Can the enlighten people step forward?

There’s a lot of things which wind me up but I was shaking my head knowing it was true when reading the study about men being intimated by smart women. It had originally came from Facebook via Anina.

…these studies found that when men imagined a hypothetical woman who was smarter than them, or only knew of the woman in an abstract sense, they were interested in meeting or possibly dating her. Apparently, a smart woman is great in theory but not in practice.

…the men who were partnered with a woman who scored higher on the intelligence test felt the need to physically distance themselves from her when moving their chairs. They also tended to rate the woman as less attractive and datable than the men who interacted with a woman and scored worse than they did.

I tried to fault in the study but honestly its pretty clear on the face of it. Deep in thought thinking about my experiences of how men are crapbrushes with the pickup artists and of course being called a traitor to the male race. I can’t help but feel this type of legacy nonsense is what is holding back the human race. It’s not just this but also who pays on the first date, the height of women, who earns more and even more crap I can’t bring myself to even describe on my blog. It’s all so flipping sad, that this legacy still exists in 2016!

I like to hope there are even more smart women for us enlighten men but I know it’s never that simple.

smart-

In another post which I was reading about the redpill and manosphere, its easy to think every man wants to be the alpha.

Socially dominant. Somebody who displays high value, or traits that are sexually attractive to women.

Most of the postings refer to being the alpha not the beta. For example from the same post.

AF/BB – Alpha Fucks/Beta Bucks. AF/BB, as an idea, is closely related to AWALT (“All Women Are Like That”). All women, in this argument, divide men into two types: alpha males they want to fuck, and beta males they use for financial and emotional support in exchange for sex.

Really?!

It’s this nonsense which bugs the hell out of me on many different levels. All women want alphas, the betas are suckers and you need to be alphas to stand a chance. Do me a flipping favor, what a load of mashed up crap. Now I could argue on ideological and humanity grounds but I’ve tried that and failed to convince my intrenched male pals. So I’m going to try the diversity of thought option.

The biggest problem with all this is (AWALT) all women are like this and (AMALT) all men are like this. Is that there not, yes there might be a large population which are like this but I bet you those stereotypes are dying out quicker than you think. People are finding themselves and are less bound by the norms defined by the previous generation/society.

For example, gay, lesbian and bi people can be much more open than previously (don’t get me wrong, it’s a long way from the idealistic utopian dream in some parts of this country, let alone other parts of the world). But there is no longer a need to hide in the wardrobe/shadows. People are expressing a different more realistic/enlighten view on the world around them and ultimately that is changing things quicker than previously. Also worth saying non-monogamous relationships seem to have increased (or at least become more public). Like wise there’s less hiding in the shadows.

When I attended the event in Manchester with Rosie Wilby, I was actually slightly worried about talking about openly afterwards because it may crush certain friends world view. I could imagine myself talking about the event in detail and upsetting someone in the process.

Going all the way back to the top of the blog, what if smarter women actually preferred less smart men? What would people make of that scenario? It quite a different take eh?

Ultimately attitudes are changing and becoming more diverse, this is a good thing! It’s not good enough to jump to lazy stereotypes. Yes I understand this messes with your view on the world and makes binary answers a thing of a bygone era – Its time to get use to it! People are messy and the world is messy. No matter what Zuckerberg thinks or imposes (yes that is the right word) on a large number of internet users.

I am personally trying to use gender neutral pronouns. So less saying guys and more people. It’s a tiny thing but it all adds up and ultimately may have a positive effect of making others reconsider their own language.

Recently I was asked about my deal breakers, and I said one was old fashioned thinking. It seems harmless at first but I honestly think its holding back real progress and it needs to die/end. I’m not saying we shouldn’t learn from the past but trying to hold on to the past, has conquences like the results we see in the test.

