Monthly Archives: February 2010

Ask Giz: How Do I Bring Up the Subject of Video Sex? [Badvalentine]

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The old videophone sci-fi concept is now portable wireless reality, and it's not just politicians and celebrities who are doing naughty things in front of cameras. Our resident love doctor explains if and when it's okay to bring it up.

Far too many people have had their sex lives exposed thanks to sex tapes—and not just the kind stored on digital cameras. Remember the Clay Aiken video chat sex-ish scandal? I do and it wasn't pretty, pasty white chest and all.

Many women and men are appropriately cautious about exposing themselves online. For your sake as well as that of your partner, I'd suggest holding off on video chat sex until you trust each other—and then some. Get to know each other well enough so that you can tell whether or not they're likely to be dishonest or if they have a strong temper. Have they tried to embarrass or shame past partners in any way? Have they tried to take revenge on former friends or exes? If so, you might want to keep your clothes on and vibrator in the drawer for the time being. Or get the Safer Sexting app for your iPhone and sext with photos for the time being.

Aside from possibly having your video chat sex on public display, there's a more personal reason to be thoughtful about your online sex. People attach different levels of meaning to being nude or sexual with others—even if just virtually. Some people will drop their pants on or off screen for just about anyone, regardless of how close they feel. Others will only do so with people they feel close to and with whom they feel safe and connected.

Should a hot and heavy game of online Scrabble tempt you to strip away your clothes and then the next day you change your mind and stop chatting or you start dating someone else and broadcasting it on your blog, it could break that person's heart. As such, I would suggest that you only suggest video chat sex when you have a sense that you can trust each other to be honest and private and when you can trust yourselves to be kind.

If both of those are true, then bring up video chat in the larger context of what turns each of you on. Dirty talk? Sultry texts? Lingerie? Vibrators? The Frucci Fleshlight video? By saying that video chat sex turns you on, you have the opportunity to ask the other person how they feel about it, whether they've ever tried it and whether they'd be open to trying it with you and under what circumstances. Oh, and whether they'd consider using the iChat roller coaster effect, which is crazy hot for sex chats.

For example, you might agree to not show faces or to promise not to take screen shots or to do some things on video (like show off your penis or vulva) but not others (like do naughty things with your iPhone). It's all about communication, boundaries and making sure your computer settings allow you to keep your screen bright even if your hands are busy doing other things.

Read more of Dr. Debby's love advice here during Gizmodo's Bad Valentine celebration.

Debby Herbenick, PhD is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. She blogs at MySexProfessor.com.

Webcam shot from mofetos/Flickr under CC license

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.


Celio Redfly Dock Supersizes Your Smartphone Experience [Docks]

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Not a day goes by that I don't lament my inability to hook up my Blackberry to a full-size monitor and keyboard. OK, I've never actually thought that, but the REDFLY dock from Celio can pull it off regardless.

In a new demonstration video, Celio shows off their REDFLY Moab, a small box that gives you some room to stretch out in your smartphone's OS. "Why wouldn't you just send an e-mail in webmail?" you ask, and I wonder the same thing myself. But seeing the familiar Blackberry OS on a big screen is actually sort of amusing, like seeing an elephant balance on its hind legs.

It doesn't look like the REDFLY supports mouses yet, so if you were excited at the prospect of inflating your Brickbreaker high score you can forget about it. No word on when Celio will be rolling out the dock, so for the time being your smartphone input is limited to your two innermost digits. [Engadget]


Rotating Mobil Pixel Lamp: 847 Billion Designs In One [Lighting]

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Last week we saw a neat concept for a wall that employed spinning triangular panels to change its appearance. Hungarian designer István Kulinyi's Mobil Pixel Lamp employs the same general idea, except it's a lamp. And it's real.

Inspired by the pixels you're looking at right now, Kulinyi's lamp comprises a five by five grid of triangular panels framed by black bars on the top and bottom. Each panel has a side that glows red, a side that glows white, and one that is solid black, allowing for 847,288,609,443 different combinations. That should keep you busy for a while.

Though Kulinyi seems to have put together a working model of the Mobil Pixel, as of now there isn't any information on its future as a manufactured product. Hopefully some enterprising company will snap this design up soon; with almost a trillion different looks, it's bound to have something for everyone. [István Kulinyi via designboom via Unplggd]


In Defense of the Letter [Valentine’s Day]

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Analog means more than digital. It's real, for one thing. Something real is maimed in the process of recording. And it's slow. Pulp doesn't teleport, like bits. If you write somebody a letter, you mean it.

Bits are circumspect, at best. They're alterable. Transient. Intangible. Destructible.

A letter that's typed is smashed onto paper, one character at a time. The ink left behind by each key is its own tiny little memory, a record of the process as it happened. There is no going back, no forgetting at the command of another key, there is only progress and memory. Holding a typed letter isn't simply grasping whatever it's reporting, it's possessing a record of the act of reporting itself.

Handwriting is for pussies. Anyone can write. Free-form and free-wheeling, instruments in unsteady hands spill ink or smear graphite in jots of uneven loops and crooked lines. The paper bears no scars, simply stains. Stains can be washed or smudged away.

A typewriter is a machine, it requires a connection. An intimacy of operation. Lines and margins and ribbons need require care. I do not know how to love them. So I do not type. Perfection is a minor miracle, or a lot of care.

It's much easier to tell a lie with a typewriter. The truth of the paper and the ink make it easy to hide lies behind it. Everything digital is already a lie.

You can burn a letter, but it leaves behind ashes.

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.


Burqa Ban: Can it ever be justified from a libertarian perspective?

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by Eric Dondero

The French have faced some fundamental societal questions in recent years, with the influx of Muslim immigrants from Northern Africa and the Middle East. One particularly sensitive issue has been clothing and whether such an open society should allow women to wear the full-length burqa, or hijab in public. Of course, the natural libertarian stance would be absolument!Individuals should be free to do as they please, so long as they are not hurting others or infringing upon their rights.

But now a couple of developments have occured that calls into question, whether in fact, wearing Muslim clothing may indeed infringe on the rights of others.

Muslim Woman refuses to take off veil for Drivers License

A few years ago, the issue came up here in the US. A Muslim woman in south Florida sued the state, claiming that she should have the right to obtain a driver's license without having to show her face in the driver license photo. She argued, taking off her veil, even for a driver's license would be a violation of her religious views.

Even libertarians agreed that in such an instance, societal's rights over-ride the rights of the individual. It seemed fully reasonable, that the woman in this instance should be required to show her face. Obviously, she could commit any crime, or get into a car accident, without police officials being able to identify her as the culprit.

Now two recent cases from France, of all places, have raised the same sort of questions; where do the individual's right to wear whatever he or she pleases end, and where do society's rights to be free from threats and coercion begin.

Burqa Bandits on the increase throughout Europe

From the LA Times, Feb. 8:

Reporting from Beirut — A Moroccan immigrant has been denied French citizenship after admitting that he forced his wife to wear a burka, French officials announced this week.

The decision, heralded by officials of President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, was the latest round in a public debate over the Muslim garment for women and French national identity.

And then there's this also out of France. From the UK Telegraph Feb. 8:

Employees let the pair through the security double doors of the banking branch of a post office, believing them to be Muslim women. But once inside, the men flipped back their head coverings and pulled out a gun, officials said.

They seized 4,500 euros (£4,000) in cash, according to staff at the branch in Athis Mons, just south of Paris, and made their getaway.

The raid comes as France is looking into ways of restricting - or banning - the use of the head-to-toe Islamic veil on the grounds it is incompatible with the values of the republic.

Last month a parliamentary report called for a ban in schools, hospitals, government offices and on public transport.

Jean-François Copé, the leader of President Nicolas Sarkozy's Right-wing UMP party in parliament, wants to go further, and has presented a bill to make it illegal for anyone to cover their faces in public on security grounds.

The unusual bank heist, carried out on Saturday, will provide ammunition to supporters of a blanket ban due to security concerns.

Security concerns on public property

Also from the LA Times, Jan. 27, "In France, panel recommends Burqa Ban in public":

The full-body garments are a security issue in places like banks and subways where people need to be identifiable, the parliamentary committee says.

Muslim women should not be allowed to wear burkas in public institutions, including banks, post offices, schools and even on public transportation, a report by a parliamentary committee said Tuesday.

Yet the report on how to stop Muslims from wearing the full-body garment in France fell short of gathering a consensus on key questions such as whether to completely ban the burka from French streets.

