Wayne D's Blog

I sit here and I type my bloggity blog and wonder if anyone ever reads it, then one day something happens to convince me that there is a point. Back in mid April I write a post questioning why emusic had turned me down for their affiliate link program without offering any explanation. Turns out someone from their affiliate marketing program read the post and couldn't figure out why either. He sent me a nice email apologizing for it occurring and pledging that it wouldn't happen again. Ahhhh, the power of the blog.

Seriously if you like independent music you really should check out emusic. Over my time as a member my music library has become filled with legal nonDRMed MP3's from many, many great indie artists. If you search my blog for emusic you'll see a listing of some of the music I've downloaded over the past few years. The best part is that you can sign up for their free trial and get 25 songs, if you decide you don't want to be a member you cancel and keep the songs. Of course they'd like you to stick around as a member but if you don't you get to keep the 25 free tracks. Currently they charge $9.99 a month or $11.99 for Canadians for 30 tracks. They have plans at slightly higher fees for more tracks a month. I originally became a member just after I bought my iPod because they had the music of many of the artists I liked to listen to in a convenient nonDRM'd format. If you want to give it a try you can click on the banner below and I get a referral bonus. They have also recently added audio books and if you want you can get a free audio book too.

As part of my attempt to catch up to bleeding edge of technology I took my EEEPC to the Marlies playoff game last night. I was supposed to be conducting the Marlinotes for the first part of the game while our fearless leader jetted in from NYC expecting to arrive just around game time. New rule for '08, don't rely on airlines. His flight was delayed 3 hours before it left leaving me holding the clipboard and marker. My plan for ustreaming our perfromance at the game came a bit unhinged as I tried to juggle mt beer cup, eeepc and song list while not missing a cue. The challenge in playing at a hockey game is when you get the cue that you will be playing at the next whistle it could be anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes later. Keeping an eating, drinking, and chatting band on their toes and ready to play in this situation can be a tad bit difficult.

After the first intermission I did manage to get the EEEPC online using the free wireless at the Ricoh Centre and streaming to an audience of at peak 5 people. The cool thing was that one of them was a former bandmate who now lives and works in Japan and saw my tweet about the Marlinotes on ustream. Another one of the viewers was an Argonote band member from Waterloo who saw that I was streaming through my Facebook status. The experiment was not a complete success, after about 45 minutes we lost audio, a band without audio isn't much fun so I terminated the experiment. I did record a couple of videos but they didn't turn out well enough to keep. I'd would have liked to try streaming with the Argonotes at the Rogers Centre but for some bizarre reason Rogers, one of the two major ISP's in Ontario doesn't offer free wireless in their own facility. Perhaps they have reconsidered and we can expect to see it this year, especially since Rogers is getting ready to announce the iPhone. You may be wondering why I used ustream after writing about live.yahoo.com so much. The simple reason is that Yahoo has still not resolved the audio issue that live.yahoo.com has on Linux. Maybe now that they aren't all polishing up their resumes they'll get a chance to look at it.

Why am I slagging the iPod touch? One of the Marlinotes is a big Cali Lewis and Geekbrief like myself and she has an iPod touch. Cali was also streaming on ustream last night and guess what the internet enabled iPod touch won't do, flash video? Guess what everybody and their dog on the internet uses for streaming video, flash video. I graciously loaned her my EEPC so she could get her Cali fix. She and I are both figuring out how we can get Cali and Neal up to Toronto during the big trip. The big trip is a trip she and her husband Neal plan to take in an RV starting this summer. Fifty states in fifty weeks and hopefully at least one Canadian province. We figure we will at least have to pay for the gas for their RV and perhaps get them some media exposure when they hit town. There must be tonnes of Geekbrief fans in the GTA who could make time for a meet up.

You may have noticed that I have changed my blog skin. This was because I realized the other skin wasn't putting the right sidebar on the individual posts. Probably something I messed up, now I'll get another wave of search robot hits as the notice the changed pages and rampage through the site.

When I was in Miami last week I finally got a chance to try out Hulu. I had heard so much about it that I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately it wouldn't stream, it would start, then stop, then start again. I would have thought that it was because my EEEPC didn't have enough power but I heard the same report from one of my friends who had also tried it while visiting the United States. She said that ABC.com streamed fine for her. My friend also reported that pausing the Hulu stream, a common technique to allow more video to be buffered didn't work. Is this because of some DRM paranoia?

Today while browsing through Valleywag I cam across an embedded video for Amanda Congden's new project sometimesdaily.com It didn't stream very well either, this time on my Windows XP desktop system so you can't blame Linux this time. It appears that in order to satisfy our requirement for instant gratification video services aren't buffering as much video as they used to before they try to play it. Sessions.aol.ca worked fine when I checked it today so I don't think it's my internet connection. I have embedded the Amanda Congden clip below so you can try it out yourself. It's nice to see that Amanda is back, I had subscribed to her occasional podcast on iTunes but there hasn't been a new one for quite some time.

Introducing Sometimesdaily from Sometimesdaily on Vimeo.

(update May 25, 2008, misspelled Amanda's last name, sorry, fixed now)

It seems that the default behavior on Linux when it detects an error during the fsck check during boot is to pop out to a shell and tell the user to fix it. This is a really bad idea, if you want to take over the world, fix problems that you can automatically. How many people running Linux these days are competent enough to manually fix a file system? In the past couple of months I have ran across two people who have ended up with auto fsck check failures during the boot process as a result of power failures. Both cases were fixed without incident by running fsck -y after the system had popped out to a naked shell prompt.

The use of windows has dumbed most computer users down to the point where they don't know what to do at a shell prompt, in fact it tends to make them break into a cold sweat. Even Ubuntu 7.10 which is supposed to be Linux for Windows users doesn't try to fix things automatically during boot. Maybe the new version does but I doubt it.

Done ranting.

May you live in interesting times, can be either a curse or a statement of hope. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) has been following a halting path over the ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates for clergy for a number of years, wrapped up in this has also been a discussion on the blessing of same sex unions. At the Eastern Synod convention in 2006 the assembly voted to allow a “local option” on the blessing of same sex unions. The National Convention of the ELCIC in 2007 overruled the Eastern Synod to maintain the status quo. No one expects the issue of the treatment of gay and lesbian members of the church to go away. Now one congregation in the Eastern Synod has decided to take a bold step and call an openly gay candidate to minister to their congregation. Where will this action lead? With an Eastern Synod convention coming in July 2008 and a ELCIC National convention in 2009 there are surely interesting times ahead.

I asked a learned friend of mine to comment on where he thought these actions might lead, his thoughts follow. I encourage everyone to leave comments, but I will delete comments that are disrespectful or inflammatory.

Throughout the history of the Lutheran presence in North America we have gravitated to, and represented our interests in, different synods. Early immigration followed distinct European interests and language was one of the primary dividing factors between Lutherans. Over the years we have seen that language is not the only divisive force. Opposing, strongly held points of view have divided Christian denominations in North America over issues of slavery, segregation and civil rights, and the ordination of women, to name a few. Today, Lutherans, and others are working through the issue of same sex blessings and the inclusion and ordination of people of non-heterosexual orientation.

It is not a bad thing to have strongly held views. Many would say that a lot of children today would benefit from parents who had more strongly held views. But judgmentalism and exclusion are not the Christian destination of strongly held views. Jesus had strongly held views that led him to inclusion and restoration, not condemnation; but he was much better at discerning the will of God than any of us ever will be.

So how do we as people of God reconcile our opposing, strongly held views. Neither side of the argument wants to be wrong, neither side wants to compromise. These positions are understandable and sadly human. Lionel Ketola just may show us a new solution. Educated at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Saskatoon during the 1980s, Lionel's ordination path was halted for fourteen years when he came out to his bishop. According to Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (www.elm.org) Lionel recently completed an internship and has now been called as associate pastor to Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Newmarket, Ontario (ELCIC).

The people of Holy Cross are putting feet to their strongly held views and by 'pushing the envelope' seem certain to bring this issue to a head. There is little doubt in the writer's mind that motions both for and against will be prevalent at the next convention of the Eastern Synod as well as the next National convention of the ELCIC. What will be the result?

Should two or three more churches follow Holy Cross it seems to me they would be in a position to declare themselves a distinct Lutheran body and then perhaps enter into synodical relations (friendly or not) with other Lutheran bodies. Perhaps they would be the Open Lutheran Church in Canada (OLCIC). Looking at an even bigger picture, our Anglican friends are in the middle of their own turmoil over the same issue. Perhaps we will see a redrawing of synodical lines on a multi-denominational basis – that certainly casts a new light on ecumenism!

Why don't I sound worried? In spite of the worst efforts of us petty and often idiotic humans to control and browbeat each other, the Holy Spirit keeps the church alive. Where we can only see impasse God sees opportunity. What we hear as the last, dying toll of the bell God hears as the fresh ting of new beginnings. When we declare something dead and gone forever, God says, “OK, now let's start something fantastic”. God's church will never die. So be it. Amen