jwsound.net blog

checking in with Blogger

2011-05-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

Periodically, I check in with Google's blog platform, just to see what's going on with it. I have so many different blogs, websites, I'm sure if someone is doing a search on me they wind up with so many choices. I have no way of controlling which site they wind up at. The answer, of course, is to shit down all these choices and just go with ONE BLOG.

Beatles. Now on iTunes

2010-11-16T10:46:00.000-08:00

The Beatles Appear in iTunes Store

Ahead of Apple's planned announcement scheduled for about half an hour from now that has been expected to see content from The Beatles finally come to the iTunes Store, that content has already gone live. The offerings are headed by The Beatles Box Set, offering a total of 256 songs and other items, including iTunes LP mini-documentary features and a video of the band's first U.S. concert, all for $149.00.

Individual albums featuring enhanced iTunes LP content are also available, with the majority of them priced at $12.99 and a few others including "The White Album" and several greatest hits collections available for $19.99. Songs are generally also available on a per-track basis priced at $1.29 each.

Update: Apple has now updated its homepage to reflect availability of The Beatles' catalog on iTunes, and issued a press release about the release.
Apple Corps, EMI and Apple today announced that the Beatles, the most influential and beloved rock band in music history, are now available for the first time on the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com). Starting today, the group's 13 legendary remastered studio albums with iTunes LPs, the two-volume "Past Masters" compilation and the classic "Red" and "Blue" collections are available for purchase and download on iTunes worldwide as either albums or individual songs. Fans can also get a special digital "Beatles Box Set" featuring the "Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964" concert film, a worldwide iTunes exclusive which captures the Beatles' very first US concert.

Apple has also posted a dedicated page on its site highlighting The Beatles and offering video streams of new ads promoting the release and footage of the Washington Coliseum concert.

Update 2: According to All Things Digital, Apple has exclusivity on digital distribution of The Beatles' catalog "into 2011".

Blogger has gotten pretty good

2010-11-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

Blogger, or what used be called Blogspot, has gotten pretty good lately. Easier to use and supports more features and functions, I like it. Blogger is hosted by Google so the infrastructure and network are very solid. I know I should commit at some point to just ONE blog platform. Presently, I have my Wordpress blog, a Posterous blog, Tumblr and the various blogging sections of a handful of personal websites. I should pear it down, right?

keeping this blog going

2010-09-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

I guess the only reason for putting up this blog was to discover how blogspot (from Google) functions. I really don't need another blog or website but it has been interesting playing around with this one. Vanessa has made very good use of her blog, also on blogspot, so it is working well for her.

Stage Work

2010-07-31T19:32:00.001-07:00

We're on stage for 4 days next week --- quite a relief from our location work. Dr. Julia starts work and everyone is excited about her character.

What are we fighting for?

2010-07-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

"Horrible Bosses" starts Tuesday

2010-07-02T08:18:00.001-07:00

First day of shooting is Tuesday, July 6th after the holiday. Let the games begin!

prepping a new movie

2010-06-24T18:33:00.001-07:00

I'm getting ready to start shooting on a new movie called "Horrible Bosses". I'm not so sure about the title, maybe once we actually start doing it the title might work better. It is a funny script and a good cast. The only downside is that there is a lot of NIGHT shooting --- don't like that!

the business of science

2010-06-16T07:41:00.001-07:00

After the oil spill

Disturbing trends from the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska are being repeated in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Charles Wohlforth

June 16, 2010

After spending around half a billion dollars, scientists paid by the government to study the Exxon Valdez oil spill over the last two decades still cannot answer some of the most important questions about the damage it caused or about whether Prince William Sound will fully recover.

We're in danger of ending up just as ignorant after the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, as once again, our legal, political and economic systems hobble scientists and pervert the search for answers.

The mandate of Alaska's government-sponsored oil spill research was to quantify the damage of the spill and guide decisions for restoring of the environment. After the initial chaos, lawyers for the state of Alaska and the federal government called the shots on a joint science program. Later, a state-federal interagency council was in charge, although still with a heavy hand from lawyers and politicians. Most of the money spent for thousands of individual studies ultimately came from a legal settlement with Exxon.

The failures were built in by those controlling the money. The best scientists in the field recognized early on that to tease out oil spill impacts from broader changes in the ecosystem, they would need well-coordinated studies looking at many species and many factors in the environment. But lawyers rejected those projects, instead focusing on studies looking at damage to the most popular individual species in isolation.

In the end, according to retired University of Alaska professor Rick Steiner, the studies were of little help in fixing Prince William Sound: No restoration decisions per se have been made based on the findings. And we didn't even find out how much oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez. The oft-quoted figure of 11 million gallons is probably about a third of the total, but definitive follow-up studies were never completed.

