Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 15:44:08 JST Aral Balkan

   So I’ve been speaking professionally for basically half a century now and I just woke up with a conference anxiety dream. This time, I’m doing the closing keynote at some large festival-like event and there’s a talk right before mine. The conference organiser (who is this Turkish guy who seems genuinely happy I’m there but also entirely overwhelmed) assures me we’ll have time to set up between talks (that alone is my nightmare, I like to have everything set up and leave it there to limit what can wrong). Anyway, long nightmare short, the penultimate talk ends, I’m next to the organiser behind a long crowd of people, and he just starts yelling out to introduce me “And the next speaker… Aral Balkan!” I’m looking at him like “what the fuck?” He’s like “don’t worry, you got this”. That’s when I realise not only is nothing set up but that I have no idea where my bag is with my laptop. So I start frantically searching a maze-like backstage for it as the clock ticks and expectation builds and then I wake up.

   And I don’t even have a fucking talk coming up!

   Yeah, so, good morning… How’s your day going so far? :)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 15:52:48 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Nathan Lövsund 🐒 🚀

     @nlovsund Indeed :)

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Lövsund 🐒 🚀 (nlovsund@mastodon.acc.sunet.se)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 15:52:49 JST Nathan Lövsund 🐒 🚀

     in reply to

     @aral Brains, amirite? :frog_sip:

   • Embed this notice
     jlin (jlin@fosstodon.org)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 15:55:04 JST jlin

     in reply to

     @aral ooops what happened next? hopefully all the participants were understanding of the stress of the stage.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 15:55:04 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • jlin

     @jlin No idea, I woke up :)

   • Embed this notice
     Russell Garner (rgarner@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 17:09:40 JST Russell Garner

     in reply to

     @aral

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 17:09:40 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Russell Garner

     @rgarner Love it 😂

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 18:01:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • highly principled invertebrate

     @BrahmaBelarusian Oh no, sorry to hear it. Reynaud’s?

   • Embed this notice
     highly principled invertebrate (brahmabelarusian@todon.eu)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 18:01:37 JST highly principled invertebrate

     in reply to

     @aral oh I've given a few similar impromptu "talks" lol ... So much of what I've been involved in through the years having been so messily organized....

     Pretty typical day & week so far for me, which is to say nothing in sensation in my hands, wrists, feet nor most of my lower legs during said week, which is why I'm looking forward to warmer weather, knowing I won't really get it for a while yet.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 18:09:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Ivor Hewitt

     @ivor Best of luck with the preparation :) What’s the talk about?

   • Embed this notice
     Ivor Hewitt (ivor@social.ivor.org)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Feb-2025 18:09:26 JST Ivor Hewitt

     in reply to

     @aral Better than yesterday where I spun around to hold open a door for someone and threw my latte everywhere.
     But this morning, also trying to get my lighting sorted as a distraction for a talk I'm doing (first one) next week - so starting to worry/panic about that.
     otherwise... all good! 👍😁

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 13-Feb-2025 15:54:00 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Ivor Hewitt

     @ivor Nice :) Break a (virtual) leg :)

   • Embed this notice
     Ivor Hewitt (ivor@social.ivor.org)'s status on Thursday, 13-Feb-2025 15:54:01 JST Ivor Hewitt

     in reply to

     @aral opesource hardware monthly 'show and tell' -
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPOOaPATvMc going to talk about my GPS board.