Comments are now closed on this blog; they will be enabled on the migrated version in a day or so

Much as I love receiving comments on this blog... I'm going to close new comments (but leave the exisiting ones visible, in perpetuity). This is to ease the final stages of the blog migration to Radio Userland at http://www.multidimensional.me.uk All of the existing content and comments will be reproduced on the new blog; all I ask is a little forbearance for the next few hours while I finish the task! ;-)

Update 07:05 BST 14 May 2005 - all comments are now closed, and I have put a tombstone notice on each post. Once I've copied the comments across, I'll update each tombstone with the URL of the corresponding post in the new blog. I'm having to fit this furniture-shifting around other matters, so it's taking longer in elapsed time than I'd hoped; c'est la vie!

This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/

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Umm...

The more I travel around the world consulting with public broadcasters, the more I realize that Greg and Karen are truly on the forefront of a new generation of radio. Personal. Risk-taking. Surprising. Everything that radio strives to be, but somehow misses.

And the more I meet people like Chris from Simulacrum (the funniest freakin podcast on the planet!!) and Koan Bremner, the more I realize that folks like this have much to teach radio.

They are re-inventing our medium and breaking all the rules because they dont know what the rules are! As a result, they're producing incredibly compelling radio.

Radio will never, ever, be the same. Its great.

[Via: I Love Radio .org]

Words spoken by someone who doesn't know what he's on about? Not according to the organisations quoted here.

Quite frankly, with everything else that's going on in my life, it's reassuring to learn that other people see a spark of creativity and originality in what I'm trying to do. For once, I'll take a moment to reflect on and savour that thought. Thanks, Tod!

This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/

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RE: CrossOver Session Eight: "Careful with that handshake, Eugene!"

Now online (MP3, 2.2 MB, 9 minutes 25 seconds) - a sneak preview of an upcoming episode of Tod Maffin's /Nerd podcast (which will also air, eventually, on CBC Radio in Canada) and which includes a contribution from yours truly. Tod's original (encoded at a higher bit rate) can be found (for now) here.

Hopefully my cold will soon subside, and I can return to our scheduled programming... ;-)

See the shownotes (HTML, OPML) for relevant links.

[Via CrossOver]

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A heavy cold + electrolysis <> fun

Trust me on this. :-(

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Brain-Dead Bimbo

The combined effect of a streaming head cold (which has left me house-bound since Friday, and annoyingly put paid to my plans to attend a surprise 40th birthday barbecue for one of my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues last night) and a generally reflective mood for the last few days have pretty much rendered my creativity non-existent. So I've taken advantage of this to do, manually, something that I've tried numerous times to do, automatically, over the last few months; i.e. migrate this blog from Blogger to Radio Userland. And the migration is underway...

On the one hand, it's a pretty tedious exercise. But on the other, it's curiously satisfying. The manual process is sufficiently straightforward that I can perform it successfully, post by post, comment by comment, even though I'm feeling lousy. *Doing* the manual process has made clear to me how an automated migration should be done; if I was feeling sharper, I would stop and write the automated tools right now. However, I won't, because a) I'm *not* feeling sharper, b) although more elegant, it would take me longer to write the tools than it will to manually migrate the number of posts in question, and c) because I'd like to use this blog as a showcase for some of the technical stuff I've been working on outside of work for the last few months, *and* because I'd like potential future employers to get a feel for my abilities without my breaching any of my current employer's IPR, I'd like to get this blog migrated and rocking as quickly as possible. So I'll complete the migration manually, hopefully today (but realistically, tomorrow), and *then* write an automated migration solution for the Userland community in a few days.

As a reader of this blog, or listener to one (or both) of my audio shows, you should experience no downside and plenty of upside as a result of this activity. But rather than take the time to explain now what's coming, I'd sooner just do it, and then describe the changes afterwards. As a result, however, I probably won't post much until I'm ready to roll out the changes; and, given that my voice is pretty croaky right now, I won't record any audio shows for a few days. But I have plenty in the pipeline, so please stay tuned! ;-)

Update: 17:39 BST 8 May 2005
For those who are interested in such things, the steps in the migration (and my current status) are as follows:

* Export posts from Blogger to Radio - Done
* Categorise posts in Radio - Done
* Correct internal links and validate / correct external links - Underway
* Export comments from Blogger to Radio - Pending
* Add reverse pointers in migrated posts / comments in Radio to original posts / comments in Blogger - Pending
* Activate Radio blog - Pending
* Update VoiceOver and CrossOver listings in podcast directories - Pending
* Add forward pointers in Blogger posts / comments to equivalent posts / comments in Radio - Pending
* Disable new comments on Blogger - Pending
* Place "tombstone posts" (instructions on what, if anything, a reader needs to do to continue reading) on Blogger - Pending
* Place "tombstone audio files" (instructions on what, if anything, a listener needs to do to continue listening) on VoiceOver and CrossOver - Pending
* Freeze Blogger blogs - Pending
* Roll out new features - Pending (but coming!)

As you might surmise, it's not a trivial exercise; but it can be automated, as far as I can tell, and I'm certainly not the only blogger who wants to be shot of Blogger, so I think it's a worthwhile exercise for the wider community for me to come up with an automation tool set.

As for why I'm doing it this way, it's so that any existing inbound links do not break (yet contain forward pointers to their equivalents in the new blog), and the posts (and especially, the comments) which I've migrated can be verified against the originals. To that end, once the Radio blog is live (which won't be today, because my brain is pretty much toast by now, but I estimate there's only about another day's work required) the existing Blogger blogs will remain; they just won't be added to.

This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/

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Kudos, Microsoft... here, let me shut the stable door for you ;-)

Not that I was too specific, at the time, about *why* I made this post when I did; I'd like to applaud Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, for clarifying the stance that the company will take on legislation in general, anti-discrimination legislation in particular, in the future.

Sadly, this decision is too late to save the Bill that prompted all the furore in the first place... still, sometimes we have to achieve victory in smaller steps, and I view this as a progressive step.

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UK Election Day - Vote!

In my humble opinion, it is the civic duty of every citizen who *has* the vote to *use* their vote; even if their decision is to spoil their paper or otherwise make a conscious, measurable decision to reject all of the availabale candidates. Bring me a reason why you won't vote, and I'll counter with a case why you're hurting nobody but yourself. I've listened to all manner of excuses on the radio over over the last week as to why people aren't going to bother to vote; "my vote won't make a difference"... "they're all as bad as each other"... "I can't be bothered"... sheesh.

Personally, I'm less concerned about *who* you vote for than that you vote at all. JFDI. If you don't, then, in my humble opinion, you have *no* right to bitch and moan when the next Government does something you disagree with. Which they will. But you have a voice, and can use it; vote today, and then hold your Member of Parliament to account for *their* actions, their party leader to account for their *party's* policies, and the Prime Minister accountable for his Government's actions. Writing to any (or all) of them is an enlightening activity; your MP *has* to respond, the others tend to. Make them listen. Dislike democracy? Use the democratic process to campaign for a change to a system you, personally, prefer. Disagree with the voting structure? Campaign to change it.

Too apathetic to cast your vote? You deserve everything you get. In my humble opinion. I'm driving over 400 miles today to make sure my vote gets counted. Because it's my *duty*.

