Tag: matching

An update on where I have been recently (post R&D)

Ian and Alison in a hotel bar
My loving supportive partner Alison while Japanese whiskey tasting

Its been around 4 months since I officially left BBC R&D. Its been a while since I did a catch up of where I am and a lot has happened.

First of all I have setup a limited company, one of the main reasons is to seriously pursue how to build the public space as an viable alternative to commercial and government space.

A large part of this is working with others on the notion of a digital public space. One of the leaders in this space is New_Public and I’m really excited to announce, I am going to be working with them to achieve their open source plans. As most of you know, open source isn’t just about the code but about the community and everything which surrounds it. Hence my time running BBC Backstage, is certainly useful.

On the digital legacy front following on from the Republica panel discussion with Identity 2.0 and Linn. I have been thinking about the letter of wishes and how it could actually work in line with HDI (human data interaction) and public values? Its actually something I felt a public service company like the BBC could transform, as it screams public value but it wasn’t to be.

To this I entered my thoughts into a call for participation with the Mydata conference and happy to say they really liked it as a workshop. Which means in September, I will host a workshop around the notion of a machine readable letter of wishes. I am hopefully going to be joined by a fellow digital legacy collaborator but prepared to run it alone.
Been seriously thinking about how to make this real and a standard format seems the best way to go. What software/services which can read and execute this fungible document, is something for others; but a prototype is perfectly possible. Even if it scratches my own itch, it could also help me play/learn with some of the new declarative (React, Vue.js, Xproc) or even object-originated programming languages/frameworks (Rust).

In a similar space, of me rethinking what a public service company could do to be more relevant in the age of endless scroll, enshittification and a loneliness epidemic; as touched on in the future of social report recently.

I have had an enduring eye on matching and dating with true public value. There is so much I have written about it over time and even have a very long bookmark feed of interesting points.

With all this, I have been writing my own book about this all and pretty much finished. Can I also say how amazing Librewrite has gotten for editing complex books like this…

In the last few months I submitted my book to Conduit Books and signed up to a course by Kenyon author services. Mainly to rethink how I proactively encourage people to buy the book or at least read it. Considered going through the publishers and agent book again but I just don’t have the time, plus I have a plan of action which includes a online dating manifesto, potential podcast and maybe a potential dating service which clings to public values and the HDI principles mentioned before. Some of this might come sooner than expected, as I actually mentioned the dating manifesto (borrowed heavily from Julia) and even showed the cover & title (tbc) to my book at the PublicSpaces conference, during the lunch break.

The manifesto which will be collaborative, will feature at the end of the book and is something  Mydata is interested in because its very related to HDI and use of data. I did put it in as a session but it may work better as a short workshop. Watch this space…

View on Mastodon

I have had a long relationship with Mozilla via the festival (Mozfest), which this year goes global in Barcelona in November. Unfortunately the call for participation has closed and the wrangling part has started. The spacewrangler role is very important, as we are the face and hearts of the festival. One thing which concerned the spacewranglers was the price of the tickets compared to 2019 ticket prices in London. Yes that was a while ago ,a lot has happened including a pandemic and global inflation. However the wranglers have pushed back on the Mozilla foundation. Mozilla have listened and replied with a number of changes including community badges which are a similar price to the ones in London in 2019!

Lets be honest this is a deal, especially with all the challenges Mozilla is facing right now. I would grab your community ticket for €45 now and join us as we write the internet’s next chapter.

Running a limited business comes with a bunch of administrative challenges including accounting. Originally I thought I could use something open and self host it but, the realisation that no accountant will use it and even if I transfer it to something like Xero, Freeagent or Quickbooks. They would need to run through the whole thing again. So I am using Quickbooks for now and seeking a good accountant which isn’t too expensive, can deal with international clients (I have spent far too much time trying to understand and fill in the W-8BEN-E form) and manage my lack of interest in taxes. The notion of a portfolio career keeps coming up, but its really not me… However I do generally have quite a few projects going on at once. This post is testament to this.

In the meanwhile, I have been travelling a lot, my carbon footprint isn’t great but I did recently go to southern France. Somewhere re-reading my school report I wanted to live. Crazy eh?

Framework laptop with ubuntu with my background

In the background, I have made a lot of changes to my self hosting setup. I still need to fix quite a few things including my Yunohost Pi server which was broken due to the Debian bookworm update. I decided my mixgarden should just be a Peertube instance which makes a lot of sense. I certainly need to sort out my docker setup because that would make things so much easier. In the meanwhile I have finally settled on Anytype for my personal knowledge store and Vikunja for tasks and kambam. My Framework laptop is going well, especially with a 64gig of memory now, however Ubuntu is doing strange things with the keyboard while using Wayland.
Considering blogging more and setting up separate spaces for the publicservice internet notes, business stuff (which I really need to sort out) and a few other things.

Another strange thing, I just started is baking my own Sourdough bread. Its early days but will attempt my first loaf tomorrow. Yes I know its years after everyone was doing it during the pandemic but hopefully I’ll get into it.

There is so much more but not for public blogging right now. I’m still seeing friends when ever possible, mainly in the UK but when I’m out of the country, catching up with international friends.

I’m very fortunate to have a loving, caring and understanding partner, who is helping me through all this insane amount of change.

Don’t miss out: Mozilla Festival 2023’s call for proposals ends 16 Dec

Ian Quote text “I appreciate that Mozilla runs the festival in the open. It’s transparency to the tenth degree. I really appreciate that they’re trying this stuff, seeing where it goes, and kind of always in this constant cycle of, “Let’s try this, see how it goes. Let’s build on it or decide if it’s not for us.” Feedback is quick and used well”Its a tricky one to remember because of the changes over the last few years but the Mozilla Festival will be back in March 2023 as a virtual festival complete with a number of in person events during the same year.

Because of the March virtual festival, the call for proposals is live and waiting.

I’m thinking about 2 or 3 proposals right now.

  1. The public service internet
  2. Design a client to take full advantage of the fediverse
  3. Rethinking how we match people for the benefit of all

Sure more will come along but the community spotlight around transparency has me thinking even more, how these can benefit from transparency.

Exposing online dating lies with burritos

dating-against-humanity-46-638

It started as a April Fools’ Day Prank but it may have exposed something they never talk about online dating. The truth that the matching algorithms are actually rubbish…

Almost every major dating site (including several Burrit-oh took a swipe at in a press release) touts the importance of sophisticated matching algorithms. They’re praised as the most effective way to pair people based on some “deeper” measure of interests or personality that guarantee “real” compatibility.

But Burrit-oh? Well, it’s anything but sophisticated. The algorithm is as basic as it gets, and it’s built on the flimsiest of foundations, and yet… users are still hitting it off. This supports the finding, long promoted by social scientists, that matching algorithms aren’t really science – they’re just good marketing. Behold, the unbeatable power of the burritos.

Burrit-oh, exposes the fact that once you connect people around something (burritos, beards, film tastes, journey to work, type of phone, almost anything) they find interesting (social object style). The chances they will fall for each other; birthday paradox style as much as the custom expensive algoithms. Aka those custom algorithms most of the dating sites go on about so much is bollox and what are you paying?

Is a truly blind date a real thing?

Blind Date 2

Mr30notsoflirty recently wrote about The magic of a blind date, which I had some thoughts about. Too many to put in a tweet.

These days, blind dates have become a rare commodity. In an age of social media, it’s so easy to share a photo or run a little background check on Google or Facebook. You can’t even search on Tinder without judging someone based on your so-called FB friends.

A truly blind date has become an endangered species… you actually have to try hard to maintain that mystique, that surprise, the opportunity to meet someone you know nothing about…. with no judgments or preconceptions, just the excitement of the unknown.

I read this and laughed a little, only because I was about to go one hell of a first date. No idea who she was where she was from or anything. However I do get mr30’s main point, it’s easy and very tempting to Google the person. I mean why wouldn’t you? Knowledge is power right?

Yes its power but it certainly encourages creeping thoughts too.

There have been women who have googled me, as I tend to use cubicgarden for most things.

I tend to prefer the this me, love me or hate me; although I totally understand identity is fluid and in certain contexts you may want to adopt a different identity.

Anyway sometimes I find out they have made up their mind on something they have read. No chance to reply just see you later. It’s a shame for them really; this is why I’m a little more flexible about these things. Heck I have ignored somethings as I don’t want to judge too harshly, giving the other person a chance at least. I know most people are not like me. That’s why I’m sympathetic to what Mr 30 has written.

Serendipity is great (it makes us so feel alive, even if we are living it through others I guess) and that’s what makes blind dates exciting.

I’m hearing Mr 30, but question how blind the dates are there is a someone/something doing some filtering and matching on something. Even if random, each person usually want to know why they should go along. Even if it’s the verbal/written equivalent of “she/he/they are perfect for you.” (I could delve into the match maker expert/algorithms problem but won’t today).

