Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture » Random

We are perfect for each other – really, who says?

tulip — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:54:30 +0000

This article made me chuckle to myself. As someone who has the ability to attract only those women that my friends affectionately call ‘nutters’ the idea of having a ‘grown-up’ sorting things out for me is actually getting to be appealing. I remember a few years ago a friend of mine from university asked his parents to arrange a marriage for him. At the time I was totally amazed as he had spent his entire time running around after blondes and now here he was asking his parents to find him someone from back in Mauritius. When I asked him he confessed “I’m just fed up with all this relationship crap. I just want one that is…you know?” “Ah yeah, yeah, I know” I said in reply, but I must admit that back then I didn’t have a clue what he was on about. However, after another false start of a relationship and another tick added onto my cynicism chart, I am now really getting to understand what he meant.

In the article they mention that the western approach to letting kids get on with sorting out their own relationships as opposed to other cultures where the parents are involved in ‘approving’ the relationship. I must admit, this is still not something I would be too happy with, I mean I can’t even agree with my parents about my choice of car and I know full well they have been less than happy with the girlfriends of mine they have met….although it must be said they probably have a point….about the girlfriends, not the cars!! Still somehow the idea of having a completely data driven approach does appeal to me. The reason? Well firstly, and spoken like a true geek, there have been some phenominal successes in data driven decision systems recently in everything from scouting baseball players to much of the field of genetics. The second is that if you can find one of these systems that you think might work, then the women that go in for it might have a similar outlook on life.

Anyway, in my quest for knowledge on meeting Miss Right (or at least not Miss Borderline-psychotic) I spoke to one of my friends who has used eHarmony. The results of this highly statistically significant survey of one, showed that they did do pretty well in getting her together with people she could talk to, although the X factor was generally missing. She did confide that there was one, a German of all things, she liked until the good-night kiss, which felt more like he was trying to suck her face off….

Scientologists, a Dangerous Cult? Ask Google….

tulip — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:12:03 +0000

Ever heard of Bombing Google? They way Google used to work was to associate the text around the links with the link itself, so you could actually get some idea of the context the link was in, therefore increasing it’s relevancy…or so the theory went. This meant that if you were searching for something like Baked Beans and all the links to Heinz said something like ‘Click here for Baked Beans’ you knew that there was a link between them even though there is not actually any mention of baked beans in the word ‘heinz’. This all worked beautifully until a bright spark realized that if enough people linked to a specific page with a specific text around it, then Google would rank them highly if you searched on the text. So there was a concerted campaign to associate the words ‘Misearble Failure’ with a link to George W Bush’s bio on the White House website…..it worked remarkably well and even started ranking at the top for the word failure alone!

So, about a year ago Google introduced a few changes to their algorithm to stop this happening again…..let’s see how they have done, try typing ‘Dangerous Cult’ into Google and see what comes up, or just click this link. Just don’t say we never do anything for you

I think we are ready for the next step in our relationship….Facebook

tulip — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01:57:30 +0000

I was reading this article about Facebook relationships and a few things struck me. The first, and most obvious, concerns the bloke that cheated on his girlfriend only to have the woman he cheated on her with look him up on Facebook….ouch, but what an idiot (although not as much of an idiot as this guy….you will need to register to read the thread, but it is very funny and definitely NSFW!)

Secondly, how many of my friends now have the ‘In a relationship with’ or ‘Married to’ status on their profiles. I’m a bit crap when it comes to long term relationships, they just don’t seem to work out that way….although they do seem to end in more unusual ways than most it must be said, which goes some way to prove my mate’s theory that the main thing I look for in a woman is the car crash potential! Anyway, getting back to the point, this means that every 5 years or so I have to make a concerted effort to go and make new friends as the ones I made in the previous 5 years have all settled down. I’m not sure why, but you can be assured that as soon as one or two go, most of the remainder will either settle down or split up in quick succession. I guess there is nothing like a wedding to bring your relationship into focus!! Right now I am in the midst of one of these moments. This time is slightly different though as I am thinking of making a bigger change and heading for another country, it might also have something to do with sitting through another dreary winter in the UK, but if I am going to have to make that much effort, I may as well do it somewhere more fun.

At the moment the main contenders are New York, where I lived for a couple of years around the millenium, and Australia; either Sydney or Melbourne really as I can’t be bothered with anywhere smaller than that. As I have mentioned before my brother lives in Melbourne and I have a few friends in Sydney (and Howard isn’t PM there anymore!!) The problem with Australia is that I am not even vaguely exotic there – 99.97% of Australians have spent at least a year ‘doing’ Europe, which mainly consists of living 14 to a room in Earl’s Court, hanging around in Walkabout bars and whinging about whinging Poms. This means that they are pretty much sick to death of the site/sound of us by the time they go back home, so whenever we turn up down there, they don’t exactly welcome us with open arms. On this front, New York holds one very big advantage - when you open your mouth, there is actually a fairly decent percentage of the populous that is a bit Anglophile. OK so the words ‘I just love your accent’ aren’t quite what you think, it has nothing to do with your smooth charm, but much more to do with their complete and utter inability to understand a word you have said…..which is another benefit when you talk as much rubbish as I do, the last thing you want is for people to realise what you actually said!

So, that is settled then, New York it is? Well it would be except that being English makes it pretty easy to get a visa for Australia, but not for the USA – I don’t want to get a ‘proper job’ as I hated the working environment there (macho, politics rule and 2 weeks holiday a year…2 weeks!) and I have got too used to keeping my own hours and doing my own thing. I can’t even apply for the Green Card lottery there as I am not ‘ethnically diverse’ enough! As for a Green Card wedding, have I mentioned my er enviable ability on the relationship front? Also I do like Australia and Australians in general…..ah sod it, maybe I should try somewhere completely new, how about Bratislava?

Cyber Monday, a self-fulfilling prophecy?

tulip — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:49:50 +0000

Cyber Monday – what the !*&^ are you going on about? Well apparently over in the US retailers noticed that the Monday after Thanksgiving (during which time almost the entire country shuts down) saw an uptick in the sales at online stores. My friend that runs bathroomwall t-shirts has noticed that Monday mornings are one of his busiest days, so you can imagine that after a big holiday this is accentuated as people look for any excuse not to go back to work just yet and have probably just seen the new gadgets and gizmos that their friends and family have (and we can’t have that now can we?) So they just nip online to catch up on the news and have a coffee before getting down to ‘work’…oh yeah and a quick check on Amazon.com

However, this little phenomenon would probably just have remained in the realm of online retailers, except that around 2005 the online division of the National Retailer’s Federation decided to brand it as Cyber Monday and the retailers, ever quick to spot an opportunity, have now started Cyber Monday sales. This will lead to greater awareness of the day itself and the more people shopping online and hence greater awareness….. I think this is what people call a Black Swan!

Wot no domain name

tulip — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:35:55 +0000

I still find this amazing. The internet and domain names have been with us for a while and yet people still don’t realise the value of getting the right names. Imagine, if you will, that you are the people back in the 19th Century having made your stake to some land in the US. As more people arrive, the value of the land increases, obvious really. In fact back then the railway baron’s would forcibly ‘negotiate’ the land away from the owners when it became obvious what they had. Fast forward to the internet and domain names are essentially the same thing, but right now there are an awful lot of major brands that do not have the rights to the domain names relevant to them, just have a quick look here. Now some of them are people that have at least some realisation of the value of the domain they are sitting on, cowboys.com for example was a site that sells things to do with cowboys, but they have recently sold it to the Dallas Cowboys. However if you were sitting on Angels.com, wouldn’t you want to do a little more with it than that?

Viagra Spam from Pfizer?

tulip — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:58:37 +0000

It’s not been a good time for IT security at Pfizer. After admitting to having 34000 employees data stolen by a former employee (although they believe that it is not being used for any nefarious purposes…so that’s all OK then isn’t it!!) and a P2P app letting 17000 employees data slip….oh yeah and a couple of company laptops with a load more employee data going missing they are then caught by some trojan applications hi-jacking some of their PCs and sending out spam for fake watches, penis enlaregement and, naturally, Viagra. Strangley though, the people that hijacked them did not know they were using Pfizer PCs as they used fake e-mail addresses rather than sending them from real Pfizer ones….they must now be a bit on the gutted side! Still if Pfizer keeps up it’s current record with security they should get another chance soon….

Nail Biting and other body focused repetitive behaviors

tulip — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:23:56 +0000

I found this article about a guy in the Netherlands called Alain-Raymond van Abbe, who claims he has developed a method to combat these types of behaviour. When Iwas younger I was a terrible nail biter, but as I have, ahem, matured, I only have the occasional nibble these days. Apparently this is pretty common as you get older you learn to deal with anxieties/boredom in other ways, which will probably explain my smack habit*.

The problem actually feeds itself as a person that is anxious bites their nails/skin and then feels anxious about the way their hands look and so feel more anxious. So the way he deal with it is two-fold. The first is to inhibit your ability to bite your nails with a tooth guard. Apparently it is barely noticeable and can be removed to allow you to eat, but stops you being able to bite your nails. Once you have had this in for about 4 weeks the brain adapts to curb the impulse to bite your nails as it likes being frustrated even more! He then offers a amnicurist service to enhance the appearance of the sufferes nails to make them less anxious about their appearance too. How much for all this? Prices got to as much as €500 for a course of treatments

*For those suffering an accute sense of humour bypass, yes that was a joke. I wouldn’t touch heroin, I use crack.

Giant Spider Web and no it’s nothing to do with Peter Jackson

tulip — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:49:48 +0000

A huge, and I mean huge, spider’s web has been found over a path in Lake Tawakoni State Park, Texas. Apparently when it was first found it was a white sheet and looked etherially beautiful, but since then it has become covered in mosquito carcuses and it even sounds like they are screaming. The 200m curtain of silk has mystified the experts as they don’t know if they really are looking at a plot for the next Stephen King novel or some less scary spiders that just co-operate to build a very big web, but that’s nowhere near as exciting, so I am going to stick with a nice, tabloid friendly ‘ARRRGGHH, giant spiders found in Texas’ approach

Inuendo overload

tulip — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:05:37 +0000

I just could not decide on a title for this - it works in just too many ways….so lets have a competition. Answers on a postcard (or in the comments section below, your choice) the winner gets, um their name mentioned on this site, something more valuable than anything else I would give away for this

Ooooh, ahhhh it’s the Perseids 2007

tulip — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 23:34:05 +0000

Why wait for November, when you can stare up at the sky for pretty streaks of light, but without the bangs that scare your dogs? Yes, kids, it’s the time you’ve all waited for, it’s the annual Perseid meteor shower…..
According to an article on the beeb it will be visible from Saturday night through to Tuesday morning, reaching it’s peak in the early hours of Monday….weather permitting! Apparently we might even be able to see it in our light polluted skies here in London. Anyone know where I can get any sparklers?