Says Glenn Reynolds... and we here at Meadhouse agree. Here's the Flip video in which Meade is surrounded at a protest and the camera is grabbed out of his hand... and he grabs it back, causing the would-be pussy/thief to cry "Get your hands off me."
On a happier day... Meade with his Flip:
That thing has been great!
(Buy one or a few.)
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63 comments:
If I were trying to video or take pictures of people that might not take kindly to it, I would want covert gear. Maybe a lens piggybacking on glasses or sunglasses, mics build in, that sort of thing.
Regardless, with the prevalence of tech now, it seems like a good idea to have one person filming and asking the main questions while another films the first and the subject.
Going back and watching that video of the protesters badgering people for not being 100% with them reminds one. Through all of this I coverage by Meadehouse, I got kinda immune to the stupidity and hypocrisy of these people and what they wanted and said about issues. Even here in Venice Beach, CA where people are openly both crazy and leftist, they actually make more sense, and most of them are stoned out their mind. I'm just asking: what are they smoking in Madison?
Hey stop humping that pole!
"Gangster of love, oh yeah - oops, my bad, a pussy-thief with a hyphen is different than, oh, never mind..."
Hmm... hyphen changed to slash.
Thats all really cute till someone falls and breaks their hip.
I've a surprisingly large number of digital video capable devices lying around the house, and the Flip was pretty mediocre. In order of overall satisfaction with picture + audio:
iPhone 4
Kodak Playfull
Sony Bloggie // bad low light, and autofocus noise
Flip HD // moving objects look like gelatin
old Panasonic Lumix point and shoot
iPod Touch
iPad 2
iPhone 3G S
Basically, if a unitasking device is going to take on a general purpose gadget like a smartphone, it had best be better than the general purpose gadget at that task.
Flip Video is Cisco owned?
Had it on a buy list. Any reason not to buy other than lack of parts should it break down?
Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Our phones do video and we have a nice video camera, so I never bothered with a Flip. But then a very sweet sis-in-law surprised me with a Flip at Christmas, and I must say I love it. In certain situations it's the most useful tool among our options and in retrospect I wish we'd had one sooner. Under current circumstances, in no way could I possibly justify buying another to "have in stock" just because they're being discontinued. But I wish I could and in other times I certainly would have. Oh, well, c'est la vie. And business is business.
That photo...I just picture meade swinging around the lightpole, singing "I'm singing in the rain". Despite the lack of rain, I can't stop.
How odd.
I certainly would rather my son use my Flip, for example, than my iPhone, for video. Much bigger deal if he broke or lost the latter than the former, in terms of both cost AND inconvenience.
"Had it on a buy list. Any reason not to buy other than lack of parts should it break down?"
It's not a parts-y kind of thing. Use it until it dies, and then move on. Ours has been used and used and it's just perfect. Love it!
"I certainly would rather my son use my Flip, for example, than my iPhone, for video. Much bigger deal if he broke or lost the latter than the former, in terms of both cost AND inconvenience."
Yeah, I have an earlier nonHD Flip as well and it would be great to hand over to a kid without worrying.
"Isn't grabbing a person's property out of their hand, technically, an assault? Guy should have been charged, not just called names."
Yes, but remember, the police were on their side. Nobody got arrested. That's how the protests remained so "nonviolent."
Yes, but remember, the police were on their side. Nobody got arrested. That's how the protests remained so "nonviolent."
It's so unfair.
No. Cisco didn't kill the Flip because of encroachment by phones. They killed it because there's very little margin to be made there. Everybody and his brother is making a Flip look-alike. Price competition is deadly in this field. It's like making a memory chip. Cisco doesn't like that kind of market.
Why no heads-up indicating when the camera commandeering occurs in the video?
As when it was first posted, I can't take more than a minute of that video. Even the supposed protagonist sounds weak, passive-agressive, and mealy-mouthed. I hope this isn't supposed to be an example of what Meadehouse calls the Socratic method.
bag is in Venice.
I've enjoyed the Venice-Santa Monica-West Hollywood life as a winter retreat from up north.
You NEVER need to go on a highway. LA is great this way, especially during winter (before it turns into a giant asphalt frying pan.)
Not a "would-be pussy", he seemed to be fairly successful at it. Pussy/would-be thief.
I love my Flip and am not happy about the thought that there won't be new and improved versions to buy in the future.
You spoke so often of it (didn't know what it really was), I don't doubt a number of them sold because of New Meadia Meade and his intrepid reportage.
