Tuesday, January 17, 2006

I've been seeing a lot about teledildonics lately (link is NSFW). Today, I stumbled across this. I can see the appeal of games like Second Life. I don't know that this is a good idea for most of us--if you get strangers involved on this level one is inevitably going to move on with real life and the other will be too involved with the virtual world and take it personally, especially when you're making babies out of their real-life images. Isn't the point in these games to have a virtual image that's not all that like you? Why wouldn't the babies look like that? ...Anyway, I digress. Taking virtual sex itself to this level might be a damned good idea. Although if you're talking about someone you already have a relationship with just getting the Sinulators and a good webcam would probably be more fun.

It may just be sex-life and electronics day. While the computer in the bedroom can create a platform for a virtual sex life, a television in the bedroom can take away from a real one. My first thought was that it might be the other way around--that the TVs were in the bedrooms because the people were having less sex--but the study even did a breakdown by what types of shows were more likely to keep people from having sex (versus the ones people would pause or stop watching to get it on).

I don't like this story. It leaves out the vital question as to "who gets screwed on this deal?" Yeah, it'd be awesome to get back a car 37 years after it was stolen new, and turn out to be one hell of an appreciated investment (a classic 'Vette no less--$10k when it hasn't got a gas tank?), but when the three owners the police can trace are all innocent of the theft--is the dude that just bought the car for $10k just out ten grand? Or is the guy who sold him the car out the car and the money? That's not right. And it's wrong that the story wanted to play up how cool it would be to get the car back after all that time without realizing that while that guy gave up hope 30 years ago of getting the car, there is at least one other real victim of the whole process here, or telling us what happened to the other people involved. Am I saying the guy shouldn't get his car back? No. But I'm not clear on how the car kept being sold without anyone else figuring out it was stolen (obviously it was still in stolen-vehicles databases), and there should be a title record even if it goes across several states (which it clearly does). There needs to be a way to figure out who took the car and sue him for the loss/damages (then again, someone who was a car-thief in '69 may or may not be living by now--dangerous profession and all).

Calvin occasionally has some great insights on the world.

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