Weird but Wonderful 2

The second story that caught my eye in the Sunday Times' Weird but wonderful section concerned attempts to breed Cherry, the last remaining female blue duck in Britain, with either Ben or Jerry, the last remaining UK male blue ducks.

It seems that Ben and Jerry are much less interested in Cherry than they are in each other! According to Paul Stevens, the warden,

"They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with."

One wonders if a civil partnership is in the offing?

Sex Still Sells

Teflon Girl 2
Originally uploaded by Son of Groucho.

A while ago I discussed the history of this fine image and compared its popularity on Flickr with an image accidentally showing this young lady in the background and holidaying Wosog, Gdog and Gsog in the foreground. Surprising as it may seem, this picture appeared to be the more popular of the two. I thought regular readers of the blog would be interested to hear how the two images have fared in terms of popularity in the intervening period of more than two years.

The family picture is my 9th most popular photograph in terms of views with 890. The "lonely girl" photograph is my most popular image with 4072 views.

I wonder why that should be?

Robosexuality

I've been fascinated by robots since I had a teenage interest in science fiction. Isaac Asimov, who wrote "I, Robot" was one of my favourite authors. At the time that I was reading these science fiction books I don't think I considered it likely that many of the things the stories prophesied would come about in my lifetime. I've posted several times on this blog (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about robots, referring directly or indirectly to the amazing progress currently being made in robotics.

One of my other obsessions is the website Wordie, and it was there I first came across the term "robosexuality". There was a link to the Uncyclopedia on the subject from the Wordie page, and the whole thing was treated in a lighthearted manner. Imagine my surprise, however, to read in this article that a Dutch artificial intelligence expert is predicting humans marrying robots by 2050! "At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky" he says. I'm not sure that "geeky" would be the first adjective that would spring to most people's minds. Again according to Levy, "It may sound a little weird, but it isn't. Love and sex with robots are inevitable."

The Dutchman seems extremely sanguine about the prospect of romantic and sexual relations with these machines but I'm not so sure. He sees it as a dream come true for people who for one reason or another have difficulty forming close relationships with other humans. On a more lighthearted note, he sees it as a solution to the "randy husband-wife with headache scenario".

Postscript: For those who want to read more on this subject there is an interview with David Levy here.

A Little Education

The internet is a tremendous educational resource. I've stated previously that I though one could find information about anything on the world wide web. A picture, as they say, paints a thousand words and the ability to post easily video clips has greatly enhanced the web's educational potential. My Flickr friend Juliet, in sunny Wales, recently pointed me in direction of this video about how to avoid flashing your knickers when you get out of a car. Personally, I have not put the advice here into practice yet, but if I ever wear a kilt the clip's "relevance quotient" would probably rocket.

The site that the clip above comes from has videos on all sorts of subjects. The other day I came across it's instructional video on "how to kiss someone passionately".

I've brought the video to Wosog's attention, but so far she hasn't taken the hint...

Dangerous Liaisons?

I see that having sex before stressful events reduces the stress experienced (at least as measured by the blood pressure response). You have to have full sex though---what we doctors call penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI)---for it to work. "Do-it-yourself jobs" and other forms of furtive fumbling don't have the same effect.

We've got another Practice visit to do with our quality targets, and I've got my annual appraisal coming up in March. I wonder if Wosog can fit me in (to coin a phrase) before then?

Sex Sells

My regular reader will remember these two photographs that were used to illustrate my comments on "The Teflon Folk" (1 and 2). To avoid using image space on the Blogger server, I decided to upload the images to Flickr. The pictures were uploaded to the site consecutively, and were posted to the same Flickr Groups.

To date, the picture with the Sogs in the foreground and the Teflon Girl in the background has been viewed 78 times. The one with the Teflon Girl in the centre has been viewed 150 times. Now isn't that interesting?

As a wee experiment, I'm tempted to add the tag "nude" to the second picture to see what effect that would have. What's a tiny bikini bottom between friends?

A Solitary Pursuit?

Only in the USA, or San Francisco to be precise, would they have an annual "masturbate-a-thon" to "provide an outlet for safe sex for those who enjoy pleasuring themselves in a semi-public setting".

I know there is an enormous market for "personal development" books and media in the United States, but is this the ultimate self-help group?

Not God's Gift

George W Bush may think he's God, but an international survey shows that females don't think he's God's Gift. The poll of 11,000 women in 15 countries by that august journal Esquire asked them to rate him out of 10 with regard to sex appeal. The Self-styled Leader of the Free World failed to register much more than two!

I thought power was supposed to be an aphrodisiac?