Can big data help you find true love?
It’s Love Your Data Week, but did you know people have been using Big Data for to optimize their ability to find their soul mate with the power of data science! Wired Magazine profiled mathematician and data scientist Chris McKinlay in “How to Hack OkCupid“.There’s even a book spin-off from this! “Optimal Cupid”, which unfortunately is not at any nearby libraries.
But really, we know you’re all wondering, where can I learn the data science techniques needed to find “The One”, especially if I’m not a math genius?
ETHICS NOTE: WE DO NOT ENDORSE OR RECOMMEND TRYING TO CREATE SPYWARE, ESPECIALLY NOT ON COMPUTERS IN THE SPACE. WE ALSO DON’T GUARANTEE USING BIG DATA WILL HELP YOU FIND LOVE.
What did Chris McKinlay do?
Methods used:
- Automating tasks, such as writing a python script to answer questions on OKCupid
- Scraping data from dating websites
- Surveying
- Statistical analysis
- Machine learning to figure out how to rank the importance of answers of questions
- Bots to visit people’s pages
- Actually talking to people in the real world!
Things we can help you with at Scholarly Commons:
Selected workshops and resources, come by the space to find more!
- Want to learning Python and get started with programming and text analysis?
- We have a set of reference books that you can read in the space!
- And if you’re specifically interested in using Python for text analysis check out our Savvy Researcher workshop: Advanced Text Mining Techniques with Python and HathiTrust Data on March 6 from 2 pm-3 pm http://illinois.edu/calendar/detail/4068?eventId=33254197&calMin=201702&cal=20170208&skinId=7198
- Is love the only aspect of your life where you have trouble finding things you didn’t know you were looking for?
- You might also want to check out our Ways of the Web: Filter Bubbles, Search Engines, and YOU Savvy Researcher workshop on April 4 from 3 pm- 4 pm http://illinois.edu/calendar/detail/4068?eventId=33252972&calMin=201702&cal=20170208&skinId=7198
- Knowing your data
- Data Workflow on March 1 from 1 pm – 2pm http://illinois.edu/calendar/detail/4068?eventId=33254157&calMin=201702&cal=20170208&skinId=7198
- Statistical analysis
- Introduction to ATLAS.ti on March 1 from 5:30 pm-7:30 pm http://illinois.edu/calendar/detail/4068?eventId=33257443&calMin=201702&cal=20170208&skinId=7198
- We also have a lot of books to read here in the space, and if you are more of a learning-by-doing person we have ATLAS.ti, SAS, SPSS, Stata, R, and NVivo ready for you to play around with on the computers here in the space!
Whether you reach out to us by email, phone, or in-person our experts are ready to help with all of your questions and helping you make the most of your data! You might not find “The One” with our software tools, but we can definitely help you have a better relationship with your data!