Wednesday 18 April 2012

Elephant nose


Yanko Design (The DREADCO of the design world) offers this magic wand that can tell if your airline meal (if you get one) is a pure offering or an abomination in the sight of Blessed Gaia.

It's a step up from the Ouija board.

3 comments:

eon said...

And it's a Red Dot Design Award Winner, no less!

The only thing sillier than people being so obsessed with "the morality of food" that they'll shell out big bucks for something like this, is that there are so many people involved in creating such gadgets to encourage that brand of mental disorder that they can take turns giving each other awards for doing it.

On the plus side, a bit of software tweaking and we can fire all the food-tasters. Who knew that we wouldn't have to wait for the 31st Century and the Second Galactic Empire for Emperor Throg XVI's Pocket Poison Detector?

Poul Anderson would be impressed.


cheers

eon

Anonymous said...

What exactly is so embarrassing with this gadget?

The Jews have followed kashrut since time immemorial. I am very sure this thingy would be a hit seller in Israel and everywhere around the world where there are Jews.

This gadget would quickly tell if the food is kosher or not.

Sergej said...

Anonymous brings up a point. It seems that the ethical foodists are groping toward the kind of psychological comfort that Jewish laws about food purity provide. Some of the Jewish dietary laws have reasons that simply have to do with health, some have symbolic meaning, and some, best explanation I've heard is, because God says so. One might suggest that religion is a more meaningful way to call a potential thing-to-put-in-one's-mouth good or bad than what the currently fashionable health/anti-bioengineering craze might be, but of course, I'm biased.

As for the magic wand detecting the kosher status of food, forget it. If it hasn't been certified, by hand, I can give you the answer without electronics (the answer is, no, it isn't). It's more than a matter of chemical composition.