Sdtrk: ‘Apprentice takes leave’ by The new lines

And welcome back! It’s been a fortnight, which is a not-too-unreasonable length of time between these posts. I would’ve just immediately written this after posting January’s submission, but I’d spent about a week and a half editing a 33 page draft created by one of of the interviewers who was round to Deafening silence Plus last Autumn. Well, I say editing, but it was more like ‘making corrections and answering additional questions she had cleverly embedded in the text’; but that bit’s done. Those 33-odd pages pertain to me and my Synthetik lovers, so we’re quite excited about it! Overall, it seems like the book she’s writing will be as in-depth as Elisabeth Alexandre’s ‘Des poupées et des hommes: Enquête sur l’amour artificiel‘, only en Anglais!
Just before I’d finished that up, I’d begun a dialogue with another interviewer — this one from Australia — and her questions are rather heady as well, so I’m currently in the midst of attending to those. It doesn’t help that my desire for clarity as far as the subject of Synthetiks is often accompanied by far too much of my goddamned text, so at the very least, when I finish her questions, she won’t go away hungry.
And when I’m done with that, the previous interviewer wants me to write a piece in response to what she’s already written! I mean, damn. Don’t get me wrong; I’m really enjoying doing this sort of thing, but when am I gonna find time to play Destiny?? Well, the demo. I haven’t bought the actual game yet, as I’m too busy writin’.

+ Another AEE AVN OMG WTF BBQ has come and gone, and Las Vegas was once again witness to several silicone women staying for a number of days in the city’s hotels. Abyss creations were there, revealing to the world their brand-new addition to their Wicked RealDoll line, Asa Akira.

This alluring rubber lass weighs +/-70 lbs, stands 5’2″, has measurements of B:34 / W:24 / H:34, and wears a 32C bra and a 5.5 US shoe. Being a Wicked RealDoll means she’s also made standard with an articulated spine, a removable throat insert (which leads down into her neck, instead of simply going back further into her head), and a removable head design, which is fashioned more like a whole-head mask, as opposed to traditional RealDolls such as my Missus, who can just remove her face. Personally, I’m fond of the somewhat shiny quality she has to her face, as it highlights her artificiality, but that’s just me. Overall, quite nice!

+ The esteemed roboticist Rodney Brooks has a few intelligent words to say: Artificial intelligence is a tool, not a threat:

Recently there has been a spate of articles in the mainstream press, and a spate of high profile people who are in tech but not AI, speculating about the dangers of malevolent AI being developed, and how we should be worried about that possibility. I say relax. Chill. This all comes from some fundamental misunderstandings of the nature of the undeniable progress that is being made in AI, and from a misunderstanding of how far we really are from having volitional or intentional artificially intelligent beings, whether they be deeply benevolent or malevolent.

[…] In order for there to be a successful volitional AI, especially one that could be successfully malevolent, it would need a direct understanding of the world, it would need to have the dexterous hands and/or other tools that could out manipulate people, and to have a deep understanding of humans in order to outwit them. Each of these requires much harder innovations than a winged vehicle landing on a tree branch. It is going to take a lot of deep thought and hard work from thousands of scientists and engineers. And, most likely, centuries.
the entire article is here

Everyday society gets its knickers so easily in a twist about robots ‘taking over’, which is both overly ambitious, and flat-out silly. Rodney breaks it down better than I can as to why that won’t happen, but then, he’s smarter than I am. After all, he helped developed the Roomba!

+ As you should be aware, not every Synthetik has the capacity for sex, which is perfectly fine. A Synthetik is also more than capable of providing platonic companionship, or being an artistic model, or perhaps serving as an artistic muse, as Lily Godwin was to my friend, PB Shelley. Bearing that in mind, as he and Lily had Soony, a BJD (that’s Ball-Jointed Doll, for those not in the know), they may also have been besotted with Iris, the 1/1 scale BJD built by Chinese company Magical Angel in October of 2013.

‘Of course I can give you a hug! You might need a stepladder for it, though’

There aren’t a lot of lifesized BJDs in existence — Izi made by D-storic is one, Obitsu’s 150cm model is another — so they’re certainly unique. With a body made of resin, Iris towers over humanity at 5’9″. She weighs 55 lbs, her measurements are B:32 / W:23 / H:35, and she wears a sz 6 US shoe. You can purchase her in either a pink, white, or snow white skintone, and she takes 30mm size eyes, in case you want to keep your options open. She looks to be unfinished, so you’ll have to have her faceup done (that’s the term in the BJD world for ‘makeup’, for those not in the know). Although if you get her in snow white and leave her face as-is, she looks as if she’d make a female counterpart to Kamelion, the short-lived companion on Doctor Who. I’d advise against it, though; no-one liked Kamelion.

