Analysis (Services and Self)

This blog has moved; time for you to update your browser favourites or aggregator settings

2005-06-11T12:07:00.000+01:00

Now online (MP3, 0.6 MB, 2 minutes 19 seconds) - an audio version of these instructions (for the benefit of those whose only interaction with this site is through a podcatching client).

As I wrote here some time ago, I have been migrating all of the content in this blog (and the audio show it contains) to a new location, running under new software. That migration is now complete. :-) Therefore, I will not be publishing any more content in this blog. Which means that if you wish to continue reading (or listening to) my work, you need to do one (or all) of the following:

The new home of all my work is Multidimensional.Me - there is a frequently-asked questions (or "FAQ") page on that site, but basically, if you wish to read my blog posts in your web browser, or download my audio shows manually from there, then please update your browser favourites or bookmarks accordingly;

If you read this blog in a news aggregator, you need to update your subscription to the new feed - I will not be continuing to use FeedBurner on the new site;

If you're reading this because you're a listener to my audio show "VoiceOver", then the new home of that show is here; if you use a podcatching client to download new shows automatically (yes, I know, there hasn't been a show since the end of February... I've been *busy*!) then you need to update your client to use the new feed - please note that, depending on the podcatching client you use, it *may* download the old shows again; please accept my apologies in advance if this happens to you, there's not much I can do to avoid it happening.

I hope the above instructions are clear; if you have *any* problems, please do not hesitate to send me an email at koanbremner {at} gmail {dot} com and I will do everything I can to assist you.

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

2005-05-12T22:03:00.000+01:00

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/

Umm...

2005-05-09T22:43:00.000+01:00

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/

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

2005-05-09T18:58:00.000+01:00

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]

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/

A heavy cold + electrolysis <> fun

2005-05-09T17:03:00.000+01:00

Trust me on this. :-(

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/

Brain-Dead Bimbo

2005-05-08T08:22:00.000+01:00

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/

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

2005-05-06T20:35:00.000+01:00

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.

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/

UK Election Day - Vote!

2005-05-05T08:29:00.000+01:00

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/

... and another door (and era) closes

2005-05-04T12:12:00.000+01:00

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... ;-)

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/

One door opens...

2005-05-02T08:18:00.000+01:00

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/

As succinctly as I can put it... in my opinion...

2005-04-26T13:22:00.000+01:00

1) Discrimination sucks... period.

2) Anti-discrimination legislation will not stop discrimination... sadly.

3) Supporting anti-discrimination legislation about X does *not* mean that you actively support X; it means that you oppose discrimination... there *is* a difference.

4) Opposing anti-discrimination legislation is effectively the same as supporting discrimination... if you believe in discrimination, admit it.

5) Taking a neutral / non-committal stance on anti-discrimination legislation shows, at best, apathy; at worst, cowardice... which are you?

6) If you oppose X, then campaign against it based on reasoned judgment, rather than trying to legislate prejudice towards X; if you are so afraid of the seductive power of X, that the slightest exposure to X will convert people wholesale and permanently to the cause of X, then a) why is your alternative so relevant; b) assuming that you believe your alternative is better, come up with a better sales pitch... wage a positive campaign.

Bottom line: I can think of pros and cons for just about any issue; but I just cannot see any rational argument against anti-discrimination legislation. I would vote in favour of anti-discrimination legislation on *any* issue, regardless of whether I believe in the issue or not. Because that way, *every* cause, *every* viewpoint, *every* perspective has a chance to be heard, tested and decided on, equally and fairly, on its own merits. And this is an issue where, I believe, if you don't actually *support* anti-discrimination legislation, then you support discrimination; I'm sorry, but I don't think you can abstain on this issue. You are best disingenuous, at least a coward, and at worst a liar (and, arguably, all three) if you abstain.

But this point was made, much more eloquently than I'll ever be capable of, by a priest in the final days of World War Two.

First They Came For The Communists (1945)
by Martin Niemoller (1892 - 1984)

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

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/

O Canada

2005-04-24T23:45:00.000+01:00

The thing about keeping my perceptions open is that I spot trends and threads that otherwise might fly completely under my radar. Just at the moment, I can't seem to take a step in any direction without tripping over Canada or Canadians. :-) Bizarre... but really pleasurable. This weekend, just about everything that has happened to me has had a touch of the maple leaf about it; here goes...

A few weeks ago, I read on Tod Maffin's great blog "i love radio.org" that he was going to be in the UK, and was interested in meeting up with anyone with an interest in podcasting. Tod's a producer for CBC Radio in Canada; radio is his passion and day job, while podcasting is his hobby. (I've mentioned his fantastic show "How to do Stuff" in the past; as I wrote here, one particular episode of that show is still my pick for "podcast of the year"; I've played it to so many people, who just crack up when they hear it.) Anyway, we arranged to meet up for a coffee and a chat yesterday afternoon, and so we did; take it from me, a nicer, funnier guy you'd be hard pressed to find. It was a pleasure meeting you, Tod!

Having arranged to meet Tod in the afternoon, I suggested a morning meet-up with a great friend of mine, Marie. So we met for coffee and baklava in a cafe on the Edgware Road, and then adjourned to a nearby Persian restaurant for an absolutely gorgeous lunch. Nice to just chill out and have a girly chat for a few hours... and the Canadian connection? Building work on her new home in Toronto is nearly completed.

So, I have to make it from the Edgware Road to the Strand in exactly twenty minutes, including finding somewhere to park. And I make it through the tourist-crowded streets in exactly 22 minutes. Maybe I should consider a career option as a London cabbie. ;-) It helps to have some adrenalising music pumping through the speakers; which was from the album "Spiritual Machines" by the (you've guessed it) *Canadian* band Our Lady Peace. A band I'd been unaware of until hearing them mentioned (and played) on the show "Acts of Volition Radio" by the recipient of one of the extremely coveted "You Rock!" awards, Steven Garrity; who, of course, hails from Canada.

On the drive home, I listen to some more of the audiobook I'm currently enjoying; "Hey Nostradamus", which was written by one of my favourite authors, Douglas Coupland (and no prizes for guessing where *he* comes from).

This morning, my podcatcher greets me with the welcome arrival of Session 20 of "Acts of Volition Radio"; I'm saving that for tomorrow, for the weekly drive to London for electrolysis and speech and language therapy.

And tonight I see that a new article has been added to Toronto-based Melanie McBride's blog, "Chandrasutra". I was touched beyond words when she emailed me last weekend to ask if she could put an interview with me on her blog; but what made that request so much sweeter, for me, was when she explained that one of the reasons she wanted to include me was because she "needed some female energy in there".

You cannot possibly imagine how much that statement meant, to me.

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/

Manic Monkey

2005-04-24T23:07:00.000+01:00

This is one of those insufferably self-centred "I'm happy and I don't care who knows it" kind of posts. Well, if I've learned anything over the last few years, it's that you need to celebrate and remember the good times, because there'll be bad times, too; and if you have a history of Depression (as, sadly, I do) then the tendency is to forget the good and magnify the bad. So, in the spirit of keeping a record of the good moments as a bastion against the less good, here goes.

Work - I've written pretty extensively about the difficulties I've had over the past few months because of my failing memory. And of the support I've received from my colleagues. It is, frankly, humbling to me that they've stuck by me through periods when I'm sure I've been less use than ornament. Over the last few weeks I've felt definite signs of the old professional magic returning; with luck, this isn't yet another false dawn. And there's a human element to this, too; I suspect I've had my head stuck so firmly up my own backside as I've tried to work through these memory-challenged months that I've missed out on much of the inter-personal by-play that abounds at a company like Exony. For example, I noticed this week that my colleagues have been gradually changing their IM (Instant Messenger) nicknames to variations on a theme, the theme being monkeys; when did *that* start? Why did I not notice? Sad that I didn't notice *before*; encouraging that I have noticed *now*. (For the record, since one of my colleagues had already nabbed "SQL Monkey" and another had staked a claim to "OLAP Monkey", I flirted with "MDX Monkey", before realising that the vast majority wouldn't know what MDX was; so I have settled on "Multidimensional Monkey", for now, as you can read into that whatever you will.) Although, the way things have been progressing for me this week, the title of this post might be more appropriate... ;-)

Poker - as I mentioned here, seven of us played poker on Wednesday evening. What a great evening! I think we all had a thoroughly enjoyable time; I am not ashamed to admit that I was the first to lose my chips, bought myself back in, and promptly lost again! What I learned from this was that a) there's no point trying to bluff against people who don't know the odds, and b) I am way rusty. But I learned quite a lot about my fellow players, too; so, if this becomes a regular game, I hope they enjoyed the experience of winning against me, because they may not taste that pleasure too often... I hope! LOL

Apologies - I had the opportunity this week to apologise to someone who felt the thick end of the first flush of my hormonal temper a few months ago. Really, it was pretty lame of me not to have apologised properly before; but, I've done it *now*, and I'm so glad that I have. The person concerned had done me an extraordinary kindness and courtesy this week, and I was pleased to thank them for it, and to follow up with the apology. I think we both understand each other much better as a result; this can only be a good thing, in my opinion.

Documentary - just when I thought my stint in front of the camera was done, it turns out that there is the possibility of more screen-time; and in a way that would appeal to any girl who likes to be pampered. Like me! :-) So, I'll say no more on that subject at this point, other than I really hope it happens (not least because it means one or two of my friends will get their moment of fame, or infamy, too).

Feedback - on Friday, I received an email from someone who had just discovered podcasts, and somehow had stumbled across my "CrossOver" show. What they said in their email touched me to the core; and provided a perfect validation of why I should continue (for now, at least) to record those shows. My friend and colleague Vikram wrote recently on his blog as follows:

Another reason which I think keeps me away from blogging is a sense of insecurity to put myself out in public on the internet. This keeps eating my brains out as to who might comment on any kind of stupidity which may exists in the post. I may not find certain things stupid for myself, but I cannot comment on how others would/may/might react.

The best argument I can offer in favour of blogging is the effect that receiving an email like the one I have just mentioned. We each plough our lonely furrow through the field of life; and we just don't know how the details of how we plough our own furrow can impact others for the better. Had I taken the (understandable, I suspect) decision *not* to blog or podcast about certain aspects of my life, sure, I could have minimised the possible downside. But I can't even begin to describe the sense of fulfilment I have gained from the responses of others to what I have written or recorded. The small risk has been repaid many times over.

In addition, this weekend has seen some really cool events - but there's a common theme underlying *them*, and they deserve their own post...

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/

Re: CrossOver Session Seven: "Choose Your Rights"

2005-04-24T13:14:00.000+01:00

Now online (MP3, 3.6 MB, 15 minutes 30 seconds) - in which, gentle listener, you hear part of my homework from last week's session of speech and language therapy, i.e. a ten-minute piece of continuous, scripted speech. I've used as inspiration the BBC Radio 4 documentary I posted about here and have gone on to add one or two personal observations of my own. Any feedback or comments (whether about the content itself, or my, ahem, "performance") would be, as ever, most welcome!

A quick heads-up: "Unreliable Evidence"

2005-04-22T07:47:00.000+01:00

One of (in my opinion) the UK's national treasures, the BBC (dear old "Auntie Beeb") aired a documentary programme on Radio 4 last Monday evening, which discussed the legal aspects of a piece of legislation that I've mentioned before, the Gender Recognition Act. I've just listened to the programme, and I think it gives a fair, balanced and informative explanation of the "why and wherefore" of the Act, of the issues it addresses (and sadly, the issues it leaves unresolved). I'll write a more detailed review and commentary over the weekend, but since the BBC only streams programmes for seven days after they've been transmitted, I wanted to put a link to it up as soon as I could, so that you have a chance to listen, if you're interested. (Although the BBC seems to be embracing the vision of podcasting, this particular programme isn't one that you can download as an MP3 or similar file, yet; so, catch it now or you'll have to hunt around for an illicitly-recorded version).

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/

One for the future...

2005-04-20T14:13:00.000+01:00

Six writers vie for Orange prize

Maybe I'll get on the shortlist one day... Now, *that* would be "interesting"...! ;-)

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Fat Lip

2005-04-19T00:42:00.000+01:00

Collagen implants; who needs them? Certainly not I. Well, not right now, at least. After a one hour electrolysis session that virtually cleared my top lip, I am the proud possessor of a pout about three times the normal size (my "trout pout", as my friend TJ puts it). For the next day or so. With luck, one more session and that part will be finished. Fortunately for me, most of my remaining facial hair is white (comes with being old)... except on my top lip, and immediately below my bottom lip, where it's very dark (and hence most noticeable after a day or so). So once they're cleared, I feel the finishing line is in sight, if still a way off.

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The Other Kind

2005-04-18T21:02:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I've recorded a new session of VoiceOver, but I'll be doing one in the next day or so (I'm just waiting on a permission to use a particular song). But, today (as every Monday) I spent the best part of six hours behind the wheel of my car, which gave me plenty of time to catch up on other people's podcasts, and play some music. One of the tracks that turned up was "The Other Kind", by Steve Earle. This track sits in the lower half of my personal "Top Ten Favourite Songs Of All Time". Actually, I can even remember the day I bought it; it was the day I flew off on honeymoon with my then wife, and I bought the cassette of "The Hard Way" (the 1990 album of which the song in question is the opening track) at Gatwick Airport before we boarded a flight to the Seychelles. The only other cassette I took with me was "Blue Sky Mining" by Midnight Oil; not sure what that (if anything) that says about me... still...

Steve Earle's lived an "interesting" life; and while I'm sure he didn't write this song with someone like me in mind, for me the lyrics are so poignant, so appropriate. And it is a great recording, too (in my opinion); when he was at the height of what I think of as his "shit-kickin', yee haw!" phase. ;-) Actually, I've enjoyed his recordings throughout his career, from his essentially country roots, through the southern rock period of "The Hard Way", up to his current folk leanings.

Anyway, courtesy of "The Original Unofficial Steve Earle Site", and since I played this song about ten times today (and which has been a good day, but more about that another time) I thought that the lyrics are good enough to stand here as vernacular poetry. If you haven't heard the song, I urge you to track down a copy. I think of it as my anthem to freedom; when I turn my own two wheels (Cruella) into the wind, the years (and cares) do indeed fall away with every mile.

The Other Kind
(Steve Earle)

I woke up this morning and I took a look around at all that I got
These days I've been lookin' in the mirror and wondering if that's me lookin' back or not
I'm still the apple of my mama's eye
I'm my daddy's worst fears realized
Here of late all this real estate don't seem all that real to me sometimes

I'm back out on that road again
Turn this beast into the wind
There are those that break and bend
I'm the other kind, I'm the other kind

Now my old buddy, what's his name, says, "Man what the hell are you thinkin' 'bout
Fool, you got two of everything, but you hang your head just like you was down and out"
And I'm damn sure not suffering from a lack of love
There's plenty more where that came from
Ah - but leave it up to me to say something wrong and hurt someone before I'm done

You see it used to be I was really free
I didn't need no gasoline to run
Before you could say Jack Kerouac you'd turn your back and I'd be gone
Yeah nowadays I got me two good wheels and I seek refuge in aluminum and steel
Aw, it takes me out there for just a little while
And the years fall away with every mile

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From the "if the cap fits" department...

2005-04-17T06:48:00.000+01:00

Average managers treat all their employees the same. Great managers discover each individual's unique talents and bring these to the surface so everyone wins.

"... there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it. Average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess. The difference? In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. You need to plan and coordinate their movements, certainly, but they all move at the same pace, on parallel paths. In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can't play if you don't know how each piece moves. More important, you won't win if you don't think carefully about how you move the pieces. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.

This is the exact opposite of what great leaders do. Great leaders discover what is universal and capitalize on it. Their job is to rally people toward a better future. Leaders can succeed in this only when they can cut through differences of race, sex, age, nationality, and personality and, using stories and celebrating heroes, tap into those very few needs we all share. The job of a manager, meanwhile, is to turn one person's particular talent into performance. Managers will succeed only when they can identify and deploy the differences among people, challenging each employee to excel in his or her own way. This doesn't mean a leader can't be a manager or vice versa. But to excel at one or both, you must be aware of the very different skills each role requires."

Excerpt from Harvard Business Review.

[Via Harvard Business School Working Knowledge]

Back in the day, when John Adair and von Clausewitz were the leadership and strategy texts appropriate to the path I was on, I viewed the concept of leadership in a particular way. These days, my perspective is very different. The excerpt above nails it pretty well, in my opinion.

I've been thinking a lot about the role of managers and leaders over the last few weeks; particularly, when and why the roles, responsibilities and personalities specific to each role collide. And contrasting that with the organic strength that can be engendered when the diversity of a group can be harnessed, especially behind some shared value. The next post, which I read while pursuing other interests, sets a telling (for me) counterpoint:

The BlogHer Conference has been announced and registration is currently open. I want to see this conference be as diverse as possible - diverse along every axes imaginable. I need your help in organizing women bloggers from around the world with a million perspectives to attend. I'm also interested in adding things to the conference that will meet the needs of different types of women. For me, the goal of this conference is to build social solidarity amongst women. If you have ideas, please let me know.

But please spread the word. The key to success for this event is to get as many different women on board as possible.

There are some scholarships available and i'm hoping that we can find ways to fly women around the world in. Also, if you have any leads to making this possible, please let me know!

[Via apophenia]

Success by gathering people of as much diversity of experience and opinion as possible in a single place; what a novel idea! Maybe something that modern business managers and leaders might consider. Then again, maybe this essentially female notion (of building connections and community, rather than marking out territories) has no place in the cut-and-thrust land-grab of the modern corporate world.

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RE: YAL

2005-04-16T07:48:00.000+01:00

Yet Another Linux! A lot of people are raving about the new desktop Linux package Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings. Read this praise from Russell Beattie. They will even mail you free CDs that allow you to enjoy Linux from boot without touching your existing system. Device support and simplicity is supposed to be the best of any distro. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but Ubuntu is definitely causing a lot of excitement.

[Via Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey]

Now, do I believe that, I asked myself...

Stuff waiting for a CD to be mailed (that is *so* last century! ;-) ) Courtesy of BitTorrent (actually, courtesy of BitComet, which I downloaded and installed having read Don Park's comments to Dave Winer, and let me tell you, BitComet works so sweetly through NAT on my broadband modem and wireless router, in a way that Azureus just never would, at least, not for me) I downloaded the Ubuntu Live CD image (the one from which, allegedly, you can boot a PC, without installing anything on your PC, and it just works). So, I'm a sceptical girl; I burn the CD, boot from it, tell it I'm a Brit, and... the wireless network doesn't work. "Huh!" thinks I, "so much for that"... well, it helps if you specify the WEP key, assuming you use WEP; so, one reboot back into Windows XP so I can retrieve my WEP key; reboot from the Ubuntu CD, type in the WEP key...

Everything works. A fully configured desktop, productivity applications, all free, all working. Respect!

And, I'm relieved that it didn't auto-configure the WEP key for me; that would rather have defeated the point of WEP, now, wouldn't it! And yes, I know that WEP isn't unbreakable, but really, I don't think I live in a hotbed of hackers, unless the deer roaming ouside have war-chalked the house, of course... ;-)

Fair play, guys; you set your stall out and have delivered. I'm now downloading the Install CD, will find some spare tin to install it on, and get my hands dirty. Despite being a professional Microsoftie (primarily, because SQL Server and Analysis Services don't run on Linux, and please don't make me laugh by suggesting that e.g. MySQL is "just as good" as SQL Server) there's plenty of other stuff I want to use for which Linux is appropriate, even ideal; and if getting a Linux box up and running is *this* easy, I can't see the point in delaying.

It takes a lot to impress me. Have a fully functioning desktop up and running from bare metal in about three minutes? Oh, I'm impressed.

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The fool in the game

2005-04-16T05:47:00.000+01:00

Poker... I used to play quite a lot. And enjoyed playing the game immensely, although I haven't played for a few years now. It's a great forum in which to study people (always a topic of fascination for me), and is also rich in literature and beloved of writers and students of the human condition. You can learn a lot about life at the poker table.

I started thinking about poker again earlier this week, when I was invited to a social game next week. I'm inclined to play, just for the fun of it, but I don't plan on taking up the game again. However, the invitation prompted me to dredge up those snippets of wisdom I learned (sometimes the hard way) around the green baize; and two of them seem strangely poignant this week, both for me and for others of my acquaintance.

The first is the notion that "there's a fool in every game; if you look around the table and can't spot the fool in *your* game, then the fool is probably *you*!" Oh, how true that one is... and like many of the best lessons I've learned in life, it's one I'm most inclined to forget when I'm most in need of its guidance. Just at the moment, I'm carrying that one very close to my heart.

The other lesson is "never chase the pot". When you're playing a hand and have already bet on it, it's tempting to look at the pot (the money staked by you and all the other players who've bet on the hand) and say to yourself "I can't quit yet; X of that pot is *my* money, and I want it back; it'll only cost me Y to stay in, and I could win it all back, and more!" Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong... Once the money has been laid on the table, it is no longer *your* money. It is gone; it's a sunk cost. All that's yours is the stake you still own, and the cards that you hold. When the time comes for you to decide whether to bet again, you have to ignore the money you've already bet on the hand; the real questions are, how much will it cost you to bet *now*; how does that compare with the potential reward (i.e. the pot, of which *none* is *yours*); and what is the probability of you winning it (based on the hand you hold, the probability of getting the cards you need to make a "winning" hand, the cards your opponents hold, and everything they've revealed about themselves, their habits and giveaways (or "tells") in this hand and all the other you've seen them play before). Then, and only then, you make the decision to bet, check, raise, fold or see; and once you've made your decision, any new money you've bet is now gone, until the next round of betting. Until you can separate your thought process from the money you've already bet (or "invested", as some players will put it), guess who's the fool in your game?

