GameTime -> Surfnet

Hi All,

We’ve just been notified that GameTime Enterprises, who until now have done most of the payment processing for Restrained Elegance memberships, are changing their terms and conditions and whapping a significant extra payment charge onto their services.

As a result Surfnet have decided to move all their clients who were using GameTime over to billing directly via Surfnet, and that includes us. Both back-end processors were already accepted by the Surfnet processing system, so this should be a change which they can make seamlessly inside the payment processing platform.

The only difference you should notice is that payments that previously appeared on your card statement as “GameTime Enterprises” will now appear as “SurfNet, Inc”. So don’t panic when you see that change! It is still your regular RE membership, your current rates will still apply, it’s just being processed via a different company behind the scenes.

There shouldn’t be any drama, they just asked me to inform everyone so you recognise the different charge on your card next month. Please let us know if you do have any problems, but fingers crossed this should be the only thing you notice.

Cheers, Hywel

“In The Dark” – coming soon(ish) at EleganceStudios.com

Had a fabulous day shooting with Ariel at The Facility UK studio near Birmingham.

We were filming the middle section of forthcoming EleganceStudios.com film “In The Dark” – this was the bit shot in actual darkness!

Here’s a quick framegrab from the video behind the scenes while setting up, by the light of my head-torch:

Here’s a Hywel’s eye view of the action (taken with my iPhone using eyepiece projection, through the LI monocular I was using to see through):

Here’s the camera’s eye view- shot in Infrared, lit using two security camera infrared LED lights:

And here’s the view of a camera shot with an f/0.95 lens at ISO6400… in other words, and Ariel Anderssen’s eye view of proceedings! It really was DARK in the room. The little bit of spill you can see bottom right is the light leakage from under the door, which you could barely make out with the naked eye (at least until one got completely dark adapted).

And finally here’s an interlude shot in full spectrum, under a UV light rather than an infrared one:

Now we’ve got to shoot the beginning and the end of the movie, which we’re doing at a different location hopefully next week!

Exciting! And it was really hot torturing Ariel when she couldn’t see what was coming!

Hywel

Use a VPN

Hi Everyone

Welcome to another episode of the UK’s slide into a right-wing totalitarian state. The government, cravenly unopposed by the supine opposition, just signed the Snooper’s Charter into law. This is a monumentally bad idea, and a worse one is coming in the form of the Digital Economy Bill.

The state, in the form of more or less any agency that cares to ask for it, can now find out every website you visited in the last year from your internet service provider. They don’t even need a warrant. Let that sink in for a while. Even if you have nothing to hide and are doing nothing wrong, the information that a junior civil servant can punch up about you is very worrying. And of course, the records will be hacked or sold corruptly to the tabloids or anyone who wants them.

If you live in Britain, the government have effectively just installed webcams pointing in through every window in your house.

I urge everyone reading this who lives in the UK to install and start using a VPN (virtual private network). Choose one that’s registered in another country, that doesn’t keep logs, and choose one that you pay for. British ones have to obey the same snooping laws to spy on you that your internet service provider does. Free ones sell your data, which is the opposite of what you want. And if the company doesn’t keep logs, they don’t even have the information to pass on.

This is not a panacea. It means placing some trust in the VPN operator, for a start. But if they make their money by running the service, it is in their interests to do a good job for you.

A VPN routes your internet activity through its internal network so outsiders can’t see where you are going. It also encrypts the data as it goes to make it hard to snoop on. All your ISP can report to the government is that you are using a VPN: they can’t tell them which sites you have visited or anything much else. They’ve been used by companies for years to allow people to connect to the company’s internal network whist working away so they don’t have to worry about security at random free wifi hotspots. They are a mature and well-integrated technology which integrates easily with modern devices (for example, iPhones bring up a little “VPN” icon when you’re connected).

This was already pretty good practice for protection against hacking and cyber-crime. State-sponsored intrusion into ALL our private lives is on a whole different level, though, and I really must urge everyone in the UK to do something to limit the information that a junior civil servant or policeman can find out about you. It’s only a matter of months before the records are hacked, too, and some poor celebrity’s choice of porn will be splashed all over the tabloids. The number of people suddenly having access to everything you’ve looked at online will be HUGE, and corrupt release of records or out and out hacking the database is pretty much a certainty.

If you are very concerned, you can use Tor. In fact you can use Tor over a VPN, but this slows things down a lot. A well-run VPN should have relatively minimal impact on your connection speed.

The state has just installed CCTV pointing in through every window in your house. A VPN is drawing the curtains. If you live in the UK, I strongly urge you to install and use a VPN right now.

You can find out some good ones here: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/internet/best-vpn-2016-2017-uk-what-is-vpn-3641578/

Hywel

Kinky Britain

Hi Everyone,

The production company have just sent us a link to final transmitted version of Kinky Britain, so if you are interested and haven’t been able to see it yet (eg from the USA) you can hopefully watch it here:

https://vimeo.com/wearesundogpictures/review/178167400/ecbb5ec999

Hywel & Ariel (Joceline)

Email mountain

Hi Everyone

I need an automated email queue announcement at the moment!

“Your email is a queue. Hywel has 63 substantive emails to get back to, dating back to 2nd July. Our lines are very busy following the TV show Kinky Britain screening on UK TV. Your email is valuable to us, please be patient and we will get back to you!”

Sorry everyone- I was still catching up after my illness, but got a bit flooded after the programme aired. Will get back to everyone ASAP.

Hywel