======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
People talk about “Big Data” a lot. By the way, your mom’s name is data.
Sorry, let me start over. With the advent of the digital world, we’re able to create and track substantially more touchpoints that ever before. Basically, each and every person contributes information to relevant databases, which are then used to process useful insights. For instance: you know how your phone knows if traffic is bad? All the suckers ahead of you have phones and other devices that are tracking their speed. If a whole lot of them are grouped together and going slowly, that’s what’s called a traffic jam.
Using data to glean insights has benefitted us in myriad ways. We found Viagara because people in an experimental blood pressure medicine program kept getting boners. Wal-Mart used big data to find that ahead of hurricanes, sales of Pop Tarts go up exponentially. OKCupid found that the majority of first dates in the northeastern United States are at Subway, confirming that no person from that region has anything resembling taste.
In a newfangled twist, Uber is going to be using the data of its passengers to have a new classification: drunk. Uber just filed for a new patent, and this shit is hilarious.
The patent imagines a world where you might stumble out of a bar at 2 a.m. and the app will be able to know if you are drunk based on the angle you’re holding your phone, how you are walking and how you are interacting with the app compared to other times you’ve used it.
Just imagine it. Swaying back and forth, closing one eye like a pirate to accurately type in your address leaning a little too far over, because you’re holding your phone differently, probably walking in zigzags across the Little Helsinki neighborhood after the Darkthrone cover show. It’s magnificent, but at the same time, hey, fuck you, Uber.
What I’m doing is my own business and I don’t need you advertising to your drivers that I’m not going to notice that they’re taking me the long way around town. And I really don’t feel like anyone having a record of my drinking habits. Everyone has a bad day and needs to go blow off some steam at lunch every once in a while, but if you’re looking at it as just a data point, it’s just gonna say that person was drunk at 3 p.m. on a weekday. Kiss my ass with that.
Furthermore, that’s a massive misallocation of resources. Let me tell you how you know that I’m drunk when using Uber: I’m using Uber. If I was sober, I’d just be driving my own fucking self.
Anyway, this is just another really good reason to take the bus or ride a bike. Don’t let these technocrats win. Keep your data to yourself. .
Respond
Icehouse
International sailing champion and friend to most wolves. Except Larry, he knows what he did.
@PJHart
@hart__attack
pjhart84
This is their way of separating cohorts of their user base in a multi-varient testing methodology that will be the data gathering apparatus for some new functionality in the future. For example, if they realize that most of their users are drunk on weekend late nights, they could charge a fee for being drunk as a way to provide a “DUI insurance” service. Think surge pricing but for law protections. This could also go into lowering the cost of the car cleaning fees that Uber credits their drivers after the user pays it out but probably not because they just want more of our money. This data will most definitely be packaged and resold to advertisers and they’ll probably open up ad inventory space in their app which will showcase Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s late night menu ads and could even slot in AA meeting ads after you’ve reached the secret allotted drunken ride amount in order to prevent that they give a shit about your well being. This will also be useful in gathering data for autonomous vehicles and even flying vehicle Uber rides because drunk people could pose a threat to their hardware. The future is bleak, folks but remember, they can’t test for LSD lol
How long until Uber car bar is a thing?
As soon as cities increase the number of liquor licenses and catch up to technology
Already a thing in Atlanta if you find the right driver
Awaiting Nived’s take on this.
I’m most rattled by the fact most OKCupid first dates in the northeast are at Subway, if that is true. That’s very alarming.
Well, I’m no conspiracy theorist but in the Northeast, there is a predominantly Catholic population with a proportionate amount of Subways geographically centralized…and since the Church loves children, Subway conveniently rolls out their $5 Footlong campaign while Jared (who is a diddler) is the spokesperson. It’s like a revolving door of child abuse from the indoctrination HQ to the food supply lol
Bing that shit.
I’ll pass on some guy named Balwinder judging me before I even step foot, blackout, into his Honda Pilot.
This is frighteningly specific. You from San Jose?
No, Sunnyvale
LOL
Bring it Uber, I’m not afraid of your SkyNet-wanna-be-ass, I’m ALWAYS intoxicated when using uber, let the games begin and may the odds be ever in your favor
Hit the nail on the head, who uses uber sober?
You think they’ll give you a rating when you’re drunk and a rating when you’re sober?
I’m lookin at a solid 4.9 while sober and a 2.8 drunk…..
That’s a 3.85. That’ll get you Summa Cum Laude.
Lyft it is.
We need EU data protection laws
Lyft is about to make a fortune with their discretion