RKNet Blog... Thing

In case you missed the announcement:

The Location: Adelle’s Coffeehouse, 3 Hale St., Dover NH 03820
The Time: Sunday, October 5th 11am to 1pm
The Goal: To provide an open, informal, and comfortable learning environment for anyone who is interested in “new media”, specifically internet-based forms of media, and the systems and tools which make the newest forms of media run, Macs, Windows PCs, and *nix-based systems. If you don’t know the first thing about Macs, Windows PCs or what *nix even is, it’s ok. If using the formatting tools on your email program are intimidating, or if the term “formtatting tools” leaves you at a loss for words, that’s ok too.

Meeting #1 - “Intro to Blogging“. Which will encompass a very broad range of topics, all relating to publishing on the internet and what it takes to get started and how to learn more about the aspects that interest you most.

Learn to format your writing for the internet by learning the basics of HTML.
Resources:

• http://www.webmonkey.com/
• http://www.w3schools.com/ (Refer to the XHTML 1.0 link to the right.)

Jump in and produce content.

• http://wordpress.comGet a wordpress hosted blog, with all the tools and controls of a personal wordpress installation.
• https://www.blogger.com With a simple but flexible interface, this hosted blogging platform from Google is a popular choice.
• http://www.livejournal.com/ One of the most popular places on the net to maintain a personal journal, with a massive community to tap into for inspiration, this is a good place to sharpen your skills.

Explore different CMS options and figure out what’s right for you.

• http://www.blogperfume.com/ - more info about blogging and using CMS-driven websites.
• http://www.cushycms.com/
• http://wordpress.org/ - What RKNet runs on, a popular and powerful CMS option that’s fairly easy to learn.
• http://textpattern.com/What Adelle’s site runs on, a lean CMS that’s designed to be flexible for different needs.
• http://drupal.org/Another modular CMS option for building websites.
• http://www.movabletype.org/

Get into the thick of it, take charge of your site design! Also, plugins, plugins, plugins!

• http://www.yaml.de/en/home.htmlInformation on creating flexible, valid multi-column layouts.
• http://www.alistapart.com/A valuable resource for all things website creation.
• http://www.noupe.com/
• http://nettuts.com spoonfed web skills
• http://wordpress.org/extend/
• http://wpcandy.com/

You are hiding behind a stone wall being shot at by heavily armed cultist. You have had two weeks of training to deal with situations like this. But you’re only just starting to remember this. You know you should feel angry that people are shooting at you. But you consider that they would shoot at anyone trying to sneak into their heavily armed and very secretive religious compound. Instead you think about the figurative bastards that put you in this situation. They woke you up at four in the morning approximately thirteen hours ago. Bundled you into a car, then an airplane and whisked you six hundred miles from your home. They told you that that two week blackout you had was their fault. That two week blackout two years ago. A blackout that cost you a relationship with a person you deeply loved and very nearly alienated you from your immediate family. They said that you’d been taken to a secret government facility and been in their words ‘The Clockwork Orange’ treatment. Except instead of making you dislike violence they taught you to know how to do very unpleasant things to your fellow human beings. When you didn’t believe this as they quite reasonably expected they produced photographic evidence, timestamped and digitally signed. These memories slowly came back to you. You attributed this to the background music playing in the airplane’s cabin.

The current problem that you are to be injected into was explained to as a local disturbance which could rapidly turn into the European version of the Waco Ranch massacre. They explain to you that this is where you come in. You, they explain are to sneak into the compound and assassinate the leader of the cult as well as disrupt as much of the chain of command. Logically you try to explain to them that Solid Snake does this in the video games and he tends to die an awful lot in the attempt. They do not get the reference. They also suck their gums a lot which you take as a sign of ‘you’re not the first one we’ve sent in.’

The sneaking into the farm ran by crazy cult members did go better than expected. You made it past the official police line and through a field past the body of who you assume was ‘the first one sent in.’ As you reach the edge of the main farm complex however it all goes wrong.

Not the first one to be sent in seems to explain the problem well as you hide behind a dry wall. Your mouth is dry and your hands have almost stopped trembling. Their bullets have stopped firing. Cautiously you peer around the corner and see that three of the larger cultists are running towards you while brandishing very scary looking shotguns. You gulp. Aim the silenced pistol you were given at the closest cultist. Then you fire. It isn’t a perfect shot. It goes through his leg and he tumbles to the floor. He is screaming but the other two have upped the pace. You take aim again and fire. The next one drops without a sound in a mist of red. The third cultist stops. He raises his shotgun. You take cover. He discharges the weapon into the wall and the pellets bounce off the wall harmlessly. You feel you are getting the hang of this. Looking around the corner you feel slightly disappointed that he is running away from you.

