Meet Roxxxy (and creator. What a dynamic looking young man). No, she isn’t suffering from a profound disability. Unless you count the absence of a brain, soul and true autonomy. Rather, she’s the latest advance in the field of ‘female simulation’. And what a noble field it is, filled with gentlemen, entrepeneurs and the finest innovators the world has to offer. For years the high-end love doll of choice has been the decidedly oxymoronic Real Doll (do I really need to point out that almost every link in this post could be considered at least slightly NSFW), a hand-crafted miracle of silicone and pliability that can be yours for the princely sum of $US5 999. Plus, presumably, postage and handling… Although, there better not be too much ‘handling’! Am I right? ‘Ey, ‘ey, ‘ey, ‘ey… ‘ey?… I’ll let myself out.

I gotta admit, the entire endeavour is a pretty alien concept to me. I mean, I’m not exactly fighting off rabid hordes of busty women with naught but a pointed stick (FYI, that’s a cliché, not a phallic pun), but at the same time I’ve also never had the thought “yes, that’s it, I’m obviously never going to be have sex again. Now is the time to dive headlong into the endless abyss of sadness and solipsism that is copulation with an inanimate object”. Hard to know if anyone has ever had that specific thought, but I like to think it’s a definite tipping point. Fortunately, other people have been paid to explore the field, and this is a reasonably entertaining account of one man’s scientific “expedition” into the “world” of the Real Doll.*

But now we have the $US7-9000 Roxxxy, the brainchild of self-described “happily married man”, Douglas Hines. The word brainchild being particularly apt given the amount of se… sentiment he has obviously poured into it. Her. It… I dunno. If you’re game, here’s Douglas showing Roxxxy off to the world for the first time at the recent Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

As someone has pointed out, Douglas has quite obviously managed to get Roxxxy’s underwear on sideways. Excellent work, Douglas.

Basically, Roxxxy is unique in that she vocally responds to both your conversation and your sexy touching. She also has a number of settings ranging from Frigid Farrah to Mature Martha to, my favourite, Wild Wendy. Exactly how wild Wendy can be given that she cannot move of her own volition is open to debate, but the thought is there. Anyway, the inherent creepiness of the entire affair probably doesn’t require vast amounts of elaboration (although Slate explores the concept a little more here), suffice to say I now have the distinct fear that next time I’m “in the midst”** with a woman, I’m going to look down and be able to see naught but the glossy, soulless eyes of Roxxxy staring back at me. And then realise that I’m at the tail end of a four-day paint and amyl bender that has somehow culminated in me stealing the original Roxxxy prototype from Douglas Hines’ house and “having my wicked way with it”*** in the man’s living room. While he and his wife stare at me aghast from the kitchen. And I’ll look up and see them and then scream “SHE MADE ME DO IT!” before bursting into tears and jumping through a window.

… My fears are oddly specific.

/Luke

* He had sex with it
** Having sex
*** This is probably a little self-explanatory by now

Ototo has designed a bitchin’* little submarine that you fill with tea, and send off on an adventure into a cup of boiling water!

To make things more relatable, here’s a little reenactment of how things might go down. James Upworth, formerly an orphan, has had a hard life. James managed to climb his way up the social ladder; not too high, mind, but high enough to gain entry into the esteemed British navy. One night, at a military soiree, he caught the eye of a gorgeous lass (one Moira McTaggart), and the two consumated their love under the stars.

On the eve of their honeymoon, an urgent telegram arrived with a clatter at their ramshackle door. The unthinkable had occured: war had struck! James gave his new wife a hard kiss on her sweet British mouth, patted her belly (within which lay his impending progeny), and rushed down to the nearby dock to embark.

Unbeknownst to all fifty six souls aboard, the ocean below the waiting sub had been headed to boiling point, and once the H.M.S. Pippy (for that was our vessels name) was submerged, the entire crew were liquefied, their fresh skin sloughing from their bones as if they were but hunks of overcooked chicken.

And James, as he died screaming, clutched a locket, within which was a locket of hair from his sweet beloved.

…But on the other hand, DELICIOUS TEA!

(Link via Swiss Miss)

/Paul

*Yes, I’m aware that using this term makes me sound like an extra from Point Break. No, I don’t care. Well, I do obviously, given that I’ve written up a rambling, pseudo-apologetic footnote but… fuck you! You don’t own me! Aaaaand so forth.

Now, I love the Segway as much as the next man. The style, the flair, the convenience. It’s a genius machine! But you know what really got my goad up about it? The standing. Man, who has the energy to stand. I’m a busy man! I need to conserve my energy for busy man activities, like typing, gesticulating wildly and napping. Thankfully the good folk at Honda have heeded my call, and the call of tens of others like me, and are introducing the UX-3, a machine for those of us without the time or willpower to stand as we move around. With the UX-3 you simply let your abundant ass cheeks gently spill onto the provided seat rest, cup your hands underneath, point… and go! And with the UX-3, you can go anywhere! Why, you could tour the deep-friable section of the supermarket. You could roll through a fast food drive through. You could move from your couch to the toilet. Or you could even just idly trundle around a park, sipping daintily on your lard thickshake. The possibilities really are as endless as the soft drinks at Sizzler. The health implications too. Not convinced? Well, then watch this frankly creepy demonstration of the UX-3 in action and dream of a world where ambulation is but a distant memory… Or something that poor people do.

/Luke

My Little Pony was always one of those fads that, as a child, induced the kind of hatred which any member of the “pink bullshit” family was likely do. Other members of said family include Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbrow Brite, the latter of which I had a crush on but… nevermind. I’ve buried that pretty deep in my subconscious, and if I dredge it up again I’ll have to spend a week cramming the marshmallow shit back into the marshmallow-shitting horse. So to speak.

Thankfully, My Little Pony has been a wee bit pimped of late. Over at Comics Alliance, 21 of the best DIY ponies have been posted. The craftmanship is hilarious, intricate and pretty amazing. And I have to say… I want a pony.

Sorry, that didn’t come out quite right. Let me try that again.

DADDY! I WANT A PONY!

There. Much better.

/Paul

(Link via Neatorama)

Ever wanted to live in a house? Yeah, me too. The idea of being a transient carries with it all manner of icky diseases and social stigma I’d rather avoid. Ever wanted to live… in a LEGO HOUSE? Well, it turns out this fantasy might not be too far off from happening.

“James May of the British television show Top Gear is planning to build a full-sized house out of LEGOs:

On Friday, more than three million Lego bricks were delivered to the vineyard in preparation for the task.

Denbies marketing and business development manager, Jeanette Simpson, said: “The millions of bricks came all the way from the Czech Republic. The house will be life-size with a staircase, toilet and shower.”

Wait, hang on… James May? Top Gear? You mean I have to live in some bricks-and-mortar piece of shit, and the Lego house goes to THIS guy?

GET A HAIRCUT, YOU FUCKER.

Alright. I concede I’m probably just angry on account of this filthy, unkempt hippy revhead and his pending palatial plastic palace. But if I weren’t fuming with righteous anger, what kind of a building-block afficianado would I be? A failed one, that’s what. The best part of this story, however, is the line “more than three million Lego bricks were delivered to the vineyard”. Which sounds like code. Either James May’s Lego has arrived, or the sniper is in place, ready to take out the mark.

(I am in no way implying that in a fit of jealous rage, I plan on hiring a sniper to kill James May in his vineyard with a bullet made of lego. If the cops were to find the bullet, they’d very quickly be able to put the pieces together. ZING! Zing? Ahh.)

/Paul

(Link via Geekologie)

We all saw how excited I was back in June when we first got wind of the imminent release of not just a new Monkey Island game, but also an updated, reimagined version of the original Monkey Island, replete with voice actors and new graphics. But this excitement was a little tempered by Lucasarts’ continued insistence on a PC-only release model. As a devoted Mac fanboy (Macbook, iPhone and iPod? Why yes, thank you very much) this was not the handiest state of affairs. I mean, sure I could run Bootcamp and all, and have Windows Vista jogging along at a better rate than most PC laptops (ah, the sweet taste of sneering superiority), but it didn’t really make life easy for my lazy and impoverished ass.

Until now. Oooooh. Exciting. Far earlier than predicted and with minimal fanfare, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition dropped into the iPhone App Store last night. It’s fully featured, touch controlled, capable of being zoomed in the usual fashion and can be switched from classic to updated versions with a two finger swipe across the screen. It is, in short, exactly the same as the PC version. It’ll set you back a tidy 999 cents and 350MB, but really, that’s a small price to pay for having such an amazing bit of video game history delivered to your phone. Your phone. Jesus. Six years ago I had a bulky black Nokia with a green and black display, space for 13 messages and a loose battery that had to be held in with brute force if you wanted to be able to read the screen. Now I get Monkey Island. As somebody said when I first bought my iPhone, “I love my iPhone more than any living thing”.

/Luke

[via OSX Reality]

I’ve always contended that robots were pretty much the single most disappointing thing about growing up. When you were a kid robots were Transformers, giant mechanised beings capable of both changing into a variety of vehicles and beating the living piss out of one another. And then you grew up and you realised that robotic conflict in the modern world essentially consisted of two glorified shoeboxes with buzzsaws attached being pushed into one another by fat, dateless men wielding remote controls whilst an increasingly desperate looking, post-Red Dwarf Lister commentated from the sidelines. Thank you Robot Wars.

Fortunately the Japanese seem to be one of the few remaining forces trying to make our childhood fantasies a reality.¹ In this case: domestic robots, designed to fulfil our every slothful desire! So yes, we’re not exactly talking Evangelion-grade city destroyers here, but that dude up the top does look a little bit like a Gundam outtake (coming up next: At Home with the Gundams!) so perhaps it’s a step in the right direction. This guy, rather unimaginatively named Kitchen Robot, can both pour you a cup of tea AND wash the cup afterwards. And then defend your home from rampaging cyborgs. I may have made the last bit up. Also included on “>this list are a robot that can flip pancakes, a robot that can essentially lift you out of bed in the morning and a robot that can serve drinks (I’m noticing a theme here…) as well as open doors. As you can see, the violent robot uprising is just around the corner.

Although any talk of robot violence is always a good opportunity to bring up one of my favourite Wikipedia pages: deaths caused by industrial robots. There’s only been two to date, but the more notable/exciting was the 1981 death of Japan’s (natch) Kenji Urada, who forgot to turn off a robot while performing ‘routine maintenance’ on it, which was all the opportunity the robot needed to push him into a grinding machine. Hell of a way to go. With history like that behind them, it’s amazing that the Japanese are still so embracing of robotics really.

/Luke

¹ I’m so glad that over the last 100 odd years the Japanese have gone from being an aggressive, warlike society trying to forcibly dismantle the Pacific Rim, to becoming a peace-loving country of ultra-polite introverts whose main goal in life appears to be the creation of novelty products for the rest of the world to laugh at. How times change.

Now, I like to think I am never, ever, ever at any time ever prone to hyperbole, so you can trust me when I say that this blog post will in all likelihood change everything you thought you knew about the world.

When you were young, everybody basically dreamed of having the same four things when they grew up: a personal space rocket, a palace/castle/chateau made from solid gold, a personal helper chimp and a car that could be driven on water. Well I’m here to tell you that the last of those things actually, truly exists. Say hello to the Amphicar. Yes, that is a car being driven down a river. But wait, those fellows look positively aged. What are they doing in such a hip new piece of technology? What? This thing was created back in 1963? How in God’s name have I been ignorant of such a miracle until this afternoon? A horrible brain injury from the time I tried to base jump using a set of home-made duck wings? But… that’s impossible. I hate ducks. Who are you? Don’t touch me! You’re not a real doctor! In fact I don’t think you even really exist. God knows you haven’t responded to a single one of my questions so far.

