Originally posted on Pain In The Bud: Dear Buddy, Did you hear the news about the cat mummies and the big trove of cat statues found by archaeologists in Egypt? My dad says Egypt is a special place ‘cause that’s where humans used to worship us a long time ago. Is that true? Why did…
Did you hear the news about the cat mummies and the big trove of cat statues found by archaeologists in Egypt? My dad says Egypt is a special place ‘cause that’s where humans used to worship us a long time ago. Is that true? Why did they stop?
Kitten in Kentucky
Dear KiK,
Your dad is right! Egypt is a magical land, a place where humans were once keenly aware of our status as the most awesome species on Earth.
Egypt is where you’ll find the biggest litter box on the planet. It stretches for miles and miles until finally the horizon reveals a huge weather-worn statue of a cat and three stone pyramids jutting out of the litter.
The Great Sphinx of Giza keeps watch over the world’s most sacred litter box.
It is said that by pooping in front of the Great Sphinx and reverently burying…
Buddy wouldn’t tolerate another human being his servant.
Buddy may be demanding and parsimonious with praise, out of the firm belief that the service he receives can always be better, but he’s also a loyal little guy:
Those aren’t idle threats, by the way, not from a cat who attacked his own sitter — whom he’s known for his entire life — in a bratty outburst prompted by his disappointment that it was her and not Big Buddy coming through the front door. She’ll still feed him, God bless her, but she will no longer hang out and play with him, and who can blame her? 🙂
A new AI algorithm promises to help you gauge your cat’s mood — and determine if she’s in pain — by analyzing facial expressions.
In the photograph, Buddy is sitting on the coffee table in the classic feline upright pose, tail resting to one side with a looping tip, looking directly at me.
The corners of his mouth curve up in what looks like a smile, his eyes are wide and attentive, and his whiskers are relaxed.
He looks to me like a happy cat.
Tably agrees: “Current mood of your cat: Happy. We’re 96% sure.”
Tably is a new app, currently in beta. Like MeowTalk, Tably uses machine learning and an algorithmic AI to determine a cat’s mood.
Unlike MeowTalk, which deals exclusively with feline vocalizations, Tably relies on technology similar to facial recognition software to map your cat’s face. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to interpreting what facial expressions mean — it compares the cats it analyzes to the Feline Grimace Scale, a veterinary tool developed following years of research and first published as part of a peer-reviewed paper in 2019.
The Feline Grimace Scale analyzes a cat’s eyes, ears, whiskers, muzzle and overall facial expression to determine if the cat is happy, neutral, bothered by something minor, or in genuine pain.
It’s designed as an objective tool to evaluate cats, who are notoriously adept at hiding pain for evolutionary reasons. (A sick or injured cat is a much easier target for predators.)
But the Feline Grimace Scale is for veterinarians, not caretakers. It’s difficult to make any sense of it without training and experience.
That’s where Tably comes in: It makes the Feline Grimace Scale accessible to caretakers, giving us another tool to gauge our cats’ happiness and physical condition. With Tably we don’t have to go through years of veterinary training to glean information from our cats’ expressions, because the software is doing it for us.
Meanwhile, I used MeowTalk early in the morning a few days ago when Buddy kept meowing insistently at me. When Bud wants something he tends to sound whiny, almost unhappy. Most of the time I can tell what he wants, but sometimes he seems frustrated that his slow human isn’t understanding him.
I had put down a fresh bowl of wet food and fresh water minutes earlier. His litter box was clean. He had time to relax on the balcony the previous night in addition to play time with his laser toy.
So what did Buddy want? Just some attention and affection, apparently:
I’m still not sure why Buddy apparently speaks in dialogue lifted from a cheesy romance novel, but I suppose the important thing is getting an accurate sense of his mood. 🙂
So with these tools now at our disposal, how much can artificial intelligence really tell us about our cats?
As always, there should be a disclaimer here: AI is a misnomer when it comes to machine learning algorithms, which are not actually intelligent.
It’s more accurate to think of these tools as software that learns to analyze a very specific kind of data and output it in a way that’s useful and makes sense to the end users. (In this case the end users are us cat servants.)
Like all machine learning algorithms, they must be “trained.” If you want your algorithm to read feline faces, you’ve got to feed it images of cats by the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even by the millions. The more cat faces the software sees, the better it gets at recognizing when something looks off.
At this point, it’s difficult to say how much insight these tools provide. Personally I feel they’ve helped me understand my cat better, but I also realize it’s early days and this kind of software improves when more people use it, providing data and feedback. (Think of it like Waze, which works well because 140 million drivers have it enabled when they’re behind the wheel and feeding real-time data to the server.)
I was surprised when, in response to my earlier posts about MeowTalk and similar efforts, most of PITB’s readers didn’t seem to share the same enthusiasm.
And that, I think, is the key here: Managing expectations. When I downloaded Waze for the first time it had just launched and was pretty much useless. Months later, with a healthy user base, it became the best thing to happen to vehicle navigation since the first GPS units replaced those bulky maps we all relied on. Waze doesn’t just give you information — it analyzes real-time traffic data and finds alternate routes, taking you around construction zones, car accident scenes, clogged highways and congested shopping districts. Waze will even route you around unplowed or poorly plowed streets in a snowstorm.
If Tably and MeowTalk seem underwhelming to you, give them time. If enough of us embrace the technology, it will mature and we’ll have powerful new tools that not only help us find problems before they become serious, but also help us better understand our feline overlords — and strengthen the bonds we share with them.
