Monday, April 26, 2010

Sony PCM-M10 versus Olympus LS-10 / LS-11

LS-10 and PCM-M10 - top viewThis review will compare the merits of the Sony PCM-M10 against the Olympus LS-10 and LS-11 portable audio recorders. All three are excellent units that will suit those who want a hand-held recorder with the convenience of built-in mics and very good pre-amps.

If you never plan on using external mics, there are cheaper options. If you require phantom power for professional microphones, there are larger and more expensive units. For details of these options see my previous articles, starting here. But otherwise it is these three models I have chosen to investigate further, on the basis of my previous evaluation.
Saturday, April 17, 2010

Art Defined. Finally. In Four Words.

I get so tired of all of these endless "Is this art?" discussions that saturate certain milieu, like those little pollen things you get in Spring. They float through the air and tickle your skin. You brush one away, but another takes its place. They are irritating and apparently made of nothing at all. Just like most discussions about art. "Art is expressing feeling." "Art is anything you call art." Yuck!

So here I present a definition I came up with myself. By that I mean that after decades of interacting with the world and those in it, after thousands of books read and hundreds of art projects initiated, I have now, all by myself (irony alert) found a suitable definition.
Thursday, April 08, 2010

Video Game Slaughter of the Innocents

Perhaps you have not yet seen this extremely disturbing video of an Apache Gunship targeting and killing civilians in New Baghdad, Iraq in 2007. It was provided by WikiLeaks from a whistle blower who obviously has a more developed conscience than the military officials who have denied responsibility for this slaughter for three years, all the time claiming that they were justified because their forces were under attack.

Not only was the helicopter not under attack but shouldered cameras were mistaken for AK-47s and a telephoto lens for an RPG... even though they look little alike through the high-powered camera on the chopper. In the last sequence a family driving by in a van happens to stop to help a wounded man. They were themselves targeted in a clear case of pre-meditated murder.

WARNING: This is quite horrible to watch.



The photographers killed here were members of Reuters staff, doing a dangerous job in impossible situations. Ironically these Iraqi journalists have, with this video, delivered to the world more powerful images than they might ever have taken in life. Meanwhile the pilot and gunners are playing a video game complete with whoops of joy and expressions of accomplishment and enjoyment ("cool!").