Laugh. Learn. Love cats.
Newton: I want to personally issue an apology to all of you who were creeped out by yesterday’s post. As spokescat, it’s my job to make sure that this is a fun place to visit, and you see what happens when you let a human anywhere near the computer unsupervised.
The problem is that I’m a cat, and I have to sleep eighteen hours a day. That’s a long time for me to leave her unsupervised.
Do you think I need to lock her in the bathroom while I snooze? Or shut off the cable modem again?
Have you ever wondered about the kitties that live in the houses around yours? Now you can catch a glimpse of them online.
Associate professor of art at Florida State University, Owen Mundy, realized that instagram was creating a map with every picture he was sharing with the world, and he thought he would show how this worked in the least creepy way possible: with cat photos. The result is a site he named I Know Where Your Cat Lives, and it shows the geolocation of one million photos tagged with the word “cat” that were found on Flickr, Twitpic, Instagram, and other public image hosting sites. A supercomputer at Florida State University helped crunch the data, and the result is a Google Maps representation of the cat photos they found — minus the usernames from the accounts that originally uploaded them.
The result lets you see kitty photos that were taken near your home — or near any other address you can think of.
How do they know where your cat lives? Well, they don’t actually know where she lives. They know where the photo was taken, if the camera or smartphone that took the photo included it in the EXIF data stored with the photo. Photos can have lots of handy information stored in the EXIF data with the image itself, including things like the F-stop and ISO speed used to take the image, as well as geotagging information.
What can you do if you’re creeped out by finding out there is image data inside photos you take?
If you want to remove geotags from images that are downloaded to your computer, Windows users can delete the data through the Properties window for the image file, while there are programs to help Mac users. Lifehacker has handy instructions on how to remove personal information from photographs.
Phone users can check their respective app stores to be able to see and selectively delete geolocation data in photos that are on the device, and of course, you can turn of the recording of the data to begin with in your phone’s preferences. Similarly, cameras that include the feature allow you to turn it off, if you choose.
In the meantime, the Random Cat button on the site is nearly as addictive as kibble. A chance to view random cats all around the internet and learn a little bit about the data stored with your photos helps us all get something useful — or at least fun — out of this project.
Not everyone can help animals in their community the same way. As much as the head peep would like to foster, Ashton says, “No way!” So we support homeless and needy animal other ways.
But how do you know how you can help? One way is to reach out to your local shelter or rescue and ask. Maybe your local organization has their own outreach program so that you can learn more about them. That’s what the head peep did recently, signing up to go to an after-hours event at the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando. The Pet Alliance is the largest shelter organization in Central Florida, and we were excited that they were offering a way to get to know the organization better and understand what they had to offer the community.
The amazing tour took the head peep and other attendees through their public veterinary clinic. A lot of people probably don’t know they even have affordable veterinary services available to the public, and the profits help support their rescue efforts. The tour visited the back areas of the veterinary clinic, too. Our own vet doesn’t usually let people tour through the back of his practice, so this was interesting and educational. The medical director, Dr. Rhoades, talked to the group about the services available through the clinic.
The tour visited the agility yard where dogs who are up for adoption are worked for exercise and to build their confidence.
And the tour also went through the lobby of the adoption center, where a couple cats are on prominent display as soon as you walk in. Here, Executive Director Kerri Burns greets one of the cats in the lobby.
One of the interesting parts of the tour was getting to see the inside of the Pet Alliance’s mobile clinic.
This looks like a motor home on the outside, but inside, it has a surgical table and cages for pets awaiting treatment or recovering from surgeries. The mobile clinic visits underserved areas of the city and does spays and neuters of community cats.
The tour also visited the shelter’s veterinary ward, where the shelter’s veterinarian talked about the different priorities in shelter medicine and how important it is to keep the whole shelter population as healthy as possible.
We learned that every adoptable cat gets at least $254 cost of medical treatment and care (exam, FeLV & FIV blood test, flea treatment, rabies and distemper vaccines, ear mite treatment, fecal and deworming, microchip and spay/neuter, as well as 30 days of pet insurance) and every dog gets $315 of medical care (exam, distemper combo/rabies vaccines, flea treatment, heartworm test, first heartworm preventative, spay/neuter, microchip, and 30 days of pet insurance). That’s a great value for adopters whose adoption fee is nowhere near that much to take home a new family member.
It was a wonderful tour, and a good way to get to know the largest rescue organization in the area. If your local shelter or rescue has an outreach program like this, we highly recommend attending. You may learn ways to support them that you never knew existed!
A Trader Joe’s store just opened in town, and it’s kind of a big deal. Everyone from other parts of the country was advising what foods to buy there, and one of the ones we had recommended was their almond butter. So the head peep braved the parking lot, which was more chaotic than the Disney World parking lots this time of year, to buy some almond butter (and other stuff, too), and she was excited to try it on some toast. Of course, if any peeps are eating something, Ashton has to try it, too.
And she did, stealing a big bite of toast with almond butter on it when the head peep was reading something on the computer.
The problem is that almonds can be toxic for cats. The ASPCA advises against feeding almonds because of their high fat quantities, which can potentially produce pancreatitis, as well as general gastrointestinal upset and vomiting.
More alarming is that bitter almonds (which are not generally available in the US) contain cyanogenic glycosides. These naturally-occurring plant compounds can break down in pets’ stomachs and release hydrogen cyanide, which is toxic to both animals and humans.
So for her own safety, Ashton isn’t going to be getting any more almond butter, and it’s only going to be eaten under supervision. No distracted eating when almonds are involved!
Almonds in Bowl image courtesy I_Nneska on Flickr creative commons
References
Cyanide, University of Sydney Centre for Veterinary Education
Almonds, ASPCA Poison Control Center