What a fantastic analogy for life. How many times do we persist in a situation where we feel we have to stay in, because of all the time, effort or money we've invested up to that point? Emotion can sway the rational thought process; I've nothing against emotion (I think I'm one of the most emotional people I know, maybe to a fault) but sometimes it has no place, and at the poker table *your* emotion definitely has no place, in my opinion (whereas your ability to read the emotions of others is invaluable). And at the great poker table of life, knowing when to fold is crucial. You can win on a losing hand, if your opponents are convinced that your hand beats theirs; but adopting that as your habitual strategy could introduce you to the gutter sooner than you wish. You can only capitalise on a winning hand if you're still at the table, and still have a large enough stake to bet, raise or see. Fold when appropriate, nurse your stake, and be there to capitalise on a winning hand.

Great game, poker; great game, life. In neither do I intend to be the fool.

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RE: BBC opens up to podcasting

2005-04-14T19:43:00.000+01:00

And the hits just keep on coming... some great news, in my opinion:

Podcasting's doing the business in radio. Virgin Radio are doing some great stuff, while Paul Gambaccini, Tony Blackburn and Wes Butters are among those lining up for a new site called Podshows.com. Now the Beeb is expanding its list of podcasts of popular shows, according to an announcement today.

[Via Online]

The BBC's announcement can be found here.

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RE: Pass Number - a struggle

2005-04-14T08:18:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a colleague of mine; when I originally wrote that post, I wasn't sure if that colleague had an online presence, and so didn't feel it appropriate to name them. I've since discovered that he has, in fact, started to blog, so it's time to "name and shame" my friend and colleague Gautham. :-)

In one of his first posts, he recounts some difficulties which he's suffered in coming to grips with one of the more obscure (but powerful) aspects of MDX (the analytical language at the heart of Analysis Services 2000, one of the core platforms we develop on, and one of my areas of professional expertise).

CalculationPassNumber, CalculationCurrentPass are some functions of Analysis Services that I want to run away from, but it makes me sick to know that they are one of the most important functions to know whilst in an extremely, perhaps dreadfully complex calculation situations. I have been beating my head to understand this for quite sometime now but instead have learnt more about some other things in MDX and Analysis Services. Though my knowledge of MDX and Analysis Services is much better now but this "Pass Number" is something that is turning out be my worst struggle for knowledge.

[Via Gautham V Kamath]

I felt very guilty when I read this, because Gautham had asked me if I could explain all this to him, and, as has been my wont in recent months, I promised to do so, and then completely forgot that I had so promised. :-( And Gautham is far too much of a gentleman to remind me of my unfulfilled promise. Anyway, I've left a comment (which I hope will clarify things for him) on his blog post, and will follow up with him to make sure he's happy with the answer. So why blog about it here? Well, whether or not you've any interest in MDX, this episode illustrates a learning point which I've encountered many times, particularly when I was a technical educator, and I want to explore it a little further here.

The dilemma is this; the more knowledge, skill and experience you have with a particular tool-set (be it a programming language, like MDX, or physical tools like a chain saw or lathe) the more challenging the tasks you can tackle. Until you gain that knowledge, skill and experience, you may not recognise when it's appropriate to make effective use of a specific tool. *However*... learning the *use* of the tool, in isolation, may be difficult if you don't have a specific, relevant (to *you*) example on which to practise.

So, until you learn to use the tool, you may not realise it's the appropriate tool for certain problems; until you *have* a specific instance when it's appropriate to use the tool, you may not be able to learn to use it properly; and until you *have* learned to use it properly, you probably won't realise when that specific tool shoud be used.

In other words, a vicious circle.

As an educator, I want to transfer knowledge and skill so that the individual can develop the experience. With some tools, covering the theory is enough; how and when to apply the tool becomes immediately apparent. With other tools, the theory is *not* enough; you also need relevant (to the student) problem areas against which the student can immediately apply that theory, as they learn the skill, in order to develop their experience. These latter skills are the most challenging to teach; they're typically the highest value-add skills, but they're incredibly difficult to teach (or learn) in isolation. The former skills are the kind that can be learned from e.g. documentation and books; the latter can (in my opinion) only be learned through interaction with others who've already learned them. That interaction may be in a formal setting (e.g. in a classroom or through professional coaching) or in a more informal environment (e.g. internet discussion groups or personal networks). How can someone recognise that they might need to learn one of these *latter* skills, when they don't necessarily know what the skill is that they need to learn?

That's the key, learnable, transferable skill that I want to highlight in this post; recognise when you're working too hard.

I'm not a believer in using some flashy tool simply because it *is* flashy (or new, or sexy); the right tool, for the right job, at the right time, in the right way; that's what I aim for. From experience, I've populated my toolkit with a selection of tools, and the experience to know when to use them (and, just as importantly, when *not* to use them). How do I recognise when I need to add a new tool to my toolkit, or improve my skill with an existing tool?

Simple; when I'm working too hard.

That's the indicator that tells me when I'm missing a trick. I'm a simple, optimistic girl; I believe there's a simple, elegant way to do just about anything. If I'm trying to do something and it hurts, then that tells me I'm missing a trick. There's some tool I *should* be using; even though I may not know what it *is*, at least I now know to go and look. Which, for me, normally involves raising the issue in one of those informal environments where knowledgeable peers may respond. Once a new tool has been suggested, I can evaluate it, learn it, use it, and move on, until the next time.

So there's a two-fold lesson I'd commend to colleagues like Gautham (indeed, *all* students of some discipline)

1) If you're trying to *do* something and it's too hard, maybe you're missing some relevant *tool*; instead of giving yourself a headache, pause and ask someone whose perspective you trust;

2) If you're trying to *learn* something and it's too hard, maybe you're trying to learn it at the wrong *time*; store and use what you have learned, so that when you finally encounter a concrete instance when you'll need that skill, you stand a better chance of realising that *now* is the time to finish learning that skill.

Here endeth today's lesson! ;-)

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How much does winning mean to these two guys?

2005-04-10T13:52:00.000+01:00

Valentino Rossi and Sete Gibernau, trading paintwork in the last laps of the opening round of the Moto GP from Jerez; think these guys are just turning up for a pay packet? I've never seen the like... if you didn't see the race (and I won't give away the result just yet) try and catch a replay. Just... astounding.

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RE: Tour of Duty

2005-04-10T10:30:00.000+01:00

I just listened to the following ten minute piece (which turned up in the "Women in Podcasting" feed) and feel compelled to comment.

Before his second Iraq deployment, Army Specialist David Beals tried to kill himself. He received counseling and is now stationed in Tikrit. His wife told Weekend America she's worried that he's still troubled. We talk with an army psychiatrist about the trauma of war and treating soldiers on the frontlines.

[Via Weekend America, from the "Women in Podcasting" Blogdiggers list]

Before I say anything about my personal reactions to this piece, I will say that it emphasises, for me, the real power of audio over the written word; I could have read a transcript of the words in this piece, and responded to it; but the voices of the interviewees lend another level of impact entirely.

This piece covers one of the most heart-rending challenges faced by those who serve in the armed forces; how to cope with the mental health issues which arise, either as a result of what they've experienced, or at the same time as they're on active duty. Just to make clear my own perspective on this; although I never served in the regular forces, it was not for the want of trying. I helped to finance my way through University by serving in the reserve forces, was selected for training as a commissioned officer in an Infantry Batallion once I graduated, but was unable to pursue that path due to injuries received whilst serving in the reserve forces. And I have also dealt with mental health issues in my own life, including suicidal ideation. So yes, I feel qualified to comment.

I'd challenge anyone *not* to be moved by listening to Specialist Beals' wife Dawn Marie as she reads from one of his emails. How can she be feeling, knowing that someone she loves so much is going through such personal torment, thousands of miles away, leaving her powerless to help? What does she feel inside, knowing that the person she loves was so desperate that they attempted to end their life? Listen to her voice; then think about this.

This is not about cowardice. Are there cowards in the world? I don't doubt it for a moment. Does succumbing to combat stress make one a coward? No (in my opinion). Does responding to the turmoil of combat stress (or any stress-related condition; indeed, *any* mental health-related issue) by contemplating, attempting or committing suicide make one a coward? Again, in my opinion, no. Ever tried to take your own life? Ever felt the primal urge for self-preservation kick in to stop you, no matter how much you want the pain to stop? Ever considered that a completed suicide (I can't use the phrase "successful suicide") brings about exactly the end that someone who subscribes to the cowardice notion would assume the person is trying to avoid? No, sorry, there's something else going on, other than cowardice.

Whatever the events that lead someone to attempt (or even consider attempting) to take their own life, the attempt itself says one of two things (to me); that the person cannot take any more, and wants an end of it; or, that the person cannot take any more, and wants help to find a way of dealing with it. Personally, I never felt that any of my attempts fell into the second category; at the time I attempted them, I did not want to "fail", or be stopped. Truly, I wanted an end of it. Who is to say which applies in Specialist Beals' case; maybe *he* doesn't even know. Either way, here is someone who is patently in a bad place. It doesn't make them a bad *person*; personally, I have immense respect for those who face such personal turmoil and find a way through it, moreso than I have for people who have not been similarly tested (although I'm glad, for their sakes, that they haven't been tested in such an awful way). What does the US Army (or an employer, or a loved one) do when faced with someone in a situation like this? Did the Army respond correctly in this particular case?

There is a lot of experience to suggest that the best long-term outcomes, for the patient (I'll use that term for simplicity; nothing else is implied) come from removing the patient from the immediate situation, but only so far that immediate treatment, therapy and reasssurance can be given. At the earliest possible moment, the patient should be reintroduced as close to the triggering situation as possible, in as productive a capacity as possible. From dealing with shell-shock cases in the First World War onwards, the shame in feeling that you've "let your buddies down" is seen as one of the biggest hurdles to recovery; the sooner the patient is doing something that is palpably helping their buddies, even if not to the immediate extent of bearing arms beside them, the better. *If*... and it's a big if... appropriate support is available during that convalescence; and if the patient's buddies will accept them back again.

Specialist Beals describes being effectively ostracised by many in his unit. Whether he is or isn't, he *feels* as if that's happening. That can't help. Later on in the piece, it states that he has now been redeployed to a different unit where he has "access to psychiatric care". Excuse me? A soldier who attempted suicide in January and was deployed to Iraq in March was deployed to a unit where he *didn't* have access to psychiatric care? Is it just me, or does that sound vaguely moronic to anyone else?

These are just my personal reactions to hearing this piece. Inevitably, I have to draw parallels (and contrasts) with my own experiences. I think that redeploying is appropriate, as soon as the immediate crisis is over; but *not* if the receiving unit is then going to treat the recovering patient as a liability or pariah. That isn't going to help anyone.

Where are the parallels? In September, my memory, concentration and focus went walkabout, and I was completely floored by that. My employers took the sensible step of changing the area of my focus, and of spreading some of my responsibilities more widely. This required some of my colleagues to expand their knowledge in areas they'd maybe tended to shy away from. It meant that I could concentrate on being as productive as I could (in more tactically focused areas) so that my employers were still gaining some benefit from my presence. Arguably, now, we have an even stronger organisation; knowledge and skills that had tended to be concentrated in me are now much more widely deployed. That deployment may have happened out of necessity, but it *has* happened. Personally, I think that's been a good thing; I certainly don't feel threatened by it. As an educator, my goal has always been to develop the people who could replace me; as a professional, the challenge (indeed, the fun) has always been to stay at least one step ahead. ;-) I can't comment on whether I still have a significant part to play; the people who probably *could* comment, almost certainly won't.

Is there a shame to succumbing to mental illness? I don't think so; but obviously, I'm biased. Is there a place for people who have felt the impact of mental health issues in the Armed Forces? I believe so; in fact, I'd sooner know that the people charged with the defence of a nation and the pursuit of good works have a beating heart, so long as they've received whatever assistance is necessary to deal with their short-term issues. I, for one, wish Specialist Beals well, and hope that his wife Dawn Marie can bear the period before his return with courage; and that, on his return, he is honoured by his community as someone who has given all that he can (maybe, more than he was able to give, for a while at least) in the service of his country. And not scorned with unjust words like "coward".

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Hamsters ate my brain

2005-04-08T13:26:00.000+01:00

(Warning; techie analogy alert) So, this has been a pretty "interesting" (in the sense of the old Chinese "blessing", "may you live in interesting times") few months. My memory has been going haywire, and with it, my concentration, focus and ability to get things done. And I can't begin to describe how upsetting that has been. It was tempting to blame this on the huge doses of hormones which my body was being subjected to... except that the perceived wisdom is that, normally, HRT has precisely the opposite effect. So that didn't seem to fit. That raised the spectre of some other physical cause; we'll see. Meanwhile, I've formed a hypothesis as to what's been happening to me; the upside is that, if my hypothesis is true, then "the bitch is back!" :-) The downside, such as it is, is that I can't quantitatively prove it, but I can, qualitatively; so, I thought I'd float the hypothesis here, and see whether other minds than just mine think that there might be any mileage in this.

The starting point is recognising that males and females think differently. This is not an Earth-shatteringly new concept, nor one I take any credit for. Whether or not there are structural differences between male and female brains (and my understanding is that there are) then *how* women approach a situation seems characteristically different. One description I've read (espoused by the psychiatrist Simon Baron-Cohen) is that females have an "empathising" brain (looking at someone's thoughts, feelings and emotions as a means to identify and predict behaviours) while males have a "systematising" brain (which investigates, analyses, classifies and imposes structure; or, at least, tries to). When I thought about that, I realised that, really, I do both, and always have; but the *mix* is changing. Maybe the mix is changing as a result of the change in my body's hormone balance; or maybe the social and personal changes to which those hormones are contributing is allowing the historically-repressed female aspect to gain a greater dominance. Which, personally, I see as no bad thing; except for the impact it has had on my memory.

Now, I *know* that my perceptions are changing, continually; how I see, respond to and record the things I see around me has altered dramatically as I've walked (and, at times, stumbled) along this path of transition. And that has been paralleled by my urge to *record* those changing perceptions. I think that's why I was drawn to the idea of starting this blog; whether consciously or subconsciously, I knew I needed a mechanism to reflect the changes I was experiencing. Consciously, I was hoping that starting to write again would rekindle that creative element which had pretty much gone into hibernation; subconsciously, I think I needed to give myself permission to absorb what was happening. The bottom line is, whether my current writings are self-indulgent or not, they're serving a purpose *for me*.

Recently, I've been pondering whether my memory issues were nothing more than my subconscious mind telling me "something's out of balance in your life; face it and fix it". Something I've learned is that, while I may not always understand why I'm subconsciously driven to do things at the time, I usually work it out afterwards. If that was so, what was out of balance, and how to fix it? I'm increasingly convinced that subsuming my creative impulses into quite an ordered, disciplined technical profession was the problem. At least, it *looked* like the problem. Here's an analogy that might help.

Part of what I do, professionally, is design databases. Which I've always considered both science, and art. The science part is that if you don't follow sound rules of good design, you end up with an unholy mess. The art part is two-fold; sometimes, you need to selectively break some of the rules in pursuit of a non-obvious goal; and sometimes you need to use creativity to extract the gold from the base ore. I've always believed that I brought equal parts scientific rigour and insight / creativity to the endeavour. Well, a key element of a database is the raw data; and typically, we store it in a series of tables, which are an unordered collection of similar "things". Because typically we need to find things in a hurry, we need to try to impose some kind of order on that, and one method is to use indexes. Of which there are various types, for different purposes. (My work colleagues know that I stress index analysis as a key component of performance optimisation; and, I beg to suggest, I'm very good at it). The right indexes at the right time are the key. When needs change, what were once the right indexes may become more hindrance than help. At which point, defragment, rebuild or discard those indexes.

Hypothesis: as my mind has switched emphasis during my transition, the old indexes (which used to be optimal for my "systematising" brain) have become sub-optimal. My increasingly "empathising" brain required different indexes to make use of my memories; and so it has been busily reindexing.

Now, as my colleagues may remember, when you change the indexing strategy, the situation typically gets worse for a while (expecially if you add, remove or alter a clustered index). But what if, in addition to changing the indexes, we change the *type* of indexes (e.g. to full-text, or bitmapped); the end result is that the same rows remain in the table, but *how* you find them changes completely. Because those indexes are designed to support different kinds of queries.

I think my increasingly "empathising" brain looked at the indexing strategy that had served my "systematising" brain so well, thought "that's not much use any more", junked it, and has spent the last few months rebuilding those indexes. Because I feel those memories are still there; I just need to learn how to access them differently.

Quirky? Mad? Maybe... but it makes a perverse kind of sense to *me*; by upbringing and training I have a very logical and scientific mind. By inclination (and, I believe, nature) I have a much more perceptive, holistic mind. The two have coexisted in uneasy peace for the most part, with periodic skirmishes and battles for control. Now, the balance of power has switched. And I think that it's switched sufficiently for the skirmishing to cease.

What does this mean, to me? I think that by giving my creativity an outlet (through writing) that I've denied it for so long, that my "systematising" skills are being restored to me. And the great part about *that* is that it gives me back the creative outlet that I always enjoyed in that area; other people understand elements of the technology areas I specialise in, and that's fine; but few, I believe, really grok them in the way I used to; and in the way I feel returning to me, day by day.

Yup, the bitch is back!

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Five numbers, an array of statistics, two tests and a landmark day

2005-04-05T05:14:00.000+01:00

In a previous post, I spoke about the relief I felt on receiving my new passport; simply getting the "Sex" designator changed from M to F represented a significant emotional breakthrough for me. Yesterday, I felt the enormous pleasure of a similar breakthrough, when I arrived home to find my new driving license. Having set the precedent with my passport, getting my driving license changed should have been straightforward enough; but the combination of things I needed to change (including name, photograph and driver number, which incorporates the gender designation) meant that the only way I could do this in one go (according to the published procedures) would be to send my passport to the appropriate agency (the DVLA) and be without it for up to fourteen working days. For me, this was unacceptable; I'd invested so much emotional energy in getting that passport, I was not entrusting it to the internal mail handling of an enormous Government department. So, many phone calls later, I found an official with a beating heart at the DVLA who agreed that my application was in order, and suggested a route by which the change could be effected without my passport having to be sent. Application posted last Wednesday; new driving license arrived Monday! I, for one, am impressed, grateful... and pleased as punch! :-) On UK driving licenses, the driver number is three groups of characters; the second figure in the second group is the gender designator. 0 or 1 represents male; 5 or 6 represents female. From 0 to 5... boing!

Some days are good; yesterday just got progressively better as the day went on. First, I had an exemplary hour of facial electrolysis, in which my therapist was able to just work flat out for the full hour (I didn't even cough once, and that hasn't happened before), followed by fifteen minutes of genital electrolysis, which I didn't need to pause or cut short (and that's happened just once before). Then, I had a session of speech and language therapy, with extensive laryngograph tests. This statistical analysis showed that my pitch has lifted and my vocal consistency remains very good (i.e. my voice quality is stable across the range); and when I use my "best voice", I am now well inside female parameters (i.e. pitch range, mean, medium and mode fundamental frequencies) on *all* counts! :-) So, now I need to extend the length of time and range of circumstances in which I use that voice. Qualitatively, I knew there had been progress; I listened to some recordings I made some time ago (including the recording I made of the day I told my work colleagues about the changes they would be witnesses to); I can't reproduce that voice now even if I try (not that I would *want* to reproduce it!) I can't even really reproduce the speaking voice I had in December, before beginning speech and language therapy. I knew before yesterday that the tones and inflection patterns I use were already much more characteristically female; this statistical analysis just adds to that confirmation! Boing!

I mentioned in another previous post the whimsical notion of tracking my progress by means of unit tests; well, yesterday I passed two of them in one day. Frankly, that makes me feel... just great!

Yesterday was also of huge significance for all in the UK transgender community. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (which basically enshrines our legal right to live in our "acquired gender") became law on 1 July 2004, but the mechanics of implementing the procedures and forming the bodies required to administer it needed to take place. Initially, "fast track" applicants only can apply (i.e. those who transitioned more than six years previously); although application packs were available from the beginning of this year, yesterday marked the first day that the newly-constituted Gender Recognition Panel sat to consider those applications. Personally, I won't be eligible to submit an application until October (and I'll probably wait to do so until after I've had gender reassignment surgery, which I hope will be early in 2006); but for all of us who have the dubious pleasure of living with gender dysphoria, this is yet another huge step forward towards something to which I believe we all aspire; i.e. fair and equal treatment under the law; no more, but certainly no less.

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I apologise for being stupid

2005-04-04T08:00:00.000+01:00

Stupid, stupid, stupid... I *must* be losing my grip. Cart me off to the farm right now.

In this post, I expressed this view:

...I've just read two posts that appeared in quick succession on Dave Winer's "Scripting News" blog that confirm why I read his writing; which is that here is a guy who tells it from the heart, as he sees it, and truly doesn't give a f*** if others have a hard time with that aspect of himself. Which is a trait I admire, and also try to live by.

[Via Analysis (Services and Self)]

And, then, I allowed myself to get suckered into responding to a comment which picked me up for suggesting that someone believing what they write confers some special merit on their words, citing four specific, inflammatory examples (chosen, I suspect, precisely *because* they're inflammatory) to show I'm a klutz. The thing is, I didn't just say that someone had to believe what they write; what I *said* was that Dave Winer "tells it from the heart, as he sees it, **and truly doesn't give a f*** if others have a hard time with that aspect of himself**. " The double-stars surround the missing element; and, forgive me, but I don't think that could be said of any of the four personages cited in the comment. A conservative political commentator, a (I wouldn't know *how* to describe Ward Churchill), a "politician" (in the loosest possible sense) and a politician; but people, I suggest, who aren't adequately described by the part betweeen the double stars.

