techyum ::

World of Warcraft Cosplay Girls in Taipei, by Swanky.

A former prisoner at a labor camp in China claims he and other prisoners were routinely forced to play online games like World of Warcraft until their eyes crossed, to make money for gold farmers. According to an article in The Guardian:

As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali…says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for “illegally petitioning” the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

“Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,” Liu told the Guardian. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.”

…”If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things,” he said.

It is known as “gold farming”, the practice of building up credits and online value through the monotonous repetition of basic tasks in online games such as World of Warcraft. The trade in virtual assets is very real, and outside the control of the games’ makers. Millions of gamers around the world are prepared to pay real money for such online credits, which they can use to progress in the online games.

[Link.]

The Guardian quotes figures from the China Internet Centre estimating that 80% of the world’s gold farmers are in China — 100,000 of them doing it full-time. These figures place the amount of make-believe currencies traded in China alone at well over £1 billion.

You don’t need to look very far to find the weirdness here. But in case your brain is not completely tweaked by hearing that prisoners in a real prison were really beaten for not generating enough fake online money, consider this: China has one of the most tightly controlled currencies in the world. The Chinese yuan is very different than the US dollar and the British pound. Those two currencies are traded freely internationally, and fluctuate based on world events ranging from wars to trade agreements to unemployment numbers to commodities futures to…whatever. In very basic terms, the dollar and the pound are regulated by the market.

Way back in 2006, NPR explained it as follows in an article about pressure on then-President Bush to insist that China stop undervaluing its currency:

China’s central bank simply declares an exchange rate and forces, by law, all market players to observe that rate. The yuan is allowed to fluctuate a tiny bit, but not much — and certainly not enough to accommodate the constantly changing pressures of the global marketplace. The Chinese have pegged the currency so that one U.S. dollar buys a little bit more than 8 yuan. Put the other way, one yuan is worth a bit more than 12 cents.

…By keeping the yuan artificially low in value, China is effectively giving U.S. consumers a discount on all Chinese exports. Why? Let’s say a Chinese factory can make a profit selling DVD players for 800 yuan. That means they can then sell it to someone in the United States for $100. If the yuan were allowed to appreciate in value, that 800 yuan DVD player might suddenly cost, say, $115. If an American factory makes a similar player for $110, then that change in the value of the yuan can make the difference between business success and failure for the U.S. manufacturer.

So, by keeping its currency undervalued, China is discounting its own exports. That’s good for U.S. consumers, who get to buy cheaper clothes and electronics and other items. But it’s horrible for many U.S. manufacturers who find they can’t compete with low Chinese prices. Some U.S. manufacturers, though, have adapted by buying many component parts at a lower cost from China. The ability of a manufacturer to adapt depends on the company and the product — and even on the level of globalization in that industry.

[Link.]

If you’ve watched the international economic news even a tiny bit, you’ve probably heard about this issue. American manufacturing jobs have migrated overseas for a number of reasons, but one of the most important reasons manufacturing has gone to China is the currency undervaluation. It’s utterly disingenuous to suggest that the differential is “horrible for many U.S. manufacturers.” Who it’s horrible for are U.S. workers, who are expected to adapt to a virtual world where computer jobs, healthcare and service jobs are the core of the economy. It’s also horrible for U.S. manufacturers that actually make things in the U.S..

But many companies that we think of as “U.S. manufacturers” long ago found it most expedient to move their manufacturing endeavors to other countries. China is far from the only country they moved to. When one says “U.S. manufacturers,” one needs to be clear what one is talking about — and the migration of U.S. manufacturing jobs to other countries can’t be blamed on China. That can only be blamed on U.S. companies, and the U.S. government that started favoring offshoring over keeping jobs at home, because it looked (and looks) better for corporate bottom lines.

But as for gold farming, if it’s true, as it’s said, that 80% of gold farmers are in China, it’s not just because of prisoner abuse. Such practices may cast an ever more disturbing pall over the already creepy practice, but back in May, 2010, Rowenna Davis wrote about organized gold farming in China in her Guardian article Welcome to the New Gold Mines. The rhetoric has a rhythm that I find disturbingly similarly to this May’s article:

Li Hua makes a living playing computer games. Working from a cramped office in the heart of Changsha, China, he slays dragons and loots virtual gold in 10-hour shifts. Next to him, rows of other young workers do the same. “It is just like working in a factory, the only difference is that this is the virtual world,” says Li. “The working conditions are hard. We don’t get weekends off and I only have one day free a month. But compared to other jobs it is good. I have no other skills and I enjoy playing sometimes.”

Li is just one of more than 100 workers employed by Wow7gold, an internet-based company that makes more than £1m a year selling in-game advantages to World of Warcraft (WoW) players. Customers may ask for their avatar’s skill level to be increased (“power levelling”), or for a virtual magic sword or precious ore to be obtained. As one player put it: “Where there’s a demand, China will supply it.”

…For thousands of Chinese workers such as Li, “gold farming” is a way of life. Workers can expect to earn between £80-£120 a month which, given the long hours and night shifts, can amount to as little as 30p an hour. After completing his shift, Li is given a basic meal of rice, meat and vegetables and falls into a bunk bed in a room that eight other gold farmers share. His wages may be low, but food and accommodation are included.

These virtual industries sound surreal, but they are fast entering the mainstream. According to a report by Richard Heeks at Manchester University, an estimated 400,000 Asian workers are now employed in gold farming in a trade worth up to £700m a year. With so many gamers now online, these industries are estimated to have a consumer base of five million to 10 million, and numbers are expected to grow with widening internet access.

[Link.]

 

What bugs me about the earlier article is that its obsession with worker conditions in gold farms in China reflects, as usual, First World public ignorance (or, at least, short memory) about worker conditions in other industries. What’s even more disturbing is that Liu Dali, the 54-year-old imprisoned in the first story and forced to gold farm, was imprisoned for “illegally petitioning” the government about corruption. How much more obvious does a corrupt government need to be before the international community, and the U.S. in particular, says boo to it?

If you had told me that an awesome mini-zombie film could be – er – executed in under a minute and a half, I would have simply thought the zombie hantavirus had turned your brain into zomberrific mush. Then I watched Charlie Bit My Finger – The Horror, made as a promo for the (Toronto) CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival and it pretty much changed my life.

Charlie Bit My Finger – The Horror (official website) is a re-make of classic viral video ‘Charlie Bit My Finger‘ in a horror film style. On the website, you’ll see they also made alternate versions of ‘Charlie’ in both a musical style and a ‘dark comedy’ style. Moar, plz!

If the rest of the fest is this good… I want to go! It’s at the end of this month: May 31- June 5, 2011, in downtown Toronto with specially-themed 90-minute programs, with each program offering from 5-22 films – all for $10 a ticket.

National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

In The Telegraph today, there’s an article about the confirmation, finally forthcoming from Tokyo Electric & Power (Tepco) that in the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daichi, there “was” a meltdown. But in case you think this is a “post-mortem” investigation…nope! The crisis is still going on. It’s very much active.

And when I say “active,” I mean…active. Says the Telegraph:

One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor’s containment vessel.

[Link.]

Molten. Molten? Molten. Not “melted and solidified.” Molten. That’s kind of bad.

Sadly, that’s not where the bullshit ends. The whole affair is still laced with double-talk. Here’s what The Telegraph said beyond that:

Engineers from the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) entered the No.1 reactor at the end of last week for the first time and saw the top five feet or so of the core’s 13ft-long fuel rods had been exposed to the air and melted down…Previously, Tepco believed that the core of the reactor was submerged in enough water to keep it stable and that only 55 per cent of the core had been damaged.

[Link.]

I’m not sure whether to be more disturbed by the apparently lack of clarity on what exactly a meltdown is, or on Tepco’s math skills. Or is it the Telegraph’s math skills? Well…someone is unclear on how fractions work, that’s all I know. The generally accepted definition of a meltdown in the industry is “heat sufficient to cause core damage.” Now we get to the really technical stuff. Five-thirteenths is 38%, which is less than 55%. I’m unclear what Tepco is now announcing. “We thought only 55% of the core had experienced damage. Now we see that it’s much worse than we thought: It’s a whole 38%!” Just speaking for myself, that’s not the kind of math whiz I want working my nuclear reactor.

Meanwhile, The Atlantic Wire is both reporting that the Fukushima No 1 experienced a full meltdown. I was a liberal arts major, but I remember something about 100% being more than 55%, and considerably more than five-thirteenths. And The Atlantic Wire is also taking great pains to say that nuclear experts are not of one mind as to what the term meltdown means (true), that they may not agree on what the definition of full vs. partial meltdown may be (true), and that the difference may not be that important (kind of bullshit).

The good news is that we knew a long time ago the No. 1 reactor had not yet converted to mixed-oxide or MOX fuel, a mixed plutonium-uranium fuel that (usually) incorporates weapons-grade plutonium and which is far more toxic than the reactor-grade uranium that No. 1 was (presumably) using.

Look, I don’t mean to be a conspiracy freak or anything, but the uranium rather than MOX fuel may be why No. 1 is the reactor Tepco is confirming a meltdown in. Especially since they’re also confirming the likelihood of a containment breach from the No. 1 reactor — in which the fuel melted through the bottom of the vessel:

Now the company is worried that the molten pool of radioactive fuel may have burned a hole through the bottom of the containment vessel, causing water to leak.

“We will have to revise our plans,” said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco. “We cannot deny the possibility that a hole in the pressure vessel caused water to leak”.

Tepco has not clarified what other barriers there are to stop radioactive fuel leaking if the steel containment vessel has been breached. Greenpeace said the situation could escalate rapidly if “the lava melts through the vessel”.

 

So…here we go, summarizing: the fuel is still molten, and it is hot enough to have already burned its way through steel. Liquid, molten reactor-grade uranium has breached the containment vessel, is leaking into the ocean, and they can’t hit it with a garden hose ’cause that’ll make the leak worse. That’s not great news. Seriously.

I have to say, I am skeptical of all these news reports, because it seems absolutely impossible that a full meltdown could have occurred at Fukushima, with fuel that is still molten two months after the event, and no one knew it until now. It seems pretty obvious that even when the news from Fukushima Daichi is reported truthfully — which is almost never — it is not reported in a context that means anything.

If the melted corium (melted uranium, fuel rod material, fuel rod assembly, etc) is still molten, that’s way worse than anyone has been led to believe. The Telegraph says that the fuel rods themselves, now melted down and exposed to air, can’t be cooled with more water because that will exacerbate the leak. Tepco  “said there was enough water at the bottom of the vessel to keep both the puddle of melted fuel and the remaining fuel rods cool,” which is crazy enough…But “melted,” not solidified, spells it out. It doesn’t make much sense to my brain, so I don’t know whether to believe the news (which seems unclear on the science) or Tepco (which seems to primarily be concerned with covering its ass).

But are we talking about decay heat or an active nuclear reaction? That’s a really important question.

One thing I couldn’t get a straight answer on was whether melted fuel rods, in which the uranium, zirconium, and steel kinda all goes glorp! together, means that an active nuclear reaction starts taking place — that is to say, have the melted rods in the No. 1 reactor re-achieved criticality, or are they just staying hot from decay heat?

A criticality means an active nuclear reaction. That means that hoppin’ neutrons from one uranium nucleus tend, at a rate higher than 1:1, to go Za-zing! into another uranium nucleus.

Decay heat just means there’s residual heat from natural radioactive decay in the uranium — which can last, significantly, for months or years following shutdown of a nuclear core.

The difference may seem minor. It’s not. The question is whether the fuel a self-sustaining reaction, or if the decay heat will dissipate naturally, and the temperature go down. Decay heat could be enough to cause core damage, as we saw in the midst of the initial crisis, in the warnings about the spent fuel pools at the No. 4 reactor. Those were said to be hot enough from decay heat — and then it was (sort of) admitted that there had been damage to the spent pool containment structure.

