June 2013 – Page 2 – Cubicgarden.com…

OkCupid’s Crazy Blind Dating a failure?

$Blind dating up an blind alley?$

I’m putting this one out there…

Is the OKCupid’s Crazy Blind Date app a failure? too crazy, a failure or just smudge on the horizon?

Is Crazy blind dating taking us up its own backside never to be seen again?

Who knows?

Heck it could be the future of online dating (doubt it greatly)

It launched under a fanfaire of opinions about it being great for woman and blah blah… But I have not heard a word from it in many months. Worst still is when ever I have tried to use it, nothing much happens. Pretty tragic for the 2nd biggest city of singles in the UK. On top of that OkCupid is full of woman from Manchester, so either they are not aware of the application or they might have tried it and decided no thanks.

I did hear reports that woman were actually a little freaked out about the application, but its so hard to tell without hard data. And I very much doubt Oktrends are going to release those any time soon, if at all…

A review of Channel4’s Dates so far…

Channel4’s Dates is currently on its 3rd episode, next one is Tuesday? As the site says, Modern Dating. It’s complicated… Yes it darn well is… And dates starts to do it justice.

Spoilers below… you were warned!

Episode 1: David and Mia

Loved this episode, so many things about it. The way Mia waits at the bar, the way David is over dressed, the reaction of Mia at the honesty of David’s 4 kids, David’s pin point deconstruction of Mia’s in-security and finally Mia putting her foot in it with the question about her David’s ex-wife. So great and the interplay between them both is something of joy.

Have I ever been on a date with Mia? Not exactly but I have met some very confused woman who don’t know what they actually want from the date or even life. I have also met the female equivalent of David, Fresh faced new to dating. Unsurprisingly I was nothing like Mia to them.

Episode 2: Jenny and Nick

This story I was kind of enjoying but then it took a turn into something quite weird and unbelievable. I admit I have dated a couple teachers in the past and they have been quite a English rose like Jenny.

Talking of confused, lets talk about Nick. I swear the bar they are in only has men except the woman (was she a woman?), who was in the toilet. Nick also has quite a strict personality, he’s the kind of guy I can imagine some woman quite hating. When dating I tend not to, leaving anything expensive alone. Overall the episode was much more stereotypical of what a person who hasn’t been dating recently imagines its like now.

Episode 3: Mia and Stephen

Interesting story this one. Having met before and going through all that, Mia and Stephen go the street for a quick shag (once again like episode 2, I rolled my eyes a little) but it got interesting after the pub. Mia turns nurse and somewhat witnesses Mrs Black’s death. She gets a real feel of what its like to be Stephen. But Mia steals Stephen’s heart and breath at the end.

Interesting to see Stephen at the start and then at the end with a rewatch. Never had such a thing happen to me before, actually the closes story I got to that is seeing the same woman at speed dating again. Luckily things went well on the date, so we just laughed about seeing each other again for 3 mins.

Next week?

The preview looks good, some stereotypical date and a gay date. I’m interested to see if more of the characters we have met already come back, as Mia is a great character and I’m sure she’ll be back.

Tell us about your morning habits?

Got a message on Twitter which originally thought was spam from HabitClock.

We are looking for the morning routines to inspire people with our new app HabitClock. You can help us by sharing the morning routine you wish to gain. Thank You!

I thought it was kind of interesting so I submitted my own morning routine.

This is what I wrote…

I am woken by my lightclock. I get up straight away going to the nearest loo before checking my phone and Google Now for what I need to do for the rest of the day. At the same time, I trigger the latest Tech News Today (Twit network) on my XBMC raspberry Pi setup (Xbian) via my HTC phone. The podcast is usually about 45-50mins long.

Then I go to my kitchen boil an egg or two using my egg boiler. While that is boiling I jump in the shower, dry myself, have a shave and brush my teeth the sounds of my FM shower radio tuned into the podcast via a FM transmitter.

The eggs usually finish just after I finish in the bathroom and I can continue listening to the podcast on a FM radio in the kitchen, while I make toast and tea.

By the time the podcast is finished I have eaten, checked twitter, torrents and most important emails. And I’m ready to hit the road street to go to work. I pretty much time where I am in the podcast with how late or early I am. Although my body clock does go out of sync when the daily podcast is running long or short that day.

And that is the honest truth, although most of the time, the podcast does finish way before I’m leaving for work. So I usually start another one which slows me down again. Also forgot to mention looking at tasks and using Any.do, but heck it will do. Also reminds me I need to hook up the last.fm reporting to xbian.

Of course you can submit your own here.

Single Black Male, we need new writers!

I just saw SingleBlackMale.org is looking for new writers…

We Need New Writers! Do You Want to Be One of Them?

http://www.singleblackmale.org/2013/06/11/we-need-new-writers-do-you-want-to-be-one-of-them/

My instant thought is yes I would love to be one… SBM for me is sometimes a little sanity in the mix of love and dating. Some posts are bang on and I’m almost shouting in the tram to work “YES!” and sometimes I’m shaking my head knowing whats been written is total fluff. One of my friends total me to give it a rest but to be fair its my equivalent of britons got talent.

I know lots of people seems to have a slight problem with it being called single Black male. Why isn’t there a single White male or a single Asian Female? I don’t know why not start one? They are not against diversity as they say… But I have to say single black men do have a unique viewpoint on the world of dating, love and sex. Maybe one which doesn’t get heard too much? I won’t lie when my cousins and urban (if thats the right word) friends get together all hell can break loose. Its fun and somethings which are said are seriously wrong but in the clear light of day things pass under the bridge and are forgotten.

And can I just quickly say how great it would be to have a Black British point of view on things…! Geez, one thing SBM can certainly be accused of is its very American bias. Time to take it international…

I wrote about the Black Barbarshop’s a long while ago and there is something unique about them. Yes I’m sure we can replace black with urban now but seriously spend some time in one and hear the urban black male perspective. Sometimes offensive, sometimes full of sense. But always intriguing and full of questions. And I got to say thats very much me…

Heck I don’t even care about the money, actually that makes it easier for me to write and keep my great job.

So here’s my public pitch…

Name: Ian Forrester
Website (Required. No website. No write.) : The one your reading now, cubicgarden.com
Post Titles:
1. Who pays on the first date?
2. Your the only single one left
3. The worst photos anyone could use in there profile picture
4. Speed dating vs Internet dating
5. The modern man and feminism
6. The rights and wrongs of datasexuality
7. … do have to go on?
Post Summary (What the article is about…preferably in bullet point form)
1. The ultimate question on a first date, who pays on the first date?
2. Everyone around you is married and has children, what do you do?
3. What is the worst photos you can pick to upload for your dating profile, and how to avoid them?
4. Which one wins for which people?
5. Feminism and sexuality, is it about time we all grew up and got with the modern programme?
6. How is it living your love life by the numbers? How far can you go? Does it actually get you anywhere fast?
7. … stopping right there
Time needed to complete full article if accepted : Well with the grammar, spelling, workload and all, maybe a week or two?
Whether you’re looking to write regularly or just once. Either is fine. : A number of times, maybe like once every 2 months? (heck I get pretty busy)

Although to be fair as Janetedavis says…

Really? You’re sure about that? Haven’t you got enough to do?

Yeah maybe I should focus on The Life and Opinions of a Datasexual Gentleman (working title)… Lets see what SBM says?

Channel4’s Dates, go watch it…

Angie was the first person to tell me about Channel4’s Dates…

From the creator of Skins, a witty, sexy and emotional drama series about the complicated and hilarious ways that strangers interact on dates in their quest to find love

I am happy to say I have watched the first one on my tablet half in my lunch time and the other half on the tram home.

I liked it, somethings I’ve experienced and somethings I would avoid. Interesting conclusion to the episode too. I won’t spoil it… Go watch it on 4OD now.

Why is it so hard to find a normal, single woman I fancy?

So I have been meaning to blog about Northern Lass 32 for a while, since Josh or Tim pointed me at it… She’s started writing a series for the Guardian which has got me going a few times.

Northern Lass, 32, wishes she could just do things the old-fashioned way – flutter eyelashes in a bar. Here, she opens an occasional series on navigating the new dating jungl

Ok so far so good, always good to have some more focus on dating in the 21st century, because it certainly needs it.