So, really, I *am* stupid; stupid for not realising that what I said was being taken out of context. I served my time debating in Usenet newsgroups; I used to be better at the game than this! ;-)

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Burn rubber on me

2005-04-03T13:05:00.000+01:00

Suddenly it's spring... the weather has warmed up sufficiently that threats of snow or ice on the roads have pretty much gone until next winter. So, barring strong side-winds (which I loathe) I can plan on riding Cruella... well, whenever I want, really! :-) And the racing season is underway, with the second round of the World Superbike Championship today in Australia, the second round of the British Superbike Championship next weekend (at Thruxton, the fastest circuit on the calendar, and just a quick blast up the road from here) and the first round of Moto GP next weekend in Spain. And all, this year, available for viewing on terrestrial TV here in the UK! Motorbikes... some of the best moments of my life in the last few years have been directly or indirectly associated with them; yet I was reminded of one of the saddest and most painful aspects of my present situation when I walked past my bike on Thursday.

When I ride Cruella, all the worries, concerns and hassles of everyday life disappear. My senses are heightened, my concentration rises; it's just the sheer pleasure of me and the road. I could happily never sit behind the wheel of a car again (at least, not until I'm no longer able to ride) but not being able to ride again would be a terrible blow. Which is one reason why I'm so pleased that the TV documentary series in which I've been participating will (hopefully) include some juicy bike-related footage which we shot a couple of months back. Not just shots of me riding, but also me talking about biking, and the significance it has in my life.

Biking builds connections; not just transportation links, but connections between the people involved. For the last four years, I've been going to the World Superbikes race meeting at Brands Hatch, around the last weekend in July. I'll certainly be there for the whole meeting this year. I believe it holds the distinction of being Britain's largest spectator sport event; race-day over the last four years saw attendances of 120,000, 122,000, 126,000 and 115,000. Over the course of the the three day meeting, well over 200,000 people (closer, I believe, to 250,000) attend. I've never seen any trouble, nor heard reports of any, other than some road traffic incidents after the race which usually stem from some jerk thinking he's a race-track hero and finding out the hard way that he isn't. So many people, crammed into a natural amphitheatre, without hassle. Biking (as a rider, racer or spectator) builds connections.

It builds connections on a personal level, too. I didn't notice a single person give me even a sideways glance last year, when I was a lot less passable than I am now. My pal Andy, with whom I attended on the Saturday and Sunday (much as he enjoys it, he isn't quite the extreme fanatic you have to be to want to attend on Fridays, which is only about practice and qualifying) wasn't the slightest bit concerned about being seen obviously in my company; and why should he be?

Riding with friends is a real pleasure; but so is riding alone. One of my fondest memories is of a bright, clear day in 2001, which I spent riding around the South-West of Scotland visiting sites which had been used in the filming of The Wicker Man, still my all-time favourite film. (Incidentally, I learned recently that the film is being remade, with Nicholas Cage starring; I look forward to seeing the results!) I'd been house-sitting for friends, and waiting for a clear day to ride the route I'd planned. Scotland's weather was up to standard that summer (i.e. it sucked) but one day before my friends were due to return from holiday, the weather was fine. A perfect day.

A couple of months later, I rode back up to Scotland for a long weekend. We were going to the Knockhill round of the BSB on the Sunday, but on the Friday evening, five of us went for a ride through the Duke's Pass, a phenomenal piece of twisty, challenging riding. That evening, and for the ride-in on race-day, I had a pillion passenger; I didn't tell her until afterwards that I hadn't had a pillion passenger for, oh, seventeen years... but I don't think she noticed! :-)

And last Thursday, as I walked to my car, I remembered another pillion passenger I had ridden with a few times a couple of years ago. A troubled individual; someone whom I desperately wanted to connect with, but didn't know how to. And then, one day, I took them out for a ride on the bike; and we connected. It was wonderful. I didn't try to impress them, let alone frighten them (I could swing for bikers who frighten their passengers and potentially turn them off biking for life); I didn't need to. We needed few words, but I knew they were enjoying the experience as much as I. Bitterness and resentment (on both sides) disappeared; for a while, at least. We rode together again, a few times, and I really believed that we had found a common vocabulary, through which we could communicate in ways that words alone had failed us.

But then life intervened; and it was not to be. We no longer ride together... and three lives are, I believe, the poorer as a result. I know that mine is.

If only life were as simple as riding a motorbike.

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"Nothing more complicated than simple perception"

2005-04-03T01:49:00.000+01:00

You're reading this post; and I have absolutely no idea *why*. Not that my not knowing is necessarily a bad thing, mind. ;-) My point is that you have your own reason for reading it, I don't know what your reason is, and that makes it rather difficult for me to continue earning the right to consume a few moments of your time by writing more posts that you'll choose to read. Instead, I have to conjecture why you might be reading my words, and decide how to continue that happy circumstance. While I would love to know your reasons, it's also curiously therapeutic *not* to know, and to play this game of conjecture. Tonight, I'm working on the hypothesis that one of the things that people find even slightly noteworthy about my writing is the way I look at things, i.e. the things I notice, the inferences I draw, and what I *do* about those inferences. Maybe I see and hear the same things as the next person, but I just respond to them differently. I noticed something yesterday which led me to feel great joy for someone, because it marked, I believe, a small but significant advance in their ability to get the most out of life; and at the same time, it made me think of a contrasting case, where someone of my acquaintance has, I think, a "deep, dark, secret" (or so they think; if I'm right, it's one of the worst-kept secrets *I've* ever seen), and their desperate fear of that secret getting out seems to greatly handicap their ability to enjoy life. Which makes me very sad, for them.

Why do we keep secrets about ourselves? I'm not referring to the simple secrets of daily life (such as what you've bought a loved one for a birthday present); no, I mean the secrets about aspects of ourself that we 'd rather were not common knowledge. Maybe, because we think it's nobody else's business but our own. Maybe because we fear the consequences (to ourselves, or to others) that might follow, *if* those secrets became public knowledge. Maybe because the information we hold secret has been entrusted to as with a solemn entreaty not to tell anyone else. There may be other reasons, but when I think about the secrets I keep or have kept, they seem to fall into those categories.

Personally, if someone entrusts me with a secret, I'll guard that secret to death. Whether or not I agree with their reasons for keeping it secret. I get a little annoyed when people make me privy to some information, and *then* entreat me to keep it secret; thanks a bunch, you've just added to my burden! ;-) If there's some reason why you want me to know, but then keep it to myself, I'd rather that you ask me first if I mind keeping your secret, before revealing it to me; that way, I can decline if I choose, and you don't have to tell me. Keeping someone else's secret, though, attests to your qualities of trustworthiness and faithfulness, and I respect that. To me, the problems arise from secrets which fall into the other two categories.

Because, in my opinion, secrets obtain power over us; more particularly, the fear that those secrets will become known spawns an intangible enemy whose harmful effect can far outweigh the actual consequences which might follow if the secret were uncovered. Not good.

I speak from experience. Between 1993 and 2003, I lived in mortal dread of the "terrible secret" of my transgendered status becoming known. I imagined all kinds of terrible consequences which would follow if that secret became public knowledge; tabloid newspapers camped out on my doorstep (or worse, the doorsteps of my friends and loved ones)... ostracism... discrimination... violence... the whole nine years. So, I took the understandable precaution of keeping that terrible secret locked up tighter than a drum. Oh, *that* was a strategy that really served me well! ;-)

But when I stopped keeping my "terrible secret", did the sky fall in? Did my life descend into pits of torment? Hardly! Suddenly, I was able to be as open or not as I chose; the fact is, it was no big deal to others. But, more than that, the intangible enemy vanished at a stroke. What was there to fear from discovery when there was nothing left to be discovered?

So, while it's tempting to keep aspects of yourself secret... it's also dangerous. I urge you, try to think of the very worst that could happen if your secret was discovered; notch the throttle back to reality a little, and try to establish what happened to others (who kept a similar secret to your own) when *their* secret was revealed (whether by their choice or not); and compare that with the damage that your own fear of your secret being discovered is actually having on you. If the maths don't equate, ask yourself whether you are in charge of your secrets; or are your secrets in charge of *you*.

Anyway... today, I saw a tiny but significant sign of someone loosening their grip on their own "terrible secret"; a secret which (to me, at least) seems no big deal at all. And I believe (and hope) that the person concerned will be repaid many times over in peace of mind and simple pleasure from life, by being less burdened by their secret than they were. Respect!

Which is a sad contrast with another person of my acquaintance, whose "terrible secret" seems to consume them. To the best of my knowledge, all of the mutual acquaintances I share with that person believe the same as I do, that this "terrible secret" is a reality; and to none of us it is anything other than an aspect of the person, no more or less noteworthy than the colour of their hair or the size of their shoes. But the person concerned carries this burden around like Atlas carrying the world on their shoulders, and seems to live a pale shadow of a life as a result.

I weep in sadness for the person concerned.

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Why I read Dave Winer's posts

2005-04-03T01:06:00.000+01:00

In a little while, I'll have finished writing a post which refers to the issue of *not* knowing why people read your work making it that much harder to continue satisfying them. Maybe that's a good thing, in the sense that by *not* playing to the audience, you remain true to yourself; maybe it's a bad thing, because you run the risk of losing your audience and thus lose the chance to put your thoughts in front of those who may benefit most from them. I don't have an answer to that conundrum; I suspect there *is* no single right answer. Either way, I've just read two posts that appeared in quick succession on Dave Winer's "Scripting News" blog that confirm why I read his writing; which is that here is a guy who tells it from the heart, as he sees it, and truly doesn't give a f*** if others have a hard time with that aspect of himself. Which is a trait I admire, and also try to live by.

Anyway, the first post shows someone *not* leaping on an inevitable topical bandwagon:

Listening to the endless radio "coverage" of the Pope's death, it's remarkable how unbalanced it is. They have priests, saying we all know deep inside the Pope was right about everything. Hello. Earth to Catholics. The Pope was a good PR guy, but come on, he was against birth control. The Catholics actually burned condoms in AIDS-plagued Africa. Now would be a great opportunity for some of the real reporting the pros are so famous for. Instead they're running an endless infomercial for the Catholic Church. Hey the Catholics are the church of sin and hell, fire and brimstone. If ever there were an opportunity to be balanced this is it. No more footsie? Heh, yeah sure.

[Via Scripting News]

Now, I could take personal exception to the attitudes expressed by the Pope (and many in organised religions) about people like myself; but hey, they're just as entitled to their opinions as I am. The example Dave cites, though, gives a telling and concrete instance where one group's dogma needlessly costs lives. No matter how admirable the Pope's qualities as a person, it doesn't compensate for lives unnecessarily lost. In my opinion.

In the other post, he reinforces another long-held opinion of mine, i.e. that a good measure of a person's contribution to a debate is less about the friends he keeps, and more about the enemies he makes:

Scoble is a man of respect. "My co-author Shel Israel gave me heck for being too nice to my fellow bloggers." Right on. Too much footsie in the blogosphere. Enough. Just the facts please. Enough telling me about your friends. Make some new enemies for a change.

[Via Scripting News]

I think the public difference of opinions between himself and Adam Curry over the future of podcasting, or his issues with the EFF and Cory Doctorow on the issues of copyright raised by pervasive linking technologies such as Google's also attests to his willingness to stand up for what he believes in. Bottom line; while I may not always agree with what he *says*, I know that what he says is what he believes. Really, I don't ask for more than that from a commentator.

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RE: CrossOver Session Six: "Whats in my bag?"

2005-04-02T10:28:00.000+01:00

Now online (MP3, 2.8 MB, 11 minutes 50 seconds) - in which I discuss the contents of my make-up bag, and how I use them! :-)

I'm trying yet more new recording techniques in this session, in an attempt to improve the sound quality while keeping the file size down; I'd appreciate any feedback on that aspect, as well as the content.

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

[Via CrossOverPodcast]

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Closing the "Can of Worms"

2005-04-01T04:39:00.000+01:00

I've received sufficient feedback (and some perspectives that, simply, hadn't occurred to me) that I can see that it would be a good thing to write a book. So I will.

That is all. For now. (See, James, how brief and concise is *that*?) ;-)

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A Can of Worms Part 3 - Telling The Right Story

2005-03-30T20:49:00.000+01:00

Continuing this little series of posts, which began here and proceeded here... in this post I want to address issue 4):

"Do I have a book in me? Sure; more than one, in my opinion; books, plays, screenplays... but the ones I would *like* to write (indeed, have part-written) would not be *this* one, if I'm honest. This is such a fundamental issue for me that I'm going to write another post on this issue alone."

As you might have gathered, I am something of a frustrated would-be writer. Then again, isn't everybody (apart from those who *are* published, of course!) I'm not going to comment on whether the world has been spared a horror by the fact that I haven't actually published anything; it's a racing certainty that I'd need a good editor with a plentiful stock of red pens, otherwise I'd tend to works of a Proustian scale rather than an elegant Haiku. ;-) Actually, I'm probably being a little unfair on myself; I love Haiku, and have written a fair few in my time. Maybe I'll dig some out and post some somewhere... But I digress!

OK, I *have* to give a little historical context here, but it isn't really "dwelling on the past" so I'll cut myself a little slack. In February 2001, I had pretty much a full-on emotional melt-down, and spent the best part of seven months trying to recover. At the time, I was running my own company, so that was, er, "interesting"! By August 2001, I was starting to get back on my feet, but was (because of the work hiatus) seriously stretched financially. But I plugged on, and started to build up my business again... and then really crashed hard in January 2002. The reason is simple enough; I knew I was transgendered, and was trying everything I could think of to deal with *being* transgendered, *without* transitioning. But I was also fighting clinical depression; and while I still think that my depression is actually a separate beast, I am convinced that the strain of not dealing with being transgendered was like throwing petrol on the fires of my depression. Something had to give. It did. Me. In early 2002, I knew that I couldn't continue trying to work, trying to keep one step ahead of creditors, trying to keep a lid on being transgendered and trying to deal with depression. Two wonderful friends of mine stepped up to the plate. "Get your backside up here; come and live with us while you get yourself sorted". Which, on reflection I decided to do. In one sentence that hides a multitude of activities, I petitioned for personal bankruptcy, told the friends in question about my being transgendered (which I felt it was only fair that they know), packed up and moved up to Scotland.

So, how did I occupy my time? They gave me the space and encouragement to do something I'd long wanted to do, but had never had the time to do; to write. I've had ideas for books, plays and screenplays in my head for years; time to realise one of them. And that's what I set about doing. It was slow going, because I was *still* not dealing with being transgendered, and was really feeling the effects of depression; but I made progress. I'd set myself the goal of plotting and producing a compelling work of fiction written as book *and* play; i.e. rather than writing a book which someone might adapt to a screenplay (assuming it was worth filming) or writing a screenplay which might be novelised if the film was successful, I tried to ensure that the story was constructed such that it would be visually captivating if filmed, yet work as a good book if novelised (I'm sure that some of the people who read what I write will agree that books and screenplays are completely separate beasts). Well, I love a challenge, and that was the one I set myself. I think I was probably about 40% done when something completely unexpected happened.

I fell in love.

I'm not going to be any more specific than that at this point, because of issue 11) I raised in the first of these posts. All I'll say, for now, is that I relocated once more, was not able to devote any more time to my writing at that point, and then circumstances occurred which destroyed the latest state of my work-in-progress. Yes, backups are wonderful things... but I had been lax in my backup regime (I had a few things on my mind) and so the latest version I have of what I'd written is, maybe, 20% complete. Circumstances dictated that I needed to really get back to full-time employment, which I did. And I haven't written a word more since, of that work, at least.

Why have I written all this? Because I want to justify my position, which is that, *if* I have the talent to write something worth publishing... then I'd rather like it to be the book & screenplay that I worked on back then. However... it's entirely possible that, good as I hoped they were and better as I hoped they would become, neither was good enough in their own right.

But another thought nags away at me; maybe they *are* good enough... but maybe the chances of something happening with them would be significantly improved if I'd already been published. I have no idea if the publishing industry works that way... but what if it did? What if, much as I might have reservations, by writing the kind of book Susan suggests I made it more likely that one of my other works might see the light of day? OK, I'll admit it; *that* is a tempting prospect, for me at least. But, as I've said, I've no idea if the world works like that.

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A Can of Worms Part 2 - Map-Reading

2005-03-30T19:50:00.000+01:00

Following on from a previous post, this one addresses one of the issues I raised in that post, i.e. item 6):

"If I compiled such a book, wouldn't it be akin to saying "this is how to do *it*"... whatever *it* might be. As a Buddhist, I have a fundamental problem with *telling* people how to do things. Again, this is such a fundamental issue for me that I'll address it in another post."

So what am I getting at here? Well, let's assume that one possible justification for (or, if not justification for, then at least by-product of) such a book would the idea that it might capture some experience or knowledge that might help others on some problematic life-journey of their own.

Here's a very high-level summary of two of the key aspects of Buddhism. One is the notion of the "Three Treasures"; the other, the "Four Noble Truths". The Three Treasures are the Buddha (the Enlightened One), the Dharma (the "body of Knowledge" that represents the teachings of the Buddha) and the Sangha (the Buddhist community). The Buddha made the Dharma available to the Sangha. But you don't get the full benefit of the Dharma just by reading it. You can't (well, you shouldn't, at least in my opinion) take it on trust; you have to consider it, examine it, think how it applies to your life, your circumstances; meditate on it. My analogy would be this; even assuming I had something worth saying, am I actually doing the people who might benefit from it a service by conveniently packaging it up for them? Don't they have to work at it themselves to get the benefit from it? A master craftsman could justifiably train his apprentice; but should a coach give steroids to his athlete? If I wrote such a book, would it be training or steroids?

The Four Noble Truths (depending on the source you use and the translation you apply) basically state that a) life is suffering; b) suffering is caused by craving; c) suffering can be overcome; and d) there is a path to follow to overcome that suffering. That path, the Noble Eightfold Path, describes the behaviours and attitudes which may lead to enlightenment. So here's my analogy; the situation I'm in has meant that my life has been pretty painful, up to this point. Maybe I've figured out how to correct that; maybe the path that worked for me could work for someone else. But (and it's a big but), *maybe that path only worked for me because I took so many wrong turns before I found the right one*. Maybe if I hadn't taken such a twisty path, I *couldn't* have reached my destination. Or appreciated it when I got there; or enjoyed the journey when I was clear about the destination I aspired to.

So I'm a bit stumped as to what to do for the best! ;-) Here's another analogy; let's assume I'm a map-maker, a cartographer. I construct a map of how I got from a) to b), clearly marking the route I took, the areas I strayed into that I wish I hadn't, the areas I strayed into that I'm glad I did, the areas I didn't go into which I regret I never saw, and the hazards I'm glad I didn't wander into. A navigational guide from starting grid to the chequered flag, if you like. Perhaps I write a little travelogue that describes the journey. What kinds of people could use or enjoy the map and / or the travelogue?

1) People who start from my starting point and aspire to my destination could retrace my steps, as accurately as I've recorded them;

2) People who start where I started and aspire to my destination could take a different path, but at least they'd know where my path was if they found their own a little too taxing;

3) People whose starting point and / or destination are different to mine, but who need to cover a part of the same route, could follow my path where appropriate, or use similar navigational techniques over a different part of the map;

4) People who aspire to my destination, but decide that my path is simply not for them, might still be encouraged to know that hacking through the jungle is worth the effort;

5) People who have no interest in joining me at my destination, but who like a good travel story, might just want to enjoy learning about the journey I made! ;-)

And there are undoubtedly other ways to extend that analogy. My point is, that the higher up that list you are, the more you might appreciate the guidance; but the higher up that list you are, the more nervous I am about the consequences of leading you astray. In my CrossOver audio shows, I've typically made a comment along the lines of "I don't give advice; I can only talk with authority about what has worked, and what hasn't worked, for *me*". And I'm keenly aware that at times I *had* to make painful mistakes and go through enormous torment, because otherwise I wouldn't have had the motivation, resolve or necessity to take seemingly drastic (but actually quite essential) steps.

I've a horrible feeling I've completely shrouded my dilemma in confusion there! :-) Actually, that's probably the nub of the matter; I'm afraid that in trying to do the *right* thing, I may actually make it worse for someone else. And I don't want to do that.

This jungle is awfully dark; pass me a torch, someone, please! ;-)

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A Can of Worms

2005-03-30T15:45:00.000+01:00

In a comment which she's just made on a previous post of mine, Susan wrote:

This is beautiful, courageous, and infinitely inspiring. Thank you so very, very much for being willing to reveal the part of you that has brought you pain, but which brings us, the readers & listeners, strength and hope.

Please consider putting together a book of your thoughts... it's wonderful.

[Via Analysis (Services and Self)]

Oh, if you only knew... There's a whole range of issues raised by this comment; but maybe now's the time to address them. Ever-mindful of James' behest that I keep my posts as brief as possible, I'm going to split this into four posts (i.e. this one and three subsequent posts) because that's the best way I can think of to get all the issues, as I see them, in the open, in realtively digestible chunks; that way, if anyone wants to comment at any point, preferably here but otherwise in private email, I'll try and decide what to do.

