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Python Scripting and Analyzing Your Way To Love

fiannaFailMan writes "Wired reports one mathematician's mission to find love online by data mining from OK Cupid and applying mathematical modeling to optimize his profile(s). His methods included using 'Python scripts to riffle through hundreds of OkCupid survey questions. He then sorted female daters into seven clusters, like "Diverse" and "Mindful," each with distinct characteristics.' But the real work began when he started going on dates."

34 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Translation by OffTheLip · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdotter has vivid coding dream in Mom's basement and find love.

  2. Hooray for Python by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

    I mean, I'm glad it can do almost anything, but I'm still waiting for import antigravity to work properly.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    1. Re:Hooray for Python by MtHuurne · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have you tried "from __future__ import antigravity"?

    2. Re:Hooray for Python by sunderland56 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Have you considered that the fact he writes Python scripts to solve his love life is the *reason* he has no love life??

      Python can't stop you from being a geek...

  3. "When he started going on dates" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, there's the step I never get to.

  4. Sounds creepy .... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the real thing here is that someone needs to be building a dating website for nerds (assuming it's not already happened).

    Start with the proposition you've got a pool of educated individuals working in STEM-type jobs, and go from there. Then you at least know you're working with a pool of people who might have some chance of being interested in your collection of Star Wars figurines, or who want to debate the relative merits of Jar Jar as a character.

    Because, really, if you tell the person you're on a date with that you used Python scripts to categorize people into several containers ... you're not gonna get a second date, and the one you're on might end abruptly as the awkward silence turns into thoughts that you might, in fact, be some kind of creepy stalker.

    BEGIN NERD VOICE
    I've done stochastic analyses of your responses to questionnaires and exhaustively compared your responses to other women on this site, and I calculate there is an 45.2% you might like me. You're the highest score yet!
    END NERD VOICE

    Really, don't be that guy.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Sounds creepy .... by TWiTfan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So the real thing here is that someone needs to be building a dating website for nerds

      So, thousands of guys fighting over a few hundred guys pretending to be women? You should set up a Kickstarter for that.

      --
      The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
    2. Re:Sounds creepy .... by Fuseboy · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Great, that sounds nice. I'll have my bots talk to your bots."

    3. Re: Sounds creepy .... by AvitarX · · Score: 3, Informative

      When I read TFS it sounded a lot like what ok cupid does already. And of the people I've met on it (probably around ten), at least half would of thought it was cool I augmented the site to waste less time with people I didn't like.
      What online dating suffers from is 75% of the participants are dudes, so the girls get tons of messages, get overwhelmed, and leave. This keeps the problem going.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    4. Re: Sounds creepy .... by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 3, Informative

      > What online dating suffers from is 75% of the participants are dudes...

      No true, except possibly on AdultFriendFinder.

      http://www.nextadvisor.com/blo...

      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    5. Re:Sounds creepy .... by VortexCortex · · Score: 3, Funny

      It already got funded. That's what World of Warcraft is.

      Not that there aren't women in WoW, they just pretend to be guys...

    6. Re: Sounds creepy .... by AvitarX · · Score: 2

      I guess that tells us which way OK Cupid trends...

      http://www.rooshvforum.com/thr...

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  5. Limited potential by petes_PoV · · Score: 4, Interesting
    His data analysis and harvesting will help the guy get a first date with more women. But all he's doing is trawling for ones that match what he thinks he wants. To get a second date his real-life personality and interests have to match what the other person thinks she wants.

    Even with the women in question also choosing him on the basis of his tailored responses, he's simply increasing the sample size (i.e. the number of first dates) he gets, without really addressing the quality of the data - how closely the women match him in reality and vice-versa.

    One of his descriptions in the article "star signs and all that crap" (or words to that effect) indicates that he still hasn't really "got" the women in the database. By dismissing what they consider important in a profile (the "crap") he's not helping himself. Maybe he should have turned around his search. Instead of hacking his profile to get more matches, he should consider modifying his personality to be more attractive to what the larger numbers of women feel they want in a man.

    But I guess to a techie, every problem has a technical solution. No doubt all the first-date restaurants will thank him for his patronage and his (later, but maybe not much later) divorce lawyer will also be suitably grateful.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Limited potential by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did you read the whole article? He ended up with his now fiance this way and they are doing well.

    2. Re:Limited potential by petes_PoV · · Score: 2

      Did you read the whole article?

      Good God, no. This is the internet, you know. Most people don't even make it past the headline. (and did you not see my line about divorce lawyer?)

      --
      politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    3. Re:Limited potential by Bigbutt · · Score: 3

      The problem is what women think they want can be totally different than what they deep down want. Women can say one thing but after a while they'll realize it's not doing it for them and leave (hence the 70% of divorces being filed by women).

      It gets worse. Guys are trying to mold themselves to be what women say they want only to discover later that what women really want isn't what guys are now.

      Then the divorce lawyers cackle with glee.

      [John]

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    4. Re:Limited potential by HaZardman27 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How many times IRL have you heard a female friend say "Looks don't really matter to me. I'm just looking for a nice guy,"

      Zero. I have never heard a woman say that. I think the idea of the woman who says this is made up by men who have no other quality other than being "nice" and want someone to blame for their lack of romantic success.

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
    5. Re:Limited potential by RDW · · Score: 2

      She found him because she was searching for '6-foot guys with blue eyes near UCLA'. If you happen to be 6 foot with blue eyes and live near UCLA, you probably don't need a machine learning algorithm to tell you that it might be worth mentioning these things in your profile.

  6. I searched for "Looking for fat nerd programmer" by TWiTfan · · Score: 5, Funny

    So far no results for me. They all seem to want "rich, handsome guy who loves to travel."

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
  7. Sheldon would say it's all "hokum" by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

    Even though Howard wanted to say "mumbo jumbo"

  8. A related story by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 2

    Just the headline reminded me of a story I read a couple of years ago. That site needs registration but he also posted it on a site which does not. 99 First Dates. Hilarious.

    Warning - Adult Content if you worry about that kind of thing.

    --
    Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
  9. Re:TED talk by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    TED is now basically full of pseudoscientific bullshit and ego-fueled self-promoters.

  10. Match your crazy early by Overzeetop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Finding true love is really nothing more than matching your personal with either the same or a complimentary crazy in someone else. Wearing your crazy on the first date is risky, but reduces wasted time on those who are incompatible with your personal brand of insanity.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  11. Guy is foolish. by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    He did three things.

    1) Categorize women into 7 categories. That looks to me to be valuable, but the article did not discuss all 7 categories. It ignored the only interesting thing this guy did!

    2) Set up multiple profiles and use machines to initiate action with thousands of potential women.

    3) Went on hundreds of dates in a relatively short amount of time.

    His 'success' was statistically insignificant AND totally unrelated to his math. Anyone that goes on hundreds of dates and find the right woman.

    You want to impress me? Have the algorithm pick 5 women and have them all be very interested in you. Picking 100's of women with lots of failed dates is just a NORMAL DATING LIFE.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Guy is foolish. by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, for me the problem is getting that date count up.

      I've so far been online dating for about 9 months, I've dated only 6 women. Of these :

      * The first one entered into a relationship with me that lasted a couple of months, during which I didn't bother with dating sites for obvious reasons
      * The most recent is promising, but we've only been on one date, and because of distance and logistics, the next date is proving hard to organise

      I'm on two subscription dating sites (one is match.com) and two free ones (Plenty of Fish and OKCupid). Of these, I've had two dates from OKCupid, two from POF, one from Match and one from the other subscription site, so on this tiny sample the free sites work better than the paid ones... although they all barely work at all.

      I estimate I've probably messaged around 120 women, being picky*, sending proper tailored messages that actually respond to things in their profile, mostly concentrated in POF, OKC, and Match. (the last site is an odd one that only lets you browse a certain number of women per day that it picks out for you, and most of the profiles on there are very poor because their sign-up process numbs the brain). When I actually get a response, I think my "date rate" is around 50%

      In contrast, I went speed dating and out of a pool of 13 women I got two "mutual matches" and 5 / 13 expressed an interest in dating me. Clearly something is wrong with the way I express myself online. I've had women turn me down on the grounds that I was "too intellectual for them"... I'm not sure if this is a reflection on me, or the dating pool concerned (POF and Match.com seem to be more "everyman" than OKCupid which is definitely more artsy, professional, and intelligent in tone).

      The main surprise for me so far has been how many vegetarians OKCupid matches me up with....

      * defined as only messaging women that I actually find attractive

    2. Re:Guy is foolish. by radtea · · Score: 2

      I've so far been online dating for about 9 months, I've dated only 6 women.

      Dating is a long game. In my early 40's I dated for years, including a couple of relationships (which lasted a few months to a year) before finding someone really compatible, and who I've been with for almost a decade now. Like me, she had by that time dated virtually everyone in our age group in the city we lived in, so it was optimization by exhaustive search for both of us.

