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.
It has been ridiculously rainy here. The weather man said a few days ago that many areas nearby have already exceeded the average rainfall for the month in our torrential afternoon thunderstorms.
The stormy skies can make for some nice views from our window.
While we wait for the rainy days to end, we are ready to pile into the yellow submarine at a moment’s notice to keep us safe if the water rises!
The head peep went to an event this week where she toured Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando (more about that soon!), and she brought home a gift bag with treats in it. When she got home, she realized the treats were for dogs. You would think she would pay closer attention, but good help is hard to find.
She decided to take the treats to work for a co-worker who has dogs at home. Anything she has to remember to take to work with her in the morning gets hung on the pegs by the door to the garage so she can grab it on the way out.
Newton: Hey, what’s that?
A while later, there was the noise of rustling paper in the spare room. It sounded a little bit like when kitties play in a grocery bag, except of course there was no grocery bag on the floor anywhere in the house.
* rustle rustle rustle *
No paper bag anywhere in the house, really. Except that bag by the door…
* rustle rustle rustle *
Newton: Pierre, dude, you’re so busted!
Ashton: It wasn’t me! I’m an innocent bystander!
Kitties, look at that bag. There are dogs on it! You don’t even have to be able to read to know it’s not for you.
(Notice the teeth marks at the bottom of the bag?)
Newton: If it’s already open, can I at least have a taste?
Sorry co-worker’s dogs. Some naughty cats had all the fun with your bag of treats.
