How to Safeguard Your Data as You Travel

With Wi-Fi access at airports, hotels, and aboard airplanes, business travelers don't have to look very hard for a wireless Internet connection.

But with these public wireless hotspots becoming more prevalent, in addition to more travelers using smart phones for Web access, are business travelers putting themselves at a security risk?

The short answer, some technology security experts say, is yes. But they add that the use of Wi-Fi at these spots is no riskier than at a coffee shop.

"It's a shared medium, and if you can connect to it, someone else can connect to it and monitor your traffic," said Marty Linder, a senior member of the technical staff at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute CERT/Coordination Center. "That has nothing to do with the security of the network. It's just the nature of the beast."

For Fran Hanna, the convenience isn't worth the risk. The sales representative from Chapin, South Carolina, would frequently bring her computer on business trips and access Wi-Fi through her hotels. Hackers tapped into her computer, resulting in inappropriate material being sent through her account.

She had to get her computer restored twice, which cost her $900. And while she still isn't sure where she was when she picked up the malware, she said the only wireless device she will bring with her as she travels is a cell phone for voice calls.

On the other hand, picking up public wireless isn't a major concern to Brian Fitzpatrick, the chief procurement officer of a technology firm in Alpharetta, Georgia, and a frequent business traveler.

He generally avoids transmitting sensitive personal or company data using these hotspots. But as he sees it, having his information stolen "is more likely to happen in some face-to-face transaction than it is even online."

In addition to open networks, experts say the physical loss of devices poses a threat for business travelers.

The combination of replacement cost, detection, forensics, data breach, lost intellectual property costs, lost productivity, and legal, consulting and regulatory expenses sets a company back an average of $49,246 per lost laptop, according to a study released in April by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by the Intel Corporation.

However, lost laptops with encryption saved companies nearly $20,000, compared with those that did not have encryption, according to the Ponemon study. Encrypted disks safeguard data by scrambling information on them. They unlock that information only when the user enters the proper passcode.

"I don't know how many times we've heard about laptops being stolen and they have no encryption on them. And it pretty much means that the bad guys can get to your data. Immediately. They don't have to know your password or anything, they can just get to it," said Patrik Runald, chief security adviser for F-Secure, an Internet security company.

And many businesses do not yet require their employees to use passwords on their smart phones, leaving lost devices "woefully unprotected," said Pat Clawson, CEO and chairman of Lumension Security.

Tips for staying secure

Despite the potential for security breaches, there are simple steps you can take to keep yourself armed as you connect wirelessly on your travels:

• Use an encrypted disk to safeguard the information on your laptop or smart phone, Linder said, and make sure you log off of your computer when you're not using it.

In most cases, when you hibernate your computer, its memory is recorded unencrypted. "You cannot for convenience close your lid, let your computer go to sleep and believe that if someone steals your computer, your data is protected, because it's not," Linder said.

Runald recommended free software called TrueCrypt that you can use to encrypt the content on your local drive and on USB flash drives.

• Turn off your wireless and Bluetooth connections if you're not using them, said Clawson. "Those are electronic doorways into your devices. On my BlackBerry, I can sit there and scan for open Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connections. I [can] then gain access to what's in your files you may have stored in there, your contacts."

• Use an anti-glare shield on your computer to prevent others from spying, Linder suggested. With such shields, you must be face-to-face with the screen to be able to read it.

• Regularly back up the data on your laptop or smart phone, Runald said. Several companies offer backup services, but you can also save information on other computers and disks.

Even if your data is encrypted -- eliminating your fear of sensitive information getting stolen -- backing up the data will make it easy to transfer to a new phone or laptop, Runald said.

• If you lose your smart phone and don't want others to access your information, call your provider and request that the device be wiped of information, Runald said. He also suggested considering software that allows you to send a text message to your phone that will remotely wipe it and block others from accessing its content.

• To ensure that you're visiting an authentic Web site and not getting duped by a phishing scheme, some experts suggest logging onto those sites through your company's VPN connection.

But technology company CPO Fitzpatrick says he hesitates to use VPN from a public Wi-Fi hotspot: "Even though all the traffic is encrypted," he said, "if your machine got compromised in some way, it is sort of a gateway into your network."

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Mini owners celebrating the car's 5oth anniversary drive through Crystal Palace Park for the annual "London to Brighton Mini Run" on May 17. The first 51 cars to leave London represented each year of production from 1959 to 2009 - Getty Images

Stylish Barcelona Take United's Crown

May 27, 2009 - FC Barcelona were crowned European champions for the third time – and the second in four seasons – as a vibrant display of pass and move, capped by goals in either half from Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi, defeated Manchester United FC in Rome.

"Here is to you my dear friend Hannibal Castillo Reaidy".

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The Olive Tree - Part IV

The Olive (Olea europaea) is a species of small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin, from Lebanon and the maritime parts of Turkey and at the south end of the Caspian Sea. Its fruit, the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as the source of olive oil.


Description
The olive tree is an evergreen tree or shrub native to the Mediterranean, Asia and parts of Africa. It is short and squat, and rarely exceeds 8–15 meters in height. The silvery green leaves are oblong in shape, measuring 4–10 cm long and 1–3 cm wide. The trunk is typically gnarled and twisted.

The small white flowers, with ten-cleft calyx and corolla, two stamens and bifid stigma, are borne generally on the last year's wood, in racemes springing from the axil of the leaves.

The fruit is a small drupe 1–2.5 cm long, thinner-fleshed and smaller in wild plants than in orchard cultivars. Olives are harvested at the green stage or left to ripen to a rich purple color (black olive). Canned black olives may contain chemicals that turn them black artificially.


History
The olive is one of the plants most cited in recorded literature. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus crawls beneath two shoots of olive that grow from a single stock. The Roman poet, Horace mentions it in reference to his own diet, which he describes as very simple: "As for me, olives, endives, and smooth mallows provide sustenance.Lord Monboddo comments on the olive in 1779 as one of the foods preferred by the ancients and as one of the most perfect foods.

The leafy branches of the olive tree - the olive leaf as a symbol of abundance, glory and peace - were used to crown the victors of friendly games and bloody wars. As emblems of benediction and purification, they were also ritually offered to deities and powerful figures; some were even found in Tutankhamen's tomb.

Olive oil has long been considered sacred; it was used to anoint kings and athletes in ancient Greece. It was burnt in the sacred lamps of temples as well as being the "eternal flame" of the original Olympic Games. Victors in these games were crowned with its leaves. Today, it is still used in many religious ceremonies.

According to Greek mythology, the Olive tree, her gift to the people of Attica, won Athena the patronage of the city of Athens over Poseidon. As far back as 3000 BC, olives were grown commercially in Crete; they may have been the source of the wealth of the Minoan Civilization.

The olive tree and olives are mentioned over 30 times in the Bible, in both the New and Old Testaments. It is one of the first plants mentioned in the Bible, and one of the most significant. For example, it was an olive branch that a dove brought back to Noah to demonstrate that the flood was over. The Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem is mentioned several times. The olive tree itself, as well as olive oil and olives, play an important role in the Bible.

The olive tree made its appearance in the Mediterranean region thousands of years ago and spread to nearby countries from there. The ancient Greeks used to smear olive oil on their bodies and hair as a matter of grooming and good health. Over the years, the olive has been the symbol of peace, wisdom, glory, fertility, power and pureness. Many Greek and Roman writings refer to the olive and its beneficial role. It is estimated the cultivation of the olive commenced more than 7000 years ago. The Russians also helped to spread the olive throughout its extensive empire.

After the 16th century, the Europeans brought the olive to the New World, and its cultivation began in California, Mexico, Peru, Chile and Argentina. It is estimated that there are about 800 million olive trees in the world today, and the vast majority of these are found in Mediterranean countries.

Old Olive Trees
Pliny the Elder told of a sacred Greek olive tree that was 1600 years old. Several trees in the Garden of Gethsemane (from the Hebrew words "gat shemanim" or olive press) in Jerusalem are claimed to date back to the time of Jesus. Some Italian olive trees are believed to date back to Roman times, although identifying progenitor trees in ancient sources is difficult.

One olive tree in Bar, Montenegro, is claimed to be over 2000 years old.

The age of an olive tree in Crete, claimed to be over 2,000 years old, has been determined on the basis of tree ring analysis. Another well-known olive tree on the island of Brijuni (Brioni), Istria in Croatia, has been calculated to be about 1,600 years old. It still gives fruit (about 30 kg per year), which is made into top quality olive oil.

A tree located in Santu Baltolu di Carana in Sardinia, Italy, named with respect as the Ozzastru by the inhabitants of the region, is claimed to be 3000 to 4000 years old according to different studies. In the same natural garden, a few other millenarian trees can be admired.


Cultivation & Uses
The olive tree has been cultivated since ancient times as a source of olive oil, fine wood, olive leaf, and olives for consumption. The naturally bitter fruit is typically subjected to fermentation or cured with lye or brine to make it more palatable.

Green olives and black olives are washed thoroughly in water to remove oleuropein, a bitter carbohydrate. Sometimes they are also soaked in a solution of food grade sodium hydroxide in order to accelerate the process.

Green olives are allowed to ferment before being packed in a brine solution. American black "California" olives are not fermented, which is why they taste milder than green olives.

It is not known when olives were first cultivated for harvest. Among the earliest evidence for the domestication of olives comes from the Chalcolithic Period archaeological site of Teleilat Ghassul in what is today modern Jordan.

Farmers in ancient times believed olive trees would not grow well if planted more than a short distance from the sea; Theophrastus gives 300 stadia (55.6 km) as the limit. Modern experience does not always confirm this, and, though showing a preference for the coast, it has long been grown further inland in some areas with suitable climates, particularly in the southwestern Mediterranean (Iberia, northwest Africa) where winters are mild.

Olives are now cultivated in many regions of the world with Mediterranean climates, such as South Africa, Chile, Australia, the Mediterranean Basin, Lebanon and California and in areas with temperate climates such as New Zealand, under irrigation in the Cuyo region in Argentina which has a desert climate. They are also grown in the Córdoba Province, Argentina, which has a temperate climate with rainy summers and dry winters (Cwa). The climate in Argentina changes the external characteristics of the plant but the fruit keeps its original characteristics.

Considerable research supports the health-giving benefits of consuming olives, olive leaf and olive oil. The olive tree provides leaves, fruit and oil. Olive leaves are used in medicinal teas.

Olives are now being looked at for use as a renewable energy source, using waste produced from the olive plants as an energy source that produces 2.5 times the energy generated by burning the same amount of wood. The smoke released has no negative impact on neighbors or the environment, and the ash left in the stove can be used for fertilizing gardens and plants. The process has been patented in the Middle East and the US.


Cultivars
There are thousands of cultivars of the olive. In Italy alone at least three hundred cultivars have been enumerated, but only a few are grown to a large extent. None of these can be accurately identified with ancient descriptions, though it is not unlikely that some of the narrow-leaved cultivars most esteemed may be descendants of the Licinian olive. The Iberian olives are usually cured and eaten, often after being pitted, stuffed (with pickled pimento, anchovies, or other fillings) and packed in brine in jars or tins.

Since many cultivars are self sterile or nearly so, they are generally planted in pairs with a single primary cultivar and a secondary cultivar selected for its ability to fertilize the primary one. In recent times, efforts have been directed at producing hybrid cultivars with qualities such as resistance to disease, quick growth and larger or more consistent crops.

Some particularly important cultivars of olive include:

* 'Amfissa', excellent quality Greek table olive grown in Amfissa, Central Greece near the oracle of Delphi. Amfissa olives enjoy PDO (Protected designation of origin) status and are equally good for olive oil extraction. The olive grove of Amfissa, which consists of 1,200,000 olive trees is a part of a protected natural landscape.