The issues that are raised by Susan's suggestion (at least, those that I can think of at the moment) are listed here. The problem for me is that, for each of them, I can think of compelling reasons *not* to write such a book; but for most of them, I can think of at least one good reason *to* write such a book. If I answered from where I am now, with what I know now, I would say that, on balance, I probably shouldn't write it. But, I'm neither in possession of all the relevant facts, nor am I objective enough to make informed choices for some of these issues. So, I'd really welcome some external input.

In no particular order of importance (but numbered for convenience if you choose to make a comment) the issues are:

1) In the very post that Susan commented on, I made the point that I had decided not to dwell on the past. I can't see how I could do such a book justice, without doing just that... and I'm a firm believer in the principle of "say what you mean, and mean you say". I said I wouldn't dwell on the past, so...

2) To me, the idea of a "book" means printed, published and for sale. I would feel uncomfortable about profiting from such a book. Truly. It would be a book born out of pain (my own, and that of people who've shared parts of this journey with me, at various times, and in various guises). I would feel awful about profiting from their pain. Now, given that apparently relatively few books make any significant money for their authors, this might be an academic question; but it matters to *me*, even if only as a principle.

3) On the other hand, to do such a book justice would require significant investment of effort and energy (actual and emotional) to make the results worthwhile. I'm not sure I have the resources to do that, while also doing the job that I do.

4) Do I have a book in me? Sure; more than one, in my opinion; books, plays, screenplays... but the ones I would *like* to write (indeed, have part-written) would not be *this* one, if I'm honest. This is such a fundamental issue for me that I'm going to write another post on this issue alone.

5) To do this book justice, I would need to have a clear recollection of key events that have shaped who I am and what I now think, feel and believe. Sadly, my memory is so challenged at this point that I'm not sure I can recall all those events.

6) If I compiled such a book, wouldn't it be akin to saying "this is how to do *it*"... whatever *it* might be. As a Buddhist, I have a fundamental problem with *telling* people how to do things. Again, this is such a fundamental issue for me that I'll address it in another post.

7) In the post that Susan commented on, I tried to explain why I view this as being, truly, a time of transition in my life. When this transition is over, I'll be living a different life. I won't ever deny that this transition (and what preceded it) took place; but, really, I won't want to keep harping on about it. Writing *anything* on the subject makes that just a little bit harder; I weighed up that question when debating whether to start a blog, and especially whether to write about being transgendered in this blog. I decided that the benefits (primarily, to others, but also to me) outweighed the risks. Somehow, writing a book seems *more* permanent than writing blog posts or recording audio shows, even taking account of web archives like Google. And "more permanent" might imply "more difficult to move on from".

8) Even if I decided to write such a book; is there an audience? Who would read it? What would they be reading it *for*? I've absolutely no interest in pandering to people who just want the juicy details of pain, surgery and the like, for example.

9) If I wrote it; who would publish it? Sure, I could self-publish, as an e-book or print (do I hear the term, "vanity publishing"?) Trust me, my vanity doesn't need massaging by such an activity. If it would just be an e-book, well... there's plenty of my writing out there in e-form already. Everything in this blog is written under a Creative Commons license (the Non-Commercial, Share-Alike By-Attribution license, if it matters) so if someone *else* wants to anthologise it for the public good, be my guest. If you want to make money out of doing that, however, well, that license doesn't permit that. Which is exactly *why* I chose that license. ;-)

10) Suppose I decided to write such a book; what would happen to this blog or the CrossOver audio show? Let's assume a publisher stepped up and said "sure, Koan, write the book and we'll publish it". Are they going to be happy if I continued writing what would end up in the book as posts on this blog? Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are writing a book, in public, via a blog; somehow I doubt that I would have the same leverage with any publisher who might consider publishing mine.

11) And finally, maybe the most important question of all; such a book would inevitably draw heavily on the experiences that shaped me up to now, whether I explicitly write about those experiences or not. But I wasn't the only participant in many of those experiences. What of the other parties involved? What right do I have to potentially expose them to scrutiny or attention that they might, quite reasonably, prefer not to have?

So, it's not a straightforward issue. And before Susan feels guilty about opening up a whole can of worms for me, she hasn't; patently, I've thought about this a lot, on many occasions. I do a lot of thinking; arguably, too much thinking, and not enough doing! But she *has* brought me to the realisation that I don't have all the answers, and I'm not objective on the potential value *to others* of such a book. So here's the deal; I'm going to write three more posts on the issues I've listed here (plus any other issues which subsequently occur to me, or are suggested by others). Two of those issues, listed above, deserve a post each; the remainder I can deal with in one fairly succinct statement of *my* feelings, for and against. I would really, really appreciate any comments, for or against, by anyone who reads this blog or listens to an audio show in which I might mention this subject.

The bottom line is this; if it seems appropriate to write such a book, then I'll write it, and work out the details of publishing, distribution etc. But I remain to be convinced that I should write it; and in the three upcoming posts, I'll explain why I think that, currently. Apart from anything else, there are already plenty of published first-person accounts of people who've transitioned; I truly don't know what I've got to say on the subject that hasn't already been well said. And I certainly don't presume to think that I'm the possessor of some profound knowledge or secret wisdom; if I am, well, it hasn't done me much good, has it! ;-) I'm not fishing for compliments... I *am* seeking a little external perspective.

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RE: Anyone have an invite for Yahoo 360?

2005-03-30T03:31:00.000+01:00

I’d love to get in on the ground floor of Yahoo 360 — anyone have an invite they can flip me?

[Via I Love Radio .org]

And that's a big old AOL "me, too!" if anyone's got one going spare... pretty please... ;-)

Update: I'm now sorted with an invite (thanks, Adrian!) So, let me return the favour; if anyone else would like an invite (I'm not sure how many I have, it's not immediately obvious to me, unlike Gmail invites) then leave a comment on this post and I'll send one along. Actually, since I have a wad of Gmail invites too, if anyone wants one of *those* as well / instead, likewise, please leave a comment and I'll oblige.

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Gadgets! I love them! :-)

2005-03-28T22:09:00.000+01:00

Gratuitous geek gadget alert... on Friday, my good friend TJ (and his lovely wife, Katy) installed a new CD player / radio in my car... together with an interface for my iPod Mini, so that the latter can now be fully controlled from the radio head unit. It's just wicked! Of course, while they were hard at work, so was I; drinking their coffee, playing with their cats, and fixing my make-up, which I'd been too late out of bed to do. ;-) Anyway, the sound quality is amazing, and the killer aspect, for me, is that the content management metadata (e.g. play count, last played) is fully implemented in reverse; since I make extensive use of Smart Playlists in iTunes to manage the high volume of podcasts that flow through my iPod, that point was fundamental for me (and the primary reason why I had to throw my hands up in defeat at trying to achieve the same end (listening to podcasts in my car) by means of burning CDs. If I have *one* criticism, it's that I can't rate a track from the head unit (which would be, for me, the icing on the cake); but I'll forgive the manufacturer's oversight, this time. ;-)

The other gadget was one I actually bought a few months ago, a wireless networked media player, but was never really ble to use as fully as I'd hoped. The aim was to include this in my home entertainment system (i.e. it's wired up to my TV, as I don't actually have a full-blown Hi-Fi system) and use it to access media (audio files, video files, pictures) shared out on devices (e.g. my laptop) on my wireless LAN. This was great, as far as it went; but I couldn't for the life of me, get the player to play protected (i.e. subject to Digital Rights Management) Windows Media Audio files, nor could I use any of the supposedly-available online streaming services across my broadband connection. I tracked the former down to an issue with the firmware in the device; it needed to be at least Version 1.04 (1.05 was the latest, according to the manufacturer's web site, and mine was steadfastly rooted at 1.03EU). This looked suspiciously like a case of "one law for the US, one for Europe", and meant that I couldn't use the otherwise wonderful commercial Napster service until the firmware was upgraded. I wrote to the manufacturer... no response. Well, tonight, on a whim, I turned on the device to see if a firmware update was available, and lo, it automagically updated to 1.05EU.e1. One hard reboot of both the media player (and the laptop, hosting Windows Media Connect) later, and not only can I now make full use of the Napster service (which I will wax annoyingly lyrical about in a future post)... but there's now access to the Live365.com streaming media service as well! :-)

Tonight, I'm in "geek gadget heaven".

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RE: Power to the People

2005-03-28T19:51:00.000+01:00

It might surprise some people, particularly those who know that I am most definitely *not* a Christian, to learn that one of my favourite blogs is Brian Bailey's "Leave It Behind". For a variety of reasons; Brian is an intelligent developer, a clear and thought-provoking writer, and an excellent "meta-filter" for want of a better term. That he works for, and is an enthusiastic advocate for, a particularly evangelical church is not an issue for me; the fact that I wouldn't (by choice) sit in his church's congregation doesn't mean that I'm not interested in what they think and believe... far from it. Anyway, a recent post on Brian's blog was:

The brilliant Martin Fowler continues the recent theme that the key to developing quality software is to hire positive, talented, highly-motivated developers and then remove all obstacles that stand in their way. Read PeopleMatterMost.

[Via Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey]

Martin Fowler's article is not the first that I've read proposing that philosophy; indeed, it's a line of thinking I've long espoused. But Martin's article may be the clearest justification I've yet read.

And the moral of this message is: I don't work for nothing, and I don't come cheaply! ;-)

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RE: CrossOver Session Five: "Why two check-boxes are simply not enough"

2005-03-28T11:25:00.000+01:00

Now online (MP3, 4.4 MB, 18 minutes 55 seconds) - in which I discuss my perspective on why society's insistence on a strictly male or female view of the world simply isn't enough. This session includes a short excerpt from Dr. Moira Gunn's interview with Deborah Rudicille of Johns-Hopkins University, which can be downloaded from the "IT Conversations" web site (included under the terms of the Creative Commons Sampling License). See the shownotes (HTML, OPML) for relevant links.

[Via CrossOverPodcast]

The Studio

2005-03-28T08:06:00.000+01:00

KoanStudio,
originally uploaded by Koan Bremner.

From where I broadcast to an unsuspecting world... another Stressless recliner, my Marantz PMD670 digital recorder, iPod Mini, mug of coffee, bay window looking out into the New Forest... all human life is here. And deer, moles, cats, horses, ponies, pigs, donkeys...

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The better crew won... sadly!

2005-03-27T15:34:00.000+01:00

Oh well, there's always next year... actually, watching this exertion has given me an idea. PodcasterCon has been announced (no date as yet, as far as I can tell) but the venue is set for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I would love to attend. I *could* just fly, of course (and use my lovely new passport)... or I could row! At least, I could row the distance on the Concept 2. I'd probably make it in time for the *next* PodcasterCon. ;-)

Now, where's my atlas...

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Or the stroke..

2005-03-27T14:36:00.000+01:00

DSC00013,
originally uploaded by Koan Bremner.

Of course, I could also write some code, read some blogs, listen to some podcasts, paint my nails... or all of them!

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In the bow seat

2005-03-27T14:34:00.000+01:00

DSC00012,
originally uploaded by Koan Bremner.

Playing Rugby wasn't my last competitive outing... in 1986, at the start of my last year at University, I decide to try rowing, for my college. Which was great fun, if a little challenging (primarily because of getting up at 6am three mornings a week in a freezing Cambridge winter to row. I had some photos of my crew racing, but of course I can't find them right now. So I've put a couple of pictures on Flickr (taken with my cellphone, apologies for average quality) to show that the spirit is still there... yes, that's my Concept 2 rower, together with my Stressless recliner, four remote controllers, laptop, iPod Mini (pink, of course), mug of coffee... so when I've finished killing myself on the rower I can collapse into my recliner. ;-)

And, of course, my allegiance is with the Light Blues... "rowed, Cambridge, rowed!"

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Without doubt, the funniest thing I have heard so far this year...

2005-03-27T08:26:00.000+01:00

... primarily because I know *exactly* what this feels like; and now, so does Tod...

In this rather humiliating episode, professional esthetician Laura Gardiner teaches you how to wax your ass-crack. (Or any part of your body, for that matter.) Horrifyingly, I get my ass-hair waxed off -- all set to the haunting music of Bolero.

[Via I Love Radio .org]

Trust me; you want to download and listen to this. It's only 2.5MB in size. Five minutes of pure pleasure. Yours, not his.

Perhaps I should suggest that he tries electrolysis on this area...? Maybe not. ;-)

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"Michelle, any regrets?" "No, never, never; not a one"

2005-03-26T20:29:00.000Z

I was talking today with one of the people I have come to know while working at Exony. In the course of that conversation, that person said the following (it was an online conversation, and I quote this part of it verbatim):

"Let me say this though: You have challenged me and many others I am sure. You challenge people (indeed society) to examine ourselves, and our ideas. You may not be aware, but you have profoundly changed people at Exony."

I was completely taken aback by that statement. Is that true? That's not the way that I see things... but the person concerned doesn't lie. Whether *I* believe it or not... *they* believe it. Which started me thinking... so now it's *your* turn. ;-)

Think of a person you admire; someone who inspires you. Why did you choose them? Maybe they embody characteristics that you value, and wish you could emulate. Maybe they've struggled through adversity with courage, determination and effort; or maybe they're an unsung person whom people don't notice, because they don't sing their own praises (nor induce others to sing them for them). I'd like to tell you a little about one of *my* personal heroines.

I'm not a particularly sporty person; at school, I was usually among the last to be picked for team games; never mind, you can't be good at *everything*! ;-) That said, I enjoyed playing some sports, Rugby Union in particular, and I can at least say that I regularly represented my school in the First XV when I was in the Sixth Form (no idea what they call it these days; when I was 17 and 18). I played hooker (no jokes, please!) and might have continued to play once I went to University, had I not been put off by a spate of three broken necks to front-row players for College teams at my University in my first two weeks. I wasn't *that* keen on the game. I haven't really played competitive sport since; I used to ride my horse, Bally, but not competitively, and I tended to enjoy outdoor activities (especially scuba diving) which were, by their nature, non-competitive. So it's fair to say that I'm not aware of any sense in which I stand to lose out on participating in something I love doing by completing my journey towards womanhood. But for others, they face just such a potential conflict; and how they respond can be a huge indicator of their qualities as a person.

In case you haven't heard of her, Michelle Dumaresq is the Canadian women's downhill mountain biking champion. She's represented her country in international sporting competition, as a woman. To finance her sporting dreams, she works as a welder in a primarily male workforce.

Oh, and she spent the first twenty years of her life as Michael.

Michelle is the subject of a new documentary film, "100% Woman", which I , for one, cannot wait to see. As it says on the film's website:

"Shot over two years, 100% Woman is an adrenaline-fueled ride-along on Michelle's controversial foray into international women's competition. Combining verite scenes, interviews, home movies and dynamic footage of some of the best mountain bikers in the world, we follow Michelle from her first local race, to the World Championships where she makes history as the first transgendered athlete on a national team, to the glare of the media spotlight."

So, is that why I rate her as a personal heroine? Admirable as her achievements are, that's not the reason. Michelle describes a little of her personal journey on Lynn Conway's "Transsexual Women's Successes" web site. It's not a particularly long piece of writing, and well worth the reading. The key quote, for me, is:

"I have found as a trans person it's acceptable to compete but don't you dare win. Well I did just that."

Now, *that's* an attitude I admire! :-) As well as that piece (and numerous other articles linked to from that site, or easily found via e.g. Google, Michelle was recently interviewed on GenderTalk; and right at the end of the interview, Nancy Nangeroni asked Michelle the question that forms the first part of the title of this post, and Michelle gave the answer that forms the second. And you can hear in her voice that she means it. Even having been through the indignities that she had in pursuit of her competitive dream. "That's* why she's a personal heroine of mine; regret nothing.

Michelle, you go girl! And do I *ever* wish my voice was as cool as yours! :-)

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RE: CrossOver Session Four - "Post-Electrolysis Skincare"

2005-03-26T09:08:00.000Z

Now online (MP3, 2.00 MB, 8 minutes 40 seconds, 32kbps) - due to my ongoing memory lapses, I completely forgot to talk in Session Three about the condition of the skin after electrolysis, and skincare recommendations. Consider this as Session 3.5... ;-)

As an experiment, I've encoded this session at 32kbps (rather than the 64kbps I've used previously); since this is primarily a speech-only show, I think the drop in audio quality is more than offset by the halving in the downloaded file size. Also, to improve the user experience of those who use iTunes / iPod to play their podcasts, I've changed the Song Name, Artist and Album ID3 tags to work more effectively in that environment. Please let me know (by email or comment) if you approve or disapprove of either (or both) of these changes.

RE: CrossOver Session Three - "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow"

2005-03-18T13:01:00.000Z

Now online (MP3, 9.06 MB, 19 minutes 48 seconds) - in which I give some thoughts on how to approach the challenge of permanent hair removal. Sadly, whichever method you employ, it won't be "gone tomorrow"... but it's desirable (and necessary) to do it, and hopefully this show will help someone else who has to face (no pun intended) this process.

Now, this has impressed me

2005-03-17T05:57:00.000Z

I read this post, just over a week ago:

One last one, the SXSW crew has a BitTorrent file of all the available music. I'm starting to download this. I need something to listen to on the plane. Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing to that.

[Via Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

... and I promptly set my BitTorrent client running (whenever I wasn't in the office) to download this unexpected bounty. And, last night, the download completed. Over 750 songs is a treat in itself; but, courtesy of the original post in the link above, I realised that there's more to this than just the music. As well as additional music (not included in the original BitTorrent), if you follow the link through you'll end up at CitizenPod, where you can download the complete South By Southwest (SXSW) music festival schedule, to load in your iPod. So what? Especially if, like me, you're sadly not attending the festival or the conference... well, load up your iPod with the festival schedule *and* the downloaded music, and the "Notes" section of iPod becomes an interactive, hyperlinked menu for all of that music. Together with links to details about the artists and songs, itineraries, ... maybe this is "old hat" to some, but I see this, and I think "podcast shownotes", "interactive media content"... this has got my imagination (such as it is these days) buzzing. Very, very cool. Assuming I'm able to travel this time next year, I can see that SXSW (along with Burning Man) need to be on my agenda for 2006...

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Better write this, before I forget...

2005-03-17T05:00:00.000Z

It's been something of a medical week, this week; I had an appointment with my Doctor on Monday morning, and a regular appointment with a psychiatrist at the Gender Identity Clinic on Tuesday. For Monday, there were five specific topics I needed to discuss with him, but of course, I only remembered four of them. The one that I forgot? The state of my memory... can you spot a trend here? :-( Anyway, acknowledging such good news as there is, my body (particularly my liver) appears to be coping with the full dose of hormones which I'm taking, so no problems are anticipated there. In an effort to try and obtain some sleep (even if artificial) I've been prescribed sedatives to be taken "occasionally"; so the plan is to take them on Monday and Wednesday evenings, so that hopefully I'll get sufficient sleep on those nights to be safe to drive to the office, have a full day there, and drive home again, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at least. We'll see how that goes... as for the Gender Identity Clinic, the primary purpose behind those (nominally) three-monthly appointments is to monitor my progress on the two-year "Real Life Test", successful completion of which is a precondition of approval for Gender Reassignment Surgery. As far as that is concerned, their reading of the situation harmonises with my own, i.e. the most important element for me to focus on remains my voice, the rest is proceeding fine. But the fact that my memory and concentration problems have persisted now worries them, too...

So I'm being referred to a neuro specialist as a precaution. Although there is no history of early-onset Alzheimer's in my family, "let's rule it out to be sure". Oh, now, isn't *that* a cheery thought... I'm conscious that I've probably mentioned my memory issues as much as anything else in this blog. If I'd always been a forgetful, dippy bimbo then I wouldn't worry about it; but until very recently, that wasn't the case at all. The contrast is so marked, and came on so suddenly, that it's hard *not* to be frustrated by it. And, in truth, worried about it. To be blunt, scared witless by it. I am most conscious of it at work, and I am sorry to say that I can't have been much fun to be around while dealing (badly) with this. I've tried to apologise in person to those of my colleagues who've borne the brunt of my frustration; but (with the exception of my immediate boss) I don't think they really understand. Which is no criticism of them.

I tried to think of an upbeat way to finish this post; in truth, I can't find one. All I feel is the realisation that my continual progress towards the ability to live my life as I need to is coupled with a simultaneous reduction in my intellectual capacity to appreciate it. How nice.

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What's in a format?

2005-03-13T10:02:00.000Z

Do you have an MP3 player? Chances are good that you do, according to a raft of recent statistics. If you do, chances are *very* good that it's an iPod (or one of its variants). Which means (unless you like carrying around an empty electronic device that acts as little more than a paperweight) that you're likely to have at least one piece of digital audio content in which you're interested; an MP3 file, or Apple AAC file, or Windows Media WMA file, or uncompressed WAV, or Ogg Vorbis, or Real Networks, or Digital Monkey, or...

Why the proliferation of formats? Are there any relative advantages or disadvantages? Why should you care? Here are my thoughts on how the plethora of formats impacts my consumption (and, to a much lesser extent, production) of digital audio. My conclusion; I really *can* have my cake and eat it... but sadly not in one format.

When thinking about these different formats, the aspects I considered included:

* Sound quality - how "listenable" were the results, on the various mechanisms by which I consume digital audio;

* Size - yup; size matters ;-) certainly if you're downloading and storing the files, how long is it going to take to download them, and how much space will they consume (on your MP3 player, and on whatever persistent archive you use);

* Availability - from which sources can I get files in this format;

* Usability - on which devices can I use that format;

* Reusability - if I want to reuse part of the content (assuming, of course, that I have the right to) how does the format of the original impact the quality of the results;

* Rights management - can the format enforce rights management (i.e. I'll be restricted in what I can do with it, possibly depending on the price I'm prepared to pay) and can *I* enforce any rights on the content that *I* produce (assuming I choose to);

* "Produceability" - how easy is it for me to produce content in that format;

* Value-add - does the format offer *anything* else that may make it more (or less) applicable to certain uses, other than those aspects listed above?