…as I quickly found out it’s very different in your 30s than in your 20s; things have changed. In my early 20s, I could rock up to a club and 50% of the guys would also be single. Therefore with a scientific combination of the power of averages and copious amounts of alcohol, it really wasn’t that hard to dance around someone at the Music Box (RIP), give them the eye, pretend you could hear what they were saying, then … BAM! Boyfriend! Well at least that’s how I remember it.

Now however, they are all paired off, settled down, off the shelf and there is the added minefield of multi-platform stalkfests such as Facebook and internet dating sites to navigate.

Yes those days are pretty much long gone. Many of my coupled friends say pretty much the same, go down the club and find someone ffs. Well its not that simple, specially when older and somewhat wiser?

a few of my friends had tried Internet dating and loved it. So, figuring I had nothing to lose but a subscription fee, I signed up to Guardian Soulmates and Match.com. That was 12 months ago, and wow has it been an interesting ride. The messages and dates have ranged from the lovely to the out-and-out bonkers.

I will say this now… I have tried both Match and Guardian Soulmates. Thinking was Match might have the biggest selection and Guardian Soulmates would be full of left leaning woman who might fit nicely.

Match.com for me was a total joke, I signed up for 1 month to try it out and although I did talk to a few woman nothing really got far. I did go on one or two dates but what that was about the time I really noticed how much people will lie in there profiles. Not just a bit but quite a lot… Lies about all types of things. Heck since then, I’m sniffy about all types of things.. Had a woman once lie about which country she was from, why? I have no idea!

Guardian soulmates… worst still. Why? Well its simple.

Everyone laughs at the uniform dating advert on TV. Uniform dating sign up if you wear a uniform, signup if you like people who wear them, heck sign up if you dont! Enough said really!

Well Guardian soulmates is pretty much the same. I met people who bought a guardian paper once, or those who honestly have never bought a guardian paper ever. Worst still I met a woman whose politics was right leaning. Don’t get me wrong I’m not going to reject someone just because there politics are not aligned with mine – that would be very bad. But you expect someone on Guardian Soulmates to have a slightly left leaning viewpoint on the world.

Internet dating is a bit like catalogue shopping for someone you want to hang out with. Little thumbnail pictures of, in the Guardian’s case: X hanging out with friends, or X building an African village and then X skydiving for charity. Or in Match.com’s case: X lifting up his top to show his abs and his ex-girlfriend’s name tattooed on his chest.

Among all the faces and messages, I started to communicate with a few blokes that seemed nice so started to meet up for the odd date. But a pattern emerged. All the guys I got on with and fancied didn’t come from Manchester. Derby, Sheffield, Kent, Liverpool – all great dates, all who I would see again. Manchester, on the other hand, seemed to be a hotbed of dating disaster.

If you are comparing online dating with looking in a catalogue, your maybe not taking it seriously? I do know what she means about the photos and I’ve already had my say about those. And I won’t lie a pattern is emerging for me too, mainly to do with the Cholton area of Manchester, although I wouldn’t say I have any hotbed disasters, there have been a few places I would be weary of in the future.

The further examples of dates further drive me to start “The Life and Opinions of a Datasexual Gentleman” (or some such title) – thanks Janet Davis.

Generally I’ve met woman like Northern Lass 32 (although I’ve never bumped into her directly I don’t think) and frankly they have taken everything for a joke including meeting up in real life. Usually its there first time ever meeting anyone through the internet and its all…

“a little surreal..?“

Chill and take your time, stop rushing and just let things wash over you as interesting experiences…

Heck worst comes to worst you could write a fictionalised, very contemporary, digital 21st century story connecting the rollicking & romance of 18thc classic. But of course not before I do… *smile*

updated…

I had not looked at the comments for that post till Vickytnz made a interesting comment about them. Wow, seriously wow… Maybe I should reconsider my contemporary fiction…?

Do I now have your strict attention?

The above video real or not real it doesn’t matter, 1.7 million people to date have watched #publooshocker. Reminds me very much of John Doe on Se7en and used in perceptive media presentations.

John Doe:

Wanting people to listen, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.

The confessions/mistakes of a serial dater?

I was reading this piece in the guardian written by Twist Phelan about the amount of dates she went on.

I was a dating novice. I’d recently emerged from a 20-year marriage, and the last time I’d been single the dating landscape was totally different. I’d moved to Denver and didn’t know a soul, so my cousin Erin signed me up to a dating website to help me meet people. I’m the sort of person who does nothing by halves, so to really throw myself into the singles scene, I set myself a challenge: 100 dates in 100 days.

