Five Minutes

The story so far…

Our hero quit his job and was deassimilated from the Borg, travelled to India via Sri Lanka, and was last heard from on a bus from Delhi to Noida.

And now, the unexciting conclusion…

That was, as the dates indicate, about two and a half months ago. Indeed, I returned from India, as expected, in late February and have since taken up my new job (which, oddly enough, has put me back at my old desk) and have been feverishly working on the two productions that I’m expected to edit the India footage into (with, it has to be said, remarkably little success, as the rather depressing supervisor meeting I had on Wednesday reinforced).

Why the break in transmission? I’m not sure, really. I did write a few more journal entries while I was in India, but found that I ran out of energy at a certain point and really just wished I could learn how to sleep on buses, and then with the editing workload back here, combined with picking up the new job baton (a whole 48 hours after I landed back in Perth!), I just don’t seem to have had the creative energy for it.

India, for the record, was good fun. There’s been a little bit of unpleasantness since returning (nothing related to me, but it still casts a slight pall over the experience), but it was an incredibly worthwhile trip, all told. In the end, I think Bangalore was probably my favourite of the four cities we stayed in, but they were all interesting and (often surprisingly) different in their own rights. The filming went OK, but as I’ve said to a few people since returning, it really was no more than OK, and probably reminded me of why I was hesitant to get heavily involved in production units in the first place — I just don’t quite seem to have a natural feel for what needs to be shot and how the way a lot of other people do, and when you’re shooting ephemeral events in a documentary style, you have to have that feel.

I also have a huge queue of photos to upload, too, starting with some from last November (sorry Dean!) and then the photos from India. All… find . -name *.jpg | wc -l… 413 of them. (Yikes, particularly since I know I discarded at least twice as many while I was there, too.) I’ve been meaning to get started on that particular job since I got back, but the thought of sitting down and writing titles and descriptions for each of them has just sapped my energy each time I’ve opened my laptop to get going.

Tonight I’m off to the 4×4 Film Festival at uni, which is the twice-yearly competition between second and third year production students to see who can make the best four minute film. (Third years get handicapped by needing to edit in-camera, which having done it last year, is actually a pretty significant handicap for a lot of genres.) This semester’s theme is horror, which should be entertaining, and for once, I might be scared by more than the usual shoddy student acting.

In that spirit, I’ll sign off with this dodgy YouTube version of a horror film I worked on last year for uni. (We were apparently just a year ahead of the curve. That’s what I’m telling people who ask about the grade I received for it.) It’s seven and a bit minutes of… something. I’m not really sure what.

Seen on the Facebook home page….

Ronnie and I have been friends for a long time, of course, but I’d just never been able to find him on Facebook. Thanks, anonymous PHP coders!

(Yeah, I know what they’re really getting at, but if you’re going to repurpose the people you might know field to handle fan pages and the like, it might be time to rethink the name.)

Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 8:45 am IST
Place: Delhi-Noida Road, India

Once again, we’re on the bus. Happily, I’ve been able to get some fresh viewing material, and am presently watching the Star Trek episode Balance of Terror. (Hence the title.) Today, we’re headed for JIIT in Noida, another satellite city of Delhi. The plan is apparently to do a small group activity with the students there this morning, then visit three companies out there this afternoon before returning to Delhi in the evening.

The group activity should be interesting: we’re going to do a game design exercise, which should give us some insights into how their students are taught relative to our students. From my point of view, it should provide some opportunities to start doing some on the ground work in terms of potentially interviewing both our students and theirs, which will be useful practice both in manipulating the microphone and covering a number of groups at once; both areas in which I haven’t done a lot of work in the past.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Aricent in Gurgaon, a company who provide hardware and software to telecommunications OEMs. They were quite proud of their efforts in the human resources field; although progressive by at least the stereotype of Indian companies (only about a 42-45 hour week, somewhat flexible time), it was to a large extent the usual large corporate spin on them being a bit family, having a shared culture, et cetera.

From a filming point of view, yesterday was a bit of a bust, but that was somewhat expected. I grabbed some establishing footage outside of Aricent and then later at India Gate, but since I didn’t have any release forms on me, I decided against taking footage of Aricent employees or within Aricent itself. I’m also intending to start some end-of-day interviews this evening when we get back to Delhi: tonight should be Chris, from whom I hope to get some insight into the purpose of the trip from the university’s point of view.

On a different note, apparently PESIT in Bangalore have challenged us to a 20-20 game when we get down there. There’s already some banter going around the bus about who’s going to bat where and, more importantly, what colour box Sameera wants!

Obviously, we’re giving him a pink one.

Date: February 3, 2009 at 2:27 pm IST
Place: Delhi-Gurgaon Road, Haryana, India

The original plan for the trip that said that most people would arrive yesterday has unfortunately gone completely out the window. A delay in the departure of the Emirates flight leaving Perth for Dubai that almost two-thirds of the group were on meant that instead of arriving last night at about 8 o’clock, more than half of the student group didn’t arrive until 9:30 this morning, after a night and (very early) morning embarkation from Dubai. Unsurprisingly, most of the bus is now asleep, and Leisa is wandering down the aisle taking incriminating photos of people who are dead to the world.

We’re pressing on with the programme regardless, so presently the bus is trooping very, very slowly down to Gurgaon for the first scheduled event: a tour of a company called Aricent. This is good, as it gives me a chance to test out some of the equipment I have in a more “real” setting, although I’m not putting any great pressure on myself to get decent footage until the Agra trip the day after tomorrow.

Not an awful lot else to report at the moment. Our SIM cards are being organised while we head down to Gurgaon, so I should have a phone available again later this evening, and I now have a roommate in the form of Hamish. We’re going to room together for our stay in Delhi and see how we’re going after that — it seems like we have a bit in common, so that’s a good start.

Now I just need to figure out how to stop my dead cat to stop shedding!

Date: February 2, 2009 at 7:21 pm IST
Place: Arrivals Hall, Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, India

As we descended into Delhi this evening, the sun was setting. Sure, it was already down on the ground, but at our altitude it lit up the cabin of the plane in a light first the harsh yellow of the direct sun, where I could see my own shadow so sharply that I could have counted my eyelashes, then the warmer, more muted oranges and reds and pinks as the light bounced off seats and bulkheads to softly fill the plane in a beautiful glow.

It was a peaceful ending to what had been a slightly stressful day. This afternoon, I arrived at Bandaranaike International Airport to find one of those depressingly familiar Asian airline experiences playing itself out: sorry, sir, but your flight has been cancelled. Not enough people, I presume. Fortunately, I got there early enough to get a seat on the earlier flight to Delhi, the only real downside being the extra hour and a half I had to kill before being picked up.

Earlier in the day I’d set out on one of my characteristic missions to get lost in a city I don’t know very well, this time in Colombo. I succeeded a bit too well, as it turned out! After I’d been gone a while I realised that I’d left my Lonely Planet — and hence my maps — in my other backpack, which was safely back at the guest house. Ended up navigating my way back to Galle Road via the sun, then realised I was several kilometres south of the guest house and my taxi for the airport was arriving soon. Time to grab a tuk-tuk!

Colombo itself is a bit of a pastiche of places I’ve been: Singapore’s Little India with the socioeconomic state of Ulaanbaatar and road rules of Beijing, if you will.

Maybe third world cities are just starting to jade me. I hope not.

I do want to return to Sri Lanka at some point, but Colombo bores me in a way few cities other than Tallinn and Canberra have. Still, boring isn’t bad for getting over jetlag, and in Colombo House I at least had good digs. Next time I’m going to Galle and Kandy, though!

Well, that’s part of the hour and a half killed.

Time: Saturday, January 31, 2009, 15:22 IST
Location: Somewhere over the Bay of Bengal

I was supposed to write a statement of intent for this documentary while winging my way from Perth to Colombo. Unfortunately, that went out the window about the same time as I got less than an hour’s sleep on the red-eye from Perth to Singapore last night, so instead I’ll write a possibly incoherent blog post.

Sorry, Keith. Can we count this towards my assessment anyway?

So, to back up a step or two, let me explain why I’m currently en route to the subcontinent for those who aren’t already in the know. As part of my Graduate Certificate in Film and Video, I’ve been offered and accepted the opportunity to tag along with an ECU study tour and make a documentary about the experience as an Independent Study project. Needless to say, I’m rather excited about this — effectively, I get to spend two and a half weeks travelling around India (which I’ve wanted to do anyway for ages) and get course credit in the process.

Exactly what the documentary is going to be about is still a somewhat open question. I have some ideas — one in particular that I’d like to pursue — but it will really depend on what actually takes place on the tour. Certainly, had I made a documentary about the Shanghai trip I went on a little over a year ago, that would have turned out completely differently to any preconceived ideas I might have had.

It’s fair to say that my preparation and pre-production processes have been a bit limited. (Horrifyingly disorganised is probably a more honest, less euphemistic way of putting it.) It was basically only by the good graces of Keith on his first day back at ECU yesterday after taking leave that I managed to loan gear from the university, for which I’m extremely grateful. In effect, half of my luggage is taken up by filming equipment — and that’s without having brought any lights!

The travelling itself so far has been interesting. I decided very early on when working out the travel arrangements (travel to and from India was a problem for the individual students rather than the uni due to budgetary constraints and — I suspect — the fact that the uni didn’t want to have to deal with people like me who don’t just do things as a straight return trip from Perth) that I wanted to have a couple of days somewhere before India to unwind, get over the longer flights, test equipment, and so on.

It came down to a choice between Colombo and Kathmandu, and Colombo turned out to be a lot cheaper.

As a result, very early this morning (1:15, to be exact) I got to hop on a Jetstar flight from Perth to Singapore. I was hoping to get some sleep, but as I’ve already mentioned, it didn’t really work out that way. I had everything I needed (even an exit row seat, courtesy of a friendly check-in agent), but the combination of uncomfortable seating and screaming babies just wasn’t conducive to sleep.

I got to spend the morning wandering around Singapore in a sleep-deprived haze. I ended up walking several kilometres (probably at least 10, without having done the maths with a map yet) and that actually woke me up reasonably well. I also managed to get the critical thing that I forgot to pick up on my way out the door yesterday: the Lonely Planet for Sri Lanka!

(Side note: if anyone wants, say, two copies of the Sri Lanka Lonely Planet in a few weeks, get in touch.)

Still, my day has picked up remarkably after the early midnight horror flight. Upon checking in for the Sri Lankan Airlines flight to Colombo, I managed to wangle an exit row seat, with a nod and a wink from the check-in agent that I might end up doing a bit better than that.

Actually, I did a lot better. First class, baby! Not bad, considering I’ve never flown above regular economy before in a rather large number of flights.

Talk about helping one’s mood.

Looking ahead: tonight I’m going to try not to fall asleep too early (I have five mini DV tapes to stripe, and I need to get at least a couple of them done before hitting Delhi), then see the sights of Colombo test the camera equipment tomorrow. I’ll have another crack at the statement of intent tomorrow, too. (I might even consider shaving, although lord knows the scruffy look’s worked for me so far on this trip.)

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Oh, more champagne? Don’t mind if I do…

After the Penguin Dinner, I awoke on Thursday feeling a bit tired, but generally good. Unfortunately, the keynote wasn’t really the sort of material that was likely to energise me further, so I ended up making a discreet exit after about 20 minutes and taking up residence outside the multi-room while I debated having a second coffee.

Happily, my day picked up after that, with Ensign Paul Fenwick delivering a brilliant two-part talk on Klingon programming and Perl 5.10. Even as a recovering Perl coder, I can see just how much better things like autodie would make programming in Perl.

He also introduced what I believe is the linux.conf.au motto — at least, that’s how I titled it on the day. Little did I know…

Beyond that, there wasn’t an awful lot to attract me. I went to Donna’s Inkscape tutorial, which was interesting in a chaotic sort of way, but I think the number of people was a little overwhelming for that sort of tutorial, and I didn’t feel as though I learned quite as much as I wanted to. I’m sure it was valuable for a lot of people, though — I was probably just coming in with a somewhat different background to many of the people who attended.

Thursday evening we had the Unprofessional Delegates Networking Session, as organised by Chris and the TUCS¹ team. After a shaky start, we got a rather good little production line going.

Having consumed a decent amount of beer at the UpDNS and then back at Bede’s apartment, I went and got an insufficient amount of sleep. Little did I know that I was about to discover that the aforementioned motto was wrong: it was possible to be given beer and die.

Friday morning I woke up feeling awful, and it just got worse as the morning went on. I don’t think it was just the beer (I didn’t drink that much), but a combination of that and the exhaustion that had probably been coming for a few days that laid me low. I basically struggled through the keynote (which was rather good, and clearly the best of the week in my book) and the first session, but realised that I was in real danger of just passing out where I was and staggered back up the hill to have a nap.

After lunch, things were much better. While I missed Bdale’s debearding, I figured there’d be eleventy billion photos up on Flickr by the time I got back down the hill anyway, and was pleased to be right on that front. Matthew Garrett raised my mood further with a typically entertaining rant talk about power management and the usability concerns that arise from it, Shatter was presented by Adam Jackson and drew some interesting feedback from the audience (well, mostly Linus), and Kevin Pulo showed off some ways to use LD_PRELOAD that are extremely cool, particularly for debugging.

The closing was, as usual, about twice as long as scheduled, and plenty random. The lightning talks ran the gamut, Wellington was shockingly² announced as the host of LCA 2010, and we apparently made the news but Linus didn’t.

Finally, the party. In years past when it’s been held, the party has been an all-included event earlier in the week. This year, finger food³ was free, but both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks were user pays (and not just in the sense of my Friday morning experience). Opinions as to whether this was a reflection of the state of the world economy or just a way of trying to avoid some of the worst alcohol-fuelled excesses of the past was split pretty evenly down the middle. Either way, I was resolved to not drinking last night at the party, and stuck to that, although I did have a sneaky beer after returning to the apartment of Adelaidians for some further Linux-based fun.

So, that’s LCA for another year. I heard it described earlier in the week (only semi-seriously, it has to be said) as a second Christmas for geeks, and I think there’s a grain of truth in that — as ever, I had a great time. Next week it’s back to Perth to prepare for India and Sri Lanka, about which I’ll probably pop up a blog post in the next few days ($DEITY knows, this one’s long enough already).

And finally: hey, I avoided hospital! Hooray!

1. That link will work if they ever find out where their Web server is physically located to find it.
2. OK, it was hard to be shocked when I’d known well before the event, but congratulations to the Wellington folks anyway. I had the pleasure of sitting with the Ruthvens at the Penguin Dinner, and they’re a thoroughly lovely family who I’m sure are going to do a great job running the conference. Plus, I just can’t wait to go back to New Zealand.
3. I think I’ve ranted about this before, but I’ll do so again: if you’re going to have an event with lots of alcohol being drunk — especially one starting pretty much straight after the day’s conference programme — not serving a proper meal seems a bit irresponsible to me. There was plenty of finger food, which helped a lot, but I was still hungry enough for pizza afterwards, and I just wonder how that dovetails in with the idea of responsible service. At least the UpDNS had plenty of barbecued goodness.

More tomorrow.

Last night, after the Penguin Dinner, I watched Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. As an Australian, it’s obviously of limited direct import to me, yet it was inspiring to watch his skills in oration and rhetoric in action.

Of course, Obama will ultimately be judged on how he performs over the next four or eight years, not for the quality of his speeches, just as our presenters here are judged on their deeds more than their words. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing a number of talks by people who have backed up their words with actions, which is one of the things I like best about LCA — you’re listening to and watching the people who have actually created the things they talk about, for the most part, and who can talk with real authority on the matter. The Django tutorial was a great example of this, with Jacob being able to talk not only about how to use Django, but also how it works and why some of the design decisions appear to have been made with journalists in mind (well, basically because they were). Django’s something I’d wanted to find out more about for some time, and I’m really looking forward to using it now.

Before moving onto the aforementioned dinner, it would also be remiss of me not to mention Thomas’s talk on (really) remote management. A sign of how engaging that talk was is that even though I have little interest in the hardware and electronic side of things (which the talk was largely about), I was thoroughly entertained for 50 minutes.

Especially the repeated references to cow-related problems.

So, the Penguin Dinner. The food was outstanding and probably the best buffet I’ve had, the company great, and the amount of money raised for research into saving the Tasmanian Devil quite remarkable. Which is likely to also describe how Bdale will look after he’s been shaved by Linus.

If I have a complaint about the dinner, it’s that the "auction" process is entirely too drawn out for people like myself who don’t have the means to take part. I realise it’s an LCA tradition, but there’s an argument that it’s gone a bit too far in the last few years.

Today, in no particular order: Wikia, Klingon, Inkscape, more coffee.

Well, that was a good day. Start with breakfast and an awesome talk at the Multimedia Miniconf on <video> support; end with Arjen‘s terrific array of curries and Kung Faux. Awesome.

In between, I attended other talks at the Multimedia Miniconf, with Edward Hervey‘s talk on PiTiVi and GStreamer being the other highlight, schemed with Chris about the UpDNS (sign up on the Wiki!), returned a hire car, released a new version of wp-gopher, and shared a couple of pizzas and watched new-to-me Futurama with Adam, all of which was also excellent.

In short: WIN. Looking forward to the conference proper now.