July 22, 2008

The Jesus Sensor

So I'm totally like, sitting here look at the back of the Maxbotix EZ-1 to make sure I have the pin-outs correct, as I was gonna use it as a test sensor for the kite. Mount it on the tail, and like, have the red LEDs flicker as range changed from near to far. Cutesy rocket engine simulation.

So, anyways, here's what it looks like.

So yeah... Starin'... starin'... Pins are correct... Wait, what pin is '1st'... Hey... is that a Fis.... SWEET FUCKING JESUS, IT'S JESUS.

So yeah, there's a 1st, cross, and fish on this sensor. I totally was not fucking expecting that. Funny thing is, I borrowed this sensor from Matt Ganucheau during the Moaning Lisa project. Moaning Lisa ended up staying at the Kink.com Porn Palace/Dungeon after AE, and as far as I know, is still there. There's been rumors that it was one of the most fucked on/in/around objects at the dungeon for a while.

So right now, at the Kink.com dungeon, there's a mannequin with 1st-fish-cross sensor eyes that has seen more carnal acts than anyone can dream of.

Dude.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

October 8, 2007

Arse Elektronika - Moaning Lisa Presentation

Presentation of the Moaning Lisa project by Matt Ganucheau at Arse Elektronika 2007

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

August 26, 2007

It's on now, bitches.

Shit yes, it is on.

For some values of it.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

August 8, 2007

Stupid Conference Tricks (SIGGRAPH 2007): Wiibrator Port to OS X

I try to do one stupid project every conference I go to now. This time (SIGGRAPH 2007), it was porting the Wiibrator to OS X so I could use it on my mac. This also involved getting a SWIG'd version of libusb working on OS X, which means I can now port Twitterdildonics to python easily.

Unfortunately, the wiibrator only "sort of" works due to the fact that the python bluetooth lib isn't thread safe and therefore I have to do my input fetching and other computations in the same thread, which means I don't update fast enough to beat the wiimote sampling rate, so the FFT isn't real happy. But, not bad for a few hours work over the week while the boring papers were up. :)

I'll have it at the reception tonight, wheee. :D

Wiibrator Python Source, libusb compiled library w/ swig interface (SWIG stuff taken from USBTiny Project)

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

July 31, 2007

Force Feedback Reality

This site started with me rewiring force feedback from an in-controller vibration motor to a sex toy. Now it's time to turn the tables: What if your current environment was causing the feedback? And more importantly, what if that feedback was routed to a toy and then taken to a large, outdoor BDSM fair for testing? Well, that's pretty much the story of my past week.

Now, I've been whining and complaining about interfaces since I started this site, but it's usually been software interfaces. For some reason that I'm not really sure of (probably the instant gratification of software versus hardware), I've never actually played with hardware interfaces to toys. I've got a couple of drawers full of robotics sensors that have been collecting dust for years, and after the idea of the random board was floated, I started trying to figure out exactly how one could seed the random generation, and thus my sensors found use once again. This board doesn't actually implement the random generation quite yet; I'm still working on figuring out what I can do in the 900 bytes of memory I have left on the ATTiny13 I decided to use for this project.

Note: I used an ATTiny13 specifically because it was the only 8 pin microcontroller I had around when I started this. You can get an ATTiny4x/8x for $1 more, which gives you MUCH more working room. So, unless $1 matters to your for production costs, I'd say go with something larger and avoid the challenge of "Oops, floating point math takes 2k of space!"

This board is probably the simplest thing I've ever built that's still usable and coherent (The first SexBox was by far the simplest, but that was back in the heady days of "What do you mean I can't power 4 motors off a USB line?", so I dunno how usable or coherent it was, really.) It has 2 ports, the usual 2.5mm mono jack for motors and a 3.5mm stereo jack for sensors (Stereo because you may need -/+/signal lines for some sensors). The board itself is powered by 2 AAA Batteries, giving it ~3v to operate the uC and run the motor on.

The uC itself is running pure interrupt based code. The program sets up the PWM line and ADC, then simply moves the ADC value into the output match counter on every ADC read completion interrupt. No averaging, no smoothing, just pure, hard register bashing. However, the 3.5mm jack gives just a massive amount of extensibility. Now we can control those motor however we want. Well, however we want assuming it has an operating range of <= 3.0v (preferably less since there's no boost in the circuit) and enough variance to play well with no smoothing or input scaling.

In fact, here's the code:

ISR(ADC_vect)

{

	OCR0A = ADC/4;

}


int main()

{

	DDRB = 0x1;

	DIDR0 = 0b00100000;

	TCCR0A = _BV(WGM01) | _BV(WGM00) | _BV(COM0A1);

	TCCR0B = _BV(CS00);

	ADCSRA = _BV(ADEN) | _BV(ADATE);

	sei();

	ADCSRA |= _BV(ADIE);

	ADCSRA |= _BV(ADSC);

	return 0;

}

Yes, I realize there's an auto ADC shift option and no, I don't remember why I took it out.

So far, I've gotten 3 interfaces working: Knob, Touch, and Light

Knob: It's a potentiometer. This is pretty much just a physical interface to show off how everything else works. Turn knob, motor speed changes due to change in resistance between the signal and ground line. That's it. I'm not even gonna post pictures ('cause I forgot to take them)

Touch: Touch is even simpler, but MUCH more interesting, depending on how it's built and triggered. This board is built specifically to be small; to fit in your pocket and taken out into public while still concealing well. Touch sensors can be placed to work as bump sensors, so that they'll trigger when walking through a crowd.

