Category: culture-and-politics

Simon was right, self help for men

confidence

Simon was right… Not often I say that *smile*

When we did the Flirt and Pickup workshop ages ago, it caused more than a stir. But Simon always said pick up resources were always self help for men who don’t like self help. Give them a book and steps forward to improve their life and they will ignore you. Say it will get you laid and most men’s ears will pick up (pun intended).

Actually as Simon says, you can also swap getting laid for sales/money or fame/success and you’ll cover all the major male self help books. It’s all the same principle, and in all cases you can take it too far, manipulate and become the hateful confidence trickster, pick-up artists or evil bosses that give male self-help a terrible name.

Male self, is further expanded when reading Girls on the net…

“The seduction world is self-help in disguise. The majority of it is about developing confidence in more traditional self-help.”

The Game helps that, apparently. Pick-up artists help that, apparently. Because they give men self confidence and tricks and scripts and plans and all the extra bits and pieces. However, the self confidence isn’t the stated goal for the vast majority of people in this community: sex is. What’s more, self-confidence on its own won’t get someone from being a shy, nerdy never-kissed-a-girl type into their first relationship. The thing that will most dramatically increase the odds of any guy sleeping with, or having a relationship with a particular woman, is talking to her.

All pick up artists will tell you to do this, but few will make a big fuss over it. They’ll tell you how to talk, and when to talk, and sometimes what to say, but they won’t tell you that the key to all of their success comes from the simple fact that you’re doing it. That, absent any peripheral voodoo, they’re taking people who never talk to women, and getting them to talk to women.

The whole day was actually about confidence…

Confidence is key and getting over your fear of rejection, being generally a interesting character and a little luck will greatly help!

Manchester stand up and say something!

Black and White.

I know how TV works, heck I’ve had more than enough experience of how engineered certain shows can be. But Channel4’s new show right after firstdates is eye spy.

Stephen Fry narrates this new series which tests to see if the people of Great Britain really are ‘great’ and can be heroes when faced with a particularly challenging situation. Eye Spy features ingenious hidden camera stunts that throw up assorted moral dilemmas and psychological conundrums to wrestle with, challenging the notion inherent in many news stories that our ‘once great nation is going to the dogs’. You may say you’d do the right thing in a highly-pressured situation, but only when you’re actually in the moment can you ever really know.

One of the situations was a racist waiter who couldn’t deal with mixed race couples. Actually as the site says, outrageously racist waiter.

The things he said were so direct to the mixed race couple and so loud everyone could clearly hear everything being said.

And he’s the main point of concern for myself…  They ran the test in London and in Manchester. Not just Manchester but Salt & Pepper in Castlefield, a place I would go to with a date (and to be fair most of my dates are European woman)

In London, a place which is more racially diverse (as the programme points out too) the waiter got told to shut up before the couple got up and left. Actually although they ran the experiment a few times the result was the same.

However in Manchester the couple had to endure the out and out ball faced racism of the waiter. In the end they got up and left, after they were told they were upsetting the rest of the restaurant!

No one stood up and said a word, no one said anything, not a single person. They just sat there in silence eating and not saying a word. Not a single person would stand up and say your bang out of order to the waiter. Heck even getting up and walking out would have sent a clear signal that people were not happy, which is what happened when they ran the same experiment in reverse with a white couple in an Indian restaurant.

So it drives me insane to know that if I and a lady was facing such racism, no one would get involved. Not only that people would sit there in silence! Not a single word… (Shocking!) And it wasn’t like the people were old, the people seemed like students into your mid 30s type and should have known better… There is no excuse for saying nothing!

When I first looked at Manchester I did worry about being in a northern city. I seen programmes about other cities near by where separation between the races are closer to something I’ve only experienced in parts of America. Don’t get me wrong growing up in Bristol wasn’t easy. My parents amazingly moved into a area which was very white and survived through all the NF sprayed on the house, brick attacks, etc. I was also one of only 2 Black guys in my primary/junior school. I could tell stories of running away from the National Front (Kingswood was well known for being their stomping grounds) and the different brushes I’ve had with racism including in London a couple times.

What bugs me is like David Starky’s ranting is these people do/should know better. My parents and our old  lovely neighbours supported them greatly and stood up for them. Without their support things would have been a lot worst… So you can see why I’m pissed at those people and I guess the fact Manchester for not doing better.

