[HN Gopher] How fateful?
___________________________________________________________________
How fateful?
Author : parabyl
Score : 937 points
Date : 2022-10-04 07:29 UTC (15 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (chan.co.za)
| ghostoftesla wrote:
| That's the most dystopian sh*t I've seen here in a while.
| room505 wrote:
| My spouse and I passed each other all the time because we lived
| in the same neighborhood. I almost had the courage to approach
| her. Ironically, we ended up meeting through a dating website!
| NoGravitas wrote:
| It's almost as if the dating website played the role that a
| formal introduction from a mutual acquaintance might have
| played once upon a time.
| OisinMoran wrote:
| This is beautiful! I've often had the same thought when meeting
| new people--"What's the closest we've been before now?", "Have we
| looked at each other as strangers before?", etc.
|
| A similar one I'd love to know is what's the furthest apart I've
| seen the same bird?
| zhte415 wrote:
| > It makes me feel very philosophical. Likely we had walked past
| each other every other week for three years with our heads down,
| or in the clouds, paying very little notice to the people around
| us. Past Channon had not the foggiest clue what impact an
| unnoticed stranger would come to have on her. Since learning this
| I can't help but look at the passers-by in my day-to-day life in
| a different light.
|
| And no shame in getting philosophical. It may not have been time.
| Perhaps you were not the same person, or nor was he. In meeting
| at the right time, _stars are aligned_ , it was the right time to
| intersect. Or perhaps a host of other reasons. There may have
| been better times, perhaps bounded for this success quite close
| to or at the time you didn 'meet'. And who knows what other
| 'success' could have worked out - collaborators in something,
| getting together when 're meeting' - we don't know, an
| individual's life's not repeatable, and that in itself is
| beautiful.
|
| It is indeed fascinating mapping and wondering, and probably
| applicable to a lot. But not to downplay the philosophical side,
| as that's important, and important the OP included it.
| weezin wrote:
| >Perhaps you were not the same person, or nor was he.
|
| Man this is really key. relationships is a skill. I don't
| believe in soul mates, but rather a healthy relationship is
| developed when two people have honed the skill enough to be
| able to handle conflict without causing irreparable harm, and
| enjoy each other out of conflict.
| greyhair wrote:
| It helps immensely to have common goals and wants.
|
| My wife and I were very aligned, right from early on,
| concerning financial disposition and family goals. We got
| that right out in the open early. We completely merged our
| financial lives and closed on a house, both names on the
| deed, both names on the mortgage, a year before we got
| engaged. When we got engaged, we couldn't afford an
| engagement ring, joint decision on that, and one of her
| friends got up in my face about it, 'where is the
| commitment?'. My dear fiancee held her ring finger up against
| the house and said "this is the commitment".
|
| That common ground, those common goals, has made everything
| that followed much easier. Thirty years this past Spring.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I don't really agree, if you sat down and talked with every
| single person you walked by throughout the day you would meet
| many people you clicked with, both on a friendship and romantic
| level. If the author was that outgoing they probably would have
| met their partner earlier, or she would have found someone she
| liked better.
|
| In other words I don't think who we end up with is some 1 in a
| million cosmic star aligning moment, it's probably more like 1
| in 100 and many people would be as good or a better fit than
| who we end up with. The time you spend with your person is more
| important than some intrinsic value you both bring at the
| start.
| notinfuriated wrote:
| I actually think that your comment is probably saying
| something similar to the above. It potentially is about _1 in
| 100_ as you state, but the timing of it makes it far less
| likely for 1 in 100 to work out because both people may not
| actually be mentally or emotionally ready to settle into a
| monogamous relationship. At least, my own experience has led
| me to that sort of a worldview.
|
| I've had relationships not work out for varying reasons,
| including going on vacation 'at the wrong time', or someone's
| ex visiting the city and making her feel like she can't 'move
| on' at the moment, stuff like that.
|
| And I went through my own dating phase in which I was less
| mature and not ready to settle down with many of the people I
| met. Quite a few of them were perfectly great women with whom
| I likely could have lasted in a long-term relationship (of
| course, we can never really know). As I see it, the timing
| wasn't right, either for me (mostly for me) or for them. It
| was only after a few years of this that I was in the right
| mindset to stay with the person I happened to be dating at
| the time. Sure, that probably doesn't sound great, and I
| probably won't discuss this at length with my wife, but it's
| the way I view the world. I'd wager that something like 80%
| of the people I went on more than three dates with were
| 'compatible' enough that I'd pursue a relationship with them,
| but it only worked out long-term with the last one because we
| were both in the same mindset to give an earnest effort at
| making our relationship work at the same place and same time.
|
| So, using dumb analogy math, 1/X (compatible person) chance
| times 1/Y (right timing, maturity, life experience, etc.), it
| works out to a lower probability 1/(X*Y).
| Karellen wrote:
| Your love is one in a million You couldn't buy it at
| any price But of the nine-point-nine-nine-nine
| hundred thousand other possible loves Statistically
| some of them would be equally nice Or maybe not
| as nice but, say, smarter than you Or dumber, but
| better at sport or... fuckin' tracing? I'm just
| saying I really think that I would, probably
| Have somebody else If I didn't have you
| Someone else would do
|
| -- Tim Minchin, _If I Didn 't Have You_
| owenpalmer wrote:
| Ew
| Tozen wrote:
| Exactly. Many people don't realize, that the more people you
| are interacting with, the greater the odds are to finding
| what you seek. Probably this is more true for men, as oppose
| to women, as men tend to be more proactive. However, men
| still need to overcome any shyness or fear of rejection, to
| unlock such greater possibilities.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I don't think who we end up with is some 1 in a million
| cosmic star aligning moment, it's probably more like 1 in 100
|
| I suspect that you're right for most people, but those odds
| will be better or worse depending on the person and their
| circumstance. For some people, it probably is closer to 1 in
| a million, or could even be worse. Some go their entire lives
| meeting people and never finding one. There's probably not
| much harm in feeling a bit lucky to have found your person,
| especially if you suspect at least one of your odds were
| worse than most.
| salmo wrote:
| The 1 in 100 is what keeps my wife busy with family law. The
| odds of ending up marrying someone vs having a healthy
| relationship are 2 very different things.
|
| My wife and I dated through undergrad, broke up at "get
| married or break up." And ended coming back together as
| adults with more life and relationship experience. Based on
| plans, we never should have been back in the same city. And
| when we started hanging out again, neither expected a
| relationship, just a friendship still being sick of each
| others' sh. But we had both grown up. We're 24 years into our
| relationship now. I think it's going well.
|
| That's all purely anecdotal, though.
|
| I don't think real math could be done with this. Success
| isn't measurable. People often split due to $ or tragedy.
| People stick it out, miserable the entire time. It walks into
| Aristotle's eudaimonia. You can't know until it's over. Even
| then, quantifying quality is folly.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| I'm guessing your wife is a divorce attorney? If so,
| knowing what she knows, what's stopping her dropping out of
| the marriage and taking half your stuff? Even in a perfect
| marriage, there's always the incentive.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Legend has it that Adam Smith (the "father of capitalism") and
| James Watt (pioneering steam-engineer and industrial machinist)
| shared proximate offices at Glasgow University and drank in the
| same nearby pubs. Apparently, no significant record of their
| connection exists.
| arethuza wrote:
| Babbage and Brunel almost ran into each others in trains -
| Brunel coming back from a night out and Babbage running
| experiments:
|
| https://moorsidepublications.com/2015/07/01/babbage-gets-
| inv...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Oh, _literally_ ran into each other.
|
| "They were on a collision course and both would have been
| travelling at 40 miles an hour."
|
| What an amazing story. Thanks.
| arethuza wrote:
| I love the cartoon series with Lovelace, Babbage and
| Brunel:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/apr/1
| 2/t...
| jvvw wrote:
| My husband and I are pretty sure we must have been in the same
| room at university on various occasions (we knew lots of people
| in common) but didn't meet until several years after we both
| left. I'm three years older and was four academic years ahead
| so think it is a good thing we didn't meet then - I don't think
| as a PhD student that I would have dated a first-year
| undergraduate!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That idea has always fascinated me as well -- imagining each of
| us tracing out some kind of space-time path on a map. And with
| other's paths crossing ours. I want to be able to rewind time
| and watch the paths of ex-girlfriends I have lost touch with to
| see if we crossed paths again, perhaps in an airport, unaware
| of each other.
|
| Perhaps it would all be more depressing than that though,
| exposing the small, repetitive worlds we live in. For my part,
| I have tried to road-trip, travel more often than others in my
| family have done, tried too to expose my kids to travel when
| growing up so they can experience a slightly bigger loop across
| the face of this small planet.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've heard that there's something like a 50% that someone you
| know is at the airport at the same time you are - because
| people who fly know people who fly.
| Tozen wrote:
| > imagining each of us tracing out some kind of space-time
| path on a map...
|
| Very fascinating indeed. Imagine all the near-misses, as
| well. Like you were in the exact location of a childhood
| sweetheart, soon-to-be girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, but
| separated by 30 minutes. Perhaps, if had waited 30 minutes
| later, would have ran into a dream woman, who would have been
| the perfect wife.
| smeej wrote:
| I was getting philosophical the other day for the opposite
| reason, looking at all the things that went _slightly_
| different than they would have been expected to go, or that I
| had previously wished had not gone "wrong," but if they had
| happened the "right" way, we never would have met.
|
| I don't think Google's spying can help me identify those, but
| in the end I'm grateful for the winding path that led here,
| even if I didn't love it along the way!
| ivan888 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjKFb-4t_vg
| Archelaos wrote:
| Think of all the causal paths since the beginning of the
| universe that led to your birth. Even the smallest difference
| would have resulted in what you are now being a different
| person, if you existed at all. Just one atom in a supernova
| explosion billions of years ago having a slightly different
| trajectory ...
| Tor3 wrote:
| When I and my wife met for the first time we were both
| tourists, we both had never been to that country before (and
| none of us had ever been to a place the other had been), and we
| had exactly one day of overlap at this place and just happened
| to have decided to go to a particular spot at the same time in
| the early morning. And it's extremely likely that there would
| never have been another opportunity at any time later.