PS Thanks for putting a selection on the masthead to return to normal view mode.
Very user friendly.
No. Cisco didn't kill the Flip because of encroachment by phones. They killed it because there's very little margin to be made there.
@Bob, then why did they buy it in the first place?
Is it possible to hold a Flip camera in one hand and a pistol in the other?
Is it possible to hold a Flip camera in one hand and a pistol in the other?
Why, yes, I believe it is.
Speaking of which - you had better put your photog deal with New Media Meade in writing.
Because I heard some unpaid writers are suing Arianna and the Huffpo for unjust enrichment whatever that means.
I gave my son a Flip HD for Christmas for kid videos and it has been great. Then I got one for myself but haven't used it much. I need to get out more.
On the issue of the cops supporting the demonstrators, I've been doing a lot of reading about Calvin Coolidge. The Boston Police Strike in 1919 is an example of public employee unions at the time. It is time for a lot of revision of his reputation.
Real Cameras have one big advantage over most phones.
Lanyard loops. You can tie them to your body, making thieves (which is what "camera snatchers" are - even if their goal is political, not to pawn it for cash) unable to just take it.
Kodak Zi8 -- nice!
As fate would have it, just a few days ago I bought my first Flip camera. Previously I'd been using my Cannon Digital Elph camera for quick video clips.
Seems like Cisco is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but what do I know...
Cisco is a horrible company... They will eventually go the way of the once great Avaya (previously AT&T/Lucent) IMO Their products suck.
Another plus for the Flip over the mobile phone video is that Flips can be mounted on a tripod and the phones can't.
Love my Flip. Easy to carry, takes AA batteries can hold 2 hours of video.
wv: ozoinght
I would be inclined to agree with the reasoning, but think Glenn's point about what happens if it gets swiped is a better reason to still have it made.
Just because my cell phone can do all of these great things, doesn't mean I want to use it for all of these things. For example, I don't want to run outside with an iPod/iPhone and have that break, it costs a pretty penny. My cheapie mp3 player does just as well, costs less, weighs less, and takes up less space. Is it a unitasker? Yep...wouldn't have it any other way.
Flip is a good niche item, and in the end, I'll be sorry to see it go.
The picture of Meade hanging on to a One Way sign reveals a number of interesting readings about the News Media approach to covering the protests, but I don't want to follow that Dead End so will only agree with the assessment of the Flip camera, which my students love using to record their digital narratives--
Yeah that one-way sign is pointing left ain't it. Haha.
"At 5:17, a large man barges into Meade and grabs the Flip camera, and actually gets it out of Meade's hand. No one in the crowd does anything to help Meade in this assault, and Meade grabs the man's arm and wrests the camera out of his hand."
Quote is at the third link.
Just when you get something that works really well!!!!!!!
Anyone have any experience between the Flip vs. Toshiba Camileo S30?
I'm going to be getting a "free" iPhone from work this summer and wondering if it makes much sense to get one of these camcorders.
Dangit... I was just about to buy one of these to use it like Meade does-- to hound stupid Leftists and defend stone statues.
I think Cisco should reconsider. This product was badly promoted. It seems like the ideal citizen-journalist tool. And some people understandably refuse to wield an iDevice. Plus... now that it has been officially cancelled it could, if granted a stay of execution, also have a retro cachet.
If you want to try out a flip, tigerdirect has refurbs for $89; see http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5531983 and use coupon code VQL25987
The guy blowing the whistle appeared to be a corrections officer so I wonder if the fat, oops – larger than average, dude was one of the cleptos on day release…hmmm?
How did the meeting with Hulsey go? Did I miss it or was it ‘rescheduled’ again?
@ Meade and Ann: Drinks will be my treat on my next visit to WI, hopefully sometime this summer. Thank you for helping to show what really has been going on.
Beggars cannot be choosers, but a stabilizing camera mount would help. Like the Steadicam Smoothee. Available for the flip. Might also make a useful device for beating protesters.
right here
Dose of Sanity,this anim is for you.
"...causing..."
So, then, ultimately, you agree with Buckley as to "the notion that certain things are better than other things, and we can tell the difference" or something along those lines; as regards epistemological optimism.
Next up: Near, My God.
"I began to pray for Jim and Tim," Reagan told me later, "but I realized if I was going to do what was right, I'd have to pray for that boy who shot us, too."
Michael K. Deaver
"A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years With Ronald Reagan"
Page 142
Now that i've seen the crime.
I think Meade should have pursued some police action.