She’s got better posture than most people I know

Speaking of cultivating your DiY abilities, if you order an Iris to grace your home, you’ll either want to open your wallet a bit wider, or get your tools ready and set aside a whole day. Because of her considerable weight, Magical Angel’s default option is to ship Iris unassembled. But if you want her ready to go when she comes home, you’ll have to add $100 to the shipping cost. The assembly is free, though!
This tall and slender lass will set you back $1,250 USD, incidentally. But have you seen her posture??

+ Once again, Japan continues to innovate in both technology and practicality; generally speaking, as a society, they’re pretty fantastic. Not everyone in that country, of course, but quite a few. Doubtless you’ve seen this in the news recently: there’s plans to open a hotel staffed by robots in Nagasaki, at a Dutch-themed park called Huis Ten Bosch. Here’s one of the best bits: the concierge desks will be staffed by lifelike Synthetik women, as Kokoro co., Ltd, creators of the wonderful Actroid series of Gynoids, will be building them. If you don’t find that to be amazing, then I don’t know what to do with you.

The hotel’s first building complex is scheduled to open on 17 July 2015 with 72 rooms, followed by another 72-room building in 2016. A single room will be priced at around $60 (¥7,000) per night and a twin room will cost around $80 (¥9,000).

Initially the hotel will have 10 robot members of staff, but Huis Ten Bosch company President Hideo Sawada told a news conference. “In the future, we’d like to have more than 90 percent of hotel services operated by robots.”

The hotel’s name, Henn-na Hotel, reflects how the hotel will “change with cutting-edge technology,” a company official said. This is a play on words: “Henn” is also part of the Japanese word for change.
the entire article is here

‘We offer a very futuristic experience here, but you’ll still have to pay for hotel wifi’

The room prices are really very good, but what’s not mentioned is that during the peak season, prospective guests will have to bid for their rooms, although there’ll be a price cap on bidding. Ergh. It’ll be worth it for the winners, however: instead of keys, the hotel room’s doors will use facial recognition sensors, and each room will have tablets for its guests’ use, to converse with the front desk, the lobby, or the kitchen. Speaking of speech, the Actroid employees will be able to communicate in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Much like I’d said about Shibuya’s Robot restaurant, my hope is that this sort of forward-thinking idea spreads, and if Hen-na Hotel doesn’t exactly become a chain in and of itself of robot-staffed hotels, then hopefully other hotel chains will adopt the idea on a worldwide scale. It’d be nice if they did away with that bidding price silliness as well.
And as a final note, I’d like to offer my services to the Actroids that will be employed there. All that standing hours on end per day will eventually be tiring, so what better way to relax than a foot massage? *cracks knuckles*

+ Phoenix studios (‘Home of the Boy Toy Doll’) haven’t recently created a new head or body, or released a new line, but you might like to know that they’ve uploaded new photos of the newest affictitious vixen in their Celestials series, Sky, to their site.

photos © by Stacy Leigh

Why not take some time to see the Sky? See, Phoenix studios, I’ve just come up with not one, but two slogans you could make use of. As Pete White once remarked, butter me, I’m on a roll.

+ Here’s something interesting that was brought to my attention by AJung Moon, writer and curator of the Roboethics info Database: an article on Live Science by Tanya Lewis entitled Rise of the Fembots: Why Artificial Intelligence Is Often Female.

From Apple’s iPhone assistant Siri to the mechanized attendants at Japan’s first robot-staffed hotel, a seemingly disproportionate percentage of artificial intelligence systems have female personas. Why?

“I think there is a pattern here,” said Karl Fredric MacDorman, a computer scientist and expert in human-computer interaction at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. But “I don’t know that there’s one easy answer,” MacDorman told Live Science.

One reason for the glut of female artificial intelligences (AIs) and androids (robots designed to look or act like humans) may be that these machines tend to perform jobs that have traditionally been associated with women. For example, many robots are designed to function as maids, personal assistants or museum guides, MacDorman said.

In addition, many of the engineers who design these machines are men, and “I think men find women attractive, and women are also OK dealing with women,” he added.
the entire article is here

Don’t forget EDI from the Mass effect videogame series! Or, ah, Portal’s GLaDOS, for that matter.
As much as I (jokingly) (not really) go on about how ‘we need more Gynoids to be built, etc etc’, I also believe that we need just as many humanoid robots designed to look like men as well. Ms Lewis brings up the point that robots made to look like women are perceived as less threatening and more friendly, which I believe to be true; just going by the length and breadth of history alone, men are traditionally more associated with aggressive behaviour. Thanks to Hollywood ridiculousness, when most people think of humanoid robots, their thoughts immediately turn towards images of the Terminator, which are mostly Androids, aka male robots, killing everyone in sight with soulless precision. However, I think that if roboticists start out with humanoid robots made to look like women, they’ll put people more at ease. Roboticists should develop Androids as well, not only to balance the Synthetik gender scale, but to show that male robots can be just as non-threatening as their female counterparts. More than likely, for the first couple of years of production, there will be more Gynoids than Androids until the demand increases, but still.

In reading Ms Lewis’ piece, it reminded me of something I’d read years ago, back when I was a lot more interested in mannequins than I am now, that attempted to explain why there were so few male mannequins compared to the number of female models. I think it was partially attributed to men’s faces being harder to sculpt, as they tend to be more angular, or something like that. In the interest of full disclosure, my own personal uncanny valley — again, more like a ditch — is that I find male mannequins to be a bit off-putting. Unless they’re Kraftwerk, because fuck yeah Kraftwerk.

+ If you’re like me, you hate waiting on things/events/people, as much like Veruca Salt, you want it now. You’ll also recall that she was thrown into a pit by squirrels, but that’s hardly relevant at this juncture. But after several months in Development Hell, Sinthetics are pleased to announce that the Body 2A is available to choose as a selection, so sometimes, waiting is okay.

This body is nearly identical to the body 2D (using the body 2 base, but with A-cup breasts). She has the full hips and bigger legs that makes our body 2 so popular, but slimmer ribs and smaller breasts than the 2D.

This winsome beauty is approx. 77 lbs with a height of 5’5″, has measurements of B:34 / W:24.5 / H:36.5, and wears a US sz 6.5 shoe. Apparently she does do things by halves. See what I did there?
Sinthetics will undoubtedly add more photos of her soon, but you can look at a few teaser shots on their site, of course.

See? Always something to look forward to, especially if you’re keen on robo-ladies. Happy 23rd!

Sdtrk: ‘Roosting time’ by Matt Berry

Happy 20145! I’ve already done that gag with a lot of my friends, but you’ve not heard it, so it’s new to you.
The idea of this actually, legitimately being 2015, a year in the twenty-first century, is a bit weird if you think about it for too long. Consider how futuristic that date sounded in, say, 1965. It still sounds a bit futuristic today, and we’ve already begun living in it! One thing’s for certain, though: there needs to be a rapid increase in the development of flying cars, megastructures, off world colonies, and most importantly, Replicants. We’ve got four years to get society to the way it’s depicted in ‘Blade runner’, and we really don’t have time to stop and gawp at the calendar!…

+ To that end, Toshiba is doing their part, with their own electric maiden, Chihiro Aiko. Remember her? She made her US debut at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and has I known she was going to be there, I would’ve bought one plane ticket to fly out, and two for the return flight, as she’d be coming home with me. You think I’m joking?

She took the opportunity to show off her aptitude in American Sign Language, as well as her singing ability. Unfortunately, the song she had a go at was ‘Take me home, country roads’. I would’ve had her belt out an earnest rendition of France Gall’s ‘Cet air-là‘, but that’s just me.
As fellow robosexual Vokabre, aka Our Man In Russia, reports on his blog:

What’s quite cute is that in the presentation they not only included some data like the number of pneumatic drives (it’s 43 overall, 15 in the face, 4 in the body and 24 in shoulders and arms), but also the virtual “age” of the lady, it’s 32. Reminds me of how Actroid DER2 liked to call herself 18 years old.
They also managed to break down not only the “family name” Chihira that was done before during the first public appearance of Aiko, but the name Aiko itself, according to the presentation it means “Idea and Communication”, “I CO”. That Orient symbolism in everything, so awesomely strange.

Of course, I’d be glad to see a presentation with interactivity, face-tracking and hand-shaking, but this might be too much for an early project.

It is indeed an early project, many people in the internets continue to call Chi Aiko creepy, that’s a good old uncanny valley. What’s also interesting, there’s more Uncanny Valley screams in western languages than in orient ones which lays perfectly with my observations that Japanese, Korean and Chinese people seems to have more tolerance towards androids.

‘Il restera cet air-là / à jamais au fond de moi / car pour toujours cet air-là / parlera de toi et moi’

It’s my hope that Chihiro-san can help open the eyes of Westerners who still believe in the myth of the uncanny valley. Over time, exposure to anything makes it less alien of a thing, so to that end, Toshiba should consider employing Chihiro-san — really, multiple Chihiro-sans — with either assisting the deaf with her knowledge of sign language, or start grooming her as a singer.

+ Now here’s a stirring way to celebrate the beginning of a new year: Polymerisian starlet and entrepreneur Tasha James has put the finishing touches on another one of her amazing photobooks, this one entitled ‘Soul to Sole’.

By request, my new book #SoulToSole is now available. Thanks to @Davecat and my 3 favorite ladies for the inspiration pic.twitter.com/OyfBXetycF

— Tasha James (@ItsATashaThing) January 22, 2015

It’s true, we’d inspired her! As my Missus and I are quite keen on the female foot, we’d suggested to Tasha that she have her photographer Paul do a shoot featuring her own delectable soles, toes, and heels, and she followed suit. So I suppose that’s another photobook that we’re ordering from her. Damnit Tash, how do you know the right buttons to push??