Can you imagine, the opposite? “Well she/he/they are a random single person, it could work?” No neither can I…!

I once went on a first date purely on the notion the woman needed to fulfill a dating quota for a wager. Never met her before, never ever heard of her… But it was the connection with the sister, which I had met before; which had me convicted. Any member of this family must be worth a first date. And no I didn’t Google her… I should put that date up on dating yarns.

Was it truly/totally blind? Well I guess, most would say yes but there’s always something connecting or a relation. How strong that is dependant on the threshold of the people/end points. If we are talking about truly blind then that threshold needs to be zero… ha! Now that would be interesting. Although I know friends who have contacted people on OKCupid with the highest enemy percentage for kicks and giggles.

I contest, there never was truly blind dates, there’s always something which connects you. it’s just hope low your threshold can handle.

No compelling evidence online dating algorithms work

Shoreditch dating backlash?

Herb highlighted this on Facebook the other day. It seems to be some shoreditch protest against online dating. I couldn’t find anything else about it, so it might all be a flash in a very small pan but they have good reason to protest.

I quoted in my Primeconf Best of British talk

“There is no compelling scientific research indicating online dating algorithms work.”

This fact has not been lost on many others. I’m not saying online dating isn’t a bad way to meet someone (heck I still use it) however the chances are about the same as meeting someone on any of the other social networks, chatrooms, forums, etc

Online dating simply connects people, but so does Facebook, twitter, Google+, etc, etc… and they are free to use (yes they use and sell our data but at least they don’t do that and charge us for the privilege!)

The compelling part reminds me of what Derren Brown was talking about at the infamous show.

“Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence…”

Herb Kim found out where the pictures come from…
It was a protest against ‘Online Dating’ by @rendeevoo – an app that encourages you to ‘Date Offline’ with one click.
As I thought it was a publicly stunt by another dating company trying to convince people to use their service not the rest… Pretty lame, especially because it didn’t make any news and I couldn’t find out who did it… Poor!

#SMC_MCR 5min talk – Love in the wild?

Love in the wild

I gave this talk at Social Media Cafe (#SMC_MCR) it lasted longer than I expected but generally its about my believe in Maths and science to match people for the purposes of love. Most of its been said here before.

At the end of the slides I make reference to a couple who got together despite the year of making love crazyness but I’m sad to say they didn’t stay together… So maybe Annie/Sandra Bullock was right “relationships that start under intense circumstances, they never last”

I also make reference to the current worries/concerns over online matchmaking claims… I certainly feel that since Match.com bought OKCupid the level of the matching has certainly gotten worst, can’t quite put my finger on exactly whats wrong but I’m certainly feeling its not all fun times in online dating right now, even with the OKcupid mobile application.

Lastly I specially like Tom Morris‘s very detailed comment in reply to my question about matching people with science…

The answer to the question? Probably no, not at the moment, and if someone says that they can, definitely not. But that could change if psychology improves.

We are attracted to each other for complex, multi-faceted reasons. There’s obviously sexual attraction, but you can also be attracted to someone because you think they are a fun, interesting person… even if they aren’t someone you would naturally find physically attractive. The sexual attraction is easy enough to work out and self-report: you can sit down and write a list of characteristics you find physically attractive: gender, height, build, race, hair colour, whether they are into crazy fetishes – that stuff is all fairly easy to self-report.

But there is plenty of stuff about human psychology we don’t know yet. Matching people up based on self-reported questions only gets you so far. People aren’t necessarily honest in questions, and there are a whole stack of cognitive biases. Writing psychological survey questions is hard. You can have four questions which logically are the same, but if you phrase them slightly differently, you get completely different responses. You can put questions in the survey in different orders and get different responses, mix them in with priming questions and get different responses.

And if you were to come up with a matching algorithm, you’d have to compare it to a control. But there’s a huge number of other factors: you turn up for the date, and the music at the club or restaurant is not to your taste, or the food was a bit off, or you’ve had a shit day at work… and so you respond differently than the other person.

People don’t know what they want: you might say you want someone the same age, but you’ve never tried having a relationship with someone 7-10 years older or younger than you. Everything Eli Pariser has said about filter bubbles: that’s not just restricted to web content, but people too. If you made two algorithms, one for finding someone for sex and another for relationships, even people who just want sex would end up using the relationship one because they don’t want to seem tacky. Matching people is just difficult.

Absolutely… and I think the idea of using Augmented reality technologies in combination with dating data is a interesting solution and maybe the future of online dating?