15 ms·

Hi! Buttplug Project Lead here! AMA!

by qdot76367 6y ago

andybak 6y ago
Ummm. Where do I begin...
dajohnson89 6y ago
Do you see a lot of potential in this space? Any insight into the unit sales, usage stats, etc?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  It's really difficult to say? There's lots of media articles right now about teledildonics being the future and super popular during COVID, but I'd say the real winner here is video conference still. Teledildonics has a LONG way to go in terms of UI/UX before it'll really catch on, and I would never go as far as claiming it's a replacement for physical intimacy, much as VR isn't a replacement for actually being somewhere. Rather, it's an augmentation of it, and a way to allow us to be or feel things that may not even be possible (for better or worse).
dgrin91 6y ago
There have been numerous stories in the past of IoT sex toys basically being thrown together by people with no tech knowledge and leaving the passwords as defaults, etc. Makes hacking/stealing the data trivial and obviously problematic for the product and users. What does project do to ensure security?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  For Buttplug specifically, it's just a hardware control library. While there are ways to use network-as-ipc for the system (mostly to establish control from browsers that don't support hardware access internally), it's not recommended as a basis for a service without some modifications. Buttplug is a core technology of my startup, alongside the user facing Intiface brand (https://intiface.com https://intiface.com). I'll be working on more network focused services there in the near future, where I'll be addressing more security focused questions. If you're curious about some of the beginning directions of that, I posted a full Teledildonics 101 workshop last month on my youtube channel, that goes over systems design thinking for remote intimacy, including some touchpoints on security. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZBOOe-bdwNAjm018ql9KDzu5SEV_XwX https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZBOOe-bdwNAjm018ql9...
  - qdot76367 6y ago
    Oh, and for more security resources, see this comment up-thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095167
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
DonHopkins 6y ago
Emacs or VI?
- aasasd 6y ago
  There's this link in another comment: https://github.com/qdot/deldo https://github.com/qdot/deldo
- qdot76367 6y ago
  Hi Don. :)
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    Hi Kyle: I did know the answer but I just had to ask! ;) Come drop in on the epic Emacs -vs- VI battle going on in the Bill Joy thread. VI can't hold a candle to Emacs when it comes to teledildonics. You testimony might be able to convince a few lost souls to cross over. Emacs is ALWAYS in insert mode. The way you insightfully psychoanalyzed the personalities of programmers of different languages in your deldo demo suggests to me that you might enjoy W Watson's "The Pervert's Guide to Programming Languages": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22910702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22910702 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/vulk-blog/ThePervertsGuidetoComputerProgramming-ThePaper.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/vulk-blog/ThePervertsGuid...
    - frob 6y ago
      > Emacs is ALWAYS in insert mode. You, sir, have won the internet today.
- sideshowb 6y ago
  I'm guessing not pico or nano
dpongimo 6y ago
Any leads on a lightweight C++ client for bp's protocols? I'm thinking about creating a plugin for Skyrim/Fallout 4.
- aasasd 6y ago
  > Skyrim/Fallout 4 Not the titles I'd expect in the context of electrosex. (I'm oldschool so something in the vein of Leisure Suit Larry or Lula the porn studio management simulator would seem quite proper for me.)
  - HoveringOrb 6y ago
    It makes sense if you follow the modding scene surrounding those games.
    - qdot76367 6y ago
      The Skyrim lewd modding scene is W I L D.
- qdot76367 6y ago
  We'll be doing FFI to C ABI calls from our rust library very soon, which should make this doable. I've talked to LoversLab project people before about Skyrim, but nothing much has come of it. Rumble rerouting support for Fallout 4 works with the GHR I think? https://intiface.com/ghr https://intiface.com/ghr
DonHopkins 6y ago
Does the project need an adorable mascot? https://www3.citizenm.com/news/europe/rotterdam/the-rotterdam-butt-plug-gnome-explained https://www3.citizenm.com/news/europe/rotterdam/the-rotterda...
- qdot76367 6y ago
  I HAVE VISITED THIS! I did a sex tech workshop like, 3 blocks away from it, and Paul McCarthy is a major influence on my work! :D
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    Oh great, now I feel like the enthusiastic programmer who wanted to tell Peter Norvig how awesome the Clojure language is. ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23036893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23036893 https://medium.com/@peternorvig/ive-consed-every-pair-54ef5d9d93b6 https://medium.com/@peternorvig/ive-consed-every-pair-54ef5d...
  - egypturnash 6y ago
    ...if you would like a bespoke adorable mascot for this project, I do a lot of smutty art in Illustrator and would be interested. http://egypt.urnash.com http://egypt.urnash.com has art and contact info. I would gladly take money but this might be a thing I'd think of doing pro bon(er|o) as well.