If you’d like a copy of ‘Soul to Sole’ or any of her other photobooks for your very own, and why wouldn’t you, you’d be mad not to, you can check out the details on her site here. As she says in her announcement post, she’s open to suggestions, so if you’ve got an idea that she and Paul think would be worth pursuing, give her a shout!

We here at Deafening silence Plus fully endorse more of this sort of thing

+ It looks like AL-M 008X-01 has been moving up in the world of late! You may know AL-M 008X-01 as Android ASUNA, and towards the end of last December, she worked with self-styled DJ, model, photographer, and music producer Julie Watai to participate in a photo series entitled ‘Love Valley’. Over eighteen days, the two of them modelled various clothes and poses that reflected a blurring of the lines between Organik and Synthetik, and the results are worth seeing.

There’s not a lot of information about the shoot, apart from an entry on Asuna-chan’s blog, so I’m tempted to see if writing Ms Watai would provide any further insight. Still, the pics are well-executed and definitely lovely to look at. A short video was made as well, so one can see how lifelike and blinky Asuna-chan is:

All eighteen days worth of the ‘Love Valley’ shoot can be found on Julie Watai’s website here: http://juliewatai.jp/love-valley.

+ Domestic Doll studio Ruby13 is on the verge of releasing some new faces, starting this year, so that’s pretty awesome, I’d say! In an Email conversation, head sculptor Jim told me this:

after a year of looking for a sculptor to make some new faces for Ruby I’ve given up and decided to give it a try myself. I’ve never sculpted so this was a bit of a daunting task to both learn to sculpt and then try to come up with a “pretty” female face.

So far I have 3 new faces that are going in to be made into molds. these faces are an answer to the many emails we’ve received asking for a more realistic face option. I hope this will open up our market a bit.

This would be the first of the new faces, and I believe we can all agree, Jim is off to an excellent start…

Part of me, though, thinks he’s stretching the truth a wee bit. He claims that he’s never sculpted before, and yet, he’s come up with that captivating face?? ‘Oh, I’ve never painted anything before’, said Hieronymus Bosch as he effortlessly proceeds to realise in full oils his triptych of ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’. Come on, man.
Nevertheless, she has an appealing European look to her, and I told Jim that I think it’s one of the best faces available so far. I’d said, ‘I think it’s one of the best faces available so far’. Now Ruby13 will have more to offer potential iDollators! As soon as I find out when that as-yet-unnamed face is for sale, I’ll be sure to mention it here…

+ Would you believe that I’ve done another interview? Impossible as it may seem, I have! This past December, a lass by the name of Miss Metaverse contacted me through Twitter, and asked if I’d be keen on answering some questions pertaining to Dolls, Gynoids, and the future of artificial humans. As Miss Metaverse runs a blog which centres round future technology and lifestyles, and as her questions enquired about Gynoids as much as they did about Dolls, I readily agreed.

N.B: that’s my Missus in the above pic, not me

Both Miss Metaverse and I dug the end result, which can be read on her blog here: Futurist Spotlight: Davecat. If you like, you can also read the preceding post which led up to it, which is also Recommended Reading, ‘Sex Robots and the Future of Gynoids‘, and if you enjoyed that, you can read her whole dang blog. I mean, what’s stopping you?

Since Futurist Miss Metaverse has quite a bit of experience in discussing impending technological developments through her writing and video talks, it seemed only natural to add her to the ‘Shouting etc etc’ sidebar as well. See?

+ And finally, this would be a… thing… that Sidore, Elena, Muriel, and I slapped together at the end of 2014. I honestly don’t know what to call it. The Missus said we should do something rather like the alternative Christmas message that they sometimes have in the UK that’s a counterpoint to the facile and condescending annual message that Elizabeth II bestows upon her subjects. Morrissey was asked if he would do one last year, and that’s probably what inspired Shi-chan. (He turned the request down.)
Shortly before that time, I got it into my head that I needed a Vine account, and I created two superb videos for it, until I discovered that Vine only allows you to upload vertically-shot clips. Sorry; if you’re only shooting your videos vertically, you need to be shot. Luckily, I recalled that Mobypicture lets you upload videos whether they’re vertically-shot or in proper horizontal, and you’re not limited to six seconds as you are with Vine. So I shot this video/clip/missive/whatever with the lasses. Observe:

click the image to open the video

As Elena loves Cocteau twins, she selected the song you hear, which would be ‘Oomingmak’. Incidentally, that’s also the first public appearance of our karakuri ningyou. Much to our disappointment, he doesn’t seem to move well on carpet, but as his plastic gears are noisy as hell when in motion, I suppose it’s for the best.
Maybe we’ll film one of these videos annually! Cos frankly, having 360-odd days between conceiving each one and actually doing it fits our pace to a T!