Buddy’s bored of all this AI talk and wants a snack.
Buddy turned heads with an explosive performance in Sunday’s National Cat Basketball Association Slam Dunk Contest.
MIAMI — Buddy the Cat cruised to victory in the annual NCBA Slam Dunk Contest on Sunday, throwing down a thunderous jam that rattled the backboard.
“Boom shakalaka!” the announcers shouted as the 10-pound gray tabby returned to Earth, flexing his muscles before the camera in celebration.
“Buddy now dunking and spelunking, flying and energizing!” said color commentator and Hall of Fame Knicks guard Walt “Clyde” Frazier. “A serendipitous throw-down from the inimitable feline!”
Buddy the Cat soars to the rim during practice ahead of Sunday’s dunk contest.
For Buddy, the moment was vindication from his late-round loss to Stephen Purry in the three-point contest, when he missed a critical shot that rimmed out as time expired.
“Terrible!” ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith said after the three-point competition. “Buddy is the most overhyped ball player in all of catdom! He shouldn’t even have a roster spot. He’s going to embarrass himself during the dunk contest on Sunday, take that to the bank.”
After Buddy’s critic-silencing performance in the dunk contest, Smith revised his earlier hot take.
“Amazing!” Smith said. “Has there ever been a better player than Buddy the Cat? I don’t think so. That cat is so incredible, even dogs want to be him. I called it! I said he was gonna take it to the bank!”
The high-flying feline was a favorite topic of conversation among the analysts on TNT.
The mercurial Charles Barkley, who is normally stingy with praise for the game’s young players, nodded in agreement.
“That cat is incredible,” Barkley said. “I thought he was gonna be turrible, but he was tremendous. That dunk…and by the way, I love dunking Krispy Kreme in my coffee. Sit back with my newspaper and my Krispy Kreme and read the headlines. Can you believe what’s happening in Cuba right now? I can’t. People taking to the streets and…by the way, those cigars are terrific. You ever have a Cuban? So smooth…”
The Sussex Royals speak their truth as disenfranchised aristocats.
LOS ANGELES — Speaking to Oprah Winfurry, Prince Hairy declared his life has been “incredibly difficult” over the past year as he’s been cooped up in a $12 million cat condo and reduced to surviving on a measly $300 million from media companies who want to brand content with his name and image.
With his wife Meowghan Murkle squeezing his shoulder, Prince Hairy fought back tears as Winfurry gently urged him on.
“To the people who have lost family to COVID, been laid off from their jobs or have had their livelihoods completely destroyed in this pandemic, I ask you to take a moment and imagine true adversity,” the aristocat prince said. “You don’t know what it’s like to have servants talk back, or to have your wife burst into tears because the royal tailor used periwinkle blue instead of Lapis lazuli for her scarves.”
The duke and duchess fled the United Katdom last year, citing unbearable living circumstances in their palace. In a series of interviews with Winfurry, Paws Corden and Craig Purrgeson, they lamented all the attention lavished on them by the press and said they want to live simple, private lives.
“Privacy is extremely important to me,” Prince Hairy said as an audience of more than 50 million tuned in to see Winfurry interview him and his wife.
“It’s important to us as a couple,” Meowghan said. “I’ve always shied away from fame and have been uncomfortable with all eyes on me. The last thing I wanted was to become a member of the royal family and pad down the aisle in a priceless tiara to marry a prince in a lavish ceremony, as the envy of every would-be princess on the planet.”
The Queen Meowther. Credit: Best Friends Adoption Center NY
“So the fame, the fortune, the gourmet pate, the admiration of millions, that stuff just never occurred to you?” Winfurry asked.
Meowghan shifted in her seat, adjusting her $4,700, diamond-encrusted harness.
“That’s correct,” she said. “I thought Hairy was joking when he said he was a prince. I didn’t even know how to curtsy!”
The duchess paused to lap Evian from a golden bowl.
“So you never googled your future husband? Didn’t know anything about him?”
“Oprah, I couldn’t even find the UK on a map,” Murkle responded.
The conversation turned tense later in the interview when the couple said a member of the royal family — maybe the queen, or Prince Snarls, or Prince Billiam, or possibly his evil wife Kat Middleton — “expressed concerns” about the kittens Hairy and Moewghan were expecting, and whether they would have “proper British coat patterns” or resemble American cats.
Murkle also disputed a series of newspaper stories that claimed she made Middleton cry after a row over how the flower kittens would be dressed for the royal wedding.
“It was the other way around. She made me cry,” Murkle said, pawing away a tear. “I said, ‘Beloved future sister-in-law, won’t these little flower girls look absolutely adorable?’ And she said: ‘You know, your kittens will never sit the throne, so why don’t you give up this pathetic charade?’ I was taken aback, Oprah! Kat is all smiles and waving paws in public, but behind closed doors she’s a scheming little backstabber who watches too much Game of Thrones.”
Winfurry reminded the audience that the Duke and Duchess walk the walk.
“What people don’t know is that the $9 million you’ve earned from this interview will be split among several different charitable groups,” she said.
“That’s right,” the prince confirmed. “Keeping the money would be crass.”
“And while so many of our peers circle the world in private jets while preaching environmental responsibility, we fly coach,” Meowghan said. “To do anything else would undermine our message as champions of the environment.”
The Great Sphinx of Giza keeps watch over the world’s most sacred litter box.
Pain In The Bud 