Victory for Simon’s Cat

February 4, 2013 • 1:29 pm

In a new animated Simon’s Cat video, a human learns what happens when you try to make a felid behave.

Travel note: I’m lecturing in Augusta in a few hours on the incompatibility of science and religion. I’ve discovered that in this part of Georgia it is legal to openly carry a handgun in a holster. My host told me that he’s seen little old ladies in the grocery stores packing heat this way.  There is security at my talk; the first time I’ve had that.

h/t: Michael

39 thoughts on “Victory for Simon’s Cat”

    1. Actually Kevlar*. You don’t want DuPont on your butt.
      Really needs the little R in a circle thing. Which is probably 4 layers down.

      1. Really needs the little R in a circle thing. Which is probably 4 layers down.

        You mean “®”, the “registered trade mark” symbol, HTML entity “reg”, which should be entered in your comment window as an ampersand, the “reg” name, and terminated with a semi-colon, “&” “reg” and “;”.
        I use the BBCodeExtra plug in for Firefox, and it took about 30 seconds to add a custom entry for the RTM symbol ®. (But inevitably I’ll have got it wrong, there being no ‘preview’ on this variant of WordPress.

        1. (Half an hours more work in BBCodeExtra and I’ve got this lot at my fingertips :
          ®
          < >
          ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ƒ €
          ♠ ♣ ♥ &diamonds;
          ⟨ ⟩ ⌊ ⌋ ⌈ ⌉ ‹ ›
          ¬(not) « » · (middle dot)
          &frac14; &frac12; &frac34;
          × ÷ Ø ø ‰ ℜ ⊥
          ¯(macron, overbar) ° (degree) ª (fem.ordinal) º (masc.ordinal) ± § (section) &sup1; (superscript 1) &sup2; (superscript 2) &sup3; (superscript3)
          ∀ (for all) ∂ (partial diff.) ∃ (there exists) ∅ (empty set(diameter)) ∇ (nabla (= backward difference)) ∈ (element of) ∉ (not an element of) ∋ (contains as member) ∏ (n-ary product (= product sign)) ∑ (n-ary summation) &minus (minus sign) ∗ (asterisk operator) √ (square root (= radical sign)) ∝ (proportional to) ∞ (infinity)
          ∠ (angle) ∧ (logical and (= wedge) ∨ (logical or (= vee)) ∩ (intersection (= cap)) ∪ (union (= cup)) ∫ (integral) &there4; (therefore sign)
          ∼ (tilde operator (= varies with = similar to) ≅ (congruent to) ≈ (almost equal to (= asymptotic to)) ≠ (not equal to) ≡ (identical to; sometimes used for ‘equivalent to’) ≤ (less-than or equal to)
          ≥ (greater-than or equal to) ⊂ (subset of) ⊃ (superset of[n] ⊄ (not a subset of) ⊆ (subset of or equal to) ⊇ (superset of or equal to)
          ⊕ (circled plus (= direct sum)) ⊗ (circled times)

          Which may be going a little over the top. I should be able to send you the codes, but copying the source from this dsiplayed page should give you it anyway.

          4. It’s the Power of Procrastination! (H/T to the “PhD” cast). Anