Finally getting my s$%# together

Narrowing the focus and ramping up the pressure.

Finally we got a projector installed at Atma. I can't believe it took me so long to do it. It's actually verging on criminal negligence on my part. I first started using a digital projector to present Krishna Consciousness in 1998. Ten years later, we finally install one.

Dominic, the stage manager of Indradyumna Swami's Polish festival tour, came and put it in.

It took Dominic 30 minutes to do it. If I tried to do it, it would take three hours, and would probably end up broken. I'm not being "humble" - five minutes after Dominic left I tried to adjust the ceiling panel, dropped it, and smashed it.

Ceiling mounting bracket: $99 from Harvey Norman.

10m VGA cable (with gold-plated connectors!) - routed through the ceiling and falling behind a curtain. $44 from Jay Car.

Here's the projector in action. It's not as dark as the camera makes it look in the room. It's not a case of turning the lights off and having people stare at a screen. The lights are on, I talk with the people there and the projector provides supporting visual elements, which I cue with my cellphone.

I was amazed that how the technology is "just works (tm)" for me at the moment. I just plugged my eeePC with Ubuntu on it into the projector and PA, fired up my cellphone with amora on it, and away we went.

The technology should be transparent. It should make the message arrive more clearly and more powerfully, not get in the way of the delivery. Having a projector sitting in the middle of the room with a beam of light cutting the room in half and dividing the audience is ridiculous.

With the projector now in the ceiling I can spend less time setting up each week, and focus more time, attention, and energy into the message.

Here's a video:

s$%# in the post title = "self", btw ;-)