Start your day off with a slice of future: including sex tracking, Apple's continuing VR ambitions, and music created... by your butt.Some of the news in the last 24 hours has been pretty interesting.
[body_image width='1200' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/02/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/18/' filename='inside-kinkcoms-san-francisco-porn-palace-body-image-1424283308.jpg' id='28714']Kink.com HQ. All photos courtesy of the author
The basement of the San Francisco Armory used to be where the National Guard kept its guns and ammo. If you go there now you'll see a chainsaw with all the sharp edges replaced with plastic tongues, a room full of dildos attached to drills, and two bright blue 55-gallon barrels of natural, water-based lube. One hundred and ten gallons is a hell of a lot of lube.
You see, shortly after the National Guard left the Armory in 1976, the former headquarters was registered as a historical landmark. This meant that whoever bought the two-acre, redbrick, Moorish revival castle would not be able to make any major architectural changes, so the building sat more or less empty for 30 years. The trouble was, they needed to find a millionaire buyer with a mountain of cash and a desire to own a network of dingy dungeons, and even in San Francisco that isn't an easy task.
That was, until Peter Acworth came along. Acworth grew up in Britain before moving to America in 1996 to study finance at Columbia. The following year, after reading a tabloid story about a fireman who made $250,000 dollars selling porn online, Acworth decided to start his own website dedicated to the porn he wanted to watch himself. It happened that he was into the kind of stuff that half the planet were in denial about until
Fifty Shades of Grey came along.
[body_image width='1200' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/02/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/18/' filename='inside-kinkcoms-san-francisco-porn-palace-body-image-1424283525.jpg' id='28719']The barrels of lube
Judging by the success of his site, Kink.com, plenty of people were already well aware of the pleasures of a well-aimed whip before EL James sold all those paperbacks. By 2006, Acworth was able to drop a cool $14.6 million to buy the San Francisco Armory and turn it into the world's biggest BDSM porn studio. Kink.com and its various subsidiary sites now produce hours upon hours of hardcore porn there every week. No wonder they get through so much lube.
In an era of free streaming porn, Kink.com's paid-for content and high production values mark it out as an anomaly and a rare success story, so I decided it would be a good idea to go to San Francisco to sign up for their daily $25 tour and see inside the studio for myself.
[body_image width='1200' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/02/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/18/' filename='inside-kinkcoms-san-francisco-porn-palace-body-image-1424283425.jpg' id='28716']Dane, my guide
Which is how I found myself down on my knees in one of their dungeons. The first thing you notice when you're down there is that although the floors look like they're made from hard, cracked concrete, they're really covered in soft, springy rubber. Dane, who performs at Kink.com under the screen name "Bastian," is our tour guide for the day.
He's one of those conventionally good-looking all-American types who'd seem wholesome to the point of cheesiness if it wasn't for where we were. You wouldn't have him down as a sexual deviant. In another life he'd have made a great Jehovah's Witness.
"We don't like to hurt our models," he says, explaining the rubber flooring. Then his face breaks into a wicked grin. "Well, of course we do like to hurt our models... but only in the agreed ways."
Dane explains that, even though Kink.com make graphic, BDSM porn, the site still does its best to keep their models safe. "We're making porn for people like us, who can't enjoy a really sexy, really heavy dominant-submissive scene if we didn't know that everyone was actually being taken care of," he says. "We've created a space where someone is free to do that while still maintaining control of their agency throughout the process."
There's a whole world of different Kink.com sets down in the dungeons which serve their various websites—24 in all. First up is "Ultimate Surrender," an all-girl, college-style wrestling tournament. Part of the appeal of this site is that it's a real sporting event—unlike pro wrestling, there are no scripts. The competitors get a bonus if they win so they really do fight it out to pin their opponents down.
This being porn of course, they also get points for undressing, fingering or even motor-boating the opposition. Once a month, Kink.com invites a studio audience down who sit on the side lines, hold up signs to support their favorites and scream "Sit on her face" at the top of their lungs.
Round the corner from the "Ultimate Surrender" wrestling arena is "Naked Combat," the all-male alternative styled like an X-rated version of
Fight Club. Further on are the cages and chain rooms used for Kink's long-running series "The Training of O." It's based on the French erotic classic Story of O, which was written in 1954 by Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage, and let's just say
Fifty Shades pales in comparison.
In this studio, Kink puts their "slaves" through some of the most physically and mentally strenuous porn conceivable. The series' director, James Mogul, is notorious for putting his models through a gauntlet of "slave training exercises," so even experienced porn stars end up doing things for the first time. There's an air of improv to it all, which I guess makes him the BDSM game's Mike Leigh.
It's while walking around the "Training of O" set that I really start to appreciate just how good Kink's art department are. You couldn't really use dirty, dingy basements with stagnant water and rusty chains to shoot porn. Health and safety would have a field day. Instead, everything is scrupulously clean but designed to look like it's been rotting away in the dark for years.
As I leave the studio, I see a sign reminding staff of just how clean and careful they have to be "!!! You Must Wear Surgical Gloves Whenever Handling Anything That Has Been In Contact With Bodily Fluids !!!" it begins, before telling staff to always change gloves between "handling different toys." It's the hardcore world's version of those signs in the office toilets reminding you to wash your hands.
After the dungeons come yet more sets. These are used for videos like "Bound in Public" or "Bound and Disgraced," so they're designed to look like we're outside in the real world. There are houses, bars, doctor's offices, police cells, and school rooms all laid out in flawless detail in the basement of the Armory. Dane tells us that they have to pride themselves on that attention to detail. "If we make a mistake in the algebra on the
blackboard behind some people fucking," he says, "then that's what people will write in about."
If you fancy yourself as the next James Deen, appearing as a background extra in a "public" scene is one way to get onto a porn set before you throw yourself in at the deep end. If you find yourself in San Francisco, you can apply online to appear as a member of the public. You can even go as a couple—it'd be a hell of a first date.
If you're looking to make a bigger commitment, Kink.com is always hiring. Their rates vary from $200 to $800 per shoot for men, or from $500 to $1,300 per shoot for women. When you sign up you'll be given a "Yes-No-Maybe" list so that you can say what you're into and what you're willing to try. Naturally, the highest rates are reserved for those rare specimens who are up for doing the stuff that the fewest people want to.
[body_image width='1200' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/02/19/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/19/' filename='inside-kinkcoms-san-francisco-porn-palace-body-image-1424341494.jpg' id='28865']The author, pictured with Carol Acworth's statue
I tell Dane I'll get back to him about the "Yes-No-Maybe" list, but before I leave the Armory there's one more place he wants to show us. We head all the way up to the top floor of the building and enter what could be a stately home if it wasn't for the antique gynecological table and all the graphic, hardcore porn portrait paintings hanging on the walls. One of the most eyebrow-raising statues is a naked, large-breasted woman sculpted by Carol Acworth—that's the bosses' mum. After she finished, her son Peter completed the piece by trussing it up with bondage rope. A real family affair.
This is the "Upper Floor," Kink.com's private member's club. It's essentially
Downton Abbey, but with ball gags and more leather than Kanye's wardrobe. On the Upper Floor, models act out master-servant fantasies at regular parties in front of a hand-picked crowd of BDSM fans. They have a strict guest list, so you can't just wander in if you've watched a couple of videos and now consider yourself a budding Christian Grey. You've got to earn an invitation by introducing yourself to a guy called Maestro Stefanos at one of San Francisco's BDSM nights, and I'm guessing guys who call themselves "Maestro Stefanos" know what they like.
What's really interesting about the Upper Floor is that they livestream their parties, and people log in from all over the world to watch and chat to participants and other fans. This means that BDSM fans in Smalltown, Nowheresville, who find it next to impossible to meet anyone who shares their tastes can tune into what Dane calls "transmissions from the kinky mothership." That seems to be what's made Kink.com such a success. The internet might be awash with free porn, but people still have a fetish for community.
Getting a tattoo isn't comfortable. The best analogy I've heard for the feeling is it's like someone digging his fingernail into your skin as hard as possible and slowly—very slowly—dragging it around in the shape of whatever it is you're plastering onto your body. So when a friend of mine handed me a flyer he'd found blowing around in the street for a "painless tattoo" that would heal twice as fast and look better than traditional ink, I was intrigued.
The flyer was for a place called Piercing Works—a piercing and tattoo shop in Amsterdam. Their website revealed that
the secret behind the art of a painless tattoo is hypnosis. I've never been a big believer in hypnosis, but getting tattoos is generally a kind of meditative experience anyway, so the idea of getting one while in a trance sounded like something worth exploring.
"Hypno tattoos" have been around for a while, but Piercing Works is the only of its kind in the Netherlands. The owner, Ira Lutvica, serves as the shop's hypnotist. She fled
from Bosnia when shit hit the fan over there along with her husband, and together they built a
new life for themselves in Amsterdam with their body art shop. To get an edge on the competition, Ira decided to enroll in a course at the Netherlands Hypnosis Institute.
She has dreadlocks and wears a red turban that, combined with her Eastern European
accent, means she lived up to all the expectations I had of what a hypnotist would look like. She was friendly, made a good cup of coffee, and the store was very clean—important factors when you're trying to coax your customers into the ultra-relaxed headspace needed for hypnosis.
When I walked in Ira immediately tried to get a sense
of who she was dealing with. Do I believe in hypnosis? Have I been hypnotized
before? Not really and no. I was a bit worried it wouldn't work on me, but tried to keep an open mind, although it's hard to be open to something that you know won't work if you're
not open to it. Ira asked some simple questions like "Have you ever been sedated
at the dentist?" but also more difficult ones like "When do you feel completely
at ease?"
A few soul-searching moments later, Ira led me to a
room above the shop. It was cold in there, and
there were posters of hot babes with piercings peppering the walls—you get that in pretty much every tattoo shop. As the tattoo artist finished the
stencil downstairs, Ira started to hypnotize me. Step by step, she explained how
I should breathe and what I should feel. The chair was slowly lowered to a
horizontal position. "You feel your eyes getting heavy," she said.
My eyes were actually getting heavy. With a soft voice
and a mesmerizing accent, Ira guided me up and down some stairs, onto beaches and into saunas. Every now and then, I almost snapped out of it, but I never woke up
completely. To be honest, I didn't want to wake up—it felt like a sort of meditation with a
tour guide. Step by step, I sunk into a deeper trance.
Suddenly Ira counted to five and I was awake. The ink was in my
skin. As promised, it didn't bleed. The
tattoo artist went over one of the lines with the needle again so I could feel the
difference. The difference was painfully obvious. And yet, I wasn't completely
under while I was getting the tattoo. I was conscious while it happened, but
because I was in a trance it didn't hurt. I also wasn't in that cold room with
the posters of the half-naked women. I was frolicking by the ocean, relaxing in a hot steam. It turned out the whole process had lasted two hours, but it felt like less than 15 minutes.
Hypnosis isn't magic, and you have to be totally on board if it's going to have any effect. I didn't think it would work for me, but apparently
Ira is very good at her job. I'm still a little baffled that my skin didn't bleed
at all, except in the spot that the tattoo artist went over again after I came
out of the trance.
I've had my tattoo for two days now, and so far it does seem to be healing faster than my previous ones. All the other
promises that the flyer made were kept as well.
Ira even gave me a complimentary fortune telling just
before I came out of the hypnosis, predicting that I would be very happy with
the tattoo and would make lots of money. I really hope she keeps that last promise too.
In addition to the Season 4 blooper reel fans got to see last summer at SDCC, attendees at an exhibition in London were recently treated to some more goofball antics from Game of Thrones‘ cast. Oberyn falling down the stairs. I just can’t.
Last week, from February 9th through 14th, artists from all over the world gathered once again in Honolulu for the 5th annual Pow! Wow! Hawaii mural festival. This year's festival was the biggest to date, with 42 visiting artists and 39 local artists all busting out walls in Kaka'ako (the festival hub) and around the city. The week was a convergence of varying cultures and artistic styles, resulting in many exciting collaborations —some planned and others spontaneous.
Health and Medicine
Photo credit:
Health marketing materials used to promote measles vaccine during the 1960s. CDC
The news on the current measles outbreak contains plenty of reminders that measles causes brain damage, pneumonia, hearing loss and death. A few lone voices have spoken up to say measles isn’t that serious, including an Arizona doctor who said it’s “really just a fever and a rash” – and soon found himself under investigation by his state’s medical board.
The good people at Foodbeast created a new frankenfood that tops the ramen burger in my eyes (and more importantly to my tastebuds): the pho burger. Made with deep fried rice noodle buns, Vietnamese style cole slaw and a juicy patty, it looks like a fantastic combination of the ingredients of Pho but in burger form.
i'm not sure what i think about this. obviously threatening to kill people is never ok but i also feel like wu has been milking gg and actively encouraging trolls more than anyone i've seen.
Giant Spacekat, the game studio headed by developer Brianna Wu, is withdrawing from the PAX East 2015 Expo Hall due to safety concerns, the company recently announced.
"The reason is pretty straightforward," Wu said in an email to Polygon. "Two people here in Massachusetts have made videos with threats explicitly threatening to murder me. Law enforcement has not arrested anyone, and PAX East is not responding to our security concerns.
"We don't feel safe. A lot of our employees have families."
In a public statement, Wu said that the decision to withdraw from the Expo Hall comes from concern that, due to the sheer volume of crowds at PAX East, "the safety of our team can not be guaranteed." Wu added that the decision was made after...
Andrew Tunks has his whole life ahead of him, but the 28-year-old from the outskirts of LA is vying for the chance to leave it all behind. This week, he found out there's a 25 percent chance he'll die on Mars—which means the opportunity to back out of an impulsive and crazy decision is slowly closing.
Back in 2013, a Netherlands-based group called Mars One put out an open call for anyone seeking a one-way ticket to the Red Planet—the only barrier to entry was $38 and an obsession with space. Mars One got 200,000 applications before it stopped accepting entries that August. Many of the people who threw their hats in the ring
were, in a word, weird.
But Mars One only wants the best and brightest—the group is seeking not only ambassadors for Earth, but also stars of a reality television show about the training program. "We fully anticipate our remaining candidates to become celebrities in their towns, cities, and in many cases, countries," program co-founder Bas Lansdorp
said in a statement when the pool was whittled down to 1,058 would-be astronauts in December 2013. "It's about to get very interesting."
Things got even more exciting this week, when 100 people, including Tunks, made it past the next series of cuts. There is only one more selection round before 24 future Martians are divided into teams of four and sent into a decade of full-time training. Then—barring some mishaps or some (very public) chickening out—they'll be catapulted to Mars, where they'll either die very quickly or colonize.
When I spoke to him on Wednesday night, the Californian (who now lives in part-time in London) seemed fairly chill about the prospect of leaving behind his family and girlfriend to live out his days on a distant rock. He told me he entered the contest on a kind of whim, to see how far he could get, though he also thought that the idea of a multinational crew of colonists landing on Mars could "really bring people together."
VICE: Because there's a TV show attached, some people might think Mars One is a publicity stunt. What have your interactions been like with them so far, and how serious do they seem about making it happen for real? Andrew Tunks: I think they are absolutely dedicated to this, really intelligent and going about it in a good way. I've met Dr. Norbert Kraft, who's the chief medical officer for the project, and he's done a lot of work with researching astronauts in confined situations. He's worked for NASA. He said one of the funny things that tends to happen is that people start hooking up pretty quickly. He also said the reason they're going for more "normal people" rather than astrophysicists and the people you would think [you would want on a mission like this], like surgeons, is generally you want people who are good at getting along with other people. And the people who are driven to be the stereotypical astronaut who's super fit, super the-best-at-everything, super smart—tend to be kind of assholes. And he said in multiple runs when they've gotten those kinds of people, it just breaks down because people can't get along. They end up exploding at each other and stuff.
Is there something in
particular you think would be valuable to the mission that you possess?
I just think I'm a really kind
person—I think that's important. I think I have an artistic sense and a
sense of beauty and reflection. I meditate quite a lot and think I'm very
peaceful. I think that's pretty important. But I'm also a really quick learner
and I really enjoy learning and I'm into all that stuff. It might sound
weird but I kind of see my potential role as talking to people in
a global way I guess. I hope to inspire people rather than be the
best at something or contribute a certain skill. They'll be training us for ten years to learn
engineering and medical stuff and all the things we need to operate this
colony.
"My mom, whenever I bring it up, she goes, 'Well, you know you're not going. You can't go to Mars. Don't even think about it.'"
Are you depressed or
disenchanted with things on Earth?
I really like Earth. I love humans. I think we do so many
amazing, beautiful things. i think the major problems that we face like global
warming and violence and stuff like that. It's just that it's really hard to coordinate
group action on such a massive scale to get countries and individuals who run
them who are making tons of money agree to stop lining their pockets and do
something that's good for everybody. Our brains
are wired to have us survive. It's just a matter of taking that wiring and
changing it to a new situation—which is we exploded on the planet and we have
no natural predators and we're destroying our planet in the process.
What's it like telling
your parents that you want to die on Mars? I can't imagine having that
conversation.
It's pretty funny really. My mom, whenever I bring it up, she
goes, "Well, you know you're not going. You can't go to Mars. Don't even think
about it." When I
first applied I didn't know how many people were applying and when I found out
how many there were I was like I don't know if I'll get into the next round,
let alone be in the final 100. So it
hasn't even really been that big of a deal until now. But it's kind of not
up to her. As much as I love my parents and thank them for everything they've
done for me, it's my life. It is a sacrifice though and I would be really
heartbroken to leave everything. It's really scary and everything but I think
it's just an unprecedented opportunity, really. I have to at least see how far
I can get.
Are you afraid of death? The thing is whether you're afraid of it or not,
it's going to happen so what's the point of being afraid of dying? And also we
only have so many years here and then it's all over and done with, so I don't
see the point in being afraid of it or needing your life to be a certain way. I
think that expectations can be kind of bad for you. I don't know if I can explain
this right but I think you're afraid of death when you don't think that you can
be happy until you achieve a certain thing.
An MIT study says the first group of settlers would likely suffocate in 68 days. Does that deter you, or at least make you hope to be one of the later crews? I didn't see that, actually. But I definitely don't want to be in the first group. Let me just say
that. [
Laughs] Um, God, four people, eight people is bad enough. But just four
people for, I guess it would be like seven months in transit, and then two
years? That's a long time to be with just those people in such a stressful
environment. I think the next crew would be much easier.
So besides people, what
things would you miss about home?
The atmosphere and nature, I'd say. Just having breathable oxygen
around you all the time is a blessing that you don't really think about. I
really like nature and I really like dense nature. I like rain forests and
things like that so it'd be really difficult to go to a place where there's barrenness everywhere.
Not a lot of "dense nature" on Mars. Pretty much just this. Photo via NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Have you ever considered
the possibility of changing your mind as soon as you've left?
I have thought about that but at
that point you're pretty much stuck with that decision. It's like, what are you gonna do about it? It's happened anyway so live
with it and be happy.
What would do you do for seven months stuck on a spaceship without losing it? Rock back and forth, chew my nails, write all over the
walls. [
Laughs] I don't know, probably watch movies and stuff, exercise to
keep up muscle mass, probably exercising for a good two or three hours a day. I might write. It depends
what I'm into in ten years. It would be
challenging but I'm sure we'd have figured something out to do—maybe we could write our constitution on the way.
"Life is kinda shitty a lot of the time. Life is suffering."
What do you actually have
to do while you're there?
I'm sure there will be plenty of science missions. There would also be a lot of daily maintenance stuff,
just taking care of the colony, building it up and planning the next steps and
building them.
I'm reminded of this book that I read called
Giants in the Earth.
The author is [Ole Edvart] Rolvaag. It's about these settlers from Sweden who basically
cross the country and set up a little homestead in the middle of Minnesota or
something like that and there are just these horrifying winters with
overwhelmingly cold blizzards and it's a really hard life there and it's just
these couple little families. The main character is just consumed with this
idea of building a kingdom and everywhere he looks he sees an opportunity to build his kingdom. He works like a maniac
building his dreams, seeing something where nothing is. So I kind of imagine it
would be like that. It would be constantly seeing opportunities to build your
kingdom and to make a better life for yourself and for the other colonists.
What if it turns out to be
really shitty and you don't like it, what would you tell yourself to convince
yourself this is worthwhile?
Life is kinda shitty a lot of the time. Life is suffering.
Everything about being alive is really challenging. If it's not one thing, it's
something else—so yeah it might be really tough on Mars, but it's
still just life. I think it would be nicer to
be on Mars than in Somalia or Syria right now. There are so many horrible places on Earth. At least [on Mars] you're
in control of your destiny, more or less. You have this global platform
as well. I think that's really inspiring. That's a reason to keep going. You
have the entire world watching you and that's such a powerful thing. I feel like it would be really letting everyone down and
letting yourself and the universe down to just be like,
Fuck it, this
is hard. I want to die. I'm just gonna jump out of the airlock.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
It’s not easy being Tina Belcher: Your crotch is often itchy, you rarely get to touch butts, and Jimmy Pesto barely knows you exist. Fortunately, Tina’s life starts looking up in the animated music video for Sleater-Kinney’s “A New Wave” off their unfuckwithable new album “No Cities To Love.”
A collaboration between the newly reformed rock juggernaut and the team behind hit animated series ‘Bob’s Burgers,’ the cramazing clip opens with young Tina putting on SK’s CD in her unicorn-festooned bedroom. (This makes perfect sense for someone so committed to being a “smart, strong, sensual woman.”) No sooner does the song start than Corin, Carrie and Janet materialize before her very eyes like rock and roll fairy godmothers. My heart just pooped its pants!
It’s not long before siblings Gene and Louise join her to jump around and do the wiggly dance at this miraculous private concert, of which Bob and Linda remain blissfully unaware save for some plaster falling from the ceiling in the restaurant below. (A shame, considering they’d probably enjoy it too, as they are humans with ears and this song is the best.)
In addition to being the perfect embodiment of the lyric “it’s not a new wave, it’s just you and me,” this video is the perfect way to introduce Sleater-Kinney to a new generation of fans…and maybe to hip some older SK fans to the pleasures of ‘Bob’s Burgers,’ as well. In other words: It’s two great tastes that taste unsurprisingly great together.
Health and Medicine
Photo credit:
Very few people today live a true hunter-gatherer lifestyle – and Paleo diets likely oversimplify what would have been on the table many millennia ago. Thiery, CC BY-NC
Reconstructions of human evolution are prone to simple, overly-tidy scenarios. Our ancestors, for example, stood on two legs to look over tall grass, or began to speak because, well, they finally had something to say. Like much of our understanding of early hominid behavior, the imagined diet of our ancestors has also been over-simplified.
In addition to an April 13 "Localchella" show at the Regent Theater, Coachella 2015 act Squarepusher also will headline an all-ages show at the Observatory on Wednesday, April 15. Tickets to see Squarepusher at the Regent Theater will go on...
Sega Networks, the mobile publishing arm of Sega, has acquired independent developer Demiurge Studios as part of a series of investments in the Western market, Sega announced today.
In addition to picking up Demiurge, Sega Networks purchased a majority stake in Ignited Artists, a San Francisco-based startup that's currently working on its first project, and made a "strategic investment" in London-based Space Ape Games. Terms of the three deals were not disclosed.
"We're constantly evaluating the independent mobile game space for studios that fit our vision of fun, high-quality gameplay experiences," said Haruki Satomi, CEO of Sega Networks, in a press release today. "Demiurge underscores our commitment to investing in the West and...
i want to understand every step of this process, like the point of the blue glitter.
These Fostex TH900 headphones run for $1,300 which is completely silly and ridiculous and insane until you watch how they get made. The amount of detail put into each part, the careful consideration of each step, it's all pretty impressive. I know I would never spend that much money on headphones but I can't say they're not worth it.
Last week, from February 9th through 14th, artists from all over the world gathered once again in Honolulu for the 5th annual Pow! Wow! Hawaii mural festival. This year's festival was the biggest to date, with 42 visiting artists and 39 local artists all busting out walls in Kaka'ako (the festival hub) and around the city. The week was a convergence of varying cultures and artistic styles, resulting in many exciting collaborations —some planned and others spontaneous.
This is not a drill, and it's the worst of the comebacks. [ 
A suspected explosive device caused a traffic nightmare in Hollywood, closing streets already congested from Oscars preparation. [ more › ]
The golden statue is bent over on the floor snorting up two lines of coke on Hollywood Blvd. and La Brea Ave. [ more › ]