Nor did we get answers for the greatest lingering mystery of the oil spill. Before the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef, Prince William Sound had huge spring herring runs — massive balls of spawning fish. Afterward, the fish developed lesions and other defects. Their numbers crashed in 1994 and have never recovered. Fishermen lost an important part of their livelihood, and the ecosystem is undersupplied with a forage fish critical to the food web, but because scientists didn't study the ecosystem holistically after the spill, the tens of millions of dollars spent researching herring have yielded only guesses as to why. And Exxon gets away with claiming it wasn't to blame.

A big part of the problem in the Alaska situation is that business and government have a desire not to know, and especially not to tell. Some of the same institutions responsible for the damage and the cleanup also fund the science that can expose their culpability and lack of effectiveness.

In Alaska, Exxon and government officials resisted efforts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to set up studies to track how well the cleanup was working and whether it was doing more harm than good. The unfavorable results of the one, small study that was completed were initially kept confidential. I was able to see them only after filing an appeal of a denied Freedom of Information Act Request.

As I have documented in my book, "The Fate of Nature," a scientist who revealed that rescued sea otters mostly died after they were released — and that their release may have sickened healthy otters in the wild — lost his research contracts and was blacklisted from future work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had approved the rescue operation.

With a similar affection for ignorance, BP, the Coast Guard and even the president for a time maintained that it didn't matter how much oil was leaking in the gulf. BP initially blocked video of the gusher that outside experts could use to estimate the flow, and only after public pressure used equipment offered by a professor to measure it directly.

Another problem is mixing litigation with science. In Alaska, government lawyers muzzled scientists working for the public, labeling their work as evidence against Exxon. That secrecy was supposed to help build a case, but it mostly crippled scientists' ability to coordinate their work and caused wasted efforts. Yet they ultimately made no significant use of the studies they ordered, instead agreeing to settle the cases with Exxon for an arbitrary negotiated figure that Alaska's governor at the time, Walter Hickel, told me he pulled out of thin air.

In the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are already running into a legalistic wall of silence. The journal Nature reports in its May 27 issue that, in some cases, academic scientists can't even find out what government research is happening. A communications director for NOAA cited the same reason we heard in Alaska — "the ongoing investigation"— as if someone were worried about tipping off the prime suspect that his oil spill had been discovered.

Another problem is the abuse of science in the service of public relations. In studying the Alaska disaster, the government and Exxon became locked in a war of research, producing dueling studies and accusations of misconduct. The Chronicle of Higher Education found that although all the researchers involved were from reputable institutions, their results correlated mainly with who was paying the bills.

In the gulf, BP has already established a beachhead in an alternate reality, avoiding questions, spinning terminology and blankly denying the existence of underwater plumes of oil discovered by independent, academic scientists. And BP has announced its own science project, noting that it will look at how natural oil seeps may have fouled the gulf, a bugaboo repeatedly raised by Exxon in Alaska to cast away blame. Grants BP made to academic researchers on Tuesday sound more promising.

The situation is discouraging, but the solutions aren't complicated. Form an independent entity led by top independent scientists who can coordinate a research plan and allocate funding to individual researchers or organizations based on merit — just as big-ticket, big-effort science usually is managed in this country.

All scientific work should be public and delivered in peer-reviewed journals and open conferences. Any harm to lawsuits or criminal investigations caused by openness will be slight compared with the benefit to society of getting the answers we need to understand what has happened and prevent it from happening again. Besides, a publicly vetted science program will be far more difficult for industry-hired experts to assail. Their criticisms can be accounted for as the research unfolds, and therefore made irrelevant to the final result.

Catastrophe can be an excellent teacher, but only if we study it without fear or favor. BP and the federal government are to blame for the disaster. They shouldn't get to decide what truths are learned from it.

Charles Wohlforth's new book, "The Fate of Nature: Rediscovering Our Ability to Rescue the Earth," explores the history and environment of his home state of Alaska for lessons about humanity's relationship to Earth. http://www.fateofnature.com

new Mac Mini

2010-06-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

New Mac Mini has been announced and it's a beauty! One thing that is really a dissappointment for me is that the Mac Mini has dropped support for analog video output. The Mini was the last Mac to still have a mini-DVI port and analog composite video support. Now, the new Mac Mini is fully digital video out meaning that to get analog video (for older projectors and video switchers) one must use an outboard converter.

Obama and Oil

2010-06-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

June 3, 2010

Yes, Obama is “Engaged” — in a Colossal Crime

By Glen Ford

“Obama is a facilitator of the corporate enterprise that has spawned the Mother of all Pollutions.”

