21 posts tagged “video”

I think Vox might be back. I clicked ‘Create’ and the compose box came up instantly.
   How’s this for a sparring match? The Renault Sport Mégane versus the Ford Focus RS. The Renault has a 50 bhp deficit but still manages to keep up on the corners. No surprises which car I was rooting for.

I think this is as nice as I can make my latest gripe with Facebook. I sent this to info@facebook.com, in the vain hope that someone there might read it.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

For the last few weeks, Facebook has wrongly accused me of uploading copyrighted videos. According to your own policy as published on your help pages, videos do not get taken down unless the copyright owner has complained. In the case of two videos I uploaded on August 3, Facebook removed them automatically, then put up a notice warning me of my ‘Alleged Copyright Infringement’. No complaints were ever filed by the owners.
   The most pressing bug, as far as my everyday use of your website is concerned, is that your notice has remained on my home page, even though (a) I have filed a counter-notification (on at least 40 occasions) and (b) Facebook has actually restored the video it accuses me of uploading illegally on August 3, at 6.26 a.m.!
   To humour you, I have continued to fill out the counter-notification in the hope that it will clear the false accusation, to no avail. Facebook reports that there was an error with the filing each time.
   Occasionally, the error message comes with an extra link, which takes me to yet another form, which I diligently fill out. On pressing ‘Send’, all this does is take me back to the home page—complete with the notice again. I can only presume that you never received the counter-notifications.
   I can only imagine that one of the filings worked if you have restored the video.
   Strangely, there is no notice about the first video I uploaded earlier on August 3, one which you have not restored. On that video I have written permission from the copyright owner, so there is no way he would have complained about its uploading. But this is not the one that your notice refers to.
   I respectfully request that your notice is removed and the remaining video restored. I do not know what URL the first video resided at, given that it was immediately and automatically deleted the moment it was uploaded. However, I am happy to provide to you the message from the copyright owner which authorizes me to upload it to your servers.

Sincerely,

Jack Yan
http://facebook.com/jack.yan

‘I Could Be So Good for You’ has been covered by other artists. For starters, a Mr Tom Jones impersonator singing the Minder theme tune with his Welsh accent:

   If you think that’s bad compared to Dennis’s original, how about this one, from the co-composer of the song, Gerard Kenny? (Dennis Waterman’s ex-wife Patricia was Kenny’s collaborator, hence the Waterman–Kenny credit—but this gave rise to the idea in Little Britain that Dennis stars, writes and sings his ‘feem toons’.) Dennis appears in this video, but not as Terry, as far as I can tell!

I’m firmly an officious bystander in the whole “Michael Jackson thing”: I am sad people have lost a son, a brother and a father. But since the mid-1980s I have not been a big Michael Jackson fan. His death, while premature, is not going to make me suddenly say that I adored the man and his music. I’m not one of those people who made every single item on Amazon.com’s top 10 a Michael Jackson one. I’m not going to join his MySpace page and leave a tribute.
   But I do not think he was a nonce. When the media go on about child molesters ad nauseam, I am not surprised that some accused Jackson of molestation. Paranoia alone could have seen to that. Some may have seen dollar signs and took the man for a ride. Psychologically, I don’t think the man was capable of forming the sick thoughts that pædophiles have.
   He may have paid off some of his accusers, but think of it this way: if you are a lawyer and your client has the mentality, or tantrums, of a child, what do you do? A father might encourage his son to stand for the truth and go through even a difficult experience to build his character. Someone less close, knowing the person had millions, might just advise paying up to spare a fellow human being more emotional pain than he seemed capable of handling. Michael Jackson seemed like one such person: the stresses we might choose to bear were anathema to him.
   That is, perhaps, how one should think of Jackson: a man who preferred to live some form of childhood than recognize that he had reached adulthood. In his interviews, during the legal cases, Jackson came across in words and manner as a man deeply hurt, as a child might be. Visually, however, his damaged appearance through continual plastic surgeries swayed many of us into thinking he was a monster. It is easy to be fooled by what one sees, and Jackson was the victim of his own choices in that respect.
   I am not excusing him fully. I am not going to say that Michael Jackson lacked an adult’s mental capacity. He was able to reflect on his own mortality, according to his ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley on her MySpace page. He knew what was going on, even if he chose to shield himself from it.
   But he was a deeply troubled man, with a very different perspective on life because of his experiences. He chose himself to be as defined by his eccentricities as his music. Just as with Britney Spears shaving her head, many chose to poke fun at the person rather than say that they needed to be protected and looked after. Jackson’s plastic surgeries and his strange complexion were signs, in my layman’s understanding, of someone who chose to dissociate himself from his true identity. This was not about race, as many want to paint, but about a man who never understood who he was.
   Still, I have devoted a post to him. One part of it was seeing the negative comments pages with his videos are attracting on YouTube. He did not deserve many of them. The other part is that there was a Michael Jackson, once, who was a great performer, who never divided opinion as deeply as he does today. I choose to remember hits like this one.

Somehow, I don’t think one can upload videos to Facebook any more.

   It rejected a file four times and this new box, with what I presume is Facebook’s latest layout, doesn’t even work.
   Time to try this on Vkontakte and see if it works there.

[Cross-posted] I was shouted this on Digg today, and it’s a fascinating look at how the world has changed since 1809 in terms of life expectancy and wealth. Presented by Hans Rosling, the original is at Gapminder.

[Cross-posted from Lucire] Renault has launched a campaign for the Laguna 3 with former Manchester United football player Eric Cantona, using humour and targeting the internet as well as conventional media.
   Called Le rencontre (The Encounter), the commercial is irreverent but manages to show the Laguna in a quality light. (Continued at Lucire.)

We need a break from all this political talk. “Hat tip” to my friend Tanya. The idea: don’t you wish pop videos just said what was happening on the screen?

This came from one of the press agencies and it sounded exciting, but it’s not really. The 2009 Maseratis look like the 2008 Maseratis. I know the Quattroporte is revised but it’s not really worthy of much coverage.

Renault also showed its Laguna Coupé at the Paris salon, although Lucire first reported on the car when Renault boss Carlos Ghosn drove one to Cannes. Here are two videos: one from a Monaco launch and another showing two Laguna Coupés in action.