Facebook and Sexual Humiliation

Facebook's advertisments bother me. They get in the way and I'm sure they're designed to humiliate me every time I see the big text saying '34 and still single?'

It's not enough that it could say '34 and single?', no, it has to say '34 and still single?' - kind of rubbing in what someone (a 'friend' if you will) once said, that I was 'unmarryable' (nice, thank you for that). What then happens is Facebook puts up a photo of a woman who is so out of my league that I'd may as well store up hopes of dating Alyson Hannigan (hmmmmmm......)

But this is the complicated path that one must take when trying to navigate Facebook's options. You see, it started off advertising men. It must have assumed that a 34 year old single guy must be gay. Quite an assumption to make. Think about it, Facebook is assuming that because I'm socially inept, I must be gay? What, are gay men socially inept then? I never thought so. Anyway, I'm not gay. So I decided to tell Facebook that I was interested in women. I don't like that word because it suggests that I'm only on Facebook to try and get some action. If not that, the word interested makes me think of someone who hangs around parks, in bushes, with a big sticky out camera lense. I'm not. So, I put in my profile that I'm interested in women.

If I did! Next thing I know, Facebook has broadcast the news to everyone via my profile. Imagine how cringeworthy it would be to walk into a party and announce that you're single and looking for a partner. That's how I felt. I didn't want it announced to everyone, but such was life.

Facebook stopped offering men to me, but it started to kick in with the humiliating. It was like talking to an Apostolic in the annual convention; How old are you!? And you're still single!? What's the matter with you!? Are you normal!? Do you have a condition!? (apostolics are like that, if you don't fit into the mold (or mould ;-) then you're a bit of a freak with whom nobody should make eye contact)

So, how about I take the advert's advice? Why not meet some single girls on Dating Direct, UK's most popular dating site? I don't think so. First, I couldn't join any club that would have someone like me as a member (thank you Woody), but also, I can't get the impression out of my head that all women on these dating sites have retina-burning moustaches and are built like circus strong-men. Christian dating sites are even worse (honest, they do exist and no, you don't want to go there).

My lot means, then, that until the fates direct my path into a collision course, I'll have to live with the humiliation. At least I know that come my next birthday, it'll stop saying 34 and still single? because, naturally, I'll then be 35.

How delightful.

Should He Be Allowed to DriveHere?

Looking at a blog post by one Jacek "Edward" Rutkowski ( see http://ejr44.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-am-deep-in-england-now.html), I wonder not at how we allow so many foreigners into the country (that's cool), but why we allow them to drive if they haven't shown any competence. Here's what this gentleman has to say about driving in the UK;

"driving in UK is a bit strange: the priority has always the one coming from the left, not right like on the continent but what if you try to enter round-about? Then people on the round-about have always higher priority than you who is entering round-about even though technically people on the round-about are on the left side, or how it is? I must learn it some time..."

Yes, maybe you should, like, y'know, learn it before you even start to drive around here and kill someone?

Does this worry you? How do you feel about sharing the road with people who don't know if they've quite understood how the whole 'road thing' works?

I Love Contextual Advertising where Ads Match The Content

And why not advertise Single Arabs next to 'The Ultimate Jew'!?

Betterware - Inspiration for Things That Suck

The other day, I got a catalogue from Betterware popped through the letterbox. Like every catalogue I receive, it got thrown away.

I got something else through the letterbox saying that they cam to pick up the Betterware catalogue and they're sorry they missed me.

Hang on a minute: They're expecting to come and pick it up!? But it's in the bin! If he wants it back, he can look in the bin. The bin is outside, he's outside so there shouldn't be a problem.

He left me a note saying 

"Sorry I missed you when I called today to collect your brochure/deliver your goods. I shall call again on Wed Afternoon. If this time is inconvenient and you wish to contact me, please call me on Paul"

If a complete stranger has the right to put something in my letterbox that looks like a physical manifestation of spam and expect me to read it and give it back, then surely someone somewhere on the well respected internet can demand with equal expectation that I will read the Viagra and Penis/Breast Extension e-mails I receive on an hourly basis and demand a reply!

That's not going to happen. It's my letterbox and I will do what I like with any unsolicited SPAM that comes through it.

Evernote

Introduction

I've been using Evernote for a few days now and I thought I'd put a bit of effort into posting up a description of what it is. This isn't so much a review as it is a rave about how neat an application and service it is.

Put simply, Evernote allows you to store notes. Nice. But the power of the tool is in the kinds of notes it allows you to store, the ways in which it allows you to store them and the ways in which it allows you to retrieve them.

But where to start?

Notable Power

I could start by talking about how the notes are Rich Text so you can apply text formatting such as bold, italics and strikethrough. It also allows you to put photos or images into a note.

Now hang on a minute because this is one of the features of Evernote that blows me away. You see, when you store an image in Evernote, Evernote actually READS the image! What do I mean? Let me give you an example;

You're driving along and you see a sign that says 'Welcome to Oxford'. You like the sign so you take a photo of it with your cameraphone and send it straight to Evernote (more on that later).  So far so good yeah?

After a while, you want to find that photo you took in your Evernote list of notes. Now the thing is, there's probably little use in searching for the filename because it'll be something like IMAGE_00234.JPG or something. However, if you were to carry out a search on the word 'Oxford', the note containing the photo would appear because Evernote will have recognised the text and indexed it! Now that is sweet!

