Some of the best chocolates in their class

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/42374300494/in/datetaken-public/

I have been sticking to my new years resolution.

Only eat artisan chocolate unless its Kitkat, Twix or Maltesers
I like chocolate but I decided a while ago that I should only really eat a certain percentage or higher. My tolerance for lower cocoa is dropping and like my cocktail choices; its time to avoid the rubbish stuff. Chocolate tasting confirmed this and the cocoarunners subscription should offer enough to keep me away from the rubbish stuff. I decided I should give myself some outs.

And there are two very noticeable ones which I have to blog about.

Carolina reaper I wrote about briefly before, but I also want to give heads up on the Manufaktura Czekolady which is simply the best 100% chocolate I have ever tasted ever. This 100% chocolate tastes like 90% dark not 100%, making it far less bitter than others I have tasted in the past.

Both are well worth looking out for or ordering from Cocoarunners.

GDPR dating information update

Hackers movie

With GDPR I send out emails to OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, Tinder and others. So far I’ve only gotten responses from POF and OkCupid. Which means Tinder and others have about a day or so to get back to me with everything before I can start to throw down some fire.

Before I headed on holiday, I got a message from POF then OKcupid a day later, saying they need the request from the email which is on the account. Fair enough, so I forwarded each email to that email address and replied all to myself and to them but from that email account address.

A few days later I got emails, first from POF and then OKCupid.

You have recently requested a copy of your PlentyofFish (“POF”) personal data, and we’re happy to report that we have now verified your identity.

We are attaching a copy of your personal data contained in or associated with your POF account.  The password to access the personal data will be sent in a separate email.

By downloading this data, you consent to the extraction of your data from POF, and assume all risk and liability for such downloaded data. We encourage you to keep it secure and take precautions when storing or sharing it.

The information contained in this archive may vary depending on the way you have used POF. In general, this information includes content and photos you have provided us, whether directly or through your social media accounts, messages you have sent and other data you would expect to see from a social media service like POF.

Please note that there is some information we cannot release to you including information that would likely reveal personal information about other users. Those notably include messages you received on POF, which are not provided out of concern for the privacy of the senders.

Sincerely,

POF Privacy Team

Then similar from OKcupid, which makes sense being the same company really.

Dear Mr. Forrester:

You have recently requested a copy of your OkCupid personal data, and we’re happy to report that we have now verified your identity.

We are attaching a copy of your personal data contained in or associated with your OkCupid account. The password to access the personal data will be sent in a separate email.

By downloading this data, you consent to the extraction of your data from OkCupid, and assume all risk and liability for such downloaded data. We encourage you to keep it secure and take precautions when storing or sharing it.

The information contained in this archive may vary depending on the way you have used OkCupid. In general, this information includes content and photos you have provided us, whether directly or through your social media accounts, messages you have sent and other data you would expect to see from a social media service like OkCupid.

Please note that there is some information we cannot release to you including information that would likely reveal personal information about other users. Those notably include messages you received on OkCupid, which are not provided out of concern for the privacy of the senders.

Sincerely,

OkCupid Privacy Team

So on my train journey from Stockholm to Copenhagen, I had a look inside the Zip files shared with me. Quite different, I’d be interesting to see what others will do.

  • Forrester, I – POF Records.zip
    • UserData.json | 6.2 kb
    • UserData.pdf | 40.5 kb
    • Profile_7.jpg | 30.1 kb
    • Profile_6.jpg | 25.0 kb
    • Profile_5.jpg | 17.4 kb
    • Profile_4.jpg | 18.8 kb
    • Profile_3.jpg | 26.6 kb
    • Profile_2.jpg | 11.7 kb
    • Profile_1.jpg | 30.7 kb
  • OkCupid_Records_-Forrester__I.zip
    • Ian Forrester_JSN.txt | 3.8 mb
    • Ian Forrester_html.html | 6.6mb

As you can see quite different, interestingly no photos in the OKCupid data dump, even the ones I shared as part of my profile. In POF the PDF is a copy of the Json file, which is silly really.

So the Json files are the most interesting parts…

Plenty of Fish

.POF don’t have much interesting data, basically a copy of my profile data in Json including Firstvisit, FirstvisitA, etc to FirstvisitE complete with my ip address. I also can confirm I started my profile on 2012-01-25.

Then there is my BasicSearchData and AdvancedSearchData  which includes the usual stuff and when I LastSearch ‘ed and from which IP address.