However, touch doesn't involve just buttons and levers, and this board may not usually be the only thing in your pocket. That's what the "antenna sensor" was built for.

Throw it in the same pocket at your keys, and suddenly you get a semi-random interface based on the combination of your walk structure and the placement of the keys/change/whatever else in your pocket (though there's also the question of tightness of pants effecting this, but we'll let, uh, I guess civil engineers deal with that. They're good at that sort of thing).

Light: Light has turned out to be quite a bit of fun, and gives almost a "random with context" type feel in its current incarnation. A light sensor is a resistor that's value decreases (and therefore current increases) as it gets nearer a light. Now, the light sensors I have are very sensitive. Taking them out in daylight will completely spike them which means you're either always on or always off, depending on how the board is set up. However, if you manage to have a decently sized pocket, you'll still get reflectance from the sun or other light sources, but with enough of an intensity drop-off to fit within the range of the sensor.

Once again, crowds become REALLY fun, because if you stand next to a moving line, you can pretty much be... "activated" by the shadow of every person walking by (Warning: Watch out where you do this. You never know where these shadows have been.).

At Dore Alley, I ended up calling it the "Dark Alley Detector" as the toy was accidentally wired to go off in the dark. Therefore, whenever the motor was going, you should be aware that you are in a dark place where more interesting things than a vibe motor could be happening. (I build slut superpowers!) In addition to this, light can work much the same way as touch, depending on where it's placed. In a large enough pocket (say, pants from the bargain rack at Hot Topic back when wearing anything above a 32" meant you were getting pant legs larger than the width of the waist...), while walking the pocket will open and close, causing light level changes and sorta picking up walking rhythm. Combine this with it being bumped open and closed by the rather tightly packed crowd, adding a level of randomness, and you realize that while it can be nice and beautiful and elegant, most of the time science has no god damn rhythm whatsoever.

However, for things like clubs, this has much potential.

Rangefinder: This is one that I haven't gotten working yet (due to the fact that this board does not yet supply enough power. Next version is a 9v run through a 7805, damnit!) is a rangefinder. This sensor returns a value scaled by the distance of things in front of it. With the ones I've got (Sharp GP2D12s), this distance can be anywhere between 8-30cm. In a crowd, this would be totally awesome.

There's many other sensors I'd like to get working with this board, but as a first version, this has been rather fun.

One of the most interesting aspects of this is sensory replacement (think Kevin Warwick/Steve Mann, except, you know, pervy). For situations involving medium to heavy bondage with sensory deprivation, senses can be replaced instead of deprived. If properly blindfolded/hooded, the light sensor can be used to detection of light, shadows, and with enough sensors, direction. How this is represented is an exercise for the reader, but I'm all for abstract ideas (i.e. direction maps to speeds of a certain motors somewhere while intensity maps to a electrostim unit elsewhere). In robotics this is known as "sensor fusion", and a bot is obviously programmed to aggregate all of its sensor values into something more meaningful than each sensors single value. However, since I've somehow turned this description/tutorial/story into a "so you want to be an evil bastard dom/me", I'll just run with this. I'm all about the idea of "thinking through endorphines". Same idea as movies like Cube/Saw/Any other flick involving life or death situations integrated with puzzles, except here we're worried about sexual interaction, not sharp things and internal organs interaction (unless you're doing a guro scene or something, I guess). Anyways, if you flood the brain with endorphines, it makes it awful hard to think. Give someone the basic pretext of the sensor setup and something they need to figure out about the environment to make something about it (for themselves) better, and watch the neural net go to work! Who needs code when you have brains to play with.

Ok, I've got more sensors to make and a random board to work on. I'll chart this out on opendildonics.org sometime later this week and post info here after I do.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

July 28, 2007

I actually finished something!

And took a blurry picture of it!

I could explain it now, but I'm sleepy, so it'll get another post tomorrow. For now, enjoy figuring out what it is.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

July 26, 2007

Torturedildonics: Why not actually make one?

So, after thinking about the last post, it seems like something I could throw together fairly quick, and put into one of my new "Favorite Enclosures Ever", these little tupperware type containers from Ichiban Kan.

I can get 4 of these of $1.50, and they're just the right size for like, everything ever.

So, the board itself will just consist of an 2AAA Batteries, an ATTiny13 and a small transistor to deal with the power conversion. Outside of the usual passive components, that's it. The code so far is just:

#include 


int main()

{

	DDRB = 0xFF;

	PORTB = 0x00;

	TCCR0A = _BV(WGM01) | _BV(WGM00) | _BV(COM0A1);

	TCCR0B = _BV(CS00);

	OCR0A = 0x00; //Must figure out what to put here

	return 0;

}

So all I do is set up the PWM line and mark the port to output. Now comes the hard part: What functions to use, and what kinda timer to set them on...

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

May 13, 2007

The OHMIFUCKINGGAWD: OhMiBod Repackaged

My god. I did something. I actually did something.

I don't know if anyone realizes this, but I haven't really built anything in the last 18 months. Twitterdildonics was two hours of me sitting on a couch cutting and pasting code together. Well, and really, this is just me cutting and pasting parts together, but still, it's something, and it's a gateway to more somethings.

So, yes, this is the OHMIFUCKINGGAWD, as named after the song by Strapping Young Lad, who I'm actually listening to while I write this.

As usual, a new and interesting warning before I start talking about this project: DO NOT DO THIS PROJECT UNLESS YOU GET SEX TOYS FOR FREE. Seriously. I'm basically building a less functional iBuzz v2, which is $70ish, for damn near $80-90 in parts (at least, for people that pay for shit) plus the time it takes to build it and what not. This is a mod only for those of us that already have an OhMiBod and really sick of the parts lying around. Don't go buy one just for this project.

I'm about to start work on some teledildonics software that basically works as a remote controlled tone generator to trigger audio toys. The iBuzz was already in a nice package and ready to go, but the OhMiBod wasn't fairing so well after I ripped it apart last October (Aside: Wow, the Suki people know how to market. I usually find myself being in the first page if not the first 3 links of any toy I write about. Seeing I'm a seething cauldron of toy hate, this is usually not the best news for the manufacturer. However, OhMiBod? I'm on page fucking 6). The parts were scattered all over my workbench, and, well, here's my workbench:

To be able to reliably use the OhMiBod for testing, I needed it in a package that I could easily access and switch out motors on, and that had a couple of basic test functions so I could at least tell if the batteries were working without having to swap caps or have music on. I also wanted a pass-thru audio jack so I didn't have to keep track of where I put the audio splitter, because, well, I could clean up that mess, but it's almost got this "Jackson Pollock of Electronics" kinda structure going on, and I really wouldn't want to lose that inertia when I could possibly sell that for millions some day.

Therefore, the goals:

• Put OhMiBod in a package where I won't keep losing the damn circuit board
• Add Audio Pass-thru
• Add Battery Test/"Always On" Function
• Add Switch
• Add 2.5mm Jack for Modularity

With these goals in mind, I run the half mile down to Good Vibrations (have I mentioned how much I love living in the Bay Area yet? 'cause, really, I do), and start shopping for some new eggs, 'cause I burned most of mine out or can't find them (shut up). However, I find my new best friend in modding:

The Good Vibes Silver Bullet

For $16ish, you get:

• A case with a ton of modding space in it (assuming you can work small)
• 2.5mm jack built in
• 2 AA Battery pack built in
• Nice knob based rheostat that you can take out and use elsewhere

So yeah, a smidge on the expensive side if you want to mass produce something, but otherwise awesome! With the Atmel ATTiny25/45/85 series, you could easily fit a chip in this capable of doing USB communications using the USBTiny Firmware. But that's another project entirely. Expect to see more of these around Slashdong in the future though, and if anyone from GoodVibes is reading, please send me a bunch of these for free. Kthx.

Back to modding.

Here's what the vibe looks like before you take out the Rheostat. 4 screws gets the whole thing apart, and the rheostat lifts right out.

Quick reminder of what the OhMiBod board looks like:

Black is POW-, Green is M-, Red is M+, and that little via with nothing in it above the audio jack is POW+.

[Then there's a bunch of steps] and the mod is done!

Quick description: switch is wired to control ground. +3v comes from batteries and goes to the OhMiBod board, which has a direct line to M+. M- on the board is controlled by the uC pulling the transistor to ground. The switch decides whether M+ routes through the transistor/M- path or goes directly through the motor (always on, no real current control or anything 'cause I don't plan on using this mode other than to test if my batteries work). Audio passthru is just wires soldered to the metal on the top of the audio jack to the corresponding pins on the 3.5mm jack.

Case required a bit of Dremeling to get the 3.5mm input/output jacks to fit, and I cut a rather messy hole in the top for a 3 position switch. And, well, that's it! Nothing to interesting, but I feel productive nonetheless. Off to start working on that software now.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

April 4, 2007

The Naughtyizing of Croquet: Day 3 of 29

Well, they say one is the loneliest number...

But zero is really fucking depressing. So depressing that I'm gonna go play Peggle now.

Intermission

God damn that motherfucking horse and his motherfucking brightly colored pegs. Anyways.

Tonight was research night here in Croquet land. Time to strike out and see what other brave adventurers had established on the wild planes of P2P worlds. The answer seems to be... not much.

The image above was taken from the University of Minnesota's "Public Croquet Spaces Directory", which, according to the screenshots on the Croquet Current Projects page, seems to at one point have had at least 2 things on it. But, no more. It is sad and lonely. Doing more googling on "public croquet servers" did me no good, other than finding what seems to be a fairly defunct blog. Last posting was about SL going open source. I wonder if the client source ate the author.

It has big teeth.

Alas, this is a journey I will begin alone, which totally makes it like some awesome anime type shit, and since it's a virtual world, I can TOTALLY have a big sword, like, all Berserk style and stuff. However, right now, I'm still stuck being a bunny on a sailboat right now.

Of course, this is starting to make me question my own project in general, 'cause there's probably something going on... It's most likely an amalgamation of these 3, at least, in my head.

(a) - There just hasn't been enough publicity

Totally feasible. Most of the press is still cleaning out their pants so they can shit them all over again about Second Life.