Out of deference to James (who made the fair observation that some of my posts are too large - "size matters" again!) I'm going to cover this discussion in multiple posts. But I'll state *my* conclusion at the outset (and justify why I've come to that conclusion as we go forwards): Apple's AAC format is the optimal format "for me" (because I can bookmark the files, in iTunes and in my iPod Mini, so I can go away and play as many other tracks as I like, but the next time I play this track, it remembers where I was); except that it can't be used with Napster (or Napster-To-Go), the former being this music-lover's legitimate dream, while the latter appears to be that dream with bells on... but not on an iPod; for Napster, WMA rules.

In the next post in this series, I'll look at sound quality and size (because the two are inextricably linked).

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Hey, Doug, this one's for you! :-)

2005-03-13T08:47:00.000Z

See the impact that your children are having?

Times Online UK: Crazy Frog turns into a real prince: That's right - when future generations look back at the beginning of the 21st century they will find the biggest cultural icon was the 'Crazy Frog'.... But here's the kicker, the Annoying Thing has apparently generated 14 million pounds for Jamster, with almost no expenses.

[Via Billboard PostPlay]

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War Paint

2005-03-13T08:23:00.000Z

So it's a cold but clear Sunday morning, and I'm sitting here shivering, because the central heating boiler broke down yesterday evening. Realistically, I don't imagine it will be fixed before tomorrow, so a chilly day is in prospect. "How to warm it up" I ask myself; well, I could talk for ten minutes on any random subject (that's usually guaranteed to generate sufficient hot air to fill a small concert hall); or write some in-depth technical article (my boss thinks I write too much on topics that he's not interested in, like podcasting; of course, since he won't permit me to write on at least one subject I could really could eulogise, like the cunning stuff I spend my working hours developing, it's partly a problem of his own making!) Or, I could write a poem, and share it with you, gentle reader. So here you are.

I left a comment to a post on someone else's blog recently; after I'd written the comment, I realised that the first four words had a rhythm that seemed to beg to be expanded upon.

"War Paint"

Make-up: concealer, camouflage, revealer;
What does the term mean to you?
Method to hide from the hostile outside;
Armour to face an unyielding world;
Or gloss on the final product?

For me, all three,
But mostly the latter.
One way to ensure that
You see what I see.

Without it, I'm me
Still the same me
But clad in a skin that won't set me free;
That won't let me be who I know to be
The person inside of me.

But give me a mirror
Some light, and ten minutes
And I'll put on my mask, for sure.
Cover the blemishes, fill in the wrinkles,
Lay the foundation; but more
Than all that, I'll set free my soul
And say, "there you go, there's the door".

Open, step through
(In a well-chosen shoe)
And see the outside as before;
But see it more clearly,
Feel it more dearly
Like a swimmer who makes for the shore

The world hasn't changed
In a tangible way
From the one that I lived in before
But how I live in it
And what I give to it
Is what I am doing this for.

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Frustration beyond words

2005-03-12T06:12:00.000Z

So, what do you do when insomnia grabs you at 12.30am (this is so far beyond a joke... I'm seeing my Doctor on Monday morning, not specifically about this, but I have to find *some* way to get some sleep) - you try, for the n'th time, to export your blog from Blogger to Radio, that's what. And succeed, for the n'th time, in finding a way *not* to make it work. :-( So now I've thrown it over to Userland (the publishers of Radio) through their discussion group. I want to use Radio so much (as my colleague Steve puts it, I "get moist" thinking about the possibilities of OPML and ActiveRenderer, both of which Radio supports so well); and *don't* want to lose the content from here; but frankly it's getting to the point where it's just not worth the trouble. Step up to the plate, Userland; an avowed advocate of your software is about to give up on it.

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Go forth and prosper, young man!

2005-03-12T03:26:00.000Z

There are some things that are guaranteed to put a smile on my face. Seeing someone make progress (whether in their personal or professional life) is one of them; seeing that they recognise that they've made progress, for their own sake and by their own efforts, further increases my pleasure; and if I can justifiably feel that I have helped them (in some way) to make progress, then the glow that I feel is magical. I've often wondered why this has such an effect on me; and I think it's because I recognise that I've been lucky in many ways with the opportunities with which this life has presented me. Some I have taken; some I have royally screwed up; yet others I have *made* happen. They're the ones that felt most satisfying to me; and when other people make progress as I've described, then I believe that it it increases the chance that they can make their own opportunities. I was privileged to see one of my colleagues make such progress this week.

I'm not a particularly materialistic person, and am becoming less so as I get older. That said, since I have to work to make a living, I've tried to remain marketable and desirable (in an economic sense) by identifying skills I have (or developing skills I don't have) which are desirable, valuable but scarce in the market-place. Nothing particularly rocket science about that. That's one of the reasons why I've become so interested in Business Intelligence technologies over the years (databases, data warehousing, online analytical processing, data mining, data visualisation and the like); many organisations want it, few do it well. It's not a commodity technology, nor are the people who truly understand it commodity employees. A true craftsman uses the right tools for the right job at the right time and in the right way; an amateur (even a well-intentioned one) gets part of that combination wrong. We can't all be skilled at everything; but if we can recognise when our knowledge or skills are lacking in some area, resolve to correct that gap, and follow through, then opportunities abound.

So it was with my colleague (I'm not going to name him, primarily because he doesn't have an online presence, that I'm aware of, and would, I suspect, be horribly embarassed if I did so). He'd been handed a pretty stiff challenge at work, applied himself to it for a few weeks, and come up with a solution that used the skills he had; its creativity could not be denied (nor the doubtless hours he'd invested in crafting that solution) but it wasn't giving the performance required. I took a look over his work, and identified where the skills gap was, and we set about working together to give him the extra knowledge he needed, and the confidence to apply it. And he really applied himself to the process. I taught him a methodology in progressive stages; he applied that methodology, using increasingly creative structural design and language syntax; and by the end of last week he delivered the fruits of his labours for testing. The performance improvement between his work of a few weeks previously and that delivery was staggering; but was there more that could be achieved? I suspected so, sent him a quick email on Monday morning to suggest that we take a look the next day, and went off for non-work appointments. When I got in to the office Tuesday morning, he'd further improved the performance by a small factor of, oh, a few hundred times. :-) By his own efforts, and with the confidence to think creatively with the new skills at his disposal.

I can't tell you how proud I was (and am) of him.

When learning a new skill or body of knowledge, I think that there's a critical mass of knowledge you have to have before you can both learn new facets (in a self-driven way) *and* apply that knowledge, withour guidance from others. I've been privileged to watch that happen for my colleague over the last few weeks. I hope he recognises (and enjoys) what he's achieved; he should. In this particularly area of technology, he's lifted himself above the level of everyone else in the company, in my opinion (and we have some incredibly talented people working here).

My own ongoing memory and concentration problems have further hampered my abilities to get the satisfaction from training others that I used to get; but on this occasion, we were able to make it happen. For which my colleague receives double thanks; both for providing me with the opportunity to experience again the joy of being a part of someone else's progress... and for taking some more of the pressure off me.

And yesterday I managed to solve a technical problem that has hampered us for weeks; I'll have more weeks as satisfying as this one, please! ;-)

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No good deed goes unpunished

2005-03-07T19:18:00.000Z

This is going to be quite a long post, and it's going to take quite a twisty path to get to its destination; but hopefully it will repay the time and effort of your reading it. I'm going to apologise in advance to any readers of the Blogdiggers "Women in Podcasting" group; as a member of that group, there's nothing I can do to prevent this post appearing in its entirety in that group (because I publish a full RSS feed, and all posts from this blog get copied to that group). If you decide this post is not for you, please "mark as read" and move on. Anyway, back to the story; in which I will explain precisely why I have decided *not* to do as I undertook to do in the third post I made in this blog, in October of 2004, i.e. "So, I'm going to write about what happens to me on my journey. But that journey has already started, so along the way I'll probably fill in some of the back-story to give the innocent reader a framework to build on." For reasons I'll explain in this post, I'm not going to fill in that back-story in this blog. But, for those who are interested (and judging by my email inbox, there are some) I'm going to point you towards a pretty copious archive which will serve just as well. Probably better, in fact.

When I wake up each day (and, sadly, that's usually at a disgustingly early hour, but at least I wake up at all) I make two promises to myself and the universe:

1) I will not commit suicide today; and

2) I will face today to the best of my abilities as they are, *today*; I will make such decisions as I need to and take such actions as I must with all the resources and good intentions I can muster, and I will either celebrate their successes or learn from their failures.

Sound a little melodramatic? Not at all; I have battled clinical depression for years and have on multiple occasions been driven to attempt suicide. Those attempts all pre-date my acceptance of myself as who I am, and certainly pre-date the process by which I am becoming (physically, socially and legally) who I am. Do I expect to ever be driven to that action again? No, I don't. But I take this as seriously as a recovering alcoholic needs to take alcoholism, i.e. I don't make the mistake of ever thinking that I'm "cured" and can go back to the patterns of behaviour of the past. Like a recovering alcoholic, I take it one day at a time. Whatever life throws at me, I can take it for just one day. And then tomorrow, I'll take it for just one day. And so on.

The second promise helps me to remember a lesson I learned, very painfully along the way. Hindsight is a marvellous thing; and a terrible thing. Because it can cause you to torment yourself with all the things you did that you should have done differently, or the things that you didn't do that you should have done. *Particularly* if you are prone to depression, or low self-esteem, where the automatic reaction (for me at least) was to forget the successes and magnify the failures into disasters. Which is not a terribly helpful or constructive thing to do! ;-) Therefore, whatever happens today, I will not beat myself up over it in the future. I face each day to the best of my abilities that day; and really, that's all that any of us can ever really do.

I don't believe in a divine power that guides us; but I do think that sometimes events combine to indicate either that some action long-considered but long delayed should now be taken; or indeed to reveal the action, and inspire the courage to do it. In the last five days, four things have happened that have convinced me that now is the time to write this post, settle the past, and move on. Two of them happened, quite unexpectedly, today. The time is propitious.

Are you intrigued? ;-)

The first event was my decision last week to start recording and podcasting some occasional audio shows about my personal experience of living with gender dysphoria. I made a decision, which I stated publicly, that I would only record those (or write about transgender issues on this blog) until all my surgical and legal processes are complete (which is likely to be in about a year's time) *or* I think that no-one is particularly interested, whichever comes sooner, and I'm going to stick to that. The reason, as I explained, is because I want to live in the future, not dwell on the past. I stand by that decision.

The second event was to discover, through the agency of Amy Gahran's "Women in Podcasting" list, a fellow podcaster whose current work is, to my mind, beautiful, but who has packed into a life (of probably a similar span to mine) a range of achievements, experiences and accomplishments that, frankly, astound me. I looked at what I have achieved (and I thought I'd lived a bit!) and realised that, really, I've been half asleep in comparison. Blow that for a game of soldiers! :-) Time to start living and achieving something close to the potential which I suspect has been stifled for too many years by the combined effects of depression and the unresolved gender dysphoria which undoubtedly fed it.

The third thing was listening this lunchtime to yesterday's edition of "Daily Source Code", Adam Curry's podcast. I love this show in general; but yesterday, Adam interviewed his wife, Patricia Paay, and played some of her enormous back catalogue of recordings. Quite apart from the quality of those recordings (the opening track, "Misty", played with her father's band, is the best version of that old standard that I've ever heard) the obvious love and affection between these two (which is also evident in earlier editions of the show, both in occasional interactions when Patricia crosses Adam's path while he's recording, and in how he speaks about her from time to time when she's not there) is an inspiration. Love him or hate him as a celebrity or a person, the pair of them show patently know how to make a relationship work, grow and flourish. Respect! Or, I suppose that should be, "boing!" Anyway, having stroked their collective egos a little, the *point* of this paragraph is to draw attention to something that Patricia said, right at the beginning, when explaining why it had taken so long for him to get her to sit down and record this podcast; her explanation was "... I don't like to look back... you never hear me talk about it... I always look ahead..."

And the fourth event, in the half-hour break between an hour of facial electrolysis and fifteen minutes of electrolysis on the unmentionables was listening to another podcast, this time of Susan Smith Nash reading her own poem, "Five Times Into The Prayer". When she got to the lines:

"I bow my head --
will today be the day I finally forgive myself?
Tears dripping softly onto the surface
I'm tired of too many failed attempts,
too many dark nights of the soul."

The tears that were dropping softly were my own. From her opening comments before starting to read the poem, patently it was written with an entirely different intent. But I heard those words and thought of my own "long dark nights of the soul"; of my own "failed attempts" (which now, frankly, I'm glad were failures); of my own tears, then and now; and thought that, yes, today is the day I finally forgive myself and move on.

Four events; only one of them did I initiate. The universe is trying to tell me something; for once, maybe, I'm listening. I think it's telling me to not just *say* that I'm living for the now, and the future, but to *do*. So, for that reason alone, I'm not going to fill in my back-story by writing it here; the most I'll do is to refer to tiny portions of it, in any sessions of CrossOver where it's necessary to give some context (maybe some justification); but that's it. From today, I'll write about today and the future.

However... as I said, I know from my email inbox that some people want to know more. Well, the best I can say is this; quite a body of my writings already exist on the internet, and it would not take someone who was particularly interested too long to find them. I've never been particularly bothered about "covering my tracks", because, seriously, I've nothing to hide. So the simplest thing, to my mind, is to give a link (for those that are interested) and they can go and delve around for themselves, if they've the inclination. Do I post that link here? Only one thing stops me; doing so might draw one particular person's attention to this blog. Which, of itself, wouldn't be a problem to me; but I know what the effect would be... which would likely be to pollute the comments of this blog with some of the sickest, foulest invective you can imagine. Which again, wouldn't be a problem for me; but do *you* want to read that? In a post about the pros and cons of allowing comments on blogs, specifically *this* blog, I wrote (in answer to a hypothetical explanation for why some people might not want to leave a comment):

" "If I put a comment up, you'll only remove it again" - no, I won't (with one exception; words that are hurtful, spiteful or dangerous to someone other than me). If I was worried about what people might say about me, I wouldn't have started this blog in the first place.*

Well, I stand by that; I'm not afraid of harsh language, or people that disagree with me, but trust me, *you'll* have to have a pretty strong constitution not to be disgusted by some of the comments that may well be posted here if a lay a trail to that online repository of my maunderings and a certain person follows it back here. I can deal with it; can *you*, gentle reader?

What I suggest is this; if you want to delve around in that archive, send me an email (or leave me a comment) and I'll send you the link by email. Or, convince me (by email or by comment) that the potential for seeing a few stomach-churning comments turn up here is small in comparison with the opportunity to learn a little more about my (frankly, tedious, in my humble opinion) back-story. Either way, I've lived my past, and no longer intend to discuss it here. Because from today, as Patricia Paay said, "I always look ahead..."

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RE: Blogging is good for your health

2005-03-07T08:33:00.000Z

Blogging is good for your health, according to a press release titled the “Brain of a Blogger” from two doctors, Fernette Eide M.D. and Brock Eide M.D. M.A. of Eide Neurolearning Blog:

[Via The Blog Herald: more blog news more often]

Tell me something I *don't* know, why don't you? ;-)

Good article.

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RE: Ruby and Brian gave me a bunch of(...)

2005-03-07T07:39:00.000Z

Having written about my reorganisation of my news aggregator to support my reading habits, I've caught up on some of the feeds I've rather neglected recently. As proof of why I like to at least skim a feed rather than just "mark all read", if I had done the latter, I would likely have missed this:

Ruby and Brian gave me a bunch of presents as I was leaving Chapel Hill on Sunday. One of them was a rocking Buddha designed for dashboard mounting. Today I installed the Buddha and he kept me company while I was driving. Of course I immortalized him with a http://static2.podcatch.com/blogs/gems/snedit/DSCN2447.MOV movie.

[Via Scripting News]

Want one! :-)

Update - something odd appears to be occurring with Feedburner, in that if I quote an article which contains a link to a media file, then that file may get added as an enclosure to *this* post. That wasn't my intention. Sorry.

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Surfing, not drowning

2005-03-06T12:36:00.000Z

I'm a tinkerer; I like to fiddle, tweak, tune, experiment, hypothesise, investigate, analyse, adapt, revert, swear, celebrate... not least in terms of my computer and software configuration. Sometimes I think I should leave well alone; but, really, where's the fun in *that*? ;-) Anyway, while my news reading habits don't approach the scale of people like Robert Scoble, I have a diverse enough range of interests that I subscribe to over a hundred RSS feeds at this time. I've come to the conclusion that I can manage this volume of data flow, but that I wasn't getting all from it that I could. So, in the spirit of those terms I listed in the first sentence, I've been studying how others manage their news reading, how I currently approach mine, and considering how to modify my approach (if or where appropriate). I think I've hit on an optimal approach (for me, for now) so I thought I'd share it here, in case anyone else might benefit (or care to suggest even more improvements). I'm not claiming any ownership of these ideas; I've doubtless synthesised them from things I've read both recently and in the past.

First, some background. Online or browser-based services don't work for me; I want to be able to read news when I'm not connected to the internet. Now, that's less frequently these days, but it *does* happen, so I prefer to cater for that eventuality. Second, I'm not averse to spending money on software (and I won't use illegitimate software), but I'd prefer to rule out free alternatives first! So after a brief flirtation with intraVnews, which ran as an add-in to Microsoft Outlook (the email application I use for work, and the scheduling / contact management application I use for everything) I decided I wanted to try a standalone application. James suggested RSS Bandit, which I tried, and have used the release version v1.2.0.117 for the last six months or so, without any real issues. I read the announcements of a new beta version, and while the new features sounded interesting, I didn't want to screw up my current set-up, so I resolved to wait a month or so (for other people to find any catastrophic issues) before giving it a whirl. Which I have now done; and I'm really, really impressed! :-) So, that's the application on which I'm basing this discussion. (As a matter of interest, I do have Thunderbird installed, which I use for reading one of my Gmail accounts offline, and although I know it provides some RSS aggregation features, I've never tried them; as yet, I haven't felt the need to move away from RSS Bandit.)

Until recently, I had my feeds nicely categorised by subject area. Which is fine; all of the feeds under "Podcasts" were patently about podcasts, "News and Sport" (well, I'm sure you can work that one out!), "Music", "Technology" and so forth. All well and good; but it wasn't working for me. I would start catching up on unread items and either get side-tracked, or come across an obviously important post which required concentration to get the most out of, or feel frustrated as the unread articles count ticked up because of some particularly active feeds that I subscribe to, ... classic case of "drowning in data, but starved of knowledge". So, I realised that the issue was the categorisation I used. Frankly, I didn't need to know what subject area a feed fell under, I needed to know:

* How important is this to me (do I want to read every post, or am I happy to miss some)?

* How urgent is this to me (do I want to read new posts as soon as possible after my aggregator finds them, or am I happy just to read them eventually)?

* Do I need to be online to get the most from this feed (is it a full feed or summary only, does the poster have a habit of linking frequently to external sites so that if I read the feed while offline I'll be missing out)?

* For how long might I want to be able to search back for the contents of the post, after I've read it (what should the retention period be)?

* How much attention will I have to give to this feed (is it, for example, highly technical, so that I will need to concentrate exclusively on it, or highly artistic, so that I will want to savour it)?

* Will I want to read unread articles from this feed in isolation from other unread articles, or am I happy to read them in a chronological "river of news"?

There are probably other dimensions by which I might choose to categorise the feeds I read, but basically, that covers the ones that seem to matter to me, right now. Based on the above, I've come up with the following categories, which I'll describe in terms of how I'll use them, *and* how I've set up RSS Bandit to support my use of them. (I'm sure that most decent news aggregators will offer most or all of the features I'm referring to here).

1) Continuous - these are feeds that I'll want to read as soon as they contain new articles, and will want to refer back to for as long as possible; they represent the key focus of my online interests at this moment;

2) Multidimensional - all the feeds relevant to my blog and podcasts (not for vanity reasons... well, not *entirely* for vanity reasons!... but so that I can identify as quickly as possible if something has gone wrong with a post, e.g. a podcast is missing an enclosure tag);

3) Frequent - I'll want to check these at least a couple of times a day;

4) Frequent (Online Only) - similar to Frequent, but these are likely to need me to be online when I read them;

5) Daily - feeds I'd like to be current with, by the end of the working day;

6) Regular - feeds I want to keep on top of, but not become a slave to;

7) In-Depth - feeds I know that I will need peace, quiet and concentration to fully enjoy;

8) Occasional - feeds that may spark new ideas or connections; typically I'll want to read these when I've got time on my hands *and* am feeling at my most creative and connected (which is, sadly, not all the time);

9) Skim - these are feeds that I'll quickly scan, if I've got the time and inclination, but not beat myself up over if I miss items.

Something I picked up from one of the IT Conversations shows I downloaded was "the posts you don't read are not important; it's what you do with the posts that you *do* read that's important" (doubtless not an exact quotation, and sadly I can't remember exactly which show or speaker it was to give them credit, but the point is, in my opinion, a good one). The categories above seem to maximise the chances that I can do just that. Basically, I'll want to keep on top of 1) and 2) throughout the day. 3) and 4) I'll want to keep on top of by lunchtime and by close of play, although 4) is dependent upon having an online connection. 5) I want to be clear by the end of the day. If I can do that, then I'll have likely seen all of the things that I wanted to see, each day, and had the chance to give them sufficient attention to make the appropriate choice about what (if anything) to do in response to each post.

