Currently in the deep-frier:

ElixirConf EU talk
- Delivered the prototype talk at Elixir Community Kraków and I think it went well (José told me so 😊)
- Now to redo everything before ElixirConf EU?
Video update:
- Re-recorded all the broken bits. The video is in editing and I'll review a cut today I hope. Hopefully releasing next week. The return.
I think I know what the next video is about. Time to write a script.
Prepare a lecture/workshop for the local .Net school about Functional Programming. Think I'll use Livebook and just host one on Fly.

Recent publishing

José Valim on all the things he does

This was a great conversation with the creator of Elixir. Great fun to have him on the show and talk about how he does things and not only what is currently cracking. Hope y'all enjoy.

We actually have some additional episodes in editing right now that will make for an absolutely ridiculously good series of conversations and episodes. Subscribe to the podcast feed so you don't miss out.

Link: BEAM Radio, Episode 48

About Distributed Systems

We talk about distributed systems. Arguably we don't know enough to talk about them but that's what makes it a conversation among friends.

Link: Regular Programming, Episode 37

Live in Kraków

I was just on the Elixir Community Kraków meetup, remotely, and gave a presentation. The meetup keeps an archive of presentations. The audio was screwy on their end initially, fair warning it gets fixed to full fidelity (and loudness) a bit into the talk. I'm followed by another talk and a Q&A with José that I haven't had a chance to watch yet.

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Punching above your weight

I am coming down off of giving a talk so my nerves are quite tingly and I'm tensing and relaxing all at the same time. Not used to giving talks but so far I've enjoyed the remote ones I've done and I look forward to trying the real thing at ElixirConf EU.

Both at ElixirConf Africa and this Kraków meetup I've gotten kind some fun responses about my talks. It hasn't been about the content. It has been more about the form. And that's okay. The way I've done both of this is that the form is a large part of the content of the talk. I've sweated the details of certain things and I've tried to make the remote nature of the presentation something .. special.

None of my talks have been exceptional in technical content. But they seem to have been interesting enough to listen to and hopefully inspirational. I would say the tech is intermediate-level. And it is not the whole point of the talk.

Having a point-of-view, an idea, an angle is incredibly valuable. Not just in talks but in my consulting, in my writing, in anything I do. Giving a damn, even when the thing I'm doing is not revolutionary, is a key to punching above your weight-class in my eyes.

I was recently asked for some behind-the-scenes and I can at least share some of how I set up for this presentation. I hope the viewers enjoyed my over-the-top lighting. I did.

This was achieved by a bright blueish light on a stand right next to me. On my desk you can see I touched up the orange light with a little light as the decorative bulb next to the seat doesn't really produce a ton of light. Not in the picture is an Elgato Keylight. I found it was enough so I didn't drag out the big lightbox umbrella thing.

Looking straight at the camera was done by putting my camera in the way of my screen. I didn't need to see the middle of it. My notes were on the side and it probably showed that I needed to read from them a fair bit but my teleprompter would have been a bit unwieldy. Practice time was limited due to stomach flu in the family. I'd have loved to be less note-bound.

The stick in the upper right corner is my shotgun mic. I ended up running the talk with headphones to ensure I heard the organizers. I should have bothered to set up a bluetooth earbud honestly. Minimize the sense of teleconference.

Camera positioning with an Elgato flexible arm. If I was using OBS virtual camera I could have run with the camera upside down but OBS and Zoom do not play nice together on Linux. So I went right-side up and had a bit more arm in the way. You can also see a curtain in the background. 🤔

When doing specific lighting setups it is nice to be able to control the light. I wanted to go for the blueish light and all. These blinder curtains were put together by my wife and we've installed hooks they go on. They are important when you do a 4 hour video recording and the goddamn sun moves across the sky, or even goes down, leaving your with an ever changing picture between cuts and eventually a very dark picture. Controlling the sun and then adding a bunch of light is the name of the game.

I had spent weeks working on the code and thinking about the content and form of the presentation. I spent an hour or two thinking through and setting up this stuff. It was not critical. But I have the gear from video work and I know how to do it. And I enjoy practicing it. Was actually reassuring, calmed the nerves to prep. So put the effort into the important bits first and foremost, then sweat the details you care about. Put some extra spice, heart and care of your particular style into what you do.

Gear list:

Camera: Sony ZV-1 (on an Elgato flex arm thingy)
Capture: Elgato Cam Link 4K
Keylight: Elgato Keylight (on a triple-arm Ulanzi stand)
Blue light: Some Godox light stick thing (on a generic light stand, came bundled)
Orange light: Aputure MC
Microphone: Sennheiser MKE600 (on the triple-arm Ulanzi stand)
Audio interface: Scarlett Focusrite 2i2

Is it all just set dressing? Do you prefer a basic talk full of hard science? Do you also want to be an amateur TV station? Feel free to email or federate at me via lars@underjord.io or as @lawik@fosstodon.org.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your attention.