Why does it matter? Because the bad news is still piling up. Yesterday, ocean-bound leaking radioactive water from the No. 3 reactor (which also experienced a meltdown) was sealed. No word on how long it had been leaking. No. 2 reactor leaked radioactive water into the ocean last month.

Greenpeace has been putting out independent reports about how much radioactive iodine and cesium have been found in seaweed up to 40 miles from Fukushima — but it’s impossible to place statements like “five times the legal limit” in a meaningful context when it comes to human health. And, like I said, Greenpeace has an agenda here, and has shown in the past that it’s willing to play fast and loose with the facts when it comes to nuclear power. That’s an easy thing to do — the facts, when it comes to radiation and human health, are confusing and ambiguous.

But molten uranium is not that ambiguous. I’m not naive enough to claim “It’s either molten, or it’s not.” But if there’s molten fuel at Fukushima…why isn’t that the headline in The Telegraph, Bloomberg and the Associated Press?

Updated on 14 May 2011: Fox 23 news reports that now Andrew Ackerman, one of the people who took 2C-E at the May 7th party, has also died. (This report stands in contrast to the investigation about Walls, mentioned below, for whom the connection is murky at best based on the news reports).

In Konowa, Oklahoma, a town with about 1,500 residents, a batch of a “designer drug” is being blamed for one or more deaths following a party this past Saturday. Twenty-year-old Cody Weddle was arraigned on charges of giving Anastasia Marie Jewell, a resident of nearby Ada, Oklahoma, the drug 2C-E.

Jewell reportedly died after taking the drug at a party, though it will take weeks to get tox reports back and definitively determine her cause of death.

In the meantime, Weddel has been charged anyway, even though 2C-E isn’t illegal — or, well…it’s sort of illegal. While 2C-E is unscheduled in the U.S. (that means it’s not illegal, per se), it can be prosecuted under the Federal Analog Act — similar to its status in the U.K.

Regardless, what was unclear is whether the overdoses stemmed from a bad batch corrupted in the manufacturing process, a dosing problem, or a toxicity inherent to the drug. Other news reports about 2C-E seem to throw around the terms “overdose” and “toxicity” like they don’t mean anything — when in fact they mean fairly specific things. Deaths from a toxicity innate to 2C-E seem unlikely, or at least under-documented, but then again, 2C-E is an uncommon drug, so one wouldn’t expect to see toxic doses with great frequency. Common drug lore around substances like GHB hold that “the effective dose is close to the toxic dose,” which turns out to be (mostly) untrue, and cases of GHB overdose appear to stem from other intoxicants commonly taken with it.

The Oklahoman makes it sound like the Weddle case is a misjudgement or misunderstanding of the effective 2C-E dose, resulting in an OD: “Weddle, Jewell and Akerman diluted the 2C-E with water at Jewell’s residence on Friday…The solution was supposed to be further diluted before it was sold, Weddle told investigators.”

However, this isn’t the first time this year a Midwestern batch of 2C-E has (maybe) killed someone. The drug has been “flooding” North from Louisiana and Texas, supposedly. In March, the Star-Tribune indulged in vaguely revolting tragedy tourism when it described, in Requiem-For-A-Dream-a-Licious detail, the case of Timothy Lamere of Blaine, Minnesota, who supplied friends with the drug, resulting (apparently) in the death from cardiac arrest of one young man, and one other woman being in critical condition, plus 9 other hospitalizations (including Lamere):

Timothy Lamere took the bottle out of his pocket and poured the grayish powder on the living room table of the Blaine house, cutting it into lines that he and Trevor Robinson quickly inhaled, according to murder charges filed Monday against Lamere in Anoka County.

Soon after snorting the synthetic drug known as 2C-E at a party early Thursday, Robinson, 19, started to yell and punch walls. Then he stopped breathing, dying at a hospital hours later. Ten other partygoers overdosed and needed hospitalization, including Lamere, 21, who was found by police in a snowbank.

On Monday, Lamere was charged with felony third-degree murder for unintentionally causing Robinson’s death by giving away or distributing 2C-E, a controlled substance. Robinson died of cardiac arrest attributed to toxicity associated with the presence of drugs and no natural disease explained the death, according to the charges.

[Link.]

The Star-Tribune story reports that 2C-E is “a controlled substance.” I could not verify that’s true in Minnesota, unless you’re going to call it that because it’s prosecutable under the Federal Analog Act (which is really, really fudging). More specifically, here’s what it said about 2C-E’s legality in Minnesota, and how Lamere got it:

According to both the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the drug 2C-E is within the definition of a Schedule I Control Substance, which means it’s illegal, the document said….Police said they believe Lamere purchased the drug via the Internet, where it is widely available.

While the Star-Tribune didn’t specify a site, a story in The Oklahoman said that in the Konawa case, investigators believed that Weddle had purchased the drug online, at Chemicology.net:

A notice posted on its website Tuesday said the business would be closed….“Due to customer abuse and moral obligation, chemicology.net will be closing,” the announcement states. “Once our stock is depleted, we no longer intend to resupply.”

[Link.]

…but when I checked, Chemicology wasn’t just “closing,” it was closed; I got an error message from the site, and there was no explanation. As far as I can tell, there’s been no police bust of Chemicology has been reported so far, but it’s guh-GONE.

Also, speaking of whether this stuff is illegal or not, Oklahoma City’s KOCO reported just the opposite of the Star-Tribune‘s Minnesota-flavored answer to that question, quoting Scott Schaeffer of the Oklahoma Poison Control Center:

Schaeffer said that because substances like 2C-E are not illegal, a lot of people think they are getting around the law when they buy them and then use them in ways similar to known illegal drugs.

He said he believes the Internet plays a large role in the popularity of designer drugs but also makes it impossible to know exactly what the user is getting.

“There’s no telling actually where these drugs are coming from,” Schaffer said. “They might be from a chemical supply house, or they might be from somebody who has put it together in their bathroom or kitchen.”

While some of the products online may actually be created by legitimate chemists for legitimate purposes, most are really just meant to mimic the effects of illegal drugs, experts said.

[Link.]

The Minnesota case got Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar “working on a [Federal] bill to ban 2C-E, like synthetic marijuana, to ensure it stays off the market,” said the Star-Tribune. Meanwhile, Missouri lawmakers are already working on one, and Louisiana’s considering it.

Okay, so…remember that, you know, Bath Salts Panic from a few months ago? This is a much better example of the news treating a public health crisis like it’s a public health crisis. The press is still wiggin’; in fact they’re wiggin’ out. They get freakin’ all up in our shit, and shit. But this is a real case of a real drug that really killed someone (maybe), with documented charges filed by the cops, not random spooky-ooky stories about “teens” getting “high” for “$40 a spoonful.”

However, the media’s still blowing it, and blowing it hard. You see, today’s Oklahoman story tells us this:

Authorities are awaiting a medical examiner’s report to determine whether the unexplained death of a 29-year-old man may be linked to the same “designer drug” that killed one person and sickened several others at a party.

Jeffery Walls, a resident of Roff, was found dead in that small southern Oklahoma town Saturday, the same day people were overcome by the drug 2C-E at a party in Konawa, about 30 miles to the north.

There were no indications that Walls was at the party, said Pontotoc County District Attorney Chris Ross. Tests will determine whether drugs were in his system. Walls had a criminal record that included a charge of possession of a controlled substance.
[Link.]

Sadly, I’m left trying to figure out WTF the connection is between Walls and the drug, since this was an unexplained death 30 miles away. Did he, like…know them?” Awaiting a medical examiner’s report” is, you know…not that convincing an explanation for why they’re even wondering. The way the Oklahoman story is worded leads one to believe that the paragraph about Weddle’s sale of the drug follows logically from the section about Walls. It doesn’t. This story indicates no connection whatsoever, other than that there is one.

Even with that said, the timber of these reports does not yet meet my personal evaluation of a moral panic — even if legislators are getting involved. That is usually a sign that public health issues are turning into freakouts…but so far, even the tragedy tourism of the Star-Tribune has been notably restrained, at least in comparison.

