Analysis (Services and Self)

Koan Bremner's view on life as a database and data warehouse professional / addict and non-genetic woman

Saturday, January 29, 2005

"You Rock!" Award #2 - Chuck Cook

Putting this award in its historical context; back in a previous life, i.e. sometime in, I think 2001, I stumbled across an online music service called LAUNCHcast. For me, it was the answer to a prayer, because it helped to fill a gaping void in my entertainment spectrum. At the time, I was renting a flat in the centre of Cambridge, whose external TV aerial was non-functional. At that point, I was living on severely limited disposable income, so couldn't afford to pay for the aerial to be fixed, or to buy an indoor aerial that worked, or pay for cable / satellite to be installed; but, I *did* have broadband internet access, because I needed that to facilitate the limited amount of professional work my declining health permitted me to undertake. My domestic media options were therefore limited to the DVDs, VHS and CDs I already owned, the limited selection available for borrowing from the town library... and whatever I could find on the internet.

As I've previously written, I absolutely love discovering and listening to new music (either "new" in the sense of upcoming, undiscovered talent; or "new" as "new to me"). And, satisfying as my personal collection was, it provided no means to discover new music to listen to. In 2000, I was renting a different property further out in the country, and had Sky digital satellite service, which included music channels such as the standard MTV / VHS1 fare, as well as Q Interactive and Kerrang! TV; between the latter two channels, I'd discovered a host of new artists to enjoy that year. Now, I didn't even have access to those.

And then I found LAUNCHcast. It was a streaming music site, which was not a particularly noteworthy characteristic, even back then; no, the true magic of LAUNCHcast stemmed from the fact that it learned about your tastes as you listened to the music it played, *if* you rated the songs in the simple player application. Each song, album or artist could be rated from 0 to 100 (or even marked as "never play this song / album / artist again"); you could choose or rate entire genres or sub-genres of music (so, for me, independent or industrial rock got a high rating, whereas dance music was way down!); you could create "moods" which would focus on particular styles of music to match your mood at the time; and it was all *free*. The more you used the service, the better it got.

So, in an average hour, I might expect to get a selection of songs I'd specifically rated in the past; or songs which I hadn't specifically rated, but from albums or artists which I *had* rated (and the higher the rating I'd given them, the more likely / frequently those items would play). Which was all great, as far as it went, but wasn't really a step forward from what I could achieve with a personal rated library in, say, RealJukebox or Windows Media Player. No, the real value-add was the percentage of time in the hour when LAUNCHcast would make suggestions of tracks for me to listen to, *and explain the basis on which that suggestion was being made*; e.g. "you've previously rated songs by this artist", "you've rated music in this genre" or "suggested by LAUNCHcast". I interpreted the latter as meaning, "the record company is paying us to plug this artist, so here it is"; but the service was free to the user, so I didn't have an issue with that. After all, if I didn't like what was suggested, I could rate it down, or permanently exclude it from my "station", i.e. the database of my personal musical preferences. And now we get the absolute jewel in the crown of LAUNCHcast at that point; while a particular track was playing, I could see a selection of other LAUNCHcast listeners who'd also rated that song; LAUNCHcast would tell me that "people who rated songs you've rated also rated this song", i.e. fuzzy associations were used to suggest new stuff for me to listen to; I could even choose to listen to *their* station for a while (i.e. the musical choices would be based on *their* preferences, but I could rate the songs suggested and they would help to fine-tune *my* preferences and station).

It probably sounds more complicated than it was; it was absurdly simple to use, yet the more you used it, the better it got. I was so enthused by the service that I made a post espousing its many benefits in a newsgroup I frequented at the time (a private newsgroup for Microsoft Certified Trainers, or MCTs, which, at that point, I was); and in reply came a post from Chuck Cook, an MCT based in Houston whom I then associated with erudite and scholarly posts on networking topics. It turned out that he (and his wife Phaedra) were avid LAUNCHcast users too; I checked out their stations; you guessed it, ChuckCook (and PhaedraCook) rocked! :-) (So did a station called CrispyChicken; I know nothing about the person behind that station, and undoubtedly never will, but I can tell you, CrispyChicken rocked too, in my opinion.)