In a rational polity, the great abomination to Earth and Man in the Gulf would spell the end of the Obama presidency. We are witnessing cataclysm on a geological scale, an event with the potential to alter planetary destiny, precipitated not by the three hundred million year arc of wayward comets or the incremental slide of continent-molding tectonic plates, but by the routine exercise of corporate power in the United States.

The man in charge of the government that both permitted and abetted the heinous corporate crime (“Drill, baby, drill!”) should, by all rights, be in terminal disgrace. Instead, much of Obama’s “base” behaves as if the First Black President is an innocent party a victim of circumstances rather than a facilitator of the corporate enterprise that has spawned the Mother of all Pollutions. But then, Teflon is a petrochemical product.

Any meaningful discussion of the oceanic version of Chernobyl would challenge a political system in which huge corporations are empowered to seek profits with absolutely no regard for the consequences to Earth or Man. Viewed from that angle the only sane perspective questions of whether Obama is fully or only partially “engaged” are ludicrously ill-framed. Engaged in what, in subduing and caging the corporate animals that are defecating in humanity’s only nest? Clearly not: BP is the operative government in the Gulf, with the Coast Guard as its muscle. BP is also the surgeon in charge of mending the Earth’s wound and preventing the spread of septicemia in its life-sustaining fluids the equivalent of Jack The Ripper tending to his own victims. Under such circumstances, the more Obama assures us he is “engaged,” the greater his confessed complicity in the crime.

“The president furthered the oil industry’s plans to drill at depths at which current technology makes mistakes irreparable.”

For purposes of assigning culpability, Obama was fully engaged in setting the stage for the atrocity from the moment of his campaign reversal on off-shore drilling in August, 2008 after he had the nomination locked up. “My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” said candidate Obama. “If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well-thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.” So Obama bent over like a contortionist to pleasure the oil barons.

The full scope of Obama’s “compromise” was announced almost two years later, on March 31. The White House gave Big Oil virtually everything it wanted that was politically possible, with no protections for the public or Mother Earth in the form of a “well-thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage.”

“The federal government is fully engaged and I am fully engaged,” said Obama, last week. OK, we’ll accept that he has been engaged in furthering the oil industry’s plans to drill at depths at which current technology makes mistakes irreparable as the damage from the current ecological holocaust is already irreparable.

“The more Obama assures us he is ‘engaged,’ the greater his confessed complicity in the crime.”

Obama has been engaged in killing the planet, in concert with his corporate co-conspirators. He did nothing more than cosmetic changes at the federal Minerals Management Service, which Obama finally admitted, at last week’s press conference, “had been plagued by corruption for years” and had a “scandalously close relationship” with Big Oil.

The unbroken chain of “corruption” at the agency in both Bush and Obama administrations is one small expression of the continuity of actual rule of the country by sometimes feuding cousins in Big Oil and Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex the permanent government. Obama is “engaged” as their servant, like his predecessors in the Oval Office.

The corporate cousins have raised the stakes of the game. It’s either them or Earth itself. When history passes its verdict on the current era, she will not assign much import to the advent of the First Black President of the United States. Rather, history will mark 2010 as the year a servile political operative in the White House exposed the seabed to deep defilement by the oil colossus, from which the world never fully recovered.

Author’s Website: www.BlackAgendaReport.com

Author’s Bio: Glen Ford is a 37-year veteran of Black radio, television, print and Internet news and commentary. He is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com and was co-founder of BlackCommentator.com.

the Google advangtage

2010-06-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

No sooner did I post something new here, Google picked up on this blog (not surprising, I guess, since Google hosts this blog) and I received a Google Alert about Haskell Wexler's website. It's a good thing, just a little unnerving to be found so quickly.

Not so fast...

2010-06-12T09:06:00.001-07:00

I am going to keep this blog going just because there is no downside to keeping it. I will continue to play around with it once and awhile but I don't think it will ever be the MAIN blog platform for me.

This BLOG is going away

2008-12-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

I am not going to maintain this blog on Google anymore since I already have too many things going on. I have my Discussion Group and my BLOG, my JWSOUND.NET website. I have just added as well a social network site called CinemaSound

I think that is more than enough to play with so this Google blog is going away.

- Jeff Wexler

why does gas cost so much

2008-07-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

This video doesn't really answer the question... I am just posting it to see how easy it is to post a video

Is a Google Blog better than a Wordpress Blog?

2008-07-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Trying to figure out whether this Google (Blogspot) blog is easier and more useful than the blog I have set up using Wordpress.

not quite yet

2008-06-04T20:09:00.001-07:00

I am not letting this go quite yet... still useful for me to see how Google blogs work.

I'm putting this blog to rest...

2008-03-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

I am not going to be using this blogger/blogspot blog anymore, I will concentrate on my new blog on my own server using Wordpress installation. I think what Google provides here is really good, easy to use and functional, but I would rather have total control over all of this myself.

You can visit my new blog at: http://jwsound.net/WP

Regards, Jeff Wexler

thinking about blogging for my father

2008-03-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

Still trying to figure out what is the best route for my father to take to post the things he wants to talk about on the Internet. We are experimenting with a group email list and other things... we'll see what works out best.

- Jeff Wexler

my blog

2008-01-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything to this blog in months and months... makes me wonder why I even set it up. I know, I did it because EVERYONE is blogging and I didn't want to be left out. Is that it?

why do I even have a blog?

2007-11-24T19:41:00.000-08:00

Well, this just shows you how much this blog means to me... I haven't posted anything here for months it seems. I guess I just don't have anything to say (or I figure no one is listening anyway so why bother(.

- Jeff Wexler

not so current, this blog... sorry

2007-10-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

I know I said this blog would be the best place to find current news and exciting things but it hasn't really happened, has it. I think that possibly I don't keep the blog current because I am pretty sure NO ONE is actually reading any of this. The Discussion Group is going very well I feel with all the regulars participating and many new members joining up every week. So, maybe my efforts will continue in that venue primarily and the blog will only serve once and awhile when I can get to it.

- Jeff Wexler

2007-10-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

How easy is it to use a Blogger blog? It is really pretty easy and quite often Google updates and adds features. It is very easy to add an image to any post using the buttons in the toolbar. Here is an image posted along with this post.

discover the power of MonaVie

2007-09-23T07:52:00.001-07:00

too much Internet

2007-08-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

I get the feeling I have TOO MUCH Internet presence at this point. All the software and Internet stuff is so intriguing but I am not so sure it is a good idea to have so many things going on. I have a personal website, the Discussion Group, a MySpace site, a Ning site, 2 blogs, and on and on. Maybe it will be better to concentrate on one or two things and do them right... then I just need to promote these sites (and hope that I actually have something worth saying!).

- Jeff Wexler

Apple has updated .Mac

2007-08-10T19:23:00.001-07:00

Apple has updated the .Mac account, added 10 gb storage and many new features. Both iPhoto and iMovie are integrated with what is called the Web Gallery. At the Web Gallery you can post images directly from iPhoto and even video directly from iMovie.

A link is then easily emailed for people to come and view your Web Gallery.

LINK to My Web Gallery

Apple and share price

2007-08-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

I own Apple stock and I have watched it go crazy, up and down, for many years, seemingly without any real rhyme or reason. I would love to know how the share price of stock in a company that is so solid in all the most important ways, can fluctuate so wildly. I also read about all the manipulation that goes on, the leaking of false information, and all those sorts of things. I guess I am just naive in thinking that the stock market is a place where you can invest your money in companies you believe in, etc., etc.

- JW

this modern life

2007-07-25T10:34:00.001-07:00

Laszlo Kovacs has died

2007-07-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

I just read in the L.A. times the obituary for Laszlo Kovacs. This is very sad. I worked with Laszlo a few times but never had the chance to do a full movie. Laszlo first came to prominence shooting "Easy Rider" which was just another biker movie, or so he thought, for Laszlo early in his career. He had shot more than 70 feature films, including "New York, New York," "The Last Waltz," "Frances," "Ghostbusters," "Multiplicity," "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Miss Congeniality."

Note: the L.A. Times screwed up and put a picture of Sven Nyquist (another great cinematographer who died in September 2006. The Times used the same picture in Sven's obituary).

Regards, Jeff Wexler

new products from Sonosax

2007-07-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

These new products shown at the 122 AES Show in Austria look really good. The most exciting ones are not shipping yet, in fact they are just dummy boxes at this point, but the build quality, functions and ergonomics, seem to be superb. I look forward to these things coming to market... when?

a new video from David Wexler

2007-07-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

my son David

2007-07-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

I am learning so much from my son David. He has an amazing capacity to learn and develop creative skills all his own to do the things that he is doing with his art. I am extremely proud of all that he accomplishes, every day, and I am sure he will continue to do amazing things all his life.

Some of his great artistic creations can be seen at:
www.nuopsys.com

setting up a Blogger blog

2007-07-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

I just helped Vanessa set up a blog using the now Google owned Blogger system. This works very well because it is so easy to update things and to post daily --- much easier than updating a full website that has a blog page or a blog component. There is an advantage as well, I believe, in having Google as the engine and the support, rather than putting up a blog on your own server where you may have a website. As long as you can customize the blog enough to make it personal, and this seems to be getting better all the time with Blogger, it looks like a good way to go.