| lexapro wrote:
| There would have been another opportunity with someone else
| that you would have fancied as much or even more.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Way to destroy his marriage!
| Tozen wrote:
| But, it is the truth. Except, such can go both ways.
| There can be better or worse options that present
| themselves (to include beyond looks).
| Tor3 wrote:
| A bit unlikely as I got married quite late in life! (And I
| had zero intentions of getting involved with anyone up to
| then) (In any case - this was a comment to a discussion
| about crossing paths with one's SO/partner at other times
| than when actually meeting - not about meeting someone
| else. My story was just one where it's guaranteed that we
| couldn't have crossed paths before - no googling
| necessary..)
| MrDunham wrote:
| > And no shame in getting philosophical. It may not have been
| time. Perhaps you were not the same person, or nor was he
|
| This is a really good point. My wife and I often laugh about
| how in high school especially and college too we wouldn't
| likely have been friends, much less good romantic partners.
| Both of us then were different people yet now both of us are
| perfect for each other.
|
| But back then? Likely not even friends.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| This assumes that you would fallen in love if you met earlier
| which isn't a good assumption.
|
| It is a fun exercise though and pretty cute to do.
| vivegi wrote:
| I loved the personal story of two people trying to figure out
| past history based on data. But the fact that his comes from
| centralized datamines maintained by bigtech is unsettling.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| And this friends is why "third party" entities collecting your
| meta data and such is a concern. A lot (read: enough) can be
| learned about you *and who you associate* without actually
| listening to your calls, etc.
|
| On the surface, this article is cute. After that it's a red flag
| for all of us.
| wink wrote:
| I'd argue the opposite. People already know what Google can do,
| this is how you reap some benefits for yourself with the data
| that's already there.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The NSA, etc. is not Google. What about the Constitution?
| anarticle wrote:
| I've always wondered what the NSA actually thinks of me.
| Consider it a psychoanalysis paid for by taxes. Extra creepy,
| but we're already at the party.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| All depends on your threat model. A company openly collecting
| your data by your say so seems significantly less threatening
| (to me, to many others) than all the actors who are doing it
| without your knowledge or consent.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The point is, any / all data collection is - or should be -
| suspect. Today's benevolent actor is tomorrow's victim of a
| hack, or simply changes their spots. Furthermore, even data
| that is positioned as harmless (i.e., phone call metadata)
| can tell stories.
|
| Finally, per "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" (and
| others) these minor privacy infringements add up and is used
| against us.
|
| There's no such thing as no threat.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I've concluded that the benefits significantly outweigh
| the, imo, fairly remote risks. It's that simple.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Read the book. Once you come to realize the collecting of
| your data isn't "passive" and that ultimately, it's being
| done to be used against you - and your free will - your
| perceived benefits are insignificant.
|
| Put another way, being complacent and complicit not only
| sells-out your own privacy, it compromises the privacy of
| all those round you, your (future) offspring, etc.
|
| For what? Convenience?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I'm not going to read a whole book about this issue.
|
| I already know that the collecting of data isn't passive.
| I deny that it's being done to be used against me. I also
| deny any concrete harms for most people on the short to
| medium term, although the far future is hard to predict.
|
| Given that I deny the likelihood of harm to this data
| collection, I'm setting a concrete benefit against no
| drawbacks. Therefore I will continue to use it.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| No drawbacks? You're naive (at best).
|
| In some camps, a couple of years ago, the book was on a
| number of "Book of Year" lists. The issue is far less
| simplistic than you're making it out to be. That fact
| that you dismiss the risks and dangers is something -
| funny enough - covered in the book as well.
|
| Leaving this for completeness:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Cap
| ita...
|
| p.s. Not passive, as in the aim is to be proactive (in
| influencing behavior). There are plenty of other sources
| that explore how fragile "free will" is, so maybe we can
| do that some other time? :)
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Do you find you convince many people with this style of
| argumentation? I used to do it this way but it never
| worked out for me. You think I'm naive, but in fact I
| just have different priorities from you, and different
| estimates of the likelihood of outcomes.
| hoseja wrote:
| Does your threat model include universal subsumation by
| state-corporate entities or are you just, sorta leaving that
| one on your children?
| neilv wrote:
| > _I 'm glad to have gone down this rabbit hole because now I
| think about the 41.25 near-misses we had, where if an audience
| had been watching they may have been on the edge of their seats._
|
| 41.25 near-misses, until The Answer was the crossing that wasn't
| a miss: 42
| nkko wrote:
| What was the question?
| greyhair wrote:
| My now wife picked me up in a bar in 1992.
|
| After we met, it was clear that we had been frequenting the same
| bars for about three years, and had attended many shows
| together/apart, but neither of us had any recollection of
| recognizing each other at any prior point. The shows were
| significant acts (for example, an ear bleedingly loud Bob Mould
| at the Green Parrot in Neptune NJ) that had to be the same show,
| could not possibly have been a different weekend with some common
| local band.
|
| But there you have it. No contact until she noticed me sitting at
| the bar watching a live band at a worn out dive bar/night club,
| and wanted to know what my T-shirt said. She was drunk. She was
| adorable. I was smitten.
| lynguist wrote:
| My takeaway is this: If you want to meet your significant other,
| attend a university. After university your chances will dwindle
| down as you won't frequent that big come together place any more.
| greyhair wrote:
| I had a primary care physician ask me where I met my wife.
|
| He was old, early 80s (since retired and passed on) and said he
| had been asking his patients that his whole career, and had
| been keeping track.
|
| I met my wife at a bar. Now, this was pre-smart-phone era, I
| will grant you that.
|
| He said that a little more than 80% of his patients met their
| spouse at a bar. He said every time he heard someone say "You
| need to go to church", "you need to volunteer", or any other
| thing like that, he would interject that no, you need to go out
| drinking and carousing with friends. And always with friends.
| Apparently, out drinking and carousing alone is not nearly as
| effective.
|
| You will have to accept the word of dead physician from the
| 1990s on that. Post 2008, the numbers have likely shifted.
|
| But I still recommend drinking and carousing with friends.
| (That doesn't mean heavy drinking, you don't have to get
| plastered to carouse)
| smallerfish wrote:
| Romantic relationships formed in your early 20s are
| statistically unlikely to last. University is a fine place to
| meet people and have fun, but don't count on it as a place to
| find "your" significant other.
| the_af wrote:
| But if instead of having a relationship that lasts forever,
| you value having a meaningful romantic relationship that
| lasts 5 or 10 years, university is pretty good.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Yes of course. But that's not what the person I was
| replying to was asserting.
| wzdd wrote:
| The story leads with the fact that the author met her boyfriend
| on Bumble, despite attending the same university and living in
| the same city for five years. So that's a surprising takeaway.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I thought the same, but I am generation older. It made me
| think: Does anyone still ask people out for dates in real
| life? I am sure some, but the ratio must be incredibly low
| now after online dating became so common. To be clear: I do
| not think this is worse. For example, with the rise of
| different types of dating apps, it does seem that women
| (seeking men) have more agency in their dating life. In my
| generation (and culture), women almost never asked out men,
| so they were always waiting for romance to happen to them. Of
| course, this has changed significantly. Some part is the rise
| in agency of women (education, earnings power, social
| changes, etc.), and some part dating apps.
| bradlys wrote:
| Online dating is common but it doesn't usually work for the
| average man. It will work for most women but most women
| don't use it.
|
| Most men still need to find a partner through other means
| like cold approach (terrible - it's highly dependent on
| looks just like Tinder) or through warm approach (friends
| of friends, hobbies, social groups, etc. - this is where
| most average men meet their partners).
|
| The issue now is the growing number of single men. This
| number keeps going up every year and it doesn't look to be
| improving. It's definitely leading to some not-so-great
| side effects. (The number of single women is growing more
| slowly)
| alach11 wrote:
| > The issue now is the growing number of single men...
| The number of single women is growing more slowly
|
| How is this possible, outside of gender imbalance or
| imbalanced matching (i.e. one man in a relationship with
| multiple women)?
| bradlys wrote:
| You've described all of it. I'd add in that there are
| more baby mamas than there are baby papas too. Men are
| born at a higher rate than women. (5-7%)
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| You wrote: <<but most women don't use it>>
|
| First, do you have any sources? Most (Western culture)
| highly-educated women that I know use online dating apps.
|
| Second, as I understand, a major issue about dating with
| highly-educated people: Women (almost) always want to
| meet same socio-economic status _or above_. Dear HN
| readers: Read that last sentence mathematically: Greater
| than or equal ( >=)! As women are quickly holding more
| than 50% of highly educated jobs ( _economically
| practical_ masters degrees and above), this creates a
| huge mismatch. See: Medicine, science, finance,
| technology jobs. (Commentary: By 2030 /40/50, I feel a
| huge portion of medicine will be women. Great!)
|
| Real-world example: If a man is a public pre-school or
| elementary school teacher (middle to lower income), his
| chances to meet a high-income woman are very low in 2022.
|
| On the contrary, many (Western culture) men are happy to
| meet / date / marry women whom have (far) lower socio-
| economic status. "Sexy, not smart." In the classic (out-
| dated) cultural view, this is "big (male) boss"
| dates/marries low socio-economic status executive
| assistant ("secretary"). I have observed this is quickly
| coming to an end in the last twenty years.
|
| Real questions:
|
| (1) Whom are high-income male bosses dating these days? I
| assume: High-income women whom are breaking the glass
| ceiling for senior roles. (Great! I support these women
| 152%!) Or: These men date younger (and younger!). I have
| observed both in my professional career.
|
| (2) Whom are low-income/-education female executive
| assistants dating these days? I assume they are mostly
| single. Why? They want to meet high-income men, but these
| men are more-and-more focused on other (still rare!)
| high-income women(!).
|
| Final comment that is very (deeply!) personal: If you are
| not alpha-male or very high income, it is difficult to
| meet highly-educated women. Basically, they are
| "vaccuumed/Hoovered" (sorry: American English slang!) by
| other high-income/status or alpha men. It is so tough.
