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On iPhone, Searching For Kama Sutra = Porn
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 21, 2009 04:52 PM
from the welcome-to-the-library-here-is-your-book dept.
from the welcome-to-the-library-here-is-your-book dept.
heychris writes "Eucalyptus, an ebook app for iPhone, has been rejected from the App Store for 'objectionable content.' What's so objectionable? The Kama Sutra, available from Project Gutenberg, which is available on other ebook readers as well. Not only that, but the screenshot shows that you would have to search for Kama Sutra to get it; it's not built in to Eucalyptus. The author is reasonable but frustrated, while Herr Gruber is more succinct." I wonder how good the now-cheap Nokia 810 is as an e-book reader.
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News: Is Salacious Content Driving E-Book Sales? 215 comments
narramissic writes "Having already abandoned ebooks once, Barnes & Noble is jumping back into ebooks with the purchase this week of ebook seller Fictionwise. Why is the format suddenly hot? Look no further than the top 10 Fictionwise bestsellers, says blogger Peter Smith. Once again it seems like 'porn is blazing a path to a new media format. Of the top 10 bestsellers under the 'Multiformat' category, nine are tagged 'erotica' and the last is 'dark fantasy.' Need more proof that folks (let's take a leap and call them women) who read 'bodice rippers' like the privacy of ebooks? Author Samantha Lucas (who writes for publishers like Cobblestone Press and Siren Publishing) tells Smith that she sells almost all of her novels in ebook format."
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The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Now excuse me, I'm going to read some find articles in the Playboy.
Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Informative)
On the occasion of a 'high congress' the Mrigi (Deer) woman should lie down in such a way as to widen her yoni, while in a 'low congress' the Hastini (Elephant) woman should lie down so as to contract hers. But in an 'equal congress' they should lie down in the natural position. What is said above concerning the Mrigi and the Hastini applies also to the Vadawa (Mare) woman. In a 'low congress the woman should particularly make use of medicine, to cause her desires to be satisfied quickly.
Plus the famous pictures were only added later and aren't part of the actual work.
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
...woman should lie down in such a way as to widen her yoni,
I love it when a woman widens her yoni.
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, having the high congress present kills he mood pretty quickly.
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
Stop that, I'm (still) at work, and that's getting me hot...
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
Man, I hear you.
I had a girl sending me half-nude pics of her, and talk dirty via ICQ, because she deliberately wanted to get my dick hard.
And then when she succeeded, my boss came in, and asked me to stand up and come with him.
Have you ever tried to come up with excuses, when your head is high on dopamine & co?
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
Plus it's translated from Sanskrit so it's hardly readable.
That's a 5000 year old dead language... Couldn't they have tried Latin?
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
You've mastered a dead tongue. But can ya handle a live one?
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's a 5,000 year old marriage manual with religious overtones. But the good folks at Apple can't allow us to be distracted from their bestsellers--immortal classics like "Pee Monkey" and "Urinal Test..." (or whatever the hell it's called).
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:The Kama Sutra isn't porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Dull? It contains sentences about how you have to painfully slap your girl before sex, so she gets in the mood.
It also contains some fetishes, that still are seen as perverse nowadays.
I don't know about you, but I think even nowadays that does not count as "dull". ^^
Oh, and it's not about sex only. Much is about foreplay. So it's more a book for girls, who still enhance their sex with their imagination. :P
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Jesus Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the more "succinct" blog commenter that is linked in the summary; this is a truly execrable move on Apple's part. The point isn't just that the Kama Sutra can be found elsewhere or that it doesn't meet the definition of pornography. I'm sorry, but the Kama Sutra is one of the world's great religious texts, and is a great literary work in its own right. That Apple would put itself on the side of prohibiting access to it on some sort of moral grounds is completely outrageous. Apple should issue a public apology and fire the person who made this decision. Better yet, they should make the app store approval process more content-neutral, but we know that's not going to happen.
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Re:So, who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Might as well burn some karma for truth.
Then you're no better than they are -- just another censoring bastard, taking the torch to the Karma Sutra...
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They should pull a Trent Reznor (Score:5, Insightful)
They should pull a Trent Reznor and re-submit the app. It sounds like approval is very subjective based on the reviewer. Chances are it might get approved the second time around.
Re:They should pull a Trent Reznor (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard of several instances where people re-submitted unchanged apps and had them accepted. I'm guessing apple has a sweatshop somewhere in Asia stocked with marginal english speakers evaluating apps.
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Re:They should pull a Trent Reznor (Score:5, Funny)
Probably the same people they've got doing customer service.
