Politik und Perversion
… I would just like to make a little recoomendation for all out there interested in the visualisation of aggregated data: Take a look at chartporn.org, a marvellous website on exactly that, which deserves praise and support for the awesome collection of information it does.
Kudos
It is always a nice day on which you get something confirmed in hard data you already knew was true. For example the sweet fact that zodiacs contribute exactly zero, zilch, nothing to the question wether people match or not.
The best days of OKCupid are over, its no longer the geeky place where people exchanged long mails about smart quizzes and that got most of their new users from the Startup-screen of edonkey 2000. I do wish OKCs owners lots of money and fame for what they did with this site, but I do kinda miss the old days ;)
Anyway, I recommend following OKCs blog closely, they have a dataset that dwarfs Gallup and they are smart enough to do funny things with it.
And one does wonder how hindu marriages work out.
It was a matter of time before someone had collected enough data on the dreaded intertubes and threatened to blow all covers, but now it has happend, and all sorts of perversions, personal habits, preferences and perturbances have been thoroughly numbercrunched and colorcoded. OKC started publishing some very cute statistics about rape fantasies and personal hygiene habits in the US and elsewhere, and I have high hopes for their upcoming work.
Elsewhere, OKC is feeling the strain of its popularity now, all the college people suddenly seem to rush in, and slowly the neerds and geekgirls that populated this cute website become a minority, spambots and russian scammers increas the number of fake profiles, and the forums are already a constant frat party. I will see how long I stick around, especially since I’m not looking for dates anymore.
But as long as they don’t take slashdot away from me, I shall be happy browsing the webs.