    - qdot76367 6y ago
      EGYPT! Extremely long time no see! (We've met before at FC and other south bay stuff but it was well over a decade ago, have some common links from Puzzlebox, etc) Astolpho has been doing most of my art (like the squid buttplug on the buttplug.io page, and the Buttplug sommlier foxes on my patreon - http://patreon.com/qdot http://patreon.com/qdot), but I'll try to contact you once I'm looking for more art, which I'm hoping will be soon, once I can get out of the code mines and back to applications work.
      - 6y ago
Endlessly 6y ago
Is there a public roadmap for the project? What aspects of the project currently have the most traction? Are there any plans to remove any existing parts of the project?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  There have been a few (tried Trello and ZenHub), and they've all turned into a mess, so I recently hit the reset button again and am just trying a github project now: https://github.com/orgs/buttplugio/projects/1 https://github.com/orgs/buttplugio/projects/1 tl;dr - Right now I'm trying to standardize our logic on Rust (I'm also the ex-device interfaces lead on firefox at Mozilla, so I love some rust :) ), then extend back out to other languages and platforms through FFI to the Rust base. The Rust work has also ended up creating other libraries, including: - systray, a library for building simple systray apps with rust: https://github.com/qdot/systray-rs https://github.com/qdot/systray-rs - btleplug, a cross-platform host side Bluetooth LE library in Rust, mostly via copypasta but hoping to unify soon: https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug In the end, Buttplug is just a hardware abstraction layer, think of it like the USB HID or Bluetooth Profile model, except outside of the protocol specification space. I'd like to abstract the back end a bit more and allow other projects to use it, so you could have, say, a library that abstracts health device protocols or something.
  - mst 6y ago
    Any chance of pavlok support? It doesn't exactly vibrate but ... (and if the answer is "patches welcome" I can always make another attempt to convince my rpi to talk to the bloody thing myself)
    - qdot76367 6y ago
      Yup, I've got a Pavlok 2, and there's multiple libraries on github for supporting it already. Feel free to hmu in the email I'm about to put in my bio if you'd like to talk more about this offline. I get a TON of requests about estim support, it's just difficult to figure out how ethics/liability works around all of that.
Thomas_Lord 6y ago
How can tech employers use this technology to optimize workplaces for comfort and productivity? Also, can teledildonics be applied to improve online shopping experiences and social media? I am thinking that buttplug scripts could be the new emojis or css dazzle. Lastly, there seems to be some asymmetry in the development of these technologies: Passive reception of dildonic signals is emphasized, active transmission of signals that originate as muscle contractions (and such) gets the short shrift. Is this simply a reflection of the generally submissive tendencies of tech workers or is there a larger force at work here?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  On those first two, we use Tampermonkey as a research platform for A/B testing integration with stock web interfaces. https://github.com/buttplugio/buttplug-tampermonkey https://github.com/buttplugio/buttplug-tampermonkey On the tracking of muscle contractions, I'd recommend checking out the Nogasm project, an open source orgasm denial system that uses air pressure changes to track pelvic floor contractions, which are indicative of arousal levels. These could be tracked against, say, bug rates in code to monitor affective states in developers. https://github.com/nogasm/nogasm https://github.com/nogasm/nogasm
  - ge96 6y ago
    > air pressure changes Hmm queue Ripley/Alien -- well "micro-changes in air density"
  - salawat 6y ago
    Woah, woah, woah. Hold up, full stop. >Passive reception of dildonic signals is emphasized, active transmission of signals that originate as muscle contractions (and such) gets the short shrift. Just want to make sure I understand what you're asking here; because it sounds to me like you're asking something along the lines of "Hey, the vibrating device is neat, but I'd actually like a device that can directly stimulate movement of the device wearer's muscle groups on reception of a remote signal. Can you do that?" ...because if that is what you're asking, the very idea horrified me at the prospect of the new forms of abuse that technology would enable. And I don't mean "abuse" in a good connotation either. I'm not saying that anyone here would intend to go that far, but that's the first spit take I've had in response to something I read in a while. Ranks right up there with Neuralink in terms of cans of worms I do not wish to see opened by the unscrupulous. >Is this simply a reflection of the generally submissive tendencies of tech workers or is there a larger force at work here? That's an odd lens to look at the tech industry through... What exactly about the art of crafting, building, manipulating, and operating some of the most complex, sprawling in their capacity to influence people's lives/behaviors, and difficult to understand machines on the planet strikes you as submissive? Just because there may be a tendency