(NSW stands for New South Wales, not, in this case “not safe for work”!)
Perhaps my favorite part of the Australia trip was the week we rented an apartment overlooking Newcastle Beach. Going to sleep and waking up to the sound of waves every day, taking walks and exploring tide pools along beautiful beaches, cooking for myself (eating out was a problem, more on that later) – it was all glorious. I need a month of just that, every year.
One thing that amazed me in Australia was the variety of birds, especially parrots, that are common around where people live. And, of course, no Australian yard is complete without a child playing cricket!
Leaving SF on Thanksgiving evening, we flew (via Auckland) to Sydney, rented a car at the airport, and drove to Brendan’s parents’ place near Newcastle, New South Wales. After two days to recover (and a first look around Newcastle), we went back to Sydney. I had never been there (except passing through the airport once), so all the famous sights were new to me.
The Opera House was a bit dingy and yellowish, not its usual pristine white. It may be discolored by soot from the bushfires that devastated nearby areas last October.
I thought the best way to see the inside of the Opera House would be to attend a performance of some sort. At the box office, I swore in astonishment at the coincidence: Leonard Cohen was playing that night – and that night only. Standing room was available, at $198 (Aus) each. Then, as the box office lady was looking at her screen, she exclaimed: “Two seats have just become available, very good box seats, at the same price!” I was sorely tempted, but we had seen Leonard Cohen on the opening leg of this same tour in Oakland, back in February (at about the same price, but sitting down). That concert had fulfilled a longtime dream of mine, and I didn’t need to repeat it.
^ More for the “things that will kill you in Australia” catalog: these colorful fruits of a cycad are poisonous (yes, there was a warning sign).
We visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, which weren’t terribly impressive this time of year (it’s summer, I guess most things have finished blooming), but still a nice walk. Rounding Mrs. Macquarie’s Point, we came upon a group of Chinese tourists laughing, talking, and posing for the usual photos with the Opera House and bridge as a backdrop. I reflected that, in my lifetime, the dominant breed of tourists around the world have been, successively, Americans, Japanese, and now Chinese. Herd behavior seems much the same, only the languages differ.
Hanging out near the group and trying to intermingle were two women of Chinese descent, evidently residents of Australia, carrying large signs in Chinese. One had a line of English translation: “You can leave the Communist Party”.
We did many other things in those first two days in Sydney, most of which involved a lot of walking. We walked across the Sydney Harbor bridge (very windy) and down to the Luna Park on the other side (it was closed). Took the train back, at least!
When you get tired walking around Sydney, it is very easy to find a pub to sit down in and recover with a cold beer. Brendan has long insisted that Australian commercial beers are better than American ones. Australia is now developing a craft beer industry as well, of which I found several tasty examples from James Squire.
As I had discovered back in 2009 in Brisbane, and also applies to Sydney: a good way to see the city while taking a load off your feet is to hop on the commuter ferries. In Brisbane, these ply the river. In Sydney, they go all over the harbor. On the second evening, we enjoyed the half-hour ride from Circular Quay to Darling Harbor, and eventually found dinner at one of its many restaurants.
This is how I currently stream and record live video events such as dtrace.conf, illumos/ZFS Days, the OpenZFS Summit, and many, many more. This setup is subject to change, but it has worked for me for some time, and you may judge the results for yourself at any of the above sites.
UStream Producer Pro. I use the paid version of the software because it supports HD broadcasting, and titles and layers. I may switch to Wirecast, which is the same software with more options on a few things, such as the format in which your recorded video is stored on your local hard disk.
My basic setup has not changed substantially since I wrote this four years ago. You also need a laptop with FireWire input (in my case, a MacBook Pro). I will probably have to change everything soon as my Canon Vixia is getting old. Tape+Firewire models like the Vixia are no longer in production, and Thunderbolt has replaced Firewire on new MacBooks.
1. Open UStream producer, log in.
2. Add Shot for the camera by clicking on the camera icon:
3. The drop-down list should include your camera, ie Vixia.
4. Use Master Layer 2 to create overlays with names and titles for your speakers.
5. Make sure that Record to Ustream and My Computer are both checked in the lower right:
6. Assuming you have set up channels via the UStream web interface, select the channel to broadcast to in the lower left.
7. Ensure that Broadcast Settings (center bottom of UStream window) is set to HD.
8. Click Start Broadcasting and Start Recording. If you also want to record to tape, don’t forget to press the Record button on your video camera (but you don’t have to). If using tape, remember to change it every 60 minutes. This will not affect the broadcast stream or UStream recording, but the tape change will be audible.
9. Open the channel URL in a browser to check the stream – using a second set of earphones on your laptop so you don’t create an audio feedback loop! Note that it is not unusual for the stream to lag up to 15 seconds behind realtime.