What kind of society are we if we don’t all stand up for each other?! And yes I know the Bystander effect.

I imagine some of you are saying, stop getting so worked up… its a TV programme and one social experiment (although they did run it 3x to the same effect). Maybe I should remember the benefits of moving to Manchester but its hard to be happy and defend the great city of Manchester in the face of such a obviously bad thing, even if staged for TV…

Who pays on the first date, thoughts of a bisexual lady

Ok you know I’ve covered this subject to death but found it interesting to hear the view from a bi-sexual woman on Channel4’s Bi-Curious show.

The suggestion is that woman dating woman is so much easier because they just go dutch/split the bill… Don’t know if this is true overall but I can believe it…

Single Black Male, we need new writers!

Single Black Male | Urban Male Perspective

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?

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

Dating in the 21st Century

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…?

The confessions/mistakes of a serial dater?

Date

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.

Better to know or to live in blissful ignorance?

23andme box

Following my brush with death I have taken a much deeper look at my family genes.

But one of the ultimate ways to know more is by signing up to 23 and me.

Although the idea freaks most people out, when you’ve been so close to death theres really little which can freak you out. So I have been considering the process quite a lot and looking through there material and some of the backstory of 23 and me.

Besides my thoughts of a world like Gattaca, I’m wondering if its better to know or live in a world of blissful ignorance? Although I do have to say blissful ignorance is part of the reason why I ended up in hospital. I do however wonder about 23 and me’s terms of conditions. There privacy statement is interesting too…

You may learn information about yourself that you do not anticipate. This information may evoke strong emotions and has the potential to alter your life and worldview. You may discover things about yourself that trouble you and that you may not have the ability to control or change (e.g., your father is not genetically your father, surprising facts related to your ancestry, or that someone with your genotype may have a higher than average chance of developing a specific condition or disease). These outcomes could have social, legal, or economic implications.

Genetic Information that you choose to share with your physician or other health care provider may become part of your medical record and through that route be accessible to other health care providers and/or insurance companies in the future. Genetic Information that you share with family, friends or employers may be used against your interests. Even if you share Genetic Information that has no or limited meaning today, that information could have greater meaning in the future as new discoveries are made. If you are asked by an insurance company whether you have learned Genetic Information about health conditions and you do not disclose this to them, this may be considered to be fraud.

We do not sell, lease, or rent your individual-level Personal Information without your explicit consent. As a general rule, 23andMe will not disclose your individual-level Personal Information to any third party, except under the following circumstances:

  • Partners or service providers (e.g. credit card processors or our contracted genotyping laboratory) process and/or store the information in order to help us provide, understand or improve 23andMe’s Services.
  • If you have consented for research, research contractors may access your individual-level Genetic and Self-Reported Information onsite at 23andMe’s offices for the purpose of scientific research, provided that all such research contractors will be supervised by 23andMe and subject to 23andMe’s access rules and guidelines.
  • If you have consented to use of your individual-level data in the Research Portal feature, qualified researchers (who must comply with certain requirements) may access your individual-level Genetic and/or Self-Reported Information for the purpose of scientific research, which could lead to commercial use.
  • We are required to do so by law or we do so in coordination with regulatory authorities (see the section below titled “Information Disclosure Required By Law”).
  • You have provided explicit consent for us to do so.

On a whole I don’t quite feel at ease with there terms of conditions or privacy statements. 23andme is a company and that worries me. If they were a charity or something like that, I would feel a slight bit better. How long will it be till they sell out on there users? You only have to look at what’s happened with Flickr to see the bizarre things that can happen.

So its not the information I’m worried about, its the way its stored and disclosed, now and into the future…

 

 

Someone once said, are you a misogynist…?

What's Wrong With You? Are You A Misogynist?

Love the project Someone Once Told Me.com and I had my own photo taken for the project.

The story is so odd and to be fair it was a very long time ago during those Crazy “Nappy night” days in Odyssey, Bristol (for those who have known me that long).

“I was in a nightclub in Bristol, where I was born. I was quite young and when you’re young it’s quite hard to talk to women. Most of my friends were just talking to girls. They pushed me into talking to a particular girl so I did. So I went up to her and said ‘So, did you see Brookside last night?’ She said this to me in reply, which was completely bizarre. I just had this look on my face like ‘What?’ Then she just walked away. I was like ‘Great. Never again.’

The story is true and I swear thats what she said, its not even like I didn’t hear her, I heard her loud and clear. Maybe she got the word mixed up but she certainly said it.

Of course I’m not a misogynist, my mother would nail me to the wall if she ever thought I was. I have worked alongside and for many woman in the past and even now. Not only that ask all the woman I dated if they sensed something slightly misogynistic about me. I honestly don’t think a single one would say, “actually there is something to it…”

If I remember correctly I think she was expecting something corny from me and when it didn’t come, she just found it odd and blusted out with the question before she walked away in shame, realising she had slated a guy for talking to her in a more human way than most.

The comments and Twitter are there if you agree with what this woman said to me…

Expecting a certain person to tweet, “sort out your problem with woman, Ian!”

Woman speakers at conferences

I had the pleasure of attending the one day barcamp nicknamed bracamp… It was a interesting take on a barcamp and although I signed up originally because Laura was a sponsor, decided to go ahead when  Hwayoung said she’ll invite me (you know the rules of girl geekdinners, woman can only invite a guy)

Anyhow I ran a session talking about a number of things including what is a geek… Somewhere in the running order I attended something which got me speaking up about woman speakers.

I know this has been all over the news about what happened in a conferences in the states but I wanted to echo Samantha’s thoughts…

Diversity in tech is good. And not just for the sake of it, but because we need. more. techies.

I won’t disagree, but its not just techies we need… We need people who think differently…

There are two reasons why a diverse audience and speakers should be at least somewhere halfway down the agenda of any conference or panel discussion: First, diverse speakers represent a diverse audience, making minorities feel more welcome, thus potentially helping with increasing participation. Second, speakers from a different background might (might!) bring a different point of view to the conference, which helps making talks and panels a lot more interesting.

Yes it was a great idea having the girl geeks in residence at BarCampMediaCity and really worked for that event. I won’t lie, its good to see more people like yourself around and at Tech events its usually very bad.

In my opinion, at least “being aware of the issue” and making some effort is okay. If it turns out that no woman submitted a proposal and all the female speakers you’ve asked decline the offer, well, that’s bad luck.
digging for diversity can also be frustrating. It’s incredibly hard to convince non-white-males-aged between 25 and 35 to attend any ‘mixed’ event.

Yes I have felt this first hand.

I ran a series of event and for one of the last ones before it ended. One of them was a ignite style event. As you can see all the speakers are male but I tried to balance the speakers with women. I sent emails out and spoke to many woman about taking one of the spots. I must have contacted about 20+ woman for a couple places in the line up. I have the emails if anyone wants to do a freedom of information request on me (go ahead).

I even lost my cool a tiny bit with one (sorry to say and I did apologise moments later) who I know very well and knew could easily do it with a bit of a push, so I gave her a bit of psychological big up and even that didn’t work. I was willing to spend time with the lady in question to make sure she felt comfortable and happy about everything (because it would be the right thing to do), I think I need to find another way to encourage woman to get involved in future.

Any thoughts? I’m all ears… as always!

Peaktime trains vs Hotels

Overhead power lines

I can happily say I have to date never knowingly paid for a peak time ticket to London.

Even when going back and forth to London from Manchester for those meetings with the rest of the BBC, I just couldn’t do it.

Two questions bugs me around this…

  1. How can Virgin trains charge more than a hotel in Central London (booked within 24hours) for a peak ticket?
  2. Why is there peak time from 3pm – 7pm if you leave London but not the same if you leave anywhere else at the same time?

The current price of an Anytime peak return is £308! This means you can get on a train anytime and return anytime within a month. Even if you don’t need that level of flexibly, the cheapest peak time return tickets are roughly £217. Yes you can get 2 singles but there still roughly a total of £210 and you must go on that train there and back.

An Anytime off peak return is £77.30 with the same return anytime within a month. Giving you plenty of flexibility (just remember to avoid the 2nd peak time).

To be fair all these prices are based on a booking within a month of travelling and are for Virgin Trains to and from London. If you book over a month before the prices do lower and 2 months before can be reasonable. Just a shame the discount fares are not that great.

