Nice one!! Thanks, Shripal
On Apr 1, 2017, at 1:11 AM, Alex Balashov <abalashov at evaristesys.com> wrote:
(Filed by UC Celeb Talk - 1 Apr 2017.)
BERLIN (Tegel), GERMANY--In the now-infamous breakdown episode on the VIP tarmac at Berlin's Tegel Airport, Alex Balashov shocked the IP telecoms celebrity world last month.
Shielding his eyes from the punishingly bright daylight of an overcast day in northern Germany, Balashov climbed out of his Gulfstream G650 jet, clutching a half-finished bottle of Woodford Reserve, and announced his sudden retirement from the "fast life" of open-source SIP consulting to a waiting gathering of tech business reporters.
"I'm not with this 'live fast, die young' VoIP s*** anymore," he reportedly shouted, before collapsing and vomiting profusely on the red carpet.
UC Celeb Talk's own Benjamin Brant sat down with Balashov in an exclusive interview to learn more about what happened, even as the telecoms industry continues to digest the shock meltdown.
--
BRANT: Everyone's dying to know, what was going through your head at that moment?
BALASHOV: Funny how you mention dying. I want to live to see 35, man. I can't handle the SIP biz anymore.
BRANT: What do you mean? You seemed to have all the makings of an open-source SIP superstar.
BALASHOV: I can't keep up with the drinks anymore, the three day-long parties, the paparazzi, always watchin' my back at ClueCon...
BRANT: When'd you realise it might be time to call it?
BALASHOV: I'll tell you when. It was Kamailio World '16. Man, those vodka + Club Mate drinks they pour down at Fokus are something else. They'll really get you thinking about things.
BRANT: So you had a cocktail and thought better of your entire life as a SIP celebrity? The fans, the adulation, the glory?
BALASHOV: When you wake up at 3 PM at the Park Inn on Alexanderplatz with a $31,000 room service bill on your AMEX, a goat wandering around, and reporters in your face, you tell me with a straight face you're not gonna take stock of your life and make some changes.
BRANT: That really happened?
BALASHOV: That's what I'm trying to tell you! That's Kamailio World, dude. That's the SIP software engineering culture. You wanna ITSP and WebRTC? You're gonna have to bro down!
BRANT: Surely not everywhere. What about the IETF?
BALASHOV: Those guys drink more than ANYONE. Have you seen the SIP Outbound RFC?
BRANT: That's the work-product of an alcohol-fuelled creative orgy?
BALASHOV: It's the work product of something-something. I don't know if I'm allowed to identify the uh, substance in question.
BRANT: How are you going to live without the private jet? If I had a G6, I wouldn't just turn over the keys.
BALASHOV: Yeah, I mean, open-source VoIP consulting has its upsides. It's a fine way to make a living. But it's just not worth it. Besides, hourly operating costs are through the roof.
BRANT: But you were an icon, and quite a ladies' man too! How do you walk away from that?
BALASHOV: Look man, of course women are gonna mob you when you're a SIP consulting star. That's just part of the open-source tech life in general.
But it's fake, man. They don't love you. They don't want to know who you are inside. They just want you 'cause you know all about the SIP transaction state machine, loose vs. strict routing, cross-compiling Kamailio. They just got a crush on you 'cause you know presence and parallel forking race conditions. I want something real.
BRANT: But that's part of the social bargain of being an open-source SIP celebrity. Didn't you once boast of having uh, lady friends, "in different geographic and non-geographic operator codes"?
BALASHOV: Yeah, and that's cool, but I want to come home to a woman who loves me for me, not Mr. 3...
... 02, Moved Temporarily, but not happy necessarily. Feel me?
BRANT: What happened at ClueCon?
BALASHOV: You talking about the bullets Acme Packet ventilated me with?
BRANT: Five of them, as I heard.
BALASHOV: Well I'm still standin'. Took those shots and smiled.
BRANT: I know you guys have a kind of omert? about this stuff, but I've got to ask: why?
BALASHOV: I ain't worried, kids growing up in today's world need to learn the truth.
They act like I was dealing transcoding licences on their block. O.G. 729.
BRANT: But that wasn't what gave you a wake-up call that the SIP game is sharper than a razor blade?
BALASHOV: Hell no, it wasn't their block. That fake-ass east coast channel partner crew can cash me outside howboudah?
BRANT: How exclusive is Kamailio World?
BALASHOV: It's one of the most exclusive clubs I've ever hit up. Lines wrapping around blocks. And the bouncers. Damn.
BRANT: The bouncers?
BALASHOV: Those dudes are harsh.
BRANT: On a scale of 1 to Berghain, how bad is it?
BALASHOV: All I know is, one time some squirrely guy in the audience asked a moderately new-blood question like, "If a Record-Route header has been added by an intermediate proxy, is it proper of a SIP User Agent to populate the Request URI of subsequent in-dialog requests with the Record-Route URI, or should it be the remote Contact?"
Half the room got up like it was ready to curb-stomp that little face. Guy didn't know what he got himself into--a room full of elites.
BRANT: So what happened?
BALASHOV: Someone was like, "Bounce this fool! He don't know how to act."
So these three muscular Kaiser Wilhelm-looking dudes--moustaches and all--in sunglasses roll up and drag this guy through the Atrium, out the doors and dump him straight out onto Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Stra?e.
BRANT: Damn. Ejected out of the saloon.
BALASHOV: Yo, that dude was dismissed from the premises.
BRANT: So what do you see in your future post-SIP life?
BALASHOV: I'm thinking about starting a bakery. A friend threw it out there as a way to kind of atone for all this and get straight with Jesus. Gonna bake really big cookies. You know, huge ones, like small pizzas? But recognise--they're actually cookies.
BRANT: Got any advice for those who bright young upstarts who haven't turned over a new leaf and thrown in the towel yet?
BALASHOV: Come on down to Kamailio World #5, May 8-10 2017 in Berlin. You'll see your life in a new way.
Registration and more information online at https://www.kamailioworld.com/k05/ _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops