Bush Flowers

The Skin is our largest organ but we don’t always treat it as well as we should. Today we discuss a few tips inside and out to find a new glowing you!

Our skin, our largest organ takes the brunt and protects the rest of us. For most, when we were children it took a lot of bruising and scrapes and scratches followed by hormonal imbalances mostly in our teens. Now that we are older it may not heal as quickly or be as elastic but it still protects us from an ongoing chemical onslaught. A women’s skin absorbs on average about 2.5kg of creams and cosmetics each year. Then we have Chlorine and Fluoride in our water and then we need to account for all the chemicals and GMOs in our food.

No wonder we are drowning in a slurry of disease. Our bodies simply cannot process that sort of chemical onslaught. Our skin detoxes and expels whatever it can, mostly through rashes, outbreaks, sweat and odour. Some chemicals stay in our bodies usually stored in fat tissue and the build-up just increases. So what can we do to Help?

This is part of the reason behind creating Cooking Pot the iPhone App. The App shows you how EASY it is to eat Healthy, Wholesome, Sustainable food on a Budget and helps you help yourself. It’s Easy to Eat Well and stay Healthy and Cooking Pot shows you how it doesn’t have to take up a lot of your time. It’s a win-win and now I should be saying “take up the challenge” but instead I’m wondering how “convenience” can be termed a “challenge”?

Here are 3 considerations:

OK! The first one is easy to deal with. Creams and cosmetics are used everyday but can just as easily be substituted with natural formulas. You also need to ask yourself if you really need to wear That much. Yes society has conditioned us into thinking that women who don’t wear make-up are slobs and don’t take care of themselves. How about stepping somewhere in the middle and reducing cremes and make-up and substituting with organic formulas or learning to make some of your own?

You might think that’s easy for me to say, when I just sit behind a screen. Well I think I’m lucky enough for my skin to react to these chemical cocktails. If I can’t eat it I don’t put it on my skin and I don’t have a problem. If I choose to wear make-up etc I pay the price – outbreaks, itchiness, swelling and stinging. I usually save this for special occasions like weddings etc every few years which just helps me remember why I opted not to wear any.

The second is Water. We are made up of 70% water and that means we have to drink enough of it each day to flush out toxins and re-hydrate our skin. The quality of water we choose to drink and wash in now becomes very important. Chloride can be easily removed by a simple filter or by leaving it to stand for a few hours in open air. Fluoride removal on the other had is much more involved and requires reverse osmosis filtration and a storage tank to store the purified water. An under-sink filter needs 6 minutes and 4 litres of tap water to produce 1 litre of pure water. There are also filters that condense air particles to water. These are more expensive.

So the third way to improve the quality of our skin is food. Here we have the least bit of control unless we grow it ourselves and make sure the food we consume is nutrient-rich and free of chemicals. Sure, Cooking Pot the iPhone App helps with Quick and Easy food ideas with easy to follow recipes. It has a full-featured Shopping List to save Time and Money while shopping but no matter how delicious the recipes are, the nutrient content depends on the ingredients we choose, where they came from and how they were cultivated.

Your skin is your choice, what will you choose?

Thanks for reading and please post your comments!! Don’t forget to tell your friends and share this link. They might like it too!

To download Cooking Pot the iPhone App click here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cookingpot/id586052832?ls=1&mt=8

You can share your projects and earn badges. I haven’t added anything since I only post about my garden once a week, but I am working on a project that I’m planning to post when I’m done.

It’s definitely an app worth checking out, and for more than just seeing my garden post It looks like this app is relatively new and there’s not a “follow” option, but it does take you directly to that person’s blog so you can take it from there. The app is free and you can start posting right away.

I believe the app is only available on the iPhone so if you have that and you think you would be interested in such a thing, you should definitely go check it out. I’m hoping to have my projects up by the end of the week!

While Apple has long since banned apps mimicking its own App Store, TinyTap’s “app store” shouldn’t be of concern – it’s really more about selling additional content through in-app purchases than it is about promoting applications for profit or to game Apple’s charts, which was the problem Apple had aimed to address.

Instead, users can now build their own games or interactive stories using TinyTap’s various game engines and included content, as well as customize those games with their own photos, camera shots, music, narration and more. For younger children, it’s a small step towards teaching them the concept of how games are made, using simple templates and step-by-step game-building wizards. However, this is no “kids learning-to-code” program, as TinyTap is a visual game builder meant for children ages four and older, to give you an idea of its target market.

