Make Magazine posted that they would not be linking to the dead cat quadcopter. 1 That’s something I can get behind. 2  The problem is – I struggle to be able to articulate or even rationalize why I feel this way.

I think Make might have the same problem.  However, as one Make commenter points out, they’ve blogged and posted about animal taxidermy, even bizarre taxidermy before.  For some reason, the catcopter is just different – and I’m not sure why.  Is it less dignified for a cat to be spread-eagle/crucified on a quadcopter or for someone to make a snake/turtle or duck/mouse hybrid?  Is it more horrifying to see a hovering cat in an unnatural position or a parakeet wearing an impossibly small suit with feet/claws where the wings should be?

Whatever the reason, I just had a much stronger visceral reaction to the catcopter than to any of the above.  Quite separately from the tweets and blog posts yesterday a coworker forwarded me the link to the original blog post.  (He saw it posted to some website called… Facebook?)  His reaction was to laugh uncontrollably to see a hovering dead cat and he found the look on the cat’s face to be comical, whereas I found it horrifying.  He sent it to me because it involved a quadcopter and he thinks of me as a gadget kinda guy.34

Even if I was a gadget guy, I’m pretty sure I would never be a mount-a-dead-animal-on-a-robot kind of gadget guy.

1. Photo Credit: Dino Abatzidis via Compfight [↩]
2. Full disclosure:  I’m a cat person. [↩]
3. Actually, I don’t think I’m a gadget kinda guy at all.  I don’t own a Blu-Ray player, an HD or flat screen TV, any kind of gaming system, a fancy stereo, watch, or iAnything.  I only got a new phone a few days ago when my last one of 2 years, a Motorola Droid aka Motorola Trusty Brick TM, gave up the ghost.   I might own four or five robots – but I’ve built every one of them. [↩]
4. Tinkerer, Maker, Hacker – yes.  Gadget guy?  No. [↩]