No, wait, don’t leave…

The Amphicar! Apparently these bad boys started production in 1963 with the anticipation that soon 20 000 Amphicars would be sold per year. The company ceased production in 1965 and only 3878 Amphicars were ever produced. Which raises the question, how could people actually resist a car that could DRIVE ON THE FUCKING WATER?! Well, it seems that it wasn’t necessarily great at performing either of its primary functions. As one owner has said ” We like to think of it as the fastest car on the water and fastest boat on the road”. High praise indeed. Nonetheless the Amphicar has crossed the English Channel and most of the ones produced back in the early 60s are still in operation. Which either speaks to their profound durability or to the nigh on insane dedication of the early adopters who picked up one of the originals. Given the existence of a number of ’swim-ins’ (Amphicar meet ups), I’d tend toward the latter. Check out this video and see if your inner child doesn’t just go straight ahead and blow a load. Chubsy-wubsy style:

And just to finish up, here’s a photo of a man in a sailor’s hat driving an Amphicar down the Grand Canal in Venice. Arsey bastard.

Although I’d say the only fitting way for that particular joy ride to finish up would be for it to be wiped out by a squad of commandos riding around in a FUCKING HUMDINGA!

Yeah. That’s right. Watch yourself ocean. Watch yourself river. Watch yourself aquarium. Cars are coming for you. Next up, we’re going to do a hit’n'run on a beluga.

So… Uh, everybody else is this excited by floating cars, right?

[via Eternally Cool]

/Luke

How often have you heard this:

“Mum! Mum! I want a lolly!”

And thought to youself: “boy, I wish there was a safe, medically tested way I could make that fucking kid shut up. I don’t care that it’s not mine. I want peace and I will get it any cost”. Kinda like the Bush administration. Ooooh, topical. Well now you can make those completely normal and in no way unsettling child-drugging dreams a reality with the PediSedate!

Looking like a halfway point between Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World for the under-10s and stack hats, the PediSedate has been designed to make the anaesthetisation of children painless, fun and easy. Basically you just hook a child up to the helmet/headset, have them start to play videogames and then the PediSedate starts wafting nitrous oxide in their face until they pass out. From the website:

PediSedate is a medical device consisting of a colorful, toy-like headset that connects to a game component such as the Nintendo Game Boy system or a portable CD player. Once the child places it on his or her head and swings the snorkel down from its resting place atop the head, PediSedate transparently monitors respiratory function and distributes nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas. The child comfortably becomes sedated while playing with a Nintendo Game Boy system or listening to music. This dramatically improves the hospital or dental experience for the child, parents and healthcare providers.

Now I want you to re-read that paragraph but remove the final sentence. Not so innocent and helpful no more, is it? When I was a child the only thing I had to fear from strangers was candy (or so I understood). Now children have to be on the look out for strange men wandering the streets with oversized, purple headphone/video-game/drug delivery systems. Which really doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so easily. Hell, I’m even beginning to look at that doctor in the bottom left photo a little askance. Run kid, run! You think he’s removing your appendix, but he’s really REMOVING YOUR INNOCENCE! RUN!

I think I’m going to be a calm and balanced parent.

/Luke

The whole phenomenon of USB drives is something very much open to personal preference. Some prefer to carry their top secret military secrets around on a small, non-descript black rectangle. “Here you are, Gregor. Get these to the Kommisar.” Gregor takes said black rectangle. You leave.

Fuck that.

Imagine this. A freezing evening in Moscow. For some reason you’ve eaten Chinese food. Chinese food! In Moscow! Novel. Anyway, you see Gregor. He rubs his calloused hands together and eyes you up and down (this is starting to sound like very bad, violent porno; bear with me). “Where is the data?” he mutters. “Let me… just…” you begin, reaching into your pocket. You pull out an odd-looking object. But as he closes his hand around it, IT TURNS INTO A FUCKING ROBOT CAT AND KILLS HIM.

The cat slinks into your coat pocket, and you look down at the corpse of Gregor. “Tell the Kommisar he can go fuck himself”. With that, you walk off into the night.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this. WOOHOO! TRANSFORMER USB!

I think.

/Paul

(Thanks to Hamish for the link!)