The closest we'll get to holodecks, and what we'd really use them for anyway

I have a long standing belief that the success of any technology is directly related to how effectively it applies to pornography. For example, the Segway is great in limited, specific industrial and mobility uses, but as a game-changing universal transportation system it failed, and it's entirely because when you ride one you look like a dork and will never get laid. In contrast, the internet, cell phones, texting, Facebook, video games and so on all thrive because in addition to their stated purposes, they rapidly facilitate the delivery of sex.

As joked by many, many before me, this is why the idea of holodecks from Star Trek are so silly on the show. Not because of the technical implausibility, but because if holodecks actually existed, no one would be going to 1920's Chicago like Picard kept doing or whatever. It would just be non stop virtual fornication that would likely require Starfleet cadets to pry open the doors with crowbars (space crowbars?) to get you out of there.

So on that note, it seems clear to me that the Next Big Thing™ in electronic entertainment, the Kinect, will rise or fall depending on how effectively you can get sex out of it.

And lo and behold, the research has begun. You are missing out if you skip an article that has sentences like "To test Kinect's penis recognition, the site checks the depth reading for a 5.75 inch dildo and does a rendering of it in space."

Sometimes I try to defend the state of editorial cartoons

And then I am reminded that Bob Gorrell has a job.

Holiday observabationisms

1. Saw the pornoscanners at both Atlanta and Newark airport. It made me realize two things: one, someone is making a killing on these since they seem to be building and installing the exact same machine in every airport in the country, and two, my testicles are not ever going near it, ever. I realize that as a straight white guy with no artificial limbs or implants I'm not as prone to sensitivity about being groped as other people but from my end, go ahead and fondle my crotch all you want; I'd prefer that over cancer. To anyone who says it doesn't cause cancer, they said 9/11 rubble didn't do that either. Shut up. I'll step in a giant turkey fryer when the company first states in writing that they'll front full financial liabilty if I get sick and/or photos of my transluscent body ever leak out on the internet.

2. Speaking of the TSA and holiday travel, there was no protest last Wednesday that I saw. At all. In fact, I think there's a more dangerous story here for the airline industry: I flew home on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving--the busiest travel day of the year--and it was literally the fastest I've ever been through a checkpoint in my entire life, because there was no one at the damn airport. It's not that people don't want to deal with the TSA; they don't want to deal with air travel in general, and why would they? It's one of the few industries on the planet with a business model of charging you more and more for increasingly worse service. Keep in mind that I've gotten fast, friendly help from Microsoft and those were the guys who were the butt of bad-service jokes from 1996 on. I imagine it doesn't help that it was also the most expensive ticket I ever paid in my life to fly to freaking New Jersey.

3. Speaking of New Jersey, the residents of my home state elected a semi-functional manbaby to run it, and now they're paying for it. Good job, guys.