And then, one day, the lights went out at LAUNCHcast... and when they came on again, a few months later, Yahoo had bought out the service; and what remained was a shadow of its former self. It made no sense to me, at all. Why buy a cracking service and then emasculate it? Well, I never worked it out; but Chuck did, and has recently blogged about it. Since he's done such an excellent job describing the political machinations that absolutely destroyed the service, I won't paraphrase his words, but recommend that you check out his post if this subject interests you. Check out his entire blog, "Bitspitter", if you're interested in computer networking (Ryan, this one's for you!)

So, why is Chuck a recipient of the second, money-can't-buy (and absolutely valueless!) "You Rock!" award? Well, partly because his original LAUNCHcast station helped me discover lots of good music I might otherwise not have heard; but mainly because in the post I just mentioned, he describes Last.fm, a new site which sounds like it has captured the spirit of what LAUNCHcast used to be and could have been. For pointing me towards Last.fm, Chuck gets the award.

Chuck; you rock!

(Gratuitous technology ramble alert)

Chuck's post makes the point that one of the biggest assets that got lost in the LAUNCHcast reshuffle (and in similar episodes in other situations) is the carefully-compiled metadata about musical preferences; in an ideal world, that metadata would be exportable and importable into other applications. This strikes me as a stand-out candidate for some descriptive XML schema (maybe such a schema already exists); combine that with something like XFN and / or Attention.XML, we'd have an open and distributed model of personal tastes *and* weighted references from people whose tastes the individual places some value on.

Hey, it's just a thought; what else am I supposed to do at, oh, 3.10 am on a Saturday morning?

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Friday, January 28, 2005

"You Rock!" Award #1 - Steven Garrity

683.1 MB, 11.6 hours of absolute listening pleasure... that's what my freshly-burned CD of the first eighteen sessions of Steven Garrity's outstanding podcast "Acts of Volition Radio" equates to, in my opinion. Steven's shows follow the format I aspire to for VoiceOver, i.e. he plays a selection of music, with commentary in between the tracks about why he's chosen them. Most of the shows have a loose theme, e.g. live versions, name-dropping... even Session Seventeen, the Christmas session, features a quirky selection of tracks that didn't offend a Christmas curmudgeon like me. He's based in Canada, and there is a strong emphasis on Canadian bands and artists in his selection; which I have no problem with at all. I love discovering music I haven't heard before, and there are some absolute gems amongst his selections that I probably wouldn't have heard otherwise, but have now sent me scurrying to internet CD stores to see if I can find more of their offerings. (Note to the RIAA: that means that CD sales are going *up* as a result of podcasting, not down.) If I have a personal favourite among the shows, I think it is Session Sixteen; but they're all great. The CD now lives in my car; and I look forward to compiling a Volume Two as Steven continues to record new shows.

Steven... you rock!

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Thursday, January 27, 2005

I'm a morning person, but this is ridiculous...

I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll ever sleep consistently again. As I begin to type this, it's 3.05am, I've already been up an hour, and was awake in bed for half an hour before that. Honestly, I've got beyond worrying about it, and now laugh about it. There's no obvious reason why I *should* be awake; I'm not worrying or brooding about anything, I don't have any physical ailments that would wake me up; I'm really at a loss to explain it. It worries me in one particular respect, though; if I need to travel (i.e. drive or ride my motorbike) anywhere, I need to know that I'm going to be alert enough to travel *back* safely.

For example, I need to go into the office today and tomorrow. I really needed to be in the office for the last couple of days, but my car Lottie had other ideas (her hydraulic clutch decided to jam either in gear or out of gear; fortunately, she's still under warranty so it was an inconvenience rather than an expense). I could have ridden Cruella in; but the weather for the last few days has been the wrong side of iffy for two-wheel travel (constant threats of snow and ice which could have led to me getting in to work but not being able to get home again). Now Lottie's repaired, I have a server I need to be in the office to build so that I can then access it remotely, I have at least three colleagues I need to spend some face-to-face time with; for me, the ideal solution would be to go into the office *now*, do a typical working day and then come home again before I collapse from exhaustion over the steering wheel. But, since my body clock is completely out of sync with my colleagues, I'd be thinking about heading home before they've even had their morning cuppa! :-)

Maybe I need to work remotely for an Australia-based company; that way, I'd be awake and working (here) at the same time as they're awake and
working there. ;-) At which point my body clock would probably revert to daylight hours over here, just to be annoying!

Actually, thinking about it, I can see the attraction of going in to the office now. I can get the server built without needing anyone else to be there, then I can get together with my colleagues as early as is convenient for them, once they're in; and then I'm going to come home before I get exhausted. Sounds like a plan to me!

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Monday, January 24, 2005

The quintessential electrified LART

For those who don't recognise the term, LART is an acronym for "Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool"... which probably doesn't help much if you don't know that luser is sysadmin-speak for a combination of user / loser / clueless user; and you're probably still in the dark if you don't know that sysadmin is a contraction of "system administrator"... this could go on ad infinitum! So, let's cut to the chase. (Warning; some of the remainder of this post may make you squirm, especially if you're male.)

Traditionally, sysadmins have used LARTs to effect a gentle re-education (either when such action is called for, or when they just plain feel like it) of recalcitrant, intransigent or plain TAPS users. Now, I have no need for a LART in my professional capacity; my colleagues are exceptionally talented. Outside of work, however, there is a particular class of luser that is guaranteed to make my blood boil; typically, they reveal themselves by making statements such as "gender dysphoria does not exist", or "gender reassignment surgery is just cosmetic surgery", or "if someone wants to mutilate themself, that's their business, but public funds shouldn't be wasted on providing surgery for such individuals"; that kind of thing.

I have nothing against people holding different opinions to my own; I absolutely welcome it. I love a good, informed, intelligent debate; and will readily admit it when I'm proved wrong, and have changed my views on key issues more than once, when presented with compelling evidence and / or arguments to support such a move. But, you see, I have a distinct advantage when it comes to discussing gender dysphoria with others; since I *have* it, I absolutely know that it exists, and what it feels like. I know it exists. I know what it can do to the person who has it; and to the people around the person who has it. So I feel reasonably justified in getting a little irate when some people express sentiments along the lines of those I paraphrased in the previous paragraph. They fall squarely into my personal definition of "lusers".

I've wondered, on more than one occasion, how I might convince such a person of what gender dysphoria does to someone; and how much they will endure to correct it. Even I would say that it's unrealistic to expect someone to live, dress and behave a a member of the opposite gender for two years, just to get an appreciation of just a part of what someone like me has to experience in order to achieve an outcome with which we can live. But now I've found the ideal LART; in fifteen minutes, I could lart the sternest luser into a state in which they would be, if not exactly sympathetic of people like me, then at least respectful of what we endure in the quest for an ordinary life.

And what is this LART? Why, the electrolysist's needle. Applied to the hair covering the male genitalia. Trust me on this; fifteen minutes of that and you'll get a quick taster of what someone undergoing male-to-female transition has to look forward to. And when you bear in mind that, in the UK, electrolysis (facial as well as genital) isn't covered by the NHS; and that most people need on the order of nine months' worth of genital electrolysis (weekly sessions of fifteen minutes) prior to surgery, which they will have to fund out of their own pocket; I defy them to look me in the eye and tell me that I'm doing it because I enjoy it, because it's a whim, because I've nothing better to do, or because I'm some kind of head-case.

Yup, fifteen minutes, Mr. Luser; just you, a skilled electrolysist and an electrified needle, inserted into the root of a pubic hair, with sufficient current applied to kill the root (on the one-in-three chance that the root is in the appropriate growth phase). I'll even pay; and I wouldn't want to watch. See, I *know* how much it hurts. I wouldn't derive any pleasure from seeing someone else go through that.

By the same token, neither would I deny essential medical treatment to anyone who needs it; and in the case of gender dysphoria, if the person who has it has tried everything they can to cope with it, short of surgical transition, and failed, then just who is to say that life-saving treatment should not be provided? No less a personage than the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer has stated that, for some transgendered people, surgical reassignment is the only effective treatment; and that the satisfactory outcomes are statistically far higher than for many other similarly invasive procedures which don't arouse such controversy.

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Great inventions of our time - heated hand-grips!