* 'Bosana', the most common olive grown on Sardinia. It is used mostly for oils.

* 'Manzanilla', a large, rounded-oval fruit, with purple-green skin, originating in Dos Hermanas, Seville, in southern Spain. Rich taste and thick pulp. A prolific bearer, grown around the world.

* 'Frantoio' and 'Leccino'. These cultivars are the principal participants in Italian olive oils from Tuscany. Leccino has a mild sweet flavour while Frantoio is fruity with a stronger aftertaste. Due to their highly valued flavour, these cultivars are now grown in other countries.

* 'Arbequina', a small, brown olive grown in Catalonia, Spain, good for eating and for oil.

* 'Cornicabra', originating in Toledo, Spain, comprises about 12% of Spain's production. It is mainly used for oil.

* 'Empeltre', a medium-sized black olive grown in Spain, good for eating and for oil.

* 'Hojiblanca', originating in the province of Córdoba, Spain, its oil is widely appreciated for its slightly bitter flavour.

* 'Kalamata', a large, black olive with a smooth and meat like taste, named after the city of Kalamata, Greece, used as a table olive. These olives are usually preserved in vinegar or olive oil. Kalamata olives enjoy PDO (Protected designation of origin) status.

* 'Koroneiki', originating from the southern Peloponese, around Kalamata and Mani in Greece. This small olive, though difficult to cultivate, has a high yield of olive oil of exceptional quality.

* 'Picholine' or 'pecholine', originating in the south of France. It is green, medium size, and elongated. The flavour is mild and nutty.

* 'Picual', originating in southern Spain (province of Jaén), it is the most widely cultivated olive in Spain, comprising about 50% of Spain's olive production and around 20% of world olive production. It has a strong but sweet flavour, because of which is widely used in Spain as a olive to eat. Moreover, its oil has some of the best chemical properties found in olive oil, being the richest in oleic acid and E vitamin.

* 'Lucques', originating in the south of France (Aude département). They are green, large, and elongated. The stone has an arcuated shape. Their flavor is mild and nutty.

* 'Souri', originating in Lebanon (the town of Sour (Tyre) and widespread in the Levant. It has a high oil yield and exceptionally aromatic flavor.

* 'Barnea', a modern disease-resistant cultivar that produces a generous crop. It is used both for oil and for table olives. The oil has a strong flavour with a hint of green leaf. Barnea is widely grown in the southern hemisphere, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

* 'Mission' originated on the California Missions and is now grown throughout the state. They are black and generally used for table consumption.


Growth & Propagation
Olive trees show a marked preference for calcareous soils, flourishing best on limestone slopes and crags, and coastal climate conditions. They tolerate drought well, thanks to their sturdy and extensive root system. Olive trees can be exceptionally long-lived, up to several centuries, and can remain productive for as long, provided they are pruned correctly and regularly.

The olive tree grows very slowly, but over many years the trunk can attain a considerable diameter. A. P. de Candolle recorded one exceeding 10 m in girth. The trees rarely exceed 15 m in height, and are generally confined to much more limited dimensions by frequent pruning. The yellow or light greenish-brown wood is often finely veined with a darker tint; being very hard and close-grained, it is valued by woodworkers.

The olive is propagated in various ways, but cuttings or layers are generally preferred; the tree roots easily in favourable soil and throws up suckers from the stump when cut down. However, yields from trees grown from suckers or seeds are poor; it must be budded or grafted onto other specimens to do well (Lewington and Parker, 114). Branches of various thickness cut into lengths of about 1 m and planted deeply in manured ground, soon vegetate. Shorter pieces are sometimes laid horizontally in shallow trenches and, when covered with a few centimetres of soil, rapidly throw up sucker-like shoots. In Greece, grafting the cultivated tree on the wild form is a common practice. In Italy, embryonic buds, which form small swellings on the stems, are carefully excised and planted beneath the surface, where they grow readily, their buds soon forming a vigorous shoot.

Occasionally the larger boughs are marched, and young trees thus soon obtained. The olive is also sometimes raised from seed, the oily pericarp being first softened by slight rotting, or soaking in hot water or in an alkaline solution, to facilitate germination.

Where the olive is carefully cultivated, as in Languedoc and Provence, the trees are regularly pruned. The pruning preserves the flower-bearing shoots of the preceding year, while keeping the tree low enough to allow the easy gathering of the fruit. The spaces between the trees are regularly fertilized. The crop from old trees is sometimes enormous, but they seldom bear well two years in succession, and in many instances a large harvest can only be reckoned upon every sixth or seventh season.

A calcareous soil, however dry or poor, seems best adapted to its healthy development, though the tree will grow in any light soil, and even on clay if well drained; but, as remarked by Pliny, the plant is more liable to disease on rich soils, and the oil is inferior to the produce of the poorer and more rocky ground.

In general, a temperature below 14 °F (-10 °C) may cause considerable injury to a mature tree, but (with the exception of juvenile trees) a temperature of 16 °F (-9 °C) will normally cause no harm.


Fruit Harvest & Processing
Olives are harvested in the fall. More specifically, green olives are picked at the end of September to about the middle of November. Blond olives are picked from the middle of October to the end of November and Black olives are collected from the middle of November to the end of January or early February. Some Italian and Greek olives are harvested by hand, as the terrain can be mountainous which inhibits harvesting by machine. As a result, the fruit is not bruised which leads to a superior finished product. Furthermore, the fact that branches are sawn off as part of the method of hand harvesting, ensures the health of the tree for future production.

Most olives today are harvested by shaking the boughs or the whole tree. Another method involves standing on a ladder and "milking" the olives into a sack tied around the harvester's waist. Using olives found lying on the ground can result in poor quality oil.

In southern Europe the olive harvest is in winter, continuing for several weeks, but the time varies in each country, and also with the season and the kinds cultivated. A device called the oli-net wraps around the trunk of the tree and opens to form an umbrella-like catcher; workers can then harvest the fruit without the weight of the load around their neck. Another device, the oliviera, is an electric tool that connects to a battery. The oliviera has large tongs that are spun around quickly, removing fruit from the tree. This method is used for olives used for oil. Table olive varieties are more difficult to harvest, as workers must take care not to damage the fruit; baskets that hang around the worker's neck are used.

The amount of oil contained in the fruit differs greatly in the various cultivars; the pericarp is usually 60–70% oil. Typical yields are 1.5-2.2 kg of oil per tree per year.


Traditional Fermentation & Curing
With one exception (Thassos Olives), olives are inedible when picked from the tree. This is due to the glucoside in their flesh, which makes them taste extremely bitter. To remove this glucoside and render the olive edible, the fruit must be cured.

Olives freshly picked from the tree contain phenolic compounds and oleuropein, a glycoside which makes the fruit unpalatable for immediate consumption. There are many ways of processing olives for table use. Traditional methods use the natural microflora on the fruit and procedures which select for those that bring about fermentation of the fruit. This fermentation leads to three important outcomes: the leaching out and breakdown of oleuropein and phenolic compounds; the creation of lactic acid, which is a natural preservative; and a complex of flavoursome fermentation products. The result is a product which will store with or without refrigeration.

