Momentary thoughts

Lye down in the grass melt into the sun smiling there is and is not that girl I know on the moon or a mother of all the suns that girl on the moon or the mother of all the suns they do know the ways that three jewels are all trash that the end times are nonsense three jewels are trash the end times are nonsense come shundy mumo send your sun to shine on us have us all turn into light shine on us, sun when we are touched by light we melt into you the three jewels are earthly the end times are not the earthly jewels ends we can't wrap ourselves around none of this is real in the one true moment, now in that one true being, the light

Podcast mayhem

A word of warning, this post is about podcasts, it doesn't concern any activities of the presenters in any other field than in the podcasts. Most of them are good educators or journalists and know much more than I'll ever know, as one wonderful singer said. :) Guess what. I haven't posted in quite a while. A sure sign that I'm a bad blogger. This aside. I'm back from my long self-exile to Hungary. Again studying in the university. Life as a multiamorous person in a country that has 7 times less people than, let's say, London, isn't a lick of honey, as we say it around here. But I haven't come here to complain. I'd rather talk of podcasts I've been listening lately. The best ones of them being, well, you guessed it: 1. Savage lovecast. Dan Savages Lovecast has been a sure help for me with it's sheer existance. I've been listening to it, every tuesday since last march I think or something. Maybe a bit later. But he surely has knowledge, words and courage to say things the way they should be said. Everyone have a listen! Strongly recommended for anyone over the age of, let's say 16. Below that with parental explanations provided. Savage also talks really lot about politics, which I thought were inappropriate for someone like me, who lives in estonia, until Trump got the nomination and his statements started touching on matters concerning even our politics here. And savage's extended, ad-free edition of his podcast is called magnum, which mockingly reminds me of guns he so much hates. And here's the link. http://www.savagelovecast.com/ Available on website, stitcher and I think anywhere else, where you can listen to podcasts. 2. Multiamory podcast. Multiamory podcast is not at the first place, because It's been going on for much less than Savage lovecast. Other than that. It's a completely loveable show and on my mustlistening list, when ever new episodes come out, which has been recently really on time, which is why for example polyamory weekly didn't get the second place. And I also like the talkshow format that they're giving. Fortunately they've not yet reached the point where they'd be talking of same things over and over again so they'd feel it's boring. The entire podcast is fresh and enjoyable all together. Link: http://www.multiamory.com/podcast/ 3. New York magazine's sexlife. New york Magazine's sexlife is that kind of podcast that hasn't lost much of it's appeal even since coming out and shedding some of it's original cast, well actually 2/3 of it. Although I must admit the other participants were a sort of balancing force so that the cast wouldn't be a complete gossip and "IThinkThisIsCompletelyHowSexWorksForMe" talk. I mean. It's an awesome show and I enjoy New York Magazine's columnist's take on all the things sex, but sometimes it just goes too personal. I'm rating the cast so high, just so I could have my good memories here and for the good enjoyment it has provided me so far. And link: http://nymag.com/tags/let's-talk-about-sex/ See. This tag mostly contains entries concerning the podcast, but they don't have a dedicated website for it. Actually this place or at least one of the places here in the top three should be had by Huffington Post's Love and Sex Podcast, but I'm still upset at them for cancelling my favourit podcast without any notice. Nobody just said a thing. Huf Post's podcast satisfied that ich of mine, which wants to see citations and research. They were able to have a professional oppinion on at least most of the shows and me, who I'm completely bad at citations, I adore research, I can't say I'm turned on by it, that wouldn't be the right word for that, but I go WOW and all smiles when someone actually not only refers to research that was done, but provides citations to papers. I mean, the entire internet is full of shitty referrals to non-existent research and it's so hot when someone says, that there's some statistical data or some qualitative research done to prove this and that. I like qualitative research more, because I'm bad at statistics, don't get me wrong, I'm working on it, I'm just bad at it yet. And they fucking cancelled the show without any notice beforehand. This caused me some considerable grief in the beginning, but I guess I'm now over it. There are many good podcasts more, that didn't make it into the list, they either aren't frequent enough, or something else is in themm that I haven't yet gotten used to, or I just haven't listened to them enough, but they're good and the top three is open, so it could change, but some good links here. The polyamory weekly: http://polyweekly.com/ Kudos for it for runnig so long. And it has a poly happy moment corner and generally looks like an organised Radioshow, that plans not to stop or cancel itself in the near future. So it gets it's own article here, abit out of the top, but still held in high regard. Sex with Emily: http://sexwithemily.com/category/podcast/#.WAbv1iRGyVs She has much more that this podcast, and she promotes it alot. I have rarely heard her giving book recommendations though, but maybe I've just not heard them. And don't get me wrogn. Had I a podcast and lots of other merchandise as well next to it, I'd surely use my podcast as a medium to promote it. Sex Nerd Sandra and Tristan Taormino's podcasts used to be great too, but they haven't updated recently. Hope everything is fine with them and they'll be back doing cool stuff again in the near future. But there's always the chance to enjoy past episodes. https://sexnerdsandra.com/podcast/ http://tristantaormino.com/ And there are even more: Sex gets real, talking of sex with pleasure mechanics, stuff mom never told you etc. I can't listen to them all every week, I just don't have enough time, so I have to pick my fruits.

Forget your eyes and get dating

This might sound like a post about blind dating, but read into it and you won't be disappointed. In the year 2015, in the middle of October I was feeling rather dull at one afternoon. I thought I'd give a try to online-dating, which I realised wouldn't be much anything to difficult nowadays. There are countless websites and even apps for smartphones and I decided to try them out. Originally I chose three apps to test: OKCupid, Tinder and CMB or coffee meets bagle. I'll write about each one of them later, but let's set some things right first. I'm completely blind, which doesn't bother me usually as much as it does bother others. In the recent years, Eastern Europe has become more accepting though. I've been living in two post-soviet countries: Estonia and Hungary and the speed they're opening up to wider societal inclusion is remarkable. Although I say that with caution, maybe my ever present smile just keeps bad experiences away. I can argue however, that the leap from a completely unaccepting and offencive society to a more inclusive one has been astounding, although it has its own setbacks and often laypeople aren't capable of coping with the reinvented world around them. This is also what made this experiment of using a dating app so interesting, going at it with a screen reader and on an android based system is, well, not the easiest task. But I hope you find it somewhat interesting to read and to contemplate. Especially interesting was to go to this experiment as a polyamorous person (I often mistype it to be polyarmorous). Polyamory itself is a bastard-word, being a mix of greek and latin and invented in English, I'd like to have it changed for something else, but alas, It's a bit too late. I wouldn't discuss my personal experiences with using these applications in detail. I do have the tendancy to disclose personal information a bit too easily and I'd like to avoid it at all costs. OKC, Tinder and CMB are going to be the main discussionpoints of that piece here, but I'll pay small visits to other apps as well, such as olderwomendating or grindr.

I OKC

OKC was the first app and the portal I got myself into. It gave me so much in return, of course I devoted much time to it, but this is how online dating unfortunately works, you give your time to the computer, not to the actual people. Although yes, I wouldn't give the chatting sessions I had and am still having with nice people for anything. OKC is a large portal and a rather unusable app though. But lets start by rating the plusses and minuses Android app: Positives: interface is quite self-explanatory even for a screen reader user, * most of the information can be read and acted upon, Profiles don't differ between the website and between the app, * advertisements are consistently in one place and can be ignored, Negatives: Questions can't be answered in the app Changing slider parameters involves placing a finger on the parameter and then trying to move it with another one, which makes it really difficult to change different settings. * Buttons are not labeled, making it difficult to actually like or message someone, or to even see whether I've already liked someone or not. * Although the profiles are readable, comparisons between you and the potential match are yet not so simple to understand. Website: positives: * Almost everything is easily editable Negatives: * Advertisements are all over the place and annoy screen reader users, but I suspect that not only us. I wouldn't be describing OKC much more here, for anything else I'd say would be about the experience and not the actual accessibility.

II Tinder

Tinder was a revolution when it came out first, quickly gathering a huge following because of its "super easy" to use interface, which basically consists of seing a photo and swiping on it. Android app: Positives: * Everything is really simple * Every text-based information that is given by the user is accessible. Negatives: * Looking at a photo won't give us a thing, so the only way to get to know something about the user is to click on their photo and hope that they provide something to hang onto, which they usually don't, except their age and studies or workplace. * Nothing at all is labeled, so using the app is literally intuitive, or rather, required puttering around and hoping that you don't accidentally dislike "the match of your life" or waste the only superlike you have per day, if you're not a tinder-plus user. Even if setting up the profile is not so much of a problem, editing it is a hassle, that usually makes me too impatient to continue. And changing the options afterwards is quite difficult. Web interface not available. The over all thing is too much visage-based, but don't give up, after giving a propper account of oneself, everything is possible, even in tinder, even for a V.I person.

III CMB =Coffee meets bagel

Warning: CMB is extremely unpopular in central-eastern Europe, but that's a geographical issue and doesn't apply to the regions where it's not so much of a problem. The name is super cute though. Android app: Positives: * Most of the necessary buttons are labeled and can be interacted with. * The screen doesn't contain much stuff, neither does it have advertisements, although I sometimes got lost on the screen, I found the overall experience a rather pleasant one. * Tabs were consistantly in one place, so finding the buttons and things wasn't a big problem. Negatives: * Due to its or my extreme unpopularity I didn't managed to test what happens if you actually connect with someone. * Using discover mode, the bagles are a bit disordered and navigating around them isn't that easy. * Again quite large influence is based on photos. To the point that actually to get approved, I needed to ask for sighted assistance to help me to choose a profile picture where my face and trunk are visible. I was clad, just to avoid all misunderstandings, they just want to assure that pictures uploaded are more than possibly actual pictures, but its still kind of embarrasing to go to ask e.g. your little sister to help you to sign up for a dating website. That gossip afterwards... Declaration, the little sister mentioned here is fictional. * Editing sliders is a mess and it's almost impossible, I managed to mess up the age range at one point for quite a many days and it required me later to push with one finger on the slider and move my other finger, which was a pest. * CMB actually would like you to give a rather long describtion of yourself and doing that for example on a nexus 5 as I was doing is not the simplest thing to achieve... No physical keyboard and I didn't have a physical attachable either. Website not available.. again.

IV Of the other apps

I also gave a little flick to olderwomendating. This thing has a website too, I discovered later and most interestingly. I managed to get into a rather intelligent conversation there. Cougars aren't the hungriest animals out there, or maybe that one just tries to seduce me with her sapio. I really wanted to try out grindr, just for the sake of including an app ment to connect lgbt people. I'm not one of the movement, maybe a bit queer in the sense that I refuse to conform to the gender norms we're placed into, but unfortunately grindr required filling in a captcha to sign up and that wasn't an option on the phone, no audiocaptcha was provided. I might contact them to get it fixed though and then this post might get an update. ;)

V Links and references

And now, as you might have gotten to the end of this writing, there're some links for you in the end that actually compare the different dating portals and apps just not from the position of a VI, but taking into account the features, pros and cons. So here, have some articles I used to make up the list and that I read during this small research: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-dating-apps/ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/639-best-dating-apps.html http://www.popsugar.com/love/Best-Online-Dating-Apps-30583474#photo-30583474 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-and-worst-dating-apps-in-2016-ranked-by-reviews-2016-2