(b) - Croquet is gonna be REALLY HARD to use

It seems like there's a lot of cool stuff being built on top of Croquet which people are then using for creative purposes, but the innards are pretty daunting. Just check the description of TeaTime in the Croquet Wikipedia Article (The amount of stuff built into the base object structure makes the embedded engineer in me go into seizures, but I do understand why it's there.). Now, I can come up with a paragraph just as eye crossing about the internals of SL, but it seems like it's a lot more prevalent that you know this stuff before nosing down to the dev grindstone on Croquet. But, hey, they're 1.0 as of like, last Tuesday.

(c) - I'm most likely using this in ways that, though they've been mentioned, probably weren't planned on seeing daylight until maybe, I dunno, 1 year after version 1 came out, not 1 week

In all of the Sex in Games talks, one of us always says "As long as there's a world with two people in it, there will be sex". I realize we're totally doing an "OMGZ FIRST POST" version of cybersex with new virtual worlds, but if being the first at something totally attention whorish isn't what the internet is about, I don't know what is.

And hey! It inherently supports BVH animations, which means moving already created assets (for SL, which uses the same for its animation uploads before they get mangled into its own format), so direct importation is possible and has already been done almost a year ago (before the Beta 1.0 SDK even!).

So, the research tonight did lead to a couple of useful blogs, too:

Julian Lombardi - Chairman of the Board (of Croquet), wearer of shades

Croquet-Bento - The Blog of Mark McCahill, one of the lead designers on Croquet and head of a lot of the projects happening with it. Also helped design Gopher. God damn.

So there, some good for background reading on what's been happening with Croquet so far. Looks like the use getting the most attention right now is Qwak, who are working on a business collaboration product called Qwak Forums. If you want more info, go check out 3PointD or something, 'cause that's like, their thing, not mine.

Tomorrow: I start the tutorial, which is about the only one I could find. This shit is all sorts of MS-Paint core. Can't freakin' wait.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

April 3, 2007

The Naughtyizing of Croquet: Day 2 of 29

Well, it's downloaded! The first step has been taken! Of course, it's been downloaded on my newly christened and otherwise bare Macbook, so it's been an evening of trying to get everything in working order, not just Croquet.

So, in the words of Bill Murray from What About Bob...

Iiiiiiiiiiii'm SAAAAAAILLLLLINNNNNGGGGGGG!

But really, that's about it. Mostly making sure things work tonight. More progress tomorrow I hope.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

April 2, 2007

The Naughtyizing of Croquet: Day 1 of 29

It's pretty easy to get confirmation of how completely fucking random my brain is. Just ask anyone who's met me. I have problems keeping on a subject for more than 2 minutes, much less months at a time.

So, even though I've got ton of backed up projects and writing (hi audio vibe people and fucktube people! I swear I'm working on it!), why not jump in and start a new one... Right now? Unfortunately, there's only one way to do this pure, and that's by starting it the second it hits my brain.

So. Croquet. I have chosen what is possibly the most unhelpful image ever to illustrate this because that is how I roll.

Croquet is a 3D collaborative development environment written by some very smart people. Very, very, very smart people. However, in easier to understand terms, think of it like Second Life (and if you don't know what Second Life is, um... shit.), except the major differences are:

• Everything is open source
• versus just Second Life's client being open source. For now. Gonna change. At some point.
• You run your own server and host everything
• versus Linden Lab running and maintaining all of the servers
• and running your own isn't necessarily a good thing. Do you know how much bandwidth this shit takes? Well, you'll find out. Remember to dip your TiSP lines in some crisco to make things faster!
• Everything is written on top of the Squeak platform, which is pretty much Smalltalk "with benefits" (well, benefits like pretty much being an operating system. I think I'll start calling these 'emacs benefits')
• versus Second Life's C++ core with LSL language on top of it

And there's a whole bunch of lower level architecture issues, too, but if you care about those... Well, god, I wish there was an article I could point you at, but on initial google, there doesn't really seem to be a "This is Croquet, This is SL, this is the apples, these are the oranges" type deal. It's all "[Croquet/SL] [is/is not] an [operating system/true open source/the next big thing/dessert topping/floor cleaner]". At this point, I don't have enough information to say anything, either.

The question remains, what the fuck does this have to do with Slashdong? Well, the idea is pretty simple.

Don't get me wrong. I loves me some Second Life. And not just because they, you know, pay me and let me make virtual worlds all damn day. Which is totally fucking sweet, let me tell you (Hell, come work for Linden Lab! Did I mention the awesomeisity of it? 'cause, really, it is.). But really, there's some ways that SL works you just can't change (and should never be changed, 'cause the idea works for what it's supposed to do, but more on that in a later post), mainly that whole "LL serves up everything" deal (Ok, so this /is/ slated to change at some point in the future, but bear with me for the moment). This is fine and dandy if you can drop the 16 or so Benjamins on an island of your own then sell your virtual (or real) body on the real (or virtual) street to keep up the maintenance fees. It also means you've got a built in user base of something like a bazillion people (plus or minus a hojillion. Yeah, go ahead and hump those numbers 'til they bleed, blogosphere) of people who might be (and I 100% guarantee a few that ARE) into whatever it is you're into.