Yes, I went out for a ride; yes, it was cold; but since Cruella, a Honda Deauville (or "dull-ville", as my follicly-challenged Scots biker pal David would call her, despite the fact that he found her for me and convinced me to buy her) has heated hand-grips, a spot of cold air is a mere trifle! The roads were clear, with only a few patches where black ice might have been expected. and opening her up reminded me of why I love riding and, truthfully, despise driving. The route I took wasn't exactly on a par with the Duke's Pass in terms of challenge or scenery, but I still came back with a big grin plastered on my (annoyingly hairy) face.

Today, I have to be in North-West London for 9.00am, a journey I have to make every Monday. Last week, it took me a touch over three hours to make the journey by car, a distance of just over a hundred miles, primarily because of the traffic in the last twenty miles. Lottie (my white Ford Fiesta) keeps me warm and dry, bless her, but is no match for Cruella when it comes to cruising through crawling cars; I think the journey time would have been halved on Cruella. So, ideally, I'd like to ride up today, but the weather forecast is not too promising; according to the BBC's weather site, Sunday night promised "widespread frost in England and Wales... sleet or snow showers in east becoming heavier and giving some accumulation", while for Monday morning, the prospect is "sleet or snow showers persisting in East Anglia and southeast England". Much as I want to ride, even I don't interpret that as a particularly inviting set of riding conditions! Cold and wet weather doesn't bother me, but slippery road conditions (i.e. frost and snow) ought to give any rider pause for thought. The only weather conditions I absolutely hate, though, are strong, gusting winds (especially side-winds). Not fun at all.

So, having got up early in order to check, I think the wise decision is to drive. At least I can listen to a few podcasts on the journey there and back, so there's some compensation!

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Sunday, January 23, 2005

Koan and Cruella

Koan and Cruella
Koan and Cruella,
originally uploaded by Koan Bremner.
The sun is out, and there's not a cloud in the sky. So the open road is calling me to mount Cruella and ride! Mind you, it's not far above freezing, so there's every chance that either the roads will be slippy, or I'll get pretty chilly pretty quickly, or both... and the notion of putting a photo of the pair of us online has also prompted me to finally get a Flickr account.


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Friday, January 14, 2005

Two new Podcasts I thoroughly recommend

One for the technologists; one for the music fans (which makes two if, like me, you're a music-loving technologist!)

Firstly, IT Matters (RSS feed with enclosures), which is a general IT programme covering trends in the industry and in-depth interviews. I've listened to the first two of these, and the audio quality and production values of these is excellent. This is billed as "ZDNet's experimental podcast", and I hope it becomes a fixture rather than a test.

I'll admit another motive for hoping that the IT Matters podcast flourishes; the host, David Berlind, contacted me after hearing Adam Curry play an extended audio comment (about 25 minutes into the show, if you're interested) which I submitted to the 13 December 2004 edition of the Daily Source Code (RSS feed with enclosures) on the subject of content management and metadata integration in podcasts, and we've been exchanging ideas in this area since then. This, to me, is indicative of the community spirit currently prevailing among podcast producers and listeners, and I think it's a really healthy sign that simply listening to another person's podcast can open up new dialogues and generate new ideas.

On the musical side, a post on Robert Scoble's blog led me to The Soundtrack Factory, which is, in my opinion, a fascinating idea; musical soundtracks to unmade films, with the choice of songs moving the story forwards. When I saw that the soundtrack for Cinnamon Girl included Pearl Jam's "Rearviewmirror" (one of my top ten, all-time-favourite songs) and a track by Tool (definitely my favourite band, although the track used, "Cesaro Summability" isn't a particular favourite of mine, but that's just nit-picking) I knew I'd found a (musical) kindred spirit. Enjoy! (There is an RSS feed for the site, but not with enclosures, so podcast fans will have to download the files directly, rather than using iPodder or similar, but that's a minor gripe).

Enjoy!

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Wednesday, January 12, 2005

A change a' coming

I've finally worked out exactly how to migrate this blog from Blogger to Radio in such a way as to a) maximise the utility I hope to achieve from the migration, whilst b) minimising the impact on existing readers / subscribers / listeners to this blog or to VoiceOver. I'm intending to perform the migration this Saturday (15 January) and, unless I've missed a vital step out of the planning, all readers, subscribers and listeners will know automatically exactly what (if anything) they need to do (assuming they want to continue reading / subscribing / listening, of course!)