This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/

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... and another door (and era) closes

It strikes me as somewhat ironic that the subject of the panel I'll be participating in at BlogHer ("what happens when you blog your true self and the whole world shows up?") may be about to be lived out in real time. Last week, I made a decision which will certainly affect my life, at least in the short-term. The thing is, I've written about some of the issues leading up to that decision here, in various posts on this blog. I was happy to do so, when I wrote them... and now, part of me says that I might regret having done so. Another part of me (the stronger part) says that all I've ever written here is the truth; and why should I be frightened of the truth, or the consequences that follow from *telling* the truth? At heart, I'm an idealist; maybe, in fact, I've subconsciously engineered a perfect lab experiment to show that "blogging naked" is (for me, at least) the right thing to do. I guess I'm going to find out; apart from anything else, hopefully it will give me even more material to draw on for that panel discussion at the end of July! ;-)

Let me explain. Last week, after more soul-searching than I can ever describe, I decided that the time was right for me to accept the inevitable, take a deep breath, and resign from my present employer, Exony. This was one of the hardest, saddest and most upsetting decisions I've ever had to make; and the days since then have been marked by the passing of more tears than I thought my body could hold. But, it's the right decision, I'm sure; I believe I've achieved a huge amount at Exony (certainly for my sake, and, I hope, for the benefit of the company, my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues, the company's shareholders and the company's customers); but I also believe that I need to move in a different direction. The timing, frankly, is less than perfect (for me, if not for anyone else); I suspect I present a few additional "opportunities" (alright then, challenges) to a potential employer, which other candidates for employment might not; well, that's fine; in an interview, and on examination of my work and references, I'll let my skills and abilities be scrutinised alongside anyone else's, and be judged accordingly.

But will I get the *chance* to have my skills, experience and personal qualities examined in that way? Or will the fact that I am (unashamedly) transgendered, committed to weekly pre-operative preparatory treatments (specifically, speech and language therapy and electrolysis), likely to be out of action for at least a couple of months early next year and still dealing with a few memory and concentration issues be too much for a potential employer to get past, at least until they've had a chance to interview me? I guess we'll see, won't we!

The bottom line is that I've written here, on multiple occasions, about the difficulties my memory and concentration issues have caused in recent months. If I believed they were going to affect me universally (in all areas of endeavour) and permanently (i.e. they were not likely to improve), then I would make plans accordingly. But I really don't think that's the case; I know that my knowledge and experience is still there; I can still use them in the arena of Exony's activities, but, frustratingly, not all the time. When I focus on something else (i.e. any of the myriad areas with which I am technologically enthused) then I don't experience those memory and concentration issues at all. I can write without a block; I can conceive (and develop) technical solutions incorporating OPML, XFN, metadata management, social networking, distributed learning systems, audio media production and consumption as well as the technologies I currently wield on behalf of Exony (primarily, database management, multidimensional analysis and business intelligence). I think, sadly, my memory and concentration issues are a result of feeling unable to apply my interests in such areas, in my current position.

By explaining why I'm leaving Exony (and having blogged on associated issues) I could conceivably have an adverse impact on securing my next position. However; what I've written here (today and in the past) is the truth, and if a potential employer gets cold feet as a result of what they learn about me from this blog, then I suspect we would not have had a long and fruitful relationship in any case. Either way, any future employer is going to have a hard act to follow, in comparison with my colleagues at Exony; a finer collection of talented professionals, both open-minded and open-hearted, I do not expect to meet in one place and at one time again. But I'd *love* to be proved wrong! ;-)

Thanks, guys; I hope you all know how much it's meant for me to have worked alongside you. You may soon be ex-colleagues; but I will always think of you as friends.

And yes, I am now, professionally speaking, open to offers... ;-)

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One door opens...

I'm really, insanely excited about this;





That I'm *attending* would be, for me, exciting enough; but if you check the schedule, you'll see that one of the panelists for the session "How to Get Naked" is... me. And, for me, the invitation to be on this panel (because I didn't ask, I *was* invited) represents yet another sign of acceptance, by others (in this case, a conference by and about women) of me as a woman. I'll confess, I was initially hesitant about how I would be treated, as an attendee; I took advantage of a post on misbehaving.net, which announced the conference, to ask that specific question in a comment, and was overwhelmed by the supportive responses I received, both as comments on that post and in private email.

I wrote here and here about the notion of setting measurable goals as a means of measuring my social progress; the invitation I've just described represents another personal unit test passed.

Now, I just have to decide what to *wear*... ;-)

This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/

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