
Orvillecopter
at first glance I thought it was named after Orville the Duck
Dutch artist Bart Jansen has taken the aviation world by storm by rolling out the world's first dead cat quadcopter – a remote-controlled flying feline dubbed the "Orvillecopter" in honour of Orville Wright. The pioneering stuffed caticopter was apparently Jansen's own pet, who popped his paws after being run over by a …
I take it you mean a Soviet person flying, cat-copter like, because they have quite a few things that do or did fly, such as Soyuz rockets, the Antonov 226 and a variety of Ekranoplans.
I'd rather have Kim Jong Ill Dead Il retrofitted this way, then equipped with a high-resolution cam. That would breathe new life into http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/
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Imitation* dead raccoon caps were all the rage when I was a kid (although I never owned one).
Dead cats prove useful: isn't there a book titled '101 Things To Do With a Dead Cat'? It must now need enlarging. One should mention Schrödinger too had a darn good use for a 'dead' cat.
* Real dead raccoons were a bit pricy I believe.
You're kidding, right? It's not like the common moggie is an endangered species, so why would the legislature have to concern itself with disallowing taxidermification of same?
And yes, it's his own cat. I know the guy, and his prime motivation was to improve Orville's bird-chasing abilities, albeit posthumously. The latter condition slightly defeats the purpose, but the idea is laudable just the same.
Ok, so maybe its not illegal and it may not be a endangered species, but i can think of better ways of honoring your cat than turning it into a freakshow.
I mean, really, do you have to descecrate the poor animal by tying it to a flyingmachine under the pretext that it can now continue to hunt birds?? really??
If i ever catch my son doing that to our cat (either dead or alive) i would 1st think up of a suitable punishment, then sit down and think hard where i went wrong in educating him and making him care and respect any loved household pet.
>"do you have to descecrate the poor animal by tying it to a flyingmachine under the pretext that it can now >continue to hunt birds?"
Nine out of ten cats feel that desecrating, eviscerating and generally playing with dead animals is perfectly acceptable, nay laudable, behaviour. The chances are that Orville would have have thought the same. Had he been able to hold such abstract opinions. Which he didn't, because he was a cat.
[Hopefully Redundant Disclaimer: I'm not for hurting live cats, btw, just doubtful that they worry or care about what happens to them when they die. And I wouldn't skin somebody else's cat, as that could obviously upset a still-living human. ]
"His prime motivation was to improve Orville's bird-chasing abilities, albeit posthumously."
So he's mad then? I mean all artist licence, eccentric genius considerations aside, this is mad, isn't it? His cat is dead, it cannot chase birds.. And why improve his cat's ability to chase birds? Is there a particular bird problem in the gardens of the Netherlands that they require culling? Are the Dutch not experiencing the same undesirable fall in bird population as the rest of Europe? Or are the non-existent desires of a deceased cat to be paramount?
So what makes the idea laudable?
"So he's mad then? I mean all artist licence, eccentric genius considerations aside, this is mad, isn't it? His cat is dead, it cannot chase birds."
Well, the aim was to improve its ability to chase them, not to actually catch them.. You don't know how bad it was at doing so to begin with. It may well be that despite being bereft of life, it is still able to chase birds better than when alive.
" ...his prime motivation was to improve Orville's bird-chasing abilities, albeit posthumously. The latter condition slightly defeats the purpose..."
I would suggest that, given as he now has four flailing buzz-saws, one to each cardinal direction, his abilty to catch those birds he chases has been radically advanced.
Mine's the one covered in bits of feather.
C'mon, what's the point of putting a _dead_ cat on wings? Take a living one and go chase some pigeons. And after all, if you then decide you preferred a dead flying cat... Well, we all know cats can survive a drop from any height. But can they also survive being propelled into ground? Someone has to try!
>I don't know whether a live cat would be less or more aerodynamic than a dead one
Probably a dead one would be more aerodynamic; whilst a live one would keep its coat clean and slick, a dead one wouldn't be wriggling into positions that presented a high cross section.
As some one who has been in RC hobbies for a while, I have to say that it total crap. Yeah down vote all you like, but any one involved in RC planes etc could have done that and made it fly properly. As an RC geek, things like this just plain annoy me.
Or to put it another way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czmb6tEwFE8
I suppose it what often happens with artists dabbling in things they know little about, with out finding people who actually do.
You Fools! Don't you see this is Rise of The Machines material?
First flying zombie cyborg moggies, the next thing you know you have flying zombie cyborg moggies WITH FREEKIN LAZORS IN THE EYES - then full-on Hunter-Killers!
(Yes, I am fully aware of the proper spelling of laser - that is a nod to the various "Imma Firin Ma Lazors" memes).
But I feel the artist needs to hire an assistant to the flying, so he can concentrate on more weirdness - May I suggest CAT-lin O'Shannessy? (Obviously STRINGfellow would just distract the poor thing.)
Just wondering what OS is being used for the flight systems?
Given that a manual has already been written on how to load Linux onto a Dead Badger, I can only assume a Linux distribution has been modified for use!
See: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040405/badger.shtml
Given that hardened flight testing of IT systems and software for aviation/space appliations, usually results in OS'es being a couple of years behind in actual deploment, I can only assume it must be, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx?
1: Now we can really check if a room is big enough to swing a cat..
2: When at full speed as it wizzes by your head, does it make a 'meeeeoooow' sound?
3: Can you control it with a mouse?
4: If you nearly crash it, you can honestly say you avoided wrecking it by a whisker!
5: Has he called it the heliclawpter?
/Gets coat, and is dragged off stage left.
(The black helicopter icon for obvious reasons.)
I just popped back to 1981 (well ok: to a box in the loft) and referred to the source material. ISTM Bart Jansen's idea bears a striking resemblance to use #26 - given the technology available at the time.
I also can't help comparing the reception the book got back then (IIRC most people took it as whimsical humour - or outright ROFL, when they saw the pencil sharpener use) with some of the responses the reality generates 30+ years later. Intolerance, fear or hate - three sides of the same coin.
He should be arrested and jailed for the rest of his life. Just like the other "artist" that does the same things with human bodies.
These people are crazy. They shouldn't be allowed to live free in our society. And then those trying to mimic this are only going to keep escalating the level of madness that our world is living in like never before.