toward expending energy in a direction someone else is willing to pay for doesn't make the academic exercise an overall act of submission. For that matter, look at how difficult it is to reign in the profession ethically. You have an entire industry worth of movers and doers who collectively have made possible some of the most outstanding advances in the field that is the application of computing machinery, while at the same time completely eviscerating some of the most basic and fundamental principles that have hitherto been nigh unchallenged in the history of the classical western democracy/republic. To program is not to submit; to program is to inflict one's wills and desires on others in the shape of the end product. Assumption of existing mores and the outcome of thoroughly deliberated, collective decisions in regards to the means and ends of any non-trivial project is a necessary thing to enable coordination. Is there some study correlating being a programmer with submissiveness, or is this one of those "introverts are all subs" stereotypes? Tendencies toward conflict aversion or social reservation do not accurately correlate to to submissive/dominant preferences by a long shot from what I've heard/experienced. Then again, maybe you have a point, and you're referring to another facet of the industry I've never really meshed that well with. I just wish more people understood and looked at the Art the way I do... I don't think I'm very special or out there in the grand scheme of things. I've heard so much "Well, that's just the way it has to be" encouraged and even cultivated in the trenches it makes me sick. Sometimes to the point that I can even entertain there is an adverse selection pressure employment/career-wiseforthe self-direct(ed|ing) professional programmer. There is more disincentive to the practice of the adversarial duties of the engineer in the context of software I cannot help but be shocked it's taken as long as it has for a counterculture against Tech to form. >These could be tracked against, say, bug rates in code to monitor affective states in developers. Um... No. I think that is one set of data points better left uncollected/analyzed if only for the safety of laborers in all walks of life. Why are we so enthusiastic about making data like this exploitable? This reminds me of a project someone was working on at an NFJS a few years ago where They were collecting as much information as possible about the meta-state of the programmer at work. All through the presentation I couldn't help shaking the feeling that if managers ever caught wind of it, and decided to integrate it into their performance eval techniques, life as a working programmer would rapidly degenerate. I apologize if I'm coming off as a complete buzzkill. It isn't like I've not been stimulated by the attraction and appeal of similar contemplation before mind. A lot of fun could be had between two consenting adults. I just hope we spare some time to consider what other uses could come from what we enable. To sum up, I leave you with a cautionary snippet of wisdom it's taken me a while to come to appreciate: "There is no greater downer, than the Supreme Square empowered by the Totally Rad;" [and the odds of this happening approach unity as social acceptance, Radness, and time approach infinity].
Thomas_Lord 6y ago
I have one more line of questions. I have, um, observed that "cam" sex workers use teledildonics as a kind of "proof of life". The idea is that paying customers send signals to a sex toy in use by the performer, whose reaction reassures the customer that he is paying for a live show. It affords a way of (apparently) "doing stuff" to the performer in spite of the virtualized nature of the show. Two part question: 1. A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here. Is there any current research in the direction of possible authentication methods to prevent such fakery? 2. What are we to make of the way this form of remote dominance (simulated or real) has been commodified and put in service of capital accumulation? Are not the paying customers even engaging in a form of self-domination, helping to reproduce their roles as wage slaves, by participating in this system of production?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  1. This is a topic that actually, seriously comes up often on cam model forums, and verification of authenticity is, to me, something that is just completely fucked in terms of even being an idea. Do these same customers get angry when they find out the movie they just paid to see was fiction? 2. Are you familiar with findom? Cause that's like, just straight up what findom is. Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish.
  - Thomas_Lord 6y ago
    > Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish. Chapter 1 in a nutshell, so to speak. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm...
  - andrepd 6y ago
    Not to be confused with Commodity Fetishism? :p
    - Thomas_Lord 6y ago
      How is this not an example of commodity fetishism?
jafingi 6y ago
How does your CI work?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  We're currently using Azure Pipelines, but trying to move down to Github Actions as we don't really need the whole Azure ecosystem quite yet. As for the hardware part, well, let's just say I can never, ever, ever have a zoom meeting where anyone can see my desk.
pacamara619 6y ago
