Joba Horseriding Exercise Machine

You know, there was a day when I had to work to write these posts. Now, they just fuckin' write themselves.

From the CNet Page:

built in conjunction with Nagoya University to offer a form of horseback-riding therapy, this mechanical horse (...) apparently stimulates those seldom used muscles in the dorsal and abdominal regions and decreases waist size without the user exerting much effort.

Man, I couldn't have put it better myself. Not only that, I could've totally ended this with a "Well, strap a dildo to it and we're done" message. But no. Seriously. IT GETS BETTER.

From the Product Website:

• Advanced 3-D virtual reality technology imitates horseback riding experience and helps to build physical strength and endurance

• All-new 8-Curve Action with "Forward/Backward" tilt and horizontal motion, strengthen abdominal, side, thigh & back muscles

VIRTUAL REALITY. FORWARD/BACKWARD TILT.

I can't even make this shit up. I want like, 5 of these. They're only around $1600US, too.

via Wonderland

Aer-O-Scope

Well, it's been a long 8 weeks of traveling, but I'm finally done. Back at home, where I get one day of rest before I start moving my ass from Oklahoma to San Francisco. So get ready, Bay Area, you're about to see a very slight blip of an increase in your perv level!

Anyways, enough about me, back to what matters: weird medical tools that really don't have any sexual connotation until I post them here!

Today's line of posts on this subject starts with the Aer-O-Scope from GI-View. Since I can't say it any better than the webpage itself does, it's a disposable, miniaturized, self-propelling, self-navigating, endoscope with a unique vision system targeted for the screening colonoscopy market.

Now, that may sound pretty boring, until we combine this with some idea to turn it from boring to AWESOME. I'm totally thinking Augmented Reality Gaming here.

I mean, really, how much fun would Astroids be if it involved the lower GI tract!

Or, since I'm required to say it, I'm sure this is someone's dream teledildonics interface. I mean, there's gotta be customers if Square Peg can sell these, ya know...

Via The Annals of Improbable Research

Heee, I said Annals.

Bought to you by THE THRILLHAMMER, because god damnit. It's good shit.

Ok, well, this is at least a conference about sex, versus a conference about video games where I happen to be talking about sex, so blogging it is a little more feasable. But we all know my track record with this shit by now. Being stubborn about conference liveblogging is something that I'll get over someday, but I've got a LOT more therapy before that happens.

So, I'm in Montreal. Usually I'm all about studying up for trips, knowing where I'm going, so on and so forth. This time, nothin'. I got a map like, 10 minutes before I left, just in case. Sure enough, I show up, and my travel buddy, Allen Stein of the Thrillhammer (did I mention it's good shit?) is unfortunately stuck in the wrong part of the wrong country until tomorrow. So, I'm in a foriegn country. And you know what's in foreign countries?

%lt;American Traveler>

That's right, foreign people! And they all speak funny! Especially when you've been on a plane for a bazillion hours (read: 4)!

My 2 years of high school french is not holding up well at all here, luckily everyone seems to have a better grasp on both French AND English than I do, so it's all good.

%lt;/American Traveler>

Which brings us to the main reason for this trip. Sure, there's a conference and all, but really.

POUTINE

It's my first time in Eastern Canadia, and the legend of the poutine is something that's been passed down over the millenia, through tribes and oral tradition and the internet and has somehow found its way to me. I have recommendations of places to try, and my god, I plan to try all of them. Of course, I'll probably make it to one and then have a raging case of the itis for the rest of the trip, but what can you do.

The search almost began this evening. Getting into the hotel late tonight, I asked the desk guy for places to eat, and he said there was a Burger King down the street. I was not aware that BK had poutine, but it does.

And really, I almost did it. I almost bought poutine at Burger King. But I could't possibly let that be my first real eastern canadian poutine experience. That's like losing your virginity to a crack whore. Which, where the burger king was located, was also an actual option.

Cleanest sex district I've ever been in, though.

Ok. On the topic of the lack of posts around here, well, I'm traveling pretty much constantly at the moment, and I'm not quite good enough at all this to travel and blog at the same time. However, know that things are going very well, and there's gonna be some major changes coming up soon. If you've sent me email in like, the last month, I'll /try/ to get to it this week.

This week, I'm headed out to the Sexual Interactions Conference at SIGCHI, along with the wonderful Allen Stein of Thrillhammer, because, you know, the Thrillhammer rules, n' shit.

I've got tons of links lined up for whenever I'm in town again, as well as SBv5 instructions, and other goodness. Until then, stick it out, and enjoy blogs like ApogeeVR.

Article on The Future of Sex

Neat article over on CNN about the future of sex toys, and a new field called "Teledildonics".

Yeah, where the fuck is my name, anyways? Huh? HUH?

So, I'll take the bitchy stance.

"No one who is even inventing this stuff wants or even thinks that technology could ever replace human connection or sex."

Bullshit, motherfuckers. From day one, I've said I'm doing this to put controls on breeding rates so that I could use hidden features in my software to breed a virtual master race and RULE THE WORLD.

But now that I've told you this, I'll have to kill you in some slow, easily foilable way.

Others suspect the technology is also far off. "Right now they are having trouble making robots that just sweep floors," said Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle and author of many books on sex.

Yeah, but a thruster requires an offset cam and a motor. That's not exactly iRobot level shit, and it does people /just/ fine.

Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence dating back to 1951, said such devices could either trigger an actual physical response from the brain, or have the entire experience take place in the mind with the sensation of sex -- but without the mess or risk of sexually transmitted disease.

Fuckin' A, Dr. Minsky. There's a reason BDSMers can be trained to remotely orgasm. It's all in the mind. We're already there if you're trainable, but it's getting the other 99.999...% that need manual stimulation...

"But if the game (industry) people got involved in some underdeveloped country that didn't have any laws against it, it could all happen twice as fast."

Ok, I'm moving to South America, and I'll need some test subjects to come with me.

"There is a great deal of pushing people out of social relations into a kind of simulated relationship, which in fact decreases what is essential in human life, which is sociability -- one's capacity to relate to other people," said John Gagnon, a veteran researcher and author on many books on sexuality.

I think we're gonna see this in virtual worlds in general though, not just due to sex. Sure, sexuality will exacerbate the issue since it's such a deeply emotional act, but I foresee basic virtual world addiction being a much bigger problem.