All photos by Rebecca Camphens

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands

You'd probably think that no one handles quite as many sex toys as porn stars, but 40-year-old Chantall from the Netherlands has had more than 600 dildos, butt plugs, and vibrators pass through her hands.

On the blog she started about four years ago, she reviews every kind of toy imaginable—including several Tarzan vibrators, a smiling butt plug, and a double penetrator. Her blog gets around 2,000 visitors a day, while she also gets a lot of e-mails from people asking her for sex advice on a weekly basis. Besides sex toy reviews, her blog also offers more in-depth stuff—like a comprehensive guide to lube or tips for cleaning a sex toy.

To get to this level of expertise, Chantall has been puffing and panting for almost 15 years—she's been in the sex toy industry for much longer than her website's been live. I wanted to know more about this fountain of knowledge, so I went to her home to get a good look at her sex toy paradise. When I rang her doorbell around 11:30 AM, a cheerful redhead wearing a bright turquoise polka dot dress opened the door. After a cup of tea, she led me to a small office upstairs full of brightly-colored dreamcatchers, which she also makes herself and sells online.

I spoke with Chantall about her blog, toxic toys, and the ultimate orgasm.

VICE: Why did you start a blog about sex toys?
Chantall: I have a degree in Media Studies, and after I graduated I started working as a freelance writer for various magazines. I've always been very interested in sexuality, so when the editor-in-chief of the Dutch pornographic magazine FOXY asked me to write for them, I immediately said yes. I was responsible for the product page and wrote about ten new sex toys every month. That was about 15 years ago. From there my interest in sex toys just kept growing, so about four years ago my husband said, "Why don't you start something of your own?" That's when I started my own blog.

How many sex toys have you tried in those 15 years?
I think I must be getting close to 1,000. But some of them are so bad, you don't even want to try them out. I will still turn them on but I just don't put them in. So the toys that I have actually tested—I think that's about 600.

I'm not going to torture myself by staying in bed with a terrible product for an hour in the hope that something will happen. If I don't get an orgasm within ten minutes, that's it.

Do the manufacturers send you all these toys?
Yes, I have never actually bought one myself. I've got connections with all the major brands, like Lelo, Fun Factory, and Rocks-Off. They send me their newest products before they even hit the stores so I can try them out and write about it. I also work with a few sex shops. They often let me choose the toys I'd like to test myself.

Do you do this every day?
I don't test a new toy every day, because reviewing sex toys is just like having "regular" sex—sometimes you're in the mood and sometimes you're not. But I do try to update my website and answer messages from readers every day.

How long does it take you to test a toy?
It depends. If the toy is really excellent, I'll test it more than once. But if it's terrible—which happens more often than the other way around—I will be done with it very quickly. I'm not going to torture myself by staying in bed with a terrible product for an hour in the hope that something will happen eventually. If I don't get an orgasm within ten minutes, that's it.

How do you go about testing a toy, exactly?
I usually test the toys on my own but some of them are made to be used with a partner, so sometimes I'll call in my husband. I do what I call a "dry test" first. I look at the package, I look up what the manufacturer says about the product online, I feel the material, read the instructions, I check the buttons, and I take a look at and feel how the toy vibrates. I've broken a toy right away just by turning it a bit. And if a toy stinks, I don't even try it out.

If it stinks?
Yes. The shape and the motor of a toy may be amazing but if it's made out of unsafe materials, I refuse to test it. Unsafe materials generally have a very typical plastic smell. Safe materials are glass, metal, and 100 percent silicone, for instance. Those materials are non-porous, which means they are easy to clean and that bacteria, fungi, or other kinds of dirty stuff don't get the chance to stick to your toy.

For instance, an unsafe material that is sometimes used for sex toys is jelly, which is PVC that's been softened with plasticizers. These plasticizers are not good for your health. There have been studies on rats, and they got infertile after a small exposure to plasticizers. So toys made out of jelly are not allowed to ever enter my body.

But toys made out of silicone are okay, right?
Sure, though another problem which comes in to play is that a company is allowed to say that the toy is made out of hundred percent silicone on the package, even if that's not the case. There aren't many laws and rules concerning sex toys, unfortunately.

Is there a way to tell if a toy is unsafe, besides the material?
There are a few tells: Never buy a toy with a horny-looking woman on the package, never buy toys that smell, never buy toys that come with a "For novelty use only" tag on the package, and above all, read about the product first or consult a sex shop assistant before you buy it. We are all so busy worrying about what we eat these days, but no one really thinks about how healthy their vibrator is.

What's your favorite sex toy?
It's the Europe Magic Wand, purely because of the brilliant vibrations it gives you—though it just might the most ugly vibrator that exists. It looks a bit like a microphone with a huge ball on it and if you are a woman who has never tried a sex toy, I'd advice you to not start with this one. It vibrates very deeply, because it works on 220 volts. So, you have to plug it in a socket.

What's the worst?
I think more than a half of the sex toys I've tested belong in that category. So every toy that's made out of unsafe materials is bad. And then you also have those that vibrate badly. I always compare vibrations to the growl of a bear and the squeak of a mouse. Growling bear vibrations are the good ones, while squeaky mouse vibrations are the bad ones. They are not only annoying to your ears, but also to your clitoris.

Then you also have the category I call "Funfair in your cunt"; toys in every color of the rainbow, with clockwise and counterclockwise rotating pearls and glitter. It all looks very pretty but I can not recommend those products for several reasons. And then there are the "sex toys that look like children's toys"—those are the ones I really hate.

What's the most extreme toy you've tested?
The Sybian is a kind of fuck machine—it was so terrible! When I put it on, my whole house—including the houses next door—started to vibrate. It's a device that weighs about 20 pounds and the company advised to put it on my bed, so that the mattress would absorb the vibrations and my neighbors didn't have to enjoy my little adventure. For me, that was too much hassle. I'm in for good and nice sex. I don't need it to be so complicated that I have to rebuild my entire living room.

A terrible 'Hello Kitty' vibrator, which according to Chantall is "a real collector's item."

Is there actually the right toy for every woman?
Yes, I think so. But if you don't feel the need to have one, that's another story. If you have a good sex life with your partner or with your fingers, you shouldn't feel the pressure to buy one. But there are plenty of women who find it more difficult to have an orgasm.

Every woman is different and I can not guarantee that whatever I find pleasurable, all other women do, too. But I can tell you what toys you shouldn't use. I have so many toys at home—I don't think there is anyone else in the Netherlands who has tested that many.

So you decided to open your relationship. Congratulations! Monogamy certainly seems tough, and since puberty, I have thought it profoundly wasteful to set up a game of chicken between commitment and the id. But I warn you: You may begin to find network television toothless, as so many plots lazily circle around infidelity, the threat of infidelity, or humor based in tension surrounding infidelity.

Also, you fantastic free-thinker, a poly lifestyle isn't all Caligula all the time. The bacchanalian vibe you imagine may not come to pass, and you run some serious risks. I'm not talking about existential dangers to your coupledom, but a more mundane concern: namely that people in fresh open relationships can be annoying as shit.

I know what I'm talking about, because in my personal life I'm a target for a lot of open couples: I'm relatively promiscuous and think dating as a triad is cute and kinda hot. While I'm not saying there's a right way to approach non-monogamy, there are definitely a few wrong ways. As someone who answered searchable poly questions on OkCupid honestly, those wrong ways frequently get aimed right at my face.

So before you screenshot Sex at Dawn for your joint OkCupid profile, allow me to provide you some tips for having an open relationship in the real world.

Getting laid still takes work

This goes out, I'm sorry to say, more to men than women. As I mentioned before, I answered a few questions on OkCupid truthfully: Yes, I would date someone in an open relationship. I would! That's true. But now half the salvos I get on that dating site go something like this: "Hey April-I'm in an open marriage, and I love my wife. You've got a great ass! I'd like for us to become fuck buddies. Write back quickly."

Ask yourself: Did you have to have game when you were single? Your wedding ring isn't Spanish fly, and the fact that some woman likes you enough to share a bathroom doesn't make you Justin Trudeau's younger brother. Be polite, at a bare minimum.

Not everyone wants to hear about your sex life

The universe of people interested in the mechanics of your open relationship is almost certainly the exact same one that heard details of your pre-poly sex life. Your close pals, married wing-woman, that college roommate you ask about butt stuff—it's wonderful to have a large pool of candid friends. But if someone isn't in that circle, he or she doesn't need to hear about "my wife's lover." You don't need to bring up The Ethical Slut at Thanksgiving to your 75-year-old aunt. Your co-worker in the next cubicle isn't being close-minded if they don't want to hear about your foursome—he didn't want to visualize you naked last year, and he still doesn't. You don't need to keep your new relationship status a secret; allude to it a few times, perhaps, and people who are interested will ask about it.

In most circumstances, a cold open request to fuck you and your partner is rude

It's the same as asking complete strangers to pee on you, i.e. asking them to complete a fantasy of yours without first ascertaining whether they're into it. That might fly at a sex party, but even if you're on a dating site, a proposition requires preamble. Leading with an unsolicited sexual appeal is trolling. It doesn't matter if you used the words "please" and "thank you." This is still true if you're a woman. Ladies, if I don't know you, don't assume that I'm interested in "slow sensuality," or that I want to see your husband's dick because "we're sisters." (We aren't, and if we were that would be even weirder.) If you have a two-person profile, say hi and mention something we have in common, same as if you were single. I'll get the idea, and if I'm interested, I'll write back.

Baggage is still unattractive, even if it's a couple's set

Asking single people to date you singly, but describing yourself mostly in relation to your partner and how committed you are and how you're in process with this whole non-monogamy thing isn't going to turn people on or make them think they'd have a good time with you. The only thing less likely to get my panties in a twist than asking me for sex in your first five words is making it clear that you are a big ball of defensive, confused feelings, and you need free therapy that comes with head.

I understand that going from a lifetime of clear rules that can be spelled out with country songs to a new world of ambiguity is a big deal. My life is full of my big deals, too. Wait 'til the second date to wax large with the big deals, and try to understand that they aren't my problem.

Low-stakes auxiliary sex Is probably easier with other non-monogamous people

When I tweak my dating profile to indicate "partnered but available," the deluge of "third" emails slows to a trickle. The implications of this are nasty—it means that men (and couples) are looking for some kind of fantasy fulfillment robot with no life of her own, a convenient threesome partner and nothing more. That's a lousy deal, especially for a single person looking for an emotional connection, not a role in a harem. This seems like a no-brainer, but I guess it needs to be said: If most of your emotional needs are covered by your primary partner, and all you really want is sexual variety and friendship, you might want to look for someone who is in a committed relationship of his or her own.

Non-monogamy isn't the only way, and you don't get to tell everyone else they're doing it wrong

There are myriad reasons why people might prefer monogamy, including religion, ease of navigating the world, or because it just feels right. Respect that, even if you choose differently. You know how you complain all the time about monogamous bores telling you you're going to hell/divorce court? They don't need your advice, either.

Follow April Adams on Twitter.

A gun owner in Virginia at the opening of a gun shop. (Rex Features via AP Images)

This week, an anonymous internet person calling himself the "Hyper Rationalist" launched a Change.org petition calling for guns to be allowed at the GOP convention this July. It went viral, gathering more than 50,000 signatures and launching a bevy of incredulous news articles. Some people assumed it was a joke, or supported it jokingly, but others took it seriously enough that Donald Trump said he would consider it, and the Secret Service had to clarify that no guns would be allowed at the event.

It was, it turns out, a piece of satire from a self-described liberal, but you can't blame people if they weren't sure whether they should laugh—in 2016, it's increasingly difficult to sort out satire from fact. Even if it weren't in earnest, the petition did spark an upsurge in the national debate about guns, with columns in the New York Times and the New York Daily News both referencing it.

Here is the Hyper Rationalist—who did not want to share his identity, though he said another outlet has discovered it—describing how all that happened:

It came out of a joke. I was watching a Republican debate—it was a particularly contentious one, and the talk of a contested convention was getting more heated, and I thought, Wow, I wonder how they'd feel about having open carry there? That seed germinated into something a little more concrete, which was the petition. It was intended to be another cute, satirical thing that I would share with people, a couple other people would share it, and it would dwindle and die a slow social media death.