You move forwards from this wall to the next. This is progress you think. Then they start firing a machine gun at you and you dive for the closest thing you see that looks like cover. The training you remember consisted of firing ranges, simulated close quarters combat exercises and training drills. Very little of the training (although you cannot be quite certain right now as your memory is still fragmented) involved being shot at and the immediate action to be taken when you inevitably come into the situation. You go on instinct here. Duck and cover, then hope that the machine gun breaks or runs out of bullets. 

The person manning the machine gun appears to be enjoying himself. Every few seconds a burst of fire removes fragments of the dry stone wall. The bullets are close and you hear some of them whistle through the air. The gunner however has a steady rhythm to his firing. You remember that you have a mirror on one of the cargo pockets. You take it out and use it to peer round the edge of the wall. There is only him. His burst finishes. You jump over the wall and shoot him in the head. The way into the main building is clear now. You kick the flimsy wooden door from it’s hinges. You hear a thumping noise.

You are cold and cannot move. Your head aches with a dull throbbing sensation. Your face hurts. Opening your eyes you see that you are in a cellar. The thin light of sunset comes in through an opening in the wall near the ceiling. You work out why you are cold and cannot move. Directly ahead of you  is a man.  He is naked and strapped to a gurney. His right arm has a horrific gunshot wound and his groans occasionally break his possibly drug induced sleep.

Four sky clad people walk into the cellar. One of them has a demonic mask and a evil knife. Another, a drum made from wood with a tight white skin with tattoo ink blue Celtic markings on it. The other two are women who start dancing and chanting as soon as they enter the room. The drummer starts to hit his drum and the masked man you watch move to stand in front of the injured man blocking him from your view.

“For your intrusion onto hallowed ground we punish you,” the masked man shouts.
“For your intrusion onto hallowed ground we punish you,” the others repeat.
You watch the masked man drag the knife across the injured mans chest. Blood runs to the ground.
“For your violent ways we injured you,” the masked man shouts.
“So we shall injure you again!” The two dancers say.
The masked man pushes the knife into the injured mans gunshot wound.
He screams!
“We the children of the gods say you must die,” all of the cultists say.
The injured man screams one last time.
You see the masked man turn to you. 

You are sweating heavily now. That evil knife is covered in gore and the blank look of the masked man you feel hides a sadistic smile. The drumming man carries on his vile rhythm for the dancers to follow. You see a small ball shaped object role through the sunlight opening. It bounces on the stone floor of the cellar.
“For your intrusion,” the masked man starts to say. You close your eyes in terror.

You hear a deafening noise followed by chaotic screams and gunshot. You close your eyes even more. The ringing in your ears stops and you open your eyes. You try to speak and a desperate whimper is all you can summon. You see eight people in battle dress and black full face gas masks. One of them approaches you and slings his weapon over his shoulder. You watch him take his gas mask off.
“It will be alright. You’ve done your duty. You’ve exceeded our expectations. Let us help you,” he says.

This story was originally entered into the SFX Pulp Idol competition. It didn’t win (aw), didn’t get shortlisted and it didn’t even get an honerable mention. No matter I’m well aware of it’s deficencies and it was a tracer bullet. Oh well it’s a success if someone enjoys it.

Will.

Next week, as dictated by The Ad Contrarian, is SHUT THE FUCK UP WEEK. Or as he elects to (more diplomatically) call it “Worldwide No Blogging Week“. It’s intended to span August 25th through September 1st.

I for one, will be observing this. It just so happens that I’m taking this time off work as well, which means all the back end work I’ve intended to do on the site will become my top priority. Posting? Not so much. I can’t say for sure whether some of the other authors will elect to observe this textual moment of silence type event, but you won’t be hearing from me.

If you’re really upset at the prospect of a whole week’s silence, obviously you haven’t been here much, but in any case, you can keep an eye on my soup. I’ll be saving stuff to my soup all week for sure. This will provide you with many amusing images, video links, and brief textual anecdotes. YAY.If you have a soup or sign up for one, feel free to friend me. I’ll totally friend back, because the more the merrier.

