July 24, 2011
Orgasm control, also known as ‘edging,’ ‘peaking,’ ‘surfing,’ and by other terms, is a sexual technique which involves the maintenance of a high level of sexual arousal for an extended period of time before reaching orgasm. If orgasm is not reached after the extended period of arousal, it is referred to as ‘erotic sexual denial.’
If the partner whose orgasm is being controlled, sometimes referred to as the submissive partner, is put into physical restraints, the better to control the orgasm, the activity is sometimes called ‘tie and tease,’ and if orgasm is denied it is ‘tease and denial.’ Additional possibilities include the dominant partner subjecting the submissive partner to a forced orgasm(s). Orgasm control can involve either one sex partner being in control of the other partner’s orgasm, or a person delaying their own orgasm during sexual intercourse or masturbation. Continue reading →
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July 24, 2011
Promession is an ecologically-conscious method for disposing of human remains by freeze drying. It was invented and patented in 1999 by Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak. The method begins by reducing the body of the deceased to a fine powder, thereby allowing subsequent decomposition to be aerobic. This is achieved by submerging the body in liquid nitrogen, making the remains so brittle that they shatter into a powder as the result of slight vibrations. The powder is then dried, reducing the deceased remains to around 30% of their original body weight. Next, an electromagnet pulls out metals within the powdered remains (including mercury, which is only magnetic at cryogenic temperature, which are recycled. Finally, the powder is buried shallowly in a biodegradable cornstarch box. Seeds planted in the soil draw nutrients from the remains. Below two feet, at the depth which coffins are traditionally buried, there is no oxygen, which is one of the prerequisites for composting or aerobic decomposition to take place. But despite this, the dead are buried at a depth where the oxygen is missing; therefore the deceased are exposed to a negative putrefaction process or anaerobic decomposition.
It is the lack of oxygen combined with the amount of remains that causes the body to not decompose, but effectively putrify in an ordinary burial, With such large bodies, humans always start to rot if not first broken down into smaller parts so that oxygen can reach all body parts. In the past this would have been done by wild animals. It is important to remember that even the powder produced by Promession would not compost at 2 meters below ground, due to the lack of oxygen. The same applies to a body that is above ground or in the upper soil layers with high availability of oxygen. Despite the high oxygen content, the body still putrefies because the body is intact and whole and anaerobic conditions are already present in the gut . It is not enough for one or the other. Proper composting or aerobic decomposition of a corpse requires a combination of fragmentation of the body, oxygen-rich soil and micro-and macro-organisms. Therefore Promession is a modern and ethical manner to transform the body into smaller parts to get it to compost correctly and return to soil without the negative side effects associated with putrefaction.
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July 24, 2011
Security theater is a term that describes security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. The term was coined by computer security specialist and writer Bruce Schneier, but has gained currency in security circles, particularly for describing airport security measures.
Security theater typically involves restricting certain aspects of people’s behavior in very visible ways, that could involve potential restrictions of personal liberty and privacy, ranging from negligible (where bottled water can be purchased) to significant (prolonged screening of individuals to the point of harassment). Continue reading →
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July 23, 2011
Kid Carpet, real name Ed Patrick, is a musician from Bristol, England. His music has been described as ‘kiddy disco punk’ and ‘shit-hop,’ as it is recorded in his home studio using instruments such as samplers, Casio keyboards, and various children’s toys including plastic Fisher-Price guitars and Tamagotchi innards.
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July 23, 2011
Retrotronics is the making of electric circuits or appliances using older electric components, such as vacuum tubes, Nixie displays, relays, uniselectors, analog meters, etc. These are usually chosen for their aesthetic qualities, rather than their utility. Retrotronics is a popular strand within the steampunk movement. At the Oxford exhibition of Steampunk art, many of the works had a strong retrotronic influence, from light fittings of period components to computer keyboards and webcams of burnished copper and brass. Outside steampunk, similar influences are found amongst the retro-futurist scene.
A recent musical trend has sought to recapture early 1980s 8-bit game and synthesizer sounds, often referred to as Chiptune. Artists such as Kid Carpet perform entire sets on children’s toys or pocket synths of the period. Other artists, such as Nullsleep, perform using only period video game hardware. DJs offer dance music events built from samples of period games or gadgets.
