The 'Wife of the Future' Designed for Japan's Lonely Men

A multi-million dollar industry has sprung up to deal with Japan's loneliness problem. But it has a dark side. She's always there, always listening and always ready to cater to her husband's every whim. The problem is she's trapped in a tube. And she's not real.

-Bloomberg

The Paradox of Belonging

“Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.” -C.S. Lewis

In a lecture titled The Inner Ring, Lewis speaks of a desire that he saw at the base of much of our action — the desire to belong.
We spend our lives trying to get into and stay inside social groups that Lewis calls “Rings.”
“I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside.”

-Medium

10 Real-Life Horror Stories That Played Out Online

When the strange and horrific intrude on our lives, it can be hard to convince anyone that they really happened. It used to be that the worst things that would happen in a person’s life would stay private, things known only by a small group of friends—or, if the stories spread, urban legends that no one knew whether to believe. But today, it’s different. Since the invention of the Internet, pictures and movies of strange and terrifying things have been going up online. Killers have posted their thoughts for everyone to see. And the world has been able to watch true horror stories play out in real time, right on their computer screen.

-Listverse

Feeling Guilty About Drinking? Well, Ask the Saints

Each year the holidays bring with them an increase in both the consumption of alcohol and concern about drinking’s harmful effects. Alcohol abuse is no laughing matter, but is it sinful to drink and make merry, moderately and responsibly, during a holy season or at any other time? As a historical theologian , I researched the role that pious Christians played in developing and producing alcohol. What I discovered was an astonishing history.

-Ancient Origins

The Science of Passionate Sex

Our culture is obsessed with sex. Everywhere you look is another article on how to have hot sex, harder erections, mind-bending orgasms and ejaculations that go on for days. What people seldom realize, though—and which the latest science backs up—is that this is exactly the problem.

-Scientific American

Architect Carlo Mollino’s Secret Stash of Erotic Polaroids

After Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino died in 1973, a large secret stash of erotic Polaroids were uncovered among his personal effects. In total some 1200 images of women posed wearing specially chosen clothes against artfully created backgrounds. No one was quite sure why Mollino had taken these pictures–a midlife crisis? sexual fantasies?–or why he had kept them a secret. But the quality of the imagery and the deliberate composition suggested Mollino had a specific aesthetic intent when making these pictures.

-Flashbak

free-spirited nudity and surreal landscapes define kate bellm’s imagery

Intimate and iridescent, raw and romantic, we’d expect nothing less for the British photographer’s first solo show.

-i-D

A Neuroscientist Reveals The Most Important Choice You Can Make in Life

According to Moran Cerf, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who has been studying decision-making for over a decade, the surest way to maximise happiness has nothing to do with experiences, material goods, or personal philosophy.

It's all about who you decide to spend time with. But "it's not just advice to choose your friends carefully," Cerf told Business Insider.

-Science Alert

The Japanese skill copied by the world

Mindfulness has become trendy around the world in recent years – but in Japan, it’s been ingrained into the culture for centuries. As the sleek shinkansen bullet train glided noiselessly into the station, I watched a strange ritual begin. During the brief stop, the conductor in the last carriage began talking to himself. He proceeded to perform a series of tasks, commenting aloud on each one and vigorously gesticulating at various bits of the train all the while.

-BBC

How to Tell If You’re a Jerk

Here’s something you probably didn’t do this morning: Look in the mirror and ask, am I a jerk?

It seems like a reasonable question. There are, presumably, genuine jerks in the world. And many of those jerks, presumably, have a pretty high moral opinion of themselves, or at least a moderate opinion of themselves. They don’t think of themselves as jerks, because jerk self-knowledge is hard to come by.

-Nautilus

A n’ouvrir qu’en cas d’apocalypse

Que ferions-nous si nous étions les survivants d’un cataclysme ayant anéanti presque toute une civilisation ? Première piste, se rendre dans un temple en ruine de la culture : une librairie. Mais une cruelle désillusion nous attend, prévient l’astrobiologiste Lewis Dartnell : « A quoi une civilisation renaissante parviendrait-elle en essayant de se reconstruire à partir de la sagesse contenue dans les guides pratiques sur la gestion d’entreprise, les régimes minceur ou le langage corporel du sexe opposé ? Représentez-vous l’absurdité de ce cauchemar : un groupe de survivants découvrant quelques livres jaunis et qui, persuadés d’avoir mis la main sur un savoir scientifique de leurs ancêtres, se décideraient à recourir à l’homéopathie pour maîtriser une épidémie, ou à l’astrologie pour orchestrer leurs récoltes. L’essentiel de notre sagesse collective n’est pas accessible aux survivants. » Il y a urgence à compiler les savoirs les plus essentiels et à offrir aux générations futures une sauvegarde de notre culture.

-Le Monde

This is how many solitary minutes you need to reset your overstimulated brain

For some of us, the idea of being alone with ourselves scares us more than any other challenge we’ll face in our life. Solitude scares us so much that we prefer to be out doing something instead of sitting in solitude doing nothing, even if that something causes us pain. In a recent (depressing) study, psychologists found that when given a choice, people would prefer to shock themselves with electricity as opposed to sit alone with their own thoughts.

-Ladders

They Just don’t Make Vacations like they Used To

This is just one of those posts that started with a single photograph which gave me such nostalgia for an era I’ve never actually lived through, that I proceeded to compile my own imaginary photo album of the perfect 1950s vacation– all shot in 35mm kodachrome of course. It was this tiny vacation cottage that got me started, found on Flickr, captioned “Wisconsin, 1950 … a picture of my wife’s uncle Ward in front of a rental cottage”. The rest of my make-believe photo album comes from the rather incredible archive of Kodachromes by Electrospark, bringing us “ephemera liberated from attics, garages and closets of America’s mid-century vacationers”. Enjoy…

-Messy Nessy Chic

Time-travel to 1971 San Francisco, Berkeley with tech pioneer's incredible street photos

After 11 years as CEO, DeWolf left Teradyne in 1971. That year he traveled to San Francisco, with his 35mm camera firmly in his grasp. Nick DeWolf, co-founder of Teradyne, photographed the street life of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley in the summer of 1971.

Nick DeWolf, co-founder of Teradyne, photographed the street life of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley in the summer of 1971. He took scores of street photos. The result was a visual time capsule of 1971 San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. His lens caught the era's wild hairstyles and fashions, which hadn't quite thrown off the trappings of Summer of Love hippiedom, yet were still a few years away from leisure suits and high-rise platform heels.

-SF Gate

Porno : délivre-nous du Mal ？

Le porno a les mêmes vertus qu’un miracle, affirme Henry Miller, qui se compare à Jésus-Christ dans un texte lumineux, profondément emprunt de spiritualité. Reste à savoir si le porno nous «libère» ou nous «délivre»… Ce n’est pas la même chose.

«Discuter la nature et le sens de l’obscénité est presque aussi difficile que parler de Dieu.» Lorsqu’en 1945, Henry Miller, auteur d’oeuvres pratiquement toutes interdites aux Etats-Unis, publie un pamphlet contre la censure, le texte –dès la première phrase– frappe. Le pamphlet s’intitule L’Obscénité et la loi de réflexion et commence par une question : un mot, un film, peuvent-ils être sales ?

-Liberation

Are religious people more moral?

Why do people distrust atheists?

A recent study we conducted, led by psychologist Will Gervais, found widespread and extreme moral prejudice against atheists around the world. Across all continents, people assumed that those who committed immoral acts, even extreme ones such as serial murder, were more likely to be atheists.

-The Conversation

‘Fanny Hill – Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure’ Covers and Artwork

First published almost two hundred and seventy years ago and one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, more popularly known as Fanny Hill was written by John Cleland in debtors’ prison in London in 1748. It is said to be the first original English prose pornography. Author and historian Julie Peakman writing for History Today Magazine describes as ‘a revelation in that it incorporated pornographic scenes in a novelistic form, a feat never previously undertaken in English literature.’  Told in great sexual detail the novel follows the life of a young English country girl – Fanny Hill – who goes to London and becomes a prostitute. The book was quickly banned and became an under the counter best seller ever since. It wasn’t until over 220 years later that the erotic novel became available to the UK general public.

-Flashbak

Le fantasme assouvi de Jean-Louis Tripp

Avec «Extases», le bédéiste se met à nu pour parler plaisir, politique et émancipation. Drôle d’idée que d’inviter le bédéiste Jean-Louis Tripp dans un café baptisé « La graine brûlée », à deux pas du Devoir, pour discuter de sa toute dernière oeuvre, intitulée, elle, Extases (Casterman). À des années-lumière de la gentille série Magasin général, qu’il a cosignée dans les dernières années avec son pote et complice de toujours Régis Loisel, l’auteur y dévoile son intimité dans ce qu’elle a de plus sexué. Sans concession.

-Le Devoir

The ‘drunken monkey’ argument: are we predisposed to alcohol addiction?

Biologists have found a genetic mutation that may explain why humans like a damaging habit. Too much alcohol is bad for you: we all know this. But even in moderation, it can cause health problems. It can change mood and behavior, cause liver and heart damage, contribute to various types of cancer, and weaken the immune system.

-Massive

‘The Long Haul’ Is a Trucker’s Slangy Tour of the Road

Truck driving may be dangerous, and truck driving may be stressful, but Finn Murphy is here to tell you that of all species of truckers driving all species of trucks, it’s the long-distance drivers of moving vans who have it worst. You think easing a 53-foot rig through snowy Loveland Pass high in the Rockies requires steel-reinforced nerves? Ha! Here’s what requires a cast-iron stomach and the imperturbability of a Navy SEAL: Backing that rig into the twisting driveway of some starter castle in Aspen, Colo., or Greenwich, Conn., without getting stuck or crushing the new owners’ geraniums.

-NY Times