| Please, please, do not read this final paragraph as
| discriminatory against women whom choose these men.
| Dating is complex! Personally, my dream is to meet
| someone who is a science researcher (academic) with a low
| salary, but passionate about their work. Lots to talk
| about!
|
| Last: Please, please don't read any of this post as
| something negative towards women. No, exactly the
| opposite. I am more interested in how wealthly, highly-
| educated societies will rebalance when women hold more
| than 50% of educated positions (very soon in rich
| countries!). In my view, it is terrific that women
| finally have equal opportunity in my society. My mother
| never had these opportunities, but her daughters will
| finally have the chance for economic equality. Huzzah.
| bradlys wrote:
| If you have the time to write this all out - you have the
| time to find the supporting statistics. Most women don't
| use online dating - they've tried it but they don't use
| it. This is why the apps are overwhelmingly male.
| (Anywhere from 2:1 (lowest I've ever seen) to 9:1
| depending on region and app)
|
| High income women end up marrying their college partners.
| A lot of these gals meet their partner in college and
| never separate. That's how I see it for the majority of
| women I've known in SV. Exceptions being those who didn't
| go to college and weren't going to pursue a high income
| profession (or were but bailed on it) but inevitably
| chose it later.
|
| It's hard to meet these women because they are few in
| percentage and like most women - they don't go out to
| meet men. They might use dating apps, they might date a
| coworker, they might date someone in their social circle.
| So, you're not likely gonna meet them organically at a
| hobby or anything.
|
| It's a rough world for men out there.
| capableweb wrote:
| Any social gathering is a place where you can meet your
| significant others, university is not the exclusive place for
| that.
|
| Most most introverted people tend to do though (myself
| included), is attending less social events as they become
| older. But you can still force yourself out there and meet
| people based on your hobbies.
|
| And who knows, maybe you meet your significant other at one of
| those events for your favorite hobby?
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Church is really the classical place. It's a shame there's
| not a similar place for large groups of secular people to
| gather once a week for social events.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Sporting events fit that bill. As long as the other is
| going for the same team I would think.
| bradlys wrote:
| Are we talking about paying for seats to spectate? Cause
| if so - I highly disagree. You might get lucky every so
| often but I found people generally keep to
| themselves/their friend group.
| swat535 wrote:
| I'm a Catholic so I attend Church often and in my
| experience, it really depends on how the Parish runs; in
| some places, people literally show up 5-10 minutes before
| Mass and then rush to the parking lot as soon as it ends,
| so you never have a chance to speak to anyone.
|
| However, in contrast, my fiance is from Peru and goes to a
| Latin Church; there you have a very strong sense of
| community and can meet plenty of people. Also, you probably
| won't be meeting your SO at the Church directly but you
| will most likely be introduced _through_ someone from the
| community (especially older people who have bigger
| families).
|
| The other thing about religious communities is that
| "dating" is not about hookups or casual sex but more about
| about finding life long partners and marriage. This can be
| a blessing or a curse depending on what stage of life you
| are in (though if you are truly devout, you won't mind) so
| it's not perfect.
|
| Anyway, for non religious people, there are still plenty of
| ways to meet: Volunteering programs, social clubs, sport
| centers, etc.
|
| The only advice I would give is meet as many people as
| possible because chances are your potential partner will be
| introduced to you through friends of friends eventually.
| spicyusername wrote:
| Can't agree more.
|
| Many of my neighbors go to church and I'm very jealous at
| how much social capital it provides every single week for
| essentially free.
|
| It's such a shame that something so good is wrapped in
| something so silly.
| danuker wrote:
| I don't go to church, but I interpret the silliness less
| literally.
|
| For instance, replace God and Jesus with the Superego and
| Id respectively. You'd be surprised at how much sense
| some quotes make.
|
| But religion is so vague, it's almost mad-lib. And some
| parts will still be complete nonsense or primitive
| statecraft memes.
|
| Sharing this with other church-goers might not be well
| received, also.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Unitarian Universalist Church. Ethical Culture Society.
| There are quite a few non-credal churches or "not-a-church"
| organizations built along churchy lines.
| the_af wrote:
| Many people bond over political activism and political
| groups. I know many such couples. 100% secular, no gods
| involved, no "church" even in the name.
| Test0129 wrote:
| I would argue in the current climate "political activism"
| and "political groups" have replaced God and the Church
| as a religion. Secular, certainly, religious absolutely.
| I've heard from some people that they won't even consider
| dating someone who has even an iota difference in
| political views. If this doesn't sound like religious
| dogma I'm not sure what would.
| netsharc wrote:
| And whatever the "elders" say, they agree, no critical
| thinking allowed!
| capableweb wrote:
| Not sure if it exists in your country, but all over Europe
| there are "Civic Centers" that host various cultural
| events, activities and curses where you can meet people
| from all walks of life. Great place to meet people with the
| same interests as you and usually hosts relatively cheap
| events as it's meant to be attend-able for all people.
| tssva wrote:
| Most people have or have had significant others. Although some
| have met them at university most have not.
|
| I have had several relationships where at the time I would have
| called the person my significant other but in retrospect there
| have only been 2 that have truly been significant to my life. I
| met my wife at a bar. A few years after she passed, I met my
| now girlfriend of 12 years at a farmers market where she was
| selling pickles and kimchi.
| greyhair wrote:
| I noted in long form above. I met my wife in a bar.
|
| I had a primary care physician in the late 1990s that had
| been polling his patients on that his whole career, and said
| that a little more than 80% of his patients met at a bar. So
| there you go.
|
| I also agree with your assessment on partners, I have had a
| couple that were important at the time, but looking back,
| where more like friends with benefits. Only two were really
| significant. One that tortured me emotionally and basically
| set me up for over sensitive warning flags for about five
| years, what a mess. The other one I married over 25 years
| ago.
| shafyy wrote:
| I would go as far as saying that most long-term couples meet
| after university (at least for people who were born after 1980,
| let's say). During university, a lot of people are still in the
| experimentation phase. I feel like later in life, maybe end
| 20s/early 30s, you had enough time to get to know yourself, and
| know what kind of person you are, what you care about, etc.
|
| Of course, this is anecdotal and based on myself and my
| friends. But just as a counterpoint to your "go to university"
| advice =)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| This used to be what everyone said. I remember an introductory
| talk at university where they explicitly said 'and most of you
| will meet your future spouses here' as if it was part of the
| package. Feels like just a few years ago it used to be everyone
| met their partner at university.
| hownottowrite wrote:
| Dan's not getting away with anything.
| bitL wrote:
| So this is how people get bombed based on phone metadata!
| snorlaxmorlax wrote:
| I've often thought about it, but I'm not surprised that there is
| a way to figure it out with big tech involved.
| victornomad wrote:
| Many years ago, when everybody had Nokias with the Bluetooth on,
| I used to do a similar thing.
|
| I created a S60 python script that kept scanning Bluetooth mac
| addresses and link them with the cell tower I was connected to
| (no GPS yet on mobiles).Then later processed the logs to see if I
| encountered the same people in different locations and times.
|
| And yes, I re-encountered a bunch of Bluetooth mac addresses in
| different locations. For me it was fascinating at that time :)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I believe the Nintendo (3)DS does something similar, but makes
| it into a gameplay mechanic in supported games, SpotPass and
| StreetPass:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpotPass_and_StreetPass
|
| > Using the console's background connectivity, a Nintendo 3DS
| in Sleep Mode can automatically discover other Nintendo 3DS
| systems within range, establish a connection, and exchange
| content for mutually played games, all transparently and
| without requiring any user input.
|
| > For example, in Rhythm Heaven Megamix, if the user passes by
| someone with the same software, they will take on a figure-
| fighting duel challenge.
| victornomad wrote:
| ah! really cool! I really love all these types of
| interactions in apps and games I wish there were more
| esoteric UIs and tech :)
| bentcorner wrote:
| Airguard kind of does this: https://github.com/seemoo-
| lab/AirGuard
|
| It'll scan for bluetooth trackers in the background (and
| airpods and iphones) and can give you a per-device history.
| FredPret wrote:
| That's pretty cool; you ran Python on one of those Nokias?!
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| You can. I still have a working Nokia s60 at home that can
| run a python script shell.
| victornomad wrote:
| yeah. Most of the apps were made in C (or C++, I don't
| remember) or Java. But there was a Python port that was quite
| awesome to make experiments.
|
| This was before the Iphone was launched IIRC and I think it
| only worked with the Nokia N series.
| bradlys wrote:
| I've wanted detailed tracking for years. Something that logged my
| position every five seconds or something. I wanted this to be
| something that other people did too.
|
| Then we can decide to share histories and see when we ever
| overlapped or were near each other. For instance - I became close
| friends with someone this summer but it turns out we were both at
| the same events across the USA about 8 years ago. It made me
| wonder where else we had both been and hadn't really spoken to
| each other.
|
| I've also wanted this to be a live feature as well where you can
| opt in to share your location and be like, "hey, Jim is just a
| block away. What a coincidence! Jim is usually 1500 miles from
| you." As a way to run into friends you haven't seen in a while.
|
| Another instance is that I had lost touch with a friend from
| years back. We had both lived in Seattle for years. I eventually
| moved to SF and was at an event. I stepped outside a few times to
| get air and on one of the times I did - I saw this old friend
| walk by on the street (it's almost midnight - he was going to go
| home to sleep with someone). I call out his name and he's in
| shock and awe. We decide to hang out for 30 minutes and decided
| that this was the sign we needed to reconnect.
|
| That happened about 5 years ago and we've been very close ever
| since.
|
| Sometimes I feel like these kinds of things would be cool to
| have. Or to do a prospectus and see a year ago - "oh interesting
| - that guy I gave a ride to five years ago was at the same
| restaurant as me... Huh - I wonder why we didn't see each other?"
| The world is much smaller than we realize. I've run into people
| in small rural parking lots of grocery stores in random countries
| 8,000 miles away from where we both had known each other without
| any coordination. If I had been even 10s later in my actions - I
| would've never seen them sometimes.