But the new TinyTap Social Market is different. The resource is used primarily by teachers and parents to promote their own creations. Since its launch two weeks ago, over 5,000 games have been shared here – 45 percent are English, 25 percent Spanish, and 10 percent are Chinese, the company says. Publishing here is currently free, but may be a paid service in the future.

Users also receive their own profiles to promote their educational games. For example, here’s a school in the U.K. that produced a series of astronomy games; here are games produced by a teacher for assessing visual perception; here are some games in Chinese; and here are Spanish games with original illustrations.

Many of these games today are sold for free, with just a few customers using the in-app purchase option, which has only been available upon review and request, co-founder Yogev Shelly tells us. Kids animation studio TuTiTu is one early adopter, and another for-sale game was built by a baby’s toy company, which Shelly is not permitted to disclose by name. The app review process takes around three days, and the games sell for $0.99+.

Shelly says TinyTap’s install base has just crossed over 200,000 (60 percent active), and has been growing at 500 percent per month. The team hopes this number will now grow further with the official launch of the marketplace and the debut of the iPhone version of the application, he adds.

Also new today is another service that will allow these creators to reach the larger App Store market, by having TinyTap package their game as standalone apps for $199. (More on that here.) While it’s doubtful that such a move would result in the next big kids gaming hit, it could be a good starting point for testing the waters of the larger market before committing to more serious app development, or just for more casual game-development efforts in general.

The updated version of TinyTap, now iPhone-optimized, is available here.

You very likely haven’t heard about fp yet (we are taking things slow) but if you have, and you’ve tried it, we hope you like it!

fp is a free social calendar app for the iPhone. It’s all about simplicity; taking the headache out of arranging your social life, so you have more time to enjoy with your friends.

Most apps being launched today are overly complicated and they’re getting more and more ludicrous names (hello Synkmonkey). We think it’s time to take things back to basics. So we’ve simplified our app and given it a name that means something. So you know what it’s all about from the title…no explanation necessary!

That’s not to say that fp isn’t any good because it’s simple, quite the opposite in fact. It still has a host of useful features but because of it’s simplicity  it’s quick and easy to use, and that saves you time!

To see more details of the features that make fp so useful check out our app on the App Store https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/friendplanner/id614444021?mt=8

Thanks for reading!

Team FP  

Anyways, I’ll post photos of them whenever I finish.

What’s on your knitting needles now?

The world seems to have evolved from just internet dating.  We’re far too lazy to log onto a PC and search for love so now we can find love in the palm of our hands.  The iPhone.  Whatever happened to a blind date?

Look for yourself; there are apps in abundance that searches the local area for other lonely hearts for the plucking.  Unfortunately the lonely hearts, rather in hope of being plucked, would rather be fucked.  There in lies the problem.  So, ladies in gentlemen, in your hands, I present to you your little black book.

I form the very niche 1% who when using these apps is genuinely looking for a friendly chat, a person to talk to, connect with.  I repeat from my last post, I am in no way ready for the ‘dating world’ yet.  Any form of dating would be wrong to the other person when my heart is still with another, a former flame, a former soulmate.  That being said it never does any harm to talk so I bit the bullet and downloaded the app.  Just like that.  You can see how addictive this style of dating really is.  I added a photo, a blurb, some details and voila, I was out there.  Maybe I was too harsh, ‘I’m using this app to make friends.  I’m not interested in seeing you naked and if your profile picture is of you topless whilst staring at yourself in the mirror then you should probably save the time and not message me’.  Better to be honest right?  I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time as much as I didn’t want my time wasted either.  Lets keep it clean, please.  Bizarrely enough this is how I met ‘him’, so for me it was back to the drawing board.

Within a few days I had met someone.  Lee.  He had recently split from his long term boyfriend, who having lived together in Spain for years decided that one partner wasn’t enough so had an affair.  Viva España indeed.  Lee packed up and moved home to (not-so-sunny) England.  We had one thing in common; heartache.  We seemed to really hit it off, both having many things in common.  Even our detest of the gherkin.  I mean really, when Ronald McDonald made the perfect burger why did he add a pickled cucumber?  Oh, the second thing in common?  Our love for Ronald.  I never said I was classy…

I had begun talking to Lee when I was reintroduced to Graham.  I returned from my night at Graham’s on Saturday.  Finally the boiler man was here to fix my no hot water issue, coincidentally at the same time my good friend Zoe paid a visit.  We’ve been friends for years, since school actually.  I hadn’t seen Zoe much since the breakup and although she was fully aware of what had happened we still hadn’t spoke for a long time. Rewind a year ago and Zoe was practically my roommate.  When ‘he’ was away in America she moved in with me.  She was recently single herself so we both appreciated the company.  These days she’s off the market and in a long-term relationship.  Oh how the tides have turned.