I considered the petition an offshoot of what I normally do, which is write tweets or Facebook posts for my little social circle that I entertain sometimes and annoy other times. This was one step beyond that, I guess; it became something closer to performance art—in hindsight, that's what it looks like now.

The goal was to write something earnestly in the words of somebody on the pro-gun side of the debate. Not the furthest right person on that side, not the most easily caricatured—I imagined someone who could easily get a guest spot on Fox News. I tried to use that sort of language, for the most part, with little tweaks, like the capitalization of "HUSSEIN" in "Barack Hussein Obama," as clues for people who might be in on the joke. I wrote what I think Republicans should have written without me, in order to not be in contradiction of their own stated principles about guns.

Gun ownership is a uniquely irrational aspect of our life in America that we've lost the ability to talk about in a way that makes sense. What really confounds me is when a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz rails endlessly about the San Bernardino attack, where 14 people were killed—a tragedy, no doubt, but in the end, I don't care who shoots me. It could be a Muslim, it could be a white supremacist, it could be a depressed guy, it could be a kid who got a gun from his mom's purse. I don't want to see anyone getting shot, regardless of the reasons behind it. Republicans like Trump and Cruz only seem to care about mass shootings when people they don't like commit them.

Anyway, when I shared the petition around it was like wildfire. I think the first big push was from Brave New Films, who grabbed it somehow, and I forget how it spread from there but the shares just started piling up. By the time the petition got to 5,000 signatures, I sort of panicked a little bit.

I was also a little disappointed with how the media just propagated the petition as if it were real, as if it would have the force of law behind it if it reached X number of signatures. On the one hand, I was thrilled that they saw the point, and they were asking questions, but on the other hand, I saw a lot of outlets that were just glomming on and reposting other site's information like, "This is happening, and this seems kind of hot at the moment." I think a lot of them got distracted by the whodunit aspect of the thing and failed to address the underlying question it sought to ask.

My sense was that the vast majority of support was from people who knew that it was satire. But I don't know. That's very unscientific; I'm not going to comb through 50,000 comments and try to figure that out. I don't necessarily think it took off because Republicans supported it—but I think it's absurd that most Republicans were silent on it.

Now that the right knows a liberal was behind the petition I've been called a "Clinton activist." I don't know why. I'm pretty neutral about the primary—I like Bernie Sanders. I've donated to him, but I've also donated a little bit to Hillary Clinton. Republicans want to say, "Look who started it!" but who cares who started it? Do you agree with it or not?

Either guns make you safe or they don't. If they make you safer—and Republicans say they do, they always rail against "gun-free zones" and want to make it possible for gun owners to carry them everywhere—they would make the convention safer. So why not have guns there? Is that an admission on their part that a lot of armed people getting together would be unsafe?

For 95 percent of people, guns at a convention seems like a bad idea, this year in particular with the atmosphere of violence that's in the air. Could we maybe look at that across other contexts and see if there are lessons to be drawn?

I wish we could have a conversation about guns where the two perceived options weren't "Take all the guns," or "Everyone can have all the guns they want." Generally, I like the idea of lower-capacity magazines, I like the idea of "smart guns"—but I don't have a specific piece of legislation in mind that I want to see passed. I just want to be able to talk about guns in a rational way. That was what I was trying to do.

Follow the Hyper Rationalist on his blog and Twitter.

Photos courtesy of Stefano Amoretti/Clue:Cold

WARNING: Some of the images below are disturbing.

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Luigi Tomellini worked as a forensic photographer in Genoa. His photographic plates were an essential tool for local police investigations at the time, but somehow they were lost after his death—and only recovered in the 1980s. The pictures are beautiful and macabre, as well as a valuable record of old forensic photography techniques.

"There's a long and troubled story behind these plates," says Stefano Amoretti, a cultural and creative industries student at the City University London. "Riccardo Sezzi found them in an abandoned suitcase in Genoa back in the 1980s. It was an entire portfolio containing images of people killed seventy years before, but he didn't know what to do with them, so he just kept them in his home until 2013. That year, we developed the plates together for the first time, in a darkroom we set up in his bathroom."

Amoretti, Sezzi, and photographer Mino Tristovskij put together an exhibition of these historic pictures, called Clue: Cold. The exhibition has traveled across Europe, and last week marked the launch of a catalog with the images.

Suicide, probably by hanging. Scan from original plate, 18x13 cm, 1910s

"The photographs are incredibly dramatic," Amoretti tells me. "The one with the man on the checkerboard floor, for example. The position of the corpse; the perspective so meticulously dictated by the walls and the floor; the man in a diagonal position; the unmade bed—it looks like a scene from a movie."

After the discovery of the portfolio, it was unclear for a long time who the photographer was. "But then Aldo Padovano, a Genoan historian and writer, managed to connect a specific plate to a newspaper article that mentioned that Professor Dr. Tomellini had visited the crime scene to take 'quite a few' photographs. Everything sort of fell into place form there: Tomellini was an important academic professor at the University of Genoa at the time. He was probably the first to introduce innovative recognition techniques, such as fingerprinting, to Italy. "

Body on a morgue table. Scan from original plate, 18x13, 1910s

Every picture tells a different story vital to the curation of the exhibition. "There's one image, in which you can see a poster of the premiere of La Bohème that took place in Genoa on January 27, 1912. That picture was crucial in framing the historical moment. Other plates contain names, and others are interesting from a technical point of view. But there are also some extremely fascinating plates that don't even have any context. Take the knives, for example, or the bullets—those are the same motifs made famous by pop art decades later."

Photo via Flickr user J Brew

Last month, Brian (who asked we not use his last name) woke up in the middle of the night to the feeling of his dick hardening in his boxers. He could vaguely feel its outline as it tightened, becoming more erect, as his wife lay sleeping next to him. Could this be a dream? he thought. But, almost instantly, the optimism of that latter possibility came crashing down.

"I sort of pushed my hips forward against my boxers and looked for the bulge," he said, "and obviously it was still gone."

A year ago, Brian, a 38-year-old who lives in the Midwest, had a penectomy—the surgical removal of a penis. He'd gone to his doctor, complaining of what he thought might be a genital wart, but after meetings with few specialists, he learned it was late-stage squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer. Doctors recommended the penectomy.

"That was a bad day," he told me over the phone.

Oddly, since the surgery, he's been struck by an occasional sensation that the penis is still there, like a phantom limb.

For years, patients with phantom limbs were told the phenomenon was "all in their head," but now, research suggests up to 80 percent of people who have had an arm or leg amputated report a feeling of a body part that isn't there. For men who have had their penises amputated, the same holds true.

The phenomenon was first reported by Scottish physicians in the late 1700s, who mentioned phantom penises off-handedly in larger work about phantom limbs, according to a journal article. In 1815, Scottish surgeon Andrew Marshal described a man who'd lost his entire penis: "In the case of W. Scott, whose penis was carried off by a gun-shot, the stump of it, which was even with the skin of the pubis, resumed the peculiar sensibility of the glans penis," he wrote in his notes, which were published in 1815, two years after his death. Another Scottish surgeon, John Hunter, described several instances of the ghost dick in his 1786 book, Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy, including one man who received so much pleasure from his phantom penis that he was able to ejaculate through his "stump."

Unlike phantom limbs, which are known to cause pain, phantom penises seem more often associated with pleasure.

But Wayne Earle, a 48-year-old Australian, finds nothing pleasurable about his phantom penis. Earle, the founder of CheckYourTackle, a website dedicated to raising awareness about male cancers and providing support for cancer victims, had a complete penectomy in 2014 to stop the spread of squamous cell carcinoma.

"I still wake up occasionally with it, and it does get aroused when Tracy and I kiss, cuddle, or get close," he told me via Facebook messenger. "This is a big part of my depression, as you still get the sexual urges just like any other man. You still produce testosterone, and the body does self-adjust, but you still get urges and a phantom erection. There is no way that it is pleasurable."

Watch: ResERECTION: The Penis Implant

In 1950, in the the journal Transactions of the American Neurological Association, Boston surgeon A. Price Heusner described an elderly man whose penis was "accidentally traumatized and amputated" and had an occasional "painless but always erect penile ghost whose appearances were neither provoked nor provokable by sexual phantasies." The man had to check regularly to make sure it wasn't still there.

A year later, Alfred Crone-Münzebrock published his study of 12 men, cancer survivors who opted for amputation and had remaining stumps. Seven of them reported phantom penises, with two of those men associating the phenomenon with pain.

Related: We Talked to a Guy Who Found Peace Through Self-Amputation

In 1999, Dr. C. Miller Fisher, a Boston neurologist who died in 2012, published a case study of a 44-year-old businessman whose penile skin cancer, manifested as a painful sore on the penis, necessitated a full penectomy. After the surgery, he reported phantom boners, often resulting from erotic stimulation like "seeing a pretty young woman." The phantom penis was essentially a replica of the one he'd actually had, and he reported feeling phantom pain emanating from the cancerous sore.

It only really happens if I start to think about it. Otherwise, it's more just the general shape and idea of a penis. — Matt

Earle experienced the phantom penis everyday in the six months following his surgery. "It is one of the things that is not really discussed with you and the doctors at the time of diagnosis," he told me. He described the ghost of his penis as mentally, emotionally, and physically painful, saying it was one of the worst experiences of his cancer journey.

"As time went on, it gradually reduced" he wrote, "and I just don't feel it anymore, or in my mind, I have somewhat blocked it out, as most of the muscle that help control erections are still in place."

Theories about the causes of phantom limbs are ever-changing. Most researchers seem to believe that it's the result of maladaptive changes to the brain after surgery. Others think it's related to the nervous system and the spine.

Even less is known about the cause and tendencies of the phantom penis. The lack of penile cancer support groups, compared to other types of cancer, mean less internet discussion of the phenomenon.

On Motherboard: The Difficult Decision to Save or to Sever

A 2008 study by V.S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at UC San Diego who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, revealed completely new angles to the phantom penis phenomenon: In his research, Ramachandran found that trans women who had their penises removed reported experiencing phantom penises at a far lower rate (about 30 percent) than men who've lost penises to penectomies (about 60 percent).

Additionally, he interviewed 29 trans men and found that 18 of them experienced phantom penises, despite never having had an actual penis.

Ramachandran acknowledges that it's possible that these phantom experiences are confabulation, or distorted memories, but he lists seven reasons why he believes they're not. (Among them: Patients could describe their phantoms penises in great detail, could not will them to go away, and many of the phantom penises were different from the patient's "ideal penis" in size, shape, or length.)

Matt, an 18-year-old trans college student in North Carolina who didn't want us to use his last name, said he first felt a phantom penis before he went through puberty.

"At that age, I didn't really understand what it was—just that I could feel something that obviously wasn't there," he wrote to me in an email. "About the time I learned about sex and all of that fun stuff and started going through puberty (13ish) I started to mess around with the whole phantom penis thing. This probably sounds really weird, but I figured out that if I pretended to masturbate like a cis guy, I could feel it. Along with that, thinking about sex gave me what I guess you'd call the 'phantom erection.'"

He's never been able to reach orgasm through this style of masturbation, but he's come close. His "phantom penis" is there about half the time. The shape, he said, is not very defined, but it does stay consistent for the most part.

"I'd say there's like roughly five inches of space where I can tell it's there," he wrote. "I haven't been able to really identify whether or not I can differentiate between the different parts of it. Oddly enough, the phantom testicle thing is rarely apparent. It only really happens if I start to think about it and try to feel it. Otherwise, it's more just the general shape and idea of a penis."

For Matt, who started taking testosterone a few weeks ago (which has boosted the prevalence of the phantom), the phenomenon is bittersweet.

"The presence of it both affirms my self image as a guy and frustrates me, actually," he said. "It's affirming in the sense that I know that I'm a guy, and my body knows as well. On the other hand, it's kind of frustrating to feel the penis and then look in the mirror and have there be nothing—much less something that can be used for sex or using the bathroom, like a cis male."

