TOW #18 How A Math Genius Hacked Okay Cupid by Kevin Poulsen

Who doesn't like a good unconventional love story? Not the mushy, overly romantic Notebook stuff, but the messy, funny, heartfelt kind? Maybe it's just me, but I'm a sucker for the stuff, and that's exactly what this article was. A truly unconventional, unbelievable (and AMAZING) story. 

It starts with a vivid description of a man. Interestingly, the article included a picture as well, a touch that I believe highly attributes to the overall effectiveness. The picture of Chris McKinlay lets you imagine the story as a movie, and as it plays out in your head, it really does reel you in. The descriptions act as another catalyst for the minds motion picture. The text reads, “Chris McKinlay was folded into a cramped fifth-floor cubicle in UCLA’s math sciences building, lit by a single bulb and the glow from his monitor. It was 3 in the morn­ing, the optimal time to squeeze cycles out of the supercomputer in Colorado that he was using for his PhD dissertation.” One can just picture McKinlay sitting in his cramped desk, pouring over numbers and absent mindedly getting distracted by his own profile. When the idea of hacking OkCupid hits, it hits the audience as well. This process takes them through the journey, instead of viewing it, readers are now living it. The descriptions explain EVERYTHING, from the statistical data analysis process, to the types of women in each group, even the conversations that women had with McKinlay are expressed. These additional details really convery the painstaking and all-consuming work that had  been done on the project. Most importantly, they inspire hope. If a math professor with little social skill can find love, why can't you? McKinlay found the most popular questions within his target, deciphered which cluster was most popular to him, and was able to revolutionize online dating. This article provides an inside look at the mystical world of online dating, showing that if one really does try hard enough, they can find love. And isn’t that what we all really want? A chance?
READ THE STORY: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/how-to-hack-okcupid/all/&src=longreads