the things I do

There's an element of exhibitionism about "putting your stuff online". But the internet has always been about vanity publishing, right? And it's not like you've been brought here against your will...

If I'd lived a hundred years ago, I might have been described (by polite people) as having some of the traits of a "renaissance man". Nowadays, I'm just a juggler of many things. I'm a generalist, with all the negative connotations that seem to go with that phrase. 

I ended up with a career doing web stuff for this very reason. I'm half arty, half sciencey. I'm as excited by music, writing and art as I am by geekery, markup and databases. The web - or at least the bit of it that I tend to inhabit - is a perfect place to bring all of those things together. It's about technical stuff surfacing and enabling the content and the connections underneath, or at least it should be.

The field that I've chosen is inhabited by people who live, breathe, work, and die as geeks. We're a community of people whose work is also our hobby. And I've always found the label a bit constricting - to be called "just" a geek isn't enough for me. My entire motivation behind getting involved in this stuff is not the geekery. Much as I love geekery, it's essentially wanking: on its own, it's not for anyone but you. The real people - the people whose lives you can touch and change with the technology - they're the important factor. 

Sorry. I almost went off on a rant then. What I'm saying is that I do web stuff and other stuff. Here's some of it.

Music

> The Dead Lovers - a band I was in a while back
> Tunes I'm in the middle of writing

Writing

Electronic Museum [my main, and most frequently updated blog, in which I talk about museums, innovation and the social web ]
DadTwo [so infrequent as to be pretty much discontinued, but my thoughts on being a dad for the second time]
The novel [I'm writing one. Slowly. Keep watching this space for at least a decade...]