With The Band

I want one.

Courtesy of Evil Mad Scientist (thanks, guys!)
This would go along really well with my business card case. And probably ensure that I remain unmarried for the rest of my life.

I was reading an article by Paul Graham, and he mentioned this…

“…dating sites currently suck far worse than search did before Google. They all use the same simple-minded model. They seem to have approached the problem by thinking about how to do database matches instead of how dating works in the real world. An undergrad could build something better as a class project. And yet there’s a lot of money at stake. Online dating is a valuable business now, and it might be worth a hundred times as much if it worked.”

I’m not sure I entirely agree with his statement. I’m sure it works for some, otherwise online dating wouldn’t have so many paying subscribers, right? In my circles, everyone is on JDate, and it’s very much known to be a success. But still, as with everything on the internet, there is room for improvement. So it got me thinking (fine, I was doing an hour of cardio and had nothing else to do )… what about speed dating?

I’ve run speed dating events before in college. And while I have never participated in one, I have heard they are very successful. Why can’t you do it online? If you do a search for speed dating, you find that most of them are just web pages for meatspace speed dating, and others are lame implementations of the hot or not model. With everyone having high speed internet, and the low price/built-in webcams, a streaming video system would be pretty easy to implement.

You would sign on to the web site, where you would have a profile (standard profile). The system would do some **basic** compatibility checks, and organize speed-dating clusters with a whole bunch of people. You’d see two small youtube-sized video players, one with a live stream of you, and one with a live stream of the other person. Beneath it, there would be the other person’s profile, so you’d have some basic info and talking points. You’d talk/see each other for three minutes. After that, you’d have 30 seconds to write up some personal notes, and to rate the other person. And then you would go onto the next person, and so on and so on, until you say you’re done! Afterwards, it would match up the people who liked each other, notify both of them, and allow them, through the rest of the site, to message each other and have extended video chats.

Whaddya think??

I don’t really have time/interest to do this (I’m busy enough as it is ), but if you like it and want to flesh it out more, e-mail me at skeevis AT skeevis DOT com, or leave a comment!

Update: After making this post, and searching a little bit more, I found http://15minutedate.com. They utilize a desktop client, which I was not too impressed with. I then, however, got an e-mail from Mike, who is working on SpeedEdate, which seems awesome. Best of luck to him!

Is done*. I am so 1337.

*OK, fine, it’s not totally done yet. It still is missing the SMS interface. But I am waiting for emails from vendors, and my second alternative (sending SMS through e-mail) can’t be done yet because Sun’s dev website is down for maintenance. The command line interface is awesome.

You can just type the first few letters of a metro station, and it’ll respond with the times. Hopefully I’ll have the other part done tomorrow, and then it’ll be ready to party!

Sample output (this is from the command line client). Text in bold is output.

dooo
Could not find a station beginning with dooo
d
Did you mean Dunn Loring-Merrifield or Dupont Circle
dupont
Dupont Circle
RD 6  Glenmont 7
RD 6  Shady Grove BRD
RD 6  Shady Grove 20

metro
Metro Center
RD 6  Glenmont BRD
RD 6  Glenmont 16
RD 6  Shady Grove 8
RD 6  Shady Grove 13
BL 6  Largo Town Center 2
OR 8  New Carrollton 7
BL 6  Largo Town Center 19
BL 6  Franconia 2
OR 8  Vienna 11
OR 6  Vienna 13

gal
Gallery Pl-Chinatown
RD 6  Glenmont 1
RD 6  Glenmont 17
RD 6  Shady Grove 7
RD 6  Shady Grove 12
GR 6  Greenbelt BRD
GR 6  Greenbelt 14
GR 6  Branch Avenue 7
YL 4  Huntington 11

To-dos:

• Optionally specify the line (red, green, etc…) you want.
• Get rid of # of cars (bc who cares!)
• Get rid of no-passenger/mystery cars
• Release it as a command line client, for other geeks (hey, you can order pizza via the command line now…)

I just came up with an awesome idea.

I was at a bar for a close friend’s birthday last night. I am a morning person, so I tend to go to sleep pretty early at night (usually), and thus didn’t want to be out late. And for sure, I didn’t want to leave the bar early, walk to the Metro, and find out that the next train is 18 minutes away. So I was thinking… why can’t I find this out on my cell phone? I can find this out on my desktop, and can use it on a WAP enabled cell phone (but who has one?). Why can’t I use it on a normal cell phone? Via text? It’s not graphic or information intensive. All you need to provide is the station, and all I want in return is the times of the upcoming ones.

I could flesh out the idea more… but I’m busy writing it

Anyone know a good SMS gateway?

As if Kosher (Jewish Dietary Rules) airline meals weren’t bad enough… military rations.

Laughed my ass off for a good 10 minutes.

I wish I still had my lego sets.

Another couple articles on Unit 8200, which I had talked about in a previous post.

Unit members are taught that there’s no such thing as “impossible,” while “no” is something temporary that can change by persistence and insistence, even if it’s the Unit commander himself who said “no.”

Billionaire Boot Camp [Subscription Required for Full Story :-(]
The Unit - Forbes.com
via BangItOut (of all places!)

Since we released our Facebook application to the wild, our numbers have been steadily growing. Not in the 1000s a day, but enough to give me and my co-developer on this project some pride

Of course, we have one primary goal in mind, for now. We gotta beat PMS-o-meter.

I hate Comcast.
If another high speed provider were to come along, offer untouched bandwidth and decent customer service (sorry Verizon), Comcast would be finished. Hell, you could even charge triple the price.

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