The current storyline of the webcomic User Friendly is rather relevant to me…
Oh, Sid, you speak as if there’s something wrong with “Look at me!” behaviour. I’ll bet you’re one of those damned introverts.
Photo by Frank Lemire. Thanks, Frank!
Details later.
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:
- Getting into shape at the gym
- Dressing nicely (“nicely” varying with the sort of person you’re trying to attract)
- Wearing cologne/perfume/eau de toilette/patchouli (you dirty hippie)
- Going
to places where disproprotionately large numbers of single people
gather and drink fluids that are conducive to loosened
inhibitions/clouded judgement - Asking
to be introduced to someone (by a friend/a dating service/speed
dating/online dating/asking the guy with the accordion to play a song
for that cute girl on your behalf)
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.)
Chau Vuong, a 33-year-old former equity analyst who specialized in
pharmaceutical companies at the investment bank Robertson Stephens,
admits he’s never kissed a girl. He hopes that one day he’ll get
married and lose his virginity. “I don’t actually date,” he explains.
“I just research it.” With a doctorate in pharmacy and a background in
computer science, the self-described “extreme type-A personality” works
full time on a desperately personal project: “to solve dating by
turning Google into a global dating service.”
pharmaceutical companies at the investment bank Robertson Stephens,
admits he’s never kissed a girl. He hopes that one day he’ll get
married and lose his virginity. “I don’t actually date,” he explains.
“I just research it.” With a doctorate in pharmacy and a background in
computer science, the self-described “extreme type-A personality” works
full time on a desperately personal project: “to solve dating by
turning Google into a global dating service.”
(This profile isn’t creepy as it is Beavis-and-Butthead-y.)
When I arrive at the Condomania offices to meet Filkins, he’s finishing
up some business on the phone. I wander around his workspace while he
talks, peering with mild trepidation into giant candy jars full of
tricolor condoms and shiny plastic packets of lube. In one room, I
discover a “condomenorah.” Condoms of various hues and sizes are
attached to nine PVC pipes arranged to resemble Hanukkah lights.
Filkins joins me and grins as his colleague flips a switch, sending air
through the pipes and allowing me to inspect the wares in their fully
operational state.
up some business on the phone. I wander around his workspace while he
talks, peering with mild trepidation into giant candy jars full of
tricolor condoms and shiny plastic packets of lube. In one room, I
discover a “condomenorah.” Condoms of various hues and sizes are
attached to nine PVC pipes arranged to resemble Hanukkah lights.
Filkins joins me and grins as his colleague flips a switch, sending air
through the pipes and allowing me to inspect the wares in their fully
operational state.
(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.)
Between marathon Java-thrashing sessions, he often finds he wants to
introduce himself to “a cute girl with a laptop” but is too shy to make
an approach. That’s where the Sniffer comes in handy. If a hottie fires
up her AOL Instant Messenger client, Burton sees her login name and can
send her an IM. “I’ve gotten several first dates that way,” he says.
“Women think it’s cute when I can make a message pop on their machine
as if by magic. Now that so many women are online, it’s our chance as
geeks to start getting more dates.”
introduce himself to “a cute girl with a laptop” but is too shy to make
an approach. That’s where the Sniffer comes in handy. If a hottie fires
up her AOL Instant Messenger client, Burton sees her login name and can
send her an IM. “I’ve gotten several first dates that way,” he says.
“Women think it’s cute when I can make a message pop on their machine
as if by magic. Now that so many women are online, it’s our chance as
geeks to start getting more dates.”
…
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.)
These guys churn out hacks that thin the membrane between dating and
stalking. They spend their afternoons chronicling and exploiting the
vulnerabilities in dating sites and social networks. But the strange
thing is, they’re not doing it to meet women. They don’t care about
getting lucky. Moore, in fact, is married and has a baby daughter.
stalking. They spend their afternoons chronicling and exploiting the
vulnerabilities in dating sites and social networks. But the strange
thing is, they’re not doing it to meet women. They don’t care about
getting lucky. Moore, in fact, is married and has a baby daughter.
Categories
Sitting in my “Drafts” folder
Here are a couple of items that I should post before they languish in my “Drafts” folder (along with a zillion other articles):
- Guile has had it with computer game company Electronic Arts, who
have lately shown a knack for screwing up perfectly good games by
releasing bad patches (a “patch” is an update to a piece of software;
ideally, they’re supposed to fix bugs and introduce minor improvements)
and then completely dropping support for the game. Once again, it’s
another case of a company viewing us as consumers rather customers. - Gideon Strauss points to Dave Hegeman’s review of Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative
Class and How it’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and
Everyday Life. This book (which thus far I’ve only read about, rather than reading) talks about the socioeconomic effects of the “creative class”, of which I am purported to be a membet.It’s Hegeman’s conclusion that both Gideon and I find intriguing, and I believe something with which we disagree:
Welcome to the brave new world
of economic prosperity, technological progress, and alienation. The
coffee may be good and the music cool, but there is a spiritual and
relational emptiness at the core of these hip new neighbourhoods
which is bound to reveal itself in due time.
of economic prosperity, technological progress, and alienation. The
coffee may be good and the music cool, but there is a spiritual and
relational emptiness at the core of these hip new neighbourhoods
which is bound to reveal itself in due time.