Is there a list of supported devices I might have missed in my extensive 10 second search?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  There's a few lists around the front page of our website, but the most comprehensive is: https://iostindex.com/?filter0ButtplugSupport=3 https://iostindex.com/?filter0ButtplugSupport=3
throwaway56936 6y ago
Python support seems to be really lacking on your project. Why is that, lack of interest?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  There's lots of interest in support for many languages. It's more that the codebase is 99% one developer (me), and there was a ton of fragmentation early on that I'm still working to clean up, that both makes it hard to implement new systems as well as hard for others to contribute. We're getting there. I'm hoping to stop cranking out code and actually write the developers guide soon, which I think will help immensely.
nautilus12 6y ago
I always imagined using a technology like this would feel really contrived. Like the number of dimensions of expression, or sensation you can impose on another person using it are so limited that it would almost feel kind of silly. The only thing you can really impact in a meaningful way seems to be timing. But good sexual experiences require so much more, pressure variation, directionality to name a few things. Can you comment?
- qdot76367 6y ago
  Taken at pure sensory value, yup, you're completely correct. These are an extremely lossy compression of physical intimacy. It's like watching a 4k movie compressed to like 4 pixels of monochrome color. However, you really have to look at the surrounding situation and mental state of the user to get why any of this matters. When you've got enough endorphins flowing, the slightly augmentation to sensory input can have a multiplicative effect. Since the brain regulates whatever your reality is, it's our job to fuck with that (in good ways) more than it is to make some completely mechanically/physically correct 1:1 recreation of sex with another person. Let's say you're stuck with audio/video chat for intimate relations. But you've added some touch via teledildonics! Sure, it's crappy touch, but someone you want actually touching you but for some reason can't can now at least control that touch! The media loves to spin sex tech as "this will replace sex in the future" a la Demolition Man or whatever, but that is both the wrong goal and complete bullshit. The fun part of all of this for me is building machines and interfaces to do what people and their genitals can't, and providing technology to build those interfaces/machines to see what other people come up with when freed from the tyranny (allow me my melodrama here) of human form. This also allows us to build new forms of intimacy, possibly very, very silly forms. As an example: I work with cam models a lot, trying to build interfaces that aren't quite as a objectifying as the usual cam room. One time, I worked with a model and her fan club to hook up Rocket League (yes, the cars in hats playing soccer rocket league) to a sex toy, so any time the controller vibrated, her sex toy vibrated. There's video of how this works (and the software I used to do it and the github repo) here: https://intiface.com/ghr https://intiface.com/ghr Now, this probably sounds like some weird as hell sex. Cam model is on camera, nude, using a toy, playing 3 v 3 rocket league with up to 5 cam room customers. However, this means that the normal rules of rocket league get bent. Players were no longer interested in goals, but rather, in how to cause the model's controller (and therefore toy) to vibrate. This might mean crashing into cars (Hi JG Ballard fans!), trying to get goals when the model was close to a goal to make big explosions, etc... It ended up in all of these continuously shifting team/social structures as people would join/leave, figure out new things, etc... Everyone ended up playing for hours, everyone had a really good time, and it was interactive for both the model and the customers. So, basically, you've gotta look at these as new forms of sex, not replacements for what we've got. They may not even be good forms of sex, but hey, if everyone's consenting, no one gets hurts, and even maybe it turns out to be a buggy horrible mess, it's fun to try, right?
dang 6y ago
I thought you might like to see this email that an earnest user sent us this evening. I got permission to share it anonymously: So qdot handled this thread beautifully today. I don’t know who this person is but they managed to simply handle all questions, openly and without being rude. They spun gold from snark, they gave the childish a mature reply, and this post’s comments were a joy to read for how worthwhile they were. I assume that the mods had some hand in this as well, because the chances of this ending this way without someone helping to ensure that seems near-zero to me. It’s not that I lack faith in HN, it’s just that human beings reliably go off course on this topic. And today, they didn’t. Thanks for your efforts, whatever they were, and my hat is off to qdot for their stellar participation here today. Since we didn't do anything, I'm signing our portion of this praise over to you. Bravo!
- qdot76367 6y ago
  I... wow. Many thanks to whoever sent that complement, as well as dang for pointing it out to me. It's been a pleasure to be in this thread, lots of interesting questions and honestly unexpected (but certainly welcome!) positivity. I'm printing this out and hanging it on my wall.

