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Best linkbait title ever?
Hacking my Vagina
121–130 of 273 posts
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does any article focusing on women's experience have to have someone come along and say 'it's hard for us men'?
I sympathize with that point, but there's more to it than "what about teh menz?" The question is this: is this doing well on HN because HN is full of progressive-minded feminists upvoting a neat DIY project on its merits, or is it doing well on HN because it serves as fodder for the nerd-girl fantasies of a primarily male readership? I really think this is an important point that often gets missed on male dominated s…
> The question is this: is this doing well on HN because HN is full of progressive-minded feminists upvoting a neat DIY project on its merits, or is it doing well on HN because it serves as fodder for the nerd-girl fantasies of a primarily male readership?
Yes. (With the caveat that "is full of" == "has more than 3")
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does any article focusing on women's experience have to have someone come along and say 'it's hard for us men'?
I sympathize with that point, but there's more to it than "what about teh menz?" The question is this: is this doing well on HN because HN is full of progressive-minded feminists upvoting a neat DIY project on its merits, or is it doing well on HN because it serves as fodder for the nerd-girl fantasies of a primarily male readership? I really think this is an important point that often gets missed on male dominated s…
So we're sexist and objectifying women by upvoting the article?
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#124For anyone interested in more stuff like this, I run a site about sex and technology and track open source sex projects: http://www.slashdong.org
What we need is a Kickstarter for this stuff, or some sort of prize or bounty system. I don't even know how long I've been reading about individuals online trying to design Random Vibrators (changing speeds in an un-learnable pattern to prevent acclimation, obviously not as simple as sending random numbers to the motor) and various individuals claiming to have homebrewed the even more legendary Intelligent Vibrator (with some sort of sensor that can detect when you get close to an orgasm and stop)... and yet neither of these are ever showing up for sale online. Ever. What's wrong with this market?
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#125For anyone interested in more stuff like this, I run a site about sex and technology and track open source sex projects: http://www.slashdong.org
What we need is a Kickstarter for this stuff, or some sort of prize or bounty system. I don't even know how long I've been reading about individuals online trying to design Random Vibrators (changing speeds in an un-learnable pattern to prevent acclimation, obviously not as simple as sending random numbers to the motor) and various individuals claiming to have homebrewed the even more legendary Intelligent Vibrator (…
In terms of kickstarters for adult stuff, there's 2 already.
http://offbeatr.com/ http://www.passionateproduce.com/
And companies like lovepalz (http://lovepalz.com) and vibease (http://vibease.com, where the hell ARE you in this thread, Dema! I know it's like stupid AM over in Singapore but get on here and market, damnit :) ) are co-opting the "kickstarter look" even though they aren't running as actual crowdfunded projects.
In the end, you don't see a lot of products make it to market for 2 reasons. First, making hardware is difficult, but that's been covered here a bazillion times over. The contextual issue with sex tech is that people are scared to install a damn printer on their computer. Putting their private parts near it? Yeah right. If you can't design a user interface for an OS that someone is comfortable with, something as intimate as sex is sooo far off your damn radar.
I've seen 10s of companies come and go without ever getting a product to market since I started tracking this in 2004. There's a ton of factors that just aren't thought about yet.
If you want to see the state of the industry circa 2007:
That's a presentation I did back then. A lot of the info still holds, though there's many new players in the game now. I did an updated presentation in May, will see if there's video around. Or if anyone wants a presentation at their meetup of choice around the Bay Area, just lemme know.
I'm working on an article about sex tech startups (failed/succeeded, and current) that I'll hopefully get posted sometime this week.
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uhm, to be frank, there are prostate "hacks". Explore at your own volition. http://wiki.malegspot.com/index.php?title=Main_Page (Not associated with them, and note that the wiki is run by a company selling the tools mentioned in the wiki) Though it's admittedly lower tech. I would welcome technological advances for men as well. Why not? It interests both the human and hacker in me.
You can buy e-stim boxes especially made for zapping the nether regions on males and females alike. One of the configurations on the ET312, called "tri phase", combines a two-conductor plug placed near the prostate with pads placed at each feet, and the end result is utterly wild. It's really unfortunate that most guys are too hung up about their own bodies to explore it.
ET-312 software interfaces are some of the most advanced out there right now, too. The community at http://smartstim.com is absolutely amazing to watch.
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#127I'm so pleased there's no use of the word "dildonics" on that article. And I'm sad there's no awesome open source version of Rez to go with her device. Probably NSFW for language and underwear photo ( http://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games-rezvibra... )
cough http://www.github.com/qdot/libtrancevibe
There's been open source trancevibe drivers since 2003. :)
There's 3 toys based on the protocol.
- The original Trancevibe (ebayable, surprisingly powerful)
- the Drmn trancevibe (http://tim.cexx.org/projects/vibe/), no longer sold
- This weird one: http://www.harnett-tech.com/search.php?act=search&SKU=US...
I wrote the original Second Life trancevibe control layer in 2005 (i.e. click on virtual genetalia, real vibrator vibrates), which was later integrated into in-world genetalia by one of the larger virtual sex object manufacturers. After the Drmn trancevibe went off sale, they created that last one to sell to customers.
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#128I wonder if an article called "Hacking my Penis" would ever last long the HN front page.
Why does any article focusing on women's experience have to have someone come along and say 'it's hard for us men'?
Probably because when women write about masturbatory experiences it's "awesome" and "liberated" and when men write about masturbatory experiences it's "gross" and "sad". So that commenter probably observed that double standard and questioned whether a, say, Fleshlight hacking article would be well-received or soundly mocked.
But since women are universally disadvantaged in absolutely all aspects of life, it's simply rude to try and discuss the double standards biased against men. Because they are fictitious, of course.
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#129This is a really cool hack, but my problem is that I don't understand the sex part. What's better about waving your hands around to control the motor speed, vs. using a dial? This is not out of prurient interest. I just can't understand the engineering without understanding the use case. Maybe you have to be female to get this?
I'd think something like EEG or heart rate feedback would be better than sonar. Higher degree of difficulty, but much more evil.
This is being worked on as we speak, actually. There's a few companies (and, uh, me) working on biometric interfaces for sex toys. I reverse engineer biometrics stuff as well as sex toys, so there's a whole range of sensors available, and it's honestly the best interface we're probably going to get, since it doesn't require manual controls. :)
Re: Hacking my Vagina
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good article, link baity title.
Sure may be. On that note, have there been any non-linkbaity titles on HN in, well, as long as one may remember?
Sure there is, a quick look shows:
Scientists See Promise in Deep-Learning Programs Machine Learning: Neural Network vs Support Vector Machine Suite of 300 icons for web and user interface design
But you are right that there is a lot of link-baitiness on HN. Doesn't mean we can't wish for better.