‘I feel like I should text him.  I’ve been thinking about it for a while but didn’t want to do it without your permission’, she explained.

Sweet.  Like I’ve explained to all my family and friends, I’m more than happy for them to stay in contact with ‘him’, be it via Facebook or messages, as long as I don’t have to hear about it.  I don’t wish to hear when he falls in love, when they move in together and have the perfect wedding.  To me this seems perfectly fair.  I explained this to Zoe and she understood.

It was Sunday, I had no plans, so rather than sit at home and think about why the colour of the sky was blue I went out with my family for the day.  I had been texting Lee for quite some time.  Friendly, funny and completely hassle-free communication.  He asked me earlier in the day if I wanted to see a movie in the afternoon.  If this were a guy I was flirting with I’d be a nervous wreck.  I’d be unable to hold down any food and would be stressing about every response I sent him, trying to make it funny, charming and nonchalant.  I was the complete opposite with Lee and this is one of the reasons I knew that I only saw him as a potential friend.  Nothing more.  I came home in the afternoon after spending it with my family.  I was exhausted.  Fuck it.  I had nothing to lose, it was just a film at the cinema and if I really didn’t like him then at least the silence whilst watching the film would be a good enough excuse not to talk.  I gave him my address and he was on his way to pick me up.

Photos are never a true representation of how someone looks.  When you see someone in the flesh you get to see every angle and every blemish.  Lee walked up to my door.  I gave him a hug.  His photo never showed how feminine he was.  Still, this is just a friend.  He could do a twirl, splits and somersault and I still wouldn’t care.  We didn’t have much time to talk; we were already running late for the 7pm showing.  Lee jumped (not literally) into my car and I drove us to the cinema.  I could tell he was nervous so my verbal diarrhea kicked in just in time.  Usually this would be a bad thing but at least this time it would fill any potential awkward silences.   This isn’t a date, technically he’s not a friend, so who pays for the ticket?  Do we each get our own?  I’m older so do I offer to pay?  THANK YOU SELF SERVICE MACHINES! We each queued at our own machine and purchased our tickets.  The room was empty, we had plenty of empty seats to choose from.  Trying to avoid the back row I found us some seats at the front.  Well that was two hours of my life I would never get back again. What an awful movie.  We shared our distaste on the way back to mine where I invited him in for a cup of tea.  And for the purpose of the reader ‘cup of tea’ bares no euphemism.  Tea means tea.  We couldn’t help but touch on both our situations.  He was finding it a bit more easier.  His heartbreak was months ago and he was slowly starting to pick the pieces back together and start his new life.  This made me jealous, I’m still very much a lost soul.  Towards the end of the night Lee gave me a homemade cupcake.  One of his pastimes is making cakes to sell to his local pub.  He shared with me a few photos of his work before we met.  I was really impressed.  This boy could really bake a cake!  I looked down at the cupcake he made me.  On top of the perfectly smooth white icing was an iced gherkin.  I couldn’t help but find his humour refreshing.  The first time I’d ever had a gherkin made of icing.  Ronald take note, this is how it should be done.

A few days later ‘his’ time away came to an end and it was time to come home.  I didn’t know what to expect.  We’d barely communicated at all but perhaps this made it easier to forget he existed and made my position in my bubble even more comfy.  I live a clean, neat and simple life so when I opened the door and saw the contents of his suitcase strewn across the living room floor it marked his presence in the house.  Pretty much like a dog pissing in the house, he marked his territory.  There was no mistaking it, he was home.  ‘Hello’, I shouted out.  A weak and feeble reply followed, ‘helloooo.  I have a hangover’.

Really?  I couldn’t give a shit.  Did he really expect me to ask questions such as ‘ooh, please tell me about your night out.  What happened?  Did you drink too much?  Do you want me to look after you?’.  I could care less about his single life antics.  If I never asked the questions then his answers could never hurt me.  So from then on I stopped asking.  I just didn’t want to know.

‘I’ve got us some food’.

I looked in the kitchen.  He’d left some pizza ready to cook.  It was bizarre.  I felt like I should tiptoe around him whilst we were in each others company.  I didn’t like it.  Usually we’d relax into each other after I got home from work and enjoy the night together.   I came back downstairs after I’d had my shower, with hot water, and changed into my comfy clothes.  He’d fallen asleep. Perfect, at least we didn’t have to make idle conversation.  I cooked the pizza and tried my hardest not to wake him up.  Not because I was being cautious of his hangover, I just didn’t want to talk to him any longer than I had to.  When the food was ready I woke him up. I felt more like his carer.  We ate together, watching TV and chatting in between.  It just didn’t feel normal.  He fell asleep soon after that.  Goodnight.

The following day when I returned home from work it was a different story.  He was feeling much more himself.  So much himself that when I walked in he was playing his games.  This isn’t unusual.  My 24 year old (ex) boyfriend was a big gaming fan.  I used to lose him for hours whilst he was playing in a virtual world.  I spent the night upstairs, watching TV and working.  I could hear his movements and could tell he turned the system off.  He came upstairs for a toilet trip, popping his head into our room for a brief chat.  When he went back downstairs I received a message.  I looked down at my phone.  It was from him.

‘Are you finding this as weird as I am?’.

I was puzzled.  Why didn’t he just talk to me when he was here? My response was more or less this.

‘I cant talk to you face to face about it.  I’ll just get upset’.

This was silly.  I wasn’t prepared to have a text conversation with someone in the same house as me.  ‘I’m going to take the huge 13 step walk downstairs to talk to you face to face’.

He replied straight away, ‘No! I’ll just get upset’.

Tears or no tears I walked downstairs.  I could see him curled up on the sofa.  I sat on the chair opposite, ‘we need to talk.  Are you okay?’.  He looked at me and his eyes started to fill with tears.  I was shocked.  I hadn’t seen him upset since the day he broke my heart.

‘I’m just finding it hard at the moment.  Every time your phone makes a sound I think that you’re talking to a man and I keep thinking you’re seeing someone.’ He took a breath and continued.  ‘I’ve got no right to even ask you.  You’re completely free to do what you want, its none of my business’.

I didn’t say a word.  I just listened.

‘Are you seeing someone?’

I shook my head.  ‘No.  I’m not interested in anyone’.  I was speaking the truth.  ‘Mr Right himself could walk up to me and offer me the world and I’d turn him away.  I’m not emotionally or physically ready for another relationship.  I don’t feel sexy, I don’t feel interested and I don’t feel ready.  I would never disregard our three years together and move on so quickly.  I’m not interested in anything like that.  I need to focus on myself for a change which is why I’ve completely come off the grid.  No Facebook, no Twitter, nothing.  I just want to focus on me before I even think about someone else’.

He was still crying.  ‘It just looks like you’ve moved on completely.  You don’t even get upset anymore’.

‘You haven’t been here.  You haven’t seen me. I’ve been a mess and since you’ve been gone it’s just me that’s had to deal with it.  Whilst you’re away touring it must have put you in a bubble, a safe bubble where it doesn’t upset you’.

This time he shook his head.  ‘I was really upset when I was away.  When I arrived in Scandinavia the first person I wanted to text was you to tell you I landed safely, but I had to stop myself.  All my friends we’re Skyping with their partners and I didn’t have you to Skype anymore.  I was speaking to a friend earlier on the phone and I referred to you as my ex.  I hadn’t said it out loud before and it really upset me.’

I was surprised he was being so open and honest.  He was human after all.

‘I even spoke about how upset I’ve been to my mum.  Surprisingly she told me that the grass isn’t always greener and asking if I’d made the right choice.  I think  I have, I think it’s the right decision’.

Was he really starting to question this whole breakup?  At this time I had switched from the chair onto the sofa and was rubbing his hand.  ‘You broke up with me for two reasons.  One for thinking that I don’t trust you and the other for choosing work commitments over me’.

Again he shook his head.  ‘That wasn’t it at all.  You deserve someone who is here for you all the time, and that’s something I can’t give you’.

‘Then that is a big issue, and if you see that as a problem we can’t overcome then you did the right thing for you’.

I reminded him about all the times he’d been away and how I’d coped before.  It was never going to be easy but I always made things work and tried my hardest for it never to be an issue when he worked away.  ‘I think one day you’ll regret this.  I tried so hard to give you everything and I don’t think you’re next boyfriend will be so understanding and willing. My family loved you’.

‘Zoe text me yesterday’.

I played dumb. Even though I knew she had text him to wish him farewell I wanted to hear his reaction.  He read out the message.  ‘Its such a shame you and James need to go your separate ways.  Good luck with everything and take care of yourself’.  He couldn’t finish the message without crying.

‘I’ve told my family, my friends, that if they want to stay in touch with you then they are more than welcome.  You have played such a big part in my life that I wouldn’t begrudge anyone for staying in touch with you’.

‘I can’t. I cant watch your nephews and niece grow up on Facebook and not be able to see them.  I can’t witness you move on, it would kill me’.