Hi! Buttplug Project Lead here! AMA!

andybak 6y ago

Ummm. Where do I begin...

dajohnson89 6y ago

Do you see a lot of potential in this space? Any insight into the unit sales, usage stats, etc?

qdot76367 6y ago
It's really difficult to say? There's lots of media articles right now about teledildonics being the future and super popular during COVID, but I'd say the real winner here is video conference still. Teledildonics has a LONG way to go in terms of UI/UX before it'll really catch on, and I would never go as far as claiming it's a replacement for physical intimacy, much as VR isn't a replacement for actually being somewhere. Rather, it's an augmentation of it, and a way to allow us to be or feel things that may not even be possible (for better or worse).

dgrin91 6y ago

There have been numerous stories in the past of IoT sex toys basically being thrown together by people with no tech knowledge and leaving the passwords as defaults, etc. Makes hacking/stealing the data trivial and obviously problematic for the product and users. What does project do to ensure security?

qdot76367 6y ago
For Buttplug specifically, it's just a hardware control library. While there are ways to use network-as-ipc for the system (mostly to establish control from browsers that don't support hardware access internally), it's not recommended as a basis for a service without some modifications. Buttplug is a core technology of my startup, alongside the user facing Intiface brand (https://intiface.com https://intiface.com). I'll be working on more network focused services there in the near future, where I'll be addressing more security focused questions. If you're curious about some of the beginning directions of that, I posted a full Teledildonics 101 workshop last month on my youtube channel, that goes over systems design thinking for remote intimacy, including some touchpoints on security. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZBOOe-bdwNAjm018ql9KDzu5SEV_XwX https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZBOOe-bdwNAjm018ql9...
- qdot76367 6y ago
  Oh, and for more security resources, see this comment up-thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095167
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

DonHopkins 6y ago

Emacs or VI?

aasasd 6y ago
There's this link in another comment: https://github.com/qdot/deldo https://github.com/qdot/deldo
qdot76367 6y ago
Hi Don. :)
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Hi Kyle: I did know the answer but I just had to ask! ;) Come drop in on the epic Emacs -vs- VI battle going on in the Bill Joy thread. VI can't hold a candle to Emacs when it comes to teledildonics. You testimony might be able to convince a few lost souls to cross over. Emacs is ALWAYS in insert mode. The way you insightfully psychoanalyzed the personalities of programmers of different languages in your deldo demo suggests to me that you might enjoy W Watson's "The Pervert's Guide to Programming Languages": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22910702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22910702 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyvIHYn2zk https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/vulk-blog/ThePervertsGuidetoComputerProgramming-ThePaper.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/vulk-blog/ThePervertsGuid...
  - frob 6y ago
    > Emacs is ALWAYS in insert mode. You, sir, have won the internet today.
sideshowb 6y ago
I'm guessing not pico or nano

dpongimo 6y ago

Any leads on a lightweight C++ client for bp's protocols? I'm thinking about creating a plugin for Skyrim/Fallout 4.

aasasd 6y ago
> Skyrim/Fallout 4 Not the titles I'd expect in the context of electrosex. (I'm oldschool so something in the vein of Leisure Suit Larry or Lula the porn studio management simulator would seem quite proper for me.)
- HoveringOrb 6y ago
  It makes sense if you follow the modding scene surrounding those games.
  - qdot76367 6y ago
    The Skyrim lewd modding scene is W I L D.
qdot76367 6y ago
We'll be doing FFI to C ABI calls from our rust library very soon, which should make this doable. I've talked to LoversLab project people before about Skyrim, but nothing much has come of it. Rumble rerouting support for Fallout 4 works with the GHR I think? https://intiface.com/ghr https://intiface.com/ghr

DonHopkins 6y ago

Does the project need an adorable mascot? https://www3.citizenm.com/news/europe/rotterdam/the-rotterdam-butt-plug-gnome-explained https://www3.citizenm.com/news/europe/rotterdam/the-rotterda...

