Gizmodo: drunks

Breathalyzer Microphone Knows You're Wasted, and Not Just Because You're Singing Abba

Adam Frucci — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:45:00 EDT

While this might look like your standard, old-school tape recorder and microphone, it's actually a breathalyzer. As I see it, it can be used in two ways. The first, is to trick drunks into getting a breathalyzer by telling them you want to hear them sing. The problem with this method is that if someone is willing to sing into this thing, you already know they're wasted. The other use for this would be to have a singing contest, with extra points being awarded for how drunk you are. I mean, if you can sing well while drunk, you should get props, right? [Make]

Researchers Create Computer Models of Staggering Drunks to Aid City Planning

John Mahoney — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:45:00 EDT

A team of Welsh scientists have spent long nights camped out in a busy nightlife neighborhood of Cardiff from 11pm to 3am with one goal—studying the way Welshmen stagger when they're shitfaced in order to build an accurate computer model of the phenomenon. They aim to use their data to help city planners design streets that are safer for late night revelers. Now this is some research I can get behind.

The team created these animations to demonstrate what happens when various percentages of meeting crowds are drunk:

All Sober:

Half Drunk:

All Drunk:

As you can see, the "laminar flow" (people lining up behind others to navigate passages) of the drunken crowd is a bit off. "Drunks become irritants because they slow people's progress towards their goal," says lead researcher Simon Moore, which means "they may then become targets of violence." For once, someone protecting drunken louts themselves from violence, and not the innocent bystanders that usually get in the way of their fists.

[New Scientist (sub required); image: Flickr]

Toyota and Nissan Make Drinking and Driving a Little Harder (It's Already Pretty Hard)

Jason Chen — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:31:39 EDT

Both Toyota and Nissan are trying to come up with a technology in their cars to make drinking and driving impossible. Nissan is thinking of requiring a really long PIN for drivers to enter before their car starts, and Toyota is thinking of placing breathalyzers somewhere in the cabin. Both are interesting, but may not be fool proof, not to mention drunk proof.

The effort follows a rash of media coverage in the land of the rising sun following a number of high-profile drunk-driving incidents, including one where an inebriated motorist knocked a car off a bridge, killing three children.

– Jason Chen

Japanese automakers developing cars that refuse drunk drivers [Mainichi via Hold the Sake! Japanese Automakers Working On Booze Lockouts]