Reviews – Page 4 – Richard Rathe's Reflections

Binge Watching Great Movies about Real Conspiracies that Affect Us All

I was on a short business trip recently and had a chance to view three new movies about real conspiracies that affect us all. This prompted me to go back and re-watch some documentaries from the recent past. Talk about dark night of the soul! Here are my brief reviews in no particular order…

Spotlight

I was aware of the ongoing scandal of pedophile priests but I had no idea how extensive the cover-up had/has been. This movie is almost pitch-perfect as it depicts the true story of reporters following leads ever deeper into a black hole of institutionalized criminality.

The Big Short

This is a great film in all respects. The protagonists are quirky and imperfect, but each has a moral compass and limits on what he will do to make a buck. The basic premise is that everyone from the Fed Chairman on down to the home loan sharks in Miami could not or would not see the reality that was right in front of them. The rogues gallery of financial malefactors is both comical and repellent (see next). The main characters all confront the truth in different ways. I was struck by how sad this film is in spite of the heroes’ success.

Inside Job

This documentary from 2010 is the logical compliment to the Big Short. The best parts are when they catch actual high-placed financiers and government officials telling lies on camera (amazing really!). The end of the film documents something I’ve felt since that time… In terms of effect on real people, the crimes were/are monstrous, and yet only a handful of the actual criminals have been punished! Blame for that outcome lies squarely with President Obama, who hired many of the same players for his administration rather than prosecute them. I still can’t get my head around it. We may never recover!

CitizenFour

Arch criminal or whistleblowing hero there is no doubt that Edward Snowden changed everything. In light of what has happened since released NSA secrets have mostly supported his whistleblower status. Watch it and make up your own mind.

United States of Secrets

This PBS Frontline Series from 2014 is the logical companion to CitizenFour. Bulk Data Collection is now the norm, the FISA Court is nothing but a rubber-stamp and the Fourth Amendment is nowhere to be seen when it comes to electronic communication. I also recommend reading The Shadow Factory by James Bamford, where it becomes clear that with a little intelligence sharing between agencies and good police work we might have disrupted the 911 plot. Instead we let fear run away with us and gave our government free rein and an unlimited budget to spy on us. The dust-up over iPhone encryption is just the latest chapter.

Merchants of Doubt

Also from 2014, this documentary reveals the techniques used to manipulate us by sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt. Hosted by a magician who is a self-described “honest liar”, the film shows how real lies are told and re-told on a massive scale. I was surprised that most of the techniques used today were all worked out by the Tobacco Industry decades ago! The art of telling a little lie to sell a big lie using deception, obfuscation & misdirection. The successful feint of big tobacco to get us focused on flame-retardant upholstery rather than the cigarette that actually caused the fire was a genius move. On the hopeful side, several past and current heroes are profiled including Stanton Glantz and James Hansen.

Taxi to the Dark Side

I’m embarrassed to admit that I had forgotten most of the events covered by this 2007 documentary of our acts of brutality at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The “Taxi” of the title belonged to an innocent Afghani man who was picked up by the US and died a few days later during interrogation. The basic point is that these atrocities where not the result of “a few bad apples” but rather a normalized fact accepted by the chain of command. See it! I can’t do it justice in words. The interviews with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are especially chilling.

The Fog of War

I was eligible for the draft near the end of the Vietnam War. (I “lost” the lottery.) I remember hearing Robert McNamara on TV explaining our intricate plans to “win” the war and prevent the dominos from falling. His regret and contrition are obvious in the film, but what is more important are his observations about the limits of power and intellect. Regrettably the lessons he had to teach were lost on the Bush Administration and a new generation has been forced to give up their lives in political wars.

Experience with a Hammock Tent

hammock-tent-inside

I went out last night to get some experience pitching and sleeping in my new hammock tent. It came with no instructions and there is only limited info available online. I’m getting better using a bit more tension and added a small relieving line to the fly so it can hang along the side (keeping the netting clear for viewing the trees and stars!). In future I’ll keep it rolled so it stays off the ground. I paddled in the dark to a place I’d picked out. Once you find two trees the rest is pretty easy. In fact, it’s trip-over-a-log easy compared with a surface tent! Plus everything is dry!

I brought a small towel to wipe my feet before swinging them inside. I like the little pouch on the outside for a water bottle and miscellaneous small stuff. There is also a small pocket in the netting overhead that works well for phone and glasses. One cool thing about all/most of these tents is the way they pack up, basically two narrow funnel-shaped sleeves (called “snake skins”) that pull to the center. Take down is as easy as setting up.

The diamond-shaped fly has “wings” that tie out sideways. I think this will work well, but you have to stoop to enter/exit. Having recently pitched a conventional tent in driving rain (i.e., everything wet), it strikes me that the above arrangement is far superior. When you hang it and pull back the skins the fly is on top and drapes over the inner tent keeping it mostly dry. That’s the theory anyway!

Update: I slept under the fly during a vigorous rain storm and it was amazing! Not one drop of water got through to me!! It was the driest tent I’ve ever experienced. The only caveat is the rain that night was mostly straight down. It would be a bit more vulnerable with a significant crosswind.

Lumix TS4 Waterproof Camera Review

Review

I recently purchased this waterproof camera to take along on my kayak trip to the Everglades. It cost just under $300 online. The results so far are impressive, especially the high-res video.

lumix-ts4

After a month I’ve become pretty familiar with its basic functions, but the PDF-only manual is thick and there are lots of bells and whistles I haven’t tried (such as time-lapse). Here is my quick review…

“Waterproof”

It seemed to survive the salt water nicely, though I did not open the battery/card door during the trip and did not use it underwater. I bought a floating wrist strap that worked well. Very nice not to worry about getting it wet! There are two caveats however: 1) It is very easy to get water or salt residue on the lens window. Inspect and clean it often. 2) There are controversies on the web regarding water damage, warranty service, and required replacement of the door seal. My impression is the company is beginning to listen to customers who had problems and is making maintenance easier.

Basic Photography

The basic functions are all there and reasonably well implemented. The location of the wide/tele buttons took some getting used to (they are on the back where you can hit them with your thumb). The Manual Mode is a bit odd in that you only have two choices for aperture (f3.3 and f10 at full wide). I thought it was broken at first. (Perhaps there are only two apertures available in full auto as well? This might be a reasonable design compromise for a small camera.) Switching to shutter speed takes another button press. This is clearly a design flaw since most of the adjustment comes from the shutter. In Manual Mode it should default to shutter speed and aperture adjustment should require the extra step!

Video

The video sequences I shot in the Everglades were truly impressive. I set the camera to capture high-res mp4. The raw files fill my desktop screen and I’ve had to reduce the resolution to use them on the web and DVD. I’ve edited the best clips together into a short movie so you can judge for yourself!

Panorama Mode

Based on one example, this seemed to work well…

Handheld HDR

This is where the extra steps and awkwardness of Manual Mode became painfully apparent. The process was complicated by the fact that the “meter” hides itself between exposures, so I had to partially depress the shutter release each time I wanted to make adjustments. (Perhaps there is a setting somewhere that will override this? I should probably just revert to doing the exposure math in my head like we did back in the old days before meters became common. <smile>) That said I was able to get a few decent two-exposure HDR photos without too much frustration…

To get these quick-and-dirty high dynamic range (HDR) photos take two photos of the same scene with the same aperture at 1.5 and -1.5 EV. Then combine them in Photoshop or your favorite HDR software.

Conclusion

The gallery below shows a general sampling of the photos I’ve taken in the past few days. Overall I am quite pleased with this camera and its minor faults are more than compensated by being waterproof!