So, if the site / feed content disappears temporarily, to be replaced with a "watch this space" post / audio file, then the migration is under way; and will be replaced by the migrated content at completion. Please, bear with me while this takes place. Once it's done, I've quite a backlog of new content to put up, so hopefully the wait will have been worthwhile.

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Heads-up

I'm conscious that I wasn't a prolific poster over the holiday period; it's not that I didn't have anything to say (trust me, I've *always* got something to say!) Although I have to admit, the unfolding tragedy of the Indian Ocean tsunami completely derailed anything I'd planned to write. However, I spent the time doing a lot of reflecting on the past year, and planning for this; including mapping out what I want to do with this blog, with my podcast "VoiceOver", and with new technology generally. Now's a good time to summarise the significant personal aspects of 2004.

More than any other year of my life, 2004 could rightly be described as a "year of transition"! ;-) Well over a year after beginning my so-called "real-life experience" (or RLE) in October 2003, I can truthfully say that I have no regrets about walking this path to womanhood. Sure, I still have difficult days; but those days tend to be difficult because of factors which would have applied, even if I were still living as a man. Highlights, from my perspective, include:

February - legally changed name (I'd thought of myself as Koan for so long that it was so satisfying to consign my former name to history, where it belongs);

March - discharged from bankruptcy (the final relic of the consequences of my old life);

April - funeral of much-loved Aunt :-(

June - visited friends in Scotland - this was the first significant occasion on which many people (including young children) who had known me exclusively in my former life met me as I now am; I was truly astounded by how positive and supportive they all were;

July - began hormone therapy (first medical intervention in my transition since beginning RLE nine months previously);

September - hormone dosage increased (my body was coping with the strain of hormone therapy);

October - first appointment with professional hairdresser (from having, effectively, a skinhead in September 2003 to having a reasonably full head of hair, what a relief!); began writing this blog (bringing me personal satisfaction and rewards which I didn't anticipate);

December - initial filming for TV documentary (acknowledging that I have a responsibility to help others in ways that would have helped me); initial speech therapy session (still on the waiting list for NHS treatment, I am finally able to afford to pay for private treatment); first session of "VoiceOver" (which has engaged my interest in an entirely new area of creative and technological possibilities); initial electrolysis consultation (as with speech therapy, I am finally able to afford this privately); hormone dosage increased to maximum (potential scare over liver function in November has subsided).

Personally, quite a year! Professionally, this year has certainly been "feast and famine", with periods of intense productivity punctuated by periods of ineffectiveness. The highlight was definitely shipping the new release of our reporting and analytics product in March, as it marked the first significant contribution of mine to our product line; and there have been numerous other milestones and achievements (which I can't discuss here, frustratingly) in which I take some satisfaction and pride. Conversely, the latter half of 2004 was characterised by personal frustration with significant memory loss and "cloudiness" of thinking; something with which I am still struggling to come to terms. As I've written previously, I've no idea how my colleagues cope with this (better than I'm coping, apparently) but, overall, they seem to, for which they definitely have my thanks.

So, 2005 is here, and will represent (I hope) a year of consolidation. In a sense, I will be "marking time". For example, weekly electrolysis sessions on Monday mornings will kind of cramp my style a little, because I can't shave after Friday (the electrolysist needs a certain amount of hair to work with) as the hormones have slowed down (but not stopped) the rate at which my facial hair grows. I can probably get away with one day's growth without feeling particularly "ugh", but two days' worth is definitely noticeable (so basically I won't be going out much on Sundays). With the exception of World Superbikes weekend at Brands Hatch in July, of course! ;-) On the positive side, it means I'll definitely have the incentive to do more work, both for Exony and on my extra-curricular interests (e.g. podcasting); after all, as long as I don't let the bristles rub against the microphone, who will know I'm sporting stubble?

And there are other personally-significant events upcoming this year, including:

February - makeover / photographic session for new ID (including passport and driving license); this to be filmed as part of my participation in the TV documentary series (which I now understand will air in September) along with my trip to the Passport Office to actually *get* my new passport;

Early 2005 - roll out and bed in my new voice in public (yes, my long-suffering colleagues will get the "benefit" of this first, and probably very soon);

October - approval for gender reassignment surgery;

Late 2005 / Early 2006 - the surgery itself.

To be honest, I'll be happy if this is a relatively uneventful year. Saying which has probably put the kiss of death on *that*! :-)

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