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sweatshop (Score:5)
I'm guessing apple has a sweatshop somewhere in Asia stocked with marginal english speakers evaluating apps.
Well it's probably not a sweatshop in India, since they'd likely have recognized the Kama Sutra...
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Re:They should pull a Trent Reznor (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:They should pull a Trent Reznor (Score:5, Insightful)
If "it allows people looking for porn to find porn" is a valid criteria for rejecting an app, I suspect Apple is going to have to reject a lot more apps.
And they would have to retroactively reject their own web browser.
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Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are so opposed to Apple's censorship, STOP BUYING AND HYPING THEIR PRODUCTS.
Until techy geeks stop hyping everything Apple does as the "next big thing" and start paying attention to the shady shit that Apple pulls every day, the situation will never get better.
Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Interesting)
I couldn't agree more. Continuing to buy iPhones and other Apple products only encourages them to continue behaving as they have. Since when is it up to a company to censor products, especially when the censorship is so unevenly applied as to allow other eBook readers to access the Kama Sutra?
Unfortunately, the simple fact of the matter is that people will not boycott Apple over such behaviour. In fact, many of their hordes of minions will probably be more likely to buy, claiming that Apple is "family friendly."
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Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, Android is great... Unfortunately here in the US there are only one or two phones released with it officially and both are on T-Mobile. Windows Mobile doesn't support captive touch screens officially, and almost anyone who has used WinMo can tell you it basically sucks. Blackberry looks promising, but as of now their only touch screen phone is hampered by SureType or whatever they call it making your typing speed really slow, and its locked in to Verizion. And other than Symbian (which AFAIK doesn't have a phone with a touchscreen), there aren't any other major smartphone OSes to choose from.
Until we get cell phone networks that actually embrace new and advanced hardware, it seems like we will be stuck with crappy phones.
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Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Insightful)
You're shitting me.
Please don't pretend that it's all about the "A)..multi-touch enabled captive touchscreen".
Why are people so resistant to simply admitting it's a fashion accessory? There's no shame in wanting something for status' sake. You don't have to make up rationalizations.
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Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Insightful)
Multi-touch is a gimmick, you have a good point there. But a responsive touchscreen is an important feature. Capacitive touch screens with good drivers provide much faster responses, comparing the capacitive screen my HTC Dream (G1 in the US) to the resistive screen on the Samsung F480 and the Samsung screen is almost unusable compared to the responsiveness of the HTC. While a touch screen is not necessary for a phone, if you're going to put a touch screen into a phone it should be a decent touchscreen
Cognitive Dissonance, they cant handle the conflicting ideas that the iphone cannot perform the same functions in other smartphones whilst maintaining the impression that the iphone is the "best phone in the world". Iphone fanboys are the worst fanboys to deal with.
Although I admit to the sin of pride in my android based phone, I'll be the first to point out its flaws.
Post Purchase rationalisation [wikipedia.org]. The Iphone cost too much to be a simple fashion accessory, unlike jewellery it will never increase in value, when their contract is up after 24 months their phone will be worthless and superseded by up to 2 models. For this they have spent a minimum of A$1800 for a locked phone.
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Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's not. We use it because it has good features and is easy to use, plus a million others reasons.
Why are people so resistant to admitted that it's not just a fashion accessory but is actually a great, intuitive piece of technology.
CAR ANALOGY:
A Porsche has good features, and it's easy to use. Infact, Porsches are good cars, and great pieces of technology. But that doesn't mean everyone needs a Porsche, or that all Porsche purchases are motivated by the car's attractive specs.
Infact, most people buy Porsches because they are a trendy status symbol, and owning one makes you look cool and important. Like the iphone.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately here in the US there are only one or two phones released with it officially and both are on T-Mobile. Windows Mobile doesn't support captive touch screens officially, and almost anyone who has used WinMo can tell you it basically sucks.
(1) You can move the G1 to AT&T (or any other GSM carrier). Of course AT&T costs a metric ass-ton more than TMO, so I don't know why would want to do it, but that's a different matter? http://www.unlock-tmobileg1.com/EN/procedures/activate.php [unlock-tmobileg1.com]
(2) WinMo sucks out of the box, but there is a massive community of people cooking up new ROMS and writing awesome applications. If you are a super-busy-important guy (why would you be posting on /.?) then it's not for you, but for anyone with free time that li
This will eventually kill their developer base (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm willing to bet that once Android phones are really available, you're going to see the smartest developers moving over. Not because Android is technically superior-- it may not be-- but because no one wants to PAY for a SDK and pour loads of time into developing and refining applications, only to have it blocked by Apple for some arbitrary or unknown reason. Couple that with Apple's long history of incorporating good ideas into their own platform at the expense of developers, and I think their App Store will eventually marginalize itself.
Right now, the iPhone is really the only slick thing out there (I speak as a Blackberry user and administrator, which is a platform that works but not well), but how long do you think this will be the case?
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Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't it possible to be opposed to part of something, and yet still find the whole valuable enough to warrant keeping? Have you, for example, ever been married?
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Re:Here's a suggestion: (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it's censorship. It's just not government censorship. That means it isn't illegal, it's just moronic, stupid, vile, idiotic, repugnant and pathetic.
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Looks good (Score:4, Insightful)
I watched the animations on the site, and nowhere did I see the mention of the Kama Sutra. Then again if you can find the Kama Sutra in a search, how is this any different from Google or Safari?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The funny thing with apps is - can you tell where the app ends and the downloaded network content begins?
A number of apps make remote content appear as if it was local - sure things may be streaming and fetched from webservers and displayed in embedded WebKit frameworks, but they have the look and feel of the app its
As to the question of the Nokia N810 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:As to the question of the Nokia N810 (Score:4, Informative)
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Nokia N810 (Score:5, Interesting)
Just Resubmit (Score:3, Informative)
Its been very thoroughly established that Apple's censorship program is based more upon the reviewer you get than any standard set of guidelines. Someone got overzealous and rejected it, that doesn't mean that it is against Apple's policies. Just re-submit the thing and I'd lay even money on it that it will be approved the next time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the problem is the way Apple set up the reviewing process and selects reviewers and allows for appeal of the reviewers' decision?
Same result. Ultimately, it's Apple's fault.
Apple simple does not believe in the power of the free-market, I guess. Instead of letting the free and unfettered action of the marketplace decide which apps and content will be run on the
Karma Sutra is misunderstood... (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of people have the mistaken impression that the Karma Sutra is a sex guide when in reality it is a guide to having and maintaining a strong relationship.
For example it talks about marriage, how to meet women, and other things that you might expect from any modern relationship guide. It has a few sections about sex, kissing, and such but isn't the "sexual positions" guide that people think it is (often mis-referenced as such).
It is no more porn than any modern relationship book (e.g. "Women are from venus men are from mars").
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people have the mistaken impression that the Karma Sutra is a sex guide when in reality it is a guide to having and maintaining a strong relationship.
A significant portion of the book is a sex guide.
It is no more porn than any modern relationship book (e.g. "Women are from venus men are from mars").
I agree its not 'porn' in the sense that its intent isn't to stimulate or excite the reader, but its not Women are from Venus Men are from Mars.
It's more like 2nd Century Cosmo for guys... "64 sex acts t
The Author's Blog response (Score:5, Informative)
Original submitter here. It seems the root link to the the author's blog is gone, though it's in the firehose submission:
http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/whither-eucalyptus [montgomerie.net]
He's posting his entire dealings with Apple, mostly of the form letter variety. Hope this app nonsense gets cleared up soon.
CC
Re:The Author's Blog response (Score:5, Interesting)
Heres a related article:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/05/easter-eggs-may-get-apps-approved-but-could-hurt-app-store.ars [arstechnica.com]
From the article:
Jelle Prins created an iPhone app called Lyrics that allows a user to search for the lyrics to any song--even NWA's "F*ck Tha Police" or Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name." Of course, Apple promptly rejected the app citing the "objectionable content" clause of the iPhone developer's agreement
What. The. Fuck?
So an application which does not specifically prohibit iphone users from searching for 'objectionable content' gets rejected?
This isn't just about apps that *contain* 'objectionable content'.
Its about apps that *permit* the user to *search* for 'objectionable content'.
To me, and I'm sure to most reasonable people, this is in itself objectionable.
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App Store advertising scheme (Score:5, Insightful)
This iPhone App advertising scheme isn't fooling me and I'm tired of these Slashdot stories feeding the cycle.
Kama Sutra is not porn (Score:5, Insightful)
It is difficult to imagine how the text-only English translation of the Kama Sutra [gutenberg.org] could be considered porn by anyone who has not spent the last 20 years in a Skinner box. Today, it is probably best understood as an interesting piece of history, since its contents are neither especially informative or titillating.
Of course, if some of the reviewers at Apple have spent the last 20 years in a Skinner box [wikipedia.org], that would explain a number of the bogus rejections.
Babysitters (Score:4, Funny)
The Nokia 810 is okay (Score:5, Interesting)
From the summary: "I wonder how good the now-cheap Nokia 810 is as an e-book reader."
I have an N800, which is very close in specs. It's okay as an e-book reader, but nothing to write home about. I'm using FBReader.
As a general purpose internet laptop killer, it's awesome, though. Especially if you couple it with a bluetooth keyboard. I've written novels on it, VNCed, SSHed, played some games, diagnose networks, listened to podcasts, and even played Ur-Quan Masters on it [longtailgamer.com].
I barely touch my laptop anymore unless I need something that genuinely calls for a larger screen, like a spreadsheet or balancing my checkbook. The fun stuff, I leave to the N800.
The interface and page turn animation is amazing. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://th.ingsmadeoutofotherthin.gs/eucalyptus/ [ingsmadeou...herthin.gs]
Just watching the demo video of Eucalyptus's interface makes me want to purchase it. The search methods, content organization, page zooming, and page turning seem very well designed and polished to me. Integration with Project Gutenberg is a fantastic bonus.
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with either Eucalyptus or Project Gutenberg. I'm just a very impressed hopefully-soon-to-be user.
The next time... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple = Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only showing it's colors.
Apple's always been *evil*. They've just become very good at creating the 'must-have' style products that are overpriced, locking you into Apple ... at every chance. Easily shutting down anything remotely resembling 'freedom' -- which is what made the PC great in the first place. People have complained about MS's adoption of more and more DRM, but Apple's always had a de facto locking -- by having exclusive locks on compatible hardware. MS went with the approach of allowing unrestricted interoperability (which, when they've tried to limit, they've gotten slapped down due to their monopoly position, but Apple is similarly a monopoly in their market. But MS on PC's and Apples on Apples, are both monopolies. Apple gets away with it because they are smaller -- but their policies and user-abuse are far harsher and more totalitarian than MS. Much of that stems from Apple's core culture, but some of it also stems from MS being forced to be more open because they are a standard -- which they became because of their openness.
It disgusts me the way Apple fanboys fawn all everything Apple, which fancying themselves superior to PC-users. Bu it's nothing more than it ever was -- financial and "in-crowd" elitism.
You see it in Apple's commercials...the I'm a Mac, vs. PC. The PC guy looks like the average harried Joe -- while the Apple guy is just portrayed as 'cool'...with all his little 16-17 y/o rail-thin model pod-girls dancing around him in silhouette, like an oh-so-more-sophisticated 'Deadhead' scene of rainbow colors, but with the original 'cool' of Beatles style and music 60's-70 -- the epitome of cool in the baby-boom generation, with it's message perpetuating the message of perpetual cool youth with their stylish Apple products. The iPhone, by it's price should be focused on adults and business types, but it's obviously focused on sales to teens and 20'-something as the latest trend of electronic fashion -- just like the ipods were yesterday's (and ongoing) fashion statement.
But people should be concerned about how much market lock-in Apple has -- they own the main means of distribution for their gadgets -- and get to decide how their devices are used -- and they have shown that they have no qualms about shutting down anyone who tries to use their product in an unapproved manner -- or even performing the crudest of Christian censorship campaigns against 'objectionable' classics that have been previously censored or caused controversy. What will be next on their banned list, the unexpurgated poems of Walt Whitman, or the 'Song of Songs': an erotic piece that has been subject to demands of censorship over the centuries as it describes intense expressions of physical love, the voluptuous beauty of lovers longing for one another and in a uniquely feminine perspective, it's seductive and intimate language conveys and immediate, sensuous and intoxicating desire. Certainly worthy of censorship -- or how about the recent decision [centerforinquiry.net] in Bloomington, Ind where the city is refusing to run a paid-bus, public-service ad, "You can be good without God", as being too controversial (that's their definition of objectionable).
That Apple is using it's censorship powers on type of apps and content is very disturbing given it's unique, monopoly lock in the markets it sells too -- yet the fan boys swoon on, like Apple can do no wrong. They were they original PC-company that moved to sue all their competitors out of business. The original company that "sued over their "Intellectual Property" -- they've been guilty of copyright, patent, trademark and DRM abuse since their creation and have no qualms using lawsuits and their market-lock on their products, to control what you can with "your" product (it's really their product -- they can brick-it anytime they don't like a change you've implemented). If you are lucky, they'll replace it
Re:Porn is probably not the real reason (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, it's because they're coming out with their own book of sexual positions and don't want the competition. Of course their book likely involves Apple fanbois having unspeakable things done to them by Steve Jobs.
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Re:I'd be all set.... (Score:5, Funny)
Or iPhone = !fun
That's how I ready your statement the first time around.
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