So, if you read this blog at all you know I have worked in IT and IT project management, and volunteer for the Queer Up North festival each year. what I don’t think I’ve mentioned much is that over the past couple of years I’ve become steadily more dissatisfied with working in IT, and have been looking for something else. Unfortunately, I’ve never worked out exactly what else I’d be happy with.

I think I’ve worked it out now, though. The title of this post is a lyric from Picture of a Man by one of the artists at the festival, this year: Our Lady J. When I heard it this year, a shiver ran down my spine:

But it is here among the dead that I find life,
And it is here in the ashes that I find where I am going —
And it is here, and it is simple, and it is old and it is right.
It is here that I find —
This is what living feels like.

Working at Queer Up North I felt alive. Rushed off my feet, for sure, but alive, knowing I was working with a group of like-minded people helping create something that simply wouldn’t exist had we not done it. It was exhausting: the shortest day was eleven hours, the longest nineteen. I saw my house each day to grab a coffee and shower, then grab a clean shirt in the evening. And I loved every minute of it.

And whilst doing all of this: I had a thought. My organisational, project management and business management skills are transferable. What (apart from fear of change) is stopping me?

So I’ve decided — nothing. Enough with the IT. Time for something that I can be happy doing. OK, it’s going to be a compromise on the income front. But money shouldn’t be the only reason I do what I do. This is going to mean quite a few changes and disruption. I don’t know where it’s going to go. I have no real plan at the moment.

But what I do know is it’s time for a change. Because I like what living feels like.

Tourist Remover:

Remove moving objects such as tourists or passing cars from your photos. Take multiple photos from the same scene and the «Tourist Remover» blends them into a composite photo without any interfering elements.

A free service from snampmania.com. I’ve not tried this yet as I don’t have a suitable set to use, but if it works, and I can download the resultant composite image again at decent resolution, I think I’ll be using this a lot.

(Via Boing Boing Gadgets.)

GamOvr – Pix for game geeks

Simply excellent!

(Via GamOvr.)

Graphical Overview of Same Sex Marriage Debate:

Arguments transcribed from various Facebook polls; a work in progress: (click for larger view)

Absolutely fantastic!

(Via Warren Ellis.)

The Unevenness of Space-Time Convergence « Strange Maps:

How long does it take to travel from London to elsewhere? The answer is provided by this map, showing a set of expanding circles centered on the British capital, each bigger one delineating two extra hours of travel time.
The familiar shape of the world is morphed into grotesque, contorted shapes as these isotemporal lines replace the usual lines of longitude and latitude for frame of reference.

This is from 1981, so it’s not quite as accurate any more. I’d love to see it redrawn.

(Via Strange Maps.)

British Standards Institute introduces Standard British Idiots:

Following a 30 percent increase in domestic accidents, the British Standards Institute has recruited 1000 Standard British Idiots (SBIs) to perform safety tests on a range of appliances. A spokesperson explained: ‘For years we have worked on the assumption that nobody in their right mind would stick a spoon into a live socket, but they do. We have recruited this calibre of person: someone who will look for a gas leak with a match, or set off across the channel on a lilo.’

I’m thinking of setting up a nomination web page for them.

(Via NewsBiscuit.)

OK, right out, let me say I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone here. But one aspect of Queer Up North has stirred a bee in my bonnet.

Last year, several people in the Manchester transgendered community gave us grief because one of our artists had previously performed in a venue that does not allow transgendered people access. We had protests, we had all sorts of stuff going on.

That’s fine. I might not agree, but I respect completely the fact that there are different viewpoints here, and that public protest is a legitimate way of expressing opinion.

However, forward to this year. QuN had two transgendered artists in leading slots. It had Joanne Meyerowitz, one of the most eminent academics working in the field of transgender studies, lecturing on “A different history of gender.”

And what feedback do we hear from the transgender community this year? Nothing. Not a word.

This leads to an interesting question. Why?

My opinion is going to get me the hate mail. I think it’s because the transgender community in Manchester (at least) is politically immature. It’s being a group of cowering people in a huddle, pointing at perceived threats and saying “look, you’re victimising us!”

To my mind, a politically mature community gives credit where it’s due. It engages with friends and enemies. It doesn’t make itself out to be the victim. It’s better than that. I’m not seeing that here.

Queer Up North didn’t put on such a trans-inclusive programme this year in order to provide balance to last year. Tokenism is not what drives its programming. Not, I think, should shouts of “we’re being victimised” drive the transgender political community and its choice of fights.

It’s been nearly three weeks (how?!) since Queer Up North finished for 2009, and this is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and organise my thoughts on the festival — what was great, what was good, and what could have been done better — down into my blog. Artistically this was certainly the best one I’ve ever been involved with, but still, there were a few things we could have done better.

Long piece this one, so it’s under the cut…

Read more »

what consumes me, bud caddell » how to be happy in business – venn diagram:

This succinctly demonstrates what I need to practise:

(Via what consumes me.)

The Evolution of House Cats: Scientific American:

[genetic analysis] revealed five genetic clusters, or lineages, of wildcats. Four of these lineages corresponded neatly with four of the known subspecies of wildcat and dwelled in specific places: F. silvestris silvestris in Europe, F. s. bieti in China, F. s. ornata in Central Asia and F. s. cafra in southern Africa. The fifth lineage, however, included not only the fifth known subspecies of wildcat — F. s. lybica in the Middle East—but also the hundreds of domestic cats that were sampled, including purebred and mixed-breed felines from the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. In fact, genetically, F. s. lybica wildcats collected in remote deserts of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were virtually indistinguishable from domestic cats. That the domestic cats grouped with F. s. lybica alone among wildcats meant that domestic cats arose in a single locale, the Middle East, and not in other places where wildcats are common.

The article goes on to postulate that wildcats took advantage of increased rodent populations in proximity to humans, caused by the commencement of agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago in the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent — much earlier and in a different location to the established wisdom of where the relationship between man and cat started. Makes sense though.

(Via Scientific American.)