Posts from 2009
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DJ Baby
From December 25, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
This is the project that I did for my Illustrator class. While I’m not terribly proud of how the actual artwork came out, I’m fairly happy with how the screen cast ended up.
I used Telestream’s ScreenFlow which I bought by the end of this project. Compared to SnapzProX from Ambrosia Software, I was floored by this product. I was able to record both the video and the audio from my computer at full resolution on a 24″ Cinema display while playing Pandora and using Illustrator with no really noticeable slow down. And the fact that I could then do call outs for different elements of the screen including the mouse and the different windows as well as speeding up the larger video clips a dizzying amount (3,707%, thank you very much) blew me away. I’ve done much smaller screen captures of areas of the screen using SnapzPro and my computer has literally almost choked even at smaller frame rates. I don’t know what jujujuice they’re drinking, but I want some too.
Two complaints that I had are:
This may or may not be ScreenFlow’s fault, but while I had all of my peripherals connected (4 External Disks, 2 USB/Card Hubs, 24″ Cinema Display, Keyboard, Mouse, LaCie DVD Writer, Soundsticks), ScreenFlow couldn’t quite make it through the export of the full project. I could export samples but once I tried to do the whole project it consistently failed right near the end. I tried this multiple times with multiple encode settings. I eventually found that the only way I could make it work was to unplug all of my peripherals. I’m beginning to suspect that SanDisk’s godawful U3 Software has been to blame for an assorted list of stability issues I’ve been having of late, although another likely culprit is a recently tricked out edition of Quicksilver (enabling the stuff I did actually says that it’ll make it less stable…). Despite that, no other program was crashing like ScreenFlow was…
Despite the amazing job it did of allowing me to speed up the clips a ridiculous amount, the program did have a little bit of a melt down trying to do anything with them once they were sped up. I couldn’t copy and paste them anywhere. I couldn’t hear audio that was playing near them. I couldn’t get sections of them out. To do any of that I had to undo their speed change and then make whatever edits I wanted, and then redo the speed change and drop them back into place. A small price to pay for the functionality, but it would be useful for them to possibly experiment with what their upper bounds are for clip speedup.
To create the loop for the opening narration and to grab the last clip for the credits, I used that fantastic piece of open source software, Audacity. This software has just gotten better and better since I started using it ~2001. I’m not a power user of it by any stretch of the imagination, but for what I was trying to accomplish it did it and then got out of my way. This marks the first time I’ve tried to create a loop at all. I enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoy creating pictorial patterns. Trying to find the correct repeat point and then refining it little by little so that it sounds like it was recorded that way is a lot of fun.
I used Garage Band, of course, to record the opening narration. While I’m sure I could’ve used Audacity for that as well, I wanted the quick EQ settings and the easy ability to punch in on a track as I knew I’d be refining the opening quite a bit. I started out with roughly 5 minutes which was far too long and in the end I got it down to around 2:15. Garage Band is just nice to work with. Period.
That’s everything. Thanks again to La Blogotheque, Mogwai, and The Album Leaf. Click through to Vimeo to watch in HD. Recommended….
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Last Minutes w/ Oden
From December 23, 2009 @ 6:00 am
As Swiss Miss said, this video is truly impactful. It’s a very short documentary about an ex-con and the last moments with his dog. Don’t watch it unless you’re prepared to cry, and please consider clicking through to watch it in HD.
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Blue Moons via Panic
From December 22, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Dave from Panic just posted this fascinating article on Calendar history and the definition of a Blue Moon. I have no experience whatsoever with this “Pub Trivia” that he speaks of, but it sounds like fun. Anyway, hats off to them for making Dave write this post.
I’ve been interested in Calendars due to some theological debates I’m currently having with my Dad over dating of a certain future event and because I’ve finally gotten to dive into the Calendar API in Java recently during development of a project at work. This kind of information just tickles me to death. I’m blown away by how inexact and arbitrary everything seems to be, at least until fairly recently.
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Mag+
From December 20, 2009 @ 6:00 am
Kottke recently posted an article about this video over on Vimeo from Bonnier R&D about the Mag+, which is an attempt to conceive of what the future of magazines could look like. I thought it was quite compelling. I especially liked the interface for heating up elements in the magazine and then marking them. Having the interface pop up around your finger is a really good idea.
Anyway, enjoy the embed or click through to watch in HD…
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Going West
From December 19, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
Hawk of AppleGeeks t00ted this amazing stop-motion video the other day and I had to post it here. It’s from the New Zealand Book Council which seems like a really neat organization in general.
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I Took It…
From December 16, 2009 @ 8:07 am
Despite this feeling just a little like those HIV commercials from the mid 90s:
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La Blogotheque – Les Concerts A Emporter
From December 07, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
Not a terribly long time ago, I stumbled across La Blogotheque’s Les Concerts A Emporter via John Mark McMillan’s blog The Promenade in his post on an episode featuring Fleet Foxes performing in Paris in an abandoned section of The Grand Palais.
Obviously this is the first episode I witnessed. I was absolutely taken by the music, for sure. I had never heard Fleet Foxes and I’ve come to really appreciate their delicate vocal harmonies and alt-folk arrangements. But more than that, I was struck by how beautiful the video was. I don’t know what they’re shooting with, but it has a gorgeous grain and their color is fantastic. If that’s done intentionally with digital equipment, then my hats off to them even more. The camera work was also very compelling. I loved how they wandered between the performers and focusing in on the people who were lucky enough to listen in. All in all, it was breathtaking.
I browsed through some of their archives after watching that and discovered this video of Mogwai performing Mogwai Fear Satan from their 1997 Album Young Team.
Again. I was just floored. Since then, I haven’t missed an episode. I’ll embed a few more of my favorites below, but really, check it out for yourself.
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Come, You Sinners
From October 28, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
As part of leading worship at Open Arms, I’m working my way through the songs we sing in order to explain them and promote thoughtfulness in our worship. One of the ways that I’m doing that is by doing commentaries on the songs. This’ll hopefully be the first installment in quite a large number of posts commentating on the songs we sing.
Theme
The theme of this song is clearly seen in the title and chorus. The song bids sinners, those poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick, sore, incapable of achieving salvation, to come. Come to what? To Jesus’s saving power. Jesus stands ready to save all who come to him, full of pity, love, and power. We respond to the summons, joyously arising and going to Jesus who has paid our debt completely through his atoning sacrifice. We go in great boldness, for there is no condemnation through the blood of Jesus. We can do this by no other means than the blood.
Observations
“Come” is the most frequently used word in this song. It is the chief aim of the song to both invite and to tear down every argument against responding to the call.
This song pulls no punches describing the sinner. However, it is easy for those who are self-righteous (saved and unsaved) to feel that they are simply calling others, sinners unlike themselves. This couldn’t be further from the case. This song glories in the reality that we are, this side of eternity, nothing more than beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.
The chorus of this song attempts to transition from the verses which are what makes the song so easy to not identify with for the self-righteous into an explicit call to identification with what you’re singing. “Let us arise and go to Jesus. His sacrifice our debt has paid…” The repetition of this should temper the strong tendency to sound simply like we’re calling people who aren’t like us. We are all still in desperate need of mercy for and grace to overcome sin.
This song glories in the work and character of Jesus. Jesus is portrayed as ready (eager?) to save us, full of pity, love, and power. His work of atoning and propitiatory sacrifice is displayed in detail. “View him prostrate in the garden, bloodied on the tree.” It is this in which we come!
Verses
The Garden Account (Luke 22.29-46):
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Come, I will give you rest (Matthew 11.25-30):
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Self-righteousness (Luke 18.9-14):
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt; “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collecter. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
God’s great love (Ephesians 2.1-10):
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Method
By far the most extensive discussion of the sinner, the opening verse relentlessly attacks all honest consciences with a knowledge of their absolute poverty before the holy and righteous judge of all the earth. It moves quickly though, to the lamb who was slain to make a way for us. He stands ready to save you from your pitiful state, recognizing the very pity of it, loving you in it with his great love, and full of the very power by which to effect it.
View the wonder of his atoning work. The maker of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, the omnipotent, the omniscient, the all sufficient, Holy, Holy, Holy one, weeps tears of anguish and sweats drops of blood as he faces the cup his father has set for him. The price of our infinite offense against God is an infinitely worthy sacrifice. The Son made a way for us. Yes! This does for all suffice!
Though an honest conscience will feel nothing but shame and condemnation facing the weight of the sacrifice that was needed to save him, though the self-righteous may dream that the sacrifice was not for him, and though a weary sinner may think longingly of an imagined state in which it would be appropriate for him to begin his pilgrimage toward God, all is foolishness. Jesus’s sacrifice made a way for us through which God’s requirement at the start is simply our ‘weak yes’. Our realization that we have no hope apart from him. And our hearty faith towards the work he did.
We express faith in Jesus work by joyously moving towards him. We joyfully glory in his sacrifice which paid all our debt and made a way for us to glorify him and glory in him. There is no more condemnation through his blood!
Commentary
Come, you sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore.We begin by calling all sinners to come. We sinners are poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick and sore. Poor in that we come with nothing to offer to God; needy in that our predicament before God is desperate without every grace that God pours out to us; weak in that we are unable to bridge this gap, to present ourselves to God, to enact any saving activity on our own; wounded by sin to the point of death, weakening daily as we bleed out; sick mortally with our sin; sore, continually buffeted by the reality of sin, beaten by the accusations of the devil, condemned by our own consciences before this holy God.
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Jesus, though, is ready to save us. Not only from the first when we realize our adoption but to the last, when we step into the glories of our full adoption and our unmarred, radiant reflection of the glories of Christ.
Full of pity, love, and power.
He is full of pity, understanding our state having experienced it personally upon the adding of humanity to his divinity, being a good high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, love, expressed perfectly on the cross, making us to be of infinite worth through his suffering an infinite punishment through no merit of our own at all, and power, able to save to the uttermost.
Chorus
View Him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your maker lies.See this terrifying beauty of Christ’s passion! The maker of heaven and earth, unknown of sin, possessor of infinite power, worth, magnificence, glory, union with the Father and Spirit, wisdom, lies weeping on the ground. Crying tears of anguish at the cup that’s being passed to him. Sweating great drops of blood as his disciples sleep a stone’s throw away, unable to stay awake despite his groaning. This one who’d never known pain or indecision struggles in his humanity to own the will of God for himself. Everyone has abandoned him, and will abandon him still more before the end.
On the bloody tree behold him;
Remember the cross! Never forget the cross! It is the matter of first importance. If Christ had not died and risen, our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins! We are to be pitied above all men for having such a ridiculous hope. Our end would still be to burn in hell for ever, never knowing the joy of the Father in the face of the Son through the power of the Spirit. We commit a grave error when we relegate the cross to the beginning of our lives as Christians instead of realizing its overwhelming pride of place in every day of now and eternity. God’s justice and mercy perfectly displayed once and for all; his glory finally vindicated; his justice fully exonerated; his great love for us perfectly known.
O Sinners, this does for all suffice.
Praise God! For yes, this does for all suffice!
Chorus
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;Come boldly to this mercy seat. Not because your conscience is clear, for all honest sinners are condemned continually by their conscience. Nor because you believe you have a right to be there, as the dishonest sinner is prone to do, believing somehow that they have been good enough to relate to God. Do not commit the error of believing that you’re too bad for God to save you, or that you’re too good to need God’s salvation. On the one hand, you make God a weakling, too impotent to overcome your sins. On the other, you make God’s worth paltry, and you make the sacrifice of his Son overkill.
All the fitness he requires
Is to feel your need of him.This is all! Know your state. We are all on a level playing field before this holy God. The best of us, the worst of us, the mediocre; all stand condemned on our own and yet justified by his Son.
Chorus:
Let us arise and go to Jesus.
His sacrifice our debts has paid.We respond to all these things by arising and joyfully going to Jesus! What greater news is this, knowing our state, that our state is covered and washed and that we now have boldness of access to our Father’s throne. In fact, with Jesus, we approach the very bosom of God and lay our head on his breast, like John at the table with Jesus, listening to his secrets, exchanging our affections. Our debt is paid! Hallelujah!
And there is now no condemnation
Through his blood. Only through his blood!By this, through this, and only this do we come uncondemned. Jesus, thank you for the blood!
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Fiery is 10 months old!
From August 06, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
My little girl turned 10 months old today!
Her favorite things as of this point: opening and closing doors, books, and cabinets. Although she’ll eventually become curious as to what’s behind the door or in the cabinet, she might spend a good 10 minutes amusing herself by swinging wood on hinges.
She loves to dance. We discovered this when we pushed the yellow bell on Fiery’s fire engine that plays a hyped-up version of the “ABC’s” and Fiery immediately started to bounce her arms up and down like you would to a really phat hip-hop beat. Now she does that to almost any kind of music. Whether it’d be a commercial or a song in a movie, she’s dancing :-)
She’s developed a real liking for emptying books and DVD off shelves (before it was a DVD or two, now it’s the whole shelf). I also can’t seem to give her enough food. I’ve heard that at about a year old they slow down with how much they eat because their growth slows down and maybe I’ll be able to catch up with her intake then! She still remains skinny, oddly enough.
It’s been such a joy to see more and more of her personality. She’s stubborn, yet inquisitive, likes to be held, but will rarely, very rarely cuddle. She thinks talking into my breast is the funniest thing ever, but gets upset when that ends the session. She gets mad if I try and put a gate up to keep her in one room but she will happily play in one room for an hour. I could not love who I’m finding her to be any more.
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A Font Created With A Car.
This is incredibly cool on many levels. I don’t believe I’ve ever linked out to I Love Typography, which is a shame because it’s really a quality typography blog that covers many typographic topics with a special emphasis on being accessible to the uninitiated. If you’re at all interested in Typography but are intimidated by its learning curve, I Love Typography might be a good place to start (it’s certainly where I did).
