Leo9: Thanks a lot for your reply. Yes, i do think of such a system where various kinds of whipping machines and remotely controlled whips would be able to help creating an on-line community for imitating a galley-slave life as authentically as possible. The simplest way to construct a whipping machine or/and remotely controlled whip for a galley slave is just to tightly chain the slave's wrists to the oar, ankles to the parapet, and belly to the bench so that he/she would be given the smallest degree of freedom in his/her movements just allowing to row -- and hence we can easily create either an on-line option for the on-line overseer to switch on the whipping machine for punishing the rower (to make it easier, the overseer can also have an on-line option to fix the oar's position) or just a special program for the whipping machine receiving "data" on the oar's movement with a number of parameters like the number of the slave's failures to follow the rowing rhythm or the strength and number of strokes etc. -- the parameters' values might be entered/changed by the overseer or the slave, depending on their agreement.