6th Week: A stream of consciousness on hunger and chains

What does it mean to be hungry for something?

OED: "Having or characterized by a strong desire or craving [for something]".
And craving, "Urgent desire; longing, yearning."

If, in a room full of hungry people, you announce a feast, the expected response is one of elation.

If you claim that you are hungry for something, yet let that very thing pass by with barely an acknowledgement - are you really hungry?

If not - why not?

"Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" Romans 8 v2

To borrow rather heavily from Mary Mary: the shackles have been taken off your feet. Why do you choose, rather than dancing, to continue shuffling in lines like prisoners?

5th Week: Learning a New Language

"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days." -- Joel 2:27-29, The Bible

I've been running visuals for the Late Service at St. Aldate's. In an "ordinary" service this would mean getting the words of songs on screen at the right time, and keeping the speaker on-camera - straightforward stuff and all things I've done so often, they've become reflex. (Watch me during a service I'm not on AV, if you don't believe that...) The Late Service has gone beyond that, using video backgrounds behind the song words to aid the worship.

"Uh-huh, what's so special about that?" you may (or may not) ask. There is the ever-present danger of doing it for the sake of doing it, for the technical challenge, or even to "liven up" the worship - to which you might well reply "So what?". Background visuals can be just a "nice touch" but I always strive for more than that; to become as much a part of the worship as each instrument in the band, as each heart of the congregation. What I do behind the sound desk is my worship to God, my offering laid out on the screens that everyone can see. (That, by the way, is why it upsets me when I have to put up things that I know are low-quality. I want to give God more than that.)

Tonight, as Owen was playing and singing "For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city" I felt God say, "Look outside. Outside the doors." Outside? How could I do that? The collection of loops we have is limited and there wasn't what I wanted to show. I went for the only "outside shot" I had available to me: across the entrance foyer and out through the front doors. And someone promptly walked across the shot and out of the building.

It struck me (as I walked to hand in work to the comlab at 1.15am) that what I was doing was learning a new language. As with any language, when you start you have a limited vocabulary - and when you want to express a specific thing, you can be scrabbling for words, hoping vaguely to get your point across. Here, the language was pictures, the point was God's heart, and my attempts to communicate were in desperation the closest thing I could get to the picture in my head. But that's OK - any language takes time to learn. And I know the point was gotten across (thanks Emily).

I really want to develop this further - I want to take a camcorder out and just walk around Oxford for a day, for one. The more words you have in your vocab list, and the more you learn them, the more expressive you'll be in the language. And the more new words you add, the less likely you are to fall back to the very basics - "Bonjour, je m'appelle James, j'ai vingt ans, j'habite a Oxford..." has a certain equivalence with those time-lapse clouds. They have a place, but there's so much more to French (right, Jenny?)

Oh, go on then.


And as for my vocab list? It'd be really useful if the thumbnail menu we have actually linked in with VLC to select what video was playing. And seamless looping in VLC would be nice, too... The former, at least, I've already prototyped.

4th Week: Space is a harsh mistress

It was only a machine.

No - it wasn't even that. It was a computer simulation of a machine. A machine, created by a machine. How perverse.

It was just a lump of Tritanium (which doesn't exist). It didn't even have a Tech-II tank.

But we went through some good times. It never let me down. Even that time when I left a mission in 20% structure, hull on fire - it kept going, it got out at the last minute, to fight another day. We've been halfway across the Eve cluster together. On war operations with Eve Uni. Even (on the test server, anyway) to 0.0 space.

Last night was just too much... Warp-scrambling frigates and jamming cruisers conspired to trap me in a mission I couldn't tank. Eventually it lagged out so much that one frame, I was just in structure; the next, I was in a pod staring at the remains of the Anakin's Fall.

50 million ISK later, its Tech-II-tanked replacement (which I named the Vader's Fist) is flying... but it's not the same. It just feels... different. Sure, it can take even more punishment. Technically it's handling is the same; same speed; same everything. And yet it's different, somehow.

2008.02.08 17:39:00
Victim: Muscaat
Alliance: Ivy League
Corp: Eve University
Destroyed: Drake
System: Poinen
Security: 0.6
Damage Taken: 70334

Involved parties:

Name: Juggernaut Torpedo / Guristas Pirates (laid the final blow)
Damage Done: 70334


Destroyed items:

Small EMP Smartbomb I
Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 1262 (Cargo)
Shield Recharger I
Warrior I (Drone Bay)
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Qty: 5
Type-D Power Core Modification: Shield Power Relay
Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 150
Hammerhead I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Local Power Plant Manager: Reaction Shield Power Relay I
Invulnerability Field I
Hellhound F.O.F. Heavy Missile I, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
R.S. Officer's Passcard (Cargo)
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I
Exotic Dancers, Qty: 10 (Cargo)
Core Defence Field Purger I, Qty: 3

Dropped items:

Shield Recharger I, Qty: 2
Heavy Missile Launcher I
Havoc Heavy Missile, Qty: 388 (Cargo)
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction, Qty: 2
Type-D Power Core Modification: Shield Power Relay
Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 24
Local Power Plant Manager: Reaction Shield Power Relay I
Kruul's DNA (Cargo)
Thunderbolt Heavy Missile, Qty: 962 (Cargo)