6) and 7) I'd like to keep on top of by the end of the weekend. So if necessary, I'll make some quiet time to get the most out of them, especially 7). 8) is dependent on my being in a receptive frame of mind; 9) is dependent on me having *any* time and energy to spare! ;-)

In terms of managing my current subscriptions, I've categorised all of my feeds to fit them *at this moment in time*. I expect any individual feed to move around between those categories, as my immediate interests and priorities change, but by and large, once I've subscribed to a feed, I stay subscribed to it, even if it ends up in 9). About the only time I unsubscribe from a feed is when it is discontinued, i.e. continually returns errors.

As for manging new subscriptions, well, by default, new feeds I encounter go in 6), unless it's obvious from the beginning that they belong in 7), 8) or 9). Typically I won't move feeds into 1), 3), 4) or 5) until I'm familiar with both the poster's style *and* the relevance of the feed to my immediate professional and personal activities.

For those who are still here, this is how I've configured RSS Bandit to support me in managing these categories. For each category, I will list:

* Update frequency (I believe it's wrong to access an RSS feed more than once an hour; for some feeds, once a day would be more than sufficient, but one minor criticism I have of RSS Bandit is that the longest refresh period is just 2 hours);

* Retention period;

* Desktop alert (i.e. do I want some visual notification if items arrive in that feed).

1) Continual - 60 minutes; unlimited; yes;

2) Multidimensional - 60 minutes; unlimited (so I can quickly refer to them by URL or context in subsequent posts); yes (so I know if something's gone awry with a post);

3) Frequent - 60 minutes; 21 days; no;

4) Frequent (Online) - 60 minutes; 21 days; no;

5) Daily - 120 minutes; 21 days; no;

6) Regular - 120 minutes; 21 days; no;

7) In-Depth - 120 minutes; unlimited; no;

8) Occasional - 120 minutes; unlimited; no;

9) Skim - 120 minutes; 21 days; no;

One last point; the one tiny issue I identified in the above was, what happens if I encounter a post in a feed other than 8) or 9), but which I want to save to read under the same conditions *as* 8) or 9). Answer: del.icio.us is your friend! If you haven't taken at a look at del.icio.us, I urge you to do so. I'll probably write about how I'm using it (and planning to use it) in a future post.

Update - one last point is on the subject of full vs. summary feeds. If the feed is summary only, then it's likely that if it ends up in 9), skimming it may not repay the effort. In that case, I'll probably unsubscribe from the feed. Feed publishers, take heed! ;-)

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RE: CrossOver Session Two - "The First Time"

2005-03-05T16:05:00.000Z

Now online (MP3, 8.8 MB, 19 minutes 11 seconds) - in which I give some thoughts on how to approach the challenge of telling someone for the first time that you are (or may be) transgendered; and why to try not to make too much of a deal about it.

Following on from a previous post, a new category, "Gender", has been added to the ipodder.org directory; to which I have now added CrossOver (so if you use a podcatching client that can select feeds from the ipodder.org directory, you can now select this show directly without typing in the RSS feed address). As it happens, the editor of this node of the directory is... me. ;-) Thanks, Adam; boing! The fine folks at GenderTalk are also listed, in the same category; double boing!

So, if by any chance you produce (or know of ) a relevant podcast that isn't listed elsewhere in that directory, then I'll be happy to add them to the Gender category (just fill in the form on the "suggest a link" page, which will send me the details). If there's a podcast that isn't in the directory, doesn't really fit under Gender, but might be appropriate in another category, then I recommend that you use the "suggest a link" on the appropriate category to send the suggestion to the appropriate editor.

GenderTalk radio now has a podcast RSS feed!

2005-03-05T06:19:00.000Z

I mentioned in the first session of CrossOver that one of my favourite online audio shows is GenderTalk ("talking about transgenderism in the first person") but that technically it didn't qualify as a podcast (because you had to manually download the show from their site or the Internet Archive, rather than use a podcatching client) as they didn't have an RSS feed with enclosures. I also mentioned that I probably ought to email them.

Well, I did (remembering to follow up on something is quite a rarity for me, these days!)... and they have responded with just such a feed - respect! Currently, the feed only contains the latest show, coincidentally their 500th (to my mind, adding a podcast feed is a great way to mark that milestone) but more than 350 of the older shows are still available for download.

As I'm preparing my second session of CrossOver, a question that has been going around in my mind is, if I list the show in the ipodder.org directory, exactly *where* in that directory should I list it? If GenderTalk is listed, I would want to put CrossOver in the same place; my concern is that I'm not sure that, really, *any* of the current categories fit! ;-) I've emailed Adam Curry (in his capacity as overall maintainer of the directory) to ask for his thoughts and have suggested that, even though he's recently trimmed down the directory structure, a new node "Alternate Lifestyles" might be appropriate; general enough not to be restricted to just transgender issues, neutral enough not to be offensive (I don't see why anyone *should* be offended, of course, but, for example, I wouldn't want CrossOver listed anywhere under "Sex" for example, because it's not about sex). I've even offered to maintain that directory node. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

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When you know what you know, but don't remember that you know it

2005-03-04T08:28:00.000Z

I've mentioned often enough in this blog my ongoing battle with insomnia; much as I really try not to let it get me down, it *does* affect the quality of my life. Sure, I can be productive at 2.30 am when my racing mind has woken me and won't let me get back to sleep; but it puts me out of sync with colleagues and friends who live on a more or less conventional circadian rhythm. I baulk at the concept of sedative medication, because a) my body is already under enough strain with the hormone treatment, b) a short-term course of sedatives wouldn't actually solve the long-term problem, and c) a long-term course would be madness. I have to find a better way. Then again, maybe I *had* a better way all along, but had just forgotten that I had it...

I can't recall if I've mentioned it here before or not, but I am closely in tune with Buddhist philosophies, particularly Zen Buddhism. I originally began looking into the subject in the early nineties, but it was only when I was really buckling under a vicious bout of clinical depression in 2000 and 2001 that I began studying it in earnest. I've never viewed Buddhism as a faith or religion; it doesn't require me to "believe" anything, but it *does* require me to examine the basic questions of life and existence, and to consider the teachings of the Buddha (who was not a god, but an ordinary man, albeit a particularly insightful one) and ask myself, "how does this teaching apply to *me*?" I like that; I am by training and inclination a scientist. I need to examine a problem, develop hypotheses that might explain them, find a way to test those hypotheses, examine the results, and either prove, disprove or modify those hypotheses in the pursuit of clearer understanding. Buddhism doesn't just support that; it actively encourages it. It is also, in my opinion, a very pragmatic philosophy, with justified (but flexible) guidelines, rather than strictly mandated or forbidden practices. Bottom line, it works for me; but I recognise that I do not adhere to all the practices, and so would describe myself as having Buddhist tendencies rather than "being a Buddhist".

One of the techniques employed in the pursuit of enlightenment (the goal of any Buddhist) is meditation. Different schools of Buddhism promote different styles of meditation, but as far as I'm concerned, *any* meditation, done correctly, is better than no meditation at all. During the worst depths of the period I mentioned above, such meditation as I was able to perform really helped to calm the chaos in my mind. So, of course, it made perfect sense to continue with that practice thereafter.

Erm...

The fact that it made good sense didn't mean I actually *did* it. I've just sat here and tried to remember the last time I followed a regular pattern of meditation; probably not since 2002.

So maybe part of the solution has been staring me in the face all the time, but I've been too busy or preoccupied to see it.

I was prompted to think about this when one of the RSS feeds I subscribe to notified me of a new show available for download from IT Conversations. Now, IT Conversations is one of my favourite podcasts; sure, it has a huge range of technology-related content to choose from and listen to, but it also has a wide range of content from outside the Information Technology sphere. I know that I've previously mentioned a recording of a talk given by Barry Schwartz that really resonated with me; well, when I read this announcement of a new show:

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with psychiatrist Dr. Mark Epstein. While he's not averse to prescribing anti-depressants and other mainstream drugs, he's just as likely to prescribe Buddhist meditation. Sounds different, but the science supports it. [Tech Nation podcast on IT Conversations]

[Via IT Conversations]

I knew would have to listen to it. And I did; and realised just how foolish I had been to have found a fantastic method for calming the whirling chaos of my mind a few years ago, and to then subsequently forget it again.

Prompted by the resolve to be a little more proactive, and to see whether starting to meditate again, on a regular basis, will help my mind to relax enough to allow me a little more sleep than I currently get, I downloaded a file from the Internet Archive which I found in the "Tse Chen Ling Buddhist Lectures" section. The file is a zipped archive of four instructional sessions of meditation. At 150 MB, and with a running time of over five hours for the four sessions, it's a hefty download; but, I'm very glad that I downloaded and played them. Listening to them didn't really teach me anything I didn't already know; but it reminded me that I actually *knew* this material, but wasn't giving myself the opportunity to apply it in my life.

So I have resolved to begin meditating again. Not for any particular purpose, other than the pursuit of such enlightenment as I don't already possess (my tongue is *very* firmly in my cheek when I say that!). But if it has a sufficiently calming influence to promote a little more of the "deep and dreamless", I will not be unhappy... ;-)

I'll let you know how it goes.

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/

CrossOver - Session One

2005-03-02T17:07:00.000Z

Oft threatened, oft delayed... I've finally started my second audio show, "CrossOver". Because I'm having a few last minute hitches with my blog's migration to Radio, I've started CrossOver as a separate Blogger blog; it will probably turn out to be one of the shortest-living blogs in living memory, as it may well be migrated in a matter of hours! Oh well... anyway, if you're interested, here's a copy of the inaugural post (stripped of the hyperlinks to the MP3 files, so they don't end up in VoiceOver by mistake)

Now online (MP3, 4.25 MB, 9 minutes 15 seconds)

By popular demand, and against my initial reservations... welcome to the first session of CrossOver (RSS Feed) my occasional audio show which discusses some aspects of my experience of living with Gender Dysphoria, and all the fun and games that follow as a consequence.

I've decided to record this show in response to feedback from readers of my blog and listeners to my other audio show, VoiceOver (RSS feed); for reasons that I've written about on my blog, and described in this short audio file (MP3, 1.89 MB, 4 minutes 06 seconds) I do not discuss anything to do with Gender Dysphoria in VoiceOver. This show, CrossOver, is intended to provide a forum for those topics which, therefore, I haven't discussed in audio before.

Confused? Join the club! ;-)

I'll state at the outset that I don't envisage continuing CrossOver much beyond my final surgery, around about a year from now; and I'm making no commitment as to how frequently (or infrequently) future sessions will appear until then; and if I don't receive much feedback from the initial shows (or rather, if I don't receive much *positive* feedback) then I may not feel sufficiently enthused to record further sessions. Which is a long-winded way of saying, if you like what you hear (or if you *don't* like what you hear) please leave a comment (without revealing your name, if you're shy) or drop me an email at koanbremner (at) gmail (dot) com - absolute discretion guaranteed.

Enough of the preamble; on with the motley!

Show notes to follow in a day or so (I have a habit of forgetting to put the show notes online after the event, so if I neglect to do so, please give me a nudge, someone...)

Move along, nothing to see here

2005-03-01T16:41:00.000Z

I'm going to do the lion's share of the much-delayed migration from Blogger to Radio Userland tonight; I expect there will be a short period when this blog is unavailable. Please bear with me; I think I've thought of everything, but inevitably I'll foul up something... normal service will be resumed... eventually... ;-)

Update 9.07pm - well, I've exported the posts from here, without screwing up things at the Blogger end; now I just have to figure out why I'm getting the error "can't evaluate the expression because the name /pcdata hasn't been defined" when I try to import them into Radio; I can feel a quick email to Donovan Watts (of Radio: The Missing Manual fame, and now Radio's Librarian) might be advisable...

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Scent of a woman

2005-02-28T02:58:00.000Z

To me, one of the most intriguing questions that can be asked of someone is "what are X words that describe you?" I see it over and over: for example, in magazine "pop psychology" quizzes, and in Sunday newspaper profile pieces. If *you* had to describe yourself in ten words, which words would you choose? What about if you only had five words?

What if you only had one word; which word would you use then, to capture the essence of how you see yourself?

I wouldn't have to think too hard before answering that one; "woman". The more words I'm allowed, the more of a picture of me I would be able to paint. Here's the thing, though; X would have to be pretty high (certainly more than thirty) before I'd use one on "transgendered". That might surprise you, especially if you've read a selection of my posts on this blog. But there's no discrepancy here; I'm a woman... at least, in *my* eyes! ;-) The fact that I am also transgendered is just that, a fact, and one which I don't dispute. But it's *not* how I define myself. The fact will always remain; the day-to-day consequences of that fact are that, right now, I have to deal with the minutiae of crossing the gap between physical masculinity and femininity (which is an ongoing, accelerating and, most crucially, finite process) as well as the *social* gap between masculinity and femininity. To me, the latter is by far the more important gap.

How will I know when I've crossed it? I don't think it's a finite process, unlike the physical transition. But part of my personal success criteria is "to what extent do *others* perceive me as a woman"? Which then raises the question, how do I test how well I'm doing against that criteria? I'll use a technology example to illustrate this.

At work, one of the developmental doctrines we try to adhere to is the spirit of Test-Driven Development. This says that you only develop a piece of software code when there is some objective, business test which your current software does not pass (i.e. there is a piece of functionality that your current software does not implement) and that, before writing the software, you write an appropriate test. You know that your current software will fail the test (as it should; your current software doesn't implement that functionality). Having written the test, you add just enough code to your software so that it now passes the test (at which point, you know that you've successfully implemented that specific business requirement); and so you move on to the next test case. It's an iterative process: define an area of functionality which is not currently implemented; define a test which will show when you've implemented that functionality (but which you currently fail); write just enough code to pass the test; move on to the next missing piece of functionality.

This approach strikes me as being just as applicable here. Define a situation in which I'm not currently accepted as a woman (or in which I might not be accepted as such, or haven't yet tried to determine one way or the other); define an objective test; take whatever actions are necessary to pass that test; move on to the next situation. In Test-Driven Development, it is not unusual to spend more time identifying and writing the tests than you do in writing the software to pass the tests; the pay-off comes when the total amount of time spent in development starts to decrease, *and* the quality of the software that is written increases, not least because you're developing a comprehensive suite of unit tests which will detect the nightmare scenario, where you break an existing piece of code by fixing a bug in another area, or by introducing a new piece of functionality.

With that in mind, what tests might I define for my social transition? One that's been in my mind for a while now is the extent to which informal (or formal) women's groups would accept me as a member. For example, one of the blogs I read is misbehaving.net - which they describe as "a weblog about women and technology... a celebration of women's contributions to computing; a place to spotlight women's contributions as well point out new opportunities and challenges for women in the computing field" (yes, there's a missing "as" in there... maybe I should have been a sub-editor after all!). There's a core group of contributors (profiled under the section "misbehaving here") and a wider group of women in computing (linked to under the section "misbehaving elsewhere"). One simple test might be to get myself listed in the "misbehaving elsewhere" category, i.e. be demonstrably accepted as a *woman* in computing, with something worthwhile to say (note to self: write some more technology posts). Anyway, that's for the future; yesterday I read a post on that blog, "Women in podcasting", referring to Amy Gahran's growing list of women podcasters (and why such a list might be necessary). My podcast, VoiceOver is listed in the ipodder.org directory (under "music" > "alternative & rock"); shouldn't it also be on Amy's list? Well, *I* think so (obviously!)... but would Amy agree?

I emailed Amy with the suggestion; she quickly responded by adding me to her list (thanks, Amy!) One small unit test defined, written and passed; onto the next. ;-)

Which brings me back to the point of this post (yes, I do have a point, other than recording a fleeting moment of self-congratulation). If there was a list of "transgendered podcasters", I wouldn't be in the slightest bit interested in seeking admission to that list. I wouldn't object to being *on* such a list (it would be a statement of truth, after all) but I wouldn't actively seek inclusion to that list (in contrast to seeking inclusion on Amy's list). Why not? Because I don't self-identify as transgendered. Truthfully, I don't. I'm a woman; that's how I self-identify. The fact that I'm transgendered is just that; a fact. It's a temporary inconvenience and source of present physical discomfort (I've another session of electrolysis this morning, for example)... but there will come a point, probably early in 2006, when all the surgical and legal processes have been completed. At which point, I know, the only time that the term "transgendered" will cross my mind (in relation to myself) is if someone else raises it, e.g. in reference to a post of mine in this blog.

Is that an incongruity? How can I state, on the one hand, that I don't self-identify as transgendered, yet write about aspects of being transgendered on the other?

Personally, I don't think it's incongruous at all; I tried to explain why I mention the issue in one of the earliest posts I made on this blog, and expanded on it slightly when I described my motivation for participating in a TV documentary series. My primary reasons for writing about my experience of Gender Dysphoria *at this point in my life* are:

* Because so many people (friends, colleagues, family) kept suggesting that I should;

* Because my own memory is so full of holes these days that if I don't commit these thought to writing *now*, I'll probably never remember them in the future;

* Because I'm not ashamed of what I am, and cannot imagine ever denying the reality of my life's history, I've nothing to hide on this subject;

* Because I know that if I had read, ten or more years ago, the kind of factual perspective I try to project in these posts, my own path could have been so much less traumatic than it was. If I bemoan the fact that I couldn't find such accounts *then*, don't I have an obligation to put that right (and maybe, just maybe, ease someone else's burden with facing this condition) *now*?

But there is a definite time limit on the extent to which I'll write on this subject. Once the physical and legal formalities are completed, I very much doubt if I'll write on the subject of Gender Dysphoria again; at least, I don't intend to. I'll be too busy writing about the joys (and travails) of womanhood! :-) I'll leave these writings as a matter of record; but that's all they'll be, as far as I'm concerned. I do not intend to fall into the trap that I perceive so many transgendered folk seem to fall into; that they never completely move on from being transgendered. If that seems like a harsh assertion to make, well, I've read a lot of writings by transgendered people (in print, in blogs, in usenet newsgroups, on the web) and the sad reality is that many transgendered folks seem unable (or unwilling) to shake off the fact of their being transgendered and fully embrace the opportunity of being themselves. I'll set myself up for some flak here by stating my opinion (for what little *that's* worth) that if you *are* transgendered and permanently focus on *being* transgendered... indeed, if you self-identify as transgendered first, female (or male) second, if at all... then really, you've missed the point.

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Back to the Braai

2005-02-27T16:53:00.000Z

I wouldn't even like to hazard a guess at the number of people I've met and known over the years; many thousands, certainly, but how many thousands? No idea. Of all those people, who are the ones I remember? I guess the majority fall into the category which knowledge management theorists call "RFR" (i.e. recent, frequent or relevant); the people we've encountered most recently, most frequently or who have the most direct impact on some immediate aspect of our lives. For me, though, I think there are two additional "categorisations" (for want of a better term) of people that lead to them remaining in my memory; namely, those I meet under unusual circumstances; and those who break the stereotypes that I undoubtedly form, hard as I try not to. My ex-colleague Brad definitely falls into that last categorisation. Last Thursday was his last day with my employers, Exony; and next week he returns to the country of his birth, South Africa. Circumstances conspired to prevent my being in the office towards the end of last week, and so sadly I will not get the chance to say goodbye to Brad in person. I hope he will not cringe with embarassment if I set down here some thoughts on why I rate him so highly as a professional; why I think he is a quite remarkable individual; why an apparent dichotomy between the professional and the person really makes me question the basis of my own faith (or rather, lack thereof); and why my honest hope that he finds what he is looking for is tempered with deep regret that he won't be around the office any more.

In his professional capacity as a programmer / software engineer / choose a term you like, Brad has an insight and eye for detail that I've rarely seen. Maybe the characteristic I found most valuable, though, was his extreme scepticism in the face of apparent technological advances. On more than one occasion, I've shown prototype code to my colleagues with quite a "wow!" factor result; but until I had the quiet "yup, that seems to work" from Brad, I'd doubt whether all the bases had been covered. I keep odd work hours (insomnia is *such* a joy!) whereas Brad just kept long hours.

As an individual, Brad has a deep Christian faith, which he has referred to on his blog; but you wouldn't necessarily have realised this from the man himself, because he was never (in my experience) a person who would impose his faith on you, attempt to evangelise you, or quote scripture at you. I have a deep admiration for people of faith, primarily because I have no faith of my own. Indeed, I have a sense of jealousy for the comfort that I guess a strong faith can bring; but that's not a comfort I sense, so I seek mine in other areas. He reminds me of my brother, Russ; like Russ, I cannot recall Brad ever saying a bad word about anybody. Which is not to say that he may not have *thought* that some people needed to shape up in some ways (I suspect my occasional tendency towards the, er, *emotional* may have stymied him from time to time!)

And here's the remarkable thing, from my perspective; that such a sceptical person, so difficult to fool on matters of business and technology, had simultaneously such a profound faith. What does Brad know, that I do not? What insight has he had, that I, patently, have not? As I said, I have no faith (and not for the want of looking) and I tend to be a little dismissive of those who learn their "faith" from the cradle and probably never question it until the grave (the dread word indoctrination springs to mind). That's not an accusation I'd level at Brad. A man of few words (and even fewer blog posts, sadly) but every one of them worth listening to. And a wicked sense of humour.

So, farewell and God speed, Irish African! I genuinely hope that you find what you are looking for. Next time I enjoy a piece of Biltong, I'll raise a silent toast in your direction, a valued colleague, and (I hope) a friend.

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VoiceOver Session Six

2005-02-27T15:10:00.000Z

Now online, VoiceOver Session Six (MP3, 13.3 MB, 29 minutes 01 second). Five more gems from my vinyl collection, unavailable (to the best of my knowledge) on commercial CD. Enjoy!

