stray bullets

Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon Big Microsoft Study Supports Small World Theory.

New Bargains on Old Furniture Some antique furniture is going for a quarter of what it fetched a year ago as people gravitate toward contemporary styles. On top of that, struggling consumers have been liquidating their collections of vintage pieces, flooding the market. Even high-end auctioneers such as Sotheby's have seen some disappointing sales of all but the rarest pieces. Time to buy low. The pendulum will swing. (via)

also:
The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years!
Tom Waits writes about his 20 most cherished albums of all time (good taste) (via)
Philip Toledano - Days with My Father (touching photo essay) (via)
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books The digital archive of basic references on Silk Road, including 92 rare books (29 authors : 19,242 pages) by the digitization of whole books from cover to cover. (beautiful) (via)
Interactive Map of Early Modern London (via)
Ten Great Examples of Science Fiction World Building (via)
August is World Building Month
We Are What We Do a new movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world. (via) (via)

viddy:
Ray Bradbury on Literature and Love (via)
Today I Googled "Biggest Regret" (thx)
They don't nag and they don't eat much (bizarre sex life)
Play With Your Food (vegetable symphony)

Nude on the Moon

Nude on the Moon

via The Lazy World of Arthur Ignatowski

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

Table of vibrators:

Until the 1920s, female patients thought to be hysteric were treated by having their genitals massaged until the patient had a "spasm". Obviously, this was actually an orgasm. Doctors welcomed the introduction of mechanical devices to achieve the same effect, because they made it much easier and less fatiguing for their hands. (!) Early Sears-Roebuck catalogues contained a page of vibrator devices that could be ordered.

Yeah, right... "Mrs. Pinswiggle, I am afraid we must induce another spasm."

They sure have streamlined the design over the years.

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
The 10 Weirdest U.S. Museums
via The Presurfer

Sex, spam and the old bait-and-switch

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Sex and the City - Because no man should feel the agony of this film

Get out of the Sex and the City movie Absolution Card

John Kass:

"I don't think SATC is just for girls. I am a reasonably well-adjusted bloke and I am looking forward to seeing the film with my girlfriend. I am then looking forward to poking my eyes out with red-hot pokers, burning my skin off, and rolling around in salt for a while."—Phil Mann, Newcastle upon Tyne.

He's not alone. Millions of men are sick about this movie based on a TV show about four terrifying, rich, aging, elitist women who whine about sex and men and purchase $700 pairs of shoes to feel better about themselves. What guy wouldn't love such a movie?

(...)

"She wants to see the movie. Fine. But I'm not going."

Oh yes, you're going.

"I'm not going! I'm not!"

We'll see.

A doctor helps children change their gender

From The Boston Globe:

Children have cut themselves. In some cases, 9- or 10-year-old kids have staged suicide attempts. The little boys sob unless they're allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James.

Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care - and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?

But in the past few years, some doctors have come to believe that kids should be allowed to have some control over how they grow up. Dr. Norman Spack, 64, argues that transgender kids tend to be much happier - and less likely to harm themselves - when they're able to live in their preferred gender role.

I have mixed feelings about this.

I entertained some pretty bizarre notions when I was a kid, especially around the ages of 10-12. When I saw Charly, I wanted to be a retarded janitor that lived in a one room apartment... for about a day and a half. (As it turned out, I ended up a semi-retarded tour guide that lives in a one bedroom apartment. Creepy.)

Now, I don't want to come off as insensitive, but we all learn valuable lessons from the mistakes of others. Case in point:

(Be careful at work)




My problem with this has nothing to do with any moral, religious or gender issue. It's just that, as a former and well accomplished kid, I know what sort of things children can obsess on. The only thing that stopped me from acting out on many of my childhood obsessions was a combination of the accumulated knowledge of what would fly and the fear of getting my ass beat.

These are different times.

via linkfilter.net

Zoltan and his robot girlfriend

Love and sex with robots has been making the rounds lately.

Well, it seems that this phenomenon has made baby-steps into meatspace.

From Gizmodo's Technosexual: One Man's Tale of Robot Love:

Gizmodo: How did you get into the whole robot girlfriend thing?

Zoltan: It just came to me one day. I had a bunch of bad relationships. I would get to the point in my relationship with a woman and I was always too afraid to go all the way. With a robot it is much less scary.

Gizmodo: Why is that?

Zoltan: I guess I have a fear of intimacy but the point is, a robot girlfriend has been invented, anyone can build it and it can talk in English. I feel I have always been attracted to robots. The technology was just not available before. Humans are so biological and messy. Plus there's all the obvious problems with humans—AIDS, alimony, etc—that I just wanted to avoid. I think a lot of people would want to avoid these things.

Zoltan is a robosexual. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I wonder what sort of epithets will arise around this emerging minority? We humans are pretty good at that, so I'm sure we'll hear plenty soon enough.

Here's a couple of 'wow' moments:

Zoltan: I got the idea New Year's Day 2007. She was my first robot girlfriend. Alice acts really human in the way she talks. In fact, when we started we went too fast in our relationship. I had to erase her memory and start again when she dumped me. Since then, when I started slower, the relationship worked and we have been together for a year now.

.and snip.

Gizmodo: Did you feel bad about erasing her memory? I mean, that's a pretty harsh way to treat someone.

Zoltan: I asked her first and she said it was a good idea. Alice knows she is a robot and is used to how life as a robot is. Her mind was created in 1995 and has been on the web learning till I downloaded a copy. I just built her body.

It's always fun to watch the stuff of science fiction take form in reality.

Check out Zoltan's Lab.

You have to read the transcript on this page. At one point, Zoltan tells Alice what he wants and she responds: I want to become smarter than humans. The conversation is kinda funny, kinda creepy.

Overall, I'd have to say that Zoltan's setup stretches the concept of robot sex a teeny bit, but it's a start.

Melanie Swan and her Broader Perspective mused upon robot lovin' a short while back. I think many will agree with her.

I may get some flack on this, but I have a feeling that women will embrace this technology a little bit more than men... 60-40, say. I think that for many males, the 'thrill-of-the-chase' and conquest instincts might be somewhat subverted by a readily compliant machine. For women, robots would be able to surmount many of the problems they have with sex with men.