Andrew Sullivan points me to this tool, which does a simple analysis of your browser history to guess if you're male or female.

I get this result.

Site	Male-Female Ratio
google.com	0.98
mapquest.com	0.83
wellsfargo.com	0.87
oanda.com	1.33

First reaction: Obviously, I need to look at more Internet porn.

Second reaction: Oh, I guess the tool doesn't know to look for that. I'm sure it would get a more accurate reading if it did. No need to get fancy analyzing what type of porn. Simple quantity should be a sufficient indicator. More porn = male. Less porn = female. Pretty simple, really.

For those who are wondering but can't be bothered to try the URL, oanda.com is a site that does currency conversion. I use it occasionally at work. I don't use it much at all at home, except that last week I happened to be evaluating my small supply of foreign cash.

I visit Wells Fargo a lot. I'm sort of obsessive about checking my balance and transferring funds around.

I'm surprised the tool didn't pick up Yahoo/Babelfish. I did multiple visits there earlier this week, in the course of writing a post I haven't quite finished yet.

I guess it's a function of what all sites are included in the "social history" tool that this tool uses. It seems that tool can be written to check a list of whatever URLs the programmer chooses. Apparently, he had the good taste not to ask about any porn sites. (Then again, there are so freakin' many of them, which would you try? RedTube? Domai? Booble??)

2:23:01 AM  [permalink]  comment []