qdot76367 6y ago
I HAVE VISITED THIS! I did a sex tech workshop like, 3 blocks away from it, and Paul McCarthy is a major influence on my work! :D
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Oh great, now I feel like the enthusiastic programmer who wanted to tell Peter Norvig how awesome the Clojure language is. ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23036893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23036893 https://medium.com/@peternorvig/ive-consed-every-pair-54ef5d9d93b6 https://medium.com/@peternorvig/ive-consed-every-pair-54ef5d...
- egypturnash 6y ago
  ...if you would like a bespoke adorable mascot for this project, I do a lot of smutty art in Illustrator and would be interested. http://egypt.urnash.com http://egypt.urnash.com has art and contact info. I would gladly take money but this might be a thing I'd think of doing pro bon(er|o) as well.
  - qdot76367 6y ago
    EGYPT! Extremely long time no see! (We've met before at FC and other south bay stuff but it was well over a decade ago, have some common links from Puzzlebox, etc) Astolpho has been doing most of my art (like the squid buttplug on the buttplug.io page, and the Buttplug sommlier foxes on my patreon - http://patreon.com/qdot http://patreon.com/qdot), but I'll try to contact you once I'm looking for more art, which I'm hoping will be soon, once I can get out of the code mines and back to applications work.
    - 6y ago

Endlessly 6y ago

Is there a public roadmap for the project? What aspects of the project currently have the most traction? Are there any plans to remove any existing parts of the project?

qdot76367 6y ago
There have been a few (tried Trello and ZenHub), and they've all turned into a mess, so I recently hit the reset button again and am just trying a github project now: https://github.com/orgs/buttplugio/projects/1 https://github.com/orgs/buttplugio/projects/1 tl;dr - Right now I'm trying to standardize our logic on Rust (I'm also the ex-device interfaces lead on firefox at Mozilla, so I love some rust :) ), then extend back out to other languages and platforms through FFI to the Rust base. The Rust work has also ended up creating other libraries, including: - systray, a library for building simple systray apps with rust: https://github.com/qdot/systray-rs https://github.com/qdot/systray-rs - btleplug, a cross-platform host side Bluetooth LE library in Rust, mostly via copypasta but hoping to unify soon: https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug In the end, Buttplug is just a hardware abstraction layer, think of it like the USB HID or Bluetooth Profile model, except outside of the protocol specification space. I'd like to abstract the back end a bit more and allow other projects to use it, so you could have, say, a library that abstracts health device protocols or something.
- mst 6y ago
  Any chance of pavlok support? It doesn't exactly vibrate but ... (and if the answer is "patches welcome" I can always make another attempt to convince my rpi to talk to the bloody thing myself)
  - qdot76367 6y ago
    Yup, I've got a Pavlok 2, and there's multiple libraries on github for supporting it already. Feel free to hmu in the email I'm about to put in my bio if you'd like to talk more about this offline. I get a TON of requests about estim support, it's just difficult to figure out how ethics/liability works around all of that.

Thomas_Lord 6y ago

How can tech employers use this technology to optimize workplaces for comfort and productivity? Also, can teledildonics be applied to improve online shopping experiences and social media? I am thinking that buttplug scripts could be the new emojis or css dazzle. Lastly, there seems to be some asymmetry in the development of these technologies: Passive reception of dildonic signals is emphasized, active transmission of signals that originate as muscle contractions (and such) gets the short shrift. Is this simply a reflection of the generally submissive tendencies of tech workers or is there a larger force at work here?

qdot76367 6y ago
On those first two, we use Tampermonkey as a research platform for A/B testing integration with stock web interfaces. https://github.com/buttplugio/buttplug-tampermonkey https://github.com/buttplugio/buttplug-tampermonkey On the tracking of muscle contractions, I'd recommend checking out the Nogasm project, an open source orgasm denial system that uses air pressure changes to track pelvic floor contractions, which are indicative of arousal levels. These could be tracked against, say, bug rates in code to monitor affective states in developers. https://github.com/nogasm/nogasm https://github.com/nogasm/nogasm
- ge96 6y ago
  > air pressure changes Hmm queue Ripley/Alien -- well "micro-changes in air density"
- salawat 6y ago
  Woah, woah, woah. Hold up, full stop. >Passive reception of dildonic signals is emphasized, active transmission of signals that originate as muscle contractions (and such) gets the short shrift. Just want to make sure I understand what you're asking here; because it sounds to me like you're asking something along the lines of "Hey, the vibrating device is neat, but I'd actually like a device that can directly stimulate movement of the device wearer's muscle groups on reception of a remote signal. Can you do that?" ...because if that is what you're asking, the very idea horrified me at the prospect of the new forms of abuse that technology would enable. And I don't mean "abuse" in a good connotation either. I'm not saying that anyone here would intend to go that far, but that's the first spit take I've had in response to something I read in a while. Ranks right up there with Neuralink in terms of cans of worms I do not wish to see opened by the unscrupulous. >Is this simply a reflection of the generally submissive tendencies of tech workers or is there a larger force at work here? That's an odd lens to look at the tech industry through... What exactly about the art of crafting, building, manipulating, and operating some of the most complex, sprawling in their capacity to influence people's lives/behaviors, and difficult to understand machines on the planet strikes you as submissive? Just because there may be a tendency toward expending energy in a direction someone else is willing to pay for doesn't make the academic exercise an overall act of submission. For that matter, look at how difficult it is to reign in the profession ethically. You have an entire industry worth of movers and doers who collectively have made possible some of the most outstanding advances in the field that is the application of computing machinery, while at the same time completely eviscerating some of the most basic and fundamental principles that have hitherto been nigh unchallenged in the history of the classical western democracy/republic. To program is not to submit; to program is to inflict one's wills and desires on others in the shape of the end product. Assumption of existing mores and the outcome of thoroughly deliberated, collective decisions in regards to the means and ends of any non-trivial project is a necessary thing to enable coordination. Is there some study correlating being a programmer with submissiveness, or is this one of those "introverts are all subs" stereotypes? Tendencies toward conflict aversion or social reservation do not accurately correlate to to submissive/dominant preferences by a long shot from what I've heard/experienced. Then again, maybe you have a point, and you're referring to another facet of the industry I've never really meshed that well with. I just wish more people understood and looked at the Art the way I do... I don't think I'm very special or out there in the grand scheme of things. I've heard so much "Well, that's just the way it has to be" encouraged and even cultivated in the trenches it makes me sick. Sometimes to the point that I can even entertain there is an adverse selection pressure employment/career-wiseforthe self-direct(ed|ing) professional programmer. There is more disincentive to the practice of the adversarial duties of the engineer in the context of software I cannot help but be shocked it's taken as long as it has for a counterculture against Tech to form. >These could be tracked against, say, bug rates in code to monitor affective states in developers. Um... No. I think that is one set of data points better left uncollected/analyzed if only for the safety of laborers in all walks of life. Why are we so enthusiastic about making data like this exploitable? This reminds me of a project someone was working on at an NFJS a few years ago where They were collecting as much information as possible about the meta-state of the programmer at work. All through the presentation I couldn't help shaking the feeling that if managers ever caught wind of it, and decided to integrate it into their performance eval techniques, life as a working programmer would rapidly degenerate. I apologize if I'm coming off as a complete buzzkill. It isn't like I've not been stimulated by the attraction and appeal of similar contemplation before mind. A lot of fun could be had between two consenting adults. I just hope we spare some time to consider what other uses could come from what we enable. To sum up, I leave you with a cautionary snippet of wisdom it's taken me a while to come to appreciate: "There is no greater downer, than the Supreme Square empowered by the Totally Rad;" [and the odds of this happening approach unity as social acceptance, Radness, and time approach infinity].

Thomas_Lord 6y ago

I have one more line of questions. I have, um, observed that "cam" sex workers use teledildonics as a kind of "proof of life". The idea is that paying customers send signals to a sex toy in use by the performer, whose reaction reassures the customer that he is paying for a live show. It affords a way of (apparently) "doing stuff" to the performer in spite of the virtualized nature of the show. Two part question: 1. A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here. Is there any current research in the direction of possible authentication methods to prevent such fakery? 2. What are we to make of the way this form of remote dominance (simulated or real) has been commodified and put in service of capital accumulation? Are not the paying customers even engaging in a form of self-domination, helping to reproduce their roles as wage slaves, by participating in this system of production?

qdot76367 6y ago
1. This is a topic that actually, seriously comes up often on cam model forums, and verification of authenticity is, to me, something that is just completely fucked in terms of even being an idea. Do these same customers get angry when they find out the movie they just paid to see was fiction? 2. Are you familiar with findom? Cause that's like, just straight up what findom is. Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish.
- Thomas_Lord 6y ago
  > Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish. Chapter 1 in a nutshell, so to speak. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm...
- andrepd 6y ago
  Not to be confused with Commodity Fetishism? :p
  - Thomas_Lord 6y ago
    How is this not an example of commodity fetishism?

jafingi 6y ago

How does your CI work?

qdot76367 6y ago
We're currently using Azure Pipelines, but trying to move down to Github Actions as we don't really need the whole Azure ecosystem quite yet. As for the hardware part, well, let's just say I can never, ever, ever have a zoom meeting where anyone can see my desk.

pacamara619 6y ago

Is there a list of supported devices I might have missed in my extensive 10 second search?

qdot76367 6y ago
There's a few lists around the front page of our website, but the most comprehensive is: https://iostindex.com/?filter0ButtplugSupport=3 https://iostindex.com/?filter0ButtplugSupport=3

throwaway56936 6y ago

Python support seems to be really lacking on your project. Why is that, lack of interest?

qdot76367 6y ago
There's lots of interest in support for many languages. It's more that the codebase is 99% one developer (me), and there was a ton of fragmentation early on that I'm still working to clean up, that both makes it hard to implement new systems as well as hard for others to contribute. We're getting there. I'm hoping to stop cranking out code and actually write the developers guide soon, which I think will help immensely.

nautilus12 6y ago

I always imagined using a technology like this would feel really contrived. Like the number of dimensions of expression, or sensation you can impose on another person using it are so limited that it would almost feel kind of silly. The only thing you can really impact in a meaningful way seems to be timing. But good sexual experiences require so much more, pressure variation, directionality to name a few things. Can you comment?

qdot76367 6y ago
Taken at pure sensory value, yup, you're completely correct. These are an extremely lossy compression of physical intimacy. It's like watching a 4k movie compressed to like 4 pixels of monochrome color. However, you really have to look at the surrounding situation and mental state of the user to get why any of this matters. When you've got enough endorphins flowing, the slightly augmentation to sensory input can have a multiplicative effect. Since the brain regulates whatever your reality is, it's our job to fuck with that (in good ways) more than it is to make some completely mechanically/physically correct 1:1 recreation of sex with another person. Let's say you're stuck with audio/video chat for intimate relations. But you've added some touch via teledildonics! Sure, it's crappy touch, but someone you want actually touching you but for some reason can't can now at least control that touch! The media loves to spin sex tech as "this will replace sex in the future" a la Demolition Man or whatever, but that is both the wrong goal and complete bullshit. The fun part of all of this for me is building machines and interfaces to do what people and their genitals can't, and providing technology to build those interfaces/machines to see what other people come up with when freed from the tyranny (allow me my melodrama here) of human form. This also allows us to build new forms of intimacy, possibly very, very silly forms. As an example: I work with cam models a lot, trying to build interfaces that aren't quite as a objectifying as the usual cam room. One time, I worked with a model and her fan club to hook up Rocket League (yes, the cars in hats playing soccer rocket league) to a sex toy, so any time the controller vibrated, her sex toy vibrated. There's video of how this works (and the software I used to do it and the github repo) here: https://intiface.com/ghr https://intiface.com/ghr Now, this probably sounds like some weird as hell sex. Cam model is on camera, nude, using a toy, playing 3 v 3 rocket league with up to 5 cam room customers. However, this means that the normal rules of rocket league get bent. Players were no longer interested in goals, but rather, in how to cause the model's controller (and therefore toy) to vibrate. This might mean crashing into cars (Hi JG Ballard fans!), trying to get goals when the model was close to a goal to make big explosions, etc... It ended up in all of these continuously shifting team/social structures as people would join/leave, figure out new things, etc... Everyone ended up playing for hours, everyone had a really good time, and it was interactive for both the model and the customers. So, basically, you've gotta look at these as new forms of sex, not replacements for what we've got. They may not even be good forms of sex, but hey, if everyone's consenting, no one gets hurts, and even maybe it turns out to be a buggy horrible mess, it's fun to try, right?

dang 6y ago

I thought you might like to see this email that an earnest user sent us this evening. I got permission to share it anonymously: So qdot handled this thread beautifully today. I don’t know who this person is but they managed to simply handle all questions, openly and without being rude. They spun gold from snark, they gave the childish a mature reply, and this post’s comments were a joy to read for how worthwhile they were. I assume that the mods had some hand in this as well, because the chances of this ending this way without someone helping to ensure that seems near-zero to me. It’s not that I lack faith in HN, it’s just that human beings reliably go off course on this topic. And today, they didn’t. Thanks for your efforts, whatever they were, and my hat is off to qdot for their stellar participation here today. Since we didn't do anything, I'm signing our portion of this praise over to you. Bravo!

qdot76367 6y ago
I... wow. Many thanks to whoever sent that complement, as well as dang for pointing it out to me. It's been a pleasure to be in this thread, lots of interesting questions and honestly unexpected (but certainly welcome!) positivity. I'm printing this out and hanging it on my wall.