Flutterby™! : Things to do with $10k 2003-07-09 17:21:37.09749+00

Things to do with $10k

2003-07-09 17:21:37.09749+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Adam Curry offers $10k to be split among weblog syndicator writers who eschew the new "Echo" spec. Wow. You've gotta be really committed to a religion to want to suppress alternate views that strongly. I've got a better idea. an entry over at ErosBlog alerted me to Violet Blue's 6/10 entry where she says of the Real Doll, particularly the male version:

I would absolutely love the opportunity to violate this doll ten ways until Sunday, and see just what silicone boy was really made of. Okay, I guess that would be silicone.

But still, if it weren't for the hugenormous price tag, I'd love to roll around with both a male and female Realdoll for a weekend, even with an added real live person, and if anyone wants to sponsor me doing the deed and writing an article about this scenario (and will ship screener dolls), I'm up for the challenge.

I think we've got the perfect match.

Speaking of which, the guy who helped develop that aforementioned male version got a blue woman for his troubles (thanks to a link at the herdesires).

So, on a business oriented note, anyone know where I could see one of these things "in the silicone"? I have an application for a certain level of flexibility in the mannequin, there are a couple of solutions, but it'd be cool to share tech with these guys if they've actually come up with workable ways to get around some of the problems we've seen with silicone and skeletons.

The best thing to do to see one in the silicone, as it were, is to try to hook up with an owner, unless you want to try to trump up some press credentials and talk to the mfrs.

RealDoll seems to mostly be into selling existing product these days, and not new development (or at least no evidence of it that I can find). Most of their R&D work in recent times seems to have been concentrated on the male doll, though; maybe they'll go back and work on their underpinnings now. They have a number of known skeletal problems, notably a fragile neck.

The Superbabe people are competitors of theirs who seem to have given a certain amount of thought to skeletal work: http://www.superbabe2000.com/

There's a substantial community of what we might term "RealDoll hackers" - there are people who have taught themselves the specialized techniques to repair the dolls or rework the silicone in some "cosmetic surgery" sort of way - one gent basically runs a hospital for broken RealDolls (and apparently makes a certain amount of money for the service), another gives techniques on his site for changing the implanted eyebrows and/or hair, etc etc.

It's an odd collection - the hackers and the perverts coexist and overlap, and everyone seems pretty calm about the knowledge that different people there have entirely different ideas about what they want to do with their dolls. It's probably not worth the pain to try to keep up with the group's discussions, but the links page there is definitely worth some digging through. Also, if you wanted to hook up with a doll owner (and you can satisfy them of your bona fides - like all Yahoo groups, this has a spam problem), this is probably the place to find one.

Probably the most ambitious doll hacking I've seen is the Andy project, which is attempting to make a working female robot (they prefer android) using mechanisms fitted into a RealDoll body: http://www.andydoll.com/

I have more, including some thoughts on the differences in Japanese doll design and quite a few other links, but I think this is more than enough for here. Send email if you want another dose.

#Comment made: 2003-07-10 01:14:53.246015+00 by: Danny [edit history]