|
| I have a lot of stories like this. Timing is everything!!
| texasbigdata wrote:
| There's a play about this, the name escapes me, but it's a
| "quantum" love story: two people meet and at each step options
| present; the catch is the possibility tree doesn't converge (one
| character had a midlife disease, which only happened in some of
| the branches).
|
| It was absolutely fantastic. Just tremendous. Think it played in
| New York, Dallas and New York at a minimum.
| defterGoose wrote:
| If you remember what it is, please post the name, it sounds
| very good.
| Wuzado wrote:
| This is not it, but the plot is _somewhat_ similar to Makoto
| Shinkai 's movie "Your Name."
| magicemoji wrote:
| What a romantic girl. :)
| thangngoc89 wrote:
| This is a great article. Just to save everyone's time, here is a
| directly link to Google Takeout where you can download the data
| mentioned in the article:
| https://takeout.google.com/takeout/custom/local_actions,loca...
| shultays wrote:
| Kinda creepy how you have access to your partner's google maps
| history and you go through it. But hey, if he is happy with it
| laundermaf wrote:
| You say creepy, I find it to be an incredible level of trust on
| one side and maturity on the other side. It could have easily
| be "I can't tell you where I was" and "wow you met Alissa a lot
| in 2005, I'm gonna break up"
| grosswait wrote:
| He volunteered the data
| elzbardico wrote:
| Plot Twist: When google's algorithms decided those two
| individuals should pair, it started showing them ads for the same
| events in order to increase the probability of them meeting.
|
| The goal was achieved by the system in 3 months, exactly as
| predicted with a 99% probability with a 95% CI.
|
| The system's next goal is to subtly nudge the couple to reproduce
| within the next year in order to help google meet their user
| accounts targets for 2034.
| vardump wrote:
| Hmm... something like this? Maybe this video left out the
| brainwashing part.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
|
| (Google's famous ad, "Parisian Love", worth watching for those
| who haven't seen it yet)
| dqpb wrote:
| Until one of them inadvertently triggers a TOS violation, at
| which point it will orchestrate their breakup and then
| deactivate their Google accounts.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's a funny "joke" but for a large percentage of people, their
| college decision and entrance exams were the determining factor
| in who they married; where you put yourself has a huge effect
| on whom you meet.
| tshaddox wrote:
| And ironically, if you met your partner on a dating app in a
| large city or metro area, your dating encounters were
| ostensibly under direct influence by a tech company's
| algorithm, yet you were likely in a pool vastly larger than a
| college campus.
| gumby wrote:
| It's funny how predictive that is. There was a woman in the
| dorm we'd lived in -- we were definitely not friends but knew
| each other. A few years after graduation we ran into each
| other at a party on the opposite coast...and ended up
| together for a few years.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I mean I moved out of my hometown with that - meeting people
| - as an additional objective. It didn't work relationship
| wise (I ended up with someone I met online over a shared
| hobby / community), but it was an interesting experiment I
| guess. I like to think I ended up a bit more worldly, a bit
| more resilient to social situations and dealing with people
| very different from me personality wise.
| aloner wrote:
| Going to an engineering college where the demographic was 99%
| male, I guess I was determined to finish alone ;). But
| honestly 100% agreed with your point, even with online
| dating, a lot of people end up dating people they know or
| people they meet through a common friend.
| shagie wrote:
| How about an old DUST short?
|
| A Date in 2025 https://youtu.be/NZ8G3e3Cgl4
| Demoneeri wrote:
| Lol Google Assistant can't even tell me what I ordered despite
| having all the emails in Gmail.
| Tozen wrote:
| They probably know, just don't want to share the information
| with you. There are other higher paying customers to give it
| to.
| arethuza wrote:
| That reminds me of the GCU _Arbitrary_ from the Culture novella
| _The State of the Art_ - which liked to matchmake its crew
| members.
| muzani wrote:
| Meanwhile, Facebook matches people to those they're unattracted
| to, despite having _all_ the attraction data. Except for the
| occasional moment that someone reads a WhatsApp story from
| someone they haven 't seen in years, and then FB spams their
| feed with each other.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Wait, wait... Throw in Google Maps re-routing and you have a
| dystopian movie. (It is talked about that Google Map re-routes
| to odd paths to check if the path is still open.)
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| West world season 3 in a nutshell. It's definitely going to
| happen some day.
| andywood wrote:
| Sure. AFTER I rage-quit this site and nuked my main acct, NOW I
| come back to peek and an actually insightful comment is at the
| top of a busy thread. I got universally mocked straight out of
| the room here for saying these things 10 years ago.
|
| And now I'm taking my Nostradumbass-like powers and leaving you
| poor dears to your own devices again for a while.
| bitL wrote:
| Care to leave another prophecy we can check in a decade
| before you go please?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Ohh my poor Cassandra. Prophecy and foresight are so cheap.
| Everyone already knows where we are heading, even those in
| the deepest denial. The Gods only stipulated that nobody
| would _believe_ you. For what is to be done, belief is maybe
| not so important.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| That's pretty disturbing, and not too far beyond capabilities.
|
| I think the biggest one missing would be that iirc a date going
| well seems pretty much random in dating service data, despite a
| fair bit of effort to find correlations.
| eru wrote:
| I don't think randomness would be an issue. Google already
| assume that people clicking (or not) on ads is a random
| process.
|
| Randomness is fine, just get enough smart people on it to
| learn about the distribution etc.
| Tozen wrote:
| Excellent scenario. Except that a lot of the "algorithmic
| nudging", can be unethically intended by the creators of the
| algorithm or specifically tweaked/ overridden by humans in the
| chain to give the results they wanted.
|
| After all, "who" is in charge or has access to the data? Maybe
| even an unknown individual or group, with their own agenda, and
| outside of Google's stated corporate goals or awareness.
| badwolf wrote:
| Somewhat related, I had high hopes for Facebook Dating to be a
| great product and a dating site/app disruptor. FB has all that
| data, why not use it to play matchmaker? Unfortunately, like
| many other Facebook ventures, it's nothing as expected, and is
| just a "Here's people in your area. Kind of. Sometimes."
| zo1 wrote:
| They probably aren't allowed to use that data. Something
| something privacy. And imagine the uproar from privacy fear
| mongerers if Facebook tried to make such a product.
|
| That is why we can't explore things that we "might" consider
| nice. A product that might have been.
| nova22033 wrote:
| This is plot of a Black Mirror episode...sort of..
| incahoots wrote:
| oh, oh god. _they_ warned us this could happen.
| simooooo wrote:
| Also a great way to find all their past relationships
| skapadia wrote:
| That's some Black Mirror level dystopia there, and totally
| within the realm of possibility, if it isn't already happening.
|
| Sync that up with Apple Watch 8's ability to estimate
| ovulation, and poof, declining birth rate problem solved!
|
| I'm scared.
| [deleted]
| Bakary wrote:
| It's not much scarier than encouraging fertility via the
| religious apparatus or just traditional social norms
| andywood wrote:
| Exactly. If your entire right hemisphere is permanently
| shut down from making computers the core of your identity,
| these are exactly the same thing.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| I mean if you pay more attention to results than vibe,
| yeah they are. But you know, less coercive.
| Bakary wrote:
| What do you mean by that sentence?
| [deleted]
| gambiting wrote:
| Don't worry, knowing google they would build this just so
| someone could get their cushy promotion, then the whole thing
| will be abandoned within 1 to 2 years max. Corporate dystopia
| falls apart when met with the apathy at google, no problem.
| hardolaf wrote:
| There's no promos in maintaining the dystopian nightmare
| program so it will be replaced by new dystopian nightmare
| programs that do the same thing but worse every 2-3 years.
| Eventually, enough dystopian nightmare programs will be
| running in parallel that they will actually create a utopia
| due to unexpected interactions between the dystopian
| nightmare programs.
| jnsie wrote:
| Knowing google they'd have 6 competing dystopian
| nightmare programs running concurrently. All would have
| similar names.
| AyyWS wrote:
| Dystopio is signing off. Find your favorite features in
| the new Apocalypse Wow!
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| And only one of them would work in Singapore for some
| reason.
| n0tth3dro1ds wrote:
| >declining birth rate problem solved
|
| Or maybe it declines more rapidly? Women could just use the
| cycle prediction to avoid fun time on "risky" days.
| totetsu wrote:
| Or conversely it increases unprotected fun on "non risky"
| days according to the apps.
| Tozen wrote:
| Natural birth control methods, have been a thing, for a
| long time already.
| n0tth3dro1ds wrote:
| But they were far more prone to mishaps before a
| biological monitoring device started to aid in the
| calculations
| Tozen wrote:
| Not really, if "it" goes into a non-reproductive
| location. No fancy technology required. It's not like
| such things were unknown, even in ancient times.
| jollyllama wrote:
| It gets worse; to keep people in the workforce they can do
| the opposite, steer compatible people away from each other
| during the optimal reproductive window.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| It gets worse, it only steers over-performers and under-
| performers away from each other so that the majority
| middle-tier can be used for reproduction.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| This is like maybe the least dystopic use of advertising data
| Google could go for! It just has the vibe of dystopia, but
| ultimately if you hit it off with someone Google didn't
| _influence_ you, they just made a correct prediction.
| Compared to advertising to influence you to spend money it 's
| nothing.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There was a case where someone was getting ads for pregnancy
| products before she herself even knew she was pregnant, iirc
| it was down to search queries but don't quote me on that (or
| that the story is actually true).
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| I remember this happening with Target in 2012
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
| targ...