Nevertheless, lawmakers could be closer to drafting a bill barring the burka in selected places to assist public servants in dealing with veiled Muslims in hospitals and schools, the report said.

The report recommends denying services to anyone in a full-body veil, but it does not advocate other punishment.

A limited ban on burkas could be legally justified, said public law expert Denys de Bechillon at France's Pau University, because it would address "a problem of security . . . in places where we need to identify people."

Of course, President Sarkozy has been on the forefront of the debate, saying forcefully, the burqa conflicts with French values. Continuing:

President Nicolas Sarkozy said in June that the burka was "not welcome" in France, fueling a media frenzy.

Easy answer on Private Property; Less clear cut on Public grounds

Much of this can be handled through private property rights. Individuals should be able to wear what they please on private property. If a bank wants to ban women wearing burqas from enterting their establishments, they should have every right to do so. If the French people (or for that matter the Israelis), wish to ban burqa-wearing women or men forcing women to wear burqas from becoming citizens, that's their right. They're the owners of their respective countries. It's their property, and they have every right to decide who should be allowed to stay on that property.

Cultural libertarians like Sarkozy, and myself included, are utterly repulsed by the Burqa, Hijab, and other Muslim clothing. But, there is zero libertarian justification for banning such attire on public property, just because one finds it offensive. Libertarians are fully on the side of personal freedom here. The current rap/hip hop wearing pants off the hips comes to mind.

However, when clothing restricts with the rights of other individuals in society or puts them in danger on public property, for example, checkpoints, border crossings, driving on public roadways, than such a ban can be entirely justified.

Photos above - right, "British Burka Bandit" who has robbed at least 3 banks in the London area. Left, Israeli Defense Forces lead away a Burka wearing Palestinian who stabbed a customs officer at a checkpoint.

Nanodiscs Shake Brain Cancer Into Remission [Science]

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Conventional treatments are often ineffective for treating brain cancer, but scientists have developed a novel new method of destroying cancer cells in the brain: they tag them with metal nanodiscs and shake them to death with magnets.

Scientists at the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy have developed a process by which tiny iron-plated discs are attached to antibodies that seek out cancerous cells. Those cells end up getting tagged with the discs, and when a light magnetic field is applied, the oscillation causes the cells to self-destruct. Surrounding healthy cells are left undamaged.

The scientists working on the project emphasize that it's still in the early, experimental phases, though they hope to begin testing on animals soon. But even if it takes several years to determine if this unique approach is viable for use on humans, it's always heartening to see nanomaterials being applied to the difficult problems of today. [Science Daily via Kottke]


Lori Garver’s FAA Speech On Space Commerce

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Remarks by NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver 13th Annual FAA AST Space Transportation Conference

"NASA will soon be spending more than a billion dollars per year to back-up our part in these commercial partnerships. We will be providing industry with NASA technical expertise, to help with the practical technical problems, as well as to make these vehicles safe enough for NASA astronauts to fly on. We will provide serious seed money on the investment side and a firm commitment to buy crew transportation services on the market side. We will diversify our risk by funding a portfolio of highly-qualified competitors. Instead of a highly-risky approach, in which we fund only one system, we are going to fund many systems to create redundancy. No single commercial system will represent the critical path. We are going to see the most exciting race that America has seen in a long time, and there is likely to be more than one winner."

The Flaming Lips’ Crib Is Even More Psychedelic Than Their Music [Architecture]

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Wayne Coyne, frontman of the acclaimed rock band The Flaming Lips, recently renovated his Oklahoma compound, and the new space gives the group's music a run for its money in terms of psychedelic flair, playful construction, and sheer imagination.

The last we saw of Coyne, he was, naturally, sitting in a bathtub on Google Street View. If you thought that was the weirdest place he bathes, wait until you see his bathroom. Its Gaudiesque drip-castle design—Coyne refers to it as the "drug damaged, artist element of [his] home"—is certainly one of the highlights of his new pad, realized by FitzSimmons Architects.

An adjoining alcove, accessed by a glittering circular passageway, scores serious bonus points for including the Giz-featured world's most beautiful object: the Gyrofocus fireplace.

Having seen Coyne's appropriately trippy poop cave, it's got me wondering if other musicians' homes reflect their sensibilities as closely. Is John Mayer's house ordinary and forgettable on the outside but chaotically and impenetrably decorated on the inside? Does Prince's Minneapolis home have a bunch of sex swings? Yes, yes, I'm sure it does. [Fitzsimmons Architects via Design Milk via Geekosystem]


Riddle’s Ready!

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UPDATE:  SOLVED at 12:36 CDT, by Stephen

Last Saturday, instead of an object or “thing” being the answer to the riddle I tried an event out on you.  Trudy got so close to the correct answer it singed her hair, and after 1 hr 56 min, Nick solved the riddle.  It was fun to work up a riddle with a different twist to it, so I’ll fascinate you with an event riddle again this week.  But FIRST:

Tom and I are working up some fun extras for the “riddle champions”.  One thing you’ll see in the very near future is a “Riddle Bonus Round”, with the winner of that getting a real prize, not just a pat on the head.  Also, it will be a nice prize, not something strange like a weenie whistle.  Only the previous riddle winners will be able to participate in the bonus round.  Tom will submit half the clues, I will submit the other half.  Both of us will pick one image.  It won’t be an impossible riddle, but it won’t be easy, either.

We’re working on special “perks” and privileges for all the riddle winners, too; not for just the Bonus Round champion.  In all honesty, I’m having way too much fun with this.

Okay.  Are you ready to leap into the fray and solve today’s riddle?  ONE for the money;  TWO for the show; THREE to get ready; and FOUR to COGITATE!


"Calvin and Hobbes", Bill Watterson, All rights reserved

This event occurred in my lifetime (I’m older than dirt, by the way).

It was known globally while it was happening.

Events like this one have only happened six times.  That we know of.

There’s no way right now of predicting if, or when, this event will occur again.

There has been much controversy surrounding this event.

In spite of its rarity, the depiction of this event in fiction has been around for almost 2,000 years.

Ready to give it a shot?  As I said, it’s an event, and you will have been familiar with it growing up.  Remember, solving today’s puzzle will make you eligible for future prizes in addition to choosing my topic for Monday.

I’ll be lurking in the comment section.

Marian...lurking

Heater failure

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We are facing frequent failure of the immersion type Heaters of 2 KW cap used for additional heating in the Solar Panel heated water tanks. These heaters also come with thermostats attached. Root cause ??

Twilight of the Shuttle | Bad Astronomy

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The Shuttle Endeavour launched into orbit last week, blazing upward on its penultimate mission to the International Space Station. As it approached, astronauts onboard the now nearly-complete station snapped this dramatic photo of the Orbiter:

sunset_shuttle

Stunning. And while I am a scientist and a realist, I can’t help but see the poetic and metaphoric nature of this shot. With just four remaining flights of the Space Shuttle, we soon really will be seeing it riding off into the sunset.


Democrat for Governor: Did Muslim Terrorists attack US on 9/11? "I’m not saying yes or no"

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Says people overseas may know more about what really happened on 9/11

Candidate for Texas Governor Debra Medina, got into hot water last Wednesday for commenting on the Glenn Beck show that she wasn't certain that Muslim Terrorists attacked the United States on 9/11.

Now another candidate for Texas Governor is echoing her sentiments, this time on the Democrat side.

Farouk Shami, a multi-millionaire businessman based in Houston responded to a similar question by a reporters from WFAA-TV Dallas/Ft. Worth:

INTERVIEWER: The question was posed [to Debra Medina] whether the United States was involved in the attacks on 9/11. Let me pose that question to you?

DEMOCRAT FAROUK SHAMI: I was told that is what she said. Well, you know, there's no smoke without fire. We heard the commission on 9/11. But ya know, somehow people are not believing that. I'm not sure. I'm not going to judge on something I'm not sure about. But the rumors are there. True or not, it's hard to believe what happened... The possibility is there. The jury's still out.

INTERVIEWER: Let me be very clear, understand what you are saying. Do you think it's possible?

DEMOCRAT FAROUK SHAMI: Well, so many people have talked about it. Professors have written books about it. So many people overseas talk about it. And whenever I go overseas people ask me these questions... Do they know something we don't know?

Would we ever find the truth about 9/11? That's a very dangerous subject to get into. It's hard to make judgement. I'm not saying yes or no.

Watch the full video at WFAA.

Photos - Farouk Shami right, Khalid Sheik Muhammed, and Muhammed Atta bottom left.