So saying all that, what I worked out early on while at BBC Backstage was, if you take a off peak train and stay in a hotel, its still cheaper than a peak time train fare. Yes believe it or not, and its not one of those crappy unknown hotels, I mean the likes of Holiday Inn, Ibis, Ramada, etc. So not your elite or boutique level hotels but a good hotel with a good bed and breakfast. Plus I don’t mean booking way in advance, I mean booking within 24hours.

The only issue is you have to give up your night before to catch the off peak train.

For many this is a absolute no way/no chance. Its hard enough going down to London to spend a night or two away from the family, let alone prolong it by adding more time away. I totally understand and who am I to judge, but for someone like myself, this is a great opportunity to save some licence fee, sleep soundly over night in a hotel and wake up early for that 10am meeting. Sometimes I even get the chance to meet up with old London friends on the Sunday, which certainly sweetens the deal some what. At least it doesn’t seem like I’m using my personal time for work then.

Frankly I hate getting up early, and there is nothing better than being able to get up later and still make that 10am meeting, without worry about delays or scrapping for the last seat on a stupidly packed peak-time train.

Why you should never pay for online dating 101

match.com - Make Love Happen

I have said it many times but never really wrote about it in detail…Why you should NEVER pay for online dating…

Check out BBC’s Adrian Goldberg’s show recently and the news item…

Customers of one of Britain’s largest online dating companies have voiced concerns that they may have been lured into paying subscriptions by potential dates who did not exist. Men who signed up to a number of sites owned by Cupid plc complained to the BBC’s 5 live Investigates programme that flirty messages they received as free members rapidly tailed off when they became paid-up subscribers. Cupid plc said it did create staff profiles, but only for “the express purpose of monitoring the site for quality assurance and moderation purposes”.

It categorically denied the company sent communications in order to tempt free members to pay subscriptions.

The messages are generic in nature, only appear when your not a subscriber or membership runs out and don’t reply when your signed up and a member? Not only that, many people have experienced this on many dating sites including cupid.com or in my case speedater.com. I say one thing not putting myself in a difficult position… Ockam’s razor.

From online dating insider…

But let’s get one thing straight, many dating sites have engaged in sketchy practices when it comes to growing their user databases. This is an industry-wide issue. Cupid LLC is just the latest to find themselves in the media’s crosshairs. Similar allegations have been made against Yahoo Personals, the Match fake profile lawsuit, Spark Networks and other sites over the years.

I’ve heard lots of stories over the years of how dating sites will do some pretty ridiculous things to achieve enough customer density to get people to stick around long enough to (re)monetize. Some choose to buy fake profiles during the launch process. I think most would agree that this is a terrible idea. Other use automated messaging of different sorts (email, IM, chat). This has been going on for a decade. The truth of the matter is that like any industry, there are always bad actors that will do anything to grow their businesses.

Its worth pointing out Cupid.com is Cupid.LLC which has nothing to do with OkCupid.com, which published many reasons why you should never pay for online dating a while back then removed it.

No matter if its fake profiles sending emails, fake users, fake whatever. The nature of the sending and receiving messages when a subscriber or not, works to keep you on the site and extract money…

Manchester’s got everything except a beach

Castlefield <3

I spent sometime in London over the last few weeks for connected studio and a number of work meetings. I got to see a bunch of people I had not seen for a long while and most asked me…

“So how is Manchester, you don’t regret moving?”

Or something along those lines…

My answer is always something like you should come up and stay sometime, its a great city. Almost 5 years and I’m loving it… The great thing is I’m not the only one spotting the fantastic opportunities available. Specially when it comes to the digital world.

The second factor is the sense that a genuine startup culture is being fostered here. The elements have always been in place for this to occur, particularly that Manchester has the largest student population in Europe with over 100,000 currently studying in the city’s five universities.

These include the University of Manchester, which is playing a really important role in the high-tech space. Meanwhile the University of Salford has recently opened a campus at MediaCityUK, designed to encourage creativity, innovation and collaboration between academics, students, professionals and industry, and develop talent for the creative, media and technology industries.

Between the BBC building a massive base here, TechhubManchester, the stupid amount of bandwidth being put into the city and other stories. Its worth mentioning some of the other things happening…

MadLabUK

Essentially a adult/hacker community space complete with different floors running a number of different community minded events. Its amazing and they have expanded already. The owners (4 of them!) hold it all together and even though they struggle most of the time, theres always something interesting on for the local community. I can’t explain how great Madlab is… Everything from Co-working, room hire to the random Art exhibitions and Hackman meetup. Madlab is also the first place to start dabbling with DIYBio which further demonstrates how great a place it is. Well worth a visiting always…

The Classroom

The Classroom is a welcome treat sitting between the likes of working out of a coffee shop and the likes of Techhub which is much more serious about there startup status. It is a co-working space but closer to the kind of thing I’ve only witnessed in San Francisco. Its still quite new but looks to be growing due to the demand.

Northology

The brain child of Nathan Rae (can be found regularly behind a camera on the Manchester scene), setup to highlight key people in the Manchester scene. I had a similar idea a while ago but it didn’t quite work out (smallworld). However Northology is now on its 9th podcast and doesn’t look like its stopping anytime soon. Who knows maybe it will expand to video one day?

FabLab

Manchester’s fabrication laboratory is next door to where I live. Its still doing a great business and I really do need to find something to build. Easily confused with MadLab but completely different, I need a project just so I can mess with the 3D printer, welders, laser cutters, etc.

…and the many coffee shops and bars in the northern quarter and cholton

There are too many coffee shops and bars in the northern quarter and cholton which are friendly to people who want to work out of them or just chillax on a Sunday afternoon. Unlike many places I’ve been to in other cities which will lock down there wifi, block power points and make you feel like a baby eater for sitting 10mins beyond the end of your allocated tea time. Some of the most notable including… North Tea Power, FYG Deli, Common, Soup Kitchen, Vivid Lounge, North Star cafe, Home Sweet Home, sugar junction, etc, etc…

Relationship fuss

32/365 Status Update

People who have been in a relationship of what ever kind for more that 5 years are lucky. Yes they are matched with someone significant but they don’t have to go through the fuss or even hell of announcing it on fb.

Recent research suggests that the decisions people make about whether and how to represent their love lives on Facebook can often be quite telling. For example, my colleagues and I found that people who post a “Single” relationship status on Facebook have more sexual partners between relationships than those who opt out of posting “Single” on their profile. We also found that people who disclose that they are “In a Relationship” on Facebook also report being more committed to that relationship. Even among married people, we found that those whose primary Facebook photos include their spouses are less likely to split up 6 months later

With previous girlfriends, it was carefully chosen when to change fb statuses. I usually change mine to prove I was no longer dating.

The act of publicly publishing your status (even subconsciously) has a massive profound effect… going by this study a positive effect?

I believe this also applies to publishing things like your new years resolutions. Which I have done for years.

Top 10 Good Tech Habits

don't feel blue


Lifehacker has a list of 10 good tech habits to have… Luckily I seems to have most of them, however its good to share them because lots of my friends have fallen fowl of some of them.

  1. Search Google Like a Pro
    Absolutely! You got to know how to use search engines fully…
  2. Back Up Your Computer
    The amount of friends who don’t do this is terrible. I don’t backup everything but the essential stuff I have backed up on Spideroak. The less important stuff I have backed up on Dropbox.
  3. Use Secure Passwords
    If I got a pound for everytime I’ve shouted Keepass!
  4. Know What Maintenance Your Computer Needs (and Doesn’t Need)
    Of course building PC’s in the past and still doing bits here and there, I certainly feel like I know my stuff, although since I moved to Ubuntu I’ve kind of lost touch with my Windows background.
  5. Be Smart About Hoaxes, Scams, and Internet Myths
    Oh I’m across this, snopes and wikipedia is your friend. Generally if you think its all makes sense
  6. Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi
    I’m aware of the risks and never do anything serious on a non-SSL connection. I’m aware of the sniffers and have been known to throw open wireshark every once in a while.
  7. Avoid Getting Malware (and Spreading It to Others)
    Running Ubuntu over Windows means the chances of Malware is less but I’m also very aware of the risks. I usually avoid passing stuff on by just deleting them but I’ve sometimes I report them. Specially banking phishing.
  8. Keep Your Desktop and Hard Drive Free of Clutter
    Check, all good…
  9. Know When You’re Paying Too Much for a Product
    Yes although I won’t go totally out of my way for a deal, as I put a price on my time and effort
  10. Regularly Audit Your Privacy Settings on Social Networks
    My general rule applies… If its private, it shouldn’t be online. No matter what privacy settings you have check the End user licence agreement! That will tell you everything you need to know…