This is very similar to me. When I became a divorcee after 4.5 years, I also moved to another city (Manchester). The Dating landscape had moved on quite a bit and I found it difficult to grok at first but I just rolled with it (throw myself into it). However I didn’t set myself a challenge, I just saw how it went.

It became a full-time job just wading through them, sifting out the weirdos and identifying the contenders. I didn’t start dating immediately; I had a strict protocol. First we would exchange emails, then talk on the phone for a few weeks, and only after I had gauged that he sounded genuinely interesting would I arrange a date.

I was sending out a lot of replies to woman who I thought were interesting or I could see myself liking. At the start there was a lot of matches and to be fair I was lucky I discovered OkCupid and Plenty of Fish (Fun) early on so it wasn’t costing me anything to contact them. It was over time that I became much more picky (rightly or wrongly). But I can identify with the exchange emails a few times before going out. I did have quite a few woman who were interested in just meeting up (mainly on pof) but I wasn’t so keen. Funny enough the talking on the phone part never really happened, yes text but not really calling and talking.

I decided always to use the same restaurant; it seemed sensible to be somewhere familiar while meeting a stranger, so to avoid the waiters thinking I was the world’s oldest hooker, I let them know what I was doing and booked the same table each time – table 14. They were lovely, and would give me secret thumbs-up or down to signal whether they thought a date was going well.

Yes I made that same mistake too many times. When I first moved to Manchester I lived in Deansgate Locks and meet woman there too. I was far too regular in the pitcher and piano, rain bar and knott bar. Then when I moved to northern quarter, I booked far too many of my dates in at Simple. I wasn’t double or triple dating on the same day like this woman but a couple times a week and before you know it the waiters are looking at you funny.

I met some fascinating people – rocket scientists, playwrights – and went to amazing places, including Paris for lunch, with me flying the jet. I never grew bored of my endless dates – if I didn’t feel in the mood at the start of the day, I perked up by the time I was brushing my hair: this one might be “the one”.

Yes I’ve met some lovely people, some are still friends or I will never see again. Doctors, nurses, musician, bar staff, personal assistants, designers, writers, a chinese restaurant owner, illustrator, developers, a architect, etc.

I didn’t feel sad that I hadn’t found love – I’d had a brilliant time, Denver had become my home and I’d made six very close friends, including the architect who remodelled my house.

Angie asked me the other day, why don’t I go for one of those dating experts which will match me with a bunch of people they recommend. I thought about it and said pretty much the same thing. I was having a great time, gain some great friends and heck a talented architect remodelled my living room!

Ok I have threaten myself to one day write a book about my experiences because some of them are shocking but I don’t think I will because unless your dating 1 person a week or 100 dates in a 100 days, no one will care. It recently has turned into a challenge of how many or how quickly. Thats not me, I’ve become a lot more choosy and I don’t see this as a game. Maybe one day I’ll tell my story but it will be one of many as this is just the way people date in the new millennium.

BitTorrent is not a crime

Found via Matt Mason… BitTorrent may not be a crime but that letter spacing is 🙂

My highlights of Thinking Digital 2013

Herb Kim the founder and creator of the Thinking Digital conference.

This is my usual best of Thinking Digital… Bear in mind I missed half the conference as noted here.

Julian Treasure got us thinking about our hearing and how important it is. I specially liked two statements he made. Sound has a impact on cognition and don’t architects have ears? He pointed to some very nice spaces with apple styled touches. The kind of place most people would agree is nice but once he mentioned the amount of sound bouncing around the surfaces and reflecting off the floor, it was a different matter.

Maggie Philbin is one of those people who you grew up with on screen and she had become a geek hero of many men in the UK. The Tomorrow’s world presenter talked about technology for a bit then got around to her main points about the lack of diversity. Something about hearing it from Maggie really laid it out for lots of people. I had the pleasure of seeing Maggie giving the Perceptive Radio a once over too. What a woman!

Maria Giudice was a interesting lady with an interesting story to tell but what I really took away was her DEO idea (Design Executive Officer). She correctly pointed out CEO’s mainly don’t have the background of designers and those who do, generally break through because they are natural disruptor, people centric, intuitive, imaginative, etc. She had a DEO toolkit which included…

Change mindsets about design, Design = change and change leads to radical change
Focus on people and relationships
Think we not me, collaboration is the name of the game
Champion creative culture, Write on the wall make it a creative space
Iterate and change, be open to change
Be true to yourself

I guess if I wanted to know more… I would have to buy the book which is coming out soon…

Aza Raskin I have had the pleasure of meeting before years ago when he was working with Mozilla. Then I also got to eat dinner with him during the first night with others. Aza is one of those people who you can’t help but like. It was a really interesting time chatting with him too because his company Jawbone had just bought Body Media for 100million. Aza had no problem with talking about such things and was happy to talk about the quantified self elements of Jawbone including the wrist band Jawbone up. It was even more interesting to me after just been at the Quantified Self europe conference a week before.

Aza’s main point was about Design being the art of turning constraints into solutions. But are we actually asking the right questions? Do we even really understand the problem were solving?

Lots of food for thought… And I’d love to know more about the Jawbone hack!

Sugata Mitra is always impressive and was one of my highlights of last year but with New Zealand teachers Jo Fothergill & Tara Taylor-Jorgensen who had flown 1000’s of miles to come talk at Thinking Digital the talks were even more epic. You can’t help but feel the educational system will be fine when he talks. I also had the joy of hooking up Jo and Tara with mr whirl wind Alan O’Donohoe before they flew back to New Zealand. Chance and opportunity came together at just the right moment I think.

Graham Hughes on reflection was maybe the best talk of the conference.

On New Years Day 2009 Graham Hughes, set off on an epic journey from his hometown of Liverpool. He wanted to show that the world is ‘not some big, scary place, but in fact full of people who wanted to help you.’ He used buses, taxis, trains and his own two feet to travel 160,000 miles, 201 countries in exactly 1,426 days – all on a shoestring of just $100 a week.

I’m not usually the biggest fan of the talks about the amazing things people have done but there was something extra special about Graham. He was just a everyday Jo. He made it into every single country on planet earth without flying not even once. Such a epic story and the story was told so well with some incredible sub-stories, when the videos come out for Thinking Digital 2013, you must see this video. Epic and so down to earth. I also like to think I helped him with an introduction to someone I know at YouTube. I believe his storys are good enough to make him a bit of internet superstar, hopefully the youtube connection will be the start of it. Actually I need to check in and see if anything happened?

Jack Andraka I didnt’ quite get at first but as he told his story how he applied his mindset to the problem of pancreatic cancer, after losing a family friend to it. Using just Google he researched a new pancreatic cancer test that is 168 times faster, 26,000 times less expensive and potentially almost 100% accurate. He’s only 17, openly gay and already been described as the Alan Turing of our age. His talk was exactly what you would imagine from a 17 year old guy. All over the place but understanding the gravitas of what he was explaining you couldn’t help but feel how epic his journey has been. I really wished I had stopped and chatted to him in the hotel the next day, could have called a taxi and still have made the train.

Tom Scott… What can I say. A talk you can only really do once and once only. Fire and Tom’s hoody, heck what more can you ask for? No but seriously Tom delves into the idea of archiving our memories. This is something I tried to do a while with my old phone. Memories are funny things, and they certainly make you pause for thought. I for example have my yellow Brazil football top, I’m surpised it even fits from 1998! The same year I went to Ibiza and go that crazy Brazil haircut. Maybe I should set fire to it too?

I already talked about Aral Balkin in a previous blog but he was rather good even if I disagreed with a lot of what he was saying. Well rehearsed and cleverly put together for the maximum effect each time. I won’t take that away from Aral, well done.

Also worth mentioning…

Chris Thorpe and Rachel Armstrong for expanding our minds further than I could maybe take at that moment. My notes are pretty flat but I remember being slightly moved by what they were saying.

And finally, Alexa Meade for simply stunning pieces of art which I had only seen once or twice. Important never to forget the impact art can have in a new medium. Painting directly on to people is something very special and the time and dedication really impressed me. She was such a lovely lady too. I don’t know if I would ever let anyone paint on top of me. The feeling of uncleanliness would maybe drive me slowly nutty.

Another great Thinking Digital conference, I just wish I had seen more of the first day…