I was just viewing an image online from a devoted “Christian” car. He/she had written on the car “First God, then people…”.

I don’t know about other religions, but I have a good understanding of Christianity, since I studied it both in school and church, like any other good Greek would do early in life. And at least for Orthodox Christians (and for most Catholics too), the New Testament is the *main* book of Christianity. Meaning, that while both the Old and the New Testament are accepted, the New Testament is exactly that: “a new deal between God and Man”. And as every new deal and contract, it has new rules. New rules that Jesus put forth for his believers that overwrote the old rules that were put forth by a jealous, revengeful, self-centric God. That’s why Jesus’ cult became so popular in the first place: because the new rules made more sense to people who have been asking for a humanitarian-based religion, in a world ravaged by war.

The new rules are these: love, forgiveness, love your neighbor as you love yourself, etc etc. Christianity aims to make the living world a better place. And this can only be done if you put people first, not God. If you put God first you end up being a mujahid, not a true Christian. If you put God first, you are missing the whole point of Christianity. This is no different than idolizing the never-present school board for giving out the rules on how to behave in the school playground, instead of actually enjoy playing with the other kids, and be nice to them in the process. Putting God first makes no freaking sense.

As I have written in the past, I am not a believer anymore, but I do consider myself an “atheist humanist”. The way I live my life is not different than what I was taught by the Church. If I can help a fellow man, I will. It’s just that I don’t believe in the supernatural, and I don’t do things because of fear of a being called “God”. When I’ll die (and I feel it might be sooner rather than later), I will just die. The end. This blog will be the only thing that’s left of me for those who choose to remember me. This is why I get so personal some times in public.

But one thing is for sure, even in my deathbed, when I will probably start praying despite being an atheist (part of the human nature, I guess), I will still not put God first. If he exists, he should feel free to put my praying requests at the bottom of his queue if I am on the wrong about my priorities.

What the hell? Is this the worst day of my digital life?

I had enrolled for the “automatic refills” payment option with AT&T’s “Pay As You Go” plan last February. The auto-refill worked once in May, and when it was supposed to refill my account last week automatically, it DIDN’T!!!! What the hell is going on here? You setup the fucking thing to automatically refill $25 per 3 months, and it does that correctly once, and then it doesn’t??? How do you even make something like this work only once?

I will be calling them tomorrow morning, because right now they are closed (IMO, they should be having support people 24 hours a day, but hey).

Worst shit ever. I am really pissed off these last two days. Between Apple, AT&T, and Vegas crashing all the time on a time-critical project, I just feel that I want to head for the mountains and never come back to “civilization”. I hate its guts. I feel like when having PMS, times 100.

Update: AT&T doesn’t know what the hell happened. I show up as auto-refill on their computer, and then I am not. Their rep has no idea what happened, but I have my suspicions. Judging from their pay web site, I smell that they now require an SSN number to accept your credit card, while it wasn’t the deal before. The problem is, there are a lot of people in the US without SSN, because US has run out of supported numbers (US now gives SSNs to new residents only when it absolutely has to). AT&T never sent me an email, SMS, or called to let me know of the new requirements. They just stopped auto-refilling my account, while I thought they were doing so. And because of that, I lost all of my roll-over balance that my account had (about $14). Conspiracy theory anyone?

So today I got an unlocked iPhone 3Gs, from a Canadian store (that was for a unit agreed to get acquired a month ago btw, before my decision to stop my Apple purchases a week ago). It came with firmware 3.0.0, and I went ahead to upgrade to 3.0.1. I wasn’t afraid of activation, since my iPhone 2G works just fine with my AT&T prepaid SIM card (the voice part at least). So when I got it, I simply put it on iTunes to update its firmware, and when it would ask me for a SIM card, I would just put in my AT&T one.

Well, things didn’t exactly went as planned. The iPhone 3Gs got activated all by itself, and I was wondering why. Well, when opened the SIM tray there was another fucking SIM card in there!!!! The Canadian store forgot their FIDO sim card in! The Fido sim card didn’t work in the US, so I really thought that this was just a bare iPhone that I received. But it wasn’t. The Fido SIM activated the iPhone with the Fido network, with a SIM that doesn’t really work anyway (at least in the US)!

So I go ahead, and I do what I have to do: jailbreak and unlock the phone. The jailbreakiness and unlockiness of the 3.0.1 firmware worked, and my AT&T card was recognized. So now, I thought, if I restore the firmware again, and not keep any data, it should default back to the AT&T network and won’t be locked to Fido anymore. I thought, I would be able to use the iPhone 3Gs as I do with my iPhone 2G, which doesn’t require special activation as long as I am on AT&T.

But this is not how it works.

Once you have activated an iPhone ONCE, then the iPhone’s “default clean slate” is not “clean slate” anymore. It’s now FOREVER locked to the FIDO network, and it now requires jailbreak/unlock EVERY TIME you upgrade the firmware. If the Canadian store had not made the mistake to put the FIDO sim in there, then I would have activated the iPhone with the AT&T sim card for the first time, and so it would be “locked” to the AT&T network instead (which is what I wanted). Every time there would be a new OS version out, it would just work.