I fully understood. This is the main reason why I can’t stay in touch with him or his friends.  ‘I tried to talk to you weeks ago when you were packing for Scandinavia and you pushed me away.  When I was struggling you were the first person I told.  If you ever feel like this again talk to me.  I’m here for you’.

Our conversation ended and the evening turned into morning.  I was quietly dressing for work, trying my best not to wake him.  He was soon to be up and on his way to Glasgow for a few more days of work.  This time rather than leave quietly I sat on the bed next to him.  I looked at him and brushed his hair.  He woke up and smiled.  I brushed my fingers over his arm and he slowly fell back to sleep.  I had to leave to catch my train.  I slowly leaned across and kissed his cheek, whispering goodbye.

A few hours had passed and I had a very quiet period at work.  Curiosity told me to open the dating app on my phone.  Why not?  I received a message from ‘S’.  His photo was topless, staring into the mirror with scruffy hair.  He looked cute.  Only recently had I removed my photo in place of a generic wallpaper so he had no idea what I looked like.  He had asked to see my photo.  I felt obliged, after all I could see his.  Obviously I sent him my best wrinkle-free youthful photo.  The second I forwarded the photo instantly I received a message from ‘him’.

‘Thank you.  You’ve proved everything!’

He sent me a snapshot of the conversation I was briefly having with ‘S’.  It was ‘him’ in disguise.

Over the next two hours he attacked me.  Demanding to know why I was on this app and calling me a hypocrite for telling him I wasn’t interested in a relationship.  I felt sick.  I felt like I had been cheating on him when the truth is that I wasn’t doing anything wrong at all.  I had only met Lee during my time on here and this was only as a friend, nothing more.  Still, I felt like I had to lie.  ‘A friend downloaded it at work, just to see what people were in the area.  I’ve had it for a day and have barely used it’.

He didn’t believe me.  ‘Any chance we had of getting back together is over in case you hadn’t already guessed’.

Ouch.  I responded. ‘You didn’t have to tell me that. I knew we’d never get back together weeks ago’.  I still defended my actions, repeating that I hadn’t done anything wrong and reminding him of his indecent behavior when he flirted with three men soon after we became an item.  This time I was newly single, not even flirting, and still I was the one in the wrong?  It took a further hour for him to cool down.

‘It just caught me off guard’.  He backed down.

I was too tired to carry on, ‘I’ve deleted the app now’.  I felt like he had won, but deep down deleting the app meant nothing to me. I didn’t care.

‘Ok. It just threw me’.

Again I understood.  If I had caught him doing the same it would shatter the tiny segment of the heart I had left.  That was the last time I heard from him until he came home last night.

The controversial app, which is available in both Apple’s App Store and via Google’s Android market, lets players electrocute, hit and mace a virtual boyfriend after he does annoying things – such as leaving his clothes lying about on the floor.

Despite Apple having a zero tolerance policy for nudity in apps and having a good track record at disallowing apps which in any promote violence against women, Boyfriend Trainer is still available to download (at the time of writing).

The publisher of the app, Games2Win, describes Boyfriend Trainer in the following way: “Crack that whip and teach your guy a thing or two about being the Perfect Boyfriend! When scolding doesn’t work, just zap him, whack him and train him to be your ideal man!”

Boyfriend Trainer encourages girls to spray mace into their boyfriend’s eyes if he eyes up another girl on the dancefloor – while his friends stand around and laugh.

Players also lead their boyfriends around on a leash.

The app is available to those aged four and over and dispenses advice such as: “Girlfriends don’t like their boyfriends to look at other girls. About time he got the message. Slap him silly!”

Apple was unavailable for comment at the time of writing and Google declined to comment.

Despite there being no actual violence, and the app consisting of a series of cartoons, comments in forums say it is distasteful and that neither Apple or Google, would condone an equivalent app which encouraged men to be violent towards their girlfriends.

In the customer review section of Apple App Store, ‘Jazzy1289’ wrote: “I hate how this game is so abusive I understand its just a game but kids play this and u don’t want this to be an influence on them.”

‘Cake lover’ added: “This app is TERRIBLE!!!!!!! If I could rate it ‘0’ I would! The girl just slaps the guy and acts like she’s in charge I mean, girls don’t act like this! DO NOT buy this game!”

Another app called GoodBoy which is due to launch on February 8 in the Apple App Store, promises ‘husband training’ for the ladies and rewards men for behaving well.

By Dick Stark

“I’d rather not try our help desk.  I can get what I want from Google.”