But, not everyone has the $tack$ needed to roll on virtual dub$ of Second Life. More importantly, not everyone wants their business happening in public, or even the "private but not totally private" that is owning your own SL region. If you're still completely clueless of who I'm referring to here, just read this article and focus on the shouldn't part. Now, of course, even peer to peer, someone could be sitting outside your window (network) with a camera (packet sniffer or maybe some actually totally awesome scifi movie shit where it renders out all your network traffic into really neat graphs and pictures which make for a great show on a 30" LCD. But most likely, packet sniffer.), so the usual "I don't care how many Tor hops your going through, this shit ain't private" rules apply. But still, there's levels. Second Life gives you one of them, and it's great for many, many people. There's others that want different things, though. Thus, we arrive at the apartment model.

The apartment model is my term for a virtual, collaborative 3d environment that allows pure, peer-to-peer connections. Sure, you can join nets or meshes or grids or whatever, but if you want, you can also just hook up person to person (or person to machine to person to machine or...) and go about your business.

Funny enough, Playstation Home runs this sort of model. As far as I understand it, you will host your own apartment, and other people will come visit and completely stomp the shit out of your tiny little cable modem pipe 'cause you're hostin' it all! (ever wonder why they're not allowing user created content?). Not to mention, assuming you're one of the majority, you most likely don't have a PS3, nor do you have any plan to buy one any time soon. So that's just right out, anyways.

However, Croquet is totally like "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades" and will let you render anything you damn well please (even if it does mean slicing your face off). They have VNC, web browsing, all sorts of crazy shit. I bet there's totally a ninja in there somewhere. Waiting to slice your face off. Because that's what they do.

Obviously, this is HUGE for the kind of things that, um, well, I do, and this project is all about me doin' my thing.

Back in July of 2005, I managed to get a full hardware and software interface together for Second Life in a concentrated total of 3 days from starting my first account (I think I actually took a day off work, even). For this one, since the platform is a little bit more daunting and I'm starting from scratch (well, almost, I did play with one of the beta builds for a while well over a year ago), I'm giving myself a month. I'll be blogging on my progress daily (Woooooooooooooo a full month of content! That'll be a first!), as well as rethinking my interface for Second Life, and, god (or whatever the hell deity it is that puts this shit in my head) willing, by May 1st, I'll have a Second Life to Croquet bridge.

Along the way, I'll be blurting out my thoughts on Croquet, SL (which, having now spent 10 months in the prim mines, I think I kinda maybe sorta get like, a little), Squeak, virtual worlds, programming, the internet, and anything else I feel like rambling about.

You'll also get a look inside my head during my development process of things like this. If that doesn't send you running away, you should have your fight or flight response tuned post-haste.

It'll be a fun ride. Or at least, a ride. Or hell, it could be a total failure. But I try to keep negativity out until day 2. Wanna help out? Join our message boards and tell me what the hell I'm doing wrong, then tell others what they're doing wrong in telling me what I'm doing wrong! Viva Open Source Community!

And BTW: Alan Kay, if you're reading this... Can I have your autograph? Object Orientation is, like, totally, hella awesome.

Oh yeah. And, um, sorry in advance.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

March 24, 2007

Twitterdildonics: The Video

Twitterdildonics: The Video

Look ma, I'm on GETV!

Click To Play

You know, I've heard myself on podcasts multiple times since I started Slashdong, but I'm pretty sure this is the first video I've done. I'm totally having that whole "hear your own voice recorded for the first time" reaction...

So, there it is, the underground hit of SXSW, Twitterdildonics. I still plan on overhauling a few things with it and possibly making some different interfaces (Morse Code and Motor Based Phoneme Projection were both recommended), but even so, nothing beats the original.

Remember, if you're interested in using Twitterdildonics, it hooks up perfectly with the Drmn' Trance Vibe, the open source sex toy!

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

March 12, 2007

Twitterdildonics

UPDATE: I totally flaked and uploaded a version without code attribution (massive apology to everyone who (unknowingly) contributed and got left out for a few hours) or compile/use tutorials, and just realized it. I fixed a couple of tiny bugs, but a million huge stupid ones still exist. Anyways, new version is in the link below.

So Scott Beale was all like "New term: "twitterbaiting", trying to get people to come to where you are, often by name dropping" and yoz was all like "@laughingsquid - could be mistaken for Liz's term "twitterbating" (no i) which is similar but... stickier." and then I was all like "twitterbaiting. Hmm. *eyes hardware in his backpack and realizes he /does/ have xcode on this machine...*" and then Chip Poutine was all like "@qDOT: I'm not even going to say what the obvious name for that is..." and then Spin Martin was like "Hahahahahaha @ 'clitter'" and I was all like "TWITTERDILDONICS: I will hopefully have it done by the parties tonight."

And 3 hours later, it's done. It's shitty, it's hacky, but it's vibrating in my lap RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

TO CONTROL THROUGHOUT THE EVENING FRIEND TWITTERDILDONICS ACCOUNT: "TD" (I will make posts on this twitter account when it is live)

Right now, it just pulls the last 15 messages from the friends list and runs through them using the follow algorithm:

• Search for TranceVibrator and initialize if found, otherwise exit
• Fetch friends status updates from twitter using CURL
• Parse into NAME: STATUS pairs using XPath
• For each character from a status
• Take character and add 100
• Set motor speed to value
• Sleep for .1 seconds

While this was the shortest path to finish, it's actually very interesting, because word length, placement and choice of characters actually emerge into a sort of cadence (" " sets the motor to near zero).

