Annalee Newitz, whom I met at CodeCon in 2002 (see the entry They’re Not “Strippers”, They’re “Naked-Americans”), has written an article for Wired titled Cracking the Code to Romance.
The article profiles four hackers who are using technology to
“optimize” (in computer programming parlance, this means “make faster”
or “make more efficient”) dating.
I’m hardly what you’d call a Luddite nor could I honestly laugh at the
use of assistive technology to land a date. I do, after all, carry an
accordion to social events (even though these days, I’m spoken for — I
use its power to assist my only my friends now). To one degree or
another, we all use some kind of “dating optimization” to improve our
odds of finding a mate, or at least some with whom to mate
tonight:
That being said, this article is going to make geeks look twice as
creepy as the stereotype. Not just “dishevelled guy who’s staring at
you from the back of the bus” creepy and not even “costumed guy trying
to invite you back to ‘yiffapalooza’ back at his suite and ‘see what furries are really like'” creepy but
“if we put it to a vote, I’ll bet we could have these guys rounded up,
chemically castrated and drugged so much they could be used as
paperweights so women will feel safe” creepy.
(All theory and no practice. This guy is the dating world equivalent of an economist.)
(This profile isn’t creepy as it is Beavis-and-Butthead-y.)
(Oh, dude. Dude. Dude. STOP IT!
To borrow a quote from Ray, the cat from the webcomic Achewood, “Maybe
I got to put spackle all over my monitor to keep you [people] out
of my face all the time. JESUS the internet was not supposed to be this
way”.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have used your real name, buddy.)
…
Burton says he’s written dozens of hacks, including a bot that combs
Craigslist personals and IMs him when it finds a candidate that meets
his specs. But his favorite is a browser plug-in for the dating site
Hot or Not. “The problem with Hot or Not is it keeps presenting the
same pictures over and over because it’s random,” he explains. “My
plug-in remembers which ones I’ve seen and will skip them. That way I
can get through the whole site. When I did that, I had about 50 hot
women spamming me the next day.”
(These guys are doing security
research rather than trying to optimize dating. I wonder why Annalee
inlcuded them in the set of profiles and why she gave these guys — the
seeming best-adjusted of the bunch — the creepiest name.)
Tropical Storm Helene is now Hurricane Helene, and its closest approach to Tampa Bay happens…
Once again, I’m hoping that the vibes from the clown cemetery that’s been protecting Tampa…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl8zhYA0BHU Definitely not anything I would’ve predicted.
Oh, my sweet summer child, do you not know about the “Loofah Code” in The…
...and by that, I mean, being completely ignorant of the larger world outside the U.S.…
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Without IM, where would we be? ;)
Anyway, I agree, Kevin Burton *really* should have used a pseudonym.
Repeat after me: the human race is NOT doomed, the human race is NOT doomed...
There are days when I feel uniquely inept at dating (unique in the way everyone is, really).
Then I read stuff like that and I feel like the ultimate babe magnet.
Thanks Joey, my ego needed that.
Ok, tell me fellas--do the women pictured in the article represent your ideal girl? Why or why not? How about the way they are depicted?
Those women look like robots, so no, they don't. Also, they're not depicted in the article at all: the ones depicted are easily impressed and evidently extremely difficult to creep out.
You said it brother. Although it risks thinking "it could be worse" (which often depresses me, because that means there's room to go down even further), in this case I know I'm a better person than at least two of these guys. The single father actually comes across as a sweet guy with a funny job, and the security experts seem pretty normal (as far as security experts go).
I findit a little weird that Wired didn't link to any of the people/companies listed. I mean, Kevin Burton has a weblog for crying out loud, as does the single dad, although neither link to the Wired article....
This article had its genesis at CodeCon 2004 and I Was There. Basically, I think Moore is in the article because he was talking about Kevin Burton's "war dating" all weekend (it is sort of tied into his Friendster hacking).
We all had a good time laughing about Kevin's crazy antics; the Lusty Lady was visited; beer was consumed. And so, I guess, Annalee decided to write an article about it all. She found two more examples and that was that.
Luke Francl