Sound familiar?  A customer confided this to me after attempting to access her service desk’s automated knowledge base. Oftentimes, the experience that the end-user receives from contacting the help desk is slow or unresponsive, and occasionally the fix is just plain wrong. And who hasn’t used Google to find an answer or solve an IT problem?

Welcome to the world of “Big Data,” formerly known as the world wide web, where facts, products, conversations, videos, fixes, opinions, surveys are at our finger tips, 24 x7 on iPhones, iPads, or for those of us slower to adapt, on our desktops and laptops. “An extraordinary knowledge revolution (is) sweeping, almost invisibly, through business, academia, government, health care, and everyday life,” says Rick Smolan, co-creator of a new book, The Human Face of Big Data.  Service Desks must not only keep up, but deliver the type of customer experience that we’ve come to expect in this era of Big Data. Fortunately, BMC has kept up. BMC has released a new product, MyIT, which ships this month and is available as an iPhone and iPad app for Remedy users.

MyIT empowers your end-users to ensure they always have access to the right technology and support services, no matter where they are–all from one easy to use app. With MyIT end-users can:

• get easy access to knowledge and receive important information and updates from IT,
• schedule an appointment with an expert, and raise new service requests with just a couple of taps, and
• help provide faster, more personalized assistance because MyIT knows who and where they are.

Whether IT departments are ready or not, it’s a BYOD world, with mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads proliferating throughout most organizations. iPads are quickly replacing notebooks, and even pen and paper. Additionally, employees expect an excellent customer experience whether from a bank, on-line retailer, or restaurant, and expect the same thing from their IT department.  The good news is that unlike Google, MyIT is purpose-built to transform the end-user experience, making them and the service desk much more productive.

Even better, the service desk does not need to be Six Sigma, ITIL, COBIT, HDI, Pink, or any other popular certification. MyIT installs quickly and RightStar is one of two BMC North American partners certified and ready to go.

The beauty of MyIT is its simplicity.  In our overly complicated service management world, this is a welcome addition.  Without question, MyIT will empower your end-users.

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…

For those of you with a Tinder account, you’re probably drawn to it because of its simplistic, Facebook-linked, non-interrogating interface.

Unlike “grown-up” dating sites that make you answer hundreds of detailed questions, Tinder  doesn’t ask you “what you’re looking for in a partner” or “how many children you want to have.”

All Tinder wants to know is where you’re located, what your sexual orientation is, and how many Facebook friends you have in common with Steve. Or Sarah. Or John. Or Julie. (You get the point). Oh, and of course, it also wants your picture.

Some critics call this shallow, but Tinder’s creators say that a person’s looks, location, sexual orientation, and shared connections are the EXACT factors that we use to judge someone we meet in-person.

Well, the creators are obviously doing something right, because the app is spreading at an astronomical rate. On average, Tinder is downloaded 20,000 times per DAY and should reach 1million active users this year.

So why am I choosing to write about Tinder now?

Because this past week, the Huffington Post published an article about a Tinder experiment that got me thinking about dating patterns and gender roles in our tech-obsessed generation.

The article detailed three Brigham Young University college students on a mission – a mission to discover how many college guys would meet up with a random GORGEOUS girl they met on Tinder – but knew nothing about.

Meet the infamous “Sammy.”

To do this, these three guys created a FAKE Facebook account –  (because you need a Facebook account in order to create a Tinder account) – and uploaded photos of a Barbie-doll look alike, Miss Teen USA, Kendall Fein, but named her “Sammy.”

Once the Facebook account was activated, they logged “Sammy” into Tinder and spent one hour “liking” every guy that appeared on the screen. [Tinder allows two users to message one another once they’ve both “liked” each other's picture. The “liking” has to be mutual otherwise you cannot connect…. how romantic.]

Within hours, “Sammy” received HUNDREDS of “likes” back, causing Tinder to generate 250 matches for this fake blonde beauty queen.

The next day, “Sammy” sent the following message to each of the 250 male contenders:

“I’m going to yogurt shop called yogurtland tonight at 9 in orem with some girl friends if you want to meet up ”

The masterminds behind this plan thought it’d be a flop…

But when they arrived at YogurtLand to observe the scene for themselves, they were shocked to see dozens of groups of men crowding around like hungry wolves waiting to pounce on their prey.

In total, an estimated 70 guys between the ages of 19 and 30 showed up to meet an OBVIOUSLY fake woman named Sammy…who they hadn’t even spoke to.

[Photo credit: Bowman Bagley]
Notice the swarms of guys inside YogurtLand waiting for their beloved “Sammy”

Firstly, BRAVO to these three college guys from Brigham Young University for showing women what we’ve always known…COLLEGE-AGE MEN ARE CURIOUS, SEX-DRIVEN CREATURES WHO ARE EAISLY MANIPULATED BY A PRETTY FACE.

