Let's destroy this sham of a technological confabulation once and for all. But before we do that, let's call it what it really is: the Woodstock of our generation. Which is to say, an excuse for unattractive men to disguise themselves as forward-thinking revolutionaries in hopes of getting laid.

But here's the sad truth, South by Southwest fanboy: you're not a revolutionary, and worse, you're not getting laid.

Come to think of it, "SXSW" is less like Woodstock than a revival meeting, but without the virtue. You've got your blind faith, speaking in tongues, fantasies of redemption and plenty of "evangelists."

Can you get an "Amen"? Not from me, suckers.

"WE ARE AT A PIVOTAL MOMENT!" some panelist will preach to a laptop-toting choir. "SOMEONE MUST INTERPRET ALL THIS DATA!" Out on 6th Street, meanwhile, a bunch of drunken mooks pile on top of each other in sweltering heat while the stench of human odor and overused mobile applications permeates the air. Disgusting.

Any value "SXSW" might have had wore off shortly after everyone stopped spelling the whole name out. (Now they call it "South By" and soon it will just be a vague hiss: like "Sssuhhhhh...") But over the years the conference has become a gross parody of its original intentions. Let me break down the daily schedule of the average ding-dong who still goes to this festival:

He comes to on a dorm room floor, breath stinking of Corporate Super-Sponsor Miller Lite. He collects his buttons, stickers and vanity USB sticks. He stumbles into the Austin heat, where someone is handing out samples of Pepsi Max or Brisk Iced Tea or, worst-case, Monster Energy Drink. He bikes over to the Dell Computer Lounge for another panel and the "opportunity" to network with someone who coded some software that makes it easier to identify smells. Which will come in real handy back at the crash pad.

And I cannot stress this enough: No-one has gotten laid.

Why don't you people do something useful? Maybe make an app that allows users to avoid getting beaten by government thugs. Then have your little festival. There's a global famine going on. Make a food replicator like they had on Star Trek, then file for your parade permits.

All this banging on about techno-utopias when so much of the world is so cocked-up makes my ears bleed. Sorry, dorks, but fancy cloud computing isn't going to help us educate our youngsters or take out the trash.

Here's a newsflash, Soup Soup: If you're a real innovator, you're not out in Texas shaking hands with indie bands; you're 15 years old, grinding out the hours in some Connecticut basement, soldering together old Kaypros and giving Steve Jobs the night sweats.

Get rid of South by Southwest. Strangle it with its own lanyard. And save the backslaps for when we really have something to be proud of, like a program that can finally stop my iPhone apps from wiggling.

Grow up, you babies.

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

The data dynamos from OkCupid looked at how likely users from each zip code were to respond to online flirtations, as well as how they answered questions like, "If it were up to you, how often would you have sex?"

Turns out there is a corridor of lust running east through Kings County, and kinkiness accelerates the further out one goes on the L train. "The deeper into Brooklyn you go, the hornier people get," says OKCupid cofounder Christian Rudder. "It runs along Bushwick Avenue to Pennsylvania Ave. To the sea." In terms of enthusiasm for sex, meanwhile, Manhattan's NYU area and East Village win the borough, but can only hold their own with the middle range of Brooklyn neighborhoods.

We're having a tough time figuring out what creates this lustful streak through Brooklyn. Is it that Manhattan is too distracting, what with the museums, skyscrapers, and Central Park? Maybe there's just more time to concentrate beyond the East River.

Anyway, in honor of Valentine's Day, here's the tasteful pink sex map of New York City.

Source: OKCupid.

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

But back in April, when OKCupid wrote a post called "Why You Should Never Pay for Online Dating," the companies weren't so sweet on each other.

OKCupid's datahound Christian Rudder used publicly available data to guess at the success rates of eHarmony and Match.com, and decided they came up short.

"Today I'd like to show why the practice of paying for dates on sites like Match.com and eHarmony is fundamentally broken, and broken in ways that most people don't realize," Mr. Rudder wrote, before launching into an analysis that concluded that more than 93 percent of Match's profiles were "dead," meaning abandoned or owned by free-riding users who haven't paid for the ability to respond.

"It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com," he wrote.

Now that Match.com has bought OKCupid, that post has been removed from OKCupid's blog--setting off suspicions about whether the acquisition means the scrappy, fun OKCupid is being forced to button up by its new owners.

But Match.com didn't ask OKCupid to take down the post, CEO Sam Yagan told The Observer, it was just the "common sense thing to do."

"I know everyone wants to make a big deal out of this," he said. "They didn't tell us take it down. I wanted to do it. ... We obviously believe in a free model but there are also paid models and I didn't think [the post's] continued existence served much of a purpose. People will say, 'Oh my God, they've sold out and they're censoring it,' that's fine. When we put our next blog post next week and keep being awesome and the product keeps being awesome and free, people will just realize they're overreacting."

Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match.com's public filings and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he saw the real data.

"Upon having more knowledge as we've gone through the process of getting to know Match and them getting to know us, some of the conclusions we drew are not quite as exaggerated as we made them out to be," he said.

Mr. Yagan did not reveal what the real data says or how big the discrepancy was, but said that Match.com is better at getting people together than he originally believed. "In general the totality of data that we have become exposed to leads us to believe that yes, the subscription sites are probably more successful than the post made them out to be," he said.

And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it'll be business as usual at OKCupid's Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its members. (Data from Match.com and its affiliated sites will not be included.)

Match and its associated sites may run ads on OKCupid, but that hasn't happened yet and the intention is not to have OKCupid be a feeder site for the subscription sites, he said, Match.com just wants to have a full portfolio of different kinds of dating sites. "I don't know what their grand strategy is. Right now we don't run any Match ads... the plan is just for each of the sites to run their own business. Where there are opportunities to cooperate we want to and we will."

"We're not moving offices. We're not integrating the user bases, not integrating the technology platforms, not integrating the brands," he said. "I'm running the business and I don't know how to run a subscription business. It's not something I've done or want to do."

OKCupid has about seven million users, most of whom joined over the last two years even though the site has been up for five. They're rolling out a mobile app that will be location-aware in the next few months.

It will be interesting to see if the acquisition has any visible impact on OKCupid, but from talking to Mr. Yagan it sounds like it won't. 

"I think the most successful acquisitions are those where not a lot is done to radically change the business model of the company," he said.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries

The press release indicates that OKCupid will not be shut down and its users siphoned into one of Match.com's subscription-based dating sites. OKCupid cofounder Sam Yagan will head up the company's New York office and continue to run the company's day-to-day operations. "We are excited to join forces with Match because it is clear that no company is more committed to helping people find relationships," he said. "This marriage offers us the best of both worlds: the autonomy to continue pursuing OkCupid's original vision and the ability to leverage Match's reach and expertise to grow even faster."

Match.com and OKCupid are now owned by New York's IAC, which operates some of the best-known properties on the web.

There's already speculation that OKCupid will lose some of its fun hipster personality. Already a blog post titled, "Why You Should Never Pay for Online Dating," has been removed.

An excerpt from that post:

Today I'd like to show why the practice of paying for dates on sites like Match.com and eHarmony is fundamentally broken, and broken in ways that most people don't realize.

For one thing, their business model exacerbates a problem found on every dating site:

Women get too many bad matches

Men get far too few replies

For another thing, as I'll explain, pay sites have a unique incentive to profit from their customers' disappointment.

As a founder of OkCupid I'm of course motivated to point out our competitors' flaws. So take what I have to say today with a grain of salt. But I intend to show, just by doing some simple calculations, that pay dating is a bad idea; actually, I won't be showing this so much as the pay sites themselves, because most of the data I'll use is from Match and eHarmony's own public statements. I'll list my sources at the bottom of the post, in case you want to check.

...

It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com.

...

So next time you hear Match or eHarmony talking about how huge they are, you should do like I do and think of Goliath-and how he probably bragged all the time about how much he could bench. Then you should go sign up for OkCupid.

Hopefully OKCupid will keep its personality and its trendy trends blog intact despite being acquired by its 16-year old cousin.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries

In the latest installment of OkCupid's dating research, The Mathematics of Beauty, the site reveals a few fascinating trends they observed about dating success.

Turns out raw beauty isn't the best metric. In fact, the more men disagree about a woman's looks, the more likely she is to be contacted for dates. The research finds that women who are considered ugly by some users have a better chance of attracting dates than women who are considered cute by nearly everyone. 

What's going on here? Could be a little gamesmanship at work.

If men see a profile of a user and everyone else thinks she's hot, they assume chances are pretty slim she'll pick them for a suitor.

But if guys see a girl who they think is cute, but who seems undervalued by others, they sense an opportunity. 

It could also be evidence that some men are strongly attracted to particular traits that the general population doesn't find attractive.

OkCupid's advice for the ladies? Take your flaws and play them up. The negative reaction you get from some users will only work to your advantage. 

bpopper at observer dot com - @benpopper