Taste Networking for Better Porn

Untitled, 1968.
Gerald Gooch. Lithograph.
Collection of The Museum of Sex.

The MoSex Index survey asks you
to rate sample images based on
how much it turns you on (or off).
This helps establish your "taste profile."
View Slideshow (Credit:Wired)

(Editor's note: Some links in this story lead to adult material and are not suitable for viewing at work. All links of this nature will be noted with "NSFW" after them.)

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One frequent theme in my e-mail inbox is "Where can I find good porn?"

If you've written to me, you know that I do try to reply to everyone except the most obvious trolls, even if it takes me a while to get to you. And I answer questions as best I can.

But this is a difficult question to answer. What does "good porn" mean to you, and how much are you willing to pay for it?

Recently, one reader expressed frustration that on the occasions I do link to or recommend adult content, it's not free. "I have followed many of the links I find in your columns, but they all seem to wind up at commercial sites that want my credit card," he writes. "I don't think you want to be a shill for commercial porn, but sometimes I get that feeling."

Of course I am not a shill. I am selective, in that I rarely write about things I don't like unless I just can't keep my trap shut, but to be honest, I don't pay much attention to whether the adult sites I link to are free.

I have neither the time nor the patience to click through gallery after gallery of boring pictures or to sit through a series of low quality 1-minute clips. I'm 35, no longer on a Top Ramen budget, and frankly, what I like was hard to find even in the glory days of free porn.

If I can have a reasonable guarantee that the content I'm buying is what I want it to be, I'm willing to pay for it.

Yet I sympathize with the desire for recommendations from someone you know. Porn, like sex, can get awfully personal. If you feel an affinity for my taste, it's natural to ask me what I like and where to find it.

Daniel Gluck, executive director of the Museum of Sex (NSFW) in New York, sympathizes with the situation as well -- so much so, he's trying to do something about it.

The result is the fledgling MoSex Index (NSFW), an attempt to combine the best of social content with "taste networking."

"Our social content engine is similar to Digg or Reddit, where members can post content and others can rate it. Based on content thresholds, who is doing the rating, karma and reputation, links make it to the homepage," Daniel says.

"But -- and I think this is an extremely important aspect of the project -- we've also incorporated a collaborative filtering element. On other sites, you rate or (don't) rate; we have a degree of rating based on a 7-point Likert scale that adds weight to your like or dislike. We take that intelligence and form 'taste profiles,' which combine to form 'taste networks.' When people in your taste network find content they like, that content gets recommended to you."

The MoSex Index is barely launched, and like any community-based project, its usefulness will depend on the quality and quantity of its membership. So far, the user group has been small, with 70 testers posting links and adding ratings.

"Even with the small group, we're seeing semi-accurate predictions, on a broad scale, of what users might like," Daniel says. "Just with our museum staff, we can see who is most similar to whom. That's one of the aspects that's been most interesting to the staff, seeing whose tastes match."

When you create your MoSex Index user profile, you answer several questions about your sexual orientation, gender and preferences, then rate sexual situations based on how strongly they turn you on or off. Finally, you rate several pictures on how they affect you -- does the pin-up art thrill you or bore you? What about a Hustler photo of an all-female three-way? Or two 1950s male bodybuilders posing nude in a natural landscape?

Source : http://www.wired.com

Classical Music

from : naxos.com Classical music is probably more familiar than we might at first imagine. Indeed, nowadays it is all around us, whether it be in restaurants, supermarkets, lifts, for advertising or as theme and incidental music on television. A great deal of film music either directly uses or draws from the 'classical' tradition; a good example of the former might be '2001: Space Odyssey', and of the latter, the many scores John Williams has composed in recent years for such blockbusters as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies. In the vast and wide-ranging world of 'classical' music there is truly something there for everyone - pieces which once discovered represent the start of an exciting and irresistible journey which will provide a lifetime's listening pleasure. For example, those who are particularly excited by hearing instrumentalists working at full stretch will thrill to the likes of Liszt and Paganini, or if something a little more reserved and self-contained is required, the chamber music of Haydn or Mozart would be a good starting point. If a full symphony orchestra in overdrive is more to your taste then Tchaikovsky or Richard Strauss could well fit the bill, whereas those who have already warmed to Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' might well try the music of some of the great Italian's contemporaries such as Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach or Domenico Scarlatti. Whatever your tastes may be, there has never been a better time to start building a 'classical' music collection on CD. Any attempt to define what is meant literally by the term 'classical' music is fraught with difficulty. How does one encapsulate in just a few words a musical tradition which encompasses such infinite varieties of style and expression, from the monastic intonings of Gregorian chant to the laid-back jazz inflections of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, from the elegant poise of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik to the despairing, heightened emotionalism of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony? One is treading on very dangerous ground indeed if one pre-supposes that it is simply 'superior' to other musical types such as popular, jazz, rock and the like, let alone the music of other cultures. In general 'popular' music may be as clear in expression as the longer examples of 'classical' music. One important difference, however, lies in the logical connection that exists in 'classical ' music between the beginning and end, with the latter a logical extension and development of the former. 'Popular' music, on the other hand, tends to present its material without development, the music ending when interest is exhausted. Sadly, whilst 'classical' music is socially undivisive in itself, it has unfortunately become associated in most people's minds with the intellectual elite. Even now, and with certain honourable exceptions, the attending of a 'live' concert can be an intimidating (not to say costly) experience for the uninitiated, especially in that most jealously guarded of establishments, the opera house. The wonderful thing about the technological age in which we live, and particularly the advent of the compact disc, is that we can bypass all irrelevant social and intellectual pretence, and enjoy in the comfort of our own home (often at far less cost) some of the finest music ever composed. With such a breathtaking variety of material available, it is an awesome task to know just where to begin your disc collection, and as a result expensive mistakes are often made as tempting looking purchases turn out to be something of a disappointment. This is where the Naxos catalogue really comes into its own, and where it is hoped this guide will help prospective purchasers to make an informed choice about the kind of music they are likely to enjoy. The Naxos label provides a library of high quality performances of music by the great masters in modern digital sound; accompanied by authoritative and user-friendly booklet notes and at the lowest possible price. There are already nearly 600 titles from which to choose, and with new releases emerging at the rate of about eight every month, even the enthusiastic collector is well and truly catered for. With every historical period and genre covered, there is something in the Naxos catalogue for everyone, especially those who wish to build a truly representative collection of the central masterworks in the 'classical' tradition.

Classical Music

from : naxos.com

Classical music is probably more familiar than we might at first imagine. Indeed, nowadays it is all around us, whether it be in restaurants, supermarkets, lifts, for advertising or as theme and incidental music on television. A great deal of film music either directly uses or draws from the 'classical' tradition; a good example of the former might be '2001: Space Odyssey', and of the latter, the many scores John Williams has composed in recent years for such blockbusters as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies.

In the vast and wide-ranging world of 'classical' music there is truly something there for everyone - pieces which once discovered represent the start of an exciting and irresistible journey which will provide a lifetime's listening pleasure. For example, those who are particularly excited by hearing instrumentalists working at full stretch will thrill to the likes of Liszt and Paganini, or if something a little more reserved and self-contained is required, the chamber music of Haydn or Mozart would be a good starting point. If a full symphony orchestra in overdrive is more to your taste then Tchaikovsky or Richard Strauss could well fit the bill, whereas those who have already warmed to Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' might well try the music of some of the great Italian's contemporaries such as Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach or Domenico Scarlatti. Whatever your tastes may be, there has never been a better time to start building a 'classical' music collection on CD.

Any attempt to define what is meant literally by the term 'classical' music is fraught with difficulty. How does one encapsulate in just a few words a musical tradition which encompasses such infinite varieties of style and expression, from the monastic intonings of Gregorian chant to the laid-back jazz inflections of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, from the elegant poise of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik to the despairing, heightened emotionalism of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony? One is treading on very dangerous ground indeed if one pre-supposes that it is simply 'superior' to other musical types such as popular, jazz, rock and the like, let alone the music of other cultures.

In general 'popular' music may be as clear in expression as the longer examples of 'classical' music. One important difference, however, lies in the logical connection that exists in 'classical ' music between the beginning and end, with the latter a logical extension and development of the former. 'Popular' music, on the other hand, tends to present its material without development, the music ending when interest is exhausted.

Sadly, whilst 'classical' music is socially undivisive in itself, it has unfortunately become associated in most people's minds with the intellectual elite. Even now, and with certain honourable exceptions, the attending of a 'live' concert can be an intimidating (not to say costly) experience for the uninitiated, especially in that most jealously guarded of establishments, the opera house. The wonderful thing about the technological age in which we live, and particularly the advent of the compact disc, is that we can bypass all irrelevant social and intellectual pretence, and enjoy in the comfort of our own home (often at far less cost) some of the finest music ever composed.

With such a breathtaking variety of material available, it is an awesome task to know just where to begin your disc collection, and as a result expensive mistakes are often made as tempting looking purchases turn out to be something of a disappointment. This is where the Naxos catalogue really comes into its own, and where it is hoped this guide will help prospective purchasers to make an informed choice about the kind of music they are likely to enjoy.

The Naxos label provides a library of high quality performances of music by the great masters in modern digital sound; accompanied by authoritative and user-friendly booklet notes and at the lowest possible price. There are already nearly 600 titles from which to choose, and with new releases emerging at the rate of about eight every month, even the enthusiastic collector is well and truly catered for. With every historical period and genre covered, there is something in the Naxos catalogue for everyone, especially those who wish to build a truly representative collection of the central masterworks in the 'classical' tradition.