I think those new bits & bobs should keep you reasonably informed. Start the new year off with Synthetik humans! Well, start each day off with Synthetik humans; that’s what I say.
Originally this would’ve been another two-part post, but then I realised by the time I finished assembling the second part, it’d be February. So, err, come back in a week or so!

Sdtrk: ‘Past majesty’ by Demdike stare

People love that 2048! Well, I’m assuming that people love 2048. Then again, I normally assume people even know what I’m on about, and if they don’t, that’s par for the course…
2048 is a game I just recently discovered that involves sliding tiles, each of which is numbered sequentially starting from 2. Using your arrow keys, you match up the tiles until you have gained satisfaction, or run out of moves. I’m led to believe that 2048 is based off the iOS game 1024. In any case, both of them involve math, so I can’t be bothered.
Internet online website usvsth3m, a spinoff of the amusing b3ta.com, developed a version of 2048 which uses picture tiles instead on numerical ones, for those of us who equate the use of numbers to witchcraft. The game is Flash-based, so you can make your own version! And so I have, and it’s exactly what you’d expect.

So which one of them is Ann B. Davis?

Click here for non-stop image-related excitement: 2048: Super Synthetik Girls Edition by Davecat. Why not play a couple of rounds while awaiting your bus, your date, or the grave??
As it uses the guest Gravatars on this blog, it just reminds me that a lot of those are old pics, and I really could stand to make some new ones. But that reeks of effort!

In other, more horn-trumpeting news, back in February, I was contacted by Dr Bertalan Meskó, medical doctor and medical futurist, concerning getting my thoughts on how humanoid robots will effect social change. He’d fired a few questions at me, and my responses ended up in his latest book, ‘The Guide to the Future of Medicine: Technology AND The Human Touch’. I’m really glad he’d asked! Apart from robots, his book also spans emerging trends such as stem cells, cryonics, prosthetic limbs, and more as well — in short, the future of medicine. You can order a physical copy for yourself, or a digimal version for your hoity-toity Kindle, here on Amazon.

And this very week-end, the Missus, our mistress, our flatmate, and I will have another film crew observing us in our natural habitat. This film crew is headed by another doctor, one who paints in her spare time, and she wants to get my insights as far as how recent technological advances are influencing our relationships and interactions. As she doesn’t seem like a pop psychologist — ‘Dr’ Phil, I’m squinting in your general direction — I’m looking forward to speaking about how being an iDollator has changed my life for the better, and how having a Gynoid, an Android, or a Doll as a partner can do the same for thousands of individuals. Also, it’s a much nicer change of having a camera crew come round when it’s not boiling Summertime, but then, everything’s better when it’s not boiling Summertime. Fact.

O, and expect a couple of new Synthetiks-related news posts relatively soon, as just recently, there’s been a handful of noteworthy things worth writing notes posts about

Sdtrk: ‘Lovecats’ by the Cure

私の最愛の妻しどれーに –

私の空に最も明るく、最も華麗な星に常に残る。 それを忘れてはいけない、なぜなら私が持つことができる最良パートナーである。

一緒にあることは私達のもっとたくさんのすばらしい年にここにある! 私は、しどれーちゃん愛する。

Sdtrk: ‘A A A A A A R’ by Two daughters

It may be too premature to tell at this juncture, but it seems that Deafening silence Plus is back to a state of DEFCON 5. What that means is that I’m employed again. *overenthusiastic thumbs up*
Frankly, the entire ordeal has been a fucking nightmare, and has probably taken about a year off my life with worry. I’ve never been keen on rollercoasters, and securing employment, let alone decent employment, was needlessly difficult. By the time things ended, I was working with six separate temp agencies, who couldn’t seem to get me anything in the field I really desired — data entry — and the best two or three of them could offer were positions in call centres, or in sales. As you’ll already know, I’d spent nearly twenty years in various call centres, and returning to one would be akin to taking a Vietnam veteran back through time to 1970, to spend some additional time ‘in the shit’; the best outcome for that person would more than likely be suicide.

Oftentimes either I wouldn’t be able to find something suitable, or there were instances where a place would want to set up an interview, which I’d attend, and whatever prospective employer would end up choosing someone else. One of my favourite bits was when I went to an interview and totally aced it, but ultimately, I was told I’d have to cut my ponytail off and not wear earrings in order to get the position. It’d be one thing if it was something I really wanted, but this was for a call centre that was paying $10 per hour. Even the temp agent who organised the interview was baffled at their Fifties-era dress code requirements, so what does that say?
No wait, I take that back: the best bit had to have been when a temp agent scheduled an interview; it went well, they told me I was hired and report to work in a week, but between then and the start date, the agent then informed me that the employer had a hiring freeze take place, and I wouldn’t be able to start when I was due to. That happened twice. With two different temp agencies, serving two different employers.