*[NOTE: I am NOT generalizing ALL men into this category. I know that not ALL college guys would fall for this sort of stunt, but 70 out of 250 of them did...and additional guys who weren't free that night, followed up with a Tinder message asking if "Sammy" was free to meet up the next weekend instead....so don't get mad at ME. Get mad at your fellow 70+ "bros" who got DUPED...TIN-DUPED.]

Secondly, this made me wonder how the same experiment would’ve gone down if the genders were flipped…

If 250 women received an invite from an online mystery man they’d never spoken to, and the only information they had from him was his first name and a suspiciously perfect, photo-shopped, model status picture…how many of them would’ve fallen for it?

[Photo credit: Google Images]  ”Hey baby, wanna get some froyo together later?”

Now, I’m not saying that women are smarter than men. (I’m all about equality).

Nor am I saying that women are less on the prowl for a hot date.

What I’m getting at is…women are simply more accustomed to these situations because the notion of a man hitting on a woman is FAR more common in today’s society than a woman hitting on a man.

Think about it: you’ll never see a group of female construction workers whistling on the sidewalk at every attractive man that walks by…yet women encounter this on a daily basis.

Even on a more serious level, men are typically the ones who initiate a marriage proposal by getting down on one knee and offering a ring. It’s rare to see a female initiate this process.

So, were the 250 men messaged by “Sammy” so caught off-guard by the fact they they were actually messaged FIRST that they just had to go to YogurtLand to meet her?

Did they really believe that her picture was authentic or did they have a feeling that they were getting duped?

OR

Are men simply more full of themselves than women are?

Likely male response to “Sammy’s” invite: “OH SNAP! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT. THIS GIRL WANTS ME BADLY ENOUGH TO MEET-UP WITH ME RIGHT AWAY. YogurtLand is gonna MELT TONIGHT BABY!”

Likely female response to male “Sammy” equivalent’s invite: “This guy is a creepy kidnapping rapist. This is his only picture. He has no Facebook activity. No way in HELL is he real…I’m staying FAR AWAY from YogurtLand tonight….good thing there’s froyo in my freezer.”

NOW I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! (Poll is completely anonymous)

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with one final thought on Tinder.

I understand the appeal of meeting someone with connections to your social circle. Especially for women, we may feel safer knowing that the guy we’re chatting with went to college with our best friend from high school’s best college friend’s friend…and therefore he can’t possibly be a creeper. [Sarcasm]

HOWEVER, if we never branch out of our bubbles…if we never meet people from an area 50 miles outside of the one we’re living in, how will we ever be able to expand our horizons and truly appreciate the diversity of this world?

Isn’t it more enriching to meet someone with a worldly perspective different from our own?

Something to think about.

I encourage you to ‘LIKE’ my Facebook Page, “Lindsey Out Loud” to stay up-to-date on my latest posts.

LOL (Lindsey Out Loud)

– All content belongs to Lindsey Orlofsky and cannot be used without my written permission.

© Copyright Lindsey Orlofsky, 2012 – 2013.

WebHubにクリップボード監視機能が付いたから、WebHubをバックグラウンドで開いたまま、SylfeedでURLをコピーすることでも同じことができる。
この場合、WebHubのクリップボード監視をONにしておく。

Australian music discovery service We are Hunted inexplicably went offline a little over a month ago, leaving a surplus of users, like myself, in a state of utter panic. How would I satisfy my intense need for quirky alternative music?

Today when I checked the site I found this message:

Way to be super ambiguous, music gurus.

Big Pond says this post supports the rumors that the purchasing or streaming of music will be available on an extension of the social network, Twitter Music. An iPhone app was just released today, so one can only imagine that it plans to expand this area with its acquisition of We Are Hunted.

Allow me at least one bad joke.

It should change its name to We Were Hunted.

No?

Fine.

Twitter has been making headlines a lot lately because of its successful new app, Vine. If you read my post about it here, you may find yourself wondering how reporters – specifically music journalists – will use Twitter Music to write reviews/share music, etc.

Or maybe just want your free indie music back. Try 8tracks to keep you busy.

Tempo acts as a personal assistant that makes educated guesses about what information will be relevant.

For instance, if a meeting confirmation includes mention of a conference call, Tempo handles the dial-in and pass code. Tempo will also prepare dossiers for upcoming meetings, based on related emails, contact information and LinkedIn profiles. The app checks flight status, links out to driving directions in Google Maps, finds nearby parking, and posts “happy birthday” messages to Facebook.