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This is what a $700 juicer looks like. Photo via Juicero

I want to understand the $700 juicer. I mean, I understand the $700 juicer as far as the mechanics of it go: You buy the thing, it sits on your counter, you get pre-made packets of fruit and vegetables in the mail, you stick those in your $700 juicer, out comes eight ounces of juice.

What I want to understand is why everyone loves the $700 juicer. The company behind it, Juicero, just got $70 million in venture capital cash from the usual Silicon Valley suspects; in total, it's raised $120 million in funds from investors including GV (a.k.a. Google Ventures), according to the New York Times. Gwyneth Paltrow and Dr. Oz reportedly love the $700 juicer. A Vogue writer said that watching the Juicero machine in action was a moment "when I've felt, with palpable certainty, that time has slipped into the future." She went on to say that the juicer was right up there with "the advent of the Hoverboard, the invention of the Venmo payment, the first time my fingerprint unlocked an iPhone." That article's headline, by the way, promised that the $700 Juicero would "change life." I just want to understand that statement, as it relates to a $700 juicer.

Is it the way the $700 juicer looks? It looks, basically, like a big iPod that pees juice into a glass, which makes sense as Apple design dude Jony Ive reportedly had a hand in it. Is it the way the juice tastes? Everyone says that it tastes better than normal juice, and I'm sure it does, because in addition to the $700 juicer you have to pay $4 to $10 for individual packets of fruits and vegetables, and when you pay a shitload for something, it usually is pretty nice.

Is it the way the $700 juicer is being sold? Juicero isn't just going around saying, "Hey, here is a $700 juicer, everyone!" Instead, it's doing that thing Silicon Valley people do, throwing out terms like "disruption" and "farm-to-glass philosophy"; on its website, it describes the $700 juicer as a "personal cold-press juicer that's engineered to press nutrient-dense, raw produce into a glass in minutes." In other words: a juicer. It also touts the complicated system behind the $700 juicer: The company buys produce, hires workers to wash and chop it, and sends it out in those pre-made packets, which also come with QR codes so the Juicero, which is WiFi enabled, can check to make sure the produce is fresh. If the produce inside the packet is not fresh, the $700 juicer will not turn it into juice. It's a complicated way to make juicing as convenient and mess-free as possible, but that's apparently the point. Investors are not excited by a $700 juicer. They are excited by combining a bunch of techno trends in a way that results in a new philosophy in juice-making, even if the end result appears, to the naked eye, to be nothing more than a $700 juicer.

Maybe people are excited by the story of Juicero founder Doug Evans? He is the kind of company founder who starts out a Medium post about his company (titled "Journey to Juicero") by saying, "I believe there are no chances in life — only choices." He then goes into the story of his life, which involves graffitiing subway cars in New York in the 80s, working for famed designer Paul Rand for seven years without getting paid, and starting a juice shop that was later sold to investors who fired him. That is exactly the kind of guy who you want selling a $700 juicer, I guess.

I know that people can't be excited about this YouTube ad from Juicero. For a disruptive company, this is oddly like a traditional informercial, complete with people confounded by something as simple as bringing a tote bag to a farmer's market. Making juice with an ordinary juicer, in Juicero's reckoning, is a series of unpleasant, almost impossible tasks:

Maybe the secret of the $700 juicer is that the people looking at it don't see a $700 juicer, they see the future, a time when the ordinary functions of living are stripped of complications and mess. Juice, in the future, doesn't involve interacting with actual fruits or vegetables or even going to the juice store and clumsily asking a worker what you want with your mouth like some kind of primate. Instead, a packet is delivered to your door—ideally by drone—and you pop it into one of your many machines, and out comes your desired juice. There's an app that tells you when you're out of packets, and even suggests juices that you might want to try.

There are other humans in this vision of the future who have to do the unpleasant behind-the-scenes work to produce those packets—the agriculture and the processing and the packaging and so on—but you, $700 juice machine owner, don't have to think about them, and they recede into the background. That is what is so exciting, presumably: The idea that things are getting easier and more streamlined and just all-around better for humanity, or at least the bits of humanity who can afford to live in the future.

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It probably wasn't even the first time Mark Fuston got hired to blow up a porn store.

In 2003, the one-eyed giant disconnected the propane hose on a construction site in Vancouver, Washington, and redirected it into a nascent shop called Desire Video. Then he placed an incendiary device in the corner of the building. Finally, he went back to the car of a co-conspirator and hit the trigger on a remote-controlled bomb.

To their mutual frustration, it didn't take.

As you might expect from a man who once got arrested for allegedly breaking a woman's wrist over 15 bucks and charged with fatally shooting a guy over a $180 drug debt, Fuston was determined to have his payday. With the cash on the line, he did what he had to do, laying down a fuel trail to the building and lighting it on fire.

"This was definitely not a case of unrestrained moral outrage or some misguided attempt to protect the community from pornography or the social ills that can be connected to that industry," a federal prosecutor later argued in court. "Rather, Mark Fuston's singular goal was to get paid."

A former Dead Head and bike-gang member who also went by "Mau Mau," Fulton was eventually sentenced to two and a half years for the March 27, 2003, fire. But a new federal lawsuit spells out the insane details of what is surely the most bizarre erotic business rivalry of all time.

Police apparently suspected pretty quickly that Desire Video had fallen victim to arson, so they deployed undercovers. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) investigators knew the store was within a mile of another porn shop, Adult Video Only, and according to the suit, they rented an apartment in the complex where an employee named Ken Courtney lived. In the course of the investigation, they found out that Courtney—who committed suicide before the case went to trial—built the defective bomb.

For his part, Fuston had been wrapped up in porn mayhem before: In 1977, the career criminal was charged with trying to burn down an adult bookstore, but got off even though cops found him holding a gas can and matches at the scene. And in 1991, a man who looked an awful lot like Fuston was spotted near a Portland porn store just before it burst into flames, courtesy of a pipe bomb.

The burned Vancouver shop was eventually rebuilt and opened under the name Taboo Video, and the new suit alleges that the owners of Adult Video Only were so desperate to shake suspicion that they put a "For Sale" sign in their window. When Levi Bussanich, the owner of Taboo and the man behind the suit, took the bait and came over for a tour, the suit claims he was shown several video arcades––places where customers could insert cash and watch porn inside the store.

He was allegedly told that the machines weren't tracked by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which suggested the store was worth more than was on paper. According to the suit, this no mere marketing strategy—it was a trust-building exercise designed to cover up the fact that the owners of Adult Video Only had committed the arson.

Recordings obtained by investigators suggest the rivalry didn't end with the one arson: Fuston and Courtney discussed throwing a grenade into what had been Desire Video once it got rebuilt, with scant regard for the customers who would presumably have been inside. They also spoke about assassinating someone for $10,000, although the hit never took place.

The civil complaint alleges that the money used to pay for the arson came from weed sales and money from the illicit arcade machines.

The people who allegedly paid Fuston to light the fire were never charged with any crimes, apparently because of a statute of limitations issue. But Bussanich is suing them for civil damages, claiming violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which is typically used to go after mob bosses.

Meanwhile, Adult Video Only is still up and running in Vancouver. Its website states that it plans to add a smoking room soon, and suggests that it will be BYOB (in weed-legal Washington, this apparently means "bring your own bud.")

"When you are ready to spice up your sex life come in and visit us," the site reads. "Our friendly staff will be glad to assist you in finding that perfect toy or gift."

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Noctis and Prompto take a load off in 'Final Fantasy XV'

Somehow, nobody says it. Aaron Paul, Lena Headey, hosts Greg Miller and Tim Gettys from internet show Kinda Funny, and a whole bunch of Square Enix representatives and talent: all silent on the subject. A vast number of people take to the stage of Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium during the hour-and-more "Uncovered" presentation for Final Fantasy XV, and yet not one person mentions The Spirits Within.

And that must've been tough, given what else was announced alongside the Gamespot-leaked release date of September 30, 2016, and public details of the new, free-to-download (right now) Platinum Demo, which I play a few hours ahead of "Uncovered" starting.

For those who don't know, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a CGI movie directed by Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi—the first man on stage at FFXV's globally streamed LA reveal—released in 2001 to a fanfare of disappointment. Undoubtedly a technical milestone for animated movies, The Spirits Within's thematic detachment from any FF game that'd come before it, and a plot that was DOA, saw it panned by both critics without any prior knowledge of the games, and fans who couldn't connect with its near-future, dead world setting and cardboard characterization.

The Spirits Within was a spectacular box office failure—estimates put its losses at well over $90m. The next Final Fantasy film, 2005's straight-to-DVD Advent Children, was tied into the fiction, and the world it played out in, of 1997's Final Fantasy VII, a massive fan favorite. But for the new IP within a long-established franchise that is FFXV, the powers that be behind all things Final Fantasy have again chosen to produce a feature film.

Kingsglaive is its title; its English voice-over talent includes Paul Headey and Sean Bean; and its silky computer-produced visuals can splash themselves all over your TV, tablet or whatever else you use to stream these things with, later this year—it's out before FFXV itself, and a Blu-ray copy is included in special editions of the game. The story follows events happening simultaneously to those of FFXV, in protagonist (Prince) Noctis's home kingdom of Lucius, and Paul, who voices a character called Nyx, describes what he's seen of it as being like a "$200 or $300 million blockbuster movie." But created exclusively with computer graphics, obviously.

In its trailer, Kingsglaive looks to be a lot more action packed that The Spirits Within was, but all the same: holding any breath for it being a genuinely superlative viewing experience for anyone not already invested in all things FF is probably unwise. But "Uncovered" had a lot more up its sleeves than just a movie—there's an animated series, too, for one thing. The five-part Brotherhood follows Noctis and his friends Ignis, Prompto, and Gladiolus (disappointingly, I don't think there's the option of renaming them) as they bond, ahead of what plays out in FFXV's road trip across some fairly stunning landscapes. It's a prequel then, basically, and the first part of it can be watched right now, on YouTube. (Or below, if you like.)

In case it wasn't already clear, Square Enix isn't just releasing a new Final Fantasy game in 2016—it's building a whole new universe around it. Kingsglaive is three years in the making, which shows you that it's no last-minute bonus content; and FFXV takes its parent series' fondness for mini-games and puts a new one into the palm of your hand, further expanding the fiction encapsulating the main plot of the game proper. We see a clip of the four travelers gathering around an arcade machine—the game in question being Justice Monsters Five. It looks like a strange mix of strategy combat and pinball, going by what we're shown at "Uncovered," and will be available "soon" for iOS, Windows, and Android phones. (Here's a trailer.)

But that's one for the (near) future—playable immediately (on Xbox One and PlayStation 4) is the Platinum Demo, a short introduction to some of Final Fantasy XV's environments, systems, and creatures. As in the main game, you play as Noctis—albeit as a child version of the prince with mostly toy weapons, whose sleep has taken him to a dreamscape in which he's guided by a white rabbit substitute, Carbuncle. This big-eared ball of fluff is a summon character from the final game, as well as series entries before it.

A screenshot from the 'Platinum Demo'

Platinum begins in a forest area, which Carbuncle guides you through to a watery portal to the next phase of the demo—keep your eyes peeled for a Leviathan cameo. You wouldn't quite call these gateways rabbit holes, but the Alice in Wonderland parallels are maintained when, in the second part of the demo, Noctis finds himself miniaturized, in what is presumably his own bedroom. From there it's onto a Venetian-like city, and finally a boss battle with an Iron Giant. At this final stage, Noctis transforms into the man we saw in the Episode Duscae demo, and the encounter can be repeated. While it's a breeze the first time, respawning the demo-closing foe sees its level rise from three to 15. Naturally, the fight becomes a lot tougher, but it's impossible for Noctis to lose it—if he drops to zero health, Carbuncle will heal him.

Combat is straightforward but extremely flexible. Weapons are mapped to the D-pad, while holding B (on the tested Xbox One version) will string together attacks on the enemy. If you've a sword tied to up on the D-pad, and a hammer on right, then switching between the two is easy mid-combo—simply hold the attack button and tap on the D-pad as need be. X dodges, or can be held to avoid (a lot of) enemy attacks, up to a point. This is a change from the more detailed, menu-driven system of Duscae, but Platinum's simplified take on attack and defense feels just fine as it is.