Updated following the artist known as Prince’s death

It was Rebecca’s Facebook where I found the piece from the Guardian about Prince. I felt it was super relevent to what I was trying to say previously in this blog. Prince broke all the rules about what black American men should be

Prince repelled and fascinated me because he represented every side of all the contradictions I felt. I felt nervous even looking at him, and yet I couldn’t look away. What would it mean if I opened myself up to the letting go of all those rules he seemed to have dispensed with? That purple clothing, those high heels and ruffled shirts: was he proudly feminine, or so secure in his masculinity he didn’t mind others questioning it? That small frame and that tight, small butt that seemed to leave him “shaking that ass, shaking that ass” for men and women alike?

I remember when I was young having a discussions about sexuality through the paradox known as Prince. Never a dull moment and I even had the joy of visiting Minneapolis and going to First Avenue, prince’s club in purple rain.

Wow and what a club!

First Avenue, Minneapolis

Prince was so ahead of me in my own understanding of what it means to be black in this country, to have a sexuality and gender expression at odds with the white men who try to tell everyone else how to behave – and to embrace what is amorphous, not easily categorized, beautiful, and yet unknown.

Fitting I feel…

Customer commons and VRM day

There’s been quite a bit of action around data ethics and its well worth highlighting something I saw recently.

Its VRM day next Monday 26th April. VRM is vender relationship management day. Doc Searls is heading it all up and it takes place around the Internet Identity Workshop at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calfornia. As with the best workshops, its a unconference style allowing for emergent topics to be raised.

We have no speakers, no keynotes, no panels. All sessions are breakouts, and the topics are chosen and led by participants… identity is just a starting point. Many other topics come up and move forward as well. In the last few IIWs, hot topics have included personal clouds, privacy, data liberation, transparency, VRM, the Indie Web, the Internet of Things, the Semantic Web, trust frameworks, free and open devices and much more

Wish I could be there, who knows maybe one day?

It was Doc Seals post A Way off the Ranch, which connected me with many things including Customer Commons, which I couldn’t believe I’ve never actually come across before.

12 years at the BBC, and still a outlier

Tony Ageh

Recently Tony Ageh joined the New York Public Library as chief digital officer, as pointed out in the guardian

I had a lot of time for Tony and he was one of the people who attracted me to the BBC. I had no idea he had only joined 2 years before myself. But he was incredible and pulled no punches in what he felt was right. A lot like Tom Loosemore and others, he was public service to the bone. Something which I personally think it critical as more and more of our public services are being suffocated to death… slowly…

Frankly the BBC needs more people like Tony and he will be sadly lost. I found this part really interesting…

I would never have left the BBC but the opportunity is greater than I could have imagined,” he said. “I was good for the BBC because I was so unlike them, and didn’t want to be like them. But I told them that they have to shape this challenge, the internet, before it shapes you.

I feel the same, if I was to leave it would have to be such a great opportunity. in another public service focused company.  I also feel like I’m right for the BBC because I don’t fit the BBC mould. I would go as far as to say he has Humility, Craft and Hustle.

I’m sure I wrote or have said somewhere how I was not a fan the BBC, mainly for its lack of diversity in programmes, especially around underground music (hey I was young and a raver). It just didn’t reflect anything which spoke to me sadly. I didn’t even engage with the other (arguably much more important) aspects of diversity but it most likely played their part in forming my opinion.

The BBC is changing, not quite fast enough for me but the people make the difference. Like a recent q&a with a high-ranking person, where someone asked about more women in engineering. I was thinking in my head this is important of course but it’s about diversity not just gender. The answer, had me clapping my hand in my head. Its about diversity of people, thought and approaches. Perfect, I had to write a email afterwards thanking that person.

People like Tony and others are rare because the system filters them out. I’m sure I wouldn’t have got into r&d if it was to apply, and even now in my 12th year (yeah beleive it or not! It just happened around my birthday) I’m still not looking to fit in. Its not in my nature as a outlier… But likewise theres no hiding from the daily challenges and politics. As Tony said…

People do well that run towards the problem, not away from it.
I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”

Good luck to Tony and I look forward to hearing what he gets up to…? Sure it’s going to be great!

Its reminds me, I was listening to Gimlet’s reply all and there was a really good piece about diversity.

https://twitter.com/cubicgarden/status/691197436795174912

The screen is kinda up or rather down?

Cubicgarden's home cinema

Thanks to a friend’s wife, we were able to get the IKEA tupplur projector screen up today (its really a 2 person job). On the evening I set the little panasonic projector back up and tried out Inception (what better?)

It works just as Ikea hackers and AV forums suggested and after another trip to IKEA, they finally had a extendable rod (they never had one previously) to pull the whole thing down. Unfortunally due to the change in living room layout, I can’t really have the projector on the bottom of the coffee table anymore (there is only so far keystone will go). But once positioned on top of the table and after dropping the resolution down to XGA instead of 1080p (the projector doesn’t really support anything over 1024×768 and tends to cut off the rest, but at least my Kodi machine outputs the same image to both outputs, meaning I don’t need to unplug or blank one screen each time)

So with all that in mind, there is one problem. The screen doesn’t seem to pull back up. This looks to be a problem that might mean refitting the screen again.

In the meanwhile, I’ll be standing on a the step ladder pulling the screen back up!

BBC Horizon explores how to find love online

dating-against-humanity-46-638

Its weird how things all seem to happen at once… First my TEDxManchester talk, then a chance enounter on BBC News 24 Live stream with LJ Rich, then me and Kate’s listening project recording is edited for Radio4. Now the BBC Horizon documentary about finding love online.

They were nice enough to tell us this afternoon via email, but I wasn’t sure I could blog it (nothing on their programme page or facebook page either) till I found it in the Radiotimes.

Update – The programme information page is up.

The internet has transformed every part of our lives and is now changing arguably the most important – our love lives. Internet dating is a cultural phenomenon and is now the second most common way that couples meet. But what is the best way to make the online search for love successful? What are the ‘matchmaking’ algorithms that the big companies use? Do they really deliver the goods, is it really clever marketing and actually a giant con – is there really any science?

Funny enough Mr30notsoflirty and Maren I met through the show filming (as you will find out soon, in a post I wrote straight after the filming). We were talking about the trailer on twitter, and Mr30 said he spotted, Mr30 and some other people. I watched a couple times and spotted myself! Scary stuff!

BBC Horizon dating experiment

So look out on Monday 25th April at 9pm – 10pm on BBC Two. It will be fancinating to see how its all crafted into a hour show and how much success they have in the matches compared to the Birthday paradox.

Hannah Fry the pressure is on…!

The good home project in Milan

gh_badge

I love what Alexandra does, super talented, creative and resourceful. But unfortunately I’m not able to be involved in the goodhome project at this stage. Shes collaborating with other smart people to show a vision of the home in the future which doesn’t scream nonsense wrapped in toilet tissue, like this recent video.

If you happen to be in Milan or going to the Milan furniture fair, make sure you stop by Fuori Salone and visit the Good Home. Wednesday 13th – Saturday 16th April.

Visit our second Good Home during Fuori Salone, the city-wide festival of design that accompanies the Milan Furniture Fair. We will be exhibiting product ideas around the future of the home.

Hope to make up for this in the near future at Mozfest 2016 and maybe London Design Festival 2016.

One BBC for everybody

https://twitter.com/scottygb/status/719875893716500480

 

Interesting tweet from Buzzfeed who were talking to Netflix’s CEO, while talking about the BBC and Top Gear.

Hastings: The BBC has been a pioneer. They have been the first to invest in technology like the iPlayer, which has done a great job. … [In the future] they’ll have to get rid of the iPlayer branding. It should just be the BBC.

What comes to my mind…?

In writing, you must kill your darlings.”

Well that, Chris’s post and the many conversations I have had over the last 5 years.

Data & stats from Plex Mediaserver

A while ago I wrote about having so much bandwidth from hyperoptic gigabit broadband, means I can now share my media collection with friends.

