Image credit: Jonathan Tippett
After a break, I am back. Check out my Forbes blog for my deep dive into the world of strip club robot security guards, and while you’re at it, subscribe to my Substack newsletter: The Reverse Cowgirl. A good time, all.
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I thought Christopher Trout did such a nice job with this video in which he encounters an animated RealDoll. Usually, stories of this sort, especially when told by men, are very wink-wink, nudge-nudge, ham-ham. But this is serious, smart, and insightful. Great stuff. Hope to see more explorations of how science and technology are changing mating, dating, and relating like this.
Image via Xpresso Fix
Somewhere along the way, I gained ten pounds. Here's what I'm doing about that.
More yoga: I'm a Gordian knot.
More walking: I'm a flaneur.
More exercises: I'm a machine.
Image via Cartoon Snap!
"Flogging the Freelancer" is a blog post a day on freelancing in the gig economy. Browse the archives here.
I've become oddly obsessed with automating shit in my life lately. Oddly because I'm not a robot, and I mostly think the whole quantification hack zone is a bog of absurdity. That said, I've had wild success improving my credit rating over the last several years in part due to automation. In 2010, I actually didn't have a credit score. I didn't have credit cards, and I guess this just meant I was not even in the credit zone. But in part because I went from paying bills late to auto-bill pay, I now have a credit rating of like 758 or something. You know, it changes a little, but it's somewhere around there. How great! How unlike me. Credit card companies now up my credit limit. Who would've thought such a thing was possible.
In any case, for the last couple weeks I've been walking around trying to automate other shit in my life. For example, last year was a real failure in terms of body management. Like, I worked out inconsistently and I followed a good diet inconsistently and I did these exercises I have to do inconsistently. This isn't good because I don't want to get sick again, and it means sometimes I feel like shit and sometimes I don't, but mostly it means that I feel like I don't have any control over anything, most importantly the meat within which I'm encased. So this week I prepaid and prescheduled some Pilates classes, and I'm hoping that will help. I also walk. Which is better than you'd think. If you can manage to get yourself out of the house.
Thanks to my friend Damon Brown for mentioning this blog in his Inc. column recently: "5 Simple Ways to Kill Procrastination Today." I was entranced with this line by James Clear: "Find ways to automate your behavior beforehand rather than relying on willpower in the moment." Willpower is like trying to harness the wind, so I guess I'm trying to take the guesswork out of everything. But I have to say, I am currently failing at taking the guesswork out of writing or creative production, which feels like herding chickens, only the chickens are made of words, and they are covered in a thick sheen of Crisco. In addition, I failed to get a Forbes post up last week. Admitting this is me trying to shame myself into getting it done.
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I really enjoyed "Ex Machina." Very weird! Very beautiful. A gorgeous house. A transparent robot. A man who becomes unsure if he's human or droid. The mad scientist fucks with their heads. My favorite scene was a nod to that scene in that "Alien" movie when the created meets its previous manifestations. Creeepyyyy. Also: It's a lovely homage to the ruthlessness of women, manufactured or not. See it if you like minimalism, machines, and mindfucking.
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
Despite my public self-flagellation yesterday, I failed to work on the next short story I'll be selling online. As long as I continue to fail to do something as simple as opening up a .doc and moving around some words, I'll be publicly shaming myself for it.
Reasons I Didn't Work on My Short Story
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
I can't say I have much to say about "Interstellar" because, I mean, you know, who the hell understood it?, but I will say a few things generally. The robot was great. At first, I was like, what the hell? That is the stupidest, most archaic design idea for a robot I've ever seen, but then it started speaking warmly, and I realized I was in love. I also loved the fact that these robots were willing to lie down if you need them to do so, and they would run across a field of water and reconfigure themselves into a hero for you. Those are the best kind of robots. I also really loved the part about the bookshelf. For me, there was this idea embedded in it that books are the most important things in the world, and that books are how you communicate with the past, and the present, and the future, and that in the end, you can make all your fancy science projects, but it is books that will save us. I found Anne Hathaway annoying. There's just something annoying about her face. It's like she knows everyone finds her annoying, so she mirrors that annoyance back at you.
Buy THE TUMOR: "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
via Fashion Copious
Kathy Shaidle has a new book out: Confessions of a Failed Slut.
"Confessions of a Failed Slut blends personal reflections – 'How the Love Boat Ruined My Life' – with contrarian takes on porn (online and off), dating (ditto), 'slut shaming,' sex toys, 'robot hookers of the near future,' dinosaur erotica, the multiplication of genders and orientations, and what she calls 'the epidemic of beta male faggotry' plaguing the land."
[Amazon]
via pixgood
"'Chipp Champion!' the robot cried. 'So nice to meet you!' The customer service representative had advised him that it would take some time for her system to be operating at 100 percent. Until then, there would be some repetitive speech patterns, and he was to keep an eye out for her limb functionality. The customer representative had recounted in long and excruciating detail the story of another owner who had failed to comprehend his model wasn’t working at full capacity, and his robot had ended up tumbling off a cliff and falling into a ravine located at the back of his property on the second day of ownership." -- from a work in progress
(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)
On the screen, four men talked about whether or not robots have souls. The robot put another piece of popcorn in her mouth and chewed. The owner was out; she had memorized his password. One of the men referred to her as a creature. If she was human, this would've bothered her. All the men were very interested in her: how she worked, what made her gears turn, what resided deep within her. She noted their blank faces, the mechanical way they talked. One claimed his wife was a cyborg. The robot shook her head and tried not to laugh.
Time: 7 minutes
Word count: 100
From "Sexcula: Canada's First Porno" by Will Sloan:
Halfway through Sexcula—a 1974 Canadian film released on DVD, by Synapse Films, for the first time last week—a gorilla is unleashed during a sex party at the shapely Dr. Fallatingstein’s castle. Why the gorilla is there in the first place is uncertain. We know from the doctor’s lab equipment that she is a scientist, and we know from her peculiarly sexual inventions (i.e. a “Female Pleasure Robot”) that she is mad; perhaps he’s a botched experiment. Whatever his purpose, there is no doubting his libido: gorilla or no gorilla, he gets down on that gravelly floor and has sex with a stripper.