Nothing else… no messages

OkCupid

OkCupid has a ton more useful information in its Json. Some interesting parts; I have logged into OKCupid a total of 24157 times! My status is Active? My job is Technology?  The geolocation_history is pretty spot on and the login_history goes from July 2007 to current year, complete with IP and time.

The messages is really interesting! They decided to share one of the messages, so only the ones you send rather what you received. As the messages are not like emails, you don’t get the quoted reply, just the sent message. Each item includes who from (me) and time/date. There are some which are obviously a instant massager conversation which look odd reading them now. In those ones, theres also fields for peer, peer_joined, time and type. Its also clear where changes have happened for example when you use to be able to add some formatting to the message and you use to have subject lines.

Some which stick out include, Allergic to smoking?, insomnia, ENTP and where next, The Future somewhat answered, So lazy you’ve only done 40 something questions, Dyslexia is an advantage, But would you lie in return? No bad jokes, gotland and further a field, Ok obvious question, etc.

Next comes the photos (My photos, no one elses)

"caption": "OkCupid's removal of visitors is so transparent, I don't know why they bothered to lie to us all?", 
"photo": "https://k1.okccdn.com/php/load_okc_image.php/images/6623162030294614734", 
"status": "Album Picture Active", 
"uploaded": "2017-08-08 19:16:20"

Of course the images are publicly available via the url, so I could pull them all down with a quick wget/curl. Not sure what to make about this idea of making them public. Security through obscurity anyone?

Stop screwing with OKCupid
As long as you can see the picture above, OKCupid is making my profile pictures public

Now the images strings seems to be random but don’t think this is a good idea at all! Wondering how it sits with GDPR too, also wondering if they will remove them after a period of time. Hence if the image a above is broken, then you know what happened.

Then we are on to the purchases section. It details when I once tried A-list subscription and when I cancelled it. How I paid (paypal), how much, address, date, etc… Its funny reading about when I cancelled it…

"comments": "userid = 7367007913453081320 was downgraded to amateur", 
"transaction": "lost subscription",

The big question I always had was the question data. Don’t worry they are all there! For example here’s just one of mine.

{
"answer_choices": {
"1": "Yes", 
"2": "No"
}, 
"prompt": "Are you racist?", 
"question_id": 7847, 
"user_acceptable_answers": [
"No"
], 
"user_answer": "No", 
"user_answered_publicly": "no", 
"user_importance": "mandatory"
},

After all those questions, theres a bunch of stuff about user_devices I’ve used to log into OkCupid over the years going right back. Stuff about preferences for searches, etc.

Going to need some time to digest everything but the OKCupid data dump is full of interesting things. I might convert the lot to XML just to make it easier for me to over view.

Airbnb what can I say…?

Airbnb business model

I’ve had my ups and downs with Airbnb, being a host and being a guest. Recently my flat made the decision to block/ban people renting out their who flat for Airbnb. Mainly for reasons in this post, profiteers make a killing on Airbnb – and erode communities. The destruction when some guests have gone off is pretty bad. Then the committee (who I’m a member) found there is a clause in which many are not aware of

Borrowers who are granted permission could be charged higher interest or additional fees.

Those who go behind lenders’ backs and list their property on Airbnb regardless would be in breach of their contract and the lender could ask them to repay the mortgage immediately.

The important thing to remember is there is are different types of hosts. For example I only put my spare room on Airbnb not my whole flat. I trust people but there is no way I would give them the keys to my home without me being there at the same time! I remember going to a airbnb meetup in Manchester and being shocked at the difference between those like me who do it for a bit of extra cash and those who treat it like a business.

On the business side theres many stories including this one Airbnb: ‘It’s a cash machine. It’s magical. You are paid to go on holiday.’ These stories do worry me and do make me cross my arms. But on the guest side its been really great to fly around europe and stop at Airbnb’s for sometimes 3x less than the hotels near by. I’ve benefited greatly being able to do this but am very aware of the racial discrimination of the sharing economy. I’m fortunate to being a host and being able to verified about 9 different things including my government ID and full address. Being on the service early on means my rep is pretty good even being awarded superhost a few years ago.

I’ve met some great people doing Airbnb too, even met my favourite Airbnb guest in Portugal in March for a short while, 2.5 years after I hosted her. I bet those host their spare house have no idea who is there or really care?

