Freeware Friday: KIDO’Z

I’m going to start a new feature here on Techydad:  Freeware Friday.  Every Friday, I’ll post a short review of a piece of freeware I’ve found that I think is useful to have.  I’ll try to avoid the obvious ones that nearly everyone knows about like OpenOffice.org and FireFox (at least for now) in favor of applications that might be lesser known.

This week, I’d like to highlight KIDO’Z.  KIDO’Z is a web browser aimed towards kids.  Why do kids need a special web browser, you might ask?  Well, young children, just being introduced to computers, might not know that they can go to the address bar and type in (for example) Noggin.com to get to games and activities on Noggin’s website.  Even if they do, they might misspell it as Noginn.com and wind up at a completely different site.  KIDO’Z, in contrast, is extremely easy.  Children merely select Games, Web Sites, or Videos and then select what they want to see.  Except for any Games/Websites that require keyboard input, all controls are handled by the mouse.  Nice, large, easy-to-understand icons are used for controls (with text for kids who know how to read).

The KIDO’Z team is constantly striving to improve the program.  They’ve recently added Parental Controls so parents can better control what their child sees.  You can block sites that KIDO’Z would normally show to the children (useful if, like me, you have a philisophical opposition to all things Barney) and can add your own sites (like a webpage of family photos).

It’s not perfect, mind you.  Due to the limitations of the platform it was designed on (Adobe AIR), it can’t block kids from CONTROL+TABing to another program.  It can’t keep kids from closing KIDO’Z, firing up Internet Explorer, and browsing to a site you’d rather they didn’t go to.  However, it is very good at giving children an easy to use first browser that puts fun and informative content a few clicks away.  I would definitely recommend this for any computer that a child would use.