Its great but its interesting looking at the data my friends are generating through their use of my sever. But it’s not all super smooth, mainly due to my poor single core AMD Sempron 2800 processor doing transcoding on the fly. The biggest problem is the Xbox Plex client, which we discovered doesn’t support x.264 at all, meaning transcoding the whole thing is the only way to view anything. My poor CPU maxes out at 100% during the whole thing. This seems to be a massive bug bear for many people out there… I dread to think what happens with H.265 encoded media.

I installed PlexPy a while ago and decided it was time to have a look.

plexpy Screenshot from 2016-04-042

The Chromecast isn’t anywhere as bad but still triggers transcoding, but to be fair I’ve not really played with the settings but I think theres a way to force the chromecast to play directly (Directstream). Some Smart TVs seem quite happy to take the direct stream putting absolutely no strain on my CPU.

plexpy Screenshot from 2016-04-041

Because of the strain on my CPU, I’m considering changing my CPU to something better. I mean even a quad core or six core processor would be ideal.

Although part of me is thinking maybe I should block all client which require transcoding, or maybe just block the Xbox Plex client. This doesn’t seem to be a problem with the Sony Playstation, from first tests. But I also wonder about DTS, MKV and h.265?

plexpy Screenshot from 2016-04-045

I mean its not like its heavily used anyway. Sure my one friend will like that (smile). The Chromecast is far and away the biggest client and we tried the Xbox 360 once just to see if it was any better (which it wasn’t)

plexpy Screenshot from 2016-04-044

The other stats generated are quite interesting to look at…
For example when most of my friends watch my media by hour of the day and which day.

plexpy Screenshot from 2016-04-043

Theres much more interesting stats but of course privacy of my friends is the up most importance. Maybe I should craft a EULA (End User Licence Agreement)?

Its really interesting to think about the ethics of data when you are the provider.

Berlin places restrictions on Airbnb?

Berlin Wall

It was Oliver who first alerted me to the new rule Berlin has just applied to Airbnb.

 apply. When what exceptions are possible, is still unclear.

Some friends on Facebook (my fb is public, so its readable/findable) added some comments to my kind of retweet from talking with Oliver.

Jennifer wrote: There are so few affordable flats available for people who actually live here. The Airbnb market has affected the available rentals so much here that it’s driven prices up, and it’s a nightmare.

Helen wrote: There are similar restrictions in Barcelona. You need a licence to rent rooms or apartments but the local government is not issuing new licences. Same rationale…lack of affordable housing, makes for unpleasant living when your neighbouring apartments are all on short lets, changing the culture of neighbourhoods. That said, there’s no shortage of rentals in Barcelona on AirBnB and elsewhere. Fines are being issued but not widespread yet.

As someone who does Airbnb at my own flat, I think there should be a difference between a spare room and a whole place. I do have everything legally needed including smoke alarms, exit signs and fire extinguisher but it feels like there should be slight difference. I understand the concerns and the damage of short term lets on a community. Some apartment blocks have banned Airbnb in Manchester for example. But if you are there too, its no real different than having a short term lodger? I guess there is an argument about how you prove you are there, but thats a different arguement.

Its a shame its come to this but alas thats what happens when you let market forces run out of control?

Little chance of a cheap Airbnb for Berlin now, I thought but theres still quite a lot on Airbnb still… We shall see what happens in May.

Happy Birthday fun and woes

life

I think it’s important to find the little things in everyday life that make you happy Paula Cole

Some fun things on my birthday today… Yes I’m one year older but still feel like 23.

The Listening Project
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between friends whose different outlooks on life don’t affect the strength of their relationship at all. Another in the series that proves it’s surprising what you hear when you listen.

It happens that BBC Radio 4 played the Omnibus version of the listening project today on my birthday. The Facebook reaction is even more fun and enjoyable to read, with friends of Kate’s saying I should be taken to Gotland.

Thanks Vivid Manchester but yes coconut will kill me… Not quite the best birthday present for someone allergic to many things. Its the thought which counts.

Don’t worry its not the first time something has been put down in front of me and had it pulled out right in front me for allergy reasons. To be fair its better than the result of being very ill or worst but its hard watching others enjoy what you could have had.

https://twitter.com/cubicgarden/status/719176527267643392