Starting now would be difficult as I’ve found out from friends who try it, but its clear cities and countries are coming down on Airbnb for ruining communities as mentioned before, Airbnb wrecks travellers’ holiday plans as battle with cities intensifies. You thought it was just Uber right? Nope the whole silicon valley business model is tearing up communities and existing businesses. Neo-liberalism at its best or worst depending how you look at things.

But at the heart of it do Airbnb give a rats? As I found when I went to Japan (listing no longer exists) and Iceland, no they really dont. The problem is its a neat system, just run by a silicon valley company which is aiming to put everybody else out of business then yank the price cord up once they got us. Imagine if Airbnb was run by a public service company, non-profit or coop?

I do think we need to separate the hosting situations. I’m a host but I’m nothing like those who host their 4th bought house, screaming blue murder that they are not superhost entitled and out to make a killing. If I was as greedy, I certainly would drop the price (I charge £45 per night) and rise the price massive on concerts days (A woman came to the taylor swift concern for £45/night, hotels and other airbnb’s were charging £150+ a night). There is clearly a difference and its important to remember this.

Hot Chocolate with the Carolina Reaper

Carolina Reaper Dark Chocolate

When on holiday, I’m always interested in different teas and chocolates. I happen to come across urbandeli when seeking brunch and decided to go back and check it out in full. I saw a whole shelf of chocolates but one stuck out a mile away, mainly because it had a tag underneath it saying something in Swedish about danger not for Children!

To be honest I thought it was some gimmick but as I love chilli & dark chocolate I bought a bar and decided to try it out in store, as the store is part of a bar and hotel, meaning anything you bought you could consume too (they even have microwaves).

On further investigation I realised while eating my first tiny bit. This wasn’t a joke, the chilli flaked bars I had in the past were nothing like the heat this was delivering to my tongue and mouth. It was the real deal, proper heat from a small chunk of chocolate.

It wasn’t till I looked it up, I realised everything. I heard of the Scoville number but didn’t know the scale of the numbers. I had also misread the number on the packet as 1.569 not 1569300! Massive difference!

The name of the chocolate came from the chilli with the same name.
With a Scoville value of 1,569,300 which was officially the hottest chilli in the world 5-7 years ago. Gizmodo did a nice piece about the chilli which I found interesting.

I finally found it on Cocoarunners site with a review

This is not just a chilli chocolate bar, this a Carolina Reaper chilli chocolate bar.

Bred in South Carolina, the Carolina Reaper has held the Guinness World Record for the world’s hottest chilli since 2013. When tested for the record, the batch of chilies had an average heat level of 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units. The hottest individual pepper measured 2.2 million Scovilles. For comparison a Jalapeno generally has a heat range of 1,000 – 20,000 Scoville units.

The dark chocolate is a blend oh Ghanaian and Dominican beans but honestly this serves as nothing more than a base for the chilli. Break off the smallest piece imaginable, put it on your tongue and discover what is almost certainly the world’s hottest chocolate (and certainly the hottest chocolate we’ve ever tasted).

There is no question of subtle flavours and different tasting notes. The chilli flavour starts deceptively slowly and keeps on building and building. Waves of heat pass across the palate, overwhelming anyone with a low spice tolerance. Long after the chocolate itself has melted away you are left with a tingling sensation on the tongue – a piquant reminder of the Carolina Reaper’s passage. A unique chocolate experience, this is not a bar for the faint-hearted.

Always good to find these type of things…!

Love your pebble, don’t want to see it turn into plain watch? Setup a rebble account now!

Pebbles growing in work

If like me you love the pebble and although I hate that Fitbit bought them, can’t really slate their support to keep the watch alive and working with the rebble team.

The Rebble team have been literally everywhere urging pebble users to create an account on the rebble servers before the pebble servers are switched off for good.

The Rebble account system is up and running, and now is the time for you to create your accounts. Head over to Rebble Auth and log in using your preferred site. You’ll then be asked to link your Pebble account. Please do: we will use this to import information from the Pebble servers before they shut down in order to help make the transition smoother.

It is especially important for developers to link their Pebble accounts now. Once the Pebble services shut down at the end of this month, we will no longer be able to identify developers who did not link their accounts, and so we will be unable to let them update or otherwise change their apps.

We are also going to use the number of accounts created to assist us in determining service usage and attempt to validate our assumptions about the number of users we expect to see.

That’s all there is to do right now: there is no app to install, and we are not yet ready for users to switch over to Rebble services. We will be sure to update you when we are!

Do it now, it takes a minute or so and will save you a lot of heartache later!