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| It was the woman knew she was pregnant, but her father
| did not, which sounds a lot more reasonable than the
| algorithm knowing she was pregnant when she did not know.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| > Sync that up with Apple Watch 8's ability to estimate
| ovulation, and poof, declining birth rate problem solved!
|
| Will never happen. Children are expensive, and once you have
| them, you'll never ever again be able to afford most of the
| Apple products.
|
| Obviously, the incentive for Apple (and Google) is that you
| don't have children, which can explain the low birth rates in
| developed (rich) markets.
|
| > I'm scared.
|
| Now I'm also scared.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> declining birth rate problem solved!_
|
| _> I 'm scared._
|
| That is one dystopia I might be able to live with.
|
| As long as the watches don't default to Harvey Fierstein.
| netsharc wrote:
| I've had in my mind an idea for a short story based on this
| idea. YouTube starts putting a particular band on their "watch
| next" list, then the band schedules a gig in town, ensuring
| that they both think "Wow, I have to go!"
| infinitedata wrote:
| These are amazing ETL skills, but a big red flag, I thought I was
| watching the revival of the infamous Overly Attached Girlfriend.
| As someone said there, this is great and scary at the same time.
|
| Also, how come 2 people be so ok with Google having all their
| location history? There are only two reasons why someone leaves
| that function enabled:
|
| A) they are Google employees B) totally ignorant to the fact that
| Google tracks them
| scrollaway wrote:
| Google timeline may not be useful to you but it's an incredible
| tool to record your own past.
|
| Believe me, I care far more than google in my ability to know
| where I was on April 24 2016.
| Zobat wrote:
| Same here, I believe that I get more value from this data
| than Google does. I'm sure someone at X (insert any service
| that has a lot of data I've generated) has done something
| that I wouldn't be ok with with someones data. But as Scott
| Hanselman has said; "Microsoft isn't nearly as organized as
| it'd need to be to be as evil as you think it is."
|
| https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1003590025462681600
|
| I'm guessing the same holds true for all the other services.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I don't think I have ever in my life thought "I wish I had
| location history turned on so I could check where I was at
| that date". Could you share some examples of how can it be
| useful?
|
| I do find it cool to have such data to do the kind of
| analysis as presented in this post, but not cool enough to
| let others (especially Google) possess this data as well.
| WmWsjA6B29B4nfk wrote:
| To me this is an amazing tool to extract lost memories. I
| look at random tracks in history sometimes, and it's
| surprising how much can you remember from that day that you
| would never remember otherwise.
|
| On a more practical note, I visited a random restaurant in
| a town I was visiting which turned out to be an amazing
| place. Didn't remember the name. A few years later I'm in
| the same town and would not have found the place if not for
| the location history.
| Zobat wrote:
| When was the last time (at the beginning of the pandemic)
| that I went in to the office.
|
| When was it the conference was at "that town".
|
| Sure there's other ways to find the information but I don't
| mind having it tracked. To each his own but I find more
| value in it than I think I give up.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| It's great to be able to answer questions like "when did we
| go on that trip to X" or "how long has it been since we
| went to Y".
|
| I live in the UK, but I can go back to May 2014 and see
| everywhere I went in Florida on a holiday. Every
| restaurant, theme park, shop etc.
|
| It's a great way to take a trip down memory lane.
|
| I also use it on a day-to-day basis - e.g. if I need to
| record what hours I worked on a certain day, I can use it
| to give me an approximate time I went out for lunch.
| luckylion wrote:
| Not the parent, but I can share one.
|
| A guy I worked for long ago was part of a partnership of
| architects and they split up. One of the other partners was
| known for never parting amicably and sued him. He claimed
| they had agreed on something and my client had failed to
| deliver and thus owed him some large sum. He presented
| notes he had allegedly taken during the talk they had a few
| years earlier including date and time and the word of
| another partner as support, who claimed to have been
| present.
|
| My client checked his old calendars and just found the word
| "Copenhagen" for that + the previous day. With a bit of
| searching and checking, he figured out that he was
| incredibly lucky: he had been in Copenhagen that day to
| sail in a regatta, had lots of witnesses and photographs
| and easily won the case, the other two got into hot water
| for falsifying documents and giving false statements,
| though I don't know the outcome.
|
| He was lucky to have had a multi-day thing and putting it
| into his calendar. Not sure if "Google showed me being far
| away" would've stood up, but it can certainly be useful to
| know your location a few years ago.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Everyone already replied with their use cases and I've been
| in several similar ones.
|
| In general, I obtain a huge amount of value in being able
| to know what happened in my own past. This can be both for
| work and for personal reasons. For this, my calendar and
| Google Timeline are the two tools I use the most.
|
| Most usefulness is in the past 1-2 weeks, and things become
| less useful over time, right up until they become extremely
| useful. For example "Oh crap, I lost this thing, the last
| time I saw it was on this date. What are the possible
| places I could have lost it? Let's retrace."
|
| It's hard to convey how much things change once you're able
| to reliably have this information. Your mindset changes.
| Things you couldn't do before are unlocked.
|
| I would love a better Google Timeline, one whose data I
| personally own especially. I suspect there will be an
| explosion of these types of apps at some point once people
| catch up.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I had my catalytic converter stolen. Thanks to location
| history I could check when I left the car there and when I
| came back and noticed the problem. Since at first I didn't
| know problem was result of a theft I didn't take note of
| the time when I noticed the problem and I also could recall
| for how long the car stayed there.
|
| Location history enabled me to accurately and confidently
| report the time window when crime occurred to the police.
| necovek wrote:
| Did that help with tracking down the thief too?
|
| I suspect the outcome is still the same of your catalytic
| converter being gone for good, even if it helped you
| narrow down details for a police report.
|
| As such, the utility is still zero, since the desired
| outcome is "get my property back", unless you needed this
| many details for insurance purposes (they usually only
| ask for a police report, and police are happy to take any
| data since they are unlikely to find the perpetrator
| anyway).
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Did that help with tracking down the thief too?
|
| Of course not.
|
| > I suspect the outcome is still the same of your
| catalytic converter being gone for good, even if it
| helped you narrow down details for a police report.
|
| Correct.
|
| > As such, the utility is still zero, since the desired
| outcome is "get my property back", unless you needed this
| many details for insurance purposes (they usually only
| ask for a police report, and police are happy to take any
| data since they are unlikely to find the perpetrator
| anyway).
|
| That was not the desired outcome. My desired outcome was
| to make reporting to the police go as smoothly for me as
| possible which I'd preferably entirely skip if not for
| the fact that insurer required me to report it.
|
| Talking to the police (or anyone really) is a stressful
| event for me so any help with establishing what to say
| was very much appreciated.
|
| On semi-related note my car is at repair shop for 3
| months already and I have no idea how much longer will it
| be because apparently no supplier of catalytic converters
| is willing to estimate when they'll have a single item
| for Toyota Auris.
| necovek wrote:
| Sure, but when I had my radio stolen back in the day,
| police officer politely notified me that they know who
| generally breaks into cars to steal radios in my area,
| but unless it was reported in an hour or two, they won't
| be able to get it before it's resold or pin it on the
| culprit, so unless I need it for insurance, I shouldn't
| even bother reporting.
|
| In cases like these, insurance mostly needs a paper
| trail, and police are very well aware of that, and they
| won't look for specifics. They'll probably even suggest
| what to fill in: that's at least my experience.
|
| I feel for your experience though, and I wish you your
| car back on the road asap.
| slig wrote:
| The data is being tracked either way. You can only choose
| if _you_ want to see it or not.
| pelorat wrote:
| not true
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I'm not running any services that would report this data
| back to Google on my devices. I'm aware that it can still
| collect _some_ data on me based on my browsing and how I
| connect to a couple of their services I still happen to
| use, but I 'm fairly certain that it's nowhere near the
| fidelity of what location history would give them and I
| prefer it to stay this way.
|
| Other replies so far have actually convinced me that I
| don't need to reconsider it, as the benefits seem
| minuscule compared to the price ;)
| tssva wrote:
| I leave the feature on and I'm not a Google employee or
| ignorant of the fact Google tracks my location data. I find
| value in having the data myself and don't care that Google also
| has it. I also just asked my girlfriend if she has disabled it
| and she hasn't. She isn't a Google employee and is aware it is
| being recorded. So there are 2 more people. Is it possible you
| are in fact in the minority in disabling it?
| capableweb wrote:
| Curiosity is now a red flag? I find the whole thing cute. She's
| not using the data for tracking down Dan and making him her
| boyfriend, they are already together and she simply wanted to
| see if they walked past each other in the past.
|
| I do have my location history activated, and so does lots of
| people around me. I'm neither a Google employee nor am I
| ignorant that Google tracks me both physically and digitally.
|
| But being able to have a timeline of where I am at times have
| been both helpful and interesting, so I'm willing to trade that
| data for the functionality I receive for it.
|
| If you do know of a better solution that gives me the same data
| but is not Google, please feel free to share it. I haven't
| found anything like that that completely abuses my battery at
| the same time and also guarantees to not sell my data.
| Sakos wrote:
| I periodically experiment with location history. I currently
| have it enabled to be able to see my own history and I also
| record it locally with a third-party app that saves it to my
| phone. I've compared the location data and looked for patterns
| or anything at all interesting. I've also thought about
| building an app to basically give you the same functionality as
| Google's location history while keeping all the data out of the
| cloud and in your direct possession. I think it can be useful
| and interesting to have this data on yourself, I just think
| Google shouldn't have it.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Which third party app? I would love to know who has a good
| implementation of it (with appropriate detection of venues).
| Sakos wrote:
| Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. The third-party app only
| records my GPS coordinates and I process the data myself.
| Unfortunately, there isn't anything yet that has any of the
| functionality of Google's location history.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Email me if you're still interested in building this.
| quenix wrote:
| > I thought I was watching the revival of the infamous Overly
| Attached Girlfriend
|
| What? Why? Both parties seemed happy with it and it seems like
| a cute thought experiment to me.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| > but a big red flag
|
| How can you infer that? She clearly had access to his location
| history, it's extremely unlikely that it happened without his
| consent. This is rather a vibe of two enthusiastic geeks being
| genuinely curious about analyzing some cool data about
| themselves, rather than anyone being "overly attached". We
| can't tell for sure without more details about their
| relationship, which isn't our business at all, so talking about
| "big red flags" feels really wrong and paternalistic (which in
| fact sounds like a big red flag :P).
|
| > Also, how come 2 people be so ok with Google having all their
| location history?
|
| That's a valid question though.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> it 's extremely unlikely that it happened without his
| consent_
|
| "My partner kindly agreed to download his data and sent it to
| me."