      I've used OKC, PoF and a couple of paid services (LavaLife is the one I remember.) They all suck. OKC and PoF suck less.

      OKC routinely matched me with people who were ludicrously unsuitable, mostly anti-science alternative-types who were frequently much younger, and I've dated enough younger women to know that doesn't work for me even with basic values in common. I can understand why that happened, but although the algorithms clearly think I'm "young at heart" my brain is still as old as the hills, to say nothing of my body.

      PoF was better for demographic reasons, I think, so it's worth shopping around to find a site that has more of your kind of people on it.

      That said: everyone is bad at online communication, and most people shade the truth on their profile at least a bit. Weirdly, the most honest people sound the least real, in my experience (my partner and I had seen each other's profiles off-and-on for several years on different sites and never contacted each other because we thought it was impossible we were what we seemed.)

      So keep at it, fail often, and be utterly up-front about who you are. You'll be surprised at how rapidly you filter out the dross and how well you connect with people who are really on the same wavelength, once you find them. But finding them can take a long time.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    3. Re:Guy is foolish. by spads · · Score: 2

      I think possibly the most significant thing he did was to get them to message him FIRST. As in David Halberstam's critical rule of diplomacy (from Best and the Brightest), the first to the negotiations table largely empowers the other to dictate the condtions of the armistice. Not that this is sufficient when dealing with women by any means, but it is significant.

      The other important things he did with this experiment is to identify the most critical questions, and confirm that women put considerable stake in those questions and resultant ratings, based on the spike in inquiries he got. I, myself, have used the site, and find it to be good overall, though I'm less taken with the questions/ratings. My main interest there is a few show-stoppers, the NUMBER of questions answered, and the explanations included with the answers. To somewhat negate the whole thing, I think high confidence* in that system might suggest an authoritarian character, which is something of a show-stopper for me.

      *I.e. causing one to be a first contacter.

      --
      Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
  12. Analysis? More targetted scattergunning by Mr_Silver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whilst what he did was very clever, at the end of the day he manipulated the scoring so that his profile was placed in front of thousands of womens search results because it had a high match percentage (that normally would never have been seen).

    The TL;DR version of this story is that if thousands of women see your profile and, at the same time, are told by a website that you're a high match to them, then you've got a very good chance they'll contact you. Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

    That, to me, is the digital equivalent of (the old advice) that you'll never meet someone unless you get yourself out there.

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    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  13. Re:TED talk by rev0lt · · Score: 2

    now?

  14. Women Are Like A Software Project by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 4, Funny

    They always start out with an super-long, totally unreasonable requirements list that includes stuff that's totally irrelevant to any imaginable scope. Through hard work and negotiation and development of what you initially bring to the table, you need to bring down the client's impossible functional specification to something workable she can reasonably be satisfied with (also beer helps). It's called "game" for a reason.

  15. Re:TED talk by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Medical innovation comes from, get this, medical research. I'm not going to buy the fundamental credibility of someone who hasn't even necessarily seen the inside of a university, much less a medical school. If you see a "cold medicine invented by a teacher" altmed package at the checkout of a grocery store, you don't go "oh anyone could come up with something that works" you flip it over and see "*this statement not evaluated by the FDA" because it's bullshit.

  16. Re:TED talk by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, but under the lens of actual medical science it all falls apart.

    From wikipedia

    Many of Andraka's claims do not stand up to rigorous peer-reviewed research. For instance, a 2011 article published by Sharton et al. of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the NIH National Cancer Institute refutes many of Andraka's claims about specificity of using mesothelin as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer. Specifically, the group showed that mesothelin serum levels in healty donors 0.58 (0.15 – 0.72) nmol/l were not statistically different from serum levels in pancreatic cancer patients 0.66 (0.52 – 0.94) nmol/L.[15] In addition to this issue of false positives, George M. Church, professor of genetics at Harvard University, has raised concerns about the cost, speed, and sensitivity claims.[11]

  17. Re:How many dates though? by BreakBad · · Score: 4, Funny

    However I agree with his approach to keep it short and simple.

    Fuck....now you tell me. This date has lasted 8 years, 3 cars, 2 houses, and 3 kids. She just won't take a hint....but I don't want to be rude.

  18. Re:TED talk by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    You can discuss exceptions, but the reality is that red flags on pseudoscience are important for casual observations of this sort.