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Related: Watch VICE's film, 'LARPing Saved My Life'

All the time you'll find glowing yellow crystal shards, just floating around the place—collect them to unlock panels on the ground, which serve a multitude of functions. Some award Noctis with limited-use magical powers—fireworks, damaging rain, thunder, and something called Meteorain, which drops glowing balls on the area and basically obliterates anything with a hit point or many to its name. At other times, these panels unlock new, stronger weapons, like a golden hammer that takes a substantial chunk of health off the demo's lightweight general enemies.

Some plates change the weather, some speed up time, and just a couple alter the young prince's form. In the bedroom phase of the demo, he can become a range of vehicles, controlled using the pad shoulder triggers to accelerate and brake. In the city, Noctis can become a beast from Final Fantasy XV proper—I saw a crocodile-like creature, a long-necked animal with horns, and a Garula, last seen grazing the grasslands of Duscae. This is Square Enix simply showing off some of the assets you'll see in their end product—come the full game, Noctis won't suddenly transform into a scaly reptile.

The 300 and more shards are what give the demo, which you'll otherwise easily finish in half an hour, any sort of longevity. Many of them are hidden in the different environments—all of which reflect areas in the final game, albeit in a rather different context here. You might run through the demo once without caring to collect them all; but then go back around to find each one and power up Noctis to his full dreamtime potential.

In terms of physical scale, Platinum is a fraction of the size of Duscae, a lot more linear, and should be treated more of a taster of what's to come in terms of look and feel rather than a standalone experience. It doesn't directly feed into its parent game save for, possibly, one area. At the end of the demo you can name Carbuncle whatever you like, and that name will carry over into the main game.

Platinum isn't going to take up much of your time, and is fun while it lasts; but equally it feels fairly inessential against the grander design of Duscae. It's a complete tease, what with the Leviathan nod, the level variation and Carbuncle's presence; but if you're not into fan service, then you might want to save that hard drive space for something more substantial. Nothing here is going to really affect what happens in XV, making Platinum more of a pleasant (and unexpected) curio for existing Final Fantasy fans than an essential eye-opener for complete newcomers to the series.

Unplayable though it was at "Uncovered," the new gameplay footage of FFXV looks incredible. (Watch the trailer above. That titan, seriously, come on now.) Personally, I've been hankering for a rich open world to fill a Witcher-shaped hole in my gaming time for a while now, and this might just be it. From dense cities to rolling countryside, dusty wastes to smaller settlements, everything sparkles with the kind of visual quality you expect from a game that's technically been in development for ten years, but you're never guaranteed to get. Here, it seems as if the years have been put to great use. Walking everywhere is avoidable, as there are chocobos to ride (!) as well as the car seen in previous trailers (and the Duscae demo), and said set of wheels new has a new trick. Right at the very end of "Uncovered," we see footage of the car, the Regalia, transforming into a vehicle capable of flight.

How the crowd did gasp at the flying car, and just about everything else. How it was wowed, and how it whooped. Significantly more so than I did on learning that Florence + the Machine has recorded a cover of "Stand By Me" for the game, anyway. Get that shit in the trash, immediately. I don't even mind if you need to take that copy of The Spirits Within out of the garbage to fit it in there.

But that's really my sole (and entirely IMO) gripe with FFXV at this stage, and I mention it partially because it's always hard to not make a positive write-up read like it's been "paid for" when you're really excited about a game, but the publisher of the title in question has flown you overseas to see it. So perhaps you're thinking: whatever Mike, nice one, enjoy that Square-covered hotel room. And I will, thanks. But also know that I know what this sensation is that I'm feeling right now: electric anticipation. The autumn can't come quickly enough.

Final Fantasy XV is released worldwide, for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, on September 30, 2016. The Platinum Demo is available now, digitally, for the same platforms. Find more information at the game's official website. Transportation and accommodation costs for attending "Uncovered" were covered by Square Enix.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.

Photo via iPhone screenshot

Read: I Fooled the Internet with a Petition to Allow Guns at the Republican Convention

We all have messages that we wish we could un-send, but some texts can actually have serious consequences. On Tuesday, a French judge sentenced a man to six months behind bars (three of them suspended) after the dude texted his ex-girlfriend the gun emoji, according to the Local.

The brazen 22-year-old apparently did not take their breakup well, and started flooding his ex's phone with texts, including one that featured the menacing emoji.

The ex-girlfriend decided to take the trigger-happy texter to court, saying she felt terrified in public and experienced nightmares. The judge determined the gun emoji was a death threat "via image" and sentenced the guy to hard time, also imposing a roughly $1,140 fine.

Something to bear in mind next time you get spurned and are feeling impulsive, people.

Mietta said I should give you a name this morning—"an identity," so to speak. She's my sex therapist, who's helping me learn to listen to you. Then there's Brooke, a physiotherapist, who affably giggles when I apologize on your behalf during our fortnightly examinations. We started off with one third of a pointer finger and quivering knees. You're somewhat agreeable now, although only on certain days.

We'll celebrate when this is over—dilators and all.

Is naming a vagina like naming a child? I can't recall ever stumbling across an article recounting "1,001 of the Year's Favorite Vagina Names" during my internet trawls. Just as I can't recall a time when you didn't aggressively, perhaps instinctively, ensure the gates were sealed to your unknown chamber. And yet, amidst your intent resistance, here I still am—maintaining a steady gaze, smiling at my frustrated lovers, "It's OK, just keep trying."

According to vaginismus.com (a domain name I'm sure would've been in high demand), vaginismus is a condition caused by the "involuntary tightening of the pelvic floor, especially the pubococcygeus (PC) muscle group." Essentially that means one may experience burning, stinging, and tightness during sex. For some, it makes penetration impossible. Often during sex your breathing will halt and other body muscle groups (such as the legs or the lower back) spasm involuntarily. Tampons and gynecological examinations are a no-go.

What makes vaginismus so unique is that it exists both in the mind and the body. The reaction isn't conscious. Much like blinking, the PC muscles have taught themselves to contract and "flinch" in ways to protect themselves against the anticipated threat. Left untreated, the condition worsens—the contractions have the opportunity to mature. And so they become "stronger" and last longer, with greater intensity. You're like my tiny, troublesome body-builder down there. An iron woman of sorts.

I never told my first love about you. I didn't tell anyone. As a woman amongst women, sex was never discussed in a way that suggested to me that it was physically pleasurable. Emotionally, perhaps. It was flattery, more than anything.

In retrospect, perhaps my first time was the best. I could justify the pain: I was merely losing my virginity, and it was my feminine duty to endure such affliction. He fumbled about my body in a drunken but polite fashion. But I remember jolting when he brazenly inserted the first finger. It was immediate. It was like an electrocution. Everything seized. It felt as if you were fastening yourself around the intrusion—like a painful, dry suction.

We kept at it for eighteen months—you, me, and him. And it's not as if I didn't enjoy the relationship. I loved the feeling of being loved. But I was always aware of your voice—shooting through me, occasionally bejeweling my body in goosebumps. I had to learn to ignore you. Every time my lower back seized, or my legs kicked out, I pretended it was intense pleasure. Because how do you tell somebody you care about and long for at 17 that his love feels like razor blades?

I'm sorry. I thought all cis-gendered, heterosexual women faked it. I thought we'd all subscribed to some hilarious inside joke where, in a parallel universe, we'd laugh over coffee about how, as much as sex hurts, we all wanted it. Pain was just a price we had to pay.

Illustration by the author

I told my second boyfriend 18 months into our relationship. His reaction was exactly why I'd kept my secret for as long as I did: He was frustrated, confused, and robbed of empathy. I talked too much about it, he said. It was a disgusting topic, he chastised. "Oh!" he yelled sarcastically one night between my halted tears. "You have vaginismus?! Really? I had no idea."

I felt constant shame and rejection. It was as though my body was riddled with disease—a body he wanted nothing to do with unless it was fixed, and even then. My broken vagina became more than just that—I began feeling like a broken woman. My body not petite enough. My style not revealing enough. My voice: too loud and obnoxious. My hair: too thick, short, and unruly. My fingernails weren't manicured and kept. If not an attractive woman—if not an attractive, heterosexual, penetrable cis-woman—then what?

When he went overseas, I made it my mission to be "fixed" in time to visit him. That's when I shyly introduced you to Mietta and Brooke. We were diligent, the four of us. I had so much incentive. I falsely envisaged how our relationship would change once I could have penetrative sex. We'd laugh more. We'd see more films. Naturally, that wasn't the case at all. We were reunited after two uncomfortable plane rides, and six months of my telling him penetrative sex wasn't an option until I felt truly comfortable. He insisted we try, and I said yes. Of course I said yes.

It was 4:00 PM, but true to the Scandinavian climate, it was as dark as night. I didn't know what day it was. He looked different, and it had been so long. The attempt was brief. I asked for patience, but perhaps too much patience. He sourly noted that the process was "too medical," sighed, and stopped. Too medical for who?

My wearied, tempered eyes locked with his. It was as if you, my enraged, now suffering self, sent a furious wave through me. It wasn't an electrocution, no, but rather a motivating force. This was the last straw. Never again was I to let him dictate my worth based on a condition he exacerbated. I was done. I didn't see his empty, frustrated pupils, but instead envisioned my painful interactions with dilators, my screams as Brooke attempted to remove a small tampon after one overly ambitious appointment, pretending my spasms were pleasurable responses night after night for so many years. How difficult it was to function for days after sex: the redness, the rawness, the hurt. Too medical for who?

RELATED: Meet the Model Who Sued a Tampon Company After Losing Her Leg to Toxic Shock Syndrome

Back in Melbourne, six months into my treatment, there are some weeks when you and I were ticking boxes I didn't even know existed. Then there are other weeks where you rejected me entirely. I understand that; I rejected you for so long as well.

I truly never meant to be unkind to you. It's just that sex is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Sex is nothing like sex is. It is perplexing and discomforting. And rather than listening to you, I listened to the flustered giggling of a comrade of schoolgirls who—between porn, real life, and poorly illustrated comics in sex ed books—discussed all things sex. Endlessly. At some point, I started believing sex was meant to hurt, even if just for the first time.

There have been three since. One: a kind person, who laughed as I apologized for my body. My pelvis sighed a hot gulp of air: relief. There was nothing to fear. He won't hurt you. The second: Captivating in every sense. I had met him that night. I was enthralled and forgot for a moment that I sported this ailment. So this is what sex is meant to feel like, I thought, as the morning sun began peeking through his windows.

The third was an eager admirer, who compassionately listened to the clinical description of my vaginismus, but when push came to shove, thought only to address his own pleasure. Sure, it hurt—it stung in all of those familiar, unprepared crevasses. But not like it used to. Never like it used to.

I named you Tori. Tori means winner, conqueror. Mietta thinks it's a fantastic name. I remember my mother telling me she was going to name me Tori, so it seemed fitting. It isn't too delicate. It doesn't remind me of petals and vanilla incense. You're not fragile. You're one tough lover, that's for sure. You are more than a throbbing, aching space to puncture, Tori.

See more of Madison's illustrations on Instagram.

Maybe think twice before you hand over those keys next time. Photo via Flickr user Morrie's Luxury Auto

If you're affluent enough (lol) to be using valet services, you might've wondered at some point how those young 20-something drivers in cheap, ill-fitting suits are treating your Maserati? Or, if you're like me, you might've wondered what the equivalent of spitting in burgers would be for those parking cars of the rich and wannabe famous.

Death is creepy. Image via Imgur

I called my dad on his birthday recently.

I opened with, "Hey dad. Happy birthday!" to which he replied, "Who is this?"

He was being facetious (I'm his only daughter), needling me because I don't get in touch often enough. Momentarily, I felt guilty. He lives in Vancouver and I'm in Toronto and I know I should pick up the phone more, but even on his 71st birthday, I procrastinated until late into the evening. Within minutes, I remembered why.

My dad always wants to talk about dying.

He talks about it the same way other parents discuss politics, or their dogs, or the latest episode of Ellen. My dad likes chatting about all those things too, but he can hop from Donald Trump to where he wants to be buried without batting an eye. It's not something he does out of fear, either. It's more that, realistically, it's the biggest event he has left to look forward to, so he thinks about it a lot.

On this day, his birthday, he told me he wants to have his body cremated and his ashes scattered in a river in India, a place he scouted on his recent and first-ever trip there. At first, as I always do, I tried to brush the conversation aside with a few "mmhmms" and "yeah sure"s. But he wouldn't drop it. He started spelling out the names of the river and the temple that sits on it, and asked if I would be willing to take his remains there upon his demise.

"You'll love it," he promised, as, on my end, I grudgingly took notes about his plan in a Google doc titled "Dad's ashes."

Then, just as I was hoping we could switch topics, he informed me he'd paid off two grave plots in Vancouver. Since he now has his heart set on India as a final resting place, he offered me one of them.

"You can have it when you die," he said, totally matter-of-fact. (In the meantime, I'll rent it to some poor UBC students for like $1,200 a month so they can pitch a tent on it rather than trying to find reasonably priced housing near the school.)

It was the first time he dragged my own mortality into one of these conversations and it startled me. I don't remember how I responded, but in my head I was thinking WTF? in a furious/agitated loop.

Truth is, I don't need to be dwelling on death any more than I already do. Even though I'm in my 20s, I think about it all the time. Not so much the act of dying—though sometimes when I take a break from work to get coffee or lunch, I visualize getting hit by a car, and on occasion, when I light up a cigarette, I wonder when I'm going to get cancer, something I'm convinced is an inevitability. But more so it's the idea of being dead—of ceasing to exist—that haunts me.

I guess everyone goes through a death phase, and I'm not sure when my fixation started. I remember asking my mom about dying when I was really little, and her telling me it wasn't something I'd have to worry about for a long time. My maternal grandma, whom I adored, died of cancer when I was 14. It was old enough for me to be sad whilst still not grasping the gravity or permanence of death.

My grandpa's death, in 2011, hit harder. A couple family members and I were with him when he took his final breaths in a hospice in Vancouver.

Though very sad, it was peaceful, and I thought the experience would make me more comfortable with death. Instead, and despite being exposed to many tragic deaths as a reporter, I've grown increasingly anxious.

When I contemplate the fact that we're all going to die, I start to question my life choices. Why am I not backpacking Europe right now, or trying heroin for fun, or having indiscriminate sex all the time? Or maybe I should be reproducing in order to leave some kind of legacy. Death makes all of our morals and values—great career, marriage, house, kids, accumulation of stuff—seem trite and pointless.

Long ago, I abandoned almost all of the Catholic beliefs on which I was raised, but the concept of an afterlife is one I've remained agnostic about. Perhaps, if I had grown up atheist, never expecting anything but nothingness to come after death, the concept might be easier to accept. Instead, I've stayed up late Googling "near death experiences" and read books like Proof of Heaven, which follows a skeptical neurosurgeon's "journey into the afterlife," in an attempt to comfort myself into thinking such a thing might be real. But logic seems to get the best of me and I go right back to fearing being erased from this planet without a trace, aside from some of my more highbrow work, which will certainly be passed around by cave-dwelling robots thousands of years after we nuke the planet.

My parents, however, no longer share any of these worries.

While my mom never talks about me dying, she often brings up her will, keeping me informed of every little tweak she makes. I hate it, mostly because I cannot handle the thought of her being gone. I mean, aren't wills supposed to be read after a person has died? Can't I just deal with it then?

Sometimes, my mom says she wonders if anything happens after death or what she'll miss out on, but she's certainly not scared. She claims she hasn't been since she was young.

And I guess that's where the irony lies. I'm at an age where I'm supposed to be "living my best life," yet, if I let it, the fear of dying can preoccupy my brain for extended periods.

After my grandpa died, I told a therapist that I regretted not visiting him more in hospital, and the regret had left me riddled with guilt. She asked how I could make it up to him post mortem, a question I didn't understand. She then alluded to other decisions I was struggling with at the time—primarily whether or not to break up my boyfriend and move to Toronto, and hinted that I should bite the bullet and commit to both of them since I'd been leaning that way for so long. I didn't fully grasp the connection between those things and my grandpa's death, but I think she was essentially saying I shouldn't hold back on taking risks because that could lead to more regret later. And perhaps more than anything, I'm scared of finding myself at the end of my life dwelling on things I didn't do.

These days, I try not to sink too deep into the rabbit hole, limiting myself to a few minutes of brooding about death at a time. But my parents' tendency to rehash the topic forces me to confront both their mortality and my own. Maybe it's a good thing. There's not much I find comforting about death, but seeing as how it's inevitable, indifference like that of my parents might be the best I can hope for. Who knows, one day that grave plot might look a lot more appealing than an overpriced condo in Toronto. But even if that's not the case, I'll be dead, so at the very least I will no longer have to give a shit about any of this.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Blind Nomad

Read: Can You Tell Which of These Ten-Year-Olds Took Cannabis Oil Today?

If you needed another reason to quit blazing other than cops, sketchy-ass hippies, and crippling paranoia, here's one for you: Regular weed use makes you poorer and less happy, according to a study released this week.

The report from researchers at UC Davis and Duke University claims that the more you toke, the more likely you are to be broke—pot smokers who indulge four times or more a week eventually "ended up in a lower social class than their parents, with lower-paying, less skilled, and less prestigious jobs than those who were not regular cannabis smokers."

"Our study found that regular cannabis users experienced downward social mobility and more financial problems—such as troubles with debt and cash flow—than those who did not," Magdalena Cerda, an associate professor of emergency medicine and leader of the study, said in a statement that accompanied the report.

Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researcher's data comes from a project that has been tracking 1,000 pot smokers in Dunedin, New Zealand, for decades, which must be tedious work. Naturally, some people object to the findings, since it's hard to control for all the different variables that might affect people over the course of their lives. Another criticism is that weed is still illegal in New Zealand, and maybe some of the problems these people have had can be chalked up to the stigma and stress of breaking the law constantly, even if you never get caught.

But the broadest possible reading of the study is probably unassailable: If you do a drug a bunch for years and years, it probably will fuck you up.

Not actual St-Hubert chicken. Photo via Flickr user Mike

Before we even get started here, let me get this out of the way: Despite being a good Quebecer, I'm no fan of St-Hubert rotisserie chicken. I'm not a foodie or a vegan or anything, I just don't like it (the barbecue sauce you get on the side is OK though). So I wasn't weeping or shaking my fist when the company announced it was being bought by Ontario's Cara Inc. for $537-million.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It's hard to remember a time before the hiss and pop of nitrous oxide dispensers—or whippits—soundtracked every British social gathering. Before groups of rough men in North Face jackets offering three balloons for $5 made up 25 percent of all attendees at any given dance music festival. One thing's for sure: It was a simpler time, back when drugs were drugs; "gas" was what Americans called petrol; and NOS was what made Vin Diesel's car go faster.

Now, laughing gas is the second most popular drug in Britain (behind weed)—probably due to the fact it's available outside most nightclubs and inside basically any house party with a conscientious host. Daily Mail scare stories about Coronation Street stars "indulging in FASHIONABLE new drug HIPPY CRACK" presumably don't hurt either, with readers realizing it's relatively harmless stuff and deciding to try it out for themselves.

The cottage industry that's sprung up around NOS is unique in the way it falls between legitimate business and old fashioned, meet-me-in-that-side-street-in-half-an-hour drug dealing. The mark-ups are huge—depending on the bulk of your order, you can flip individual canisters for nearly 1,000 percent profit—so it's no wonder scores of budding entrepreneurs are getting involved; type the name of any major city into Facebook, followed by the word "gas," "NOS," "whip," or "cream," and you'll find a host of small businesses delivering laughing gas around the clock.

These businesses use social media to advertise their product, making tongue-in-cheek allusions to being innocent catering-supply companies selling chargers for whipped cream dispensers, circumventing the legal gray area NOS falls into: It's not illegal to possess or inhale it, but it is illegal to sell it to anyone under 18 if you think he or she is going to inhale it.

Type in "Sheffield," and one of those kicker words, and you'll likely end up on a page advertised as the city's largest and cheapest supplier of cream chargers. The business is run by my friend Mark, who I've known since school, back when he used to hawk out-of-date Mars bars on the field at lunchtime. Now, he delivers colorless gas to the students, stoners, and assorted burnouts of Sheffield, who know him universally as the "Gasman."

Up on the roof of Mark's apartment building, he's telling me that he's "not just in this for the love of NOS." A business management graduate, he comes off like a fairly typical young entrepreneur; an Apprentice contestant you wouldn't actually mind going for a beer with.

"I tend to do a sponsored Facebook post most afternoons," he says, his eyes darting between the two iPhones and the iPad laid out in front of him. "I used to spend hours trying to write funny posts, but I realized that just posting a picture of some canisters with the phone number does the job just as well. People want gas; they just need to be reminded."

His system obviously works: Mark's gas-phone barely stops buzzing throughout my entire time with him, and at one point, he leans over to show me the 786 unread messages, 514 missed calls, and 224 voicemails he's accumulated in the past week or so.

Half an hour into the delivery run, the incessant rattle and clinking of hundreds of NOS canisters is beginning to grate on me. Mark's obviously used to it, hurtling around Sheffield at a speed that doesn't seem legal as he chats about the status of his business.

"Officially, I'm selling whipped cream canisters," he says. "They're not for human consumption—that's what it says on my website. Can I guarantee that nobody who buys from me 'misuses' them? Unfortunately not, but I don't sell it for that purpose."

Under the current provisions of the UK's proposed Psychoactive Substances Act—which aims to ban all "legal highs"—Mark's business, at best, would remain in a legal limbo area, placed under heavy scrutiny, or, at worst, land him up to seven years in prison. That said, the bill was supposed to be passed into law on April 6, but has now been delayed while the government works out what it's doing, after a number of setbacks, so the legislation could still change.

Either way, Mark's decided to get out while the going's good, as he doesn't see much of a future for the venture post-ban.

"It's a good time to get out, really," he says. "I've done OK for myself, but business is in decline anyway; more people are wise to the fact that you can order NOS online for half the price. The ban will put people like me off, but I don't see how they can stop fucking Amazon."

It's 9:47 PM, and I'm sitting among the many boxes of NOS in the back of Mark's car to allow his customers space in the front seat. We've just dropped 14 boxes of canisters off to two girls outside Sheffield's main student halls. They came out in dressing gowns, and upon seeing me and my camera, they thrust the money through the open car window before scurrying back inside, ignoring my—in hindsight, probably quite creepy—request for a "quick photo."

Our next customer, the host of a nearby house party, stops and chats with us for a while. He addresses Mark as "Gasman" three times over the course of our brief conversation. It doesn't sound like he's being ironic.

Though most of the deliveries tonight are to students, Mark isn't without his more mature customers. As we navigate the many one-way streets and dodgy junctions of Sheffield city center, Mark catches up on his voicemails. A middle-aged woman's voice comes over the speaker. She identifies herself as "Jelly Bean," explaining that she's lost her iPhone, so when Mark's on his way, he should give her a call on the landline.

"She and her husband usually order three boxes maybe every other Saturday night," Mark explains. "Apparently they drop the kids round at her sister's, come home, open a bottle of wine, and balloon the night away."

As the night progresses, I notice the various ways people go about their business with Mark. Compared to other transactions, where the customer-vendor relationship is much more established, buying laughing gas is relatively new territory for most people. Some treat Mark like a friendly drug dealer: non-threatening, but someone to be respected. They invite him into their parties and overuse the word "mate." Others simply hand over the cash and take the gas without exchanging any more than basic pleasantries—the kind of inane shit you mutter to a pizza guy or a bus driver.

Our last stop of the night takes us way, way out into Sheffield's suburbs, to a punter who's offered to pay double the normal price to cover delivery. We're met at the end of the drive by Dan, who is shirtless and has pupils the size of a watch face. He invites me into his back garden to share in his purchase and pose for a picture.

