Category: Work

I’ve had some folks request an update–even a vague one–on the status of Secret Project #4.

I can’t tell you much, but I can tell you that it is going well.

Currently there are around eleven people working full or part time on it.

The project has a technological side and an informational side, and we have the technology in place and now we are doing the informational side.

There are two different arms of the informational side. One is proceeding a bit slower than I had hoped, but the other is going much faster than I expected.

All that’s required for Secret Project #4 to be announced later this summer is for one of the two arms of the informational side to substantially achieve its goals, and we seem to be well on the way to that at the moment.

Wish I could tell y’all more, but that’ll have to do for now.

The Apologetics Department has an opening for the position of Seminar Coordinator.

If you’d or someone you know would be interested in the position,

CHECK IT OUT.

Thanks!

A reader writes:

Jimmy,

Any updates on your secret projects?  I’m sure your readers would love to hear what’s going on . . .

I’m afraid that I really haven’t been able to push forward the three previously-mentioned secret projects of late. My schedule has just been too busy. (And is especially so now, which is fiscal year end for Catholic Answers, so I’ve had tons of administrative stuff to do, like budgets and planning meetings and such. The budgeting for next fiscal year has been particularly tricky since there is now the parallel organization Catholic Answers Action to take into account.)

I can, however, announce a new secret project–Secret Project #4–which has been green-lit and is going forward at a rapid pace.

This secret project is one that I have wanted to do for years, but the technology hasn’t been available and readily usable until now. It finally occurred to me, "This is what we need to pull this off!" So I went to Karl, proposed the project, and he enthusiastically approved it.

Soon we had the needed things set up, and now I and other apologists at Catholic Answers are working to get it to the point where we will be able to publicly launch it.

At which point I’ll be able to say definitely what it is.

That should be sometime this summer. 1-2 months from now would be my guess.

Once launched, Secret Project #4 will require some ongoing management, and we’ll have to refine the methodology as we go, but it has the potential to . . . what’s the right word? . . . "revolutionize"? (is that it?)  . . . the field of apologetics.

After I got the idea for it, I discovered that others have been attempting similar things, but unfortunately nobody has yet been able to bring to bear the kind of organizational muscle needed to allow this kind of project to fulfill its potential.

Catholic Answers has the muscle needed so . . . this’ll be big. (And controversial in some quarters.)

I just thought I put up a note about a couple of employment opportunities at Catholic Answers.

We’re looking to expand our web department, and at the moment we’re looking for

A WEB APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER

and

A WEB SERVER SPECIALIST.

If you are such a person and would be interested in working at Catholic Answers, check out the links above!

You remember when we had the volunteer project going of listing the questions that appear on my Q & A shows on Catholic Answers Live?

(If you don’t, you can see examples of it HERE.)

I have been informed that the radio department at Catholic Answers is now interested in experimenting with something similar for the Q & A shows (not just mine, everybody’s).

There are details still to be worked out, but they’re interested in the basic concept. I gather that for now they’re trying to get just the new Q & As done this way to prove out the concept. What will be done with the past shows would be determined at a future date.

Currently they’re looking for volunteers to help with the initial effort by listening to the new shows, listing the questions, and e-mailing in the list.

If you would be interested in helping with the initial experiment to see if it can be something that the online archives can feature on a regular basis, please E-MAIL ME or let me know via the combox (leaving your e-mail address so we can contact you). I’ll make sure the info gets to the right people at Catholic Answers.

A reader writes:

We download the broadcast from Catholic Answers to listen to later at a
convenient time.
The mp3 is a far bigger download than Real Audio. Can you imagine what that
means for dial up listeners?
Please stick to Real Audio if at all possible.
Also on older computers, a few mp3 downloads would take up far more space.
Sometimes I haven’t had time to listen for a week, and must download them
all. Some I save, if they are really good.
Please, reconsider.

Don’t worry. While we will be adding .mp3 to the formats in which we offer Catholic Answers Live, we will not be jettisoning the Real format. For the foreseeable future we will be offering CAL in both .mp3 and Real so that both the broadband and dial-up listeners can be served.

Incidentally, for those who are waiting for .mp3, we seem to be getting quite close to being able to offer it now. We may not be able to offer it with all the bells and whistles we hope to offer for it in the future, but having a basic way to get the show in .mp3 is something we should have word on quite soon.

Will keep you posted.

A friend writes:

I’ve been slowly going through the endless piles of "stuff" that I’ve accumulated over the years, and I have decided that I am going to get rid of all my back issues of This Rock.  (I’ve already distilled out of them whatever material I will need.) 

I haven’t done an actual tallying, but I’m sure that I probably have the past 10 years or so–in full.  Do you know of anyone who would want these back issues?  (Or do you know where they could be best used?) 

I am willing to give them away, but there is one hitch.  It would probably be somewhat costly to ship them, and I’m not really in a position to do that at this time.  So whoever is going to get these magazines would have to pay for shipping.

If folks want to call dibs in the combox, I’ll forward the names and e-mail addresses to the friend doing the This Rock giveaway on a first come, first served basis (i.e., if for any reason it doesn’t work out with the first person who calls dibs, I’ll send him the second persons’s name).

These This Rocks have a lot of uses. Not only can you use them for yourself, you give them as gifts, use them for evangelization, turn more folks on to This Rock, send them to prisoners, etc., etc.

All yours just for the asking (and the shipping)!

Howdy, folks!

The .mp3 tests from yesterday seemed to lead to a consensus that folks wanted higher quality encodings of the show, and also mono recordings. Y’all’s wish is our command! Here’s a new batch to check out, plus Link 3 from yesterday for comparison.

Whadda y’all think?

• LINK 3 (40 kbps, 16 kHz, MP3, STEREO–16 meg)
• LINK 5 (24  kbps, 24 kHz, MP3, MONO–9.5 meg)
• LINK 6 (32 kbps, 24 kHz, MP3, MONO–12.5 meg)
• LINK 7 (32 kbps, 44.1 kHz, MP3, MONO–12.5 meg)
• LINK 8 (40 kbps, 44.1 kHz, MP3, MONO–15.7 meg)
• LINK 9 (48 kbps, 44.1 kHz, MP3, MONO–18.8 meg)

UPDATE: BTW, it occurred to me that some folks might not know that Windows Media Player (at least recent version of it) are able to play .mp3 files. If any Windows users have been thinking that they’re left out of the .mp3 revolution because they don’t have a specialized .mp3 player, don’t worry. Windows Media Player will play these files automatically, so almost anybody with a recent version of Windows should be able to join in the testing (and, later, the listening).

Ho-okay, folks!

Gotcha some files of last Thursday’s Catholic Answers Live to test and see what works best for y’all.

The first three are .mp3 files, and the last is a Windows Media (.wma) file. NOTE: We’re definitely planning on doing .mp3 for the show; the .wma file is just thrown in here to see what folks think of it.

Please use the combox to let us know which format you prefer (taking file size, audio quality, and other factors into account). Please also let us know if you find any of them simply unacceptable (and why).

To make referring to them easier, I’ve labelled them all "Link 1," "Link 2," etc., so you don’t have to remember the technical specs on each one, though I’ve printed those here too.

• LINK 1 (20 kbps, 12 kHz, MP3–8 meg)
• LINK 2 (32 kbps, 16 kHz, MP3–13 meg)
• LINK 3 (40 kbps, 16 kHz, MP3–16 meg)
• Link 4 deleted since I can’t get it to work.

Thanks for your feedback!

I don’t normally blog from work (all my blogging is done from home during the evening), but a work-related question just came up.

We just had a meeting to see about how we can push forward making Catholic Answers Live available in .mp3 format and a couple of questions came up that I thought pitching to y’all on the blog might be good given folks’ experience of different players and how they behave.

So here goes:

1) We have a decision to make on the calendar pages at Catholic.Com having three or four links per show. If we have four the links would be:

• (a) Listen RealAudio,
• (b) Download RealAudio,
• (c) Listen MP3,
• (d) Download MP3.

We’re wondering whether link (c) is really needed. Whaddya y’all think?

2) Is anyone aware of compression rates that could cause problems for us if we use them? Alternately, are any compression rates especially desirable?

Thanks, folks!