Post-University Life

It would seem that this will be the summer of barbecues because of the amount of meat leftover from last night. With a friend, we went over to France and bought four kilos of meat, a nice little quantity. Too much for two friends to eat in one sitting but that’s what happened last night. Out of curiosity I wanted to see whether a Facebook invite to a barbecue would be enough, in Switzerland to have a party and it appears it wasn’t. As a result of this, I have a kilo of sausages and a kilo of chicken leftover to enjoy but there’s no way I’m going to get through that in one sitting so I’m going to have a series of barbecues over the next two or three days.

Since I finished my dissertation my biggest time sink has been listening to podcasts. For some reason, I download the entire series of podcasts and work through them one at a time until there are no more. It’s a way of relaxing. It’s also a way of getting information quite easily. In London, I hardly ever leave home without the iPod whilst in Switzerland due to my driving I can’t listen to podcasts when traveling by car. When it’s on foot however I can. I found a loop that I do that’s about an hour’s walk and if I chose to I can make that loop last a shorter or longer amount of time depending on which paths through the fields I’ve chosen. Over the past few walks, the rain started falling onto me but it was warm enough and the rain so weak so as not to inconvenience me. During this podcast listening, I’ve learned a lot about technology and the opinions of a team of people. I’ve seen the evolution in attitude between various podcasters. We see the evolution from being fairly new at certain podcast programs to being quite weathered in by the entire process. As a result, the content is more relaxed and feels more familiar. It’s more familiar to me as well. I know these individuals now, as they’ve talked over time. It’s not quite as remote anymore. As I listen to podcasts I’ve started to think that they’re not that innovative. They’re doing what radio did years ago but rather than concentrate on music and other such topics they concentrate on technology and those behind the scenes. In so doing there’s been a shift from a celebrity culture of films and music to one of the bloggers, web developers, and more. We’re in a time when being online is so easy and so normal that everyone is there. Within the past 8 months, Facebook has gone from having two or three of my friends there to over 200. That’s quite a big shift, quite a change. The online world is no longer the realm of the geek. In fact, it would seem that being online is no longer a geeky pastime. I was also thinking about how social networking websites have become the new portals. Remember yahoo, Altavista and others attempting to become portals, the starting point for most people’s web experiences. Now Facebook, at least within my real-life circle of friends, seems to be the most important. Everyone seems to be there now, or almost. How long will Facebook remain popular?

Internet addiction and e-mail addiction should have gone the way of the polaroid years ago. Why are there several news sources claiming that people are addicted to e-mail? That’s like claiming that people are addicted to toilet paper or using a pen when writing on paper. It’s a question of practicality and it’s already an out of date claim. Who still writes e-mails when you can send a pm, write on someone’s wall or send out bulletins. Most of those reading this post will understand what I mean. When’s the last time you sent an e-mail? Hotmail has been replaced by Facebook and myspace. Why would you use old fashioned technology like e-mail when Facebook and myspace are more practical. There’s no spam, there’s no spending twenty minutes looking for the names and addresses. It’s a pointless article that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the new online communication channels. There are so many to be used, whether for photo, audio, video, or other. As an afterthought, it’s a bunch of statisticians having fun with numbers. Why don’t they do polls like the one I did, why don’t they give some theory behind the article? I haven’t even read the article, skimming was enough for my prejudice for such an article to form. Get the early adopters to write and explain the relevance of such statements, not the computer illiterate. I want the skills I have learned through my media tech and society module to be used. “Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’ame” or in this context, “stats without analysis are no more than a waste of time”. ;)

Through technology such as that available on Facebook, video sharing has become quite a bit easier. Whereas on a website like youtube where you share video footage with the world on Facebook you select who you share your videos with. There are three settings, share with everyone on your network, including all friends, share with everyone who is tagged in the videos and their friends, or simply restrict it to your friends. I particularly like the option to share between your friends and the friends of tagged friends because it’s so flexible. we don’t have the same friends so it’s a good method by which to distribute videos, best of all it’s free. Another feature that’s interesting is key frames. You can cycle through up to ten screenshots of your video and find the frame you feel is best suited to illustrate the video. It’s as easy to select a frame as to when you’re sharing a website with your network. I have run into a number of limitations. The video must be under ten minutes in duration and 200 megabytes in size. Keep in mind that the video will be converted to the FLV format which can be read on almost all browsers. I’ve uploaded seven videos already and so far the interface has behaved well. I managed to upload a 50+ megabyte video but due to its length being too long the software complained. I also tried to upload an iPod format video and it complained as well so that’s something I think they should work on. It’s not going to replace the broadcast machine interface I’ve installed on my website but it’s a good method by which to share amateur videos between friends and for those who would like to do it professionally to showcase some of their better work. Two additional video options are uploading by mobile phone and recording from your webcam. The recording from webcam is a feature that’s interesting if you’re in a public place with your laptop and you’re uploading video of specific events. I’ll try uploading video from the mobile phone at a future date. As I see it this is yet another strong feature that has been added to Facebook and unlike the fortune cookies, I like software and others this is something that helps promote the imagined and real communities I discussed in a recent essay. (That essay will be uploaded once it’s been moderated properly). I’m going to take some time to convert and upload quite a few more videos to Facebook over the coming weeks and months.