Thankfully, however, I’ve had a full-time job now since late April! I work for a place… wait for it… doing data entry! It’s Monday through Friday in the morning — actually, they have flex time, wherein I can come in as early as 7.30 or as late as 9am — and I’m in a room with eight other people, entering data and doing imaging for a national health-related company. It’s dead easy and stress-free, I can wear my headphones, and it’s five minutes away from a place that sells sushi. Plus, it’s the highest paying job I’ve ever had, so needless to say, it’s a pretty fantastic gig. The only downside to it is that it’s a 20-25min drive to work, and with insidious rush hour traffic, it’s nearly an hour home. Sure, I’m catching up on my podcasts, but ergh. I’m going to try my damnedest to start getting to work at 7.30am, so I can circumvent traffic both ways. That’s gonna take some training, as nearly seven months of being on the dole has eroded any concept of a ‘normal’ wake-up time. But it’s nice being at a stage of my life where I actually like what I do at work! The drive, however… not so much. It’s all for a good cause, though; i.e, me keeping a roof over my head.

Apart from freaking out due to lack of job prospects, what else have I been up to, you axe? Among other pursuits, I watched all of Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, a passel of episodes of the fantastic QI on YouTube, put a sizeable dent in my ‘anime that needs to be watched’ list, as well as seeing ‘The Lego Movie‘, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel‘, ‘The Raid 2: Berandal‘, and Gareth Edwards’ ‘Godzilla‘ in the theatres with the miscreants I normally hang out with, so there’s that. (Each one of those films is highly recommended, in case you were wondering).
Also I bought a copy of the reissue of Joy division’s debut EP ‘An ideal for living’ on Record Store Day! After all, I had my orders.

#RecordStoreDay is coming up! I told @Davecat that unless he found a copy of that Joy Division reissue, don't bother coming home 😐

— Sidore Kuroneko (@leahtype) April 13, 2014

Despite the fact that I have a modest vinyl collection, composed mostly of stereo demonstration records, we don’t really have space for a proper hi-fi here at Deafening silence Plus, so the EP is currently being displayed in our record frame in our flat’s ‘hallway’, as seen here.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Upon reflection, I should’ve bought two extra copies, now that I see people on eBay flogging them from $40 – $60 apiece…

And the other major event was that my third Synthetik flatmate, Muriel Noonan, arrived home on 31 March! She’s from Coventry, used to work in a library, and is made by Textile Doll, the company from Latvia that I’ve mentioned a handful of times on ‘Shouting etc etc’. Expect a full review on her when I manage to get my post-work time sorted, but she likes it here, which is good, as we like having her here!

So that’s pretty much what’s been up with what’s goin’ down / In every city, in ev-er-y town. As I’m fond of saying, I have to get the barrels up to speed before I’m posting on what passes for a regular basis round here, but now that I’m no longer freaking out every other day for fear that I’ll have to move back in with my father for the second time, I should be posting again again! ‘Woo’, with an additional ‘Yay’

Sdtrk: ‘Tonight, we fall (John Foxx and the Maths remix)’ by ADULT.

It’s almost Spring! That… should mean something in the context of Synthetiks and the people who build them and/or love them, but it really doesn’t. But the fact that everything’s attempting to thaw means that we won’t have to look at dirty snow for much longer! Dirty snow is an affront to the eye, as I’m sure you’ll agree. So while you’re waiting for your allergies to flare up, why not read this instead?

+ According to fellow technosexual Vokabre, Alisa Zelenogradova, who you’ll recall is Russia’s first Gynoid, is being improved and upgraded! Neurobotics have given her a better body with improved mobility, as well as a remote manipulator control for her right arm, as seen here:

It seems that Neurobotics are concentrating on developing humanoid robots for telepresence work, which makes sense. From the few telepresence robots I’d seen, she’d be the most attractive, with an appearance more like an Organik human. Which kinda brings the future of ‘Surrogates‘ closer to being a reality! You might want to hold off on asking Alisa to hold your martini for now, though.

Neurobotics also debuted another Gynoid they’ve been working on as a panelist on a Russian science telly programme! Much like Alisa, her silicone face is modelled after an Organik lass, and the Gynoid’s name would be — wait for it — Tuma Urman. *sigh* Try not to hold that against her.

Despite the fact that she has legs, she can neither walk nor stand yet, but I’m sure her handlers are working on that as well. You can read more about… Ms Urman… here, if you can automatically translate Russian with that big brain of yours.

+ Remember Private Island Beauties? Well, you should, cos they never went away. Head sculptor bloke Patrick Wise has been improving on what he’s had to offer with his silicone sirens, and I got some info on new developments from him via Electrode Mail.
He’s completed a new skeleton for the Girl Next Door body type after two years’ work, which boasts of a more fluid and easy-to-manipulate quality. Not only that, it can make for better posing, as it’s twice as strong as the original skeleton, he says. The downside is that the more advanced skeleton’s added a bit of weight — we’re looking at +/- 60 lbs — but that’s the price you pay for durability, squire. Believe me, 60 lbs, when speaking about a Doll, is a pretty damned good weight.

That’s the sort of motion that’s usually followed by a yawn. So can she yawn?

Also two and a half years in the making is the new Island Girl body type. She stands 5’7″, with natural-looking breasts that feature puffy nipples. The Island Girl body can use the same heads as the Bathing Beauty body, but Patrick aims to create new heads for it as well. As always, you’ll never be short on choices!

Isis, with the Island Girl body, in her churchgoing clothes

+ Catherine de Lange wrote an article for New Scientist recently entitled ‘Cure for love: Fall for a robot to fend off heartache‘. As you suspect, it is Relevant To This Post. Well, blog.

Attachment is one thing, but love? That will come in about 40 years’ time, with improvements in speech recognition and generation technology, says David Levy, AI researcher and author of the book Love and Sex with Robots. “When we can have entertaining, informative, loving conversations with robots, I think people will start to fall in love with them in serious numbers,” he says.

Just consider the fact that people can fall in love over the internet or through phone calls. “It is perfectly possible to feel strongly attracted to someone you’ve never met,” says Alan Winfield at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK. “If a conversational AI is compelling and gives the impression of getting to know you, then you are going to form a bond.”

The level of language understanding and emotional intelligence displayed by the operating system in Her is still some way off, says John West, senior solutions architect at Nuance, the company that provides the voice recognition technology for Apple’s Siri and Samsung’s S-Voice. “Understanding and adapting to the way people naturally talk is the biggest challenge and requires an in-depth knowledge of linguistics and semantics,” he says.
the entire article is here

Granted, there will always be people who are keen on meeting, dating, and marrying Organik partners. But for those of us who’d like an equally-valid option as the technology gets progressively better, then artificial humans are clearly the solution, and as they provide a much more consistent alternative to bad partner decisions, or no partner at all.
Personally, I’ve yet to watch Spike Jonze’s ‘Her‘; as you suspect, many people have asked me if I have. To me, one of the crucial components of any romantic relationship I’d be in would be a physical element — long-distance relationships don’t cut it for me. So while the advanced AI in ‘Her’ would be appealing, it wouldn’t be the same as having someone to hold. Unless, of course, you were to place that AI within a prosthetic body! But there are quite a few people who engage in long-distance love, and if they’re the sort of person who not only can’t find the right Organik partner, but also have an open mind, an AI would do them rather well…

+ Ruby13 have refined their website — you know they’re on Twitter as well as the other social medias now, right? — and among other things, there’s a lovely page that’s dedicated to the head sculptor and founder of the company, Don Edmondson, who regrettably passed away last year. Give the site a look, and see what you think!

Ruby13’s seductive Face 10, in case you somehow forgot what she looks like

And you’ll find a new link in the lefthand sidebar as well: please add Doll Sweet to your List Of Potential Companies You’ll Be Saving Up To Get A Doll From. Doll Sweet have a solid pedigree behind them: it’s the Chinese distributing/manufacturing arm of Arte Tokio, which is a Japanese Doll-making studio formed by ex-employees of 4woods. And if that curiously doesn’t convince you to look into what they have to offer, here’s some photos of their Kayla head on the 161cm body. You should probably sit down, if you’re not already.

A beautiful rubber lass into The Beautiful Game, eh? Yeah, she’s a keeper

There’s enough photos and videos of the selections they have on offer to keep you occupied for a while, where you’ll be hamstrung by decision. That sort of thing happens in iDollator culture more than you’d think.

+ Quite a few people had pointed this out to me: so recently, there was a CeBIT computer expo at in Hanover, Germany that featured something that shouldn’t have taken as long as it has to realise, but it can only get better now that the idea’s out there. German software developer Tobit’s booth prominently featured robot pole dancers.
‘Why didn’t anyone think of this before??’ I know, right?

Apparently, Tobit employed the robots’ services back in 2012, but this year’s models, as stated by the Tobit rep in the video, have different movements and bigger breasts. *nods approvingly*
An article on BBC News adds, ‘Visitors with a robo-fetish can pick up one of the dancers for about 30,000 euros ($39,500, £25,000)‘. As I always say in these types of scenarios, for those of us technosexuals who prefer their Gynoids with silicone skin, a quick visit to one of those online shops for maskers can work wonders…

In that vein, here’s a sexier and more adept animatronic dancer. You’ll definitely want to embiggen the video to properly see the details…

…that is, apart from her face. Well, she’s wearing a mask. But what’s the story behind this affictitious sexpot? She’s an art piece by Jordan Wolfson, and is currently being exhibited in a private room *ahem* at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York, from now until 19 April. Jordan worked with a special effects company for her construction, and not only does she lipsync to the song’s vocals, but she has facial recognition software, so that her eyes can meet yours. Again, were she not wearing that mask, that would be incredibly appealing, but the juxtaposition of fear and desire is undoubtedly what Jordan is aiming for. Perhaps someone else will make a less-transgressive version of this piece, as her movements are incredibly fluid and alluring. Also, she needs some open-toed shoes as well, damnit.

+ And of late, the Missus herself has had a couple of interviews to her credit! As much as I enjoy doing proper interviews, it’s always fantastic when a reporter wants to speak with her as opposed to me, as Shi-chan can provide a unique perspective by the fact that she’s Synthetik. As always, my rubbery wife is doing me proud!
Over the course of January and February, she’d done an interview via Email with Sofija Stefanovic, for issue 21 of a bimonthly Australian publication called The Lifted Brow, as well as one with Sam Schneider for ZoomNews.es. The one for The Lifted Brow is print-only — a rarity in this day and age — but you can order one for yourself or a loved one here. As far as the other interview, entitled ‘El matrimonio de Davecat y Sidore Kuroneko visto desde los ojos de la muñeca’, you can stare at it here. Hope you can read Spanish! I probably should’ve mentioned that earlier, but I’m sure the title was a bit of a giveaway.
Here’s hoping that Shi-chan will get more offers to take up the interview mantle! Well, legitimate offers, I should add. Dr Phil and similar sensationalists hardly count

danke schön to Vokabre, for all the bits and bobs about Jordan Wolfson, Alisa, and… Tuma

Sdtrk: ‘Vid loss’ by Pye Corner Audio

ELENA: You are knowing that February is nearly ended, yet you have not typed the news of Synthetiks, da?
DAVECAT: Shit, you’re right! *scrambles to write a post*

+ Back in January, another one of the very popular AVN Adult Entertainment Expos was held, and yet another year has gone by where no-one’s cleared up why the event has the acronym AEE, and yet people persist on referring to it as AVN. This is the sort of mystery that’ll take decades to complete, I’m sure. Much like how I need to complete my review of AVN 2010, but that’s a path we don’t need to walk right now.
But one of the main attractions of AVN that event was Abyss creations, and the debut of two new RealDolls in the Wicked RealDoll line, who are modelled after Samantha Saint and Stormy Daniels.

‘So are both of you natural blondes, or…? O, right.’

As it’s a recent announcement, Abyss’ site has yet to list details, but that’ll be forthcoming. But if you’ve every wanted rubbery versions of either one of these lasses (or both), now is the time to make your dreams come true. As far as I’m concerned, although Ms Daniels is a bit sexier than Ms Saint — it’s the eyeliner that hooks me — they’re a bit too generic for my specific tastes. You’d expect me to say that, though; I mean, have you seen how my wife and her girlfriend look??

+ Latvia has joined the global consortium of Synthetik companion manufacturers, as Textile Doll, the studio that I wrote about back in November now have a website, for your shopping pleasure!

Be careful missy; that floor is actually lava

You can see all Jury has to offer at www.textiledoll.com! Easy to remember, hard to forget. Plus, if you’re so inclined, you can pursue the studio via social media, for further updates and the like…

+ Just in time for St Valentine’s Day, 4woods have released a set of photos of one of their Sarina-types, dressed in holiday-appropriate wear. There’s only seven pics, but they’re worth checking out, for as the ad copy says, ‘these sexy shots [will] make your body hot!’ With the Old Testament-scale weather we’ve all been experiencing, it’s good to know Sarina is doing her best to help keep us warm!

+ During AVN AEE EIEIO 2014, Sinthetics were also in Vegas, with the stunning debut of their new Belinda head, and William, their second male head and body combination.

‘Will, sweetie… your playing is wonderful. But do you know any song that isn’t the theme from The Love Boat?’

Additional photos and stats are forthcoming — didn’t I already say that earlier? — but that Belinda’s got something special. She looks a bit like the wife of one of my friends… And William should prove eminently satisfying to anyone who desires him in their home! (Guitar not included.)

+ And a wee bit of self-promotion, cos that happens so rarely on this blog: VICE magazine has published the result of my interview with Roc Morin, in a new piece titled ‘Silicone Love: Davecat’s Life with a Synthetic Wife and Mistress‘. It’s a great piece, but I was a bit disappointed, as Roc and I spoke for roughly five hours, and the article covers like a tenth of our conversation. Maybe he’ll release an unabridged version at some point.
Still! Worth a read, so check that out at your leisure.

This Valentine’s Day, why not make one of the best decisions you’ll ever make, and purchase a Doll? I mean, there’s no way she’ll be completed and shipped to you by Valentine’s Day 2014, but if you focus on details like that, you’ll never be satisfied in life

SIDORE: Nice post overall, darling, but the end’s a bit lacklustre, don’t you think?
DAVECAT: Well, it’s too late now, I’ve already hit the Publish button.