How many countries have you been to in the world?

Worldmap in flagsA interesting question was raised at a recent away day at work…

How many countries have you been to?

Of course the best of the group was someone obvious with 50+, although even he can’t take on Graham. But it got me thinking… as I started to list them out, I certainly have travelled maybe much more than most people?

I originally said about 20 and I was close but with some time and a world map, here’s the full list.

    • United Kingdom (not going to divide up England, Wales, Scotland)
    • Ireland
    • France
    • Canada
    • United States
    • Spain
    • Iceland
    • Germany
    • Netherlands
    • Portugal
    • Belgium
    • Bosnia and Herzegovina
    • Denmark
    • Sweden
    • Estonia
    • Turkey
    • Jamaica
    • Japan
    • Mexico
    • Poland
    • Romania
    • Switzerland *
    • Finland *
    • United Arab Emirates (UAE) *

*  is ones where I have passed through a airport for more than a couple hours, so technically yes I have been there but not really. Finland I will make official later this year with a trip to Helsinki.

Its interesting to see the places I’ve not visited like most of the African countries, India, most of Asia and south America.

OKcupid responds to my GDPR request

OkCupid no Match protest

I mentioned how I emailed a load of dating sites for my data and then some… Under GDPR. So far I’ve got something form POF but OKcupid finally got back to me, after finally making it to supportconsole@okcupid.com.

Hello,

OkCupid has received your recent request for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.

For your protection and the protection of all of our users, we cannot release any personal data without first obtaining proof of identity.

In order for us to verify your identity, we kindly ask you to:

1. Respond to this email from the email address associated with your OkCupid account and provide us the username of your OkCupid account.

2. In your response to this email, please include a copy of a government-issued ID document such as your passport or driving license. Also, we ask you to please cover up any personal information other than your name, photo and date of birth from the document as that is the only information we need.

We may require further verification of your identity, for example, if the materials you provide us do not establish your identity as being linked to the account in question.

Please note that if you previously closed your account, your data may be unavailable for extraction as we proceed to its deletion or anonymization in accordance with our privacy policy. Even if data is still available for extraction, there is some information we cannot release to you including information that would likely reveal personal information about other users. Those notably include messages you received on OkCupid, which are not provided out of concern for the privacy of the senders.

Best,

OkCupid Privacy Team

Pretty much the same as the POF reply.

POF first to respond to my GDPR request

Plenty of Fish

I mentioned how I emailed a load of dating sites for my data and then some… Under GDPR. So far I’ve been bounced around a little but POF is the first positive email I gotten so far…

PlentyofFish (“POF”) has received your recent request for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.

For your protection and the protection of all of our users, we cannot release any personal data without first obtaining proof of identity.

In order for us to verify your identity, we kindly ask you to:

1. Respond to this email from the email address associated with your POF account and provide us the username of your POF account.

2. In your response to this email, please include a copy of a government-issued ID document such as your passport or driving license. Also, we ask you to please cover up any personal information other than your name, photo and date of birth from the document as that is the only information we need.

We may require further verification of your identity, for example, if the materials you provide us do not establish your identity as being linked to the account in question.

Please note that if you previously closed your account, your data may be unavailable for extraction as we proceed to its deletion or anonymization in accordance with our privacy policy. Even if data is still available for extraction, there is some information we cannot release to you including information that would likely reveal personal information about other users. Those notably include messages you received on POF, which are not provided out of concern for the privacy of the senders.

Best,

POF Privacy Team

Well I guess they are being careful at least but will be interested to see what other questions they ask me.

Still wondering when the rest will get in touch?

Podcasts in Plex? But which Plex?

Verge podcast on PlexPodcasts on Plex, at long last?

I was excited by the news of podcasts on plex

So excited I decided to switch to the beta version to give it a try.

Now I know its beta but after closer inspection of the blog post, I noticed everything was focused on the player application. As most of my Plex use is as a server, I was expecting to see podcasts as a plex scanner/agent option or even better a library type.

Currently it seems like you can create a podcast library on the Plex player/app but that doesn’t sync back to anywhere. I expected that under my user account I would see the new podcast library on my Plex media server too. Trying to create a new podcast library also goes no where when using the web interface to the media server.

My hope is this is just a beta issue and it will be rolled out to the media server too. Because right now the point of Plex is the sync capability around one app. This does make me wonder about Plex’s previous move which upset a lot of people.

Till this is clear, I’ll be sticking with my elaborate podcast sync system.