Show notes to follow in a day or so.

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VoiceOver Session Five

2005-02-22T06:38:00.000Z

Now online, VoiceOver Session Five (MP3, 11.3 MB, 24 minutes 38 seconds). Some gems from my vinyl collection, unavailable (to the best of my knowledge) on commercial CD. Enjoy!

Show notes to follow in a day or so.

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My token political post

2005-02-13T10:24:00.000Z

To be honest, I tend not to talk about my political beliefs unless asked; and even then, I may well keep them to myself. And I view political beliefs as being completely distinct from party politics and (especially) politicians; whom I tend to distrust completely, unless given good reasons otherwise. But, on Friday, I was working from home, and had BBC News 24 on the TV in the background, and was absolutely blown away, possibly for the first time ever, by a contemporary politician. He spoke onstage, without notes or a podium, for (I think) seven minutes in total; and even if I hadn't already decided which way I was going to vote in the next UK general election (whenever that will be), that seven minutes would have convinced me.

You can stop reading now, if you wish; but if you didn't see Tony Blair's opening address to the Labour Party's Spring Conference in Gateshead, and have seven minutes to spare, then it's still being streamed from the BBC's website (although I have no idea how long it will be available) at "Blair outlines election pledges" - click on the link titled "Highlights of Tony Blair's whistle-stop tour" to launch the BBC News Player, and then select the item "Tony Blair unveils Labour's pre-election pledges". And then I'll tell you why that speech affected me more than any other contemporary political speech I've ever heard.

What Tony Blair said, in my opinion, is "this is what we stand for at this point in our nation's history". Simple (arguably, empty and meaningless) pledges; the kind of pledges that any political party would probably pay lip-service to. He then demolished, at a stroke, any pretence that the Conservative party shared those aspirations, by highlighting how that party's own voting actions prove otherwise. Honestly, I don't like political campaigns which focus on the shortcomings of the opposition rather than the campaigner's own message; this speech struck me as something completely different. In my opinion, this speech said, "this is what we believe in; which is something *worth* believing in, and working towards; this is what we've done, are doing, and will do to make that belief a reality; our opposition may *say* that they believe these things, and that our pledges are empty... but here's the proof of their actions which show they don't believe in these things".

Really, that struck me as something completely new (in my lifetime, at least) from UK politicians.

Now, admittedly, I've a lot of personal goodwill towards this Government, not least because they brought forward legislation (the Gender Recognition Act 2004) which restores basic human rights to a minority of the UK population which had been denied those rights for many years. Yes, I have a vested interest in that legislation; I'm part of that minority (estimated at 5,000 out of a UK population of, what, 55 million?) But (and I wish I could remember the exact quote and original speaker, but I can't) "the mark of a reforming Government is not how many people its legislation improves life for, without harming the rest; but how *few* people it improves life for, without harming the rest". Really, how significant are the electoral votes in passing legislation like that? Not that many. And yet, they tabled the legislation, saw it through both Houses of Parliament (despite fierce opposition from many, but *not* all, in the upper echelons of the Church of England, and similar opposition from many in the "Nasty Party", sorry, the Conservative Party) and it is now enacted. That, alone, would probably have ensured my vote at the next election. But Tony Blair's speech on Friday achieved something rather more remarkable.

Yesterday, I joined the Labour Party.

That's it; nothing Earth-shattering, and probably of no significance (or indeed, interest) to anyone else in the world. But I share the vision that he described on Friday, and the least I can do is say so, even if it's only here. ;-) I've no political aspirations at all, and no intention of taking up active campaigning in the forthcoming election(s). Apart from anything else, I suspect I'd be more of a liability on the doorstep than an asset. But I'm more than happy to say that I share his vision, will be counted accordingly, and will accept the consequences of my actions (i.e. my vote).

So the next time Michael Howard (leader of the Conservative Party, and for many years my most disliked politician, which is saying something) goes on about cutting taxes (which is pretty much all he ever seems to say, in my opinion) I'll respond. Personally, I *don't* object to paying higher taxes for public services, *if that money is put to good use*. Personally, I believe that the higher personal taxes I've paid since Labour took office have resulted in substantially improved public services. Have they made mistakes? Of course. Will they make more mistakes? Undoubtedly.

Do I believe, though, that the Labour Party's intentions are honourable and worthy? Yes, I do. Do I think they stand a reasonable chance of delivering significantly on their pledges? Yes, I do.

That's it; the first (and probably last) political post from me. Feel free to flame me! ;-)

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VoiceOver Session Four

2005-02-13T08:36:00.000Z

Now online, VoiceOver Session Four (MP3, 10.2 MB, 22 minutes 21 seconds). Enjoy! (Hopefully the wait was worth it...)

Show notes ~~to follow in a day or so.~~ which I'll be adding to, as relevant links occur to me (thanks to the power of OPML!)

Revelation! "Shipbuilding" wasn't written by Robert Wyatt at all; it was written by Elvis Costello and Clive Langer, and only covered by Robert Wyatt, although they wrote it especially for him. You live and learn! Still, this version *is* still a cover... ;-)

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Seven letters

2005-02-10T05:54:00.000Z

Seven letters; that's all there are between 'M' and 'F' in the alphabet (at least, the alphabet I use). It doesn't sound much... but sometimes getting officialdom to cross that divide can seem overwhelming. Yesterday was a case in point; I went to the Pasport Office in London to apply for a replacement passport in my new name, with a new photo, and (correctly) listing my gender as female. All of my research had determined that I was entitled to this; and I had meticulously prepared all of my documentation to make the process as painless as possible. By 2.20pm I had that document in my hand; but at 9.30am, I had been told that the replacement passport would *not* be issued.

I've thought about documenting here, in detail, what happened yesterday; on reflection, I've decided not to. I'm overjoyed with the outcome, believe me; and the day will join the ranks of those significant days on my journey along this extended, challenging (yet simultaneously rewarding) journey of transition. But the details behind the day? I think I'll see if my currently patchy memory will file those somewhere that I won't constantly trip over them.

This has been, in truth, a tough, unpleasant and emotionally draining week, on a range of fronts: logistical nightmares in arranging my ongoing treatments; health worries about someone very close to me; work-related stress because of my ongoing memory problems (and the effect they have on me when I am unable to do things which I know I used to be able to do); moral dilemma because a former colleague has asked me to step over the bounds of what is reasonable (and tried to play the "guilt card" in the process) and he picked the wrong person to ask to lie on his behalf; and now the emotional turmoil of yesterday. I'd like to think that's enough for one week. So I'm going to work at home for the next few days, and hopefully recharge my rather depleted batteries.

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Well, I'm pleased with the results! Mostly... ;-)

2005-02-05T12:14:00.000Z

Koan Bremner,

The final selection from Wednesday's little session. I am delighted with the outcome; I'll be very happy to have new ID bearing one of these instead of my previous appearance, that's for sure.

Thanks again, Richard and Melanie; you rock!

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In front of the lens

2005-02-03T05:26:00.000Z

Yesterday was the third day of filming for the TV documentary series I'm taking part in; and it was a really fun day. I had a primary objective for the day, which was to get a decent photograph which could be used for my new passport, driving license and other forms of official ID, and since I want the end results to be as useful (and, yes, flattering; I'm a vain bitch; so sue me!) as possible, I decided to have them taken by a professional photographer (rather than trust to the joys of a mechanical photo booth). To maximise the aesthetic effect, I also asked the proprietor of the salon which I use every few weeks for waxing and the like if she would give me a makeover for the camera, which she agreed to do. So, a film crew of two, a photographer, a cosmetician and I set up shop in a photographic studio and tried to fashion a silk purse out of this particular sow's ear! :-) After taking the "official" photos, Richard (the photographer) then took a series of more informal shots (it seemed a shame to waste the fantastic makeover which Melanie had given me) and I'll have the results of both on Saturday morning (which means I should finally have some pictures of myself worth posting here), ready for my trip to the Passport Office in London next week, to get my new passport!

There is a serious aspect to this apparent indulgence. If I travel overseas, I will be travelling as a woman, since that's how I live. My new passport will also reflect that. Personally, I need the confidence that the photo in the passport isn't itself going to give an immigration official pause for thought, and that it won't look completely at odds with the person holding it. For example, I have travelled to the US many times in the past,and I know how stringent their immigration checks are (especially, and understandably, since the events of September 11 2001). Really, the last thing I need is to be singled out for "special attention" if I have to travel there; a rubber-gloved body cavity search I can do without, thanks all the same. Besides, my body and facial features have already changed considerably since I began transition, and I wanted to maximise the time that my new passport would be useful, before I have to change the photos again.

The afternoon was devoted to two-wheeled mayhem! From the first time we met, David the director-cameraman seems to have been facinated by the idea that I combine my love of feminine finery with the urge to put on my leathers and ride my trusty steed Cruella whenever I can; to the extent that he wanted to get plenty of footage of me riding her, as well as ride pillion with me and shoot over my shoulder, along the side, and with the camera in front of me, pointing at my face while I rode (at speed, I might add). What a laugh! We spent a few hours doing that, and then I spoke on camera about what biking (and Cruella) mean to me, particularly in the context of my transition. It's probably just as well that the fading light finally put an end to filming; otherwise I'd probably still be talking.

Life's good; some days really stand out, though, and this was one of them.

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"You Rock!" Award #2 - Chuck Cook

2005-01-29T03:12:00.000Z

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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"You Rock!" Award #1 - Steven Garrity

2005-01-28T05:54:00.000Z

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

2005-01-27T03:30:00.000Z

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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The quintessential electrified LART

2005-01-24T19:10:00.000Z

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!

2005-01-24T04:45:00.000Z

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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Koan and Cruella

2005-01-23T11:04:00.000Z

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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Two new Podcasts I thoroughly recommend

2005-01-14T05:37:00.000Z

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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A change a' coming

2005-01-12T04:07:00.000Z

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

2005-01-12T03:41:00.000Z

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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"If there is one thing that I have learned from all I've been through, it's that you only regret the things that you didn't do"

2004-12-25T12:30:00.000Z

So it's Christmas Day and I'm spending it (by choice) alone; and as I've mentioned previously, it isn't my favourite day of the year. However, as a little treat, I decided earlier in the week that I would spend it by having a long walk in the New Forest and then watch the newly-released four hour extended cut of "The Return of the King" on DVD. So, Wednesday evening when I bought my groceries for the weekend, I picked up a copy of the DVD.

I'm a sucker for the process of film-making; the minutiae of how a Director's vision is translated into what appears on the screen. The extended editions of the three "Lord of the Rings" films are a treat for this, as each comes with two full DVDs of additional features covering just such detail. So, while planning to watch the film itself today, between Wednesday evening and this morning I have watched the extra features. And, right at the end of the last disk is a feature about Cameron Duncan, a young New Zealand film maker whom Peter Jackson (Director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of films) had known. I say "had known", for Cameron Duncan has now died from cancer at a tragically young age.

Now, I think it's a tragedy that anybody dies young; but what struck me so much about this feature (and Cameron's short films and TV advertisements which are included on the DVD) is just how insightful a person Cameron obviously was. I am not the slightest bit ashamed to say that I have cried a bucket in the last hour, during and after watching this documentary piece about him, and most particularly after watching those examples of his work. I certainly wasn't expecting this on this particular Christmas Day; what a welcome circumstance.

The last of the short films, called "Strike Zone" (made just weeks before he died) reflects his absolute love of the sport of softball, and includes the line which is the title of this post. I cannot agree more strongly with that line. Whenever I die, I do not want to die burdened with such regret; and I genuinely feel that, having resolved to pursue the path of social, surgical and legal transition to womanhood (for right and valid reasons) at this moment in time I could die without regret. Was I expecting to realise that today? No. A young New Zealand film maker has today given me a gift of realisation which I resolve to honour. I spent £23.99 on Wednesday evening to buy hours of viewing pleasure which I will watch repeatedly over the months and years to come; and in the process I bought a piece of emotional insight that is worth many more times the purchase price. I haven't even watched the main film yet and I feel enriched by the purchase.

In the final line of Strikezone Cameron says: "The one thing I don't want to be is to be forgotten and I think I've done a pretty good job of that."

[Via the New Zealand Herald]

Somehow I think you've left your mark, Cameron; certainly on me. Rest in peace.

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A spot of good (I think) personal news

2004-12-24T10:45:00.000Z

In a previous post I mentioned that my liver function tests were giving my GP mild cause for concern, to the extent that he wanted to postpone my move to the maximum dosage of Ethinylestradiol. Well, two months on, the latest tests show that the liver function tests have stabilised so that it is safe to try the increase. Which will begin today.

So long as the tests don't show an increase to dangerous levels next time, and a stabilised level the time after, then I should remain at this dosage until after surgery. I asked my GP if there were any symptoms that I might notice if things were heading towards the red zone; he said "markedly increased lethargy". Well, given my recent insomniac entertainments, that shouldn't prove too hard to spot! ;-)

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Oooops... Domain name registration had expired...

2004-12-24T10:13:00.000Z

So, in the past I've recommended that people access this blog through the domain name http://yakushitsu.co.uk (rather than through the blogspot.com URL) primarily because I always intended to move this blog to run under Radio Userland software and would just redirect the domain name when I had performed the migration... well, it probably would have been a good idea if I had remembered to renew the domain name registration; which has now expired and been suspended... what an idiot. Anyway, I've now renewed it and it should be active again "within 48 hours"; which, at this time of year, could mean anything! :-( Entirely my fault, and I apologise to anyone who's had problems accessing this blog in the last week or so.

Anyway, now I've got some spare time over Christmas, I intend to do the migration; but not until the domain name works again. Just exactly how stupid do I feel? ;-)

Update 25 December 2004 08:38 GMT - yakushitsu.co.uk lives again! :-) Much respect to easily.co.uk (the domain name registrar) for sorting out my muck-up, and well inside 24 hours at that.

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Season's Greetings

2004-12-24T05:56:00.000Z

I'm not a big fan of this time of year, to be honest; for a variety of reasons. Because I'm not a Christian, it has no religious significance for me. Because I'm not motivated by material things, I find the rampant orgy of commercialism which abounds at this time of year, frankly, disgusting. Because I absolutely respect the right of others to hold whatever religious beliefs they choose, I feel ashamed at what the society I live in has turned this season into (even bearing in mind the point of view which says that the timing and motivation of this season has more to do with pagan celebrations such as Yule and Saturnalia than it does with alleged events of two millennia ago). I have no happy memories of childhood Christmases; and vivid memories of particularly unpleasant personal events which have occurred at this time of year, especially in adult life. So, all told, this period is a dead loss for me.

I don't like being a wet blanket around others who are more enamoured of the occasion than I am, and so I deflect all invitations to spend it with others. However, I know that many people derive a great deal of pleasure and fulfilment from it; and to all of you, whatever your personal views of this time of year, I wish the very best of season's greetings.

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This is why I like audio so much

2004-12-22T06:00:00.000Z

One reason why I like listening to podcasts by other people is that occasionally you trip over something that really touches you, that makes you stop and think. IT Conversations has been going for about three years now, and the title is misleading, because the content isn't just about IT. As with this show. At this time of year, more than any other, download it, listen to it, and think about it, I urge you. Barry Schwartz has absolutely nailed the problems of excessive choice, in my opinion. And, judging by the gales of laughter from the audience as he was talking, he's a pretty entertaining presenter.

I subscribe to the IT Conversations' RSS feed in my news aggregator, RSS Bandit; the feed describes each new show as it's added, I add the ones that sound interesting to my personal queue, and then iPodder downloads them for me next time it runs. It's a slick arrangement, and Doug Kaye (who runs IT Conversations) has some exceptionally good ideas in the area of user-customisation of this service that I'm following with interest.

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The joy of rebuilding...

2004-12-22T05:25:00.000Z

... laptops, that is! ;-) I've spent the last couple of days moving my stuff from one laptop to another, something I seem to do quite regularly, and have got it down to a fine art now. Actually, the *transferring* is pretty straightforward; I backup the \Documents and Settings\username directory on the old laptop, add my domain account to the new laptop, restore the backup on top of it while logged on as a different local administrator on the new laptop, making sure to overwrite every file, and that's pretty much that. No, the time-consuming part is installing all of the applications (particularly Visual Studio .NET 2003 - scratch a couple of hours to install *that* puppy). Still, all done now.

One thing I really love about most well-behaved Windows applications (and which seems to characterises all those I use) is the way they store user-specific configuration in the XP user profile, so that I can restore that user profile on a new laptop (with settings related to apps that aren't installed on that laptop) and the new system doesn't crash (well, why should it?); yet as soon as I install the apps, they're immediately configured with my settings from the old laptop. That is just what I would want, and I'm sure it wasn't always as easy as that.

So, I have a nice and nippy new environment, in that virgin XP-starts-up-in-a-gladsome-twinkling-of-an-eye state. I only have the apps I currently use installed (and I've been polite enough to remove the ones I'd installed from the old laptop, so its new owner doesn't have to) and it's configured *just so*; inevitably I will have forgotten to transfer some files that weren't in the \Documents and Settings\username directory on the old laptop (I usually forget *something*). But it rarely matters; once it's gone, it's gone. Once I've added the new user's domain account to the old laptop, I'll log in as local administrator, remove *my* domain user, delete my \Documents and Settings\username directory, and that's that. Ideally, the new user would wipe the hard drive and reinstall from scratch (or restore a pre-built image) but I don't think this particular user will be in the market for that.

Now, if only my new laptop were pink... ;-)

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VoiceOver Session Three - Insomnia? We Don't Need No Steenking Insomnia

2004-12-16T05:41:00.000Z

Or, if I'm awake at 4 am in the morning, then I don't see why you shouldn't be too! ;-) So, here's a gentle tune to help you shake the sleep from your eyes... In this session: "Jonestown Mind" by The Almighty - included here from the CD "World of Noise", given away free with Q Magazine, May 1995. Download file here (MP3, 2.91 MB, 6 minutes 21 seconds). You might want to keep your hand near the volume dial...

Update 06.02 am - the download is broken... :-( have to find some more hosting space...

Update 16.14 on 20 December 2004... well, done, ISP chaps, for finally working out that, yes, it really isn't *that* hard to enable my paid-for space... sheesh.

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Maybe I'm in mourning

2004-12-14T04:05:00.000Z

Last week was, for me, one of those intensely frustrating (and ultimately, upsetting) weeks. It began well enough; I had enormous fun recording my first podcast on the Sunday. Monday evening I attended my first session of speech therapy (which went well, I thought). Tuesday I was finally able to spend some time using some code that my colleague Ryan had created from a prototype I'd put together a while back, and applied it to the new features I've been prototyping for the last few weeks. Sensing that the two combined heralded good news for the company, we gathered together whoever was in the office and gave an impromptu demonstration, and I think it's fair to say that the lights went on for most of the audience; giving me the kind of feeling that embodies what I love about the job that I do. Add in my first appearance in someone else's podcast and a lovely email from Lee Ann Westover of The Lascivious Biddies (giving me permission to use part of one of their songs as the "intro and outro" music to my podcast... the week was really humming! And then, around lunchtime on Wednesday, the metaphorical fog rolled in...

... and it was as if none of the above had happened. I entered a few days of perpetual "blonde moments" in which I could hardly string two thoughts together, let alone two sentences, with a mood as dark as night. Things that had been professionally simple just days ago were now beyond me once again. My memory started playing up again. All in all, not a lot of fun. And, feeling as low as I did, I realised that attending my firm's Christmas dinner on Friday night was really not an option. Far from enjoying the occasion, it was likely to see me as miserable as sin and dampening others fun. This mood didn't really lift until Sunday afternoon.

Now, I've dealt with the dubious pleasures of mood swings for years; particularly when I was much more affected by Depression, they were pretty much a constant companion. Recently, though, their pattern and nature has changed. Since beginning my social transition to womanhood, I genuinely feel that the kind of depressive feelings I used to get have almost completely disappeared... to be replaced by an intense frustration that I am now sure stems from the realisation that my ability to use the professional skills I have is changing. More accurately, diminishing.

Let me put that in context; it's not that I can't do what I used to. Instead, it's that I can't do what I used to as well as *I* remember I used to. I'd hoped that this was going to prove a temporary challenge, particularly as it only really started to be an issue shortly after I started taking hormones; I was hoping it was a side-effect of the sudden changes in my body's chemistry. But sadly, I now think that may have been something of a red herring. I can't shake the notion (the resignation, almost) that this is how it is going to be from now on. And that leaves me with the reality that every time I use my professional skills in a similar area to that which I used to I feel intensely frustrated (to put it mildly) even if those around me (colleagues and peers) can't see an issue.

Basically, I think I'm just getting old! ;-) Maybe that's all it is. But the sense of loss I feel at this sensation of no longer being able to apply my skills in the way I used to, I can really only describe as akin to mourning. It sucks.

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RE: This evening after the party I went out(...)

2004-12-14T03:16:00.000Z

So, having waxed lyrical about Douglas Coupland's writing in a previous post, I read this in Dave Winer's Scripting News

... They're software people who totally care about users, and are doing new things that people can really relate to. This, by the way, is the philosophy so beautifully expressed in Douglas Coupland's masterpiece, Microserfs. The concept of application software as a worthwhile end, the wierdness of nerd culture, the concept of 1.0.

[Via Scripting News]

If you still haven't read any of Microserfs, or indeed anything by Coupland, there's a sizable chunk from the book online at that link. Grab yourself a coffee, sit back and enjoy for a while.