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July 23, 2011
A death pool (or dead pool) is a game of prediction which involves guessing when someone will die. A typical pool might have players pick out celebrities who they think will die within the year. There are also several scoring variants. For example, a player might be rewarded few, if any, points for predicting the death of someone who is over 80 years old or is known to be suffering from a terminal disease. Another common method to calculate score is subtracting the celebrity’s age from 100. Other pools require participants to form a list ranked on how sure they are that a person on the list will die, with points given based on how high a person on their list is ranked, and others award points based on how many other contestants selected the deceased celebrity. Another variant on the game has a single point awarded for each correct prediction, regardless of the celebrity’s age or medical condition. The advantage of this scoring method is that there is more scoring, and it rewards research (learning which celebrities are experiencing failing health) rather than luck.
Definitions of celebrity vary from contest to contest. Smaller pools may rely on consensus of the players as to who is famous. Others require an obituary to appear in a recognized newswire such as the Associated Press or Reuters. The Lee Atwater Invitational Dead Pool employs a Fame Committee consisting of non-contestants who assess ahead of time the name-recognition of each celebrity. The Rotten.com Dead Pool, the largest in the world, uses the Notable Names Database (NNDB) as its source of qualified celebrities, and as arbiter of their life status.
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July 23, 2011
Dieselpunk is a sub-genre of the pop surrealist art movement, as well as a budding subculture, that combines the aesthetics of the interbellum period through the early 1950s with postmodern technology and sensibilities. First coined in 2001 as a marketing term by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his role-playing game ‘Children of the Sun,’ dieselpunk has grown to describe a distinct style.
The name ‘dieselpunk’ is a derivative of the 1980s science fiction genre cyberpunk, and is used to represent the time period – or ‘era’- when diesel-based locomotion was the main technological focus of Western culture. The ‘-punk’ suffix attached to the name is representative of the counterculture nature of the genre with regards to its opposition of contemporary aesthetics. The term also refers to the tongue-in-cheek name given to a similar cyberpunk derivative, ‘steampunk,’ which focuses on science fiction set within the Victorian era.
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July 22, 2011
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. It involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually the Victorian era Britain—that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy.
Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them; based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.
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July 22, 2011
Sexploitation describes a class of independently produced, low budget feature films generally associated with the 1960s, and serving largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. Sexploitation films were generally exhibited in urban grindhouse theatres, the precursor to the adult movie theaters of the 1970s and ’80s that featured hardcore content. The term soft-core is often used to designate non-explicit sexploitation films after the general legalization of hardcore content.
A series of United States Supreme Court rulings in the late 50s and 60s had enabled increasingly explicit sex films to be distributed.There were initially three broad types; ‘nudie cuties’ such as ‘The Immoral Mr. Teas’ (1959), films set in nudist camps like ‘Daughter of the Sun’ (1962), and somewhat more ‘artistic’ foreign pictures such as ‘The Twilight Girls’ (1961). Nudie cuties were popular in the early 60s, and were a development from the nudist camp films of the 50s. Continue reading →
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July 22, 2011
The ‘Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark’ is a book by astrophysicist Carl Sagan, which was first published in 1995. The book is intended to explain the scientific method to laypeople, and to encourage people to learn critical or skeptical thinking. It explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science, and ideas that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking, and should stand up to rigorous questioning.
In the book, Sagan states that if a new idea continues in existence after an examination of the propositions has revealed it to be false, it should then be acknowledged as a supposition. Skeptical thinking essentially is a means to construct, understand, reason, and recognize valid and invalid arguments. Wherever possible, there must be independent validation of the concepts whose truth should be proved. He states that reason and logic would succeed once the truth is known. Conclusions emerge from premises, and the acceptability of the premises should not be discounted or accepted because of bias.
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July 22, 2011
The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. This theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 ‘Foreign Affairs article’ titled ‘The Clash of Civilizations?,’ in response to Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book, ‘The End of History and the Last Man.’ Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.’
The phrase itself was first used by American historian, Bernard Lewis in an article in a 1990 issue of ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ titled ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage.’
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July 22, 2011
Nepeta [neh-puh-ta] is a genus of about 250 species of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, commonly known as ‘catnip’ because of their attractant effect on cats—the nepetalactone contained in nepeta binds to the olfactory receptors of cats, typically resulting in temporary euphoria. Catmints are also used in herbal medicine for their mild sedative effect on humans.
Nepetalactone is an organic compound, first reported in 1941 after it was isolated by steam distillation of catnip. The compound is also present in the wood of tartarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica), shavings of which are often used in cat toys. Around 80% of cats are affected and susceptibility is gene-linked. The chemical interacts as a vapor at the olfactory epithelium. Nepetalactone has effects on some insects: it repels cockroaches and mosquitoes.
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