But the case of Walls does seem to indicate a tendency to connect seemingly unconnected deaths without feeling the obligation to explain why they’re “maybe” connected…and that’s indicative of oncoming hysteria. In the case of 2C-E, the press managed to actually document people being harmed, before they panicked. As a news reader, I always appreciate knowing why I’m supposed to freak out. When it comes to bath salts, they handed me a bunch of warmed-over garbage and started waving their hands. The mainstream media can be kind of funny that way.

The drug 2C-E, according to Erowid.org, is sometimes called “Europa,” but no one I talked to has ever heard of it. With a chemical name of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethylphenethylamine, it is a phenethylamine first synthesized by 85-year old UC Berkeley Biochemistry PhD and Contra Costa County resident Alexander Shulgin, a former Dow chemist who popularized MDMA (ecstasy) and has been a longtime proponent of psychedelic use. (The 85-year-old Shulgin suffered a stroke last November and has been incommunicado publicly since then).

Part of the 2C family of psychedelics, 2C-E is described by Shulgin as one of his “magical half-dozen” of psychedelics. He and his wife Ann describe experiences with it here, and relate both positive stories and some frightening ones. Shulging rates 2C-E’s psychedelic effects at a 10mg dose as “plus 3″ or “+++” — which is described as:

Not only are the chronology and the nature of a drug’s action quite clear, but ignoring its action is no longer an option. The subject is totally engaged in the experience, for better or worse.

In other words, at 10mg, by Shulgin’s account, there’s no saying “I think I feel something,” or asking “Am I tripping?” There’s only the proclamation, “I’m tripping BALLS.”

One Erowid user describes an experience with 2C-E as assisting the “shamanic pagan path,” while another described the experience as “Glorious Pain, Beauty and Joy.” Another called their account “Paranoid Schizophrenia,” so…yeah, sounds like oodles of fun.

If you’re crazy cat ladies like everyone here at Techyum, then like us, you know how expressive cats can be. And I’m not just talking about the presents they leave after terrorizing the local rodent population, the gift of shredded curtains, or loving tokens of having eaten too much food too fast and being overcome with the spirit of sharing in the hallway in the middle of the night.

No, I’m talking about their adorable ears. When your kitteh is pissed off, cat guardians know that the ears are often the first indicator that you’re going to lose a pint of blood if you don’t stop petting immediately. Or, perky and inquisitive ears adorably tell you that kitteh is interested in what you have to say, especially if you’re speaking the language of can opener or treat.

To the delight of cat owners like me that like all things kitteh perhaps a bit more than I should, and definitely to the excitement of furries the world over, Japanese company Neurowear has produced a prototype of brainwave controlled cat ears to be worn by humans.

I’ve done a significant bit of research on brainwave controlled consumer products. I have covered Neurosky and OCZ for CerebralHack, visiing both companies and tested their products, including OCZ’s Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) and Neuorsky’s Brain Computer Interface (BCI) games. Video of me at Neurosky using their BCI and moving objects in the game with their headset and my brainwaves, is here.

(We love Neurosky on Techyum: don’t miss our post about their X-Wave Mind Interface Device for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

So it’s with great interest that I’m thinking about what it would be like to wrap a set of Necomimi’s on my head. Necomimi is a combination of the Japanese words for cat and ear): they look likea cat ear headband a teenage girl might buy at Claire’s (in the mall) around Halloween. The band has a sensor on the forehead area that transmits neural impulses into the rig, which causes the ears to move based on what kind of signals it receives. The response is said to be from thoughts or moods – but in my experience with BCI, it is actually difficult to control as they require a strange combination of relaxation and focus. According to Psyorg, the ears “stand straight up when the wearer is concentrating, or wriggle and turn slightly when amused, or lay flat when tired or bored, demonstrating what the company calls, an ability to reveal emotion.”

But we may not find out how well the Necomimi works, if at all, for a while. It looks like one prototype has been made, and was taken to a conference with an exhibit hall – but the Neurowear website and their Facebook page are brand new, and quite sparse. So little is to be found about the product or the company, I would think it’s a prank – if they hadn’t shot this video of people trying out the Necomimi at the Smile Bazar convention in Shibuya, Tokyo (April 28):

Regardless, I want a pair really bad. In black. And yes, I’ve emailed Neurowear asking how to get a set of Necomimi’s for review, as I’d gladly cover them for CBSi. I really sort of need a set of Necomimi… So far, the company (if they’re really a company) has not responded to inquiries. Keep your paws crossed.