The way I've used it so far is by pasting into a note images from error boxes that have appeared in dialogue boxes. These images have been indexed so now I can search within my notes for references to that error message without ever having types out the message!

Another feature I like is the ability to put a check-box wherever I want one. What this means is that if I'm writing notes, I can place check-boxes within the notes as reminders that therein lies an action or a task that I need to complete. That is also extremely useful.

Your notes are stored on your computer but they can also be synchronised with the Evernote server. I find this particularly cool because that means I can use my Windows based PC in the office to take notes. Then, via the server, I have access to those same notes when I use the Mac OS X client at home. The notes don't have to be synchronised though and if I wish, I can set up notebooks which reside only on a local computer's hard drive.

Transmitting

You have a number of options as far as putting notes into Evernote is concerned;

• Desktop Client
  There is currently a full on desktop client for Windows (XP/Vista) and Mac OS X. These offer the full range of capabilities (The Mac client is catching up) so you can edit, arrange and tag with ease.
• Desktop Web Client
  The web gives you a simple and clean interface in which to create notes. The fact that it is web based means that you can access it anywhere, hence, you can get to your notes anywhere you have a desktop class web browser.
• Mobile Web Client / Windows Mobile Client
  There's a special and simplified mobile web based client if you're using a mobile phone or a Smartphone. If you have a Windows Mobile device (I hate that word, when people say 'device' for a phone, I get the feeling they're like grown men who can't admit that they still play with toys), then you have a native client that you can install and use locally. Apparently, they have a Mobile Java client coming soon and I would like to think that they've got a native client coming for Symbian and the iPhone.
• E-Mail
  Evernote gives each user a unique e-mail address so if you are taking notes in a mail client, you can just send that mail to Evernote and it is automatically stored in your notebook.
• Web Clip
  Whether you use Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari, you can use a special Web Clip bookmark to instantly store a web page or a highlighted part of a web page straight into Evernote.

I personally find this useful in the Notes application on my iPhone where once I've finished, I just e-mail the note to my Evernote account and it's there waiting for me to find it when I need it. The same goes for images which I take and e-mail them to Evernote. Also, since Evernote will have a stab at indexing handwriting, I'm can even snap a photo of my Moleskine and send that in!

Retrieval

There's no point storing notes if you can't get at them. As above, you can use a desktop client (Windows & Mac), a desktop web browser, a mobile web browser and a mobile client. There's also a system being developed where you will be able to access your notes via IMAP! Now that is a great idea and once they've got it sussed (my iPhone just doesn't want to know at the moment), that will be a killer facility.

The Desktop Client

Most of your time will probably be spent with the desktop client (mine is) and that's a tool that really offers some neat little functionality.

The Windows version is the more mature and you can see this with little extras like the activity monitor (a little calendar graph that shows you how busy you have been with creating and saving notes) but the OS X is coming up and is already very useful.

The Internet - It's Dangerous Out There

About six or seven years ago, I was a regular attendee on an MSN forum. Through that forum, someone got hold of me and we started talking on MSN Messenger. I was immediately concerned and worried because I was a twenty six years old and she was thirteen (so she said).

Instantly, I was worried. She started to talk about suicide and how she felt that nobody loved her, so I really felt that I couldn't just block her and disconnect her from my MSN buddy list, but I also knew that it was not a healthy thing for me to be talking so much to a stranger so young, or for her to be talking to a stranger so old.

In the end, I got the Samaritans in touch with her and she vanished. I hope to God that she's Ok and growing into a well rounded person with all her issues sorted.

But what I find fascinating and concerning at the same time is how she was looking for someone to talk to and she didn't seem to care who it was.

The media portrays the internet as a place where dirty old men are looking for youngsters to groom, but what society must face is that it has created a such a loveless environment that these youngsters are actually going out to look for whoever will listen. In the case of the young lady I just mentioned, I guess she was lucky that I wasn't a predator, but what if I was? What if she had gotten in touch with someone who was more interested in something that would ruin her?

While we must try and clear the streets and (virtual) highways of those who would seek to harm vulnerable people, something also has to be done to address the needs of those who become vulnerable because of a society that tells them they're worthless unless they are economically active.

What has prompted this is a video and a person I have stumbled across on YouTube, someone I shan't mention here, but it has alarmed me at how people are looking to belong and find hope. The internet will only give a sugar coated pill to take the pain away for a few hours, the TV and video games just mask the pain with a numbness and everything else just gets given the 'WOTEVA' treatment.

People are hurting and we think that we can heal them by giving them a webcam and an internet connection?

People who live for state benefits, who hang around bus stops drinking beer, who would rather buy three rings for each finger rather than a baked potato, who would rather vote for Big Brother than a politician who actually cares, who let their toddlers roam the streets at ten in the evening and who only wreck their own houses for the insurance they can get are not the cause of a rotten society, but the symptoms.

I'm not a pinko liberal and I certainly don't think we should molly-coddle people who would rather watch TV and drink beer all day in a house that has more fleas than Tony Blair has teeth, but when we tell people to pull their socks up, we need to try and identify the things that are making them not want to pull their socks up in the first place.

When we start identifying and addressing the underlying causes of society's ills, we may then find that places like the internet are much safer because there will be fewer people looking for love, and fewer people looking for 'love'.