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VoiceOver Session Two

2004-12-12T05:22:00.000Z

Now online (MP3, 8.6 MB, 18 mins 50 secs). Only two songs this time; one a 90 second excerpt of "The Walking" by Jane Siberry, the other a seven minute edit of "Vidrar vel til Loftarasa" by Sigur Ros; both worth every second! ;-)

Production notes (HTML, OPML)

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VoiceOver Session One

2004-12-05T05:20:00.000Z

Now online (MP3, 10.6 MB, 23 mins 12 secs). This is my first public attempt at "speech and music", so listener beware! ;-) I will be writing up some programme notes (with links to web sites and background information) in a day or so. Enjoy! All comments and feedback welcome, either as comments to this post, or as voice attachments emailed to koanbremner (at) gmail (dot) com.

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"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"

2004-12-04T05:26:00.000Z

That was the theme of a series of television advertisements I saw a few months ago; I believe they were for the Emirates airline. In the one I particularly remember, I interpreted the story as being about two African men, on a business trip to some European city in winter, in their hotel room. They look out of the window and see that snow is falling heavily. Depending on your perspective, that might signal a trip to the slopes for some skiing or snowboarding, or a sense of dread at the thought of a long and difficult commute home. But if you've never seen snow before... the two men run to the hotel lobby, walk embarassedly past the reception desk, and then run outside and savour the simple joy of feeling snowflakes fall on their faces for the first time; and the child-like pleasure of throwing snowballs at each other. Such a simple thing, yet (for me) such a profound image.

A few weeks after I first saw that advert, I was talking with a friend on the telephone. David was excitedly telling me about the upcoming family holiday to Florida, and all that he was planning. One of the activities that he was most excited about was the prospect of hiring a Harley Davidson motorcycle and riding with the elder of his two young sons down to Cape Canaveral, for a memorable piece of father-and-son bonding. As we spoke, he referred to that same advertisement; this would be a time when he and Niall were doing something, together, for the first time.

As a Buddhist, I believe wholeheartedly in living "in the moment"; for now is all we have. The past is gone (except as a memory) and the future not yet here; what I have is a succession of "now's" and if I do not savour each of those while I have them, then I am the loser. So I try to remember the joy of doing something for the first time; recalling those moments from the past, and consciously looking for new opportunities to experience that feeling. Yesterday was one of those days, and one I hope that I shall long remember; for I took the opportunity to actively seek a new experience, which I found deeply rewarding (and enjoyable!)... and quite unexpectedly experienced something else that was so profound I'm still welling up with tears as I recall it.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to be a participant in an upcoming television documentary series examining a wide spectrum of experiences of people contemplating or undergoing social transition and gender reassignment surgery, as well as those who completed that journey in the past. For myself, I don't feel that I have anything particularly remarkable to say; but if someone else holds a different opinion, that is their right. Even as recently as a few months ago, I would not have considered doing something so public; for all that I am a confident, outgoing person, I'm also a very private person, who doesn't readily open up to others about my inner feelings. Which is probably the residual effect of keeping the reality of what I was hidden inside for so many years, beneath an outward veneer of masculinity. Recently, I realised that one of the reasons my own journey has been so painful and so long is that I had only the stereotypical images of what being "a transsexual" meant, as portrayed by the newspaper stories I had read in the past, and the sensationalist and salacious television and film portrayals I recall. The recurrent themes of rejection by family and friends, discrimination in the workplace, and the constant threat and all-too-often reality of physical violence, even fatal violence, did not exactly fill me with a sense of optimism about what lay ahead. I'm an ordinary person, trying to live an ordinary life, with (I like to think) some degree of success; if I had seen even just one or two portrayals of transgendered people in *that* light ten years ago, even five years ago, my journey to here could have been so much less traumatic.

Realising that, I feel an obligation to at least try to portray the positive aspects of my own experience, which far outweigh the negative, while acknowledging those negatives. Which is partly why I started writing this blog; and why I volunteered for the documentary series (and I do mean "volunteer"; no-one has coerced me into taking part, nor am I being paid for taking part). Indeed, there's no guarantee that I'll even appear in any of the eventual programmes.

Back to yesterday. Two of the crew (one of the directors and a researcher) came down to interview me at my home. They were here for nearly six hours in total (I certainly didn't envy them their drive home afterwards; I doubt if they'd had the good sense to stock up on some back episodes of Daily Source Code or Acts of Volition Radio for the journey, for example!) It is important to me that a subject like this be treated with sensitivity and respect (as well as honesty and reality) by a documentary, and I was reassured by the demeanour and attitudes of David and Willow. I was also glad that my partner Kim was there when they arrived, partly because she is a very astute judge of character, and partly because it would be difficult to talk fully about my experiences without being able to talk fully about her role; if she had felt uncomfortable, I would not have proceeded. As it was, we both warmed to them instantly, and I like to think we all had a lot of laughs as we tucked into sandwiches before they brought a veritable mountain of lights, cameras and sound recording gear into the flat. (I smiled at the thought that the other tenants where I live might have thought we were shooting a porn film!) Anyhoo.. I was fascinated by the whole process (I always have been fascinated by the mechanics of film and video production and editing) and the filming process was not at all scary or intimidating. I talked, as I have on many previous occasions, about what had happened and is happening in my life, and something about my hopes and aspirations for the future. If the final results are screened, you can watch them there; and if they don't get screened, well, I'll interpret that as an editorial decision that my ramblings were so much guff and wind, and therefore I'll save you the tedium of regurgitating them here! ;-)

So I took part in something I never had before, and I felt really pleased that I had put myself in the position of being able to do that. A perfect day, in fact. As they dismantled their gear and I started putting my own belongings back into the disorder they had originally been in, we discussed other shots that might be used at a later date; especially of me riding my (t)rusty Cruella. We loaded up their van, and I said goodbye to them in the entrance hall to the house where I rent a flat.

Now here's the thing; I don't want to embarrass David by what I write here. I don't actually think there's anything he should be embarrassed *about*. As we said goodbye, I shook his hand; and he leaned over and kissed my cheek in goodbye. Willow gave me a big hug, and off they went. Nothing particularly note-worthy... except to me. All David had done was said goodbye to me, as he would say goodbye to any woman.

He had treated me like a woman.

If you strip away all of the mechanics of the process of gender reassignment; the legislative and administrative hassles, the pain, inconvenience and risk of the surgical procedures, the fear and reality of discrimination and violence... I cannot speak for anyone else, but I can say that all I seek from the path that I am on is the chance to live my life as the woman I am. I don't care if anyone knows that I was born with male genitalia (which is why I'm not frightened to write quite openly, using my real name, about my experiences); that is an irrelevance, a temporary inconvenience, and will at some point become no more than a memory (and one I won't linger on). What I *will* remember... and for a long time... is how I felt when I realised that I had been treated like a woman by someone I had never met before.

Had I not volunteered for this documentary, I would not have felt that feeling yesterday. Whatever might happen if or when my contribution to the documentary series is aired, I have already been repaid many times over for my efforts.

I've been asked on more than one occasion, "what do you mean by 'living in the moment'?" Recognising the significance, to me, of what was probably an unconscious polite gesture; *that's* living in the moment.

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Podcasting, baby! :-)

2004-12-02T21:15:00.000Z

Time to stop talking, and start... er... talking... I've pretty much figured out how to do this now, so I'm going to be podcasting shows with the working title of "VoiceOver". I've recorded a short introductory MP3 (4 minutes 44 seconds, 2MB) which I think of as a manifesto... basically, it gives a bit of background on why I'm going to be podcasting, and specifically what I *won't* be talking about.

~~So long as I haven't fouled up, the file above appears as an enclosure in the RSS feed for this blog~~ Although you can still download and listen to the manifesto by clicking on the above link, I've decided to remove it from the RSS feed for the podcast, so that people who decide to download all of the sessions won't automatically hear it (but each session's show notes will include a pointer to it); which means that if you use an enclosure-aware aggregator or an application like iPodder, then by pointing it at the feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/AnalysisservicesAndSelf URL, ~~the manifesto (and~~ all of the subsequent podcasts) will be automatically downloaded to your system, as if by technology.

I'll leave it at that for a couple of days, so I can iron out any bugs or issues with the feed (hopefully none) and put the first podcast proper up on Saturday. It'll be a bit of a musical extravaganza... muahahaha!

One thing that I forgot to include in the manifesto was an explanation for the name, VoiceOver; well, partly because I'm going to be doing a voice-over of things that interest me, such as music; but primarily because I'm *over* and *done* with the voice I've got, will be starting speech and language therapy to change it on Monday, and want to record the change in my voice over time. So, VoiceOver... hopefully no-one else is already using that name, but I'll use something else if that's the case.

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Catching Up

2004-11-30T06:30:00.000Z

I've had a busy, interesting (and mildly worrying) few days; and am about to reach another significant milestone on my journey in the next few days, so this post is basically intended to bring a few things up to date.

On the plus side, I spent the weekend with my Mum and brother Russ; I feel a lot more relaxed when visiting them now, as something else isn't infecting the atmosphere with its odious presence. Amongst other things, I wanted to get Russ up-to-speed on the subject of podcasts and podcasting, because I'm after a suitable theme song for mine, and thought it would be a nice touch to give an ongoing plug to Russ's band The Chosen Few by using one of theirs. (To my mind, the best podcasts have a signature theme song which sets up the recognition circuits; when I hear a few bars of the Gentle Readers, I know I'm probably listening to Evil Genius Chronicles, for example). So, once we've settled on a suitable choice, I'll put my first podcast online.

Russ and I were surprised (and amused) to find that Vodafone considers his band's site to be worthy of content restriction (I dialled up over GPRS through Vodafone and access to the band's site was blocked). I really can't see why... still, if they're trying to cultivate a hard-living rock star reputation (and one look at their photos will assure you that they've all lived a pretty full life) then getting your site banned by a service provider strikes me as a good start! ;-)

On the minus, I kept falling asleep over the weekend. Given that I have a real problem with insomnia, part of me says that I should welcome *any* sleep, whenever I can get it; but daytime napping is very uncharacteristic for me. Which means I now have Mum on my case (like most Mums, she's not happy unless she's worrying about one of her brood). Oh joy. I hope this is a brief blip (although I still felt like I could happily fall asleep throughout yesterday) because I can't get the liver function test results I had last time out of my mind.

On the plus, I have an appointment next week for my first session of speech therapy! I can't express how excited I am about this. I've had a skinful of having to explain the discrepancy between my telephone voice and the details the other person at the other end has on their screen. Once this therapy starts, I will be trying to apply what I'm learning for as much of the day as I can, especially at work, so my long-suffering colleagues can look forward to some imminent auditory amusement at my expense... ;-)

Also on the plus, my domestic environment is coming together nicely. I live in a fantastic location, but I've had a bit of an ongoing problem with condensation (and some damp patches in the bathroom and my bedroom). The building's owners have started putting that right (no criticism should be attached to them for not sorting the problem out sooner; I kept forgetting to tell them there *was* a problem). I've ordered some fantastic recliners (which sadly won't arrive until early January) and today am taking delivery of a wicked piece of all-body aerobic exercise equipment. To explain; I've found that good aerobic exercise is a great way to help me to sleep, improve my general levels of energy and mood, and keep the waistline in check. Currently, I don't feel comfortable attending a gym; so I need to get my exercise in other ways. Apart from anything else, I'd like to drop a dress size (or two!); I certainly don't want the temptations of the new recliners to cause me to go *up* a size!

So, 2004 is drawing to a close with my situation feeling pretty sweet; it isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than it could be. (Sadly,"it isn't perfect" also seems to be the case with blogger.com just now; their servers are obviously pretty shagged, and I've been trying to publish this post for a while now. Reminds me of one of the reasons for my imminent migration to Radio as a platform and different servers.)

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"Finding your own voice"... ;-)

2004-11-25T05:33:00.000Z

I really laughed out loud when I read Dave Slusher's post "Your Radio Voice", itself a response to a post on his own weblog by Robert Scoble, bemoaning his own perceived lack of a "radio voice" (which, having listened to Robert's appearances on e.g. .NETRocks! and ITConversations doesn't seem particularly valid, but that's just my personal opinion)... anyway, I had to laugh, because I will be doing some podcasting of my own, part of the rationale for which will be to track the change in my own voice; as I've written previously, my own voice (particularly on the telephone) causes me difficulties and I'm about to begin speech therapy to alleviate that, and I thought it would be fun to podcast in my voice as it evolves over the next few months. We'll see... I'm intending to record the first podcast this weekend, so it should see the light of day next week.

Having mentioned .NETRocks! (who've been, effectively, podcasting since way before the term was coined)... I must mention their new spin-off show, Mondays. I started listening to the first edition last Sunday, and made the mistake of doing so whilst driving to the store to pick up my week's groceries; I have not laughed so much in months. After the first twenty minutes I was nearly wetting myself, and had developed somewhat of the appearance of Alice Cooper by the time I reached the store, necessitating a spot of cosmetic repair (note to self; waterproof mascara was invented for a reason). I hesitate before recommending humour to others (because my own sense of humour is so individual that I'm aware my tastes aren't universally shared) but... try Mondays for yourself.

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Welcome to myPodder! ;-)

2004-11-25T04:57:00.000Z

One of the best things about my job right now is that I'm working on some really interesting stuff; using existing technologies in ways that I certainly haven't before (and, to the best of my knowledge, in ways other people haven't used before); and the parallel frustration is that I can't write about even the most generic aspects of that work (due to my employer's perfectly reasonable "non-disclosure of IPR" policy) here! At the same time, I need to invest some time in professional self-development, specifically on new and upcoming technologies (e.g. SQL Server 2005, Longhorn, WinFS, Avalon) as well as technologies which may not be so new, but are relatively unknown to me. And finally, there are some elements around the whole blogging, podcasting and intelligent information management area which I really want to dig into; so, it occurs to me that I can hit multiple targets with a single shot by developing some software applications which solve the latter, are non-trivial enough to allow me to address the aspects of OLAP I'd love to write about here, yet are sufficiently restrained in scope to allow me the opportunity to develop them on multiple platforms in a finite timescale. And that's going to be the aim... of... myPodder! ;-)

I have absolutely no intention of developing this as a commercial application (or applications). This is really for fun, to plug some gaps in my own knowledge, to provide a platform against which I can demonstrate some specific elements of OLAP and intelligent information management, and to provide some functionality which I actually don't have access to at the moment. Rather like James with his GolfWeb and Timesheet projects, I've found in the past that the best way to get familiar with new technology and techniques is to do something with it, preferably something that's at least useful to yourself. So, I'll be posting here about my progress, and making the code available to anyone who's interested.

I'm aiming to develop at least four variants of myPodder:

1) "Old-style" technology (e.g. VBScript, COM, ASP, SQL Server 2000 and Analysis Services); primarily because this is where I tend to do my "quick and dirty" prototyping at the moment;

2) "Current-style" technology (e.g. C#, ASP.Net, maybe some web services) because I recognise some current personal skills gaps in those areas;

3) "Bleeding edge" / pre-release technologies (e.g. Whidbey, Yukon, Longhorn, WinFS, Avalon, Aero) because... well, because I want to! ;-) Bring me your most current untested, unstable and preview versions and watch me flounder; and

4) "Open source" technology (e.g. Linux, mySQL / PostgreSQL, Java)... because there's some specific open source software I need to familiarise myself with, and comparative tests against each of the above ought to help me in doing that.

As for what myPodder is intended to actually *do*... hopefully the name (an obvious and respectful tip-of-the-hat towards iPodder without, I hope, upsetting anybody) ought to betray part of the intent of the project. Which is to assist me in my experience of podcasting and smart information management, as a consumer *and* as a producer of content in those areas. Some examples of areas I intend to cover include:

1) Optimising the round-trip process of my consumption of podcasts in at least two use cases, i.e. a) burning them to CD, listening to them in my car, and then purging the downloaded podcasts from my system (because I'll have CD versions) *and* tracking personal metadata (e.g. ratings and notes) about those podcasts; and b) using a "smart device" (e.g. Pocket PC, iPod or similar) as the transfer mechanism and interactive "rating and annotating" device. As for the source of these podcasts, I want to handle at least two distribution options, i.e. direct downloading of files via RSS enclosures and distribution of files through BitTorrent, with specific purging rules for the latter, e.g. "a podcast can only be purged when I have uploaded at least 200% of the file size I downloaded" as well as generic purging rules for all cases, e.g. "a podcast can only be purged once it has been listened to on CD, so that I know the CD copy is valid, and rated, so that I have captured and augmented the metadata that *I* will find useful";

2) Bringing some intelligence to the content of the streams I download, e.g. using the ratings and metadata I provide to automatically source and manage new content sources that I do not as yet subscribe to;

3) Analysing the sources and destinations of the content I consume and produce, e.g. spotting trends of peak activity and bandwidth consumption, enhancing and refining the metadata I collect to assist my consumption and provision of content;

4) Anything else I happen to want to try out!

If any of the above strikes you as opaque or just plain gibberish, well, join the club! Actually, I hope it will become clearer as this particular project unfolds. I'm really looking forward to it; I just need to make sure I keep enough focus on the day job as well... ;-)

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What's wrong with this picture?

2004-11-23T02:21:00.000Z

One obvious outward aspect of transitioning is that my physical appearance is changing; some of that is medical (primarily, the impact of hormones on my body contours and facial features), some of it cosmetic (for example, I wear make-up to accentuate the feminine aspects of my features and minimise the masculine giveaways, and I have been growing my hair for the last year and am now engaged in the slow process of growing it into a more feminine style). Gratifying though it is to monitor my progress by looking at photographs, I don't like looking at images of myself from before my transition. I know what I looked like then; I don't need reminding of it. Even those images I have of myself since transition are less than satisfying; not because I'm vain (although I don't deny that I am!) but because I feel that none of them capture how I look now. The most recent ones I have were taken in June, before I'd started taking hormones, and the difference between then and now is quite striking. This leads to the question; what do I do with those images of the past?

Personally, I'm quite happy to erase them. They serve no beneficial purpose for me; I don't need to see myself in a picture to be able to remember the events and experiences captured in the picture. One example of the many ways in which Kim empathises with me is that she was going through her own extensive collection of digital photographs a few months ago, and said that, unless I wanted them for any reason, she was going to delete the ones she had of me, because they weren't representative of me as I am now. I think that was a profoundly understanding gesture; that she made the offer really touched me. For the record, I said that I didn't want them, so she should feel free to delete them.

Now, this is in somewhat of a contrast to my Mum. Mum has been so understanding and supportive of me, it almost seems churlish to say what I'm going to say. But, she is surrounded by photographs of her family... including many of me, as I was. Entering University; graduating from University. Serving in the Territorial Army. Giving away my sister on her wedding day; as a groom on my own wedding day. I have no earthly right to ask her to remove those pictures from display, and I would never do so; but I can't help it, I feel distinctly uncomfortable to be surrounded by them when I visit her.

So when I read a post by Julie Leung in her wonderful blog on the subject of sorting through photographic memories (particularly of her deceased brother) her words resonated particularly poignantly with me:

Then again, I rarely look at the photographs of my brother. I have a couple framed ones on display around the house, from the times we were kids together: the four of us standing in our driveway, holding gifts at Christmas, stark in black and white. But the pictures in my mind are more powerful than any a camera could capture. I don't even have colors or shapes for some of the memories; they are more emotion than precision.

And these images are the ones I will never delete.

[Via Julie Leung: Seedlings & Sprouts]

I guess part of me hopes that my loved ones, like me, will come to view "who I was" as a person distinct from "who I am"; and not feel the need to display images of "who I was". I can remember the emotions associated with those events from pictures of those events in which my own image is not present. Sadly, those pictures where I *am* present do nothing but remind me of the pain I felt for so many years; pain which no longer exists in my day-to-day life, but which rears its head when I'm confronted with those visual reminders of the past.

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Replication (or, SQL Server's "canary in a coal mine")

2004-11-22T20:55:00.000Z

As I mentioned previously, one of the first areas I worked on when I joined Exony was to overhaul the use of replication in our reporting and analytics product. I can vividly recall the degree of mistrust my new colleagues felt back then towards SQL Server replication as a component of our product offering. I felt that their mistrust was unjustified; but I hadn't earned the right to just tell them so! :-) So, I took on the task of redesigning our replication strategy from the ground up, and I genuinely believe that my colleagues (particularly those engaged in directly installing and supporting our products) are now much more comfortable with the concepts of replication , much more confident in its role within our products, and much less inclined to immediately pick up the phone and call me if there's a "replication problem" in the lab or on a customer site. Arguably, replication now serves a secondary purpose for us; it's a fantastic environmental health check utility.

Say what? Well, replication is so dependant upon the wider environment within which the database servers sit, that many issues which might arise in that environment will manifest themselves most quickly and visibly within replication. A network link is interrupted? Watch the distribution agents fail. Someone changes the firewall settings? Or applies inappropriate Group Policy settings? See authentication fail. Bottom line; if the distributed environment within which replication operates varies even a little from optimal, then replication will probably let you know (via the propagation of red X's in Replication Monitor) that all is not well.

Back then, a "problem" with replication would have sent shivers down the spine. Now, when a problem manifests itself in replication, my colleagues know to check the environment first. In the vast majority of cases, replication is not the problem; it is merely highlighting a problem which exists elsewhere, long before other symptoms might have become visible.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that organisations should always deploy replication as a network environment monitoring tool! ;-) Even so, that functionality is inherent in any but the most trivial replication topology; might as well take advantage of it. Replication doesn't just fail without cause; if it experiences difficulties, then *something* is causing those difficulties. When miners used to take a canary with them into a coal-mine, they knew to leave the area if the canary fell off its perch; we know to suspect the network environment when Replication Monitor falls off its perch.

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