Don’t get confused. There are TWO kinds of SIM locks on the iPhone. One kind is the “easy” lock, which is what the hackers are hacking at, the one that lets you use any SIM. But the other lock, is the REAL fucking lock, which is NOT MODIFIABLE once you have activated the iPhone with a certain network. That lock is much more lower level, and part of the baseband/radio firmware, and not the OS firmware. And that’s a part that no hacking tool can touch, except Apple’s own tools that are not freely available (unless you know of one that can really flash the actual baseband firmware of the iPhone, and not the OS part).

So basically, between the stupidity of the Canadian store to leave their fucking SIM into the phone, the stupidity of Apple to lock things in such a way, and my laziness to put my SIM in the phone immediately after arriving instead of waiting for the firmware upgrade, I am now left with an iPhone that can only be used with the jailbreak/unlock combination. Each time Apple releases a new firmware, I have to jailbreak/unlock the phone manually, and honestly, I rather not since I shouldn’t have to (since I use an AT&T sim, and AT&T doesn’t really mind). I am simply against jailbreaking because it’s just not safe. But now, I have to fucking use it in order to be able to use the phone. And no, don’t suggest to me to buy an iPhone with a full AT&T contract, because I simply don’t need such a contract — I barely do 5 phone calls a month. But I still want an iPhone, and I still want my prepaid sim. This should have worked.

I put the biggest blame on this situation on Apple, because locking phones this way SUCKS GOATS. I hope someone taps Apple’s ass, to feel how good a locking really is. Apple is THE ONLY company that could have bring REVOLUTION to the industry by saying “no” to the carrier-manufacturer phone locks. Apple is successful and big enough to give the FINGER to any carrier that demands locked phones (at least starting with iPhone 3G). But noooooo! Apple WANTS its EXTRA BUCK that it gets from the carriers by locking the phones like that. So instead of bringing revolution, Apple brings me headaches instead.

I used the HV20 (60i) and the Canon SX200 IS digicam (30p) yesterday for the wedding I shot. The big surprise came to me from the SX200 IS (review). While it has lower resolution than the HV20, the overall look it produced was so amazingly filmic (low contrast, low saturation) that I still can’t believe that I can get that look with a $300 camera!

Of course, the camera’s color settings were tweaked, as mentioned in the picture above. With these settings, the picture looked like watching a real film movie! Even when tried to turn all these color settings OFF on the HV20 (and enabling Cinemode), the picture produced was still not as cinematic as the SX200’s! People were still “red-ish”, while with the SX200 I would get the beautiful yellow-ish cast on skin tones, as on most films! The groom’s suit is all contrasty-black with no details on the HV20 footage, while on the SX200 footage you can perfectly see details/folds on the suit — like a film would do so!

My JBQ says that the image produced by the HV20 is more accurate (his Canon 5D also produced a similar contrasty look like the HV20’s), but the reality is, who cares, when the SX200 IS looks so much better to my eyes? Like 24p, the film look is a habitual thing that people get used to and have associated it subconsciously to movies. I wish I could show you some better frame grabs to compare the HV20’s and the SX200’s skin tones and contrast (in order to see what I mean), but I have no image releases, so these pics should suffice.

Of course, the SX200 has its problems: it sucks under low light, it’s full of grain/noise. The kind of good footage it can shoot can only be produced outdoors, or with very strong artificial lights. And it has no manual controls to speak off other than color manipulation, exposure compensation/locking, manual white balance, and manual focus/locking (few controls compared to a good camcorder, but more video controls compared to other cheap digicams). But if your footage is shot outdoors, and you tweak its settings as shown above, you will get amazing results.

And judging from this example, the SX200 IS shoots more cinematic footage than the 5D Mark-II (image/color look-wise, not depth-of-field and detail-wise of course). For some weird reason, most of the 5D footage I have seen, is super-contrasty, even when tweaked down.

“The Outpost” is the second script I’ve written for the purpose of a short movie. I had the idea about it a few days ago. Right-click to download from here, I think you would enjoy the twist at the end (a’la “Lost”). Unfortunately, I won’t be shooting it (mostly because I live in a highly populated area), so I am giving it away under the liberal Creative Commons “BY” 3.0 license. Exactly because it’s so short and easy to shoot, some new filmmakers might want to take on its challenge for practicing reasons. If you do, don’t forget to story-board it btw, in order to plan each shot and get a better result. The only “difficult” shot in the whole script is the last shot, which can easily be done if you treat the sky as a green screen (which means that the heroes should not wear blue color clothes). Enjoy!

I can’t understand some people. They just make no sense whatsoever to me.

Case in point, two forum threads over at HV20.com. One thread about the “Condition:Human” web series, and one about the “Manifest Destiny” short movie.

These are two examples of some of the most complex and involved HV20/30-related projects ever shot. There is a lot of work put into these shorts, much more than the usual wanna-be who gets a camera and shoots a “short movie” of complete and utter bullshit, handheld no less. In the case of Condition:Human there was a lot of preparation going on, changing the director’s living room into a green screen, shooting a various locations, and on top of that, implementing complex CGI too. And in the case of Manifect Destiny the sound was superb, the props were superb, the editing more so. Heck, even the sci-fi news site IO9.com wrote an article about the short! And the readers there, loved it! It’s only some HV20.com “I am a better filmmaker than you are” readers who “didn’t like it”.