Today I went to film some friends playing a gig by the lakeside in Nyon and it was a great occasion. The sun was shining, the air temperature was good and many people that I had not seen in many years were present. The shoot involved two cameras. One was at the back as a safety shot whilst I got the fun camera at the front. There was one electric guitar, one acoustic, and one bass. There was also a drum kit and a synthesizer.  The music was good but I forgot my hearing protection so I had a slight ringing by the end of the event… all in a day’s work. I managed to get the whole concert filmed without getting tired which is great. I’ve been using the camera I used for the past 7 years so it’s normal I’m so comfortable with it. I watched the footage and I’m happy with it. It’s good, a nice variety of shots, switches at the right moment from the key instrument to the next. Bart Simpson was sitting on the drum kit and then got to dance with a girl who was meant to sing, the only problem is the sound engineer didn’t make her mic loud enough. It’s normal since they didn’t take enough time to prepare everything before having the gig go live. I’ve captured all the video footage and it’s ready to be compressed and uploaded to Facebook. I’ve actually annoyed them and got a “You recently uploaded a video to Facebook, and it could not be processed because it was too long.” message. hehe, that’s normal for me. I’m uploading those videos to the video section of my website and they’ll be available on the RSS feed within the next few days. I need to count about two hours of processing per video clip unfortunately. With the Macbookpro I’m waiting for it should be faster. Today was in some respects a perfect day and I’d like more of them to be like this.

Today I passed an order through the online apple store and within a number of weeks I should get one of the top of the range machines and I’m really looking forward to it. The Ram isn’t maxed out but that’s because I’m going to upgrade that from an other distributor from whom I can get it cheaper. I’m also getting final cut studio 2 and that should be a great convenience for learning how to use all the software I need for professional purposes. I’m impatient for it now but it’s going to take time to come so I have to be patient… need to find something to distract me for a period. I’ve had an editing system at home which started with Adobe premiere 4.5 and the miro dc30+ and a hi8 camera, upgraded to a PC7 camera for a trip to Tanzania in 2000. That’s when I was editing on the DHR 1000 editing deck where I learned a great deal about tape to tape editing. From there I upgraded to Premiere 5.0, 5.1 and on before giving up on Windows editing. In 2003-4 I upgraded to the Ibook with FCP which worked far better than anticipated. Now I’m waiting for my most recent editing system. Over the years I’ve seen a great change in equipment and the price. As I was at school working on Hi8 it took several years before I was able to edit the footage I had shot. Editing systems could cost thirty thousand swiss francs per BetaSP decks. Now it’s gone down in price and people get a nice home setup. I’m looking forward to it.

it’s vacation time are words that were uttered at the end of a long night in crete back in 2000. They were uttered by an older guy who was with a group of us as we watched the sun rise. Those words always stuck in my mind.

On Wednesday I’m flying back to Switzerland although it’s a one way ticket. During that time I could work on re-editing some old footage and uploading it since people are finally welcoming it with open browser windows.

Checking through my pockets this morning I found that £30 are still there in cash. That’s quite surprising when you take into account that last night’s mission was to drink the bar dry. Obviously I did not contribute to this as greatly as was initially anticipated. It was another night of relative madness. It was a night that involved getting to the bar around four or five in the afternoon and chatting to many people and listening to many others. It was a night where people trickled in until it closed at 3 am. During this time sambuca shots were drunk, people partied and others argued. The fire was the final part of the night. At this point, I was in bed for the second time that morning sleeping my way into today. They got the police to come to the fire and one person was even taken by car around the building and released. This was simply to scare everyone into behaving themselves. It was probably amusing to see all the conspiratorial drunks spreading rumours and insults at this point. The wake-up call was quite original today, a fire alarm. The last halls fire alarm I will ever hear and I can honestly say it’s not going to be missed in any way shape or form. To all those whom I partied with over the past three years, it’s been both a pleasure and an honour. See you around.

Most of the rooms are empty and cars are parked everywhere. That’s because today is the penultimate day of halls and everyone is leaving. Tomorrow at 10am all rooms should have been evacuated for the cleaning services to come and prepare the rooms for the summer groups. It feels like me like waiting for a plane, everything is packed and there’s not much to do until tonight’s party. The bedroom is cleaned and stuff is packed. It’s pretty quiet, many people leaving, everything is finished now. I’m looking forward to living in a more diverse part of London which will serve as a base for my job seeking. It’s going to be nice when, tomorrow, I have moved in to my new flat properly.

Last night was the first night of many that I will spend at my new flat. At the moment I’ve got two flats in London which is a luxury. I need to move in properly on Saturday morning after a heavy night of partying we’ll see how it is. What I’ve noticed so far is a fast internet connection ranging from 600 Kbs to slower speeds for extended periods of times and that’s even when I’m two floors above the hub. I’m within short walking distance of a number of shops like Sainsbury’s, a 24hr McDonald’s and more. It’s also on the 29 bus route and is close to many things of which I have to investigate the matter further. We’ll see how other nights will be.