- JW

election results for Camera Guild

2007-05-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a little depressed that my father did not win the election. Steve Poster and the rest of those in power mounted an extensive and quite dirty campaign to defeat Haskell, and they won.

Now, we all have to figure out how to continue the struggle, the good fight, to make the union truly representative, to serve the membership as a labor union should.

- JW

my Discussion Group

2007-05-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am trying to deal with all the spam botts invading my group. I have been getting about 10 bogus sign up requests a day. The procedure I am now trying out is for people who wish to join up will send me a personal email and then I will sign them up manually as the administrator of the forum. This will work just fine but I know that many people will consider it a hassle so I may lose new members. We'll see how it all works out.

Regards, Jeff Wexler

returning from our trip

2007-04-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

We're heading back to Santa Monica, spending our last day in Morro Bay. Carol and I have had a great time on this trip --- our first vacation in a long, long time.

- JW

enjoying the time off

2007-04-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

I am enjoying the time off now, having finished "Rush Hour 3" just last week. They are doing some 2nd Unit shooting but I passed on that. Counting the tech scouts and prep time on the movie, I was on that project for almost 8 months!

I look forward to going to NAB Convention next week --- I always like to attend every year but all too often I am on a job and can't get to Las Vegas. After NAB, my wife Carol and I are going to take a little vacation --- we haven't had a vacation (too many locations) together in years.

wrapping up "Rush Hour 3"

2007-03-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

We should wrap up "Rush Hour 3" on Wednesday, April 4th. Just a few more days of shooting then wrap the equipment back to my shop. There will be 2nd Unit shoot beginning on April 13th but we're not doing that.

I am excited about going to NAB this year --- the R.A.M.P.S. party should be really fun (although Eric Toline, the Father of R.A.M.P.S. Party, will not be there).

- JW

My daughter's wedding

2007-03-25T12:54:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Vanessa and Ben's wedding, held at the Mandalay Beach Resort on Saturday. It was truly the best wedding event I have ever been to... and that's not just becaue it was Vanessa. Everything was so well planned, the decorations in the banquet room were superb, and the food was great. The best thing for me, however, was the chance to see so many people I haven't seen for so long: Caleb & Mary Jo Deschanel, Emily Derschanel, Pam Peller, Roy Watts (old friends of Tonya's), Susan Baldwin and Jasmine (all grown up), Joyce & Roger and my favorite uncle Robert and his wife Nancy. All in all it was a wonderful event.

Regards, Jeff Wexler

nice working with Jackie Chan

2007-03-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

It has been great working with Jackie Chan. I thought it was appropriate to show this picture with the Ritter in the background. We've done lots of ACTION scenes where these wind machines were needed

(but hey, Jackie is an ACTION STAR).

- JW

the new Blog

2007-03-17T08:40:00.001-07:00

My personal weblog will be with Google now that the Blogger software is vastly improved. I used to have the blog on the same server as the website (Lunarpages which I highly recommend) but I think I prefer having this blog hosted by Google.

We have the weekend off and maybe only 2 more weeks on
"Rush Hour 3" ... we'll see.

Regards, Jeff Wexler

they call it "hump day"

2007-03-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday here on Stage 15 at Culver Studios. Yesterday we recorded NO sound whatsoever, so this morning I had to re-slate Sound Roll no. 87 again --- with the new date. Maybe later today we'll have one line of dialog to do... oh, joy.

Regards, Jeff Wexler

more GREEN SCREEN

2007-03-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, more green screen work today; I hope we get to record something. I was speaking with Dana today, the B Camera operator, about HD shoots, the eventual demise of FILM, our jobs and our future. He had a lot of very interesting things to say about the work we do.

- JW

on the set, "Rush Hour 3"

2007-03-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

We're doing GREEN SCREEN work today and there is actually NO SOUND to be recorded. We have been here since 7 am and haven't rolled once. Jaime, our 1st AD, has tried to send us home several times --- never really a good idea bucause at any moment, Brett could dream up something and wec would have to be here.

- JW

trying out the new Blogger

2007-03-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

This is the new Blogger, now from Google, that replaces the older blog software (wasn't it called "Blogspot" or something?). In any case, now have a blog again (although I still don't know what, if anything, I will do with it).

Regards, Jeff Wexler

Beginning the blog...

2005-12-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

I am starting this blog as a place for me to post thoughts and comments, observations and reactions, to happenings in my daily life. I imagine that there will be a preponderance of posts regarding work related things.