Screencap from the Parrot AR Drone photo gallery.

The mainstream news is finally catching up on the robot takeover of the globe — and I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.

This past week CNN featured a video from the Parrot quadricopter as it’s flown by CNN reporter Aaron Brodie over tornado-ravaged Tuscaloosa, Alabama, following last week’s storms. It’s pretty amazing footage, and surely it’s only sob sisters like me who worry about getting excited over new technology when so many of my fellow Americans have had their lives completely f*cked by mother nature. But for what it’s worth, the technology is amazing, not because of its absolute value but because of how easily available it is now.

Sold as a “flying video game,” the Parrot A.R. Drone utilizes an intuitive piloting system that makes it reportedly easy as pie to use. It doesn’t just run on Apple products, by the way; it also works with Android. The amazing thing is that it doesn’t just operate from the iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone — it operates from those platforms motion sensors:

The cockpit of the AR.Drone includes an inertial unit, ultrasound sensors and a vertical camera…The combination of these elements which are controlled by an autopilot program allows extremely accurate piloting of the quadricopter. The AR.Drone detects the movements of your iPod Touch®/iPhone® (to go up, down, turn, reverse, go forwards etc.). Anyone can pilot the AR.Drone, it is extremely simple to use.

[Link.]

There’s even a slight flavor of open source about it:

You can also control the Parrot AR.Drone from a Linux PC and a joystick with the software AR.Drone Navigationdesigned for application developers and available for free.

The quadricopter runs about $300 and has two cameras — forward and down — but the CNN reporter added an additional high-definition camera, to the tune of about another $250.

Brodie cogently observed of the technology:

This is really at the low end of what’s possible…There’s much more sophisticated drone technology out there that is now available to really anybody, including us in the news media, and I think this is going to continue to provide a whole new perspective on things.

[Link.]

You can check out the photo gallery at the Parrot A.R. Drone site here — and guess what? if you’ve become enamored of Parrot, you can even like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. See how easy it is to follow the galloping pace of technology?

Incidentally, one of the significant advantages of a quadricopter is that each individual set of rotors can be smaller, reducing the kinetic energy stored. That limits damage if you hit something with the rotors. The platform is also less expensive because maintaining stability with it doesn’t require the same mechanical coordination as a standard helicopter configuration.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become critical in high-tech military engagements — often with somewhat freaky results. Just last week, a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan was reported to have killed eight; drone attacks are being staged against reputed Al Qaeda figures in Yemen, and U.S. Predators armed with Hellfire missiles are an increasingly important part of U.S. military strategy.

But, of course, the technology’s simplicity is also vulnerability. As far back as 2009, insurgents in Iraq were even reported to have hacked U.S. drones, accessing the video feeds to get their own intel — and determine what U.S. forces could see — using $26 off-the-shelf software.

But UAVs have also become increasingly important in civilian applications, marking the confluence of cheap-and-easy video, wireless communications and increasingly affordable model airplane tech. Once you start talking about the application of drones to “semi-civilian” fields like law enforcement and fire abatement, and things get really interesting. And did someone mention border control? Devoted Techyum readers might remember when a Mexican border surveillance drone crashed in El Paso, which the Mexican government at first denied. An Australian archaeology team used a DIY paraglider drone to survey an ancient site in Thailand. And you might recall the incredible video from a drone flying around New York City.

Last week, the Guinness organization certified Smokey the Cat as the cat with the loudest purr in the world. When the above clip was shot, Smokey pumped out about 62 decibels, but Guinness’s records say 67.7 decibels. Smokey has been “unofficially” documented producing 92 decibels, we’re told (which seems pretty unlikely, but far be it from me to be a purra hata). For what it’s worth, though, the sound of an M1 Garand .30-06 rifle firing at one meter is close to 170 decibels, a jet engine at 30 meters is 150 decibels, and a vuvuzela at one meter is 120 decibels — which is about where human hearing damage becomes possible in an acute incident. 85 decibels, however, is enough to cause hearing damage if experienced repeatedly and frequently. 67 decibels is louder than a washing machine, dishwasher or hair dryer.

