twitter, Linkedin, Telegram, Whatsapp and other platforms. Facebook is only a drop in the ocean. If people miss my presence on Facebook they can find me on other platforms.
We will see how long I stay away from Facebook. It might be half a day.
[Update 6:30pm PT: Facebook also warned that due to it sending its moderators home and relying more on artificial intelligence to screen for abuse, it could make “more mistakes”. At roughly 4pm today, a bug in Facebook’s spam filter caused a wide array of innocent links, including some about coronavirus, to be blocked from the News Feed. That led some to wrongly assume Facebook was purposefully censoring their posts. Facebook tells TechCrunch it’s investigating the problem.”]
Automation and the changing face of broadcasting
Byrichard
When I first wanted to become a camera operator cameras could cost more than one hundred thousand francs a piece and a simple edit suite would cost more than seventy thousand francs per edit suite. This was a setup with a player and a recorder. Producing content for broadcast was expensive. These days automation and the changing face of broadcasting allow anyone with a creative idea to get out there and do it.
For context imagine that from the moment I wanted to do camera work to the moment I was able to edit that material I had to wait for several years. As I had no access to edit suites I would read books by Eisenstein and others and I would prepare a paper edit. I would have a list of shots and build sequences in my imagination. This changed with the coming of the Miro DC30+ and Adobe Premiere. The first time I edited someone thing alone I spent a day for a two minute video. I had to learn to use the technology after all. This was fun.
I bring up this topic because Sky News and Sky sports are making camera operators and other skilled technicians redundant. Why have three or four camera operators when you can sit one person at a console who can control each camera remotely. When I was at France Télévision a few years ago I saw such a system. On the one hand it means fewer jobs for camera operators and on the other it means less indoor work.
I bring up this topic because both the United Kingdom and the United States are having “We hate foreigners” movements. Fifty two percent of British citizens who voted this time voted against the rights and freedoms of Europeans. They voted this way because there is a narrative in Anglo-Saxon media that foreigners steal jobs, that they are willing to work for much less money and that this is undercutting the demand for their skills and expertise. That narrative is wrong in a global economy where automation and more efficient work flows are being implemented.
The changes are part of a move for Sky news and sports into a new shared studio space. Though the studio already uses robotic camera technology, the new Ross Overdrive system means fewer staff will be needed to record shows for both Sky News and Sky Sports. Source
Two years ago I worked on a job that would theoretically lead to redundancies. I worked as a video archivist and media asset manager. When I started the job there were over three thousand tapes and at first I digitised and catalogued all the special envoy footage. We went from having hundreds of tapes on shelves to everything being instantly accessible via a media asset management system. In theory by digitising this material we have removed the need for physical jobs. We have eliminated the need for someone to walk around the archives, the need for a videotape operator, duplication and more. In effect the time from which a request for footage was made to the time that footage was ready for the client to download could take seconds or minutes rather than days.
As the material on those tapes was digitised the tapes could be moved for storage and the space that they had taken up can be re-allocated as office space for when the team expands.
Migration is people’s favourite excuse for unemployment but we live in the 21st century. Any boring menial task can be done by robots. Have you been to the data storage floor in CERN? A robot fetches the data tapes and transfers them for scientists to access and process upon request. Automated cars and buses are being tested, even in Sion.
I usually go to the shops once a day and I have three choices. I can use the checkout reader as I walk and shop, I can use the self checkout machine or I can go to a cash register and let a “specialist” do the work. I usually choose the first two options. My shopping is usually small, enough for a day or two. I hate having to sit at a desk for hours at a time. With self checkout registers shop staff have more diversity. One day they might be sitting at a cash register and the next day they might be standing and helping people with self checkout machines. In theory these machines threaten livelihoods but in practice I believe that they allow us to have a more friendly rapport with those working in the shop. We are learning from them. We are equal and in society where people feel that there is a growing divide between groups of people this is levelling the landscape.
For a few weeks recently we had a lot of rain and I used that time to watch videos made by youtubers and I thought about how lucky they are compared to me. I questioned whether instead of becoming a blogger I would have become a vlogger, and if I had what would the topic have been. What I envy of youtubers is that they can buy a cheap camera for three or four hundred francs of use their mobile phone and create video content. Macs and PCs now come with video editing software therefore the cost of entry for making youtube videos is low. Distribution is simplified and revenue generation is easy to implement although it does take hard work to generate a comfortable income.
I have worked as a live camera operator for conferences, virtual press conferences and other live events and the assignments are the most fun are those where you are providing mobile coverage of events rather than static coverage. Conferences are a perfect place to bring in automation. With one robot camera operator, one colour grader, one sound technician and one vision mixer you can provide event coverage. Camera operators are free to get material of breakout sessions, team work and more. At a sports event camera operators are free to get more fans reacting to the event. It is always fun to watch fans have a good time. Automation frees people up to find interesting and dynamic projects to work on instead. That’s why we went to university, to expand our skills and competence, to have a broader range of tasks and competencies.
The Francofous Show 2
Byrichard
Et voila que PiouPiou nous donne la deuxième version de la version Française du “Seesmix Français”
Francofous Show 2
Blog : http://francofousshow.wordpress.com
Twitter : francofousshow
Mail : francofousshow@gmail.com