If the whole point of the Meadia is to "mess w/" these protestors (and their po-po pals), it seems like using the police as a wedge could be more productive than complaining on a blog.
Sure Meade would be seen as a pain in the ass, but maybe he could irritate the police into doing something stupid, which the Meadia could use to more effectively disparage these protestors (and po-po) than the Meadehouse blogplaining (aka complaining via blogosphere). Presumably that would be quite a victory at Meadehouse.
[Of course, it's more likely that the cops would turn the tables on the Meadia. Just ask Skip Gates (or BHO) about folks who think they are smarter than cops Cops have been around the proverbial block (in this realm) a few times more than the Meadia.]
When later challenged on Reagan's intellectual stature, Buckley said: "Of course, he will always tend to reach first for an anecdote. But then, so does the New Testame nt."
Assault or attempted theft?
I've been turning this over in my mind for weeks now.
You need to undertand that as even--GASP, SO SHOOT ME!--a so-called mainstream reporter for a localized newspaper back in the day, I experienced far more than that (and more frequently), and even stuff far more **physically** threatening (even actually physically painful) than that. I even experienced that from so-called fellow journalists: got whacked quite sharply and *hard* in the head on more than one occasion by TV cameramen representing major network affiliates while covering an ag strike, for one [JUST ONE, FAR FROM SOLE] example--on account of their resenting my not acknowledging their superiority of being broadcast journalists over my lowly print--more local, at that!--status.
In the course of covering that same strike, there was a notable example of a pipe whistling close enough to my head not ever to forget its whistle as it was wielded to hit a chain-link fence. This is for starters. And with regard to just one ongoing story.
I could share more.
I'm not saying that Meade wasn't "assaulted" in legal terms. I certainly have no standing or education to analyze stuff legally, as Althouse does.
I'm just saying that it never, ever occurred to me think of all of that in those terms, in real life, when I was doing that job. It just didn't. Only in recent weeks--as I said at the start of this comment--have I been turning such things over in mind. Over and over again.
Now I'm rethinking. Was I a victim of both attempted assault and of assault?
And if anyone thinks that TV cameramen, at that time, were wielding anything close to as small--much less fragile--as even high-end consumer, yet still clunky, videocams at that time, you are, frankly, delusional. Those professional suckers were weapons, when wielded, and in this case I'm not referring to what they were designed to shoot.
The pipe and its whistle was nothing to understate, either. Yet so I did.
I was a fool.
(I didn't understate the nature of that riot against that fence, by the way, in the article I wrote or in within the ongoing coverage of it.
It just never occurred to me to include that part, the personal part, in it.
That was part of the job, part of what I signed up for.
That's what I thought then.)
Man, I can remember reporters notebooks being grabbed from my hands (never failed to grab 'em back, **never**). Also, pencils and pens (mostly didn't bother, for what I would assume are obvious reasons, though there were exceptions).
I can also tell you that even certain sorts of township meetings could be a real bitch.
Anyone have any experience between the Flip vs. Toshiba Camileo S30?
The swiveling viewscreen on the Toshiba Camileo is a huge advantage over the Flip for shooting videos at public events. You can hold the camera up over your head, angle the viewscreen down to face you so you can see where the camera is aiming, and shoot over the heads of the crowd. It has an image stabilizer, too.
"No one in the crowd does anything to help Meade in this assault"
sarge here wow tuff crowd that dont save poor meadie sarge thinks meadie shud try to menace the steam fitters an shipbuilders such like those union boys of manitowoc an superior wiv meadies somewhat effiminate lookin flip phone- pretty sure one of them would be mnore likely to piss on old meadie if he wuz burnin har har
sarge, your schtick is a big fail.
They just don't make sock puppets like they used to.
Anyone have any experience between the Flip vs. Toshiba Camileo S30?
Youtube vid Toshiba Camileo S30
Leaning towards the Toshiba.
I think the Kodak PlaySport is the one to go with for citizen journos. Waterproof and "ruggedized", and cheap enough that if some goon busts it you won't be too upside dowm.
Keep up the good work!
MeadeVision at the link.
http://paulkerseysblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/rip-flip-video-camera-2007-2011.html
On a happier day... Meade with his Flip
The composition once again surprises and intrigues, with a seemingly random scene revealing elements befitting a portrait.
The seasonally empty flower pot, the arrow, the red and green lights both activated, strong yellow on the right and left, patterns set in stone, with Meade stepping up, holding on, facing forward, and framing his own picture.
sgt ted that a pipe in yer mouth or you just projecktin?
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