I disagree; one of the reasons
creatives tend to leave suburbia is because of “spiritual and
relational emptiness”. You can feel this emptiness in the architecture
of communal spaces of suburbia, whose highest priorities are the
extraction of money from “consumers” and the storage of cars.
creatives tend to leave suburbia is because of “spiritual and
relational emptiness”. You can feel this emptiness in the architecture
of communal spaces of suburbia, whose highest priorities are the
extraction of money from “consumers” and the storage of cars.
Hegeman also states:
Whatever the reason, Christians
seem to be largely absent from the super-creative high-tech scene,
and without the salt and light that Christians have to offer, the
dot.com neighbourhoods have become a hip new Vanity Fair:
colourful, vibrant, prosperous, and, despite appearances to the
contrary . . . dead.
seem to be largely absent from the super-creative high-tech scene,
and without the salt and light that Christians have to offer, the
dot.com neighbourhoods have become a hip new Vanity Fair:
colourful, vibrant, prosperous, and, despite appearances to the
contrary . . . dead.
I would say “not so”:
- Larry Wall is about as devout a
Christian as they come. He’s also the inventor of the Perl programming
language (a.k.a. “the duct tape of the internet); the ‘net wouldn’t have happened quite the same way without him. - Moby, who practically wrote the dot-com soundtrack, openly professes his faith.
- …and during the downtime between coding sessions, we enjoyed Kevin Smith movies.
Of these three, Larry’s probably the most traditional, but
each has managed to integrate their faith into the creative/high-tech
world. This world does have
its share of seekers, Christian and otherwise, who are looking for that
“something more” and who know that hipness is merely a byproduct, not a goal.
Categories
I got a 70
[ via diveintomark ] Mark got a 77 on the Life Assessment Quiz, while I got a 70. I don’t quite understand this, as I can imagine this conversation taking place only a few years ago:
Mark: David Crosby! You’re my role model!
David Crosby: You mean I’m your favourite musician?
Mark: You’re a musician?
David Crosby: You mean I’m your favourite musician?
Mark: You’re a musician?
Okay, I kid. A little. And you probably know that I stole that scene from The Simpsons.
My strongest area was “relationships”; my weakest is “money”.
Give the test a try, and try to make a game plan based on the results.
Categories
I’m one of the cool kids now
I’d received an earlier invitation to Google’s GMail
service (which currently is available by invitation only, guaranteeing
that only the cool geeks have it right now), but I told the guy who
invited me that there was someone who needed it more than I.
Later, I got another invitation, which I was going to accept, until I remembered that I owed Boris a favour for his loaning me his apartment in Montreal for a weekend last September.
Last week, I got a third invitation — this time from Adam Hill — and I finally took it. I plan to use it for blog-related communication. It’s accordionguy {the-ubiquitous-at-sign} gmail {the-equally-ubiquitous-full-stop} com.
Thanks, Adam!
Ashley Bristowe, an
old friend of mine from Crazy Go Nuts University, whose wedding
to Chris “Turner”
Turner,
my fellow DJ at Clark Hall Pub I attended with The Redhead in January, has
two requests for assistance. If you can help, drop me a line or leave a
note in the comments.
One: Planet Simpson
If you’ve ever read the late great Shift magazine or hit its site,
you’ve probably read a Chris Turner article — Chris was one of the
reasons you should’ve been reading Shift. He has a book coming out that
should be of interest to this weblog’s readers: Planet Simpson : How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation.
Ashley will be editing the book’s blog, where
there’ll be a “buy the book” button you can click to buy the book.
Chris would prefer to avoid the whole Amazon/Barnes and
Noble/Chapters-Indigo track and have the button link to an indie
bookseller in your area (for example, in western Canada it’ll be McNally Robinson).
She wants to know if there’s an independent American bookseller who sells book online. Anyone know of one?
Two: Accordion City Accomodations
Chris and Ashley are coming to Accordion City for a month and need a place to crash. Here’s what they’re hoping for, classified-ad style, in Chris’ own words:
Easy-going, trustworthy professional
couple plus gentle English Setter seek house or apartment in downtown
Toronto for the period of (roughly) July 15
to August 20. Willing to housesit, sublet, talk to plants and/or tend
gardens (plus monetary compensation — rent, that is — if necessary).
Willing also to steam-vac carpets and furniture if English Setter is of
any concern. Able to trade for one month’s stay in cozy Calgary home
w/in walking distance of Stampede grounds and/or weekend in Nakusp, BC,
at Strawberry Hill Lodge. References available upon request.
couple plus gentle English Setter seek house or apartment in downtown
Toronto for the period of (roughly) July 15
to August 20. Willing to housesit, sublet, talk to plants and/or tend
gardens (plus monetary compensation — rent, that is — if necessary).
Willing also to steam-vac carpets and furniture if English Setter is of
any concern. Able to trade for one month’s stay in cozy Calgary home
w/in walking distance of Stampede grounds and/or weekend in Nakusp, BC,
at Strawberry Hill Lodge. References available upon request.
English setter? When did they get a dog?
If you can help, drop me a line or leave a comment.