Here’s what the owner, Ruth Adams of Northampton, UK, told the Metro about it:

Ruth, who adopted the pet from a rescue centre for her ten-year-old daughter, has previously admitted that the record-breaking purring can be ‘either adorable or annoying, depending on what mood you’re in’.

‘It’s not just the volume of her purr which is unusual,’ she notes. ‘She makes quite a unique sound, as if she has a dove stuck in her throat. ‘My daughter thinks it is adorable.’

From the video, Smokey’s purr is definitely sorta dove-y, but not completely unusual. Here’s more of it, for those of you who can’t get enough:

Ready to hear the depressing part? Yes, there’s a depressing part. The ABC News footage ends with the comment that the Adams household is Smokey’s 8th home. Is that because Smokey’s purr makes it tough to sleep? No word from the news — just that Smokey was adopted from a rescue center, where I imagine she’d be kinda hard to miss. Apparently the press believes its more important to enjoy plenty LOLZ and bathe in adorableness without coping with any real issues — and yes, that’s violin music you hear. It’s catsploitation, purr and simple. But kudos to the esteemed Ms. Adams and her daughter for embracing the earth-shaking vocalizations of Smokey — a cat who, for the record, would be welcomed at my house any time (I sleep with earplugs in).

But wait! Dedicated Techyum readers will know that you can’t have a Guinness record on anything without more controversy than that! Just read the comments on this video posted by YouTube user buckethead2010, who claims to have the world’s loudest cat but is set straight by the commenters. FssssFsssFssss!!! Mrrowrr!!!

Incidentally, in case you’re wondering WTF purring is (as I often do), and whether other animals purr, the arbiter of all things factual tells me:

The term “purring” has been used liberally in literature, and it has been claimed that viverrids (civet, mongoose, genet), bears, badgers, hyaenas (et cetera) purr. Other animals that have been said to purr are rabbits, squirrels, guinea pigs, tapirs, ring-tailed lemurs, elephants, raccoons and gorillas while eating. However, using a strict definition of purring that continuous sound production must alternate between pulmonic egressive and ingressive airstream (and usually go on for minutes)…in an exhaustive review of the scientific literature, reached the conclusion that until then only ‘purring cats’ (Felidae) and two species of genets, Genetta tigrina, and most likely also Genetta genetta, had been documented to purr.

[Link.]

The genet is a sort of civet-like thing, and, well, they’re charming. I couldn’t find a good video of a genet purring, but here’s a not-that-good one, on the purr side, but pretty wicked with teh cute. Seriously, you have to click this. Have to.

If you turn the volume way up, you can just barely hear the little chirpy purr of the pet genet in that video. This genet doesn’t purr, but it’s a baby, so click it anyway. And if you’re wondering what civets are, well, they poop gourmet coffee, and they don’t purr. And no, I’m not making up the “they poop gourmet coffee” part. But they don’t purr, so we’re only talking about them because it’s weird that they poop gourmet coffee. Is that a skill they could teach me? It would sure as hell save me some greenbacks, that’s for damn sure.

Anyway, back to purring. Did you know that scientists actually don’t know how cats purr? According to the Library of Congress (which, I guess, must be in charge of such things) is no unique physical feature that cats (and the two species of genets) possess that explain how the sound is generated. Big cats of the genus Panthera (lions, leopards, tigers, jaguars) purr only when exhaling, unlike domestic cats, which purr both directions. Here’s a purring cheetah (genus Acinonyx, not Panthera):

Incidentally, if you ever choose to pet a cheetah up close and personal like that, my non-expert advice is that you endeavor to make it purr as loud as possible. When it stops purring…don’t run. Just smile and try not to look delicious.

One of the very best things about the internet is Robert Eklund’s site Purring.org, a site “Devoted to field purring.” Srsly. Check it. Here’s another purring cheetah, from Eklund: