Getting a career back on track

 There are those moments where you find yourself wondering what exactly it is that you're headed towards in your life. If the answer is 'not much', then that might explain some frustrations you're experiencing. Whether stuck in a dead-end job, or dealing with the fall-out from years of a tumultuous, traumatic life, the hardest but also most important step is to admit for yourself that you're not happy, and that you want things to change.

What does it take to be happy? If I were to consider my own life the past few years, it would have to be about regaining a measure of control, instead of being tossed around passively like a piece of driftwood. Merely promising myself that things would suddenly change for the better through a project like NymphCast [1], or by having my autobiography published. Pinning your hopes on such things doesn't make you regain control of your life.


Of course, I will readily admit the things which I have learned from the NymphCast project. It's been a great lesson in project management and development on embedded systems, getting to know the intricacies of aligned memory access with the NymphRPC project [2] on ARM processors while implementing a zero copy optimisation. Also small things like creating a lock-free ring buffer implementation [3].

Implementing service discovery in a more light-weight way than that offered by mDNS and kin in the form of NyanSD [4] taught me a lot about UDP broadcasting and provided NymphCast with a reliable, cross-platform way to discover NymphCast receivers, clients and media servers on the same network. Much like my experiences with the Nodate STM32 embedded C++ project [5], none of that was wasted time or effort, as it all gave me the opportunity to nurture my skills as a software developer.


When I left my previous job at the end of 2017, I literally travelled around the world for job interviews. I clearly was making a solid enough impression during the early (remote) tests. Where things would fall apart was always with the in-person interviews, and when I looked at some short videos I made of myself in late 2019, I understood why.

The glassy, distant look in my eyes. The impression of someone who isn't really quite present in the here and now. Having had a few years now to work on this aspect, I think I'm doing much better now in that regard. As evidenced by the videos on my YouTube channel of the past years where I read the short stories I have written, I'm gradually learning to open up more and come to terms with the fact that I do have an actual body. Same with the way that I interact with people.


Of course, the past few years also have been a major confrontation with the traumatic experiences that I have been pushing ahead of me for many years now, including those involving my existence as an intersex person and what this fact means to me. I'd be a terrible liar if I said that any of this was easy to deal with, or that I'm done dealing with all of it.

What I do know is that I'm doing much better than I did a few years ago, both physically and mentally. Also that I'm now at a point where I seriously have to seek the next steps in fixing up my life. This one involving my career.


Although as stated the projects which I have tinkered with the past few years have been and continue to be interesting and useful, in the end they are hobby projects. Great additions for my CV [6], of course, but you don't build a career and livelihood on top of a few hobby projects unless you're incredibly lucky.

So, as a result I'll be actively seeking out new (remote) jobs the coming time that will allow me to expand my career and horizons, continuing my progress the past few years. No doubt it'll be anything but easy, what with the entire world currently (still) being on fire, but one has to start somewhere :)


Maya



[1] https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphCast
[2] https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphRPC
[3] https://github.com/MayaPosch/LockFreeRingBuffer
[4] https://github.com/MayaPosch/NyanSD
[5] https://github.com/MayaPosch/Nodate
[6] http://www.mayaposch.com/cv.php

The Open Source model vs the Open Exploitation model

It's interesting to stand still by the big changes in the software we are running on our computers today versus back in the 1990s and early 2000s. When I bought my boxed copy of SuSE Linux 6.3 in 1999, that year was hailed by the computer rags which I read at the time as the 'year of the Linux desktop'. The evil closed-source Mac and Windows operating systems would be banished and replaced by an operating system produced by the honest hands of the working classes.

None of that really happened, of course, but today it's hard to imagine a world that is not built upon the plentiful availability of freely available software. Whereas in the 90s you'd be paying for the operating system and any software for it - aside from freeware & shareware applications - today you could theoretically spend money only on the hardware and nothing on the operating system and even professional tools.


An example of these tools is for example compilers. In the 90s you'd generally have to pay to get a copy of Borland, Visual Studio or any of the other major players in that space. The open source GCC compiler only became a good option for general development by the late 90s, and today GCC along with LLVM are solid options for software development that have essentially obsoleted pay-to-play compilers like Visual Studio (MSVC) and Intel's ICC.

Similarly, for office suits LibreOffice and Google Docs have made the proposition of paying for Microsoft Office or similar a quaint idea unless one needs some of the rare features offered by the latter. For 3D modelling there is Blender 3D. Basic audio editing? Audacity and others. Need to design a PCB for a new electronics device? KiCad or some of the new-and-upcoming open source options have your back.

Of course, the one question that is always true with 'free' is who ends up holding the bill in the end.


First, one preconception about closed source is that it is necessarily something commercial, NDA-ed and for-profit, with open source always community-driven and following an open collaboration strategy. This ignores the many free tools that are released by hobbyists but who do not feel comfortable sharing the source code to these. It also glosses over the realisation that open source projects can be equally as abusive as the worst commercial office setting.

There have been a few high-profile situations in the world of open source so far where essentially all of the primary (volunteer) developers packed up and left to resume the project on their own terms. XFree86 is one such example, where the fallout from an inflexible project owner resulted in the Xorg fork. Similarly with OpenOffice's developers disagreeing with Oracle's harsh management of the project and resuming the project on their terms in the form of LibreOffice.

This shows clearly how open source projects are not immune to the worst traits of human nature. From oversized egos, to poor or lacking communication and so on, open source projects are nothing magical. In the end they are still software projects, with the same management challenges as a commercial or closed source project. Just generally with the dirty laundry being put out more clearly in sight of the world to see.


Then there's the more concerning aspect of free/open software: the exploitation of 'free' labour. It has happened a number of times now that a small hobby project got absorbed into the global ecosystem that has sprouted on this fertile soil, only for the maintainer of said hobby project to get inundated with support requests. A few years ago this led to the demise of the WiringPi project [1] that had become essential to countless Raspberry Pi (Python) projects. More recently the Babel transpiler project on which countless large web frameworks and companies depend announced that it'll likely be shutting down soon unless it can obtain more funding [2].

This shows the immense pressures that project owners are put under when their project suddenly takes off in ways they had likely not imagined. Balancing what likely was 'just a hobby project' with their day to day obligations and job becomes increasingly more complicated. As the author behind WiringPi makes clear, some people who contacted him for support got rather violent and aggressive when they didn't get the help they felt they deserved.


Clearly the open source movement that began in the 90s has spawned a massive ecosystem, but one has to wonder just how sustainable it truly is. There are disconcerting signs that at least a section of it is built on what is essentially exploitative (unpaid) labour. This is not just something that concerns small project owners who get overwhelmed by sudden attention, but also within larger projects. As mentioned, it's easy for a large open source project to feature the same abusive behaviour seen elsewhere.

Ideally a project uses an open collaboration model [3], where there is no strong hierarchy and yet there's a clear progress towards to a common goal. Yet, much like the economical/social model of Communism which has similar goals, there is a significant risk that at some point a hierarchy is established, with a dictator establishing absolute rule along with a number of lackeys.

If one is lucky, said dictator is of the more benevolent type (though possibly potty-mouthed, like Linus Torvalds) and helps with herding the developer-shaped cats. If not, then as one saw with the XFree86 and OpenOffice projects it can spell the end of the project. When those who seek to contribute to a project do not feel valued or appreciated, they will likely abandon that project forever. The more often this happens, the worse off a project becomes.


In this light one also has to consider what drives someone to contribute to an open source project when they can expect no monetary compensation for this. For many it is because they use the software in question, and wish to improve it. Either by suggesting improvements or by directly contributing code, bug reports or patches. There's a significant time investment involved in these activities, which is for the individual contributor the investment they are willing or capable of contributing.

This leads to the expectation of some level of return. Much like with any other type of investment, a lack of return negatively affects the desire to invest again in that particular project. With my own open source projects this is something which I had to work on with e.g. the communication when someone files a ticket. It's easy to assume that the person who filed the ticket is doing this as a hostile act, but it's much more likely that they genuinely like the project and are doing their little bit of investing into the project to see whether it will make the project better. If so, then the project owner and the person filing the ticket will win out.


In this regard it saddens me to see project like e.g. KiCad steering in a direction that's clearly not optimal. Most recently in the run-up to the 6.0 release a new icon set for the user interface was 'decided upon', which seems to have been one of those 'upper management has decrees' level of decisions. As the new icons are hideous violations of UX rules and based on the KiCad forum communication on the topic, it's clear that this was not a decision made in consensus, but rather on a whim. This is just one example there of many small details of a similar nature.

A similar lack of consideration is present with the Audacy project, whose management recently had to backpedal heavily after previously announcing telemetry that would be enabled by default [4]. At best this showed incredibly poor judgement on the side of the project owners, at worst it shows that every major open source project can just as easily become the next BonziBuddy [5] if one isn't careful.


With all of that said, I too happen to be the author of a range of smaller and larger open source projects (BSD 3-clause licence). Some of these get more attention than others, but when looking at other projects, it does make me reflect on what my response would be if any of them suddenly got really popular. After I had attention for my NymphCast [6] project explode with over 51,000 views on the original blog post [7] last year, I felt the rush and pressure to 'do something' with that project.

Since then the attention has died down a lot, and I have since regained the appreciation for NymphCast and my other projects as 'just hobby projects'. Since I'm not making money off them, the only compensation that I seek from them is to get the satisfaction of having accomplished something for myself. That's after all the point of a hobby project.

That also then shows the counter point to open source as a hobby: open source as part of a business model, or paid projects involving open source software. In my view open source project is nothing special and adheres to the same basic rules as any other project: either it's a hobby or it's work. If one doesn't receive monetary compensation for work, it's exploitation.


Or to cue the (in)famous line that artists hear too often when asked to create something: "You'll be paid in exposure!".


Maya


[1] https://hackaday.com/2019/09/18/wiringpi-library-to-be-deprecated/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/12/babel_money_woes/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_collaboration
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/14/audacity_telemetry/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
[6] https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphCast/
[7] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/03/nymphcast-casual-attempt-at-open.html

Getting back into that 'career' thing after recovering from PTSD

 This is not an easy post for me to write. Even as I am grateful for the progress that I'm making in recovering from decades of trauma and the associated post-traumatic stress disorder, it's hard not to find myself painfully aware of how the world around me has seemingly moved ahead without me. Instead of neatly and mostly happily bouncing my way through the education system and ending up in some job from which I'd work my way up to a bright career, I more or less fell off the grid as I fell into depression, followed by a string of traumatic events which put my continued existence strongly in question.

To make a long story short, I seem to have managed to make it out of the other side more or less in one piece, courtesy of primarily the efforts of people who I am very grateful for not giving up on me. Yet as the darkness of depression recedes and my PTSD no longer controls me, it's equally painfully obvious that the reason why people rush into a career is so that they can acquire that which most crucially sustains life itself: money.

I'm grateful that I have found some freelance work mostly writing articles for sites and publications, but diversification seems like a good thing. For example something to do with my experience as a senior-level software developer. Call it an artefact of my cosy relationship with computers while growing up, but software development in particular is something which is practically an integral part of my being, much like the ability to read and write. Basically, that means that I like it a lot.


I was supposed to have landed a software development contract for a big international company at the beginning of this year, but as the pandemic did its thing, that lead dried up, like so many others. Finding new leads and following up on them is still something that I have to work on, just like the whole 'networking' thing. It's no use if you might be a great fit for a lot of remote software jobs out there, but neither side is aware of the other.

In that regard I guess that my string of published books on mostly C++ and embedded development is a good kind of advertisement, along with the projects which I have published on my GitHub account [1]. Yet it's still a struggle to generate and handle leads, even if others do their best to find a few for me. I guess it's mostly due to the vestiges of PTSD that still trouble me, slowing me down and making even simple tasks more demanding than they would be for anyone without such a psychological burden.

Some of these projects which I started have gathered a lot of feedback already, especially NymphCast [2], even as the amount of work there is still astounding, especially for what is still a definite hobby project. While I did recently go back to fix a regression with playback and add a host of new features, it did impress on me again the need to balance hobbies with work. Hobbies are for relaxation and fun learning, while work is what you do first and foremost for money to survive.

While I have seen some open source projects grow to the point where they can have an actual business plan, or keep growing through the power of donations, aiming for such a thing seems roughly as practical and realistic as trying to become rich by inventing the Next Big Thing and patenting it.

What seems more realistic at this point is the development of my Nodate embedded framework project [3], as I can directly use it as the foundation of articles on embedded development. That level of synergy is extremely helpful.


In summary, at this point I'm still scraping by as a freelancer, doing odd jobs, but I would definitely like something bigger and more permanent. I think it would be helpful for my recovery by having something steady and predictable. I think that what I have put out in public in terms of publications and projects should leave a favourable impression. Enough that I should have more self-confidence, perhaps.

Time to chase more leads like an overly excited kitten chasing yarn and see what comes up at the end of them, I guess :)


Maya


[1] https://github.com/MayaPosch
[2] https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphCast
[3] https://github.com/MayaPosch/Nodate

That uncertain future

So where I'm at now is that the old apartment has been handed back to the slumlord, with just the final bills and such to be settled. This means that other than some potential financial fallout the direct and immediate threat from that place should be over with.

That leaves me with the two other, more immediate issues. One is to get that financial stability, as I saw myself pushed into becoming freelancer after a year of unsuccessful job interviews. Not that being a freelancer is that horrible, mind you. It seems that at this point I'm mostly doing the writing of articles for websites such as Hackaday and soon Hackster.io, which provides me with some income.

In addition to this, there's also the pressing issue of finding a place to live. I still got about a month until I have to leave the current apartment where I'm temporarily staying. At this point I have abandoned the thought of renting a house in the Alsace region of France as the possibility of that working out was painted too optimistically. Now it's back to looking for apartments in that same region. Hopefully that will work out better.

What will be next for me? I'm not sure. I'll just have to keep trying and see what happens.


Maya

Take it one day at a time

It's all too easy to get overwhelmed by life. With medical, job and other issues piling up it quickly feels as if it's too much to all handle. Most of this feeling is caused by trying to look too far ahead. One cannot predict what things will be like a month from now, or one week, or tomorrow, for that matter.

Yesterday was a rather interesting day. I suddenly got a request for an interview by a journalist for USA Today, about the third gender thing in Germany [1]. It pleases me that journalist are still able to find me. Sometimes it's easy to feel invisible as an intersex person. Today I discussed the topic of my medical situation with my therapist along with the issue of finding a gynaecologist who might be able to deal with a situation like mine.

So far I have tried to contact a few people who might know a gynaecologist like this, but received no response yet. The suggestion of contacting the hospital directly doesn't seem to be an option, as one needs a referral from a gynaecologist. Catch-22 there. I guess this is one situation where it would be so incredibly much easier to be jusst a regular woman, I guess. Any tips would be most welcome here.


I also sent out a couple more emails along with my resume to a number of companies yesterday. Today I received a response from one of them (Microchip), informing me that they have received my application and will handle it as soon as possible. I'm hopeful that I'll soon be asked to come in for a job interview. Based on my interest in both hardware and software development, I think that such a company might be a good fit for me.

Beyond all of this all I can do is do my best the coming weeks. Do my best at my current job finishing up the climate control automation project and documenting it fully. Receive this engineer the end of this month along with my lawyer as my apartment is inspected for the claimed defects in the eviction case. Go to Bern, Switzerland a few days later to apply for an extension to my Dutch passport at the embassy there so that I'm set on that point until 2027.

Then wait to see what gets concluded in the eviction case, see how those job applications work out and hopefully get both sorted in a positive way. Find a new place to live around here, or maybe relocate to elsewhere in Germany or another country. At this point it's impossible to say which way things will go, or what my life will look like one, two, or three months from now. Whether I'll finally live in a place which I like and feel more comfortable in my skin.

Got to wait and see. Even if the waiting almost feels impossible.


Maya


[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/11/08/germany-must-allow-third-gender-option-registry-births-court-rules/843799001/

My new Android game development book just got published

Two days ago, to be precise, saw the official publication of my new book on game development on Android with the AndEngine framework, creatively titled "Mastering AndEngine Game Development". It's available for purchase both at the Packt[1] and Amazon[2] store. This is my first book to be published with Packt Publishing, a large publisher of Open Source-related programming books and similar.

Some of those who follow me may remember me talking about working on this book for the last year and some. Admittedly it's been a long time to finish it up, not in the least because of the many others happening simultaneously to me personally and in my career. Yet it is all done and over with. No more chapter writing, no more revising. No more pleading with editors for just an extra day to finish up a chapter. It's all done with.

To be fair, it feels kind of empty. All of it has been part of my life for over a year and thus it has become part of my routine as well as my thoughts. To think about never having to do any of those things again... it's weird how much it makes you long back to that period.

I guess this should be just more motivation for me to work on my other activities and hobbies, like the countless projects I have left either unfinished, or haven't started on yet. Some projects I'd really like to spend more time on would include my NGS custom processor architecture project and the resulting design and production of a custom FPGA board for it. Also the file-revision system, YouTube electronics channel (NyanTronics), speech synthesis and artificial intelligence projects. That before I even get into the many game development projects I wish to embark on or continue with.

At least I won't get bored any time soon. The last project I need to work on soon is to find a more quiet place to move into. It's hard to focus on projects, let alone feel relaxed when you have the bloody heating system ticking up a storm and can track the upstairs neighbours literally step by step, including their activities in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. Truly enjoyable and motivating, that.

But those are things which will hopefully work themselves out at some point, hopefully through some lucky contacts and such.

I am curious how many copies of this new book of mine (both dead-tree and digital) will be bought over the coming months and year(s). Maybe it'll motivate me to try my hand at writing more of such books, or maybe not. I may go back to writing my autobiography again at some point as well, but that would require both a willing publisher and me feeling like I can write it without writing myself into a suicidal depression through the fun of remembering everything leading up to a disappointing conclusion. In that regard writing technical reference books makes for a lot more fun.


Maya


[1] https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/mastering-andengine-game-development
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-AndEngine-Game-Development-Posch/dp/1783981148/

Job security, at long last

This week saw an interesting improvement in my life when I signed a new contract at my current work place. In earlier posts I reported that I was looking for a new job as my current employer had basically run out of work for me, but things changed with new projects coming in and others being extended. As a result I got offered a permanent contract, which I gladly accepted, despite having a job offer from another company in Karlsruhe as well.

Ending a month of job searching and interviews in such a way isn't bad at all in my view. Not only did I always like this company - synyx - I work at, but its owners have been incredibly helpful and supportive of me back in 2013 already, both in consideration of me as a foreigner but also in how they handled my personal situation. It was their support which allowed me to make the decision to move to Germany and get settled, with my boss going out of his way to ensure that I would find my own (temporary) place. I would have loathed to give all that up just because the non-Java type projects dried up a bit last year.

I quite like the projects I'm working on, with most of what I work on now written in C and C++, aimed at embedded platforms. This means mucking about in a lot of low-level code, analysing protocol logs and hammering out test protocol rigs in hexadecimal notation. In other words, the kind of stuff I love to do.

So with the signing of this contract I'm set job-wise, not having to move countries or cities either. Only change I'm looking at at this point is to find a new place to rent (or buy...) which is a lot more decent than where I currently live. What I'm looking for there is a place which is reasonably well-maintained and insulated, plus where I'm not bothered by upstairs neighbours (hearing walking, toilet use, etc.) and/or ticking heating system and other tubing in the walls. A place where I can sleep at night without having to use earplugs, basically. As a temporary apartment this place has served me well, I think, but unlike with my job, here it is time to move.


Maya

Back Into The Job Hunt

To quickly recap the work-related events of this and last year: I got hired as a freelancer early last year by the German company I currently work for, as a mobile (iOS/Android) developer. At the start of this year I got offered a fixed contract. After a short while I got asked to 'temporarily' work on a Java project as the iOS project I was working on was a bit overstaffed at that point. That's when things got funny, as suddenly instead of getting more mobile projects, all mobile projects we had been eyeing got handed to other parties and only Java projects remained.

In short, despite having no Java experience beyond the Android-related programming, I have been trying to struggle along in one Java servlet-based project after another. To say that this didn't go well is putting it mildly and led to some sad faces during the last feedback meetings with my employers. After the last meeting it was clear that things weren't going to work out, but I got put on a relatively new C/C++ project which was kinda drifting around at the time. I got to work for about three weeks on this new project before the final meeting, earlier this week.

The difference between working on something you have roughly fifteen years experience with (C/C++ and related) and something you have virtually no experience and very little interest in (Java projects) is like night and day. In just three weeks time I managed to completely retool and improve the Makefile-based build system of the new project and get a cross-compiling setup on Linux and Windows hosts working to Linux and QNX targets across two CPU architectures, despite some fierce resistance from the antiquated toolchain and external libraries which hadn't been designed with a QNX on ARM target in mind. I had and still have a lot of joy in working on such projects, to be honest.

During the meeting this week with my employers this became apparent as well, where sadly the conclusion was that they'd love to keep me on as developer as my performance on the current project had been very satisfactory so far, but that they just don't have more of such projects for me. As a result I'll get a new contract which ties me to my currently assigned project until it's done/its budget runs out, which will be early next year regardless. This will give me the time I need to find a new job hopefully here in Karlsruhe as well which is more befitting to a senior C/C++ developer like yours truly. While it's sad that we have to part ways like this, I'm at least glad it was possible to arrange things in such an amicable way.

Hopefully I'll be able to find a new job by March next year so that I can transition to it without any gaps in my employment and thus income. In case anyone is interested, I still have my Curriculum Vitae (resume, for some :) ) up on my personal site here: http://www.mayaposch.com/cv.php

The coming time I'll be updating this CV as it doesn't even list my employment in the Netherlands or my current employment here in Germany. I reckon I can also add 'German' to my list of 'spoken languages' by now.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some more draft chapters to finish of this Android game development book I'm still writing for Packt Publishing. Call it my other full-time job (which isn't paying yet ;) ).


Maya

The Other Life: Giving A Conference Talk On Software Development

In one life I'm Maya Posch: victim of severe discrimination and maltreatment due to having been born with an intersex condition. In that life I suffer from PTSD and continued harassment by worldwide medical systems.

In another life I'm Maya Posch: professional software engineer and highly knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects. In this life I'm highly sought after for my expertise and get asked for interviews, conference talks and praised for my useful technical blog posts.

It's that second 'me' who got asked to give a talk yesterday at the Google Developer Group Karlsruhe's DevFest 2014 [1]. Despite having heaps of media experiences and not shying away from doing a live interview on highly personal topics in front of millions of people, the thought of actually having to stand there in front of a much smaller group of people and pretend to be smart was in some ways more daunting.

The most important part was of course to get a proper presentation together after picking the general topic. After some brainstorming I figured that 'mobile game optimization strategies on Android' would be a nice topic. Then I'd be spending about three days slaving over the dozens of slides for the presentation. I knew I had about half an hour to fill, with another fifteen minutes for questions. I put something together which I figured would roughly fit in that timespan and off I went.

While my talk was in the afternoon, at 2 PM, I was there from the start, following a double talk on the Google Guava (Java) library which turned out to be super-detailed about a small sub-set of this library, i.e. kinda dull. After the decidedly tasty (vegetarian) lunch I followed another talk about wearable devices development which was quite interesting and talked some with the presenter for the talk after the wearables one.

I had the distinct honour of having the only talk at the conference in English. Despite this still about twenty people showed up (I didn't count, though. It could have been between 10 and 50 :) ), which was not too bad. Embarking on my presentation, I quickly found myself slipping into the usual rhythm I am so used to from doing TV recordings. In some ways it's not so dissimilar: in both cases you have to perform clearly and loudly in front of a sceptical audience.

A bit of minor shock occurred when one of the organizers sitting in the back of the room held up the '10 minutes' sign, indicating that I had to wrap up my presentation. Rushing through the last couple of slides I finished properly in time, without really skipping any of my prepared material, though I could easily have padded the presentation out to an hour or more. In total I got one question during the presentation, on whether one should just omit external dependencies completely and write everything oneself. This I answered by saying that one simply has to evaluate libraries to see what their dependencies, size and any other potential issues are.

There was another break after this talk, during which I had another bite and drink. I had received a bottle of wine after my talk as reward for my troubles. I'm sure I'll be saving it for a special occasion, like when I trip over someone who does drink red wine :)

I knew that the audience had filled in feedback forms after my performance and that I wasn't looking forward to knowing the results. I felt I had rushed through things and probably skipped about half of the jokes and gibs I had thought of beforehand. Then, as I was sitting there reading up on things on my mobile phone, a group of guys walk past me when one of them turns towards me and says to me (in English) how much he had enjoyed my presentation. After I thanked him they walked on, leaving me feeling noticeably happier.

I frequented two more talks after that break, one on Google Enterprise products and another one on Geolocation Information Services (GIS), something I had recent experience with thanks to a mapping project for a client at my job. It was still interesting to see some other applications in action, though.

Staying for another hour or so after the talks ended, I actually found one person I knew and met the other speaker I talked to before again as well. The three of us stayed there talking for a bit with a quiz and such going on in the background. I did this talking in German. Pretty much beyond my talk itself every other communication at the conference I managed to pull off in German without anyone so much as blinking at my pronunciation or horrendous grammar. Maybe I am getting better.

In the end it was a pretty okay day, even if it left me feeling completely exhausted by the time I got home. I do hope that this life of mine gets a lot more time in the spotlight compared to the other one. It was good to be the 'other' me for a day.


Maya


[1] http://www.gdg-karlsruhe.de/devfest/2014/#/info

The Convoluted Mind: How Experiences Distort Our View Of Reality

As a hobbyist AI researcher I have often found myself pondering on the exact workings of the human mind, and biological neural networks in general. The most fascinating aspect about it I have always found that of the creation of what I have come to call an 'internal universe', or IU. Essentially it's an internal representation of reality which doesn't necessarily match up with the actual reality. This IU can also contain completely imaginary things which in actuality do not exist, or distortions of factual processes to give it another interpretation.

Before I dive into this topic of internal universes, though, allow me to first address the nature of a biological neural network (BNN) and the way experiences and memories affect it. The essential aspect of a BNN and neural networks (NN) in general is that of input. Without input (the 'brain in a jar' example) there's no point to an NN. The basic and most essential function of an NN is to transform or convolute input. Lack of input will generally lead to self-destruction in NNs with active internal feedback mechanisms (see sensory deprivation experiments).

This input we can refer to as 'experiences' and the recollection of such input as 'memories'. They form the foundation and corner stones of the functioning of a BNN. Their role in the BNN is both formative and functional, in that the input (I) and recollection (R) are required during the formation of a BNN to form the proper structures. This process can be observed in infants, for example, where the type, intensity and duration of input they are exposed to during their first months and years can lead to the formation of a BNN which produces very distinct and quite predictable output (O).

A NN is by definition very unlikely to respond by itself in a manner which can be considered logical. Instead it appears to become 'programmed' by the input, which modifies and adds to the convolutions applied to the input signal. Most of the resulting behaviour (output) is simply handled by fixed parts of the network, resulting in what is referred to as 'instinct' or behaviour routines. This results in a predictable, fixed response (convolution, or C) to a certain type of input, in the form of I -> C -> O.

Naturally, the intriguing and defining part of a NN is its self-modifying functionality, which is of varying capability in different individuals. This process takes place in different parts of the BNN, from the lower, less advanced sections of the network, to the newer, more complex sections. In the former sections we see the above process, of input directly modifying the structure of the network. In the latter sections we encounter what is commonly referred to as 'intelligence' or 'reasoning', but can also be called more broadly as self-awareness (SA).

SA is the ability to reflect upon and predict the consequences of a course of action. It is a reasoning process involving the awareness of oneself and also the essence of what AI researchers are trying to emulate. SA is also the core of the IU. Imagine SA at the core of this universe, with recollections, input, convolutions and active feedback (AF) surrounding it. This model is essentially the model of a personality, as it's referred to. In this model, SA is a semi-passive presence in the NN, monitoring its surroundings and trying to compose a functional model of the reality outside the NN. This leads to the IU.

In short-hand form: C(I + R + AF) -> SA(IU) -> O.

The interesting thing about this model is that it seems to form an adequate model for human behaviour and interactions, including in large groups. It explains why the old adage that no two people will ever fully agree on anything is theoretically true, as the possibility of the IUs of two individuals matching up fully is extremely remotely. While the SA can semi-directly access the I by suppressing convolutions and thus validate the IU against reality (the underlying principle of the scientific method), this is a limited and intensive process. Only a strong SA can sufficiently do so, and may then still be blocked by the limitations of the IU due to previous input. This is the underlying principle behind psychological trauma, where a sufficiently strong input can cause a strong AF process involving R. This is what happens for example in PTSD, where the AF result can be overpowering, even for the SA and its IU.

Soon I hope to further test this model using software and FPGA-based implementations. The prospect of this theorem making it into a replacement for psychology and foundation for AI seems promising at this point.


Maya

The Stresses From Earning A Wage

Part of my move to Germany is a change from a freelancer contract for the company I work for to a regular contract. The freelancer contract was a good option earlier this year because a regular contract for an employee which does not live in the same country as the company he or she works for is a near-impossibility. This is one area where the European Union still needs to break down a lot of barriers. Switching to a regular contract has a few advantages for me, including automatically being part of the Krankenkasse, the universal social healthcare system for everyone who lives and works in Germany and of course having a fixed, infinite duration contract. For me it does bring with it a lot of stress too, though, mostly due to previous experiences.

At my previous job - in the Netherlands - the first disappointing thing was that although the job was specified as having a pre-taxes wage of 3,200 I'd only be getting 2,900 with no indication of when this might change. I started off with an initial 1-month contract as well during which time I had to prove myself. This left me with nearly 2,000 Euro a month after taxes, with which I had to pay for the apartment I was renting plus utilities for a cool 1,000 a month, leaving me with another thousand to feed myself and pay for anything else. Salient detail was also that I started with almost no money to my name, forcing me to borrow money from friends and acquaintances just so that I could work.

Even ignoring the stresses of living in the same apartment with a mentally unstable person, it wasn't a very pleasant time. It showed me just how much influence an employer can have over an employee, especially when the latter does not have any significant savings. Saying 'no' to anything means jeopardizing your job and thus risking having a place to live. That I decided to say 'no' to the year contract they unexpectedly wished to offer me at the end, after months of telling me that I needed to improve myself - even though I was severely struggling with everything life was throwing at me - was mostly due to longing for the freedom I felt I had lost.

Getting up while it's still dark outside, travelling to the office and only travelling back when it's already dark outside, feeling your life slipping away. Having to fight and struggle to schedule something resembling a life next to the #1 priority of work. It made me wonder whether I was working so that I could live, or that I was living so that I could work. I managed to make ends meet somehow every month, but could build up no savings. When I started at my current job at Synyx I had a negative balance on my primary bank account and with all of my meagre savings I had built up as a teenager already vaporized. I'm not sure how things would have gone if I had not gotten this job. In a sense it's saved my life.

And yet there's nothing I loathe more than to be dependent on someone else just to exist. In switching contract types such as now it galls me to have to negotiate the height of my wage, as I quite recall how it feels to negotiate from a position of no power. Accept what we offer you, or face the consequences, basically. Not that I'm saying that this is what will happen here, but as my mind works such that it will always consider and analyze every single possibility this all does cause me undue stress. It's why any form of uncertainty takes such a heavy toll on me.

Though I do not like 'certainty' in a job either. What I like about software engineering is the large amounts of creativity involved which naturally lead to irregular and hard to predict work schedules and outcomes. I thrive on engineering solutions to fundamental problems. R&D is something I have always been very interested in. Sadly R&D is generally also quite expensive. My FPGA hobby, for example, just isn't working out so far, as any decent FPGA kit is a few thousand Euro and building your own kit from scratch (PCB, FPGA and other components) together with all the required equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.) isn't cheap either. Then there's the 'time' component. R&D rarely makes you money, and neither does a hobby, even if it does learn one valuable skills.

It's one reason why I intend to keep doing freelance work as well, as the projects I keep getting via that way often contain interesting challenges, such as one app I'm working on for a client which has to perform audio analysis using a Fourier Transform algorithm and the VST plug-ins for PC software which also do various types of DSP. The more challenging the work, the greater my motivation, you could say. Even as a child I could never be happy with doing anything small: where others built a small, leaky hut, I built a large shed with properly functioning windows, wind-proof and insulated where someone could comfortably live in. These days I'm aiming to develop a better-than-human artificial intelligence after first tackling speech synthesis and related subjects. I have many other big projects like that, all of which I'd love to work on.

It really makes me wonder whether it's actually possible in these times to combine the apparent need to make a living with the drive to be an inventor. In how far can boundless creativity sustain a person, or is it just a liability, dooming a person to feel forever unhappy? What I do know if there's one company where I can both earn a good wage and still be free to develop myself as a person, it's at a place such as Synyx; businesses which realize that employees are living, breathing beings with their own dreams and goals instead of mere cogs to be slotted into the machine. Here's to me getting over the bad job experiences I suffered so far in the Netherlands.


Maya

Born Into Confusion And Pain

Last Monday I travelled to Germany for my work as I mentioned before. It was a pretty harrowing journey, with both the Dutch and German train systems giving me grief. In the end I arrived at my destination, however. I'm staying at a colleague's place, who is sharing it with a number of other people. It's a busy but kinda fun place. Today and yesterday I spent working at the office, preparing for the meeting with the people from BMW in Munich next week. I'm performing an analysis of the current application to be used for optimizations. It's pretty all right work, really.

It's the second time I'm here in this city of Karlsruhe. First time was early this year, when I was just being introduced into the company and to my current colleagues. Back then I didn't really know how things were going to end up or what would happen for me. After months filled with chaos and pain, shattered promises and the bitter taste of injustice in the Netherlands I find myself here in Germany with the knowledge that I am going to be living here soon. It's really more of a rational choice, though.

I don't know what use my emotional side is in this all. I still obviously do not have a proper self-image, with the requirement to adjust it regularly by analysing comments made by others as well as through observations in mirrors and the like. The insistence by Dutch 'specialists' that I am still just biologically male isn't helping here, nor the frequent addressing of me as 'sir' during phone calls. Earlier I took a shower, and the big mirror in the bathroom was quite hard to ignore. Do I see a female in the mirror? I don't know. Do I see a male? I don't know. I do know that I keep being afraid of people finding out and insulting or discriminating against me. I do not enjoy having this body in any way.

There's just a lot of uncertainty. Moving to what is still a quite unfamiliar country and city to me is tough enough. Not knowing what is awaiting me with a very uncertain future. I do want to find a happy future here, to end the uncertainty. I just don't know whether it's possible. I do know that I have been harming myself significantly by keeping up a brave face. I'm socializing as is expected from me. Yet do I really gain anything from it? I hear myself talking and joking as though there's nary a care in the world. It's as though I am two people, one extroverted personality and the introverted personality keeping to the background. Which one is really me?

Every day continues like this; filled with uncertainty and recollections living their own lives like cancerous growths. Everything emotional just hurts. Others being happy and apparently carefree shock me with this horribly bitter feeling I have come to loathe so much. All I seem to be able to do is feel horrible about myself, my body, my life and my future. Until I push it all away again for a while.

Today happens to be my birthday, but there's nothing joyous about it. I feel more pain, frustration and sadness than what should be compatible with life.

I wish I had never been born into this horrific, disgusting 'body'. Without it I could maybe have been happy.

I don't know... life has never felt entirely real to me. Any attempt to fully experience has always been blocked off. I still don't feel I ever grew past the emotional age of maybe 8 or 10 or so. Simply because I can't. I just fake it all via my intellect. I'm pretty sure that is the truth. Opening up my emotional side has been and still is impossible, as doing so would utterly destroy it. There are no nice people out there. It's only a cruel world where not being a stone-cold killer means signing your own death warrant.

Living for as much as possible in this surreal dream world, shielded by intellect, is how I can keep existing. Living in the illusion of happiness and a world where doing one's best actually means anything.

It still hurts so much, though...

Is there salvation? I have no idea. Most of my life seems to consist out of loss and people turning out to either forget about me, not providing promised help, or just outright hurting me. I do not think I can start trusting people any time soon. Until then, there's the constant expectation of betrayal and pain.

Happy birthday to me.


Maya

One Person Living Two Lives Which Are One Life

Most people of my generation will be familiar with that scene from The Matrix, where Agent Smith tells our protagonist the following:

"It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not."

A life of two identities, two lives lived by the same person, keeping up a different face for each of them, as one can not bear the other. Both separate, and yet intertwined.

I feel like this too, only there was no free choice for me. The 'Thomas' part, of being a law-abiding citizen is a given. That's what you need to be accepted in society. I got that pat down, with the identity of a capable software developer thrown into the mix as well, making for a respectable identity. It's an identity people can admire and approve of.

Then the 'Neo' part for me is not so much that I chose to go into the dark side myself, but something which happened. There are a lot of 'if's here. If physicians would have helped me right away. If psychologists had helped me at all. If politicians I contacted had done something. If society had known more about intersex already. If I hadn't been born intersex. If I hadn't been born at all. If the medical specialists had done their job I wouldn't be writing this. I wouldn't be in court on September the 24th in a hearing against the VUmc gender team. I never picked any of it.

Worst of all is that it has forced my life to take two distinctly different paths simultaneously. Two identities to keep up. The 'Thomas' identity can not reveal anything of the 'Neo' identity. The other way around the 'Thomas' identity has no relevance to the 'Neo' identity. Living two lives like this is hard. One life is hard enough to live, but living two lives which directly contradict and oppose each other... it's trying to achieve the impossible. One makes the other look like a mere dream, while the other way around it makes the former look like a twisted nightmare.

The past years I have more and more often elected to get rid of the side which I feel has no future: specifically the 'Neo' identity. It's a dead-end, in the most literal sense. It's a life of total despair, of hate, blood, gore, suicide and mutilation. In comparison the 'Thomas' identity is about as close to the 'perfect family with white picket fence' stereotype one can get.

As I'm heading out tomorrow on a two-week trip to Germany for my work including to the BMW offices in Munich I'm reminded of this ever so strongly again. While I'm there in the capacity of a team member on this project. There's no room for any 'Neo'. It can not exist or show itself.

One could say that this 'Neo' is merely a magnification of one's personal life, and this wouldn't be incorrect. However, the average person has a personal life which hardly gets more exciting than picking the right brand of pasta sauce at the store after work. My personal life is more akin to a hefty medical thriller. It's become larger than life.


Maya

Welcome To The Nomadic Life Style

The past months have definitely been an interesting experience so far. Chased out of the place I used to call home amidst the disintegrating mess which maybe with the clarity of vision after the consumption of liberal amounts of alcohol and various substances which may or may not be legal in your jurisdiction could have been called a relationship, my life was properly turned upside-down. So badly even that I'm not even at liberty to reveal at this point where it is exactly that I'm staying currently, or where I have stayed previously, as it's too risky.

In some ways it's as though I was forced to shed a part of myself. Right out of the aforementioned mess I found myself in an ICE train to Germany to start my new job. Only a few months out of my previous job which had been everything but fun, it was all together quite a daunting thing. Over in Germany I did however find myself in good company. The owner of the business is one of the most awesome bosses you could imagine working for, and my colleagues are all pleasantly whacky, just as you'd expect of fellow developers, sysadmins and the like. I felt right at home.

Traveling away again after a short week, I found myself at temporary lodgings. From there I was able to take care of the legal matters required to get my home back, something which I hope will get resolved soon now. I was also able to continue all the other things with regards to the legal case against my insurance company, Unive, and the Pride Photo Award submission. For the former I'm now awaiting the next move by my lawyer, Yme Drost, and as for the latter, it's going to be hard to make the deadline, I'm afraid. I haven't been able to get into contact with the photographer for over a week now. Maybe that one is a loss after all.

In the end, though, the one thing I have learned through all of this is how it feels to be a nomad. I have no fixed place of residence, no large possessions and can pack up at a moment's notice. My laptops are the only things which combined with internet access give me some kind of fixedness in this world. It does mean that I largely exist on the internet, and that the world around me has become something less... solid and less relevant, I guess. It's there and then it isn't any more. My days mostly exist out of working on my laptops and going outside only to buy food and other necessities. When I'm not traveling, that is.

In some ways it's liberating to not be fixed to a single location and all the taxes, duties and annoyances and burdens which come with it. On the other hand it's also unsettling to be a transient. It does make one realize how fixed everything is in this world. It also makes me realize how many things are trying to pin me down to this one location as well. With currently four legal cases underway, me awaiting the judgement of this one surgeon and various bits and ends, I could easily stay fixed to this location for a very long time.

I'm a nomad and yet I'm not. I have a home and I do not. I may get this surgery or I may not. I may win certain legal cases or I may not. I definitely could use more certainty in my life.

On another note, I'm planning to obtain a video camera soon as some of you may already have gathered from following my online postings on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. With it I'll attempt to resume the video log I started back in 2011 but didn't quite continue in 2012 or this year so far. Maybe it'll give some more solidness to my currently quite insubstantial existence and words.

Maybe some day I'll be able to vlog from a place I can call 'home'. Haven't done that yet.


Maya

Story Of My Life

The past few days I have been thinking about many things to write about on my blog. Today as well. There are so many things and thoughts which pop up or trouble me either constantly or when they get triggered by something. I'm not sure that kind of reactive writing is what I need, or what is most useful to you, my dear reader. Hence I figured that maybe a more meta kind of post might be more appropriate.

One item I wanted to write about today was a post I would have titled something dramatic involving how I do not feel that I really have a body. How my experiencing of the world around me is quite surreal. How when I was a child I'd look forward to growing up, yet that this would not happen. That I looked forward to puberty, but that it turned into a both disappointing and extremely confusing and painful experience. That thanks to the extreme brainwashing by Dutch specialists I further lost grip on any kind of self-image and connection with my physical body.

That I have experienced the pleasures of connecting with someone I truly cared about, when I could feel what my body feels, but that those moments were rare and that I feel that I'll never experience such a thing again due to the damage suffered the past time. How absolutely and outrageously frustrated, disappointed and angry I feel at the fact that I will never be able to experience a relationship with a loved one. The depth of my jealousy at those who have such a relationship, and how the intense pain of it makes me want to run away and bury myself. Kill all feelings.

It would have been an intense post for sure. Heavy writing and large amounts of drama, all trying to perhaps futily allow others experience the depths of my mental agony. To gain understanding for the torturous choice between cutting myself literally off from sexuality in every form, or to continue to allow its existence despite everything pointing towards it only being there to cause me agony. I don't think that I could ever bring across my thoughts and feelings there to someone who has never experienced anything alike.

Thus I won't write about it. All you get is the bare summary above. Does it mean anything to you? Probably not. To me it resonates with what I feel inside. To those not like me it just leads to tired advice and equally tired expressions of keeping up hope.

What I did do today was work. Working on this iOS application project for my new employer. I'm beginning to like the work more and more. Just having a solid source of income is more than welcome, it strengthens me to take on everything else which comes along. Such as handling a communication from one of my lawyers regarding the situation surrounding my apartment. Which seems to be proceeding quite well now, by the way.

Much of what I do outside of my work these days feels odd due to that same matter. Not having access to my home and most of my possessions means a lot of improvising and buying stuff anew. It's kind of like camping out in the wilds, only without a set date on when one will be returning home.

Still, today I managed to acquire a new supply of my medication for the hormone therapy I'm undergoing for the rest of my life. It's good to have that settled for a while again. I'm also relieved that yesterday my awesome friend Trevor came back online after having been gone for a few days. Turns out that the part of Canada he lives in suffered a major ice storm, causing power lines to fail. I imagine it must be very... quiet to be without power for a few days straight.

I'm getting more and more enthusiastic every day about making Trevor and my company Nyanko into a success. This means bringing out video games and applications this year. Establish a name and get enough revenue going to make the two of us feel like our efforts were worth it. For me there is not too much I can do yet at this point, as I am still stuck with this old laptop from 2007 which has trouble running even basic applications, let alone 3D modelling and image editing programs such as 3DS Max and Photoshop.

My new laptop should be arriving early next week now. Its specs are quite a match for the desktop system I have at home, with an Intel 3630QM quad-core processor at 2.4 GHz base, 3.4 GHz Turbo speed, 8 GB base RAM and an nVidia GTX660M video card. The display is a 17" full-HD TN LCD (matte), which should be sufficient to do real work on, even if I still miss my two 24" IPS LCDs.

At the very least it should be much faster to compile large projects on the new laptop than on this old one. A regular release build of my WildFox browser takes about ten minutes currently. On the new CPU it should be less than a minute. That's what you get when you go from a slow AMD TK-53 (Athlon X2) dual-core CPU at ~1.7 GHz to a quad-core, modern CPU at 2.4+ GHz. More cores, higher per-core speeds and higher IPC (Instructions Per Cycle).

So yeah, I'm absolutely a geek. No lying about that. The past weeks I feel the energy and motivation returning to work on various software, hardware, AI and robotics projects again. Now that I also have money to spend freely there's nothing really holding me back to undertake at least some of them the coming time. Others will have to wait until I have a home again.

And thus life continues like a dream tinged at the edges with the deep black and red of a frightful nightmare. I wonder which one I will wake up from first.


Maya

I'm Somewhere In There

Yesterday was terribly exciting. Or maybe not. I did my usual working on the iOS application project I'm assigned to, then went to visit this photo exposition thing for a Dutch photography award, called 'Zilveren Camera' (Silver Camera), which had a tie-in with the Pride Photo Award for which I'm applying together with the Dutch photographer Eric Brinkhorst. Ergo my pictures and story were put up there as well.

While I had nothing bad to say about the two photos of mine on display there, nor the NRC newspaper article accompanying them, I didn't really feel like I should have been there at the event. It was mostly people talking about the award and along with me not knowing anyone there beyond Eric, there was also nobody seemingly recognizing me or wanting to show they had recognized me from the photos there. In the end I just wandered around a bit aimlessly before leaving. I also really didn't like the works of one of the winners of the Zilveren Camera, who specialized in photography bordering on child pornography. I found it to be pretty tasteless at any rate.

On my way back from the exposition I felt pretty uncomfortable. Beyond having some of my traumas triggered by seeing the child nude photography and getting ignored I felt I had to question my desire to participate in the Pride Photo Award event. Wouldn't it just lead to more ridicule? What would I truly accomplish with it? It took me until this morning that I realized that while the Pride Photo Award is useless to reach the common folk, it can nevertheless serve to inform others about the existence of intersex. Ergo I decided to press on with it.

This morning I went to a local beauty salon for my usual hair removal therapy, with Eric accompanying me to make some photos for the Pride Photo Award series. There I learned from the beautician that she couldn't really say whether this method actually is effective. Since it uses waxing as a start followed by an IPL flashing using the device generally used for rejuvenation, it shouldn't have any effect. Yet the beautician I was at before claimed that it had worked for another client of hers. Who to believe, I guess. I do hope it's effective at any rate.

After the treatment we went into the city so that I could pick up a few electronics items, including a USB hub for use with my new laptop since it only has 3 USB ports. We also got some ice cream, which is a good idea now that the weather is finally turning towards spring from the 'ten degrees too cold for this season' kinda feeling. Once home I saw that I had received the money I had earned last month and used it to order my new laptop along with a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. I can't wait to finally switch to a proper system to work on again.

A few hours ago I also received from Yme Drost's office the response my insurance company Unive had sent to Yme in response to his earlier letter to Unive in which he demanded that they'd start fully covering my hair removal therapy since my situation is very much comparable to that of transsexuals in this area. Unive's response was that since SKGZ has previously judged that my situation and that of transsexuals are not comparable that they do not have to cover it.

The next step here should be then that Unive will have to defend their view before a judge since SKGZ has no general legal jurisdiction but is more of an advisory body for health insurers and their clients. I'd very much like to see this issue finally see being resolved. I started trying to get this procedure I need to remove facial hair growth back in early 2011 and still haven't accomplished anything there, over two years later. Nothing would please me more to see Unive having to get back on their words, to make life easier for intersex individuals in the Netherlands and others as well. Me getting back the thousands of Euros I have spent on hair removal therapy so far would be nice too.

Oh yeah... in between all that there's me as well :) Just another person trying to live her life amidst evil companies and uncaring politicians, dodging obstacles in a worse-than-a-jungle society.

This week I'll try to contact a surgeon a friend contacted for me. This surgeon might be willing to help me with the last issue I have towards feeling like my body is finally complete: having my female side restored by opening up the existing vagina and creating labia. This really is something which doesn't benefit anyone but myself. It's a highly personal thing, yet I still feel the need to share it because it too is part of the list of items I tried to get fixed for over eight years now. Having this last issue resolved will mean for me that there are no remaining medical issues and a general feeling of calmness where there are now turbulent emotions.

Any woman with a condition which results in a non-functional vagina can probably agree on the severe psychological issues this causes. It's no different for me as a hermaphrodite. Losing one side of oneself might as well mean losing everything in a sense.

Here's hoping that this, too, will soon be a thing of the past.


Maya

I Am Just A Human As Well

Today I spent most of the time working for the German company I started doing work for last month. I'm currently working on an iPhone application for the cultural department of the German city of Karlsruhe, updating the old codebase. It's my first major iOS application I'm working on and so far I'm learning quickly. I hope that my work is satisfactory to the boss of the company, as well as to my colleagues.

I'm feeling a tad uncertain about it because I haven't received the money yet for the hours I worked last month. My financial reserves are extremely low again, which makes me feel quite depressed. Not that I expect that I will not get any money, just that I have lived so long on the edge of bankruptcy, it's an all too familiar frightening feeling. There's also that I have suffered so much betrayal, that it's hard not let the memories overtake me. Some of you may remember how uncertain I felt before the surgery I had in Germany in 2011. It's hard for me to trust anyone or anything.

Anyway, I think that this will all be resolved soon. I can then use the money to buy a new laptop to replace the current one I'm using. This old laptop is a Packard Bell from 2007. AMD TK-53 1.7 GHz dual-core, ATi X1200 GPU. It was quite fine six years ago, but it's really long in the tooth by now. It can not run any new graphical applications, its memory of 2 GB is very restrictive, and the HDD is very small. As I won't have access to my dual-display, quad-core system back at home any time soon yet it's pretty much a requirement for me to get a good laptop.

As far as the apartment goes, I reckon I'd be okay with moving to a new place as well, although I'd need to prove somehow that I am earning sufficiently. That's likely the deal breaker the coming months assuming that I can earn sufficiently the coming time. So plan A is still to get the place back. Hopefully this month things will work out. I'm kinda sick of having to deal with such an unnecessary source of stress in addition to everything.

Regarding money... my lawyer Yme Drost recently sent a friendly letter to my insurance company Unive, regarding their refusal to fully cover the hair-removal therapy I am forced to undergo due to my intersex condition. They insist that my situation is not comparable to that of transsexuals who also need to have facial hair removed after switching gender roles. My lawyer and I both agree that this is false and that this matter falls under discrimination.

Unive has until early next week to respond. Failure to comply to the request to pay will result in further legal steps to be taken. At stake is many thousands of Euros I should be getting back from Unive. Money I could really use the coming time.

Getting out of all this madness, I'll be visiting a photography event in the city of Hengelo on Monday, to meet up with an acquainted photographer. It'll be good to be away from things for a bit.

In the end I'm only a human being. Between working almost every day for 7-8 hours, having to fight to regain my home, worrying about money and the future as well as dealing with all that my country and the people in it have done to me over the past years, there's precious little rest I get. I feel desperate at times when I wonder whether I'll ever be able to just... live.

I find some solace in projects I work on in my spare time, such as my WildFox browser project. It feels good to be working on something I enjoy and which others appreciate as well. I secretly hope that it'll grow into a big, successful project.

This year should see many issues resolved, but it'll once again wear me down to the bone in the process. Just got to hold on for a bit longer...


Maya

Losing Sight Of The Point Of Things

I'm pretty sure that the most difficult part of working for any company or organization is that it's hard to feel fully aligned with its goals and purpose of existence. In the end it's in a way a somewhat degrading experience, where management in a sense controls those who applied for a job. Not to say that it's a complete hell or anything. In the end it's the mutual interaction between employees and managers which determines the atmosphere within the company. As far as my current job goes, I think that its management is in some ways still stuck in the past which causes some friction. Fortunately attempts are being made now to revitalize the department so that things will become a lot more efficient. I can't wait to see those being implemented and take part in this process. If only to display my true skills.

In the end I'd like go back to working full-time in my company, Nyanko. It'll still take quite a few months before it'll generate enough revenue to sustain me financially. Right now all of the projects I'm working on alone or with Trevor will still take a few weeks at least to be finished, are finished but not selling well at all, or are in such an early stage of development that it's not worth investing any hope in them. This includes possibly revolutionary projects such as the HLA-AI project of which the initial prototype should result in an artificial intelligence with the language skills of about a 1-3-year old, and subsequent prototypes should exceed human intelligence. There's also the FPGA/ASIC hardware simulator and board simulator Lilium which I'm still working on as well.

With all that I know and am capable of I am pretty sure that I could do pretty much anything, as long as I keep getting offered the challenges needed to keep me motivated. All together I really hope that Trevor and I can soon turn Nyanko into a profitable company, starting with the release of our first game, Baublez, later this month at the earliest on Steam. All I'd like is for us to be given a chance at showing what we both are capable of.


Maya

Looking For Furniture And Other Boring Tidbits

The apartment has been filled up pretty well this week. Right now we're looking at acquiring book shelves, a good desk and furniture for the bedroom beyond a bed. If anyone reads this, has some spare furniture lying around and knows of a good way to get it to the apartment here in Almere, don't mind contacting me about it :) After spending heaps of money on carpet, appliances and heavens know what else, we'd love to keep expenses low. This means more second hand items and the like.

With current items taken care of, I'd like to briefly summarize the moving itself. It all started on Tuesday the 21st when after my work I went to the apartment where we spent the night on a bare concrete floor with no internet and no appliances. Just a toilet and water. The next morning we got temporary (data capped) mobile internet via the provider XS4All, had the carpet man drop by to put in the carpet and took delivery of a washing machine and freezer/fridge combination.

On Thursday the 23rd the moving itself took place, with my mom taking care of matters at my old residence (her home) and my girlfriend and I handling things at her place. Loading things at my place went smoothly, at my girlfriend's place there were some issues, but in the end it all worked out. We ended that day in our apartment, surrounded by piles of boxes and furniture. After setting up the bed and putting the TV and couch into an agreeable position we left things until the next day, heading to city hall to register our new place of residence and handling changing our voting passes for the upcoming election to our new county.

This weekend we mostly spent setting up the apartment, unpacking boxes and setting up the new office from which I'm typing this blog post now. The apartment is in many ways very spacious and I haven't had this much space for an office, especially one for two people, at any time before. Only downer was having to buy new bolts and screws to put my desk together again. Also there's the issue of my girlfriend not having anything resembling a decent desk. I have an Ikea Jerker desk myself (160x80 cm version), and it'd be nice to have a matching desk.

At my job things are going well too. At this point I'm feeling the system analyst inside of me kicking in and I'm currently in the process of writing PHP-based scripts to automate a number of tasks which bottleneck the development process. My hope is that this will make things go even smoother and easier for everyone involved. I think that it'd be the role best suited for me, with a high amount of independence and a sense of responsibility and approval from my colleagues and higher-ups. Not just being a mindless drone doing repetitive work :)

Still a lot of work to do and expenses to be made, including the buying or leasing of my first car. It's tiresome but in many ways kinda fun. I'm still annoyed at the internet part, though. Supposedly 100/100 Mbit fiber will become available in a few weeks, or so XS4All said, but for all I know I'll be stuck on glacial 4 Mb/512 kb ADSL for the next year.


Maya

Moving Soon And Leaving The Internet

In my last blog post I asked for help with moving me and my girlfriend to our new place in Almere. The number of responses to it wasn't high enough to make it possible, thus we decided to enlist a moving company. Turns out that they'll do it for about the same price as we could have done with volunteers and rented vans. And this way we're insured as well. Moving day will be the 23rd, with the carpet being put in on the 22nd.

One outstanding issue is that of internet. At this point I have been unable to arrange internet. Fiber isn't available in this particular apartment because it hasn't been put in yet despite being in the coverage area, meaning that we'll have to harass an ISP to look into having it pulled. As for ADSL, apparently we're just enough out of range to make higher speeds possible. This means that we'll be on an 8/1 Mbit connection at best. Hopefully they can pull fiber soon so that we can get that 100/100 connection. Slight difference and for about the same bloody price.

It's interesting in how far internet has become a part of our lives. I have taken to working on my laptop in the train while I travel to my work these days since they have WiFi in the Dutch intercity trains. This blog post I'm typing and posting from my place in the train for example. The thought of being in our new apartment without any form of internet connection beyond that on our phones is frightening. We'd not be able to communicate with most of our friends and acquaintances, I'd not be able to work and chat with Trevor while we finish up the current game project. And so on. I'll have to call this one ISP, XS4All, tomorrow when I'm not working to hopefully get things arranged for next week. It's going to be a squeeze.

At my job I'm adjusting quite well, I think. We just started on the migration of the Typo3 CMS we use for the websites from version 4.4 (old) to current (4.7.4). It's quite an undertaking, especially with all of the extensions installed for each site. There's also the usual issues with the development server's copy of the site being horribly broken, making it hard to ascertain whether or not something broke due to an extension or other update, or that it was broken before already. It's heaps of fun, albeit stressful. So far my colleagues are really pretty cool, though I have to hold myself back a bit from taking direct charge. I'm just the newbie at this point after all :P

It's fun to see all of my experience I have built up since the 1990s with regards to web development coming to use here, though. I have also provided support to others at the VARA with another CMS they use: Wordpress. Being a support person like this, as a kind of second line support person, really isn't bad at all. People come to you when they have issues which aren't easy to solve and they are grateful when you figure it out for them. Plus you get to meet more people this way inside the organization.

This all not to say that I am not looking forward to getting the moving over with. Traveling four hours a day by train like this is just too crazy. Of a 24 hour day you lose 8 hours due to sleep, leaving 16 hours of which you spend 8 hours on your work, leaving 8 hours of which I am spending 4 traveling. Take off time to eat, drink and such and I'll maybe have 2 hours left to do my relaxation and other stuff in. That's not much, and I can't wait for me to get back two and a half hours of those four hours of traveling after moving.

Hopefully everything will go smoothly now. There's still enough to arrange after moving as well, including a new beauty salon since the one in Deventer is really too far away at that point. Any tips on a good beauty salon in or near Almere where they do electrolysis therapy ('electrisch ontharen') are more than welcome :)


Maya