Road Apples by Tim Sanders
June 11, 2012

Technology marches on

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Like many other journalists, I keep abreast of all the latest breakthroughs in science and technology. Here’s one very late breakthrough from Japan with which I am abreast:


• JAPANESE DIET GOGGLES


According to a June 4 story in Yahoo News by Miwa Suzuki: “Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed devices that use computer wizardry and augmented reality to fool the senses and make users feel more satisfied with smaller–or less appealing–treats.”

One device involves a goggle-mounted camera which sends images to a computer, which in turn magnifies the size of the edible treat it displays while the wearer’s hand retains its normal size. This, of course, convinces the wearer that he is eating an entire banana cake with caramel icing instead of that crummy little piece of Granola Bar. The study revealed that volunteers ate nearly 10 percent less that way.

This same team of Japanese geniuses “developed a ‘meta cookie,’ where the headgear uses scent bottles and visual trickery to fool the wearers into thinking the snack they are eating is anything but a plain biscuit ... Users can set the device to their favorite taste so they think they are eating a chocolate or strawberry-flavored cookie.” The team is headed by Professor Michitaka Hirose, who reported that 80 percent of the subjects were fooled. He did not say anything about the average intelligence of his test subjects, but we can assume they were every bit as smart as your average sack of hair.

This article caught my attention because, yes, the Japanese have given us some remarkable technological advances, like Godzilla, the transistor radio, and the Toyota Camry, but sometimes they overlook the obvious.

And in this case, one can only wonder: If they can come up with goggles that fool your average goober into thinking he’s eating more, and tastier food than he really is, and if this technology will ultimately result in weight loss over a period of years, then why not simply invent some goggles that make the wearer’s thighs and abdomen look smaller to him and eliminate all the waiting?


DEWEY: Hey Bob, can you tell I been losing weight?

BOB: Uh ... not really, You still look like Moby Dick to me.

DEWEY: Oh yeah? Well then try on these here goggles.

BOB: DANG! Bye bye Michael Moore, hello Brad Pitt! I gotta get me a pair!


On the other hand, here’s a more reasonable breakthrough from Holland:


• DUTCH FLYING CAT TECHNOLOGY


Okay, so I’ll admit it, the Dutch are my people, and my Dutch ancestry makes me give a bit more credibility to Dutch technology, such as it is. I was raised in southwestern Michigan, an area settled by the Dutch when Henry Hudson first sailed down the Detroit River in search of the Fountain of Youth or the Northwest Passage or something like that, and discovered Grand Rapids instead. And only a few centuries later it was two Grand Rapids Dutchmen, Van Andel and DeVos, who gave birth to the Amway, Double Diamond, which is twice as good as the old single diamond, and worth two little red hotels on Baltic Avenue plus a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card.

But I digress. The latest in the golden history of Dutch technology comes from an actual Dutch artist living not in Grand Rapids, or Holland, Michigan, but in Amsterdam. His name is Bart Jansen, and he was the proud owner of a fine tabby cat named Orville, who was fatally run over by a car.

Being a Dutch artist, Jansen did what most grieving Dutch artists would do when a beloved pet buys the windmill, as they say. He contacted a taxidermist, had Orville stuffed and stretched on a frame, fitted with a propeller for each of his outstretched little arms and legs, given landing gear, and turned into a kitty copter.

In her June 3 article in the U.K. Mail Online, Suzannah Hills says “The end result, named the Orvillecopter, is now on show at the Hunstrai art festival in Amsterdam, where visitors can watch Orville flying for themselves.” There are several photos accompanying the article, and if you’ve never seen a stuffed tabby cat, eyes wide open, legs and arms stretched out, gazing menacingly at you, then you haven’t experienced life as the Dutch like to experience it.

Orville, at one time, may well have been an attractive cat, and his head may still be shaped normally, but the Orvillecopter’s body is very, very, flat, giving the viewer the impression that either a) he is more aerodynamic that way, or b) he was run over by a steamroller, not a car.

There is a video, available on YouTube, which shows the artist using a remote control to guide the Orvillecopter over a field, probably near Amsterdam. There are three or four cows grazing peacefully in that field, and Orville’s operator makes the cat fly, eyes wide open, legs outstretched, rotors buzzing full power, right at those cows, to study their reaction. If you’ve ever seen a Holstein run away from an angry bumble bee, then you can imagine how those innocent cows did a double take and headed for the barn when that flying cat started buzzing them.

Unlike the Japanese and their goofy diet goggles, there are some very practical applications for the remote controlled flying dead cat concept. For example, given the current administration’s fascination with drones, we could soon have Orvillecopters patrolling our Southwestern states, herding cattle and controlling the undocumented bat population. And in the Middle East there’d be no need for firepower; flying pig drones would simply scare the bad guys to death. And who knows? Today’s flying stuffed cats and pigs might well become tomorrow’s flying stuffed bovines. It would only be a matter of horsepower, and the Dutch can certainly handle horsepower. I believe they helped design the Chevy Volt. I hear the Royal Dutch Air Force is looking into purchasing a fleet of turbo-charged Stealth Black Angus copters even as we speak. For windmill control.