One basic fermentation method is to get food grade containers, which may include plastic containers from companies which trade in olives and preserved vine leaves. Many bakeries also recycle food grade plastic containers which are well sized for olive fermentation; they are 10 to 20 litres in capacity. Freshly picked olives are often sold at markets in 10 kg trays. Olives should be selected for their firmness if green and general good condition. Olives can be used green, ripe green (which is a yellower shade of green, or green with hints of colour), through to full purple black ripeness. The olives are soaked in water to wash them, and drained. 7 litres (which is 7 kg) of room temperature water is added to the fermentation container, and 800 g of sea salt, and one cup (300 g) of white vinegar (white wine or cider vinegar). The salt is dissolved to create a 10% solution (the 800 g of salt is in an 8 kg mixture of salt and water and vinegar). Each olive is given a single deep slit with a small knife (if small), or up to three slits per fruit (if large, e.g., 60 fruit per kg). If 10 kg of olives are added to the 10% salt solution, the ultimate salinity after some weeks will be around 5 to 6% once the water in the olives moves into solution and the salt moves into the olives. The olives are weighed down with an inert object such as a plate so they are fully immersed and lightly sealed in their container. The light sealing is to allow the gases of fermentation to escape. It is also possible to make a plastic bag partially filled with water, and lay this over the top as a venting lid which also provides a good seal. The exclusion of oxygen is useful but not as critical as when grapes are fermented to produce wine. The olives can be tasted at any time as the bitter compounds are not poisonous, and oleuropein is a useful antioxidant in the human diet.

The olives are edible within 2 weeks to a month, but can be left to cure for up to three months. Green olives will usually be firmer in texture after curing than black olives.

There are several methods via which olives can be cured: lye-curing, salt-curing, brine-curing and fresh water-curing. Lye-curing, an unnatural method, is the one resulting in the worst taste as it leeches much of the fruits' flavor. Salt-curing (also known as dry-curing) involves packing the olives in plain salt for minimum of a month, which produces a salty and wrinkled olive. Olives are placed in a water and salt solution for a few days or more as a part of the of brine-curing process. Fresh-water curing involves soaking the olives in a succession of baths, of which the water is changed daily.

Olives can be flavoured by soaking them in various marinades, or removing the pit and stuffing them. Herbs, spices, olive oil, feta, capsicum (pimento), chili, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic cloves, wine, vinegar, juniper berries, and anchovies are popular flavourings. Sometimes the olives are lightly cracked with a hammer or a stone to trigger fermentation. This method of curing adds a slightly bitter taste.


Pests, Diseases, & Weather
A fungus, Cycloconium oleaginum, can infect the trees for several successive seasons, causing great damage to plantations. A species of bacterium, Pseudomonas savastanoi pv. oleae, induces tumour growth in the shoots. Certain lepidopterous caterpillars feed on the leaves and flowers. More serious damage is caused by olive-fly attacks to the fruit.

A pest which spreads through olive trees is the black scale bug, a small black beetle that resembles a small black spot. They attach themselves firmly to olive trees and reduce the quality of the fruit; their main predators are wasps. The curculio beetle eats the edges of leaves, leaving sawtooth damage.

Rabbits eat the bark of olive trees and can do considerable damage, especially to young trees. If the bark is removed around the entire circumference of a tree it is likely to die.

In France and north-central Italy olives suffer occasionally from frost. Gales and long-continued rains during the gathering season also cause damage.


Production
Olives are the most extensively cultivated fruit crop in the world. Cultivation area tripled from 2.6 to 8.5 million hectares between 1960 and 2004. The ten largest producing countries, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, are all located in the Mediterranean region and produce 95% of the world's olives.

Sex Sells. Here's Why We Buy.

The Gist:
That iPhone in your pocket? That's for sex. As is pretty much everything you've ever bought, from the car you drive to the T-shirt you wear — or so says evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. From mating to marketing, Miller explores how everyday consumer choices subtly — and sometimes not so subtly — reveal society's misguided attempts at projecting four central traits (intelligence, conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness) to attract sexual partners.

Highlight Reel:
1. On the difficulty of explaining modern life to our prehistoric ancestors: "Compared with their easygoing clannish ways, our frenetic status seeking and product hunting would look bewildering indeed. Our society would seem noisy, perplexing and maybe psychotic ... All you have to do is sit in classrooms every day for 16 years to learn counter-intuitive skills, and then work and commute 50 hours a week for 40 years in tedious jobs for amoral corporations, far away from relatives and friends, without any decent child care, sense of community, political empowerment or contact with nature. Oh, and you'll have to take special medicines to avoid suicidal despair, and to avoid having more than two children. It's not so bad, really. The shoe swooshes are pretty cool."