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Likely we had walked past each other every other week for
| three years with our heads down, or in the clouds, paying very
| little notice to the people around us.
|
| Or looking at your phone...
| burglekutt wrote:
| Love this. Such a fun, creative, philosophical project.
| ani-ani wrote:
| The source is here, if anyone is wondering:
| https://github.com/channon036/how_fateful
|
| It's an R Markdown notebook. I've been finding these to be a nice
| evolution on the literate programming concept. I also noticed the
| author has been responding in this thread but her account seems
| to have been immediately shadowbanned upon creation, seems to be
| a common issue recently.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Fun fact: whatever you can do with this data, Google can do as
| well!
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They have the data, but they make sure to not show that they
| have the data, because they are very aware of how creepy it
| would be. They spent a lot of time on optics.
|
| Do people who see ads get ads based on where they've been by
| the way?
| test6554 wrote:
| While she likely got permission, having your girlfriend request
| all your location data is a bit like Zuckerberg requeating all
| your location data.
|
| On some level alarm bells are going off.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Is it? My girlfriend is probably the only person I'd be
| comfortable with sharing my location data with, given a
| reasonable purpose (the one in this post would be good).
| Tozen wrote:
| A girlfriend may not be as trustworthy, as some people seem
| to think or at least no more than what is selfishly
| beneficial and to her advantage. Lots of guys find this out,
| way too late.
| danuker wrote:
| Your girlfriend won't resell it or share it with insurance or
| government agencies as easily.
| archi42 wrote:
| This depends a lot on your SO and your relationship to
| her/him/them. Given _exactly_ the pretext from the blog post:
| I can easily think of a past relationship where I 'd totally
| agree with you (very distrustful person who could not have
| resisted the urge to maliciously interpreted the data), and
| another relationship where I'd be totally cool with it
| (except I wouldn't want the heat map to be public). For most
| of my past relationships (and my current, final relationship)
| however such a request is unrealistic anyway; they simply
| don't have the technical ability to do such an analysis.
| [deleted]
| andyp-kw wrote:
| We get it, Google has access to the data you share with them,
| shocking.
| Tozen wrote:
| The interesting aspect of that, is what Google and other
| authorities do with such data. They can be unlocking all
| sorts of private trivia, unbeknown to any of the users
| involved, to an extent far beyond any are suspecting.
|
| That could include such authorities, manipulating or
| interfering with events and lives, more than anybody would
| think possible or should be legally allowed.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > manipulating or interfering with events
|
| What might be a good example?
| Tozen wrote:
| Just for clarity, there was a "could" in there, in the
| context of what I stated.
|
| Google and other authorities having such access to so
| much data about individuals, means they can know of
| relationships, that the interacting individual parties
| involved don't know about each other. So, if a wife were
| cheating on her husband, that can be known. A line can be
| crossed, where information is leaked to the husband, in
| various ways. This of course is just a "theoretical"
| example, of many other kinds of possibilities.
|
| Access to private and personal information is its own
| kind of power, that can be easily abused under many gray
| areas, and under all kinds of pretexts and weak
| justifications.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Also to the data you opt out of sharing but they ignore it
| and share it anyways.
| risyachka wrote:
| And you telecom provider had been able to do that for decades.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Nowhere near this level of detail. Telecoms providers (until
| "hyperlocal" 5G base stations become commonplace) have very
| coarse location info compared to GPS (as well as other
| sources a typical smartphone uses such as Wi-Fi
| triangulation). Even with 5G, smartphone-determined location
| data is likely to still be much more accurate.
| zaik wrote:
| In fact, they can do a lot more since they have data on more
| than two people.
| lettergram wrote:
| They know when your sleeping, they know when your awake. They
| know when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness
| sake!
|
| Seriously, they know every time you pick up your phone. Where
| you shop, how much you spend, if you miss a stop in the
| highway, if you text your parents happy birthday, if your
| heart rate increases when you're around a particular phone.
| They quite literally may know your gay before you do.
| bitL wrote:
| What is their current definition of "be good" so that I can
| comply? Is there any changelog? Perhaps some future plan
| introducing new parts of "good" and deprecating some as
| well?
| archi42 wrote:
| If Google built such a product, you'd probably find it on
| their graveyard. So it's best to be careful and not
| antagonize them; because always remember: You only have
| one digital life, so keep your head down and don't blow
| it.
|
| I wish that was pure /s, but the amount of "Ask HN:
| Google banned me or my business for no obvious reason" is
| really staggering. (n.b.: Of course I'm talking about the
| old Google of 2022, not about the glorious overlords that
| Google since has become; all praises the holy trinity of
| Android, Google Search and Google Glurp for Glorps!
| Please don't ban me.)
| bitL wrote:
| Funny nobody can even tell why they ban somebody because
| ML just won't tell them why. "Hey, our
| ML_ANOMALY_20220430_6C2DBE3AFC model ensemble has told us
| to ban you, so we are banning you! There is no recourse
| (unless you have friends at Google). Please don't contact
| us ever again. We will ban all the people from the whole
| block around you as well."
| archi42 wrote:
| Yeah. Due to this topic I actually thought "oh, good
| idea, I should automatically download my whole Google
| data once every month; better safe than sorry". Then I
| realized that this might get me banned, because actual
| bad actors probably do that as well.
| bitL wrote:
| Yeah, you'd be a glaring anomaly. Strive for the mean!
| rattray wrote:
| I'm sure they most cherish people who criticize Google.
| WilTimSon wrote:
| Hey wait a second, that's not fun at all, that's incredibly
| depressing!
|
| On a serious note, it does remind me of that time police
| arrested a man on suspicion of a break-in, because he was
| riding his bike in the neighborhood at the time and Google
| recorded it.
| lettergram wrote:
| Google literally did this during the pandemic
|
| https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
|
| So did apple:
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/apple-makes-mobility-...
|
| Only... they gave that information to government (supposedly
| post-analysis and anonymized). Regardless the data was quite
| literally used to "track and trace" then as a mechanism /
| justification to place you under house arrest.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Ehh, there was some really sketch things there. I think at
| least for apple they might have potentially already built it
| and this just moved their announcement date up. There's a
| very weird simultaneously timed NSA bill in congress at the
| same time.
|
| /tinfoilhat
| Location-Data wrote:
| I was reluctant to mention this kind of story in such a sweet
| context but a few comments have already touched on privacy, so I
| want to add my two cents.
|
| At some point in the past I had the surreal experience of opening
| a news website and seeing a familiar face on the front page. Not
| a celebrity, rather a man whose face had been in some small
| subfolder of my brain for several years.
|
| The man had been convicted of serial rape. He would drug victims
| and record them. He was known to be active within a certain time
| range from the timestamps of the videos. He repeated this dozens
| of times and was only caught after the final victim woke up
| during the act. Authorities appealed for people to come forward
| with any more information because they believed there could be
| more victims than were discovered from the videos.
|
| By cross-referencing the location data from my phone with the
| date of an event my Last FM profile and the location of his home,
| I was able to confirm why he looked familiar. This allowed me to
| contact the authorities and bring the start of the known time
| frame significantly forward.
|
| (there might be enough information in this post for the
| perpetrator to be identified - if you do, please keep it to
| yourself)
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| I took the pragmatic approach and said to myself "look, if
| Google really wants to know where I am the only way to avoid it
| is to go into the woods without my phone, so why not?"
|
| Then one day the Toronto Transit Commission police thought I
| was re-using someone elses streetcar fare because of how old it
| was. I just prefer the streetcar to subways, so I took a longer
| route. As soon as I pulled out my phone with my location
| tracking they believed me. I didn't even have to resort to
| mentioning that I used to work for the TTC as a coop student.
|
| I'm not saying I absolutely love all this surveillance-lite
| stuff, but in an honest breakdown of the tradeoffs for law
| abiding people living in real democracies or other trustworthy
| states I fail to see a huge downside at the present time.
| browheresmychar wrote:
| I'm sure people have opposite stories where instead of a
| quick dismissal they received attitude, general harassment,
| or escalation.
|
| Small "crimes" like stealing streetcar fare are sought out
| not because of the crime itself but because the more contact
| points people have with police the more people are arrested.
| There is probably an overlap of people who steal streetcar
| fare and people who are harboring small amounts of narcotics
| etc etc.
|
| Just like in America we're pulled over on the road for the
| most benign things just so there's contact with the police,
| which leads to a higher rate of convictions.
|
| I was doing self-checkout at Walmart and the dumb machine
| thought I stole something I had already scanned, lo and
| behold an officer appears out of the shadows with a general
| attitude at me as if I was trying to pull off the grand-heist
| of stealing GREEN ONIONS.
|
| I personally think law-abiding people have a right to limited
| contact with police.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Certain systems are more efficient if they operate with
| high trust. The TTC is one of the places where we go with
| the more efficient option that allows defectors to gain at
| the cost of others. I actually know someone that is a
| communist and refuses to pay TTC fare on the basis that he
| thinks it should be completely socialized. He estimated
| that the one time he got a ticket paid for only 1/3rd or
| 1/5th of his total usage.
|
| In other words, defectors are still net-ahead. The system
| is under-policed.
|
| But the small amount of policing that exists exerts enough
| social pressure to stop widespread flouting of the rules. I
| was happy to provide proof that my very-soon-to-be-expiring
| transfer was from a valid trip.
|
| I'm sorry that you've had a poor interaction with an
| officer, but I think it's partially a matter of how one
| treats officers. Even when I've been in the wrong, I did my
| best to treat them with respect and I quite honestly have
| been treated well by every police I've dealt with, save one
| exception when I was pulled over in America. I accept that
| this happens, and a curt reply and a stiff ticket is not
| the end of the world and I am happy to have largely lived
| and traveled in places where the police were civil.
| ggus wrote:
| Could it be perhaps because you are a white male, and
| look fit and straight? Just hypothesizing.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| When I stopped driving in the United States, I noticed a
| sharp drop in interaction with the police. Years would go
| by with zero interaction. In a car: A few times a year (or
| month if unlucky). All of those automobile-related
| interactions are an opportunity for you to make a small
| mistake that will be blown up by the officer.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| It seems like the US has a real problem with this.
|
| I've been driving for almost 15 years in the UK, and I've
| only been stopped once by the Police at a heavily
| advertised drink-driving checkpost set up during the
| Christmas season.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Real question / No trolling: How do you feel about
| "holiday season" motor car stops? On the surface, it
| sounds great (reduce drink-driving), until you are an
| ethnic minority and the police person is discriminatory.
| Thoughts?
| daveoc64 wrote:
| Seems like another US-centric problem.
|
| Discrimination does happen in the UK, but I don't think
| there's the same motivation from the Police to arrest
| people for trivial matters during this sort of campaign.
| elliottcarlson wrote:
| I recall a road trip with my father (this is at least 30
| years ago), where we went to see my grandfather a few
| states away. As we drove through some small rural town,
| we were tailed by the local police for quite some time
| until we hit the county line and they simply turned
| around -- my dad told me at the time that they must have
| been following us to see if they could find a reason to
| pull us over. As I grew up, and started driving myself, I
| believe that to have been the case. Quotas for tickets
| and arrests are definitely a problem in the US.
| masterof0 wrote:
| The downside is, the government have 0 business knowing where
| I am, or where I go. I don't need to justify my right for
| privacy. And the argument of "if you are innocent, you have
| nothing to fear" is lame, and toxic, that is like saying, you
| don't drive that much, is ok to force you to take the bus.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I turned my location history off when I saw this story
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-
| bike...
|
| headline: "Google tracked his bike ride past a burglarized
| home. That made him a suspect."
|
| HN discussion about it (March 7, 2020):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22511637
| feintruled wrote:
| I think it was Isaac Asimov who wrote an article once
| speculating on a future utopia where there would be total
| information freedom and transparency - everyone would know
| everything about everyone's movements. You could see why it
| would be appealing - how could there be crime if you knew
| where everyone was at all times? No body could cheat on their
| spouse, no child would ever go missing. Seems hopelessly
| naive now of course but you can see how it would work as a
| thought experiment. In reality there'll always be a protected
| class who get to hide their movements.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > No body could cheat on their spouse
|
| Nobody could cheat _secretly_. They 'd still cheat. The
| framing story in my favourite comic issue "Winter's Tale"
| has more or less exactly this be scenario, "I was going to
| tell you" he says. The people in Winter's Tale and most of
| that run (Gaiman's Golden Age of Miracleman) live in a
| utopia, but they're still people and they still cheat and
| lie. The larger point of the story is that children won't
| fill a hole in your heart.
| Tozen wrote:
| Good points. Those who don't have their information
| exposed, are those with power. They know everything about
| you, but you know nothing about them, or even how much
| access to your life that they have.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Naive indeed; on the surface it sounds utopian. But who
| decides what a crime is? That's where it quickly flips over
| into becoming a dystopia. I mean, for example homosexuality
| is still a crime punishable by death in a lot of places; if
| you cannot hide that, then a lot of people would be picked
| up.
|
| Your last point is exactly poignant; it'll be lawmakers who
| end up above the law, above the control. Which makes it
| more like 1984 than a "borg" utopia.
| nearbuy wrote:
| Your point boils down to privacy is good because it lets
| people get away with crime and laws might be bad.
|
| The solution shouldn't be to make crimes easier to hide.
| It's to legalize homosexuality.
| brabel wrote:
| Which world would you prefer? A world where not a single
| crime would go unpunshied, and hence serious crime would
| probably disappear forever, but with the risk of the
| Government or criminals (would they still exist??) abusing
| the data for their own advantage? Or a world as we have
| today where a lot of crime happens everywhere and where a
| criminal just needs to be smart enough to never get caught?
| I am not sure the answer is as straightforward as everyone
| seems to think here. I think I would be willing to at least
| run an experiment about this (perhaps China is already
| doing it).
| SamBam wrote:
| I do expect the Right to Privacy will be brought up again
| to the Supreme Court as a result of making use of location
| history sometime in the next five years.
|
| Indeed, I believe the first use of the "Right to Privacy"
| was by a lawyer and Louis Brandeis, and future Supreme
| Court Justice, upset that a journalist had written that one
| of them attended a wedding.
|
| Depending on who brings to suit, I expect it's likely that
| even the conservative justices will suddenly agree with a
| right to privacy.
| nebulousthree wrote:
| That's because you haven't been the victim of fabricated
| narratives supported by your tracked locations as data in
| order to imprison or blackmail you. This is just a rehashed
| "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry
| about".
|
| Thank you to the other commenter for pointing out the
| banality of the "crime".
| aendruk wrote:
| Thoughts on logging your own location with free software
| instead of Google doing it?
| rendall wrote:
| Got recommendation?
| aendruk wrote:
| Hoping for one, ultimately. A starting point:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30904003
| rendall wrote:
| That's cool, thanks
| nebulousthree wrote:
| I'm assuming you mean local logging of your location, as
| opposed to burying it in a company's blackbox of a cloud.
| I think it's a far superior option from a privacy
| standpoint because you are in control of whether or not
| that information exists to the rest of the world. That is
| the critical differentiating factor.
|
| I'm also assuming here that you are actively looking to
| have your location logged -- something most people do not
| explicitly sign up for before it starts happening for
| them (usually after it has manifested results, people
| accept it as some weird fact-of-life).
| asdfdelta wrote:
| That's really making the assumption that this didn't happen
| before data tracking.....
|
| And that argument is much, much older than the digital age.
| If anything, extra tracking helps exonerate more than
| without it (false imprisonment, etc)
| https://time.com/wrongly-convicted/
| nebulousthree wrote:
| I don't see how historicity weakens the argument.
|
| The reality is that data can be used to your benefit or
| against you. Having more of it doesn't shift the balance
| one way or another. It just means there's more
| opportunities to take it one way or the other.
|
| Your times article also makes no mention of location
| tracking raising exoneration rates. It talks most
| prominently about how cheap faulty field drug tests
| contributed significantly to the improper convictions.
| nearbuy wrote:
| If you're innocent, more information about what happened
| is more likely to exonerate you than incriminate you. If
| you're guilty, the extra data is more likely to
| incriminate you.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Every extra data point is an opportunity for abuse, not
| exoneration.
|
| When you are facing wrongful conviction, the assumption
| is that you are unable to present evidence in an
| effective manner anyway.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| I didn't say _nothing to worry about_ I said that, on
| balance, location tracking probably helps law abiding
| citizens more than it hurts them. It 's an economic choice.
|
| I am far less likely to initiate a serious crime in Canada
| than I am to be falsely accused of a serious crime. It is
| hard to fake exhaust data and saying "I saw him near the
| John St Starbucks at 9am with a gun" is fakeable just by
| following someone around. You don't need my Google data to
| prove it. It's on the CCTV cameras, it's on the cellphone
| towers my phone is pinging, etc.
|
| I understand this makes people nervous, and I agree that
| there is something to be nervous about, but when I talk
| about the practical choice of recording your location data
| to a provider like Google I don't see much practical
| downside at the present time.
| ekianjo wrote:
| sevazhidkov wrote:
| If you are interested in tinkering with personal data exports
| using SQL, my friend and I made Bionic:
| https://github.com/bionic/bionic.
|
| The README includes an example of calculating songs you often
| listen to while walking/driving/using public transit (by
| combining Google Maps and Spotify data).
| mahathu wrote:
| That is insanely cool! I just requested my spotify data and
| really curious to see the results.
| [deleted]
| vonwoodson wrote:
| This is interesting, if only for the fact that track data did not
| show a correlation between these two people. 40-ish near misses
| over a few years would never have made me think that these two
| tracks were related in any way... then an external force brought
| them together. I'd like to see how their tracks look now; that is
| to say A) here's the tracks of people livi my similar lives w/o a
| relationship B) here's the tracks of two people who share a
| relationship (And eventually, not wishing for anything) C) here's
| the tracks of two people who no longer share a relationship, but
| once did
|
| Building the relationships between two objects is, by far, the
| most difficult part of the tracking problem. And, this source
| code definitely does and interesting job to measuring...
| something. That "something" seems like a worthy metric to look
| into.
| gvedem wrote:
| "There were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered
| another beforehand. Suitcases checked and standing side by side.
| One night, perhaps, the same dream, grown hazy by morning."
|
| https://poets.org/poem/love-first-sight
| nevi-me wrote:
| This is a great use of one's location data.
|
| I've personally found Google's location history to be a net
| positive for me. From places I've been whose precise addresses I
| can't remember (e.g. distant family events), to tracking
| hospital, doctor visits.
|
| I've even used it as a proxy for timesheets when I used to work
| from an office on weeks where I wouldn't have recorded my
| activities well (like which client I visited, how long I took
| lunch, etc).
| netsharc wrote:
| It has a flaw though, if establishments change names, your
| record of the visit also changes. If you had lunch at a burger
| place 2 years ago, and the place closed down and a hair salon
| opened up in its place, you'd "look back" and Google would tell
| you you went to a hair salon 2 years ago.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I agree it's a great use of location data, but why not use a
| completely client-side solution? Personally I use the Arc
| app[0] to record my location history. I did notice decreased
| battery life but I still have enough battery for a full day.
|
| [0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/arc-app-location-
| activity/id10...
| [deleted]
| texasbigdata wrote:
| You just invented the next great dating app. Because I can
| "game" saying I like or do something, but having to both
| physically be there and review it is a cool angle. The catch
| (outside the crazy permissions) would be it would greatly hurt
| smaller cities: "oh you really like the only Starbucks in town?
| Me too!"
| SamBam wrote:
| Bring back the old Four Square: oh, you like that Starbucks?
| Well, are you _The Mayor_ of it?
| nevi-me wrote:
| FourSquare was great, their gamified app made it fun for us
| to check in to locations. My friend works for his city's
| local council, not too high a position. We all call him the
| mayor of the city, because he used to be the mayor of a lot
| of places there on FourSquare.