Source Code Available Here

REQUIRES:

• Trance Vibe
• Twitter Account
• libUSB
• libCURL
• libXML

My test platform is OS X 10.4.

NEEDED FEATURES:

• Someone please fucking rewrite this in python. It'll be like, 4 lines then. I was just too lazy to try and get the swig shit working for libusb
• Some sort of compressed control protocol for actually sending patterns
• Queuing (Right now I just pull the whole list and replay it over and over. Should only play new messages. I might finish this one at a party tonight.)

I'll have this with me at all the parties I go to tonight (EFF, LifeHacker, ?!?), but it does require wireless + my laptop being on to run.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

September 13, 2006

Freesex: Sex and Second Life v2 - LibSL Edition

Freesex: Sex and Second Life v2 - LibSL Edition

Well, just a little under a month after a made my famous "It'll be ready this week!" annoucement, here's that code that was gonna be ready 3 weeks ago. This article is an unedited brain dump of the basics of libsl, and how I harnessed them for my demo at SLCC. The source code is included but has not been beautified in any way, so don't expect bells, whistles, or anything else. I do plan on extending it at some point, but since that will be some time in the future (for some possibly large values of 'some time in the future'), I figured I'd throw out what I've got now and let others start building on it.

And, thanks again to LibSecondLife and the SLJoy project for making this idea possible, even though they probably didn't mean to.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

January 30, 2006

Happiness is a busy desk

This is what a desk is MEANT to look like, damnit.

This is the desk of a man with a mission.

This is the desk of a happy engineer.

Fuckin' A.

(Yes, that is the SeXBox v5 layout. Things are going well now that I have a chip that will work with my serial communication code. PROGRESS.)

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

SeXBox Version 4 - The Defeat of the Pink Sparkly Buttplug of Doom

SeXBox Version 4 - The Defeat of the Pink Sparkly Buttplug of Doom

9 months. 9 fucking months to go from SeXbox v2 to SeXBox v4. Granted, it's been a really busy 9 months, but still, too damn long.

So, here we are, the next revision of the product that turned your's truly from mild mannered robotics engineer to GOD OF TEH INTERWEB SKREWIN'. This time around, we abandon the "nasty, ghetto hack" stuff and go for the more "involved, gross hack" model (read: we actually deal with safety and noise. We still just rely on the prayer/rhythm method for heat). By putting a motor driver chip in between our hoo-haas and the Xbox controller, we can now drive an decent number of sex toys without having to worry about current draw on the USB power line.

Of course, this means we're actually building a full, somewhat complicated circuit, one that involves a ton of theory we haven't covered before. The tutorial is a little over 3000 words, and while I personally think it's completely coherent, I'm the one that built the thing in the first place, so I am not exactly the casual observer. If you've got any suggestions or questions about this tutorial, please join the discussion on our message boards.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

December 3, 2005

SexBox v3, or "The One Someone Else Made"

SexBox v3, or "The One Someone Else Made" - PDF File, 668k

Slashdong has some pretty awesome users. Oh, who are we kidding, if you read this, you are a fuckin' genius. Who needs MENSA when you can assemble your own sex toys?

Every once in a while, we even get project plans from our readers, which we sit on for 4 months, lose in one of our email boxes, then finally find again, dust off, and feel like total assholes for. It's with this fanfare we present the SexBox v3, better known as "The One Someone Else Made".

This was submitted to us back in June by board user Martinus. Basically, it's the SeXBox v2, except instead of running the motor control wires through jacks in the back of the controller, he uses a save cart slot and modified cart in order to have wires run out the back, meaning you've got a modular system with no cords in the way of your grip!

Disclaimer: Just because we think you're all geniuses doesn't mean we trust you one bit. Slashdong, Nonpolynomial Labs, and its affiliates take no responsibility for you following these instructions. The opinions expressed within the linked PDF are those of the author, and do not reflect the general stance of Slashdong (other than the fact that we all like to hook sex toys up to stuff). Proceed with caution, be safe, don't die.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

August 21, 2005

FreeSex Network: Sex and Second Life, OS X Style

FreeSex Network: Sex and Second Life, OS X Style

Mac users, welcome to the world of Teledildonics! (Ok, sure, you've had them before, but not in a while! :)

Kurt from our forums has posted a tutorial outlining how you can use a TranceVibrator and OS X in order to have sex through Second Life. This uses the same base LSL code that the Windows Sex and SL project did, so all you'll need to do is get the drivers, download the applescript code, and you're ready to go!

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

July 29, 2005

FreeSex: Sex and Second Life, Version 1.0

FreeSex: Sex and Second Life, Version 1.0

Second life is like Legos for adults. Adults who like to have sex. Who like to have sex a LOT. Therefore, it's only fitting that Slashdong joins in on the game, and makes First Life more fun through Second Life. With our client, you can now connect any DirectInput Force Feedback controller to your computer, and control the force feedback functions from the game. As every good slashdong reader knows, once you have force feedback, you have SEX!

In other words, we just turned Second Life into a Teledildonics service, with cheap, reusable hardware, and a $10 entry fee. See, told you we'd be shaking things up.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

June 3, 2005

FreeSex: The Open Source Teledildonics Network

FreeSex: The Open Source Teledildonics Network

Teledildonics is a simple technology. A computer, a network, and a small circuit, and you're ready to go. So why does it cost $100+ for the hardware, and $30+ for monthly fees? Why isn't there a free alternative?

FreeSex is an overview for a protocol and communications system to turn teledildonics into a open source developer driven technology. Beating commerical companies to the punch with new features and more security, we may not win the hearts and minds of the masses, but we'll sure as hell have some fun trying.

Note: This article is ignoring the fact that we might have serious patent problems, thank you very much Texas Billionaire. I honestly haven't read up too much on it, and I'm not exactly sure what the ramifications are. This would be a good topic for discussion over on the message boards, but for right now, consider this idea to be written by someone living in utopia.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

May 17, 2005

Sexercise - The new health revolution begins!

Sexercise - The new health revolution begins today!

I'm fat. If you're reading this, you're probably fat, too. Statistically speaking, 100% of people are fat (please note: statistics taken from current US media and pop culture references). Billions upon billions a year are made from people trying to get thin. But every new fad diet has been missing the one other major motivator of people.

No, not sleep!

Reproduction! Or, as the kids like to call it, sex!

In another lame attempt to get hits brilliant move to rid the world of lardass syndrome, we present you with the SEXERCISE BIKE. IT'S SEXELLENT! (God damnit that never gets old. Unless you're not the one saying it.)

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

April 9, 2005

Encyclopedia RezTranceVibratora

Sweet Jesus! Original content for the first time in almost a month!

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rez Trancevibrator, but were too busy jacking off to the pictures on GameGirlAdvance to actually do any research for yourself.

This is a FAQ about the Rez TranceVibrator: What it is, how it works, and what non-Rezy (i.e. sex) stuff can be done with it at the moment.

Sure, the game is old as hell, the controller is damn near impossible to find outside of auctions (Used vibrators, anyone?), but who cares! It's sex! Yaaaay!

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

March 27, 2005

Force Feedback Patent War

Hrm, wonder if this is gonna make selling the SeXBox more difficult.

Sony has just been ordered to pay $90.7 million USD for patent infringement on their Dual Shock controllers.

There's probably going to be settlements between other console manufacturers.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

March 9, 2005

SeXBox Version 2 or How To Make Your Own Sex Slave Zombie Army of Death

SeXBox Version 2 Version 1 was a raging success, so now it's time to make a version that's actually safe. The new SeXBox v2 uses plugs embedded in the controller, so now you can hook it up to anything from vibe eggs to electrified cock rings. Go forth and force feedback!

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (1)

March 1, 2005

For everyone that was wondering...

Yes, there were people actually wondering about what dildo that was in the XBox/PS2 pictures. Being the enterprising researcher I am, I took a trip back to DildoWorld and got the info. Jessica Drake's Essensual Elements "My Wicked" Strobing Penis (quotes are accurate to the packaging) http://www.wickedpictures.com http://www.calexotics.com I don't currently have a source you can buy it from, but if I find one, I'll post it to the forum thread on this, which can be found here. There was a pretty massive amount of interest in this, so I'm also planning an LED Sex Toy Mod article to go along with this. Might as well make raves out of ALL sex toys, heh.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

February 28, 2005

A man solders, the world reacts.

However much I profess to be a hardcore, no-nonsense engineer, I've always had a soft spot for sociology and anthropology. Hell, I almost double majored in one along with CS in college. I get absolutely fascinated by how people communicate with each other, how they form groups, so on and so forth. Needless to say, watching the SeXBox meme spread has blown a good portion of the last 4 days for me. I get absolutely mesmerized with watching who is visiting from where, then tracing where they came from. Pages like Bloglines, Technorati, and Del.icio.us make feeding my addiction a hell of a lot easier.

So, in what will hopefully be the last metapost about this damn thing before we get back to the real stuff, I'd like to go over what I found in my adventures across my referrer list.

• One of the most popular reactions was some form of "I don't know which is scarier, the fact this exists or the fact the guy did it without a girl around to use it on". Time to dispell this one. The reason there wasn't a girl around is 'cause my fiancee was out of town on business. She's back now, and is the owner of the GIRLS HANDS featured in the Playstation version of the mod. So I'm not just some lonely perv sitting in a basement. I'm on the first floor, actually. This brings me to my next point...


• A good portion of straight guys on the net are whiney little bitches with no imagination. There were SO MANY posts about "Why'd he make this for a girl? I wish there was a guy version.". For christ motherfucking sake, it's not like I set the electricity coming out of those wires to vagina-only polarity. You can hook those wires to ANYTHING, including guy toys, your nuts, your toaster, or all three at once if you're into that sort of thing. Not to mention, it wouldn't kill you to use a vibrator. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't make you gay, either. I know Mr. Prostate lives in a dark, smelly cave, but he likes visitors, and repays the favor very well. Take it like a fucking man, already. A whole world of bi and gay men do, and do you hear THEM complaining?