2. On the biological concept of marketing: "Since about 1990, there have been two bloodless but momentous revolutions in human affairs: the collapse of Communism in politics, and the rise of signaling theory in biology. Both depended on the same insight: individuals work hard mostly because they want to show off to others, not for the good of the group. This tendency holds true in both organic evolution and human economics ... We've known since Darwin that animals are basically machines for survival and reproduction; now we also know that animals achieve much of their survival and reproductive success through self-advertisement, self-marketing and self-promotion."

2. On the futility of consumer capitalism: "We take wondrously adaptive capacities for human self-display — language, intelligence, kindness, creativity, and beauty — and then forget how to use them in making friends, attracting mates and gaining prestige. Instead, we rely on goods and services acquired through education, work and consumption to advertise our personal traits to others. These costly signals are mostly redundant or misleading, so others usually ignore them. They prefer to judge us through natural face-to-face interaction. We think our gilding dazzles them, though we ignore their own gilding when choosing our friends and mates."

The Lowdown:
Like Sigmund Freud, Miller sees sex everywhere; all our acquisitions of personal goods, according to Miller, are motivated by the primal desire for procreation, pleasure or both. Though he advocates abolishing income taxes in favor of a "consumption tax" and learning to buy secondhand, he isn't a Utopian hippie radical either. "Unlike many malcontents," Miller writes, "I consider the three best inventions of all time to be money, markets and media." But while Miller does his best to avoid sounding too academic (and has an ear for pulled-from-TMZ.com phrases like "insecure, praise-starved flattery-sluts"), his broad, rambling arguments read at times like a college professor's lecture notes. Worse still, his ideas don't seem particularly groundbreaking. "Consumerism is hard to describe when it's the ocean and we're the plankton," Miller argues in his defense. But still: Men buy a Porsche to project power, women use eyeliner to look pretty, and all people seek attention without realizing they're going about it all wrong? Sounds about right to me.

The Verdict: Skim.

Picture of the Week

Balazs Gardi / Global-Newsroom / Getty-- Nick de Wit of South Africa performs in front of the Great Pyramids during the Red Bull Fighters International Freestyle Motocross 2009 Exhibition Tour.

The End of Post Production As We Know It

Jim Jannard of Oakley sunglasses fame, and now CEO of the RED camera rebellion, has sold his sunglasses business for $2.1 billion. This spells that he really is keen to follow his new camera through more than ever, selling your own business that you have grown for decades must be the hardest thing in the world – but this shows that he has a new project that has taken hold of him.

Jim put his neck on the line a few years ago and said he would successfully bring to market an HD camera capable of resolutions higher than even 35mm film can produce – and do it for only $15-25k (plus lenses). The industry was in outcry, such technology should be $150k+, with many people dismissing his vision as farcical, and not feasibly possible with the technology available at this time.

But now they are silenced. A recent short film shot by now legendary director Peter Jackson was very well received in Las Vegas by thousands of people who had already laid down a $1,000.- deposit for a camera they’d never really seen any images out of. The power of hype marketing had finally hit our industry, and it certainly had been the most successful campaign we had ever seen from a manufacturer.

So what effect will that RED movement have on the wider industry? Well, it comes down to a much wider debate than that really. Coming from a post production viewpoint this industry is now going through a massive change – so much so, that the big question is whether there will be much of a post production industry as we know it within the next couple of years.

Up until recently, a lot of programs, films, promos, commercials ..etc... had their post production handled by specific companies dedicated to offering that kind of service. However, technology has moved so fast now, that many production companies have now purchased their own post production equipment and are completing their conforms and online’s (and even grades) on Final Cut Pro from Apple in their own production offices. So powerful is the available toolsetonboard the latest version (Studio 2) that it really is a post house in a box, and for less than $1,500.-, add the hardware, monitors and video cards and you could have a nice setup for between $10-25k depending on your video storage requirements. Suddenly, all that money spent in Soho can be taken by the production company to do what they like with. Does it matter that everything takes ages to render and that you’ve hired one person to do the jobs of many – if you’re saving money and no one watching TV notices?