Some of the HV20.com residents found it “cheesiest, dumbest short”, or said “color me unimpressed”. What the hell? These shorts are more involved and complex AND well-done than your average travel video posted on that forum. How do these people actually compare the god-damn thing? Comparing it to the latest Oscar-winning movie, or to the rest of the amateur filmmaking community? Because, if they are comparing it against the latest Spielberg flick, they should obviously shit on top of 99% of the HV20.com videos too, and not just nitpick the most evolved ones.

Are these films perfect? No, definitely not. But they are BETTER than the rest in that HV20/30 community. Everything is relative in this world, and these guys simply can’t keep perspective. Instead of being HAPPY that someone was able to pull off such a complex project with a $500 camera and no budget to speak of, they nitpick it to death. The better the project actually is, the MORE nitpicking they do! I would agree with the nitpicking only if the filmmakers were boasting that their movie is better than Hollywood’s. But they aren’t. And no, this is not a case of personal likes and dislikes. This is a case of being objective about something. Heck, I can nitpick Condition:Human’s sound problems all day long for example, but I also recognize that the project overall is way too impressive to ignore.

My JBQ also notes: “When stuff is shot with better equipment, jealous people will just say ‘well of course it’s better, they have better equipment’. But when it’s shot with the same equipment, they have to nitpick because they can’t admit that the result is better than what they get with the same equipment. Ken Rockwell said it best about ‘Equipment Measurbators’”.

This is no different than having a genius kid in the first grade class, able to solve the most complex math than any of the other kids, and then having that kid sitting on the chair next to him, who’s terrible with math no less, saying “eh, you’re no Einstein. Not impressed“.

Well, go fuck yourself. Bully. Motherfucking jealous bully.

JBQ: I am sorry I woke you up this morning, I just wanted to kiss you and tell you that I love you before I leave for work.
Eugenia: Oh, I don’t remember waking up, just very faintly… What did I do?
JBQ: You kissed back, and you told me that you love me too.
Eugenia: Hmm… I didn’t call you Eric or anything, did I?
JBQ: No…
Eugenia: Good.
JBQ: …

There are 3 ways to convert 60i/30p to 24p. Each one has its ups and downs. None is really ideal for all cases, so if you really need real 24p, get a real 24p camera. In detail:

1. Resampling (or motion estimation)
This is the default Sony Vegas mode when your project properties has a specific source frame rate and you export in another, or when you slow-down footage. There is a huge amount of ghosting introduced when resampling is ON. I personally always make sure that all the clips in my timeline are set to “disable resample” before I export. I suggest you do too. Vegas’ resampling is one ugly algorithm, avoid. Ghosting:

2. Drop frames
This method will drop 6 frames per second in order to convert from 30 to 24 fps. On Sony Vegas you do that with the “disable resample” option mentioned above. Other editors, use this method by default (it’s the simplest to implement). The problem of this method is that the video it produces is jerky. You see, the camera didn’t record 24 frames at 24 even times a second, but 30, and so there will be “gaps” in the motion of the video. These gaps will show up as jerky video. The good news is that many viewers never notice, the bad news is that this will still not visually feel like real 24p.

3. 25% slow down
This is my preferred method. Basically, by slowing down the playback rate by 0.800, we essentially emulate the 24p capturing process perfectly. There is no jerkiness, everything gets a smooth, dreamy look, which is very cinematic. And no, the vast majority of the viewers will never realize that the footage was slow-motion’ed! It is the perfect way to shoot music videos (using this trick), artistic/abstract pieces, and anything else that doesn’t require synchronized speech. See, this method has a drawback: you can’t resample audio with the same effectiveness as you do for video, it will sound real slow and bad (even after correcting the pitch). So basically, this method is out from the moment you want to use the audio captured along the video. You can only add music/narration during post processing, but no sync’ed speech. This method takes out the ability of shooting short movies where people have to talk on camera, but it’s good for everything else.

Here are the playback rates you need to use for the 3rd method:
60i (via interpolated de-interlacing), or 29.97 fps to 23.976 fps: 0.800
60i (via interpolated de-interlacing), or 29.97 fps to 24.00 fps: 0.801
30.00 fps to 23.976 fps: 0.799
30.00 fps to 24.00 fps: 0.800
Of course, always disable resample just before you export, on all your clips in the timeline.

I am shooting a wedding for a friend this weekend, and along enough tapes, a second battery, and two additional HD digicams (Panasonic FX150 and Canon SX200 IS) sitting on tripods, the following Canon HV20 camcorder will be the main rig that I will be using.

JBQ will be shooting still pictures with his Canon 5D, and he will be taking care one of the two digicams (video recording must be restarted every 15 minutes, because of FAT32 limitations). I just need to find a second person at the wedding (possibly a kid) to take care of the second digicam.