This week in Tweets

  • Need to tell my parents that my in-laws are coming with us on our Disney World trip. How to break the news, though? #
  • They wouldn’t have been able to go, but I don’t want to make it seem like we were slighting them in favor of my wife’s parents. #
  • Got an idea for a Twitter app, but it’d quickly push me above my API limit. I should probably register another username for the app to use. #
  • Good morning everyone. At work today so I can use my vacation day for Fridge Delivery Day (also known as Thursday). #
  • Do you develop in ASP and PHP? If so, do you use separate hosting accounts? #
  • Typical. I feel highly productive and want to plow through my work and my laptop slows down to a crawl. #
  • Just e-mailed my web host asking why they changed their plans so drastically. #
  • From 140GB, ASP/MS SQL & PHP/mySQL for $130/yr to ASP/MS SQL OR PHP/mySQL & 4GB of space for $193/yr. Or ASP/MS SQL/PHP/mySQL & 8GB for $509 #
  • Was checking out Lunar Pages. They had ASP, PHP, MS SQL, mySQL, & just about enough space. Only allowed 2 websites per plan though. #
  • I asked how much to purchase additional websites (need at least 6) & was told I can’t. I’d need to sign up for multiple plans. WEBHOST FAIL! #
  • Just got a reply from Sectorlink about their hosting plan changes. #
  • They “introduced a new security model & new feature set … which unfortunately resulted in an overall increase of price.” #
  • They also added that any existing account “will continue to be hosted at it’s current cost and features until you request otherwise.” #
  • It does in the short term. It means we can stay on the plan we have now without any problems. #
  • Oops, that first part was meant to be @TheAngelForever. 😉 #
  • Just found a host to investigate. Heard good things about Surpass. They don’t do Windows, but mentioned a “sister company” HostDime. #
  • HostDime has a plan with 10GB of space, 5 hosted domains, PHP, ASP, mySQL, & MS SQL for $14.95/mo or $165/yr. #
  • If I can move my sites to using mySQL instead of MS SQL, and if ChiliSoft ASP works well, then HostGator might be a viable option. #
  • HostGator is $14.95/mo for unlimited space, unlimited domains, ChiliSoft ASP, PHP, & mySQL. #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= Only two days left. #
  • HostGator is also working on Windows plans. Looking forward to those. #
  • Going to try to switch SectorLink to paying monthly while keeping current plan. Otherwise I’ll soon be locked into Sectorlink for another yr #
  • Productive streak killed by McAfee Anti-Virus suddenly(and for no reason) demanding 90%+ of my CPU time. #
  • What’s sadder: A 13yr old might be the youngest father in Britain or 2 boys question his paternity saying they too slept w/ the 15yr old? #
  • Just thought of an interesting (and disturbing)wrinkle with the new #FacebookTOS blog post coming soon. #
  • Interesting. New reply from Sectorlink says that they’re still offering PHP/mySQL on their Windows plans. Website just hasn’t been updated. #
  • So their current “Windows Level 2” plan would fit my needs, but would cost about $253.20/yr (adding additional 2GB web space to get to 6GB). #
  • That’s still double my current hosting costs. #
  • Very productive “working vacation day” today. Got 18 items checked off my To Do list out of 32 items I started with. #
  • I love working on vacation days. No one calls and bothers me. I get so much more work done. #
  • Heading home now. Much work accomplished on this In-The-Office-Vacation-Day. #
  • Skipping #WiiFit tonight, but I have a good reason. My little one projectile puked all over our bed. He’s still awake but acting normal. #
  • Just watched #Heroes. My son decided to puke during the opening minutes. Thank goodness for DVRs. Don’t think it was a critique on Heroes. #
  • RT @mommasreview: Only one more day to win two Slankets! Come enter our giveaway http://tinyurl.com/am2o9h #
  • Got a voice message while I was in a meeting. It’s a wrong number. Should I call back to let them know or just ignore it? #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <== Would be cute to take pictures of NHL/JSL on this. #
  • Called the guy back. I’d hate to wait around for a callback if I left a voice mail at the wrong number. He thanked me for calling back. #
  • Sectorlink has updated their plans. Were showing 1.5GB & 4GB for the Windows plans. Now 15GB & 40GB. Not as good as the 140GB I have now tho #
  • Just confirmed. I can switch from annual to monthly billing on Sectorlink while retaining my old plan. #
  • This means I can leisurely look at other hosts instead of having an April deadline. #
  • Poster on DisBoards said they were given a soup recipe by DW staff. The foodie in me loves this. Enjoy food at Disney then make it at home! #
  • Politifact, which during the election fact checked candidates, is tracking how well Obama keeps his campaign promises. http://is.gd/g1hq #
  • Current track record: 9 Kept, 3 Compromise, 2 Broken, 21 In The Works, 475 No Action (not surprising, he’s been in office less than 1 month) #
  • How do I tell my parents that my wife’s parents are coming w/ us on our Disney Vacation w/o hurting their feelings? #
  • The longer I wait to do this, the worse it gets but I can’t think of a way to casually slip it in without it sounding like an insult. #
  • The complication w/ my parents is that they’re looking after my 94yr old grandmother so they can’t leave her for long. #
  • Thanks @classymommy & @Jentifa. I’ll offer another trip w/ them (even though I know they won’t accept). #
  • I guess I just need to get it over with. If I wait too long, I’ll need to explain why my in-laws are in the vacation photos. 😉 #
  • Trying to pack up and head home but the “1 last test” I did of a page turned into infinite recursion. Trying to shut it down before I leave. #
  • 80 days until we go to Disney World now. #
  • Computer moving slowly today. My brain’s moving slowly also. Is it naptime? #
  • RT @WorthyWire: North Dakota House Gives Fertilized Eggs Human Status http://tinyurl.com/awob2t <= Fertility treatment ramifications? #
  • When couples are done w/ IVF, fertilized eggs might be left over. Those are usually destroyed. Under the ND bill, that would be murder. #
  • Why can’t I just get a list of a user’s friends using the Twitter API without going through page after page? #
  • Got a great Twitter-based app in mind, but I fear I’ll hit the API if I need to go through page after page of friends. #
  • At the very least, it could give me a “Number Of Friends” figure so I can figure out the maximum page I’ll need to retrieve. #
  • Only going to pull the 1st 10 pages of a user’s Friends. There are 100 friends per page. That means a 1,000 friend limit which seems fair. #
  • Skipped my #WiiFit workouts this entire week so far thanks to our marathon cleaning sessions. #
  • Going to head to bed now. So tired from all of our cleaning. With luck, my wife & the boys will be able to visit me at work tomorrow. 🙂 #
  • The Crisis of Credit Visualized: http://www.vimeo.com/3261363 Very informative (and scary) look at the mess we’re in. #
  • Nine out of 10 parents swear in front of children: http://is.gd/kfmR #
  • Looks like my wife and kids won’t be visiting after all. Was looking forward to it too. 🙁 #
  • Hmm… The Twitter app I’m working on keeps crashing FireFox. That’s not good at all. That’ll need to be fixed before I roll it out. #
  • A bug in my code made a ton of TwitterAPI calls & bumped me into my rate limit. Guess I need to wait an hr before continuing my development. #
  • Parents called to tell me that my grandmother fell today. She’s in the ER now and might need to go to a nursing home for rehab. 🙁 #
  • Realized that my Twitter app will *ALWAYS* hit the 100 reqs/hr limit. Just the nature of what it does. Need to apply for the increased limit #
  • Running into too much trouble with a jQuery Queue plugin. Moving everything into a server side script instead. #
  • Oops. Last tweet should have specified that I’m having trouble with a jQuery *AJAX* Queue plugin. #
  • My wife is passed out on the couch next to me. I should really be getting to sleep also. But first I need to prep my camera for tomorrow. #

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Facebook/Breastfeeding Part 3: Revenge of the Facebook TOS

I didn’t intend to do another Facebook/Breastfeeding post so soon, but a new wrinkle in the whole controversy just occurred. Facebook recently changed their Terms of Service. Previously, they claimed rights to use your content as they see fit, but you could terminate those rights by having your account deleted.  Now, not only can they use your content if your account is closed or deleted, but they can sublicense your content as well.

How does this impact the Facebook/Breastfeeding controversy?  Well, suppose a mother uploads a photo of herself breastfeeding.  Facebook, regarding this content as sexually explicit, deletes the account.  However, Facebook retains rights to all content uploaded, including the breastfeeding photo.  Facebook can now sell that photo to a stock photo agency who can sell it to someone else to be used in an ad campaign.  This mother might find her nursing photo being used to advertise baby formula.  Imagine the outrage the mother would feel to see herself in the ad with the tag line "It’s just as good as mother’s milk."

What would the mother’s options be?  Pretty limited.  She could try to sue Facebook, but she likely wouldn’t get very far.  You see, that same Terms of Service also states that you’re agreeing to Mandatory Arbitration.  In short, she will have to travel to a state that the company chooses, face an arbitrator chosen by the company, who likely rules in favor of the company over 90% of the time, won’t be able to subpeona any documents from the company, won’t be able to appeal any decisions to a real court, and – even if by some quirk she wins – won’t have any legal teeth to get any money from the company.  In other words, Facebook has all but declared themselves the winner if you decide you want to challenge them legally.

This might solve the "Breastfeeding Photos on Facebook" controversy, but not in the expected way.  I don’t know why anyone (especially breastfeeding mothers) would want to upload photos to Facebook knowing that those photos could be sold by Facebook to some other company for any possible use without any compensation or recourse given to the user.  Perhaps it is time for another social network, one with better Terms of Service and better operating practices, to rise up and displace Facebook.

This week in Tweets

  • Yearly Jewish Federation donation call. I say I can’t donate. He asks if he should call Jewish Family Services. WTF? #
  • I’m not poor, I just can’t afford to donate right now. Was tacky how the guy assumed things about my financial situation based on my “No.” #
  • Did some baking tonight. Snickerdoodles (from bought cookie dough) and No Pudge Fudge Brownies. Yum on both. #
  • Is it morning? Am I awake? I seem to be dressed and at work, but brain no want wake up. Me nap now. *zzzzzzzzzzz* #
  • Got a “shouting” call from my wife. Apparently, she picked up NHL at kindergarten, headed for the library, & NHL decided to wet his pants. #
  • Holocaust denying bishop says he’ll review evidence, won’t visit Auschwitz, but bought a book: http://is.gd/iXmy #
  • He claims previous comments based on research in the 80’s. AFAIK, there’s been no Holocaust historical breakthroughs in the past 25 yrs. #
  • Either he’ll claim his evidence review supports denial or he’ll change his tune & use “re-examining the evidence” as a save face maneuver. #
  • Not feeling well today. Also having a high point day. Think the two are related? #
  • Packing up and heading home now. Need to fill up the car before I head home & make dinner. in reply to TheAngelForever #
  • Today’s starting off as a really stressful day. Not a good sign when I’m highly stressed before I even get to work. #
  • Car needs repair. Then again, it’s 10 years old with 104K miles on it. Perhaps I should just replace it. But what to replace it with? #
  • New (or used) car requirements: Not too big (just for daily commutes), fuel efficient (at least 28-30mpg) and as inexpensive as possible. #
  • I’d love to get a hybrid, but they just cost too much. #
  • Websense blocks Wikipedia’s #Breastfeeding In Public page ( http://is.gd/j2Ih ) as Nudity. Doesn’t flag Wikipedia’s Breastfeeding page tho. #
  • Also doesn’t block Wikipedia’s Breast page ( http://is.gd/j2JE ) which has a female breast photo (w/ nipple). So why block BF in Public? #
  • Fun! Sheldon (on online comic strip) has grandpa starting on Weight Watchers… um, I mean Point Watchers. 😉 http://is.gd/j2OR #
  • Twitter charging companies wouldn’t be fatal. I do wonder how they’d identify corporate use though. #
  • If I have a site w/ a CafePress shop, am I charged to tweet? What if my blog runs ads? Tweeting about my blog posts could earn me money. #
  • Warning label on my soup container: “Bowl and soup are HOT after heating” I would seriously hope so. If it’s frozen, the microwave’s busted. #
  • Is hoping that Daphne on Heroes is still alive. @BreaGrant is wonderful on the show & I don’t want her written off just yet. #
  • Hopefully she’s recovering in a Hero Prison Hospital. Leaving her status up in the air does help make Matt (& viewers) upset at Nathan & co. #
  • Bare bones beta version of my revamped Infomercial review site is done. WordPress makes it go quickly. #
  • Anyone know of any WordPress plugins designed for product reviews? #
  • Freezing here. I need a snuggie! #
  • Octoplet’s mom: “Everything I do is for my children.” Maybe she shouldn’t have more kids when she can’t afford the 6 kids she already has? #
  • If my wife and I had no income, we’d cherish the kids that we had & would hold off on more kids until we were more financially secure. #
  • Octoplet’s moms 1st 6: Boy, girl, boy, boy, & a set of twins. So that’s 5 pregnancies before the octoplets. #
  • I’d question the fertility doctor’s ethics if he kept implanting eggs into her while she was unemployed & had many kids already. #
  • 13 month spread between her first 2 kids? #
  • 5 pregnancies in 5 1/2 years?!!! That can’t be healthy for her body. #
  • I think she just made a dig at the Duggers. I have my problems with them, but at least they have income to support their family. #
  • She admits that 6 embryos were transferred? I know someone who went for IVF and only 2-3 embryos were used each time. #
  • Is wondering how much is it going to cost her to raise 13 kids as an unemployed single mom. 2 kids can be pricy. #
  • Oops, I typed 13 kids…. meant 14 kids. Can’t do math right now. Too tired. Need to do some WiiFit workouts. #
  • Her 6 year old girl thinks it’ll be stressful all the time. It can be stressful here with 2 kids. I can’t IMAGINE adding 12 more! #
  • She’s planning to move to a larger home…. with WHAT MONEY?!!! #
  • Octuplet mom didn’t want her frozen embryos destroyed. Fair enough, there’s another option. Donate them to couples who can’t have kids. #
  • I believe you can even sell them thus giving her money to take care of her first 6 kids. #
  • She claims that there were 6 inserted in each round & two failed rounds before the 8 arrived. That’s 24 embryos to donate. #
  • More Weight Watchers….. er, Point Watchers in Sheldon. Looks like this will be a week long story line: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/ #
  • Today’s Baby Blues references Breastfeeding:http://twitpic.com/1fl03 #
  • Has anyone used the ReviewPress plugin for WordPress? If so, what did you think about it? #
  • RT @mike_elgan: Why not pay Wall Street bonuses in their own toxic assets? http://hellotxt.com/l/3ilm #
  • Note to self. When you get too little sleep you have a tendency to snack more often the next day. IOW, proper sleep helps weight loss. #
  • rt @Moomettesgram You KNOW you want to win a blanket w/sleeves ~ The Slanket! Enter now! http://twurl.nl/yupbzh #
  • Authors Guild says Kindle doesn’t have “right to read a book out loud” http://is.gd/j12v That costs extra? No more NHL bedtime stories! #
  • So tired…. So I’m going to force myself onto the WiiFit. Maybe an hour of FreeStep aerobics with 10lbs of weights on my legs will help. #
  • Exhausting #WiiFit workout. 30 minutes of FreeStep and then 20 arm & leg lifts (each side). All with wieghts on my wrists/ankles. *collapse* #
  • Night night tweets. Headed to bed to try to get some sleep tonight. Hopefully JSL stays asleep the whole night. #
  • Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. RT this message to enter. Full details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a #
  • Our fridge is dying so my wife’s off to look at new ones. #
  • Phone rings. Automated voice: “If you own your own home you need to protect against major appliance failure.” Phone spammers have me bugged! #
  • Local police going to do training exercise near my work (w/ unloaded firearms). Could be a good photo op but not sure they’d like it. #
  • More Weight Watchers/Point Watchers fun over at Sheldon Comics: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/ #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= Looks like a nice way to store NHL/JSL’s stuffed animals #
  • Court Says Vaccine Is Not to Blame for Autism http://tinyurl.com/dfvczr #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= I really like that this is machine washable! #
  • Looked at Twit-Jacking page (with JS disabled of course) to figure out how it works. Had to translate a blog post from French to English. #
  • It opens an iFrame in such a manner to make it see-through (invisible but still able to react to clicks). #
  • It pre-populates a tweet (Twitter supports this). Next it puts a visible “Click Here” button under the invisible Twitter Submit Tweet button #
  • You try to click the “Click Here” button, but actually click the “Submit Tweet” button. Viola! Another “Don’t Click” tweet is posted. #
  • Just updated my How The “Don’t Click” Twitter Hack Works http://www.techydad.com/?p=349 blog post with a solution for @twitter to use. #
  • Network is conspiring against me. Trying to finish one task I was told to do by end of day, but server’s being slow. #
  • Trying to leave early to get fridge, but I can’t leave until this is done. And the network seems to be working against me here. ARGH! #
  • iPod Touch giveaway at http://twurl.nl/fbtbdv by @katjapresnal #skimbaco #11moms Please RT! #
  • Off to WiiFit. Wish there was some way to Tweet while FreeStepping. (No, I don’t have a Smart phone/iPhone. Just a laptop.) #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= Looks like a very cool stuffed animal storage system. #
  • Night tweets! #
  • Someone brought in donuts today. I looked at them and wasn’t tempted at all. Sorry, @DunkinDonuts, but it does mean my diet’s working. 😉 #
  • One Boston Kreme donut has 6.5 points. Instead that, I can have 2 packets of instant grits (4 points) and a Kashi strawberry bar (2 points). #
  • Really wish @Hostgator’s Windows servers were available. Heard good things about them, but I need to run ASP/MS SQL as well as PHP/mySQL. #
  • Zoomable photo of Inauguration Day: http://tinyurl.com/c8jabs Very cool! #
  • LOL! Free Valentine’s Day song from Amazon.com MP3: http://tinyurl.com/b2gmbe #
  • Is it time to go home yet? #
  • Is it the weekend yet? #
  • Feeling a bit confined in my 8 foot by 10 foot windowless office. #
  • Why is OpenOffice.org flagging every word as spelled wrong? Did I really spell “a” wrong? Or “on”? Or “in”?!!! #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= Really hoping to win this… can you tell? 😉 #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= My wife & I could review it on our blogs. (hint hint) 😉 #
  • Friday 13th strikes! Washing hands & water splashed over the front of my pants. Walked back to my office looking like I peed my pants. 🙁 #
  • All I can say is: Thank goodness for sportjackets! #
  • Is the weekend here yet? #
  • Any web hosts out there that offer ASP, PHP, mySQL, MS SQL, at least 5GB of space, and the ability to host multiple sites on the same plan? #
  • My wife and I have a “fun” V-Day planned. Cleaning the house up so that our new fridge can be delivered. #
  • Weekend time! Yay! *Thinks about all the cleaning that needs to be done this weekend.* Hmmm… Maybe I want to stay in the office after all. #
  • Our V-Day was filled with kitchen cleaning & microwaved dinner. Ok, not romantic, but very productive! #
  • 5 bags of garbage & the equivalent of 2 more bags recycling. One room down, 4 more to go. #
  • Sheldon Comics has another (and possibly the last for now) “Point Watchers” strip: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/ in reply to Shortpacked #
  • Asked to join advisory panel. TOS say that they’ll own all “rights to the suggestions of every kind & nature throughout the Universe” WTH?!! #
  • If I agree to the TOS, I guess I’d have to move to my nearest parallel dimension to make a comment that the company wouldn’t own. #
  • RT and Enter to win a Boon Trio Animal Bag. Details here: http://twurl.nl/uj5t2a <= This looks so cool. #
  • Doing a full mirror of all files on my web hosting account to see how many GB’s I’m using with files. With 27% transferred, I’m over 1GB #
  • Projecting 4GB when all is said & done. Add in another GB or 2 for DBs and future growth. Looks like I need 6GB+ from a hosting provider. #
  • Listening to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye, free from Amazon.com MP3. #
  • Just checked my disk quota and it’s claiming that I’m using 4GB. That’s probably files only, then as my mirror is on track to be that much. #
  • Night all! #

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A Facebook/Breastfeeding Controversy Followup

Last week, I was watching a program on The History Channel titled History of Sex. Just before and after each commercial break, they would have a little quote. I immediately hit pause at one of them as I just had to write this down:

Victorians used the term “limbs” as a euphemism for legs, which were thought to be so sexually exciting to a man, even a glimpse of a table leg could incite him to sexual frenzy. Table skirts were invented to prevent any unnatural unions between men and furniture.

I immediately thought of something I had written in my The Facebook/Breastfeeding Controversy: A Dad’s Perspective post:

Society seems to dictate that the breast should be hidden away (even in instances of breastfeeding) because it is a sexual object. This is a self-fulfilling statement, however. It is mainly a sexual object *BECAUSE* it is hidden away. Go back a century or two to when women wouldn’t be seen outside showing any ankle and ask people of that time why they thought a bared female ankle shouldn’t be seen. I guarantee that the response would have been that the female ankle is sexually alluring and thus should be hidden away. When ankles became common to see, legs became the alluring object. When legs revealed themselves, the belly gained prominence. As each body part showed up more and more in public life, it lost being seen solely as a sexual lure. If women were to commonly walk around topless, the breast would lose much (if not all) of it’s role as a sexual lure. Yes, there would be an increase in teenaged boys drooling on street corners in the short term, but after awhile, society would move on.

Here was some historical proof of my theory. Back during the Victorian era, people thought that men couldn’t handle the mere sight of a female leg. In fact, female legs were thought to be such a strong sexual turn-on that a table’s leg would place a man into a state of “sexual frenzy” merely due to the passing resemblance they have to a female’s leg. Today, however, you can see women’s legs everywhere from business offices to the beach. From malls to markets. These women aren’t leaving a trail of frenzied men in their wake. Society has moved on.

Yes, the female leg is still seen by men today as a sexual attractant, but it is no longer “forbidden fruit.” You don’t see men’s magazines named “Thigh” showing bare legs. Men simply do not go into an uncontrollable frenzy on the mere sight of a bare leg. If women walked around commonly without any tops on, the female breast would become another “woman’s leg.” It would lose its “forbidden fruit” aspect. While it would remain a sexual attractant to some degree, it wouldn’t be the sort of thing that makes men drool like idiots.

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