• People really, really don't expect you to come into their blog and comment when they've linked to you. Most are really receptive, and I've met a lot of REALLY cool people doing this thanks to this article. But a few are freaked out, some pretty badly. On the internet, there ain't no privacy, the front door is always open, and I really, really like to scribble on walls.


• I was very interested in how many people thought this was a novel idea. I mean, I realize that's what generated the hits, but I just found it amazing what soldering a wire to two pads and badly taping up a couple of batteries could do. I've been kicking around the Video Game Dildo idea for at least 6 years (I posted about it in my LJ a couple of years ago. That's how I funded the buying of this domain). Unfortunatly, I'm miraculously lazy, not to mention, up until the last couple of years, completely lacking in any hardware knowledge. It was a fun idea to joke about on IRC, but I figured someone would beat me to it. They never did. I felt like a pretty big dumbass when I cracked open the PS1 controller and learned the sad fact that this project had been waiting to happen since 1995 (and probably well before that). Thank god I got to it first, before this information fell into the WRONG HANDS (DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN).


• I think what got to me most can be summed up in the thread that happened on Xbox-Scene, the biggest Xbox modding/homebrew site on the net. Here's the thread about the SeXBox project from there, though it is now locked and in the Garbage Dump forum. I honestly tried to make the article as gender and sexuality neutral as possible, while still packing it as chock full of hilarity. Even so, there seems to be a large number of people who found the article offensive to women.

  Every single one of these people had a penis.

  GameGirlAdvance, GameGal, and a ton of other female gamer sites and forums seemed to have no problem with it. Hell, I got emails from quite a few females that thought it a really funny article. I also found a few who were slightly offended, but it was at the material itself, not my presentation. (I have no problem with that, I'll admit, this site isn't for everyone. It's got dildoes everywhere. Not everyone likes dildoes everywhere. It's really an acquired taste.)

  So remember, obliviously misogynist internet fuckwads, that "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDRE.... I MEAN, GIRLS!!!" argument is an absolute crock of shit, and it's why you seem to repel women wherever you go. Women play games, women like sex, and believe it or not, they've been able to vote for a couple of years, too. They don't need your defense, they can come kick me in the nuts themselves. Be assured, if they feel the need to, they will.
  

The links are calming down now, things are going back to quietness, which means I've gotta cook up something else now. I went on a bit of a buying spree tonight that I'll be reporting on tomorrow. Until then, have fun breaking consoles. ;)

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

February 27, 2005

SeXBox - PS1/PS2 Compatible Method

PS1/2 Version of the SeXBox Mod We've gotten enough pokes, complaints and whines about Playstation compability, just because it happens to be the most popular console on the planet at the moment. Seeing we like hits, we decided it be in our best interest to add a PS1/2 version of the ever popular SeXBox mod. It's pretty much the same as the XBox version, but there are enough differences that I ended up rewriting some of the tutorial. Enjoy!

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

For the love of god, people.

Ok, so I've seen a couple of places completely rip off the forum article and repost the pictures and a VERY condensed version of my Xbox Controller article.

I'm not out to be a bitch about copyright. Yes, I like getting the hits, and yes, I did put the work into this page. But what people don't seem to realize is that THIS SHIT IS DANGEROUS. Putting any type of current anywhere on your body without proper guidance and knowing what you're doing could easily kill you.

That's why I put warnings in my articles.

That's why there's mentions of fuses and "don't blame us".

I know I have a funny writing style, and I know I do this in a tongue in cheek manner, but the LAST thing I want to see is anyone getting hurt. This is sex, this is supposed to be FUN, not a trip to the emergency room and possible permanent damage.

So please, link all you want. If you REALLY want a copy of the tutorial on your site, email me and we'll talk about it. Otherwise, know that I will use every single power I have (even down to copyright. This shit is NOT creative commons, it is NOT GPL, it is MINE, and for good reason. *waits for someone to take this out of context*) to have information copied from this site removed from your site. I will NOT have people getting hurt from my projects just because you want the hits.

*sigh*

Now, back to me being silly.

Update: So talking about licensing is totally, totally unsexy. However, this whole post brings up an interesting issue on what happens when you want to license things that can actually hurt people. I've started a message board thread so people can talk or scream/yell/cry (like everyone likes to do when it comes to licensing issues) about this. Please do not try to jack off to this thread, as you might hurt yourself.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)

February 23, 2005

SeXBox - Force Feedback Luvin

How to hook a vibrator (or really pretty much anything) up to an XBox Controller You can do a ton of things by tapping the 5VDC power line to the vibration motors in a force feedback controller. However, this is a sex site, so we did the obvious thing. Getting shot in Halo just got a lot more fun.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (1)

February 21, 2005

EATING OUT... First project on /8===> !!!

Eating Out: Food reviews of Strip Clubs

After the NIGHT OF BACONING, I decided that no one was looking at what was REALLY important at strip clubs... The food.

I knew there were more fatasses than me out there wondering "Where can I see nude people gyrating WHILE I'm eating?" Hooters doesn't count. No, I want real nude, with a nice steak to enjoy with the show.

With that in mind, Eating Out was born. A full review system for strip clubs, so that people can relate their favorite stories, recommend new places, and give tourists a good idea of where to go when they're in town.

We're gonna be the Zagat's of titty bars, damnit.

Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments (2)