I just spent about a week trying to get something working. You see, I work for a home automation and audio video company. As part of my job, I learn about our products by using them. We just bought another company whose products take the capabilities of our products to the next level. Now, I’ve got one of these systems in my house.

It took me a couple of weeks to get my thermostat up and running, but when I finally did, I was able to access it from any web computer. Now, for most people that would have been enough. I found out that I could do something fun, though. So I spent the next couple of weeks trying to get my system to email me when anything went wrong. The system seemed straight forward enough, but to no avail. It mocked me. I got no response. In the mean time, I was able to create a timer, but my original goal always alluded me.

Today, I asked for help from one of the guys who’d done what I was trying to do. He showed me a setting that I’d assumed was right. Once I fixed it, it…didn’t work. I tweaked and tweaked and finally got it to work. You see, sometimes when you’re fixing something there are multiple things that are broken. So now I get an email if my house is either too hot or too cool. I know, it’s geeky, but it’s what I do in my day job and I love it.

Paul

So, it feels like I can’t find web hosting is both cheap and has good uptime. I actually have a host that I’m happy with.  The problem is that apparently they’re so cheap they’re losing money, so they’re shutting down.

Crap.  Ok.

Paul

I’ve learned a lot about video from watching how the best people at it do it.  I sometimes watch tv with the sound off so that I can appreciate the editing of a commercial or the pace of a show.  I learned this technique some years ago by reading “The Wired Church” by Len Wilson and Jason Moore.  Len started doing video with little background, but plenty of passion.  In order to figure out how to do it, he watched the masters.

Fast-forward to today, some 8+ years later.  I’ve been noticing something.  I’ve changed my strict almost-no cross-dissolves rule.  I often mix in a number of dissolves that would have horrified me just a couple of years ago.  I always use cuts for dramas or preaching, but music is more fluid.

I’ve noticed something about this decision.  There’s a cost to this.  You see, I’m used to cuts.  Cuts are instantaneous.  Dissolves aren’t.  They can take 2-60 or even more frames.  Two frames is no big deal, but most last between 1/2 a second and a couple of seconds.  Video time is different.  A couple of seconds can be a lifetime.  What’s really hard is when two shots are moving.  Two shots may start as perfectly good choices to transition between.  The problem is that if they’re moving, they might coincide during the time of the transition.

There’s a cost to the time it takes.  In the 50’s and 60’s when a Dr. Jackal turned into Mr. Hyde or some poor soul turned into a werewolf  during a movie, the way they’d do it was a long slow cross-dissolve between the actor without creature makeup and with it.  That changed in the 1980’s with a technology called “morphing”, but that memory remains.

If shots are too similar, it looks like one person is becoming the other.  If the shots are of the same person, their limbs might be temporarily be multiplied.  Done right it’s not an issue, but these are easy mistakes to make, particularly given the time cost of a slow cross-dissolve.

I’ve also noticed another cost.  For a slow, melodic song, an occasional dissolve is fine.  If you apply dissolves to a faster song, with a driving rhythm, the video loses it’s energy.  If you’re listening in the same or an adjoining room where the bass travels and can be heard, that’s less likely to happen.  Our video booth doesn’t have that advantage.  As such, it’s simple to see how you could lose the energy of a song and translate that into the video in the room.

Be careful how you choose.  There’s a cost to transitions as well as a benefit.

Paul

I had a strange experience this past weekend that seems to me to be the way things ought to be–my sister sang a solo in church.  Now what’s strange about it is that I hadn’t met her before a couple of months ago.  Add to that the fact tha we don’t share any genetics, and the plot thickens.

“Maybe she’s an adoptive sister or one of my parents remarried,” you think.  No, that’s not it.  Then, how is she my sister?

Well, I have been having this feeling lately.  My friend Josh is married to a girl named Abby.  Matt is married to Becca.  Nate is married to Jules.  Each of the women is beautiful.  Yet, the feelings I have toward them isn’t anything other than what I feel toward my own sister.  I just really feel like they’re my sisters.

This isn’t limited to married women either.  Mary-Margaret feels like my kid-sister, too.  It’s incredible to me that God would do this in me.  I feel like I can have friendships with women and think of them as equals.  This is something relatively new to me with my past.  I love the feeling of not judging people based on their looks–thinking of how “hot” or not they are.

I was telling Becca this (she’s the one who was singing) and Josh was there.  He said that he’d grown up in church and felt like the whole brother-sister thing was always contrived.  He said that this is the first time it felt true to him.  I agree.

Paul

Note: Some of you might have heard this episode before, but since it was posted right before I lost hosting, I thought I’d post it again:

On today’s “Tech, No Babel”:

-Choosing a church on the web.
-Crowd Sourcing
-Planning a major event
and much, much more.

Episode 52

Paul

So you might have noticed that TechNoBabelShow.com and TrinityDigitalMedia.com both now point to PaulClifford.org.  I’m having an issue with my primary web host that will cause me to shift hosting in the next few months.  Until then, this will have to do.  I’m hoping that the podcast returns soon too.

Paul

Note:  I started writing the this post immediately before leadership retreat this year.  In part two, I’ll tell you what happened there:

My pastor says, “A leader craves evaluation.” That’s something I agree with in theory. Sure you want to know how to get better. The problem is that insecurity makes you think, “They hate me. I’m horrible at this.”

So this year I’ve been trying to kick insecurity in the can. I dance when I hear music. I tell jokes first and wonder what people think second. With all that said, I’ve had enough trouble with employment that my job is a place of insecurity.

Fast forward to today. “Paul, when do you clock-in?” I answer, “9:00.” “Great, I’ll do your evaluation then.” My mind starts repeating the mantra, “A leader craves evaluation; a leader craves evaluation.” My reason for the fear–everyone else has seen their raises. For whatever reason, the software that we use to clock-in doesn’t mention mine. I ignore the off-hand comment from my supervisor in the last month that Nate and I (both from Quest) are great employees.  So, although I know I have nothing to fear, I feel like I have something to fear.

Feelings are powerful things.  I’m convinced that my life matters because of what I get to do.  I’m convinced that my wife and kids love me and are on board with the vision that guides my life–and theirs.  Those feelings help guide me to make tough decisions.  They can also keep you from doing what you need to do.  The thing about fear is that’s it’s particularly powerful.  I’ve known that I’m supposed to do a thing, that God wanted me to do it, but that I was paralyzed by fear.  I’ve chosen correctly before, but I’ve also often had times when I’ve given into that fear.

I didn’t have much of a choice, but I pressed through.  My boss prefaced the talk by saying that he had to do his own evaluation and he was the hardest on himself.  Line by line he went through each segment.  “Meets Expectations” or “Slightly more than meets expectations” were my marks.  I had one “slightly less than meets expectations” for the time I spend online instead of learning more about our gear; I knew that.  All in all, it was a much better review than I’d hoped for.

The insecurity hadn’t protected me as I’d believed.  It made be scared for no reason.  Because of it, I was much more concerned than I should have been.  It took a time that I should have been craving and turned it into a time of fear.  Insecurity sucks!  I want it gone.

Paul

Okay, I won’t make you suffer any longer. If you subscribe to my twitter (sempei13), you know that the bands this Labor Day Sunday (August 31st) will be…”Need to Breathe” known for songs like “Signature of the Divine” aka “Yahweh”, “Kutless” know for songs like “Strong Tower”, and Emmy and Dove award winner “Kirk Franklin” known for such songs as “Stomp”.

Pray for me. When we do Kirk Franklin songs at church I know what they are in advance, practice for hours and know who in our band is who. None of that will be true with Questapalooza. I’m not sure “take a shot of the girl with the earrings” is going to work. Oh well. It’s no mistake that I’m the one who gets to lead the live video for this event.

Paul

Every year since 2006 my church has put on a festival that we call “A Party for the City”. The first year we had Shaun Groves, Crystal Lewis and Tate. Last year it was Foolish Things, Starfield, and Toby Mac. This year it’s…

I guess you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. If you follow me on twitter, you’ll know at about 1:30 eastern. If not, I’ll blog sometime tomorrow. Suffice it to say you’ll want to take your Labor Day weekend and travel to KY for Questapalooza. A bunch of you have wanted to come see Quest for a while. Well here’s your shot. I’ll be leading the live video, so I won’t be super available, but anyone that can make it will enjoy hearing… the bands I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

Paul

I don’t know how many of you still read this blog. I know it’s not as many as it was. The fact is I haven’t been as faithful to the writing of the blog and definitely not as regular with the podcast. I’m making no excuses. I just want you all to know that I plan on blogging more regularly and podcasting more. I don’t intend on podfading; it just happened. I guess I just need a definite time. I have one in mind. I don’t know if I’ll do it. I just know I owed more to each of you. I get to be in the current of God’s work at my church. I’ve kept it to myself. I hope to share more.

Paul

BTW, if you’re looking for the feeds, they’re in the upper right hand corner. I fixed that.