| enchiridion wrote:
| There was an app called hapn where you had to cross paths
| with the people it showed you.
| [deleted]
| coolca wrote:
| I really like the article layout of this website. It is something
| done by OP, or some framework that everyone can use?
| channon36 wrote:
| Thank you! Its an html document that I compiled with R
| Markdown. Cosmo theme, with a floating TOC. :)
| croisillon wrote:
| Storytime!
|
| Years ago I boarded an almost empty plane from my country to a
| country where I had just started to live. The crew let a printed
| list of the passengers on one of the seats, I took the list and
| stored it somewhere. Flash forward few years later: I had met a
| lot of people in that country, inclusive from my own country. And
| one day, I rediscovered that boarding list I had totally
| forgotten about, just to find out that I had ended up knowing one
| of the persons on it.
| swyx wrote:
| this is fascinating. i'd be interested in an anonymous dating app
| where i feed in my location and it matches me up with others...
| highly likely that if we like the same places then we might like
| each other (or at least, dating might be a bit easier)
| amilios wrote:
| There's actually a dating app with a similar-ish concept called
| Happn (https://happn.com/), which basically is Tinder but if
| Tinder only showed you the profiles of people you had actually
| crossed paths with in real life. Fun fact! Not exactly what you
| said but close!
| HermanMartinus wrote:
| This is delightful. I also live in Cape Town and met my
| girlfriend on Bumble right after the lockdowns (and curfews)
| ended. I'm tempted to do this as well
| mikotodomo wrote:
| > I'm glad to have gone down this rabbit hole because now I think
| about the 41.25 near-misses we had, where if an audience had been
| watching they may have been on the edge of their seats. On the
| 16th of August 2017, exactly one week short of three years before
| we would meet, we're recorded at the same GPS coordinates in this
| spot where I frequently had lunch, near a coffee booth in the
| social sciences building. Did he just trot past on the stairs?
| Did he take a seat in the shade under the trees? Did we queue
| together in line for coffee? I guess Google doesn't have the
| answer for everything. but it's pleasant to imagine when we have
| our coffee together every morning that years before we may have
| silently enjoyed coffee near each other.
|
| This is very sweet. I hope by the time I get married I'm this
| good at coding, so I too could see all the times my husband
| almost met me! By then there might be cameras with years of
| accessible history scattered around the city.
| mellowagain wrote:
| Very interesting and cool tech and a very cute story! Congrats :)
| donclark wrote:
| Could this be an idea for an app? You can search your contacts
| and it will show location, date and time of when you were less
| than 20 feet from each other.
| thejackgoode wrote:
| Interesting how sometimes it does not matter. You meet in
| spacetime. I would not have relationships with my wife, who is
| subjectively perfect, have we met earlier in our lives. We have
| discussed this on multiple occasions and the conclusion was
| definite.
| trashtestcrash wrote:
| I really like to know what software is used to create this blog
| post, the navigation is so good.
| channon36 wrote:
| hownottowrite wrote:
| Looks like Tocify to me http://gregfranko.com/jquery.tocify.js/
| princeb wrote:
| i guess the next question is of those 33 recorded instances (or
| 41.25 possible instances), how many people were around the two of
| them? if they were literally standing within arms reach of each
| other, but also within arms reach of a dozen other people, it may
| not be that interesting if they never connected. but if they were
| within 5 meters of each other, and there weren't anyone else
| within a 100 meters of the two of them, that would have been a
| pretty awful missed connection.
| miiiiiike wrote:
| This is the cutest thing I've seen all year.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| When my wife and I combined our photo libraries later in life, we
| found a photo of the two of us, back-to-back at a ball a few
| years before we first met.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I went to school with the brother of my older brother's
| girlfriend; in an old picture of me on graduation day, she's in
| the background to attend her brother's graduation. This was 17
| years ago, I believe they've been dating for about ten years
| now.
| Lucent wrote:
| I wrote software to find minimum spacetime distance between
| camera rolls using embedded GPS. It runs all client side if
| someone wants to try it out or take up the mantle.
| https://github.com/Lucent/photo-distance
| breck wrote:
| Aww so sweet. I love stories like this. My wife and I met by
| chance in Seattle in 2014, having grown up on different coasts,
| but there was a period in the 1980's where we lived <50 miles
| apart and I always wonder whether we ever met by chance as
| kids. That's so amazing you found that photo. We will have to
| combine photo albums like you and see what we learn.
| netsharc wrote:
| There's a reddit comment where the poster recalled, how his
| parents would take the family on far away cities for
| vacation. The parents would then do parent things and the
| kids would just walk around the cities. In several different
| cities in several different vacations, he and and his sister
| would run into this kid. After a few times, the kid would run
| being freaked out, but the poster and his sister managed to
| "catch" him once, and introduced him to their parents. It
| turns out, the poster's parents knew the kid's parents, and
| at vacation times, the sets of parents would travel to the
| same location and partner swap with each other...
| coldpie wrote:
| My wife and I were apparently at a party of a mutual friend two
| years before we met. Neither of us remembers the other being
| there. Apparently being the guy who brought an Apple IIc and a
| box of floppies to a college party in 2009 wasn't memorable
| enough!
| rendall wrote:
| > _Apparently being the guy who brought an Apple IIc and a
| box of floppies to a college party in 2009 wasn 't memorable
| enough!_
|
| You'd be amazed at how few women find that exciting
| c1yd3i wrote:
| fudged71 wrote:
| This should be a feature in Google Photos
| throwaway787544 wrote:
| The last person I dated and I figured out we had probably been
| literally face to face a couple years before at an event, and I
| was probably talking to her boyfriend about something.
| dboreham wrote:
| I spent a week working at the Inmos plant in Colorado Springs
| in 1989, thousands of miles from where I lived at the time. It
| turns out I drove past my wife's house every day that week. We
| didn't meet until 1996.
| boredumb wrote:
| What a gentlemen!
|
| How I used my new boyfriends tracking location to realize he
| spends almost all of his free time in one of our local gentlemen
| clubs!
| klausjensen wrote:
| Great hacking, great story. :)
| nkzd wrote:
| Very interesting, maybe an online service could be made for this
| "have we crossed paths before".
| victor106 wrote:
| > Thanks to Google's location history quietly ticking away
| collecting GPS data in the background
|
| Thanks but no thanks
| artec wrote:
| Love is beautiful
| operator-name wrote:
| Wow, this is really neet! Whenever I see R (and the tidyverse in
| general) I always can't believe how clean and easy it to to do
| aebitary data visualisation like this.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Yeah. I really enjoyed my time as a data scientist when I was
| fluent in R and the tidyverse stuff (in particular ggplot and
| dplyr). It felt like a super power. People were consistently
| amazed at how quickly I could visualise brand new data.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| how i met your mother, hands down the best tv show ever,,,,,,,
| did this before location tracking was a thing...... "the best
| burger in NY", a classic
| rvieira wrote:
| This is simultaneously scary and cool.
| oakesm9 wrote:
| This sounds sort of similar to Strava Flybys[0]. It users your
| run/ride location data and show people who posted public activies
| that passed you by. Sometimes interesting, but I bet a lot of
| Strava users who post their activities as "public" don't know
| this feature exists and might turn to "followers only" if they
| did.
|
| [0] https://labs.strava.com/flyby/
| ydant wrote:
| This existed as a massive data-leak for a really long time. The
| "API" didn't have any meaningful protection, and the service
| was opt-in.
|
| It was really easy to download flyby exports for any activity
| and do analysis.
|
| I had a script downloading my Strava recordings of my commute
| and the associated fly-by data and was easily able to figure
| out all of the people I was seeing on the way to/from work.
| Since it linked to the activities and included profile pictures
| and names, you could easily figure out a lot.
|
| If I remember correctly, you could still see fly-bys of other
| peoples' rides even if your own was private or followers-only.
|
| It was a pretty massive oversight for a company like Strava -
| and a bit of an eye opener for me about what kind of data I
| might be leaking by making "harmless" activities like riding my
| bike into public data.
| infamousclyde wrote:
| The Flyby feature has been opt-in for about two years.
| oakesm9 wrote:
| Ah! Good to know. I didn't see any reference to that on their
| product page so assumed it was still on by default
| ydant wrote:
| It's carved out as a specific permission on the privacy
| page now - https://www.strava.com/settings/privacy - and
| also explicitly mentioned as turned off for "only you"
| activities, but no mention if it's exposed if your activity
| is "followers only".
| etothepii wrote:
| This story reminds me of the Tim Minchin song, if I didn't have
| you: https://youtu.be/Zn6gV2sdl38
| scandox wrote:
| Can people now just meet each other without an App? Is it
| generally possible to just kick off conversations with people you
| haven't been introduced to? I mean if these two were sitting
| under the same apple tree, they'd be on their phones checking out
| Bumble, surely?
| angryGhost wrote:
| easier said than done
| Yiin wrote:
| It's just so much easier to do it using an app. You are pretty
| much guaranteed that people you match with are also looking for
| something similar or at least open to the idea. No guessing or
| attending places for sole reason of hunting down a partner,
| which is quite creepy anyways. It's definitely possible to find
| some without an app, but not everyone is willing to just wait
| for that magical moment of meeting the right person at the
| right time.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| There are always people fishing IRL :) I'd argue that you have
| better chances compared to an app since you are there in person
| compared to a digital profile. It's more memorable.
|
| It always took practice to be good at this, but apps made a lot
| of people lazy so I'm not sure about trends.
| nicgrev103 wrote:
| I hope you two never break up. Put this level of ability,
| rescources, time and effort into revenge and the results will not
| be pretty.
| carlmcqueen wrote:
| This is an analysis should probably be read while listening to
| Dave Matthews Band Ants Marching. Really cool analysis and fun to
| see it written in R.
|
| Jerr Thorpe had an app that gave you your power back and tracked
| your phone info in a way you could have yourself for awhile but
| it became abandonware and started eating battery life so I took
| it off my phone. OpenPaths, that was it's name.
| https://www.jerthorp.com/openpaths
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