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A Portable Black Cat Detector

iainh

iainh

Fresh Blood
Joined
Nov 1, 2023
Messages
6
Hi all,

This is my first ever post to the forums, and I'm assuming that this would be the right place for this technology story that arrived in my inbox not too long ago.

Someone's created a portable 'black cat detector' that generates black cats 'in order to protect one's luck'. Here's a link to the story: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/10/31/kinky-kashayam-portable-black-cat-radar/#/

The Fortean in me is fascinated by this, and the reasoning behind it. The rationalist in me is wondering if this is another example of humans fiddling as the planet burns. Either way, I've never seen anyone blend folklore with technology in this way.
 
Um. I don't get it. How does it 'detect' cats?
It generates cats ... how?
I've not opened the link because I can't refuse the cookies.
 
Stormkhan said:
Um. I don't get it. How does it 'detect' cats?
It generates cats ... how?
I've not opened the link because I can't refuse the cookies.
Click to expand...
That's the issue with language: it's a detector that generates cats. Erm, OK!
 
A machine that generates cats? Think of the massive business opportunities.
 
Tunn11 said:
Does it detect/generate them inside closed boxes? If so can it tell whether they are alive or dead before the box is opened? This could re write physics.
Click to expand...
Schroedinger's Uncertain Cat Detector. It constantly freezes as it tries to work out if said virtual cat is virtually dead or alive.

It's the kind of invention that Reginald Perrin would champion for Grot. (Is anyone old enough to remember what I'm referencing?!)
 
iainh said:
Schroedinger's Uncertain Cat Detector. It constantly freezes as it tries to work out if said virtual cat is virtually dead or alive.

It's the kind of invention that Reginald Perrin would champion for Grot. (Is anyone old enough to remember what I'm referencing?!)
Click to expand...

please sir! me sir!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(bit of a cock up on the old catering front)
 
Welcome to the forum @iainh

An intriguing concept: create a fictional threat in one's physical path (a kind-of budget-level augmented unreality) which must then be avoided. Perhaps as well as the neurochemical dopamine hit, it could be treated as an aerobic training aid...with the users/owners leaping up and sideways, to evade the non-cats.

Of course: a key flaw in this product (addressed in the next upgrade, I am certain) is that my imaginary black cat *must* possess the same instancy as your imaginary black cat. Therefore these devices will need to be networked, in order to maintain a shared consensus unreality. I mean, if I'm jumping to the left to avoid tripping over a black cat, it would be crazy if you didn't follow the same prompts....

Linking them will be easy: your PAN (personal area network cloud, via Bluetooth and NFC to/via your smartphone) could do this.

iainh said:
Either way, I've never seen anyone blend folklore with technology in this way.
Click to expand...
Careful- in fact, you actually have (well, not the use, as here, of a smart SBC....possibly an ARM processor-based design, which can be thought of as being a phoneless smartphone). But you almost-certainly could have seen UFO detectors, ghost meters, Kirilian aura cameras, EVP recorders (all analogue aids for measuring the inexplicable...with the recent addition of Pokestop AR 'locations')....much of which is feeding a western world cargo-culture of techo-illiteracy.

This Black Cat Generator/Detector may be different, in that if there is any substance to the concept of shared thoughtforms...does practice make projections perceptable? If you and I leap to the left to avoid the black cat that isn't there....does the unequipped third-party walking beside us >see< a black cat??

Arthur C Clarke's over-quoted maxim 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' is maybe starting, in tiny little ways, to become truly true...
 
The Black Cat Generator/Detector sounds like the tabloid moral panic process:

- Concoct a spurious pattern of incidents - pregnant schoolgirls, nasty dogs, a new and widely available street drug, whatever.
- Cobble up a story about this threatening new trend.
- Present an eye-catching headline, possibly in the form of a question to which the sensible answer is No.

ARE BLACK CATS BEING GENERATED TO CREATE GOOD LUCK?
CAN THIS BLACK CAT GENERATOR CAUSE LOTTO JOY?
'I MADE MY OWN LUCK' SAYS BILLIONAIRE BLACK CAT GENERATOR
etc
 
Ermintruder said:
Welcome to the forum @iainh

An intriguing concept: create a fictional threat in one's physical path (a kind-of budget-level augmented unreality) which must then be avoided. Perhaps as well as the neurochemical dopamine hit, it could be treated as an aerobic training aid...with the users/owners leaping up and sideways, to evade the non-cats.

Of course: a key flaw in this product (addressed in the next upgrade, I am certain) is that my imaginary black cat *must* possess the same instancy as your imaginary black cat. Therefore these devices will need to be networked, in order to maintain a shared consensus unreality. I mean, if I'm jumping to the left to avoid tripping over a black cat, it would be crazy if you didn't follow the same prompts....

Linking them will be easy: your PAN (personal area network cloud, via Bluetooth and NFC to/via your smartphone) could do this.
Click to expand...
Pokemon Go might be a precedent for this idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Go
 
Sorry - from me, the attitude is ...
"From what bollocks is this?"

The original poster offers a link to an online resource - click to explain(!) and drop any online security - then uses nonsense dialogue ("The rationalist in me is wondering if this is another example of humans fiddling as the planet burns. Either way, I've never seen anyone blend folklore with technology in this way.") in order to maintain contact.

I'm happy to be called an old curmudgeon, or even too stupid to 'get it'.
But ... I just don't get it.
If it's a joke - Ha. Ha. Shame on me for not 'getting it'.

I'm out.
 
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