[HN Gopher] Empathy for the user having sex with your software
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Empathy for the user having sex with your software
        
       Author : Kye
       Score  : 471 points
       Date   : 2024-07-20 23:27 UTC (23 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (docs.buttplug.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (docs.buttplug.io)
        
       | jelder wrote:
       | This guy takes butt plugs more seriously than ClowdStrike does
       | CI/CD.
        
         | balls187 wrote:
         | You've never shipped a bug?
        
           | saagarjha wrote:
           | That's what testing is for.
        
           | firecall wrote:
           | Not one that's bluescreened millions of Butts around the
           | world! ;-)
        
             | pcthrowaway wrote:
             | It's not a bug when an update to buttplug.io destroys
             | backends around the world, it's a feature.
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | On Friday, directly to 100% of prod, explicitly bypassing
           | staged rollout? Not that I recall...
        
           | zappb wrote:
           | Not one that literally fucks my users up the ass!
        
           | arrowsmith wrote:
           | Describing the Crowdstrike incident as "shipping a bug" is a
           | bit like saying that Gavrilo Princip "started a fight".
        
           | riiii wrote:
           | It's has to be the understatement of the century to call what
           | CrowdStrike did "shipping a bug."
        
           | surfingdino wrote:
           | Not up somebody's butt.
        
         | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
         | Sounds like he takes a lot of them, too
        
       | fooker wrote:
       | "Having a CoC in place guides moderation of situations where
       | interests may conflict.
       | 
       | As for which CoC to use (if looking for a prewritten one), you
       | can check out ours as an example."
       | 
       | Haha, not sure if intentional.
        
         | advael wrote:
         | I'm at least moderately sure it is
        
         | Kye wrote:
         | I would be surprised if he wasn't giggling the whole time he
         | wrote this.
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | I will just say this:
           | 
           | :3
        
             | stavros wrote:
             | OGC
        
         | jahabrewer wrote:
         | Please let this be from a GT ~grad~ escapee
        
       | fitsumbelay wrote:
       | would love to know more about the author's time as artist-in-
       | residence at Autodesk. Blog looks promising.
        
         | qdot76367 wrote:
         | My residency presentation is luckily still online, and even
         | transcribed if you don't wanna watch the video!
         | 
         | http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/words-sounds-pier-9/
        
       | hooverd wrote:
       | Is something like the Nogasm/Edge o Matic using this technology
       | for evil? ;) Food for thought.
        
         | Ancapistani wrote:
         | From their homepage:
         | 
         | > Used by manufacturers like Maus-Tec for the Edge-o-Matic
         | Orgasm Denial System
        
         | qdot76367 wrote:
         | Hah I've worked with the creators of both of those platforms.
         | 
         | Funny enough, using those sensors to relay information to
         | things like events on avatars in VR virtual worlds has had some
         | interesting results!
        
           | rachofsunshine wrote:
           | I'm sure you've seen substantial growth from working on hard
           | problems, identifying key tentpoles, finding an opening, and
           | moving fast to ensure user satisfaction via quick syncs and
           | fluid processes.
           | 
           | In all seriousness, good on you. It's nice to see tech being
           | used for unambiguous let-humans-have-more-fun purposes. (I
           | look forward to eating my words in five years when you pivot
           | to enterprise SaaS for growth purposes and Cisco is offering
           | you as an employee benefit.)
        
             | apantel wrote:
             | Well, at least the users will be getting fucked.
        
       | kortex wrote:
       | I was expecting lulz but this was actually very well written and
       | gets into a lot of the softer aspects of human-computer
       | interaction.
       | 
       | Also the double entendre of "plug" in technology contexts, subtly
       | brilliant.
        
       | qdot76367 wrote:
       | Oh hey it's been a while.
       | 
       | Hi, I'm qdot, founder of buttplug.io and author of Butts Are
       | Difficult, the ethics page in the buttplug.io docs.
       | 
       | I also wrote the rest of the buttplug.io docs but this is the
       | part that I'm proudest of, both because I was really happy how it
       | turned out and also because unlike the parts of the docs
       | involving the API, this one doesn't go out of date as quickly.
       | 
       | Ask me anything!
        
         | egypturnash wrote:
         | Which toy did you enjoy the process of testing and supporting
         | the most? And the least?
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | Best: Funny enough, it's for a (set of) device(s) that
           | constantly causes me issues, the OSR-2/SR-6/SSR-1.
           | 
           | Here's a background video I did on the hardware:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFcrNk33_io
           | 
           | It's DIY, 3d-printed hardware that's incredibly extensible,
           | and has a decently designed abstract communication protocol
           | that I've ended up pointing other DIY creators at. Keeping up
           | with everything the hardware can do while also trying to make
           | it work with our generalized commands is a challenge, but
           | it's a good challenge, because we don't see a ton of
           | innovation from the large commercial manufacturers.
           | 
           | Least enjoy: We support over 500 devices now, so this is just
           | a whole classes of devices at this point heh. There's a lot
           | of hardware we support that's just not very good to begin
           | with, and users can't tell whether it's our library or the
           | hardware hardware that sucks. Then there's the hardware that
           | makes very... odd decisions about how to do things. For
           | instance, there was a brand known as MuSE or Lovespouse
           | that's been popular for the past couple of years. Instead of
           | creating a bluetooth connection to the device, the device
           | acts as a host and listens for advertisements w/ specialized
           | data in order to set vibrator power. Not only is this easily
           | hackable (there was a bunch of articles about someone doing
           | exactly that with a flipper zero last year), it's damn near
           | impossible for us to implement cross platform support for, as
           | advertisement creation in BLE is wildly different across
           | platforms, and doesn't even exist on iOS (the company
           | themselves only shipped on android, where buttplug works on
           | win/mac/linux/android/iOS). On top of that, the Lovespouse
           | devices were _extremely_ cheap ($10-30US sometimes), so we
           | had users buying them _then_ asking if we supported them, and
           | all we could say was  "nope".
        
             | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
             | I used to work in the Group Fitness (gym electronics) space
             | and this is exactly how some BLE heart rate monitors get
             | around the problems with otherwise requiring the host to
             | connect to 20+ devices to capture their data. Put heart
             | rate into the Manufacturer-Specific region of the
             | advertising packet and boom, no one needs a connection.
             | 
             | Problem is that it's non-standard, so every device packages
             | the data a different way.
        
               | qdot76367 wrote:
               | Oh lord do I have some stories there. Way back in the
               | nascent Quantified Self days, I ran http://openyou.org,
               | which was basically "Buttplug for consumer health
               | devices" (I mean I guess Buttplug is Buttplug for a
               | specific type of consumer health device but, well, you
               | get the idea).
               | 
               | There's a god damned heart rate profile standard in the
               | bluetooth spec AND YET I'm not sure I ever actually
               | worked on a device that used it. :|
        
         | giancarlostoro wrote:
         | I have heard that your project has one of the fastest bluetooth
         | libraries in the industry, its so good DOD devs have tried to
         | have the namespaces renamed or something to that effect.
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | Yeah I wrote and manage our Bluetooth le library! It's been
           | one of the bigger regrets of my life, but it had to happen
           | and at least it works and I don't have to touch it much now.
           | :)
           | 
           | Here's how that came together:
           | https://nonpolynomial.com/2023/10/30/how-to-beg-borrow-
           | steal...
        
             | kragen wrote:
             | i'd think it would be fine to touch it if you wash it with
             | soap and water first and maybe a few swipes with an
             | antibacterial wipe?
        
               | qdot76367 wrote:
               | Bluetooth is bad at a spiritual level
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | your kink is ok
        
               | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
               | I was telling my gf this yesterday as my car refused to
               | pair with her phone (she had to unpaid it so that it
               | wouldn't try to connect when we were driving both our
               | cars nearby) which I guess is a necessary step of
               | connecting (I am not sure I've ever successfully
               | connected two Bluetooth things without pairing them)
               | before the traffic light turned green and the car locked
               | up the Bluetooth UI, so that the driver couldn't operate
               | it, which meant that both the driver and the passenger
               | spent loads of extra time fucking with it until giving up
               | and playing the song directly from her phone's internal
               | speaker
               | 
               | I have never ever seen Bluetooth work as intended
        
               | byteknight wrote:
               | You are either speaking hyperbolicly or lying. Bluetooth
               | is very stable these days.
        
               | nox101 wrote:
               | You must live in some alternate reality. Bluetooth is
               | hardly stable for me.
        
               | wantoncl wrote:
               | > You are either speaking hyperbolicly or lying.
               | Bluetooth is very stable these days.
               | 
               | Bluetooth as a network protocol, that might be stable.
               | Bluetooth interactivity is not stable or even usable in
               | many cases.
               | 
               | It's not just in cars and other non-computer interfaces,
               | good luck trying to pair a non-Apple device with an Apple
               | device. If you say "it works on my computer", congrats,
               | you're the only one. And also speaking hyperbolically.
        
               | snozolli wrote:
               | The Bluetooth experience varies _wildly_. The Bluetooth
               | stack is pretty enormous and complicated these days, so
               | there 's a lot of space for software and hardware vendors
               | to screw things up.
               | 
               | Apple-to-Apple seems to be dead reliable from everything
               | I've heard. Samsung-to-Samsung seems almost as good.
               | Apple or Android to random, Chinese car stereo might be a
               | connectivity nightmare. Connecting to an OEM stereo with
               | whatever implementation was poorly specified by the car
               | company might also be a nightmare.
        
               | themadturk wrote:
               | Yeah, my iPhone 13 hasn't worked reliably with the
               | Bluetooth in my 2009 Prius for a year or longer. The
               | Prius software is just too old, I think, and I'm not sure
               | there's a way to upgrade.
        
               | josuepeq wrote:
               | The problem with most automakers (good example, General
               | Motors) and their electronics divisions (i.e ACDelco) is
               | their centuries of experience with getting sued, so
               | everything innovative gets reworked to satisfy the
               | demands of the legal department, specifically as far as
               | cars sold in the United States is concerned.
        
               | johnnyanmac wrote:
               | Sadly, the most prevailing standards are rarely the best
               | ones. But we're stuck with it until corporations decide
               | to throw money at the successor.
        
             | sampullman wrote:
             | That's funny, I had to write a dual mode host library for
             | an embedded project a while back, and feel exactly the same
             | way.
        
             | arrowsmith wrote:
             | What do you regret?
        
               | qdot76367 wrote:
               | I don't really have a ton of interest in maintaining a
               | ble library, it's just required for my main library.
               | Theres a lot of weirdness around Bluetooth
               | implementations between platforms and now I'm on the hook
               | to either support them or tell users nope. I'd rather be
               | doing neither and just be the user or someone else's nice
               | cross platform Bluetooth rust library. (Luckily we do
               | have some fantastic contributors)
        
             | dr_kiszonka wrote:
             | I have no interest in BPs but your post is very
             | informative, and your writing is insightful and funny. I
             | wish I wrote that well!
             | 
             | Are you aware of any uses of your software in other
             | domains, e.g., health?
        
           | thih9 wrote:
           | > its so good DOD devs have tried to have the namespaces
           | renamed or something to that effect.
           | 
           | Hilarious and impressive; I'd love to hear more, do you have
           | more details, context or source?
        
             | qdot76367 wrote:
             | Source was me, from some friends that were trying to use
             | the library and the name was causing issues with contracts.
             | Btleplug was named the way it is because I am horrible, and
             | the name alone has caused it to have to be wrapped or just
             | not used at least a few times.
             | 
             | Which hey, less support for me.
        
               | JohannesH wrote:
               | Hilarious! That's a fantastic name and an and an awesome
               | side effect.
        
               | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
               | This vindicates my latest project where I named the
               | components after anime characters
               | 
               | Otherwise I couldn't keep track of them, see..
        
         | fnordlord wrote:
         | Cool to see someone quoting Cex 20+ years later. I listened to
         | his stuff a ton back in the day and actually revisited only
         | just a few months ago. Holds up just fine.
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | Now realizing it's been... 23 years since I saw Cex open for
           | Kid606 and I'm gonna go crumble to dust now.
        
             | YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
             | I suspect you folks are not talking about this Cex:
             | 
             | https://uk.webuy.com/
             | 
             | Which isn't a "he" as far as I can tell. There's a shop
             | near were I live. I always pronounced them "sex" and
             | everyone always told me that's not how it's pronounced, but
             | never told me how else it's pronounced.
        
               | wrboyce wrote:
               | I've got a few friends who worked at CeX in their teens,
               | and "sex" is the correct pronunciation. Reinforced by
               | their open guest WiFi being called "Unprotected CeX" and
               | the staff calling themselves "CeX workers".
        
         | aorloff wrote:
         | How many BPD do you estimate your software is supporting
         | nowadays ?
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | 1000s at least. We don't have any detailed metrics because
           | the data privacy issues there are... a lot, but going by
           | download numbers and knowledge of platforms and some of the
           | larger applications, it's a decent number.
        
         | adityaathalye wrote:
         | I love your ethics statement. TBH, this mindset ought to be the
         | bottom line for any serious software (non-demoscene / non-fun-
         | and-games type). Without pervasive empathy for the user, it's
         | kind of hard to do the right thing in the first place.
         | Especially within the strange organisms that are organisations.
        
         | bozey07 wrote:
         | >If I'm REALLY turned on, how long does it take for me to go
         | from "I wanna use this" to "I am using this"?
         | 
         | I'm glad this is a concern. I maintain software to the effect
         | of buttplug.io and a particular inspiration to start the
         | project was how difficult alternatives were to get going with.
         | I don't want to install anything, or register anywhere, I just
         | want to get my rocks off!
         | 
         | And thank you for buttplug.io. It's super easy to integrate!
         | 
         | I realise this isn't much of a question, sorry :)
        
           | tonyarkles wrote:
           | I'm laughing so hard because the guidelines in that section
           | track very closely with things that I'm constantly reminding
           | people about with unmanned aviation software. You just need
           | to s/turned on/in an emergency/.
        
             | qdot76367 wrote:
             | I used to work in self-driving cars waaaay back when
             | (2008-2011, the early days of the current era) and I did
             | pick up some of these ideas from there. :)
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | Wow, that's awesome! Super curious what project it is you
           | run. (If you don't want to link it to your HN account, feel
           | free to poke me directly, my contact info is in my HN account
           | bio :) )
        
         | errantspark wrote:
         | I tried to use buttplug years ago but I found it to be
         | difficult to work with and introduce too much latency into
         | play. My partner and I have replaced it with 37 lines of
         | javascript that give us more realtime control of our toys
         | (albeit only Lovense, by just spamming
         | .writeValueWithoutResponse()).
         | 
         | I'm curious what your background is that you approached the
         | problem in the way that you did? I appreciate that you're
         | covering all the edge cases for a lot of different toys, but it
         | also really feels like you use 1000 lines of code where 10 will
         | do.
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | > it also really feels like you use 1000 lines of code where
           | 10 will do.
           | 
           | Ok. Let's break this down.
           | 
           | The library currently handles support for 523 different
           | devices from at least 40-50 manufacturers. (https://iostindex
           | .com/?filter0Availability=Available,DIY&fil...).
           | 
           | These devices can connect over bluetooth le, usb (both raw
           | and HID), serial, or one of several network protocols. We
           | support windows, mac, linux, android, iOS, and WASM/web, each
           | having their own HW APIs (or in the case of the mac/iOS
           | crossover, specializations within the API). On several of
           | these platforms there are also massive variations in
           | bluetooth radios, which can cause a huge array of issues.
           | 
           | Each device may have variable actuators, or may also have
           | sensors to take input. They may also require their own
           | keepalives or other specializations specific to their
           | protocol or brand to manage connections.
           | 
           | We then have to generalize commands to make life easier on
           | developers. They send us those generalized commands, from
           | whatever language they like since we abstract into an IPC
           | system and provide a language-agnostic protocol spec, from
           | whatever interconnect they want to use because our connector
           | system is also violently flexible, and we have to convert
           | them into the correct protocol and ship that over the correct
           | bus.
           | 
           | So, since you're curious about why your solution for one
           | device from one brand running through a web browser differs
           | from my library, there you go. It's just a matter of
           | different goals.
           | 
           | Now, if you can do all that in 10 lines, fantastic, I look
           | forward to your library as competition in the future. :3
           | 
           | While I'm glad you've found a solution that works for your
           | case, I can't tell you why you were seeing latency in our
           | library that wasn't also in the browser. I'm well aware of
           | the JS-to-IPC-to-hardware chain in the browser (I'm the ex-
           | device interfaces lead on firefox, worked with some of the
           | chrome engineers on the development of the hardware focused
           | WebAPIs too) and it's even more complicated than ours.
        
             | qdot76367 wrote:
             | Also, if you're curious about web focused solutions to
             | these issues, this is the perfect time to bring up a friend
             | of our project, XToys: https://xtoys.app.
             | 
             | It's a fully web based (though closed source) toy control
             | application that supports about as many devices as I do,
             | plus a bunch of others that I don't, _and_ has Blockly
             | scripting and WebRTC for remote sessions.
             | 
             | It's neat as hell.
        
       | Der_Einzige wrote:
       | Folks like you are responsible for degrading the competitive
       | integrity of chess players:
       | 
       | https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/05/chess-grandmaster-accused-of-...
       | 
       | https://boingboing.net/2023/12/26/chinese-chess-master-accus...
        
         | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
         | How misleading that human+computer is called centaur chess and
         | yet the plugs are much smaller than the equivalent of a horse
        
       | thelastparadise wrote:
       | The hard thing about this is that it's not all software. Just
       | look up what can go wrong with "the handy."
       | 
       | The thing is a pinch hazard and a user could get their scrotum
       | sucked into the slit of the machine, or get pinched as it
       | vigorously slides back down.
       | 
       | Just look up the reports of what can go wrong --it's not pretty.
       | ("do not press it on your scrotum" is the frequent community
       | refrain.)
       | 
       | AFAIK, most of these devices do not have pressure sensors and
       | feedback mechanisms. They're output only.
       | 
       | No amount of software develpper empathy will help as when things
       | go wrong it will happily slice your genitals off and keep
       | chugging away.
        
         | qdot76367 wrote:
         | Yup, you are completely correct on the sensor side. I try to be
         | fairly choosy in what we support, but yeah some strokers and
         | machines definitely do not have the safety features I'd like.
         | 
         | Many years ago, there was another device that relied on a
         | lubrication pump, but the pump never worked very well (building
         | a pump for unspecified body safe lubricants is _difficult_ on
         | several levels).
         | 
         | The term "degloving" got used in relation to the hardware a
         | couple of times.
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | What are degs, and why does it love them?
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | In this context... well.
             | 
             | I'm going to Rot13 this so I don't make people faint.
             | 
             | Vg'f jurer gur fxva vf gbgnyyl erzbirq. V haqrefgnaq guvf
             | vf gur svefg fgrc va n erny znyr-gb-srznyr traqre punatr
             | bcrengvba, bayl va guvf pnfr vg jbhyq or n fhecevfr naq
             | jvgubhg nanrfgurgvp
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | I know, it was a joke :( I thought it was fairly good.
        
           | squigz wrote:
           | Well this comment will ensure I never use toys like that. :P
        
       | stevebmark wrote:
       | "Don't be horny on main (branch)"
        
       | zelias wrote:
       | top tier saturday night HN post
        
       | theoa wrote:
       | One of the best posts of the year!
       | 
       | Tech, caring and humor in butt one in and out
       | 
       | And there's even an acceptable self-plug!
        
       | riiii wrote:
       | How do they test this stuff? Acceptance/integration testing?
        
         | ramon156 wrote:
         | Theyre taking a different spin on integration testing
        
           | kvmet wrote:
           | It really helps to test these kinds of products internally.
        
             | bavell wrote:
             | Especially with all the tightly-coupled components.
        
         | codelikeawolf wrote:
         | Probably end-to-end testing
        
         | czarit wrote:
         | They prioritize penetration testing, I would imagine.
        
       | ossobuco wrote:
       | > These hopes have to be tempered by the issues of the general
       | sterility of software, though. GitHub, StackOverflow, Glitch, and
       | other community sites were not really made with NSFW content in
       | mind.
       | 
       | Yes and I hope it stays that way. Teenagers or even children may
       | use those platforms and I think we're oversexualizing everything
       | too much already.
       | 
       | Maybe that's an opportunity for a new developer platform focused
       | on NSFW uses.
        
         | averageRoyalty wrote:
         | Children should not be using the internet unsupervised, that's
         | irresponsible parenting. And teenagers are aware of sex.
        
           | omeid2 wrote:
           | How do you suppose a kid should be "supervised" while
           | browsing on Github for example?
        
             | Saline9515 wrote:
             | I'm pretty conservative but i f I found my teenage son
             | browsing the buttplug.io library on github I wouldn't be
             | very upset. It's funny and midly erotic with no visual
             | cues, something that is not a problem for teens.
        
               | pcthrowaway wrote:
               | Yeah I think the line for concern is when they start
               | getting their PRs merged
        
               | tuetuopay wrote:
               | At least they worry about what runs in their butt, which
               | is responsible!
        
           | mcmcmc wrote:
           | GitHub's TOS also requires account users to be 13 or older,
           | so it's definitely not intended as a site for children.
        
         | cynicalsecurity wrote:
         | I think we undersexualise everything and our morals look as if
         | they came straight from the Middle Ages.
        
           | speff wrote:
           | Agreed. People have become so scared of sex nowadays compared
           | to the pre-2000s. Unsure how, but puritanical culture somehow
           | took over
           | 
           | Related: https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-
           | horny/
        
           | ossobuco wrote:
           | I used to share your opinion, but I had to do with the adult
           | content world for work related stuff and it was the filthiest
           | thing I've ever had to deal with in my life. Sex work is an
           | ugly thing, built upon the exploitation of both workers and
           | customers. Nothing freeing or emancipating about that.
           | 
           | Yes we shouldn't treat sex as a taboo and children should be
           | educated to avoid STDs, unwanted pregnancies, etc. No, we
           | shouldn't expose children to the filth of the adult content
           | world.
        
             | bagful wrote:
             | Could our marginalization of healthy human sexuality
             | relative to other normal, if risky, activities be
             | contributing to said "filthiness"?
        
             | creer wrote:
             | You could also have been referring to retail or low-cost
             | manufacturing.
             | 
             | For others, sex work is validating, empowering, exciting,
             | beautiful, freeing, independent, a way to be seen (that
             | means recognized for who they are - rather than societal
             | conformance pressures), a direct interaction with people
             | who truly appreciate and are thankful for the work,
             | flexible, personal (as opposed to impersonal / replaceable
             | cog), creative, and something that they can get up for in
             | the morning.
             | 
             | What you are describing is not rooted in, or equivalent to
             | "sex work". You can be depressed and want to kill yourself
             | at the perspective of going to the office. That it's an
             | "office" is not the root of it.
        
           | StefanBatory wrote:
           | Just visit anime forum or subreddit to see it's not a case.
           | 
           | People are way too openly horny.
        
           | berkes wrote:
           | In Europe this is often attributed to American cultural
           | imperialism.
           | 
           | TV, at least in The Netherlands, has become a lot more
           | prudish, Music censored, etc.
           | 
           | I've worked (in the internet branches of) Dutch National
           | media organizations, for magazines and publishers. All
           | lament, that "back in the days, a pair of its, or a penis
           | flopping through a scene was normal." All due to American
           | influence. It's certainly not imposed top down.
           | 
           | A dutch beach club owner told me it used to be rather normal
           | for women to be topless on the beach, up to the early 2000s.
           | And that nowadays it's almost unheard of.
        
             | samatman wrote:
             | I don't know how else to say this, but American
             | institutions, and Americans, are profoundly uninterested in
             | what nudity taboos you may or may not have over there.
             | American tourists might care, if they're looking to see
             | some tits on a beach.
             | 
             | Have you at least considered the possibility that Europe
             | has its own prudes?
        
               | creer wrote:
               | They may be uninterested and unaware and yet very
               | powerful in propagating their own hangups all over the
               | place. For example through movie and TV production. For
               | example through movie, TV and video distribution. For
               | example through legal models and specific texts. For
               | example through organizations active in the hangup
               | propagation business (so, they are certainly not ALL
               | uninterested). For example through credit card networks
               | and banking. And it goes on and on. I nearly forgot to
               | mention technology companies and (currently) their "app"
               | markets.
               | 
               | Some countries like the UK seem to be ahead of the pack
               | in the hangup department but they also don't have the
               | global footprint / influence that the US have.
        
               | arikb wrote:
               | Hear hear.
               | 
               | The fact that (for the most part) 2 American credit card
               | companies determine what porn people can and cannot watch
               | on-line world-wide is an embodiment of this very problem.
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | > we're oversexualizing everything too much already.
         | 
         | We're really not. Most platforms are way too strict with NSFW
         | things, especially the recent LLMs which won't even write spicy
         | fan fiction. There's no point in NSFW which is completely out
         | of context and unnecessary, but a genuine buttplug controller?
         | What's wrong with that?
        
         | elric wrote:
         | By and large, we all get horny, and we all like to get our
         | rocks off. A good thing too, or the species would have died out
         | ages ago.
         | 
         | It's sad that even in 2024 it is taboo to talk about it in the
         | eyes of some, or apparently to even publish tangentially
         | related source code to GitHub. I very much doubt that any
         | curious teenager is going to get turned on from reading the
         | buttplug.io source code. And if they do: props to them.
         | 
         | On the one hand, we seem to sexualize the weirdest things
         | (beauty pageants for kids, anyone?) without anyone seeming to
         | care. But on the other hand, we're weirdly prude & defensive
         | about perfectly natural processes (sex, masturbation, sexual
         | curiosity & experimentation) to the point that we have to
         | censor them on the internet. I still can't grok that.
        
       | hank808 wrote:
       | I only read half of this, BUTT it CRACKED me up.
        
       | arj wrote:
       | Serious question. Do you put buttplug.io on your CV? :)
        
         | qdot76367 wrote:
         | Depends on where I'm sending the CV! It's always on there in
         | _some_ form, but I can recontextualize the library as a
         | "haptic device management system" if necessary. I've also just
         | basically repeated the design of the system verbatim in
         | architecture focused interviews before.
        
       | sargun wrote:
       | I've loved the Buttplug project. I was hitting an issue with
       | their Bluetooth library controlling a we-vibe, and someone
       | offered to drive over from the other side of the bay to help
       | debug it. Bluetooth sniffer, and all.
        
       | l0rn wrote:
       | From reading the docs I see a pretty generic device fleet
       | management framework. What makes this software specific to sex
       | toys besides the intention of the authors and the name? Couldn't
       | you just as well manage - i dunno - a fleet of corporate
       | e-scooters with it?
        
         | l0rn wrote:
         | Thinking this thought further made me giggle. Imagine devs
         | deciding it's the best option for managing some enterprise
         | device, onboarding would be so funny. "Yeah and now you need to
         | enter the address of our buttplug server [..]"
        
           | qdot76367 wrote:
           | You're absolutely correct! I mention this elsewhere in the
           | documentation even. Buttplug really is just a userland HID
           | manager at its core. The only specialized part is the context
           | of commands we send to devices.
           | 
           | The original plan (and it may still happen, who knows) was to
           | figure out a way to chop off that top message layer and
           | create a generalized system for doing exactly what you've
           | said. That was going to be called 'deviceplug', and it's why
           | btleplug is under the 'deviceplug' org on github
           | (https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug). I've just never
           | gotten around to it because I'm not quite ready for the
           | additional support burden yet.
           | 
           | All that said, Buttplug is _also_ a haptics experimentation
           | project aimed at finding out what it 's like to create a way
           | to communicate about a very specific type of touch via
           | technology and programming. There are specific goals within
           | the project related to that, but the amount of tech required
           | to actually pull that off means I end up with what basically
           | amounts of a fleet management framework. :)
        
       | pornlover wrote:
       | This is actually a think that Oculus / Meta feels like they
       | didn't consider and still don't, even tho by their own statics
       | it's the number one use for VR
       | 
       | Some of this I'm sure is my particular usage but still...
       | 
       | Examples: When the controller batteries are low I get a warning
       | in the middle of my session and it sticks around way too long. If
       | a battery dies in a controller the message is undismissible. The
       | software I use works fine with one controller but instead I have
       | to stop what I'm doing, remove the headset, find a battery,
       | install it, put the headset back on, resume the software, and
       | often reset the view because anytime you take the headset off it
       | resets it's orientation.
       | 
       | There are also times where it just says "Fatal Error" and exits
       | when the battery dies.
       | 
       | Another issue is I have 2d software I use in VR because having a
       | giant screen is nice. But, Oculus insists on playing some
       | annoying hum sound in the home screen with the built in desktop
       | viewer. Note: I'm not using the 3D environments as my home screen
       | because that ads more time to get stated. So, in any case, I have
       | to launch something to get rid of the sound. I usually pick a
       | video viewer app because it's very small and then pop up the
       | desktop over it without selecting a video. But, Oculus is
       | apparently unaware of this use case because they break this in
       | some new way every few releases.
       | 
       | The latest is, if you bring up the desktop in the middle of an
       | app, after about 5 seconds it automatically takes you back to the
       | VR app. It's almost like they forgot the feature exists. Other
       | issues in this area are it went from a fairly rock solid feature
       | to one out of 3 times entering into some bug loop where it flips
       | between paused mode (desktop) and VR app mode. Being able to get
       | out of this loop bug has about a 1 in 4 chance. Fixing it
       | removing the headset and restarting the Oculus software on the
       | PC. Then starting whatever apps you were in.
       | 
       | Note that I'm using a Rift-S. I tried using a Quest 3 with Link
       | which tries to give you the same experience but the Link was way
       | way too flaky, crashing 1 of 3 times, when I pulled up the
       | desktop.
       | 
       | Another feature that broke, which I used frequently, was pulling
       | up the desktop and pinning it so it stays visible while a VR app
       | is running. It was a great way to goon.
       | 
       | And, all of this is using porn software which makes it hard to
       | make bug report that will be taken seriously.
        
         | qdot76367 wrote:
         | I really wish more headsets had eye tracking available, I've
         | wanted to play with UX for multi-video/image gooning interfaces
         | with gaze direction. Unfortunately headsets with that available
         | built-in aren't cheap and the DIY solutions are still somewhat
         | tedious.
         | 
         | Would love to discuss these use cases more though, feel free to
         | contact me via one of the methods in my HN bio!
        
       | cyanydeez wrote:
       | I dunno about you guys, but about a decade ago, I just stopped
       | having to _absolutely know_ the truth value of statements,
       | webpages, satire, ignorance , conspiracy the, and other
       | aberrations that appear on the internet.
       | 
       | This is one of those times.
        
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