What does this mean for this industry? Well, in the short-term we will see the demise (for now) of the need for documentary, low-end drama and general television production work to have to use any experienced post house to ‘finish’ their project. So many production companies or small post houses will have their own 5 – 10 FCP suites with editors who not only cut the programs, but also online, add titles and grade the piece that there will be a halt to that revenue arriving in Soho. Thus, It is believed that we will see the slow demise of many post production companies that rely on this area of the industry for their revenue.

Certainly in post, It is also believed that it will experience a ‘bathtub’ phenomenon, where only large and small facilities survive, and anyone in the middle will dwindle because they cannot adapt to change quick enough, can not survive on small revenue streams, but also don’t have the very best talent. Larger companies will survive through their sheer financial reserves, the best talent, and probably their complete dominance of the commercials and high-end features & drama work (the only area of the industry where everyone takes a decent wage). For the ’boutique’ end as it's known, it would survive on repeat business from well paying clients, which in turn have to offer a personal high quality service that is not seen anywhere else, the best operators but in an environment with fewer runners, less staff, less designer sofas, but all the very best equipment.

The big buzz at the start of this decade was DI (digital intermediate) for movies. The price to the studios was well into 6 figures, and the investment for MPC (and CFC) was huge. However, other facilities soon realised that there could be money making potential in the area of feature film grading and online (bolted on with revenue from visual effects). Today, the cost has more than halved through the saturation of the market, even though the delivery requirements and technology costs had increased.

As a quick note to those that think $75k seems like a lot of money, here is the cost of setting up a DI facility for features stated here (in very very rough terms):

- Grading Systems: $400k to 900k
- Arri Laser Film Recorder: $400k to 600k
- Film Scanner: $300k to 1 million
- Digital High-End HD Projector: $75k
- Data Storage: $50k to $75k
- Film Calibration Hardware & Software: $15k to 35k
- HD Deck:$75k to 250k
- Staff: $35k to 45k (per month)
- Premises per month: $7 to 15k (per month)

N.B. the average DI takes 4 to 5 weeks to complete, is susceptible to multiple rescheduling changes due to editorial/vfx issues and escalating costs due to tape stock and 35mm film output. In short, the DI feature market at this rate is a loss leader, used only now to support the VFXdoesn’t pay the bills. Supply quite simply does not meet demand.

So that aside, what of the future of this industry as a whole? Well, It is thought that we will see the complete demise of 16mm film as a major option for television (and even features and promos) with the arrival of these excellent new HD cameras (RED, SI2K, Viper) ...etc... and it will leave just 35mm & high-end HD cameras to fight it out (it's worth mentioning here that 35mm is still superior to any HD camera). Unless for artistic reasons, the move from 16mm film (and even 35mm) to HD will be swift, and it will come down to who can handle these new flavors of HD images in the post environment, those companies that stayed in SD (standard definition) television post production will suddenly be left behind and facing liquidation.

The key thing as someone who has invested in the best possible equipment at a price tag 10 times that of FCP is that it is clear that advertising and high-end features work will be the only area where sizable revenue could be made, and ever hope to pay for all the equipment and the skilled staff. With the RED camera and its HD competitors it opens up new doors of opportunity for those who are passionate about high quality work, working with the best talent in the industry & utilizing this new technology to bring images to the screen (and sound) that will make a huge impact on the viewer in every sense. Whether shooting on these cameras and saving on film stock will mean more money for the rest of the production, or if it will be an excuse to reduce budgets even more is yet to be seen.

It's a tough time for everyone in the industry. Budgets going down, delivery formats going up. Why this is, the answers are probably to complex to answer here fully. But the Internet and the powerful marketing that it can produce is a major suspect.

So, here’s to quality across the board! Before everyone just switches off and watches YouTube all day!

Cartoon of the Week

The World's Gone Mad

You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance, the Germans don't want to go to war, and the 44th President of the United States of America is a black Muslim guy (Barack Hussein Obama II).