As if this campus doesn’t have enough mirrors, a new Web site is giving insecure people at Northwestern another reason to withdraw into darkness.
The “Hot or Not Ph” Web site, developed by computer science major and Ph guru Brian Teutsch, allows users to simultaneously obtain contact information for NU students, faculty and staff and rate their “hotness” on a scale of one (low) to 10 (hot, hot, hot).
The site is linked off Teutsch’s personal Web site, www.brianteutsch.org.
Although everyone can be ranked, individual results can only be displayed with permission.
The “Hot or Not Ph” is the latest Ph innovation for Teutsch, a Weinberg senior, who has played a key role in the evolution of NU’s people-finding software.
Teutsch also designed the Advanced Ph system on Associated Student Government’s HereAndNow Web site, which finds names and phone numbers based on limited information – and helps hung-over students find their nameless loves from the night before.
Teutsch, who boasts a solid 8.8 “hotness” rating, is humble about his latest creation, saying it is “mainly for a good laugh.”
“It’s not much good for too much else,” Teutsch said. “People see their friends or enemies on it and rate either high or low.”
Another loophole in his unscientific system is that ugly people can skew their “hotness” levels by visiting the site repeatedly.
But the possibility of fraud won’t deter Teutsch’s friend Jessica MacDonald, a Weinberg sophomore who has vowed to “base all my dates on what score they got on (Hot or Not Ph).”
Teutsch plans to take down the site when he graduates in June.
After that, students will have to revert to the old system for finding true love – the Freshman Face Book goes on sale in September.