All this happens after users grant Tempo access to a ton of information about themselves: Their calendars, email accounts, address book, current location, Facebook and LinkedIn sign-ons. (Some of those are optional, but Tempo works best with big piles of data to analyze.)

Tempo was incubated at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., which is most recently famous for being the birthplace of Apple’s Siri personal assistant. The seven-person company — Tempo AI — has spun out, but is still based at the historic research center, and licenses its technology around organizing a person’s day as well as natural-language processing. It’s led by Raj Singh, who previously worked at mobile companies such as Skyfire and Veeker.

I talked with Singh about how he’ll stand out from other smart apps — for instance, there’s a very similar smart iOS calendar called Cue — and how he’ll compete as an application maker on a platform that has an equivalent default app (though Apple’s iPhone calendar is woefully underdeveloped).

Here’s a video of part of our chat:

[ See post to watch video ]

Singh said that his company wants to add more “intents and actions” — for instance, handling scheduling around a meeting by comparing calendars and confirming participants. He also wants to be more anticipatory — so, if a user wrote “lunch” for a meeting with someone, Tempo could pick a restaurant that’s convenient for both. And he’d like to include better ways for employees of a company to use Tempo together.

How often do we get home in the evening and go “well, that was a wonderful day”? Let’s be honest, hardly ever.  There is so much stress and demand in our world today.  We have responsibilities: jobs, kids, pets, bills, etc.  It seems like it never stops.

I have found that a lot of that is just me being pessimistic.  If I really think back on my day, I can name a couple great things that happened.  But when do I ever actually make myself reflect on the day and look for the positive? Never.

But now I have the Happier app for my iPhone 5.  It works on all up to date iPhone operating systems as well as on Androids.

The beauty of this app is that you can set it to remind you to post your 3 happy moments for the day.  And it even prompts you.  So if you’re struggling to think of 3 positive things, just look at the prompts and I promise you will come up with something.  Each moment is categorized based on what the event is.  You can follow Happier’s categories or create your own.  The best part is that you can look back on all of your happy moments and remember all of the positives in your life.

It is the little things in life that make us happiest.  And when we take the time to actually notice them, I think we will find we are a lot happier overall.

I can’t believe I lived without this app.  I am recommending it to all of my friends.

And I have to add an apology to my girlfriend.  When I was struggling with some stuff a year ago, she had me write down one positive thing for each day and keep it in a jar to look back on.  It was a way to remember that not everything sucked.  And I was not into it at all.  I never kept up with it and I think I even made fun of her when she suggested it.  Sorry, love! Now, go download this app so we can share our happy moments together

The company is backed by $500,000 in seed funding, all from Saar Wilf, who previously founded and later sold Fraud Sciences to eBay for $169 million. Wilf is designated as the third co-founder/angel, alongside CEO Eran Back and CPO Dov Frank, both who have technical backgrounds and previous experience as startup founders themselves.

The startup had previously run a private beta test among friends and family who used an earlier version of the app — also called Calendo — but Back says that the feedback they heard during these trials was that people were more interested in having the app suggest activities.

“They wanted us to suggest things,” he explains. “They wanted something in the discovery space, more than the event organizer space.”

Back says that the users and his friends would complain about missing events – either because they were too busy to check Facebook, or hadn’t “Liked” the right page on the social network to receive the event update.

Calendo, which works on top of Facebook data, solves that problem. It starts off by establishing your interests in terms of the pages you currently like on Facebook (you can select/deselect these at will), but then it takes things a step further. Instead of only alerting you to events, parties and activities associated with those pages, it tracks those that your friends are attending as well.

Over time, the app learns to better tailor its event recommendations to those that fit your interests, the company claims.

When you see an event you want to sign up for, you can RSVP from Calendo itself, save the event to your iOS calendar, invite others, or share the event on Twitter or on your own Facebook profile.

In a few weeks, Calendo will add support for Evenbrite and Meetup.com events, too, both of which are currently in testing. Longer term, the plan is to pull in data from a number of other, smaller websites, in particular for things like music concerts.

Calendo plans to generate revenue by pointing users to ticket sales as more sources are added. However, Back says that if the app gained critical mass, it eventually could be used to help event organizers promote their events to the right target audience. Because Calendo knows a user’s tastes and preferences, it would be able to makes these types of recommendations.

Events are only the beginning for Calendo, Back adds. “We’re also examining things like trending restaurants,” he says, noting that this feature is also now in testing. “Movies, pubs, bars – things like that – this is the space we’re aiming for,” he says.

Calendo is a free download here in Apple’s iOS App Store.