MVPC E-Devotion – Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church – Yes, It’s True, Life is Not Fair

MVPC E-devotion
Vol. 6, No. 14, September 21, 2006
by Steve Weber, Minister

Yes, It’s True, Life is Not Fair
Once again the world of sports is delving into the world of theology. Someone once said the game of baseball is about as close a metaphor for the spiritual life that one can hope for. It is a game played within boundaries, it has no game clock, and when the umpire says, “You’re Out!”, you’re out. And as I confessed last week, we pastor types seem to appreciate a good, slow game of baseball as much, if not more than you’re average bleacher bum.
But it is not baseball I reuminate on this day, but that other American pastime, football, and in this case, college football. Last Saturday the University of Oregon Ducks won a quacker of a game with gridiron juggernaut, Oklahoma, and the loss has not gone down easy for the Sooners. It all started (or ended) when the replay official failed to notice that an Oregon player touched the ball before it had traveled ten yards during an onside kick. The Ducks were in the midst of a comeback in the game’s closing minutes which resulted in an upset 34-33 victory over Oklahoma. The video replay revealed that Oregon did indeed touch the ball. Oregon went on to recover that onside kick, and then score the game-winning touchdown on the ensuing possession.
It’s a bummer when even the striped shirts fail to uphold the rules, ask a Seahawk fan still fuming over a certain, recent Super Bowl loss. Oklahoma is so bent out of shape by the officials’ video blunder that the university president has become involved to the degree of threatening legal action if the game is not ruled a forfeit. While it might seem a university president has other concerns more prevalent than a Saturday afternoon ball game, it is no secret that this single loss could mean huge financial losses later on down the road when it comes time to determine who plays in which prominent bowl game. If this loss means Oklahoma goes 9-2 instead of 10-1 the payoff will be noticeable in a lesser bowl invitation (Remember my first career was at the sports desk so bear with me if I regress a bit here).
So today I read this: “Maybe now those people at Oklahoma understand what I was talking about,” Texas Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight told The Oklahoman. He was referring to a basketball game a few years ago when Oklahoma benefited from a botched call against his team. Knight himself called for a forfeiture to no avail. The game stood. “Had Oklahoma forfeited that game against us like I suggested, they would have gotten far more positive publicity out of that than if they had gone to the Final Four that year. Now I guess the ‘duck’ is swimming in the other pond.”
He’s pretty clever. And he’s right. The duck swims in the other pond all the time. Credit does not always fall to those who deserve it. The promotion does not go to the disciplined, hard worker. The prized role in the school play does not always go to the talented. Good grades do not always go to the intelligent. Parents do not always spread attention and recognition the same to their children. As many times as I have stood on both sides of a games sidelines – playing and watching – there is usually someone who can’t understand how the game ended with that result.
I have never been in favor of instant video replay in sports. It has led only to the belief that every call in the game must be the correct one. So now we have games where the call itself has become as important as the sport itself. What have we lost? I believe we have lost some good theology for our lives.
Theodicy is a word in the dictionary which means the vindication of divine justice in the face of the existence of evil, or in my terms, that God has not abandoned us even when life treats us unfairly. What this means is that as human beings we will need to come to terms with suffering to some extent. There will come a day when the game ends and the scoreboard may read that we have lost. Even unfairly. What then? Sue someone, or ask the question: Who am I as a loser?”
As Helmut Thielicke wrote out of the devastation of Germany at the end of World War II: “No one will ever come to the truth and thus to a trustworthy bridge over the abyss of Nothingness who has not faced doubt, despair and shipwreck … The one who knows what faith is must also have stood beneath the baleful eye of that demonic power against which we fling our faith. Faith is either a struggle or it is nothing.”
Maybe our time and our culture needs to ask the question: What’s wrong with losing once in awhile? I once heard a coach say we learn more from a loss than a victory. Thinking back on some of the teams I’ve played on, we should be geniuses by now. But I would agree. Losing is not a loss. Only in the eyes of the world who cannot understand how losing something, even our own lives for the sake of Jesus Christ, can be anything but a foolish life strategy and we really ought to review the video tape and make it right.
How strange that when God Himself entered the human stage he would say that to really win in life we must lose ourselves for His sake. Then he allowed himself to be the ultimate loser. And he just took it. No replay. No official to overrule it. He just took the loss.
Can I? Justice is such a built-in response mechanism. Yet, the experience of living and the truth of the gospel seems to point to a life that sometimes looks like failure.
I think I’ll go play some tennis and see if I can sort all this out.
See You Sunday,
Steve Weber, pastor
Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church
Mount Vernon, Washington
360-424-7675
www.mvpres.com
* Two Sunday Morning Adult Classes – While the kids are in class, adults now have two options. “A Chosen Vessel” is a video portrayal of the life of the apostle Paul. It meets in Good Shepherd Hall. YAD is a young adult discussion class now based around the Nooma series of thought-provoking questions about the Christian life. It meets in the Calvin Conference Room. Join us for The Path, our Sunday morning education hour at 8:50 a.m. in Good Shepherd Hall.
* Small Group Leader Training – A group of leaders will begin training this Sunday and small groups will be up and running the first week of October. Have you signed up yet to be in a group this fall? Brochures are available in the church office and there is still time to register.
* Youth Groups This Sunday – Our youth program now under the direction of Andy Thor will begin this Sunday with Junior Highers from 4:30-6:30 and Senior Highers from 6 – 8 p.m.

Skye Dahlstrom – Choreographer and Singer

skye.jpgI have the honor of working with Skye Dahlstrom on the META Production of SEUSSICAL which will run at McIntyre Hall, Mount Vernon, WA the first two weeks of November 2006. Skye is the choreographer and has a great imagination for choreography and working with kids.

I first saw her work this last summer in Guys and Dolls which performed in Stanwood and the Kirkland Performance Center. She was choreographer for that show and also a lead dancer in the Havana cabaret scene. A real standout for that show was the choreography she did for the “Luck Be a Lady” dance sequence.

We all know Skye is going to do great things.

🙂

Conrad

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Info on Skye from the web:

Skye has been dancing since she was 2 years old, when she first saw Michael Jackson on TV. She began dancing formally at age 6 and continued to study Ballet and Jazz until she was 12. Skye has been choreographing for 6 years, beginning with routines for her cheer team at age 11.

Since then, she has choreographed for competitive cheerleading, talent shows, and school productions (2004 Stanwood High School’s Grease). She has previously taught hip hop dance at the Stanwood Sports Club, and is currently an instructor for Kid Stage in Everett.

Skye has won many awards, including 1st place at nationals in the dance division, and 1st place for choreography of her cheer team. At age 12, she took first place at the Stanwood-Camano fair lip sync impersonating Michael Jackson. Skye is currently a back up dancer for Raz B from B2k. They have performed at half time shows in Sacramento and toured of Europe in 2006.

Protecting Online Audio Download Files from Theft

audiodownloads.jpgI have made several runs at trying to setup online audio download sites and now I’m finally getting it going. It’s a little easier now than four years ago when I first wanted to do it.

But the problem I always come up to is how to protect the audio.

THE SPOILER: I have come to the conclusion that you have to overdub the sample audio with overdubs for theft protection, and I’ll explain why as we go through options here.

I’m writing this article so others have the info to reference to. I found very little when looking online. If any info is incorrect or you have more info to add, please leave a comment on this post with the info.

OPTIONS FOR PROTECTING AUDIO

  • Play lower quality fidelity for samples
  • Encode audio into a flash player
  • Pull audio into database and call via PHP
  • Use Real Audio to pull seperate play files
  • Use Quicktime so basic users can’t see source
  • Overdub audio onto samples, making the sample unuseable

1) Play lower quality fidelity for samples – This works for some applications. I know SoundDogs does this for their sound effects. Overdubs won’t work for their foley fx because the samples are so short. I have used SoundDogs a lot and think their setup is great for sound effects, but I don’t think it’s the best solution for music tracks. If you play lo fidelity clips for customers, what if your final product does not match their expectations? If you play for them what they’re going to get then you will have fewer customer complaints and/or chargebacks. Audio downloads have a high incidence of chargebacks, so showing customers exactly what they’ll be getting is a first line defense for that.

2) Encode audio into a flash player – I have spent SO many hours working with this. At one point even downloaded the Wimpy flash player. I see a LOT of sites using a flash player to hide their audio source. The problem is, you can see where the file is being pulled up from if you view the source code. If your answer to that is “Well, how many people know how to view the source code?” I think more than you think. Viewing source code is easy. I would guess the largest group of people that would want to snatch audio are younger people, and they are saavy with computers – and everyone has a friend who’s a computer geek. Viewing source code isn’t even approaching a geek thing anymore, it’s just something people know about – like popping the hood on their car. So a big NO for using a flash player as the source code will show your audio location.

3) Pull audio into database and call via PHP – This is a nice option, and I’ve seen source code of many sites doing this. For me, it’s a little out of my league to setup – so it’s not an option. Also, I’m afraid that someday my database will crash and I won’t be able to retrieve the audio. If someone reading this has an approach that normal folks can use to implement this, please let us know about it.

4) Use Real Audio to pull seperate play files – In the old days Real Audio and MP3 were going head to head. I put my money on Real Audio, thinking they would win the audio wars. I was wrong. People still have problems playing some Real Audio files, and it’s very time consuming to make the seperate .ra and .ram files needed to pull it off. Frankly, it’s a real headache in my opinion. If you have hundreds of audio files to protect, then you have hundres of .ra and .ram files to make. And then I guarantee you will get emails that some people can’t play it, so you need MP3 options too. If you have MP3, why have Real Audio too?

5) Use Quicktime so basic users can’t see source – The Pro version DOES allow viewing the source. The Pro version is not very expensive, so I imagine a lot of people have it. I don’t think this is a wise option.

6) Overdub audio onto samples, making the sample unuseable – This is my suggestion. Users can hear the actual fidelity of your sound file, and you have a seperate public audio sample you can make accessible to the public while keeping your actual clean downloads secure and protected. You can record your own overdubs, or go to a local recording studio and get it done for not much. Chances are if you have online audio samples, you probably already have the gear for audio overdubs.

Here is a sample of an audio file protected with overdubs:

MP3 Hip Hop Instrumental with Overdub Theft Protection

Notice the overdub vocal has been limited to a small audio frequency range so it doesn’t interfere to much with the listening experience of the track as a whole. I find it very easy to tune out the overdub while listening to the track. In addition, the overdub also contains information useful for customers listening.

For fast easy overdub mixing see my article on the Acoustica MP3 Mixer

I vote for overdubbing to provide audio protection to music samples. Have more info? Please leave a comment.

Review: Acoustic MP3 Audio Mixer

I’ve got a lot of gear. Nice pro high end gear like Digidesign’s Pro Tools, and lots of computers. My little office alone has five computers in it. But you’d be amazed how often I need to do something very very simple, but the high end gear slows me down.

Case in point – I have 300 audio samples that I’d like to use as audio samples for customers, but need to add overdubs for the samples so they aren’t stolen without payment. To further complicate things, I’m using these 300 tracks across 5 different websites, making a total of 1500 tracks that need to be layered with overdubs. It needs to sound good, but since it’s just streaming samples it is not critical to be audiophile quality.

Enter the Acoustic MP3 mixer. It mixes four tracks of stereo MP3 files. I love it. I’m able to click and quickly import my sample tracks and edit them to the overdub vocal. All I need is volume control to set the levels between the tracks, and a fade feature. Fade is NOT a feature on Acoustica, so my work-around was to let the overdub vocal hang on after the sample track with a plug for the hosting website.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about to protect audio:
Rap Instrumental with Theft Protection Overdubs

For more info on Acoustic, go to the Acoustic Website and look for the “MP3 Mixer”. It’s a free 30day trial, then I think it’s $24.95 – a good square deal in my opinion.

If you want more control, then this isn’t the software for you. But if you just want to mix together some MP3’s quickly without firing up all your gear, Acoustica is a nice alternative.