Archive for November, 2015

Optimal Cupid: Mastering the Hidden Logic of OkCupid is a book by Christopher McKinlay analysing the online dating site OkCupid.

He scraped the site to get data on thousands of profiles and then analysed the data so that he could build the ideal profile. He claims it worked for him, going on 88 dates in three months and is now engaged.

That is all very interesting, although it was not what I was hoping for when I read the book. I bought it thinking it would be an interesting insight into OkCupid, how they do stuff and what interesting information we can glean from a large dataset. That’s not the case at all, it is simply an analysis from a user’s perspective.

It is also a very short book. I polished the whole thing off one evening as a bit of light reading in bed. It will take you maybe an hour, maybe only half to finish it and I have no idea who the foreword is written by, but it feels like he just asked a friend to write a two page ramble.

Therefore I would not recommend the book to anyone, unless finding dates on OkCupid is your last salvation for happiness.

I did apply some of the ideas he suggested to my own OkCupid profile however, so it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. Seems unlikely though given my profile is very clear that I am happy married and only interested in platonic friendship…

In September we headed over to Blackpool for the Monster Raving Loony party conference. I had never been to Blackpool before so I was curious to see what it was like. The answer was slow-going. It took us four hours to get from Leeds to the hotel. it is nice to see a British seaside town thriving though.

The conference was held at Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Who ID’ed both Elina and I, twice. The barmaid asked for our ID, which by sheer luck Elina had on her, and spent ages mulling over whether she could accept a Finnish ID card. Then, just after that, the bouncer came round and checked our ID too.

However, he does win some points because when he found out Elina was from Finland he said he had been to Helsinki. Which is actually in Finland. So many people respond to the news by saying “I’ve been to Sweden”. We couldn’t give a shit if you have been to Sweden, stop saying it!

The party had organised an open top tour bus so we paraded round the town while Howling shouted into a megaphone from the front of the bus.

We got some touristy things in while we were there. We wandered around the piers, all of which had 5 star health ratings. I will be honest, I’m suspicious. We visited the biggest Wetherspoons I had ever seen, across three fours with a lift in the middle. We did the sea life centre and played the free round of pirate mini golf you get with it.

We went for a walk down the sea front, which wasn’t mega-interesting. However, where else can you randomly come across a line or daleks?

Every time we got to a Loony party conference, which is now a sample size of two, someone is advertising discount weddings.

What I found annoying about Blackpool is how backward it is though. I can accept that not everywhere has Uber, though it is annoying. However, no where took credit cards. I am not even talking about street vendors (though a lot of street vendors in Leeds do take credit cards now, and all of them do in Helsinki), but even the restaurant we had dinner in did not take credit cards! Really frustrating.

These look like the creatures out of The Dark Crystal.

That sign at the back read “chairs”.

Why not alpacas?

When you order online from Sainsbury’s you can order root ginger in a distinct number of pieces. However, the size is a little variable. The piece on the left is one week’s piece and the piece on the right is the one from the week before.

National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, takes place every November. The idea is that you commit to writing just under 2,000 words a day and by the end of the month you will have a 50,000 word novel.

I have been meaning to give it a go for years now, so this year I am trying to commit to it. I have an idea and I have outlined the story, which I am hoping will provide me with the framework and remove a major blocker in the motivation. I could be wrong though, we shall see.

I am not committing to writing a full length novel. I have the outline of the story, so I am going to write that and if I finish early then so be it, that will be fine. A short novel is better than no novel at all!