Out of Hacktion

This piece, the second on Hacktionlab, was supposed to have been written on Sunday, but that didn’t happen through a combination of circumstances, so it’s being scribbled first thing on Tuesday morning following the return home of Bristol Wireless’ final site tat-down crew yesterday afternoon.

My last post ended as Saturday’s lunch was arriving. Following that all the hacktivistas were treated to workshops from Bristol Wireless’ finest – Lloyd on routing, wifi and 12 volt power systems, then Mike on audio and video streaming.

Supper soon arrived and a fine evening’s entertainment commenced with Hamish’s death-defying vegetable juggling act. As dawn started brightening the eastern sky on Sunday, a few souls were still up partying…

Sunday arrived all too soon with an accompaniment of occasional showers and the most difficult workshop of all – the settling your bar tab one! 😉 That done, it was down to the easy stuff – transferring video footage from mobile phones to a computer and then editing video using free software.

Mid-afternoon and the time for goodbyes came all too quickly and by suppertime, all that was left of Hacktionlab was 5 souls, including 3 of Bristol Wireless’ advance crew, now re-assigned to the rearguard detailed to strip down the temporary infrastructure and return the barn and camping field to their former agricultural role. We were finally off site at about 2 pm on Monday and unloading back at the lab in St Werburghs an hour or so later. A fine weekend – and a good one – had finally finished.

Many thanks to the good folks at Highbury Farm for being such congenial hosts and for the fine food. If anyone has some decent pictures and doesn’t mind them being used for the Highbury Farm website, please get in touch with them by sending an email to highburyfarm (at) hotmail.com.

Finally, here’s where to find some other Hacktionlab media elsewhere on t’interweb:

• Szymon’s Flickr photos;
• Video workshop, as edited with kdenlive.