There's an awkward moment as he stands there topless, shivering in the cold March night and fumbling with the dispenser, neither of us talking. I look through the conservatory and into Dan's living room; nobody's there. We finish our balloons, and without an explanation as to why he's at home, possibly alone and shirtless at 3AM on a Saturday morning, Dan goes back inside.

NOS, when used safely, is pretty harmless stuff. There were 17 deaths associated with laughing gas between 2006 and 2012, but in almost every case, the deaths were caused by asphyxiation due to the method people had used to inhale the gas (plastic bags), not because of the gas itself.

Professor David Nutt, neuropsychopharmacologist and the former UK drugs czar, argues NOS is "exceptionally safe" given the number of people who use it. "I mean, you can kill yourself, obviously," he told the BBC. "If you breathe nothing but nitrous for ten minutes, you will die, but I don't think there's any evidence that nitrous kills people if you use it recreationally."

How exactly the government is going to legislate against a substance that's arguably less harmful than a pint of beer is yet to be decided. Why exactly they want to ban it is something we'll probably never know.

Donald Trump. Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore.

US News

CIA Left Explosive Material on School Bus
The CIA left "explosive training material," used in training exercises, under the hood of a Virginia school bus last week. The bus carried students to school with the material in its engine compartment, but CIA officials claim it "did not pose a danger to passengers on the bus." —The Washington Post

Trump's Favorability Ratings Tumble
Recent polls show Donald Trump's favorability falling, even before his widely-condemned abortion comments. On average, only 30 percent of respondents hold a favorable view of Trump versus 63 percent who hold a negative one. Hillary Clinton leads Trump by double digits in at least six recent national polls. —NBC News

Fifteen Shot, three Dead in Chicago Shootings
Three people were killed and at least 12 others wounded in shootings across Chicago. Two people, a 23-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman, were killed in a drive-by shooting in West Garfield Park. Another drive-by shooting left a 32-year-old man dead in Logan Square. —Chicago Sun Times

State Trooper Dead After Bus Station Shooting
A Virginia state trooper and a gunman are both dead after a shootout at Richmond's Greyhound bus terminal. Steven Flaherty was shot at close range by a gunman, before two police officers returned fire and killed the gunman. Two civilian women were injured in the crossfire. —USA Today

International News

Rescuers Search for Bodies Under Collapsed Kolkata Flyover
At least 24 people were killed after part of a flyover collapsed in Kolkata, India, on Thursday night. More than 90 people have been pulled from the rubble, and hopes of rescuers finding any more survivors alive under the collapsed section are now fading. "Many could still be buried below the debris," said police chief Ajay Tyagi. —BBC News

Libyan Government Works from Naval Base
Members of Libya's new, UN-backed unity government have begun meetings from a heavily-guarded naval base. The Presidential Council met local council leaders, businessmen and central bank governor Sadiq al-Kabir, but the threat from warring militias remains. —Al Jazeera

North Korea Blocks Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter
North Korea has officially announced it is blocking Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and South Korean websites. North Koreans have only been able to use a sealed-off, government-sanctioned intranet, but foreigners had been able to go online with few overt restrictions, until now. —AP

Abbas Offers to Meet Netanyahu
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was working to stop Palestinian knife attacks against Israelis in the West Bank, including bag searches in schools. Abbas offered to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rekindle peace efforts. "I will meet with him, at any time," he said. —Reuters

Architect Zaha Hadid, who died yesterday. Photo via Flickr.

Everything Else

China Warns Off April Fool's Day
China's state-run news agency Xinhua said the nation should not indulge in "the West's so-called 'Fools' Day.'" It stated: "We hope you will not believe, create or spread rumors," saying humorous stories were not in line with "socialist core values." —The New York Times

Kayne End's Tidal Exclusivity
Kayne West had claimed The Life of Pablo would only ever be available on Tidal. But late Thursday night the album began streaming on Apple Music and Spotify. A "newly updated" version of the album is promised before midnight Friday.—Pitchfork

Architects Pay Tribute to Zaha Hadid
The world's leading architects have paid tribute to Zaha Hadid, the first female winner of the Pritzker prize, who died aged 65. British architect Richard Rogers said: "no one had more impact than she did," while Frank Gehry called her "a great architect and a great friend."—Dezeen

Smoking Weed Is for Losers, Says Study
Researchers from UC Davis and Duke University examined decades of data on hardcore stoners in New Zealand and found that they tended to wind up in lower social classes and in worse jobs than their parents. —VICE

Done with reading today? Watch our new video 'Poland's Independence Day March Was a Right-Wing Victory Parade'

Illustration by Sam Taylor

If you ask me, one of the best things about being a woman in 2016 is having the freedom to get your tits out on social media. Kim Kardashian knows this and so, it now seems, does her friend Emily Ratjkowski—whom you may remember as the brunette hottie from the "Blurred Lines" video. They posted a sisterly tit pic this week in defiance of slut-shaming. Guess what happened next? Well, duh. They got slut-shamed. By disgusting misogynistic dickheads like Piers Morgan. Morgan posted a series of Tweets telling Kim K and Emily that they were "Classy ladies. Real classy" and should "try wearing a little dignity" while calling the pair "tacky." He then posted a pic of himself and Kim K in "Happier, more tasteful days." Class? Dignity? Taste? Time to clutch those pearls, boys and girls! What a shame—for when a man is tired of Kim Kardashian's breasts, he is tired of life.

Emily didn't respond to the moral censure of this great arbiter of taste, but instead tweeted: "However sexual our bodies may be, we need to hve the freedom as women to choose whn & how we express our sexuality." Morgan continued: "Oh Emily, enough of this nonsensical pseudo-feminist gibberish. If not for me, then for Emmeline." Oh. Yes. Feminism. That thing where posh twats shame women over the choices they make about their bodies!

In what parallel universe does a 51-year-old man lecture a woman old enough to be his daughter—almost his granddaughter—on how to be a feminist? Presumably he'd prefer Emily to dress like British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, with long skirts and high necks and maybe some white gloves for good measure? I admire Pankhurst greatly but we're in the 21st century now and women can dress or undress however the hell they want.

"RIP feminism," Morgan finished. The push for women's rights would indeed be in a very poor state if Piers Morgan were its last defender. This is the same Piers Morgan who has spent years expressing his "revulsion" towards Madonna, describing her body as a "gruesome display of muscle-bound pecs-twitching that actually made me physically gag." That particular comment was over Madonna's appearance at the 2012 Golden Globes, when she was there to collect an award. (He praised Sofia Vergara's appearance at the same event because "she dresses for men, not women.") The same Piers Morgan who wrote last year that Madonna's fall at the Brits was "God's way of telling you you're too old to cavort like a hooker." Make no mistake: Piers Morgan is no feminist. He's an entitled little prick who feels he has a right to comment on women's bodies with disgusting misogyny. He's the claret-lipped uncle at posh family weddings who yells at his sister-in-law in front of the whole family to tell her she's put on weight. He's a hideous pulsating mound of smegma.

I welcome men's voices in feminism, if they actually have something new, interesting and important to say. But here's the thing: in this instance, quite simply, Morgan is wrong.

According to Piers Smegma, feminism is "supposed to be the advocacy of women's rights & equality with men. Not, I dare to suggest, topless selfies." Yes, feminism is supposed to be about the advancement of women's rights, but Morgan should look at the warped logic in his own tweets. Men post topless selfies all the time. Look, here's Justin Bieber with his boobs out. Take a long hard look at it. I have. And here's Tom Hardy. And Drake. Go on. Knock yourself out. If topless men are your thing, there are plenty to choose from on social media. I don't remember Morgan ever telling Bieber or any other male celebrity to cover up. That's more double standard than equality. Take Instagram and Facebook's bans on female nipples—if men and women are to be equal, then men and women's nipples are going to have to be equal too. Morgan can complain about taste and dignity all he likes, but that's the way feminism's going down in 2016.

I've never met Emily but I did have the pleasure of meeting Elle Evans a couple of years ago. She was the blonde hottie from the "Blurred Lines" video. We spoke at the Oxford Union together in defense of promiscuity, a debate we won. I found her to be a highly intelligent, calm, and composed young woman. She wasn't some vapid bimbo and there is no reason to believe that either Kim K or Emily Ratajkowski are either. Just because a woman chooses to present herself sexually in the public eye does not mean she's an idiot in need of advice from a scumbag like Piers Morgan. As young feminist and journalist Abi Wilkinson wrote: "I could tweet nudes & it wouldn't change anything about me, my opinions or my intelligence. Piers Morgan's tweets show he's an idiot though."

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Imagine this: You're a man who has sex with other men. You know it puts you at high risk of contracting HIV, so you do some research and learn about a drug that will stop you contracting the virus. You go to your doctor and ask for it. "Yes, it exists," says your doctor, "but you can't have it."

Or this: You've been diagnosed with hepatitis C, and you've heard that it can lead to liver cirrhosis. There's a "miracle" cure on the market, you're told, but it's not available to you in the UK.

Or imagine that your mom tells you she has late-stage breast cancer, and there's a one-of-a-kind drug that could extend her life. "Sorry, it was too expensive," the specialist at the hospital tells you. "It was struck off the National Health Service."

I am sitting in a small room with people who don't have to imagine this, because they have all had experiences like these. This is a meeting for AIDS activism and advocacy group ACT UP, in a support center in east London. The room is all grey plasterboard, with a round table in the middle, and a miserable-looking kettle in the corner. People arrive in dribs and drabs. A handsome gay man named Ashley is disseminating snacks while Paolo, an older guy, Italian, sits next to me and makes polite conversation. Sami, a trainee nurse, is last through the door, having come straight from a junior doctors protest.

We're here to discuss a global shake-up of the way big pharma operates. Some people in this room have had their lives directly affected by illness: Paolo, for example, later tells me he survived acute and hemorrhagic pancreatitis. Some want to campaign for access to drugs like the new, highly-effective hep C treatments Sovaldi and Harvoni, which are currently unavailable on the NHS. Others, like me, are here to learn.

A lot of people here want the HIV prevention drug PrEP to be made available in the UK, as it is in France, America, Canada, Israel, and Kenya. The drug, which could be offered to groups at high risk of contracting HIV, such as sex workers and gay men, has been found during clinical trials to prevent the rate of HIV infection by as much as 86 percent. At a cost of thousands per person for the pills, however, reports last week announced that, after much dispute, the NHS has decided against wide scale distribution. Instead, they intend to test PrEP on just 500 gay men over the next two years. In the same amount of time, around 5,000 will get a HIV diagnosis.

What people want to achieve at this meeting might vary, but ACT UP is united by a frustration at the way big drug companies inflate the price of drugs. It wants prices to drop to improve access to pharmaceuticals, and to save the government and the taxpayer some of the millions of pounds that are spent on drugs in this country each year. Everyone's circumstances are different, but what's radical about this group is the shared belief that the way big pharma operates needs a total, systemic overhaul, and they are all prepared to do something about it.

Related: Watch our documentary, 'An Afternoon with Martin Shrekli'

This is not a new conversation, but the debate over who decides the price of drugs has reached in an apex in recent months. Towards the end of last year, CEO of US drug company Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, made international headlines for hiking the price of a HIV medication by a staggering 5,556 percent. When asked why the company had raised price, Shkreli said "This isn't the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business." In February, the MD of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Erik Nordkamp, criticized the British government's proposal to alter the way cancer drug funds currently operate. "I would not want to be a cancer patient in England," he told the Telegraph. As the NHS is currently being squeezed more than ever—even more so after the last budget—this is now a critical time to talk about the relationship between the taxpayer, the NHS, and drug companies.

"These companies are wildly overcharging for drugs that could save lives, at prices that can't be afforded by the NHS," says Dan Glass, who is facilitating the ACT UP meeting today. "We need to send them the message that business as usual is not acceptable." Pens and paper are handed out and we break into groups to decide how best to get this message across.

The group is spurred on by anger, but they are not a collective of victims. Throughout the whole meeting, no one questions why I'm here. Ashley later tells me that, since joining ACT UP four months ago, not one person has asked him whether he is HIV positive or not. It's "just not relevant," he says, because this isn't about one hep C sufferer who needs a drug, or a person at risk of HIV needing PrEP; it's about bringing marginalized groups of people together to challenge the way big pharma sells drugs to the NHS.

An ACT UP protest outside NHS HQ on Tuesday. Photo by Jack Cole

ACT UP has been around since 1987, when they formed in New York in response to the global AIDS pandemic. Since the 1990s and 2000s, the group has been largely dormant in the UK, until Glass decided to call for a regroup in October 2014. "I was living in Glasgow and noticing the cuts to services, doctors and social support that I was getting for my HIV," he tells me. "I suppose I was being more cognizant to the general rise in stigma—especially as UKIP were saying things like migrants with HIV should be the last migrants we let into the UK."

Treatment and support for people with HIV has not been prioritized by governments since the beginning of the outbreak in 1981. Ronald Reagan, the US President at the time, was notably silent on the subject, failing to utter the word "AIDS" for the next five years, while in the UK, Margaret Thatcher actively tried to block public health warnings about the illness. This behavior lead to ACT UP's motto "Silence = Death."

A 1989 ACT UP poster by Keith Haring bearing the famous "Silence = Death" slogan

Today, 36 years after AIDS first started killing people (and AIDS has killed 39 million people to date), effective antiretroviral treatment drugs have been discovered and gradually distributed globally, curtailing the destruction caused by the HIV virus. Popular thinking is that we are on the way to eradicating both the stigma of living with HIV and that the number of diagnoses has fallen. But members of ACT UP believe we are living in what they describe as a "second silence." HIV rates are rising in the UK, particularly among men who have sex with men, of whom now 1 in 20 are now thought to be positive. This isn't the only demographic affected—of the 7,000 new HIV diagnoses in the UK each year, 45 percent are thought to be groups other than men who have sex with men. In America, rates of HIV aren't going down, particularly within black and Latino communities.

And yet, the misconception pervades that AIDS is an issue that's been dealt with. Global terror threats, the migration crisis, and new pandemics like ebola have long since eclipsed concerns over HIV in international news coverage. Because treatment for HIV and AIDS exists, or because "high risk HIV groups" are slightly better off socioeconomically, AIDS is a problem that no longer destroys lives. Africa got their drugs, and with it, their higher life expectancies. People can keep their positivity a secret, because—thanks to certain treatments—most people living with HIV no longer have to walk around with lesions.

To buy into the myth that HIV is no longer an issue is both negligent and dangerous. Anyone can contract AIDS, beyond the "high risk" groups outlined above. Those in these groups—often marginalized in other ways, namely through sexism, racism, and homophobia—are still forced into situations where they are at higher risk of contracting the virus. And it might not be killing people in vast number as it did in the 1980s, but there are specific new problems facing people living with HIV today—such as the virus' continuing stigma.

Silvia Petretti, photo by Michael Segalov

Silvia Petretti has been an AIDS activist for 15 years, providing peer support for women living with HIV through the group Positively UK. At our next ACT UP meeting, I watch her almost break down into tears because a woman with HIV that she has been working with had killed herself that morning. Another woman I spoke to from Silvia's organization, who understandably did not want to be named, told me that she suffered from clinical depression because of the shame attached to HIV, and felt she could not tell her family she was positive. After her diagnosis, her mental health deteriorated rapidly. Perhaps, if PrEP was made widely available, future generations may not have to go through this.

It is no secret that hiking the prices of life-saving medication for those who have HIV, hep C, cancer or other diseases has prevented drugs from getting to the people who need them. This is how it normally goes down: research for a drug is either conducted by a publicly funded research body, like Cancer Research UK or Medical Research Council, or else a privately owned biotech firm. Sometimes, the former discover a compound and sell it to the latter, who will take that chemical to the next stage in becoming a drug. Often, pharma companies swoop in and buy up a whole biotech firm in the late stages of a drug's development. This is so that when the drug is finished, they own the copyright for it. Once the pharma company owns the copyright, they can slam a patent on the drug that lasts for anything up to 20 years, preventing anyone from legally duplicating the drug on the basis of intellectual copyright law.

This patent allows the company to charge a higher price for the medication, since they now have a monopoly over the market, and health services like the NHS more of less have their hands tied when it comes to paying these inordinately high costs—at least until the patent expires. In England and Wales, it is a government executive agency called the MHRA which tests the medicines and decides which are safe, and the NICE (National Institute for Health and Care and Excellence) who decide what constitutes a financially viable drug to be used on the NHS. If a drug has been set as too expensive to outweigh the good it will do to your quality of life and lifespan, they will not pass it for distribution. This can lead to further negotiations—like the drug company dropping the price after patient appeals, or it can mean the drug never makes it to market.

The pharmaceutical industry— worth approximately $300 billion a year—tries to get off the hook for price-hiking by saying that they need their profit to reflect research and development costs, which are, granted, usually very steep. These costs are exacerbated because it's difficult to get a drug approved and, secondly, because the research for all failed drugs is factored into the sale price.

However, prices are also known to factor in marketing costs. According to an article published last February in the Washington Post, nine out of ten big pharmaceutical companies put more money into marketing than research. "Drug companies spent more than $3 billion a year marketing to consumers in the US in 2012, but an estimated $24 billion marketing directly to health care professionals," it notes. And in the UK, many drug manufacturers have been found to spend almost double the money on annual marketing than they have research and development. So the situation is more complex than high prices paying for the research.

Interested to hear how someone from a drug company reconciled themselves with all of this, I met John*, who leads access for one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies. He explained how, particularly in the case of very expensive medicines for rare cancers or rare diseases, where say only 50 people in the country might have the condition, pharma companies "have to charge a lot in order to make the money back on their investment." That doesn't really apply to outbreaks like HIV or hep C, I contest, to which he responds by pointing to the government as the culprits: "For me the big problem is the government demanding innovation and not rewarding it—most of the time we're not producing medicines that are helpful—they're tiny advances, but when a medicine can actually change things, they turn around and say they are unwilling to pay for it."

Related: Watch our documentary about the HIV drug, 'The Truvada Revolution'

John says pharma companies aren't all bad, some have been known to charge more for drugs in Europe for example, so they can sell them under cost price in Africa. However, a pharmaceutical company "is a business," he reminds us, "and we have to please our shareholders." If a drug company charges too much for a drug, it can lead to an outcry from the public, who will lobby politicians for a reform over the price. This can seriously affect a company's stocks. When Hillary Clinton once tweeted that "price gouging" over a drug called Daraprim was "outrageous," the stocks of the company producing it immediately fell by five percent. This demonstrates that any threat to profit margins will ultimately displease shareholders.

Jamie Love sits on the other side of the fence to John. A lawyer and the man who was largely instrumental in getting HIV drugs distributed to the developing world, he has dedicated much of his life to fighting big pharma companies' prices. He currently runs an organization called KEI—Knowledge Ecology International—which is an association "concerned with fairness and access to knowledge resources"—knowledge resources like medicines. Love believes that the rich and the poor can achieve better equality with regard to knowledge goods over other types of more material goods, and has put this into practice by lobbying for patents on life-saving medications to be overridden in countries like India, where they can then be replicated at cheaper cost and sold to places like Africa.

I called Love at his home in Virginia. "If left to their own devices, I feel like these companies will try to get out of you all the money you have," he says, voice steady. "There are no boundaries. They do it because they can." Love illustrates this belief with a story about a time he appealed to a pharmaceutical company to donate a lifesaving drug to a patient who could not afford it. The representative at the pharma company immediately asked whether the patient had any savings. "He told me 'If people are putting money away for a rainy day, then cancer is that rainy day.'"

In 2010, that rainy day landed on Love's doorstep, when his wife was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. He tells me that she now takes a drug called TDM1, made by Swiss pharma company Roche, and widely known as Kadcyla. "We talk about how many years she has left," he says, "and I think several years ahead now because of this drug—but that drug is not available in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, or most developing countries, primarily because of the cost. In England, it was £90,000 per patient for this drug treatment." It has since been deemed too expensive by the NHS.

He sighs: "If you look at the price of cancer drugs right now there's not much bending. Everyone has individual ways of dealing with these things—some people accept this and move onto the next stage of grief or acceptance, and start writing their wills. My attitude is: that's fucked up, we need to fix it. That's why some of our work is directed towards governments; we don't want to sit around and wait for the drug companies to have some come to Jesus moment, because that's just not going to happen."

The fact that effective cancer drugs are making headlines for being unaffordable, can—unjustly or otherwise—act as a catalyst for change. Research and campaigning that helps cancer suffers tends to be well-funded, whereas, historically, people with HIV have had struggled to receive help from drug companies and governments, in part because groups that are likely to be affected—sex workers, gay men, or racial minorities—have been politically disadvantaged. The meeting of these causes, members of ACT UP hope, could bring about a wider change in the way drugs are priced.

An ACT UP performance to protest the price of PrEP. Photo via ACT UP.

Gilead Sciences, the US company that owns the right to manufacture PrEP, as well as the hep C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni, have placed the price so high that the NHS are currently figuring out how the hell they can justify distributing it, and people are angry. Even John says, "Gilead are really dragging all of our names through the mud," before calling the company "pricks" for their inflation rates. According to the New York Times, Gilead made $23 billion on the two hep C drugs in the United States alone over 2014 and 2015, putting it in the top 10 biggest pharma companies in the world.

The Hep C Trust, an independent UK charity, reports that "the price offered by Gilead in the UK is almost £35,000 ."

The actual cost price of making this is thought to be as little as £70 for a 24-week course. Gilead justify the cost like so:

"The price of Gilead's hepatitis C treatments reflects the significant clinical, economic, and public health value of these drugs, and is comparable to, or in many cases less than, the cost of older, less effective regimens. In the US and around the world, Gilead is working to increase access to its medicines for all people who can benefit from them, regardless of where they live or their ability to pay."

In an article published by Medicines San Frontieres last month, it was estimated that 40 percent of the world's population of people living with hep C still cannot access Gilead's treatment drug.

The PrEP situation is more complex, in part because it is a preventative, not a treatment. Men admit to doctor-shopping for PrEP in the UK—that is, going to different doctors' clinics and getting it prescribed as a post–exposure phrophylaxis (PEP), which is a treatment you can have after you've had unprotected sex that might put you at risk of contracting HIV—a bit like the morning after pill. Other than that, you can currently buy PrEP privately in the UK, from certain London clinics at its staggering net cost of £355.73 per person, per month. Or, you can get it from abroad, from companies in India and unregulated sources on the internet.

How effective is the drug? Well, trials indicate that, if PrEP was made widely available, it would stop 15 out of every 20 HIV infections that would have happened without it, and therefore, according to the National AIDS Trust, it would be likely to save the NHS money in reduced HIV diagnoses and treatments. This angers Glass.

"Gilead, the key provider of PrEP, have been approached to provide the medication for free," he says, "but I couldn't expect them to as pharmaceutical companies are notoriously greedy. My problem is with the British government and department of health, who say, 'One of our goals is to prevent the spread of HIV.' If that's their goal, why have they just announced they won't provide the prevention? The government should be doing a lot more."

John and Glass seem to agree on this point, that it's not just big pharma's fault, but that the government and NHS are also to blame. "The NHS is a bureaucratic institution," says John. "They have to deal with yearly budgets set by the government. The person who deals with those budgets probably finds that treating and keeping someone with HIV alive is cheaper in one year than to invest in protecting public health from a long-term perspective."

The Hep C Trust make a strong case that if Sovaldi or Harvoni could be haggled down with Gilead, the drugs would make the government savings in the long run. They note the fact that one in five people infected with hepatitis C develop liver cirrhosis, and a liver transplant costs more than £50,000 for the NHS. Similarly, commentators and experts believe PrEP's money-saving capabilities could be exponential. Glass shares this viewpoint: "Medical advancements like PrEP that can stop people getting HIV are not only morally good but more economically viable, because PrEP is currently cheaper than ART treatment in the long run." Studies by Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases have found that in their health system, the adoption of PrEP would save money in the long term.

When I bring up this issue with Silvia from Positively UK, she becomes understandably irate. "People know that all drug companies make an immense profit, not just on HIV, but all kinds of illnesses. What we need to remember is that, very often, that money comes out of public money—taxpayer's money. I don't understand why this money should be robbed. There's not another word for it—for me, it is thievery. The margin of profit is unethical and immoral. We need to lobby the government to intervene and stop this."

Part of the reason Silvia is so concerned with this point, she tells me, is that she believes the money saved could be valuably spent elsewhere. "The NHS spend so much budget on drugs, while other services like sexual health or domestic violence services—services which could help battle HIV diagnoses rates in the first place—are facing cuts." She explains that, from her work with Positively UK, she has seen first-hand how the money put into the pocket of pharmaceutical companies could be better spent on services for women who are living with HIV, many of whom have children.

ACT UP's protest against the NHS

So what's the answer to this global problem? Jamie Love is a practical man. During our call, he instructs me to use Google Hangout instead of Skype because it's cheaper and more effective. Likewise, he wants to find a cheaper and more effective global system for regulating pharmaceutical company profiteering: "Drugs are intellectual property goods, meaning the cost is based on making the first one," he explains. "If you give someone a house you can't give someone else the same house to live in. Each new house you make is going to be really expensive. With drugs, however, it's not the cost of making the copy with a drug, because a drug may cost less than a penny to produce—it's just about paying for the research and development."

The answer, according to Love, is finding a way to change the overarching system of patenting. That way, he says, you could make the price cheaper for everyone on the planet. "I'm not gonna sit around with 7 billion people getting ill and emailing me individually about it," he says down the line. "We need a new way of funding research and development through a means that doesn't rely on profits driven by the grant of a monopoly." That's the task Love is involved in right now. Working with the World Health Organization, he has been reexamining the link between the price of drugs and the incentive to make new drugs. He wants to see a new way of funding research and development that doesn't rely on recouping costs via sales based upon high prices. Instead, he wants to introduce a system that focuses on expanding direct research grants and subsidies for development, and offering robust cash rewards for successful development of new products, so that drug companies have more incentive to create more helpful products rather than corner the market with existing ones.

Meanwhile, ACT UP is trying to make as much noise as possible about the ongoing situation surrounding PrEP and hep C meds, in order to put pressure on the government and NHS and drive Gilead's price down. On Tuesday this week, they held a noise demo outside NHS England's head offices in London. The turnout at the demo was good, Dan Glass tells me afterwards, but he would like to see more people engaging in with the battle for PrEP access. I suggest that most people don't engage with the politics surrounding healthcare and pharmaceuticals unless they absolutely have to, that is, the point at which their own health relies on it. Until then, as Love puts it, "People look at the inaccessibility of drugs like a natural disaster, like: 'That's harsh but that's the way it is.' They accept it, they think of it as an inevitability."

When you really think about it, this makes no sense. We all have a body, and by virtue of having a body, we are all prone to illness. When our bodies get ill, we rely on pharmaceuticals to save us, be those cancer drugs, HIV drugs, or something else entirely. No one is exempt from this. But, as we've seen, some people are exempt from getting the drugs they need. "It's a fundamental inequality," says Ashley at our next ACT UP meeting. "There's this quote that says, 'The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,' and I think that's true of this... If people actually start doing something about pharmaceuticals—standing up to these big corporations—then maybe things will start to change."

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The London Olympic Aquatic Centre, designed by Zaha Hadid. Photo by Jim Linwood

"I just do what I do, and that's it."—Zaha Hadid.

Except that's not it. Zaha Hadid, the British-Iraqi architect, was a secret romantic in a cynical age. That quote of hers is a flippant one that belies a profound body of work—it sums up the possibility of creation, the optimism of making something artistic happen. To think that she'll never do it again is arresting. She died yesterday at the age of 65 from a heart attack in a Miami hospital, where she was being treated for bronchitis. She had only just got started.

Her architecture embodied an idea of progress. Rem Koolhaas, former teacher and colleague, said that she was "a planet in her own inimitable orbit." She was un-copyable, yet she leaves so many poor imitators behind. Over the past 30 years, Hadid developed a style more recognizable—and more imitated—than any of her contemporaries. She became the global go-to for fuck-off art galleries and experimental opera houses from Abu Dhabi to Guangzhou.

Her career still felt so new, which is maybe because it was—it's only been 15 years since her most significant works started appearing. She started her practice in 1980 after leaving Koolhaas' practice, OMA, but she didn't build anything until 1993. Her first building was the fêted Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany.

In architecture circles Zaha was a member of the first name gang, and her fame was on the cusp of spreading into the real world. She had an unnerving charisma that would no doubt take her beyond the parochial world of design. She collaborated with Pharrell Williams, designed shoes and swimwear, and gave her name to a lifestyle collection.

Hadid took another step towards mainstream celebrity by storming out of an interview on Radio 4's flagship Today program."Let's stop this conversation right now," she barked, after Sarah Montague pressed her on the reasons why projected costs for the Tokyo Olympic stadium project had spiraled out of control. "I don't want to carry on."

It was the final straw. Montague had already raised the condition of migrant workers in Qatar, where the Hadid-designed 2022 World Cup stadium is being built, repeating the allegation that there have been 1,200 workers' deaths on the project—a number from a report that was withdrawn after Hadid filed a lawsuit against the New York Review of Books. The figure related to construction projects across Qatar, not Hadid's project alone, which hadn't even broken ground at the time of publication.

When questioned about the deaths of construction workers she responded: "It's not my duty as an architect to look at it." When asked why the roof of her Olympic pool had to use ten times the amount of steel as the Velodrome to cover the same approximate span, she simply rolled her eyes.

This perhaps says more about architecture than it does about Hadid. There is no client with the kind of money you need to build big architecture who is not tainted. Behind every great building there is a great fortune, and as Zola said, behind every great fortune is a great crime.

Zargoza Bridge Pavillion. Photo via Zaha Hadid Architects

Hadid showed us what the future might be like. When asked in an interview in Designboom in 2007 if there was anything that she was afraid of about the future, she answered, "Yes, the conservative values that are emerging." Through her work you can see an intense and enigmatic expression of struggle. Architecture is a bad medium for self-expression, yet she expressed herself so fully that you can only assume she was a romantic, a true believer in something bigger.

The critic Herbert Muschamp wrote of Hadid's Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art: "The building's power is fully disclosed only to those who engage it with their feet as well as their eyes You gain the dream sensation of breaking through a solid membrane into an alternative world." This is an ambition for many an architect, achieved by Hadid apparently through force of will alone.

The unreality of her work was perhaps pointing to something preternatural, transcendent. Denying reality while reaching for something more. One sometimes got the sense that she despised the banal fact of gravity, couldn't bear the dull thud of material reality.

A lot of people spend a lifetime trying to understand the world. A few just try to get the world to understand them. Zaha Hadid, perhaps more important than someone who was merely waiting for their time to come, instead witnessed the world adapting to her.

"Apparently all of you are white," the actress Rosario Dawson said to a roaring crowd, as the sun set in the South Bronx. "That's crazy... there must be issues with my eyes."

In front of her were 15,000 people, maybe more, packed into Saint Mary's Park to await the arrival of Bernie Sanders on Thursday night. It was the Brooklynite-turned-Vermont senator's first stop in the Empire State, which will hold its Democratic primary in less than three weeks. Former New York Senator Hillary Clinton holds a dominant lead in the polls, but in New York City—as in many places across the country—it's Sanders who seems to have gotten voters' blood pumping.

And though Clinton has done much better than Sanders in attracting black and Hispanic voters during this primary season, as Dawson noted, the crowd at the Bronx rally really was a hodgepodge.

When I hopped off the 6 train, I found myself in the middle of a massive line. People of color—mostly young, but some old—rubbed shoulders with white millennials who probably don't come to the South Bronx often. Signs of "Boricua 4 Bernie" and "Puerto Ricans 4 Bernie" peppered the crowd, while banners that read "Unidos con Bernie" hung all over. Before Dawson, Judy-Sheridan Gonzalez, the president of the New York Nurses Union, had yelled out to the crowd, "Yo siento el Bern!"

Clinton and her husband (who was once called "the first black president" by Toni Morrison) have traditionally been popular with the African American community, but some prominent black intellectuals—including Cornel West, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Michelle Alexander—have voiced their support of Sanders, or at least their dissatisfaction with Clinton. Speaking to his supporters in the South Bronx, it was clear that plenty of ordinary people agreed with the most common critique of Clinton: A vote for her would be a vote for the unacceptable status quo.

Orlando Carabello. Photo by author

Outside of the rally, I spoke with Orlando Carabello, a 36-year-old Bernie supporter who lived in the housing project across the street from the park. He had a Bronx tattoo on the back of his neck and wore a "Super Bernie" T-shirt. "The people here, they don't care about the election," he told me, "because they don't see change.

"And under Hillary, it'd just be more of the same," he continued, sighing. "Nothing changes."

As was Clinton's choice to hold an event at the Apollo Theater in Harlem the day before, Sanders's showing up in the South Bronx was symbolic. The area has long been beset by poverty and crime; in 2010, it was the country's poorest congressional district. The symbolism is fairly obvious: A place a scant few miles away from Wall Street that has been abandoned by the American financial and political elite.

The high turnout indicated that plenty of South Bronx residents are receptive to Sanders's message that the country needs policies that raise the lower and middle classes up, but Orlando told me that older people weren't going to be convinced by his arguments.

"The older people around here know Hillary, and that's what they want: experience," he said. "She's been there, done that. She's a part of the politics." In 1997, he recalled, the then–First Lady visited nearby Longwood Avenue with her husband, and that's something many people here don't forget.

"But the youth are awake," he continued, "and they see the lack of opportunity here."

From left: Habeeb Shobayo, Israel McFadden, Jesse Dukes,and Kaivert Hazel. Photo by author

The youth—or the likes of Habeeb Shobayo, Israel McFadden, Jesse Dukes, and Kaivert Hazel, four Bronx teens I met at the Bernie rally whose parents are mostly voting for Clinton—agreed.

"Bernie got the young votes," Hazel told me. "What Bernie is offering the community is what we need. So many people I know can't afford college, or get a good job here."

Israel interjected: "He's the first person to even come to the South Bronx and campaign. He's not going to a fancy hotel somewhere. Like Trump, he'd go to Madison Square Garden."

I asked the group about the idea that black people don't know Sanders, or not enough about him to actually vote for him. "I don't know a person who doesn't know him," Dukes said. "Everybody knows Bernie."

"If you think Bernie's supporters are only white," Habeeb added, "come to the Bronx."

Diana Ordonez and friends. Photo by author

Watching from behind a barricade with her friends, Diana Ordonez, 20, said the Establishment is trying to push the notion that Bernie's support is monolithic. "They're trying to make him into a person with one single vote," she argued, "although he's been fighting for his whole life on these issues.

"Hillary has raised a ton of money from private prisons," she continued, "which have discriminated against and incarcerated blacks and Latinos."

Before Sanders appeared on stage, a stream of speakers appeared to warm up the crowd. Dawson hammered Hillary on some of her past remarks, particularly the time in 1996, she called gang members "super predators" who needed to "be brought to heel," or the 2002 interview when she implied welfare recipients were "deadbeats." The director Spike Lee appeared and told the youth in the crowd to talk to their parents. "The older generation," he said, "they're on this Clinton thing." And Residente, the former vocalist of the popular Latino group Calle 13, chastised Clinton for her friendship with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who, he said, supported the dictatorships that dominated Latin America for decades. "It will represent an insult to consider yourself Latin American and vote for her," he said.

When Sanders finally took the stage, he didn't slam Clinton but instead delivered his usual stump speech—"Does anyone know how much our average contribution is?" he asked the crowd; "$27!" they responded, in unison—with few exceptions carved out for the occasion. He specifically focused on access to healthcare, child poverty, education, and criminal justice, all issues that are front and center here.

"We are gonna reinvest in the South Bronx," he said in his raspy voice, to cheers from the massive crowd, "and communities all over this country!"

Sanders's speech ended just after 8 PM, and the event cleared out like a concert: the smell of pot still reeking in the air, fans chanting "Bernie!" all the way to the subway station. As we left the park single file, I overheard one supporter turn to his friend, and ask, "Who said that Bernie's fans are all white?" The friend shrugged.

"That's bullshit."

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