Realistically, a week without blogging would be pretty refreshing, especially if everybody actually committed. Could you imagine? I can’t, actually. But the sentiment rings true.

So help me god if you kids don't stop fighting I'll turn this internet around right now.

Srsly though. Standby over the course of next week for serious site changes for RKNet. If you’d like to avoid visual crazytown, but still read stuff from the other authors, sign up for the Feed using the appropriate link at the top (or side if you’d like it in another language). KTHXBAI!

My awesome Lorem Ipsum shirt provided by TeeFury, makers of fine, rare designer tshirts.

First off, it was great to see everybody again! I had missed the last two Media Makers events and kicked myself pretty hard both times. Thanks to my cat and the fact that I have a memory like a (rusted) steel trap, I was able to make it out to Newmarket in time to schmooze a little before everything got started.

Everybody is really busy! I took some general notes on each person and everybody had something fun or interesting to share.

UnclePhilms -

• Talked about film projects he’s working on, stuff in conjunction with NewtonStudios.com and BostonFilms.com (bostonfilms.com links to a weird page about internet connection sharing??) - Zerk.tv
• Mentioned that he is scoring a film (horror film I think it was).

Bryan White of Cinema Suicide -

• Launched Soundtrack Apocalisse, featuring soundtrack reviews. Apocalisse is Italian for apocalypse! Neat!
• He’s got tshirts for Cinema Suicide now! They’re really cool looking, done in fake movie poster style, with Cinema Suicide’s URL on them. Go get one now so you can say you were in at the ground floor.
• Quoted by Ghost Adventures, who will soon be putting out a DVD (which may or may not contain some of those CS group quotes). (Correct me if I’m citing the wrong Ghost Adventures group.)
• He mentioned gearing up to do a documentary about the less-than-savory history of Portsmouth, NH and doing some paranormal investigation to coincide with the area. Talked about a lot of really interesting history surrounding Portsmouth. Things I’d never heard before like all the old aqueduct work that has survived, and the old tunnels under the city surviving from old military installations. It sounds like there are a lot of really fascinating subjects he could cover in a Portsmouth documentary and I look forward to hearing way more about it.
• Cinema Suicide got covered by local entertainment paper: The Wire. The story is mentioned on the front page, so if you see a copy, go grab it!

Newcomers! Rob Jaques and Shawn Lampron.

• Rob is a writer, a musician and photographer. He’s got a pretty awesome flickr profile at santaplausible (which is a name I just absolutely love, by the way). He’s looking to collaborate and learn more about cool stuff to do on the internet.
• Shawn is a writer and I believe he said he’s also done some teaching. He’s interested in getting involved in more media and web-based projects.

Chris Clark of GeekForceFive -

• He’s got a book out! Congratulations! It’s called Those Little Bastards and it is available for sale through echristopherclark.com.
• Over at GeekForceFive, he experimented with adding a Question of the Day to a video post he did regarding his recent NIN concert experience. This got some of the best feedback he’s seen yet, and he is considering making Question of the Day a regular feature on GFF. Sounds like a terrific idea and I hope he keeps us posted!
• He’s also forging a community area for GFF at geekforcefive.ning.com - ning.com being a resource for people who want to take a sort of plug-and-play approach to social networking/community sites.

Leslie Poston -

• She’s doing some authoring over at TechnoSailor.com, a tech, business, and new media site.
• Got BIG plans for the upcoming SXSW, trying to get a panel together on “Can social media save the world?” and is looking for support to get this exciting concept off the launchpad and into the conference. The idea behind this panel was inspired by her recent experiences at PodCamp Boston.
• Got a site going called UptownUncorked.com, which has a neat wine glass shape going on with the first U that I think is really neat and would totally like to see develop more as a concept.
• Recently attended a Mashable event in Boston. Also mentioned that she’s a frequent attendee of Boston. Any Media Maker folks who are interested in Boston events should probably contact her for info on carpooling and so forth.
• She’s working with a site called Blorge.com who is also doing some hiring right now.

Deb Mcnally -

• I finally got to meet @debdebtig! I’ve been following her for a while on Twitter because she’s a locally active person. It’s nice to be able to put a face to a name like that.
• Deb is a tech communicator (all types of media, not just writing), as well as a local farmer!
• She’s got nheggs.blogspot.com and will be branching that out to include an official site (NHeggs.com) as well as adding some web service profiles for her chickens, giving people a day-in-the-life look into what it’s like to be a hen on the farm.
• Anecdotally - Back-in-the-day, her husband ran the largest BBS in southern New Hampshire! How cool is that? I myself didn’t spend much time on the internet during the BBS days, I spent more time trying to stay up late playing Shining Force on the Sega channel without getting caught. :3

Nick Plante aka ZapNap -

• He’s also written a book! It’s called Practical Rails Plugins and it’s currently available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s pretty exciting to have published authors in our midst.
• For anyone who doesn’t know, Nick is a freelance developer, working primarily with Ruby on Rails, but is awesome enough to provide services above and beyond that as duty calls.
• He’s also been involved with a zine called ink19, which as I understand it started life as a paper zine and has since evolved some digital tentacles to better propel itself through the cultural miasma that is the internet. The primary focus of ink19 is music, but they cover other fun stuff like movies, television and various other exciting whatnots.
• Nick has a dream! A dream in which it is much easier for people to read and distribute webcomics. That’s a really awesome dream. One which we can probably all get behind.
• Sub-question: Should we do a group event to brainstorm all the possible features and needs of a webcomic reader/distro system? Could be a really entertaining and worthwhile project, and could ultimately unseat things like WordPress when it comes to web comic creation and distribution! (and how boss monster would that be? pfft. very.)

Brian Turnbull -

• Another newcomer, and recent transplant from Chi-town (Chicago). He’s a professional photographer and has recently collaborated with ZapNap.
• Brian and Nick worked with a client to very recently launch Razume.com, a site in which people can have their resumes reviewed by their peers (and probably also by hiring professionals!).
• He took photos of this month’s NHMM which are already up. Why do I always get caught making the most awkward faces?!
• He’s done some photography work for various big band jazz groups, including album art for the Stone/Bratt Big Band.

John Herman -

• Gravityland season two is in the works! More people are getting interested in the project, so the second season could get really intense.
• He’s also working away on a pilot for an HD webisodic show called Thomas in Wonkyland. The premise came about at an improv event a while back, and some of those same players are coming back to work on this concept. It sounds absolutely hilarious and I can’t wait to see it!
• John recently helped his wife make a 1 minute movie for a film festival called le 60, a bunch of 1 minute movies to be shown in Boston in mid-September. He shared with us a really inspiring story about how he contacted a musician in Germany that he really admired, and was able to get some unique music for the project from that communication. Very cool. Incidentally: le 60 is accepting submissions through August 15th, so there is still time to participate in this project/contest.

Jill Silos -

• Jill is an author and cultural historian who works with grad students at UNH, as well as other local college-level students in the area.
• She is working on a book called Everybody Get Together: The Politics of the Counterculture. The book in project form won an award back in 2005, and I think it’s safe to say everyone in the group was very interested in the finished product when it’s ready for release.
• She’s learning to play guitar and apparently does a pretty mean D minor, but is still looking for tips on how to transition between chords.

As for myself, I talked a little bit about exciting new developments at work, and a few of my ideas for RKNet.

• RKNet will be featuring content from paid bloggers. I am still taking inquiries about this, although I have had several interested parties contact me already. Email giania [at] gmail.com if you wish to get more info about the program.
• The purpose of the paid blogging program is to free me up to do the following: redo the RKNet template, develop really cool merch ideas, strengthen affiliate relations. Eventually I want RKNet to be something like boingboing without the awkward lesbian “unpublishing” drama. Baby steps.
• Chris had a really terrific merchandise idea for RKNet, develop “random kitty” plush toys, literal random kitties, probably small batch or one-off items to keep things interesting, and cement their status as collectors items.
• I talked briefly about an idea I had to create a site to specialize in supporting local farmers and local farmers’ markets by providing a centralized site catering to their needs. Deb let me know that in her experience it’s actually pretty difficult to keep up with the normal demand, much less deal with greater exposure. I’d love to work with some people on this concept, to come up with a variety of ideas on how a site like this could help the most people, and maybe make some money.
• Some things I neglected to mention:
• I’ve got a soup! giania.soup.io it’s a kind of micro-blogging, tumblr sort of service. It’s lots of fun and allows for quick sharing of some of your favorite (or least favorite) items on the internet.
• I attended the Boston-based An Event Apart conference. I have transcribed some of my notes, but there’s still a lot left to put up. Stay tuned.
• I mentioned a friend’s ninja doll project but forgot the URL ( ninja-dolls.com DUH), also posted the URL in the comments at the NH Media Makers blog.
• As mentioned gingerly so as not to offend the nice people at Crackskulls, I am a HUGE fan of Dover’s newest coffee shop, Adelle’s. As we get more people at NH MM, we may run out of room at Crackskulls. I spoke briefly with one of the people who works at Adelle’s and it sounds like they might be interested in hosting an event like ours. I believe they have wifi there, and I’m working on getting them their own website so news/events can be posted there also. I’m really dying to try one of their bacon cheddar scones.

Don’t forget to visit the official NH Media Makers blog and check out all the notes John put up, as well as all the comments and follwups from the attendees!

Do you have RSS feeds for sites that you like, but they aren’t in your language? Don’t you wish you could get those feeds translated and delivered in the language you’re most comfortable reading? Of course you do! Well, the internet is full of surprises and helpful little whatnots, and one of those items is a site called Mloovi. Mloovi is a Web 2.0-ized spelling of mluvi, or “to speak” in Czech (probably because they couldn’t get mluvi.com I’d be willing to bet! domaining is a harsh mistress).

This site will provide you with a widget linking to your RSS feed in 24 languages (including English), with the translations provided by Google. The only catch is they display ads in the bottom of the feed. In other words, certainly not perfect but a big help for making a single language feed available to speakers of other languages. I’ll be providing this widget for RKNet (check the sidebar at the right), and I would love feedback from people who speak the languages in the list on how well it translates, and whether or not you like the mloovi feed format.

Initial Feedback: This concept is clearly still in its infancy, and it does have some flaws:

• The widget generator produces an iFrame, which is not the most standards-compliant solution.
• I had to configure the height and width of the widget myself (160 by 600, in case you use the generator for all languages like I did).
• They maintain a directory of translated feeds, but the directory does not appear to be searchable, or even have a break down by date range or alphabet to make it easier to find previously translated feeds.
• You CAN sort the directory by language to find feeds already translated into your language, though.
• If you choose the widget generator, and have it translate your feed into multiple languages, it will show you progress on how many translations it has completed. (That’s a good thing!)
• There are quick links in the directory to add translated feeds to online feed services: NetVibes, Google, Yahoo, AOL, and PageFlakes. (This is also good! But it should be available as an option with the widget also.)
• The project owner encourages feedback, and I will be sending this list, along with some other suggestions, as soon as I get an opportunity.

Yes, once again our first-ever contest, the Design-a-Vagina Contest (Redux), has come to a close. The results are already in and those results may be expressed with the following image.

If you can’t read that, and I don’t blame you if you can’t, it says “This Page Intentionally Left Blank” - which is to say that the second iteration of the Design-a-Vagina contest has come and gone without an entry. As such, I am somewhat grateful as it means I don’t have to shell out upwards of $150 on prizes, but I am also disappointed that I could not help the woman from North One who had encouraged me to rerun the contest in the hopes of fostering discussion on modern women’s body image issues.

Which is a subject that has been touched upon before by yours truly, although never really discussed outside of that post and mentions as part of the contest. Fun, games, and fabulous un-won prizes aside, are there any issues regarding elective cosmetic surgery and women’s body issues that anyone would like to talk about? If so, we would love to hear from you. No issues can be fixed or even identified unless they are understood, and understanding requires communication.

Very cool project, very fun to see what’s come up most often on RKNet recently.

The comments and contents of this post are considered NSFW - Not Safe For Work - and we assume no fault if you get tagged for inappropriate conduct. Though we here at RKNet do not consider these contents inappropriate, we do not make the rules or the laws regarding your day-to-day life. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome one and all to the second run of RKNet’s very first contest, the Design-a-Vagina contest. Previously we here at RKNet had provided a mostly blank sheet, in activity book style, encouraging people to create an image of a realistic or fantastic “ideal vagina”.

Thanks to the interest of a documentary team doing a film for North One Productions, we are proud to reopen the contest, with a few changes. The documentary is going to be called The Vagina Dialogues, with the goal of discussing female sexuality and body image, particularly as it relates to the Holiest-of-holies, the vag, the cooter, the hoo-hoo parts, the vagina, the vulva, the cooch and (depending on who you talk to) the cunt. With a focus on discussing the issue, the acceptable categories for entries to the Design-a-Vagina will be as follows:

1. 150-1000 words on your personal feelings regarding the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. You may express this in fiction if you include a brief opening statement which declares it a fictional piece, and hopefully states the goals of the piece in a short and clear fashion. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. Post your entry in the comments, or on your blog and link to it from the comments.
2. An original visual representation of what to you constitutes the “ideal vagina”, preferably with a brief description on your overall concept and thoughts surrounding the image. Photos, drawings, computer generated and mixed-media images appropriate. Link to your image (html image tags supported in the comments also) and share your comments. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. This category will rely on the honor system in part, however we will be doing background checks on every image submission.
3. Personal (i.e. of yourself) audio or video submissions between 1 and 5 minutes, discussing what you consider the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender.

Prizes will be determined in part by the number of entries in each category. If there are more than 10 in each category, then the chosen winner in each category will receive a $50 gift certificate to JT’s Stockroom (site NSFW) or Amazon.com - winners’ preference. Each category must have at least ten entries for this to apply. If there are less than 10 in each category (yes, even if it’s 10, 10, and 9), then one single winner will be chosen from all categories and be awarded a $50 gift certificate to either JT’s Stockroom or Amazon.com - winner’s preference.

Winners (in each category or in general if too few of each category are submitted) will be chosen at random. This is something I failed to specify before and many thanks to my good friend Matt for pointing out this grevious omission. The goal here is to foster communication, and as such I cannot very well propose that I have what it takes to judge the merit of people’s personal feelings.

Watch this post for updates: I will be trying to get backing to make the prizes more interesting for participants. Though I should hope that the opportunity to discuss these issues publicly would be the biggest draw of all.

There will also be bonuses and/or props available for people who demonstrate that they have promoted this contest. The person who can provide the most proof of promotion will receive a prize of their choosing, either many very public thanks and links by RKNet on your behalf or a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

The deadline for the contest is 06/30/2008, 12:00 pm EST.

Entries will be chosen within a week of the deadline. An update will be made after the close of the deadline declaring the number of entries in each category.

Thank you and good luck!

Friends of RKNet may recall our first attempt at a contest, the Design-a-Vagina contest. Friends of RKNet may also recall that the contest, minus Dr. Hypercube’s brilliant concept submission was a spectacular failure.

Perhaps the contest was simply too ahead of its time, perhaps it was simply released from the nest before it was truly ready to take to the skies. Whatever the case, the concept behind the contest did not go entirely unnoticed. I received a very positive communication from a woman from North One Television, who wrote in the hopes of finding out the results of the previous contest.

It was with great regret that I had to inform her that no results were posted on the site… because there weren’t any results to post!

However, every day is another opportunity to turn things around. A documentary is being produced called “The Vagina Dialogues”. In the interest of reaching more people and getting people’s opinions on what the “visually ideal” vulva is like and people’s opinions on the things people do to achieve that ideal, we will be posting the details of the new, improved Design-a-Vagina contest very soon. Changes will include a more cohesive, thoughtful theme, and the presence of real prizes this time. Suggestions for prizes are welcome. In addition to submission-based prizes, we are also considering promotion-based prizes. (Suggestions for this portion are welcome also.)

Details on the documentary are below for those interested in getting a jump start on considering the overall theme of the contest.

In the last 5 years more and more women are choosing to have both aesthetic and reconstructive surgery. Surgeries such as vaginal tightening, labiaplasty and vaginal rejuvenation are being performed in NHS hospitals and in numerous private clinics around the country and this documentary aims to understand why women are becoming so concerned about the way they look and feel down there that they are resorting to plastic surgery.

Over the next few months our presenter will meet a number of people with differing views about vaginas – ranging from medical experts to mums and teenagers. She will look into how sex education is taught in schools, how men feel about women’s vulvas, how different cultures feel about vaginas and how over the past 20 years women’s perceptions of their bodies appears to have changed so dramatically - surely our grandmothers would never have considered having genital surgery?

We are very keen to address the issues that still remain taboo and make vagina-related topics not something to dismiss and laugh about, but a part of the body to understand, appreciate and admire.

The front page of the site finally got an overhaul! As you can see, it is much less of a CSS nightmare than what the Wayback Machine will prove the previous incarnations were. It’s also got a custom fancy wallpaper-y background, too. As more content emerges that is best suited to its very own page, a navigation and so forth shall emerge from the overall chaos. The other new page is my Author’s Profile page, containing everything you need to (stalk) find out more about me, too.

I’m looking forward to getting the proper info from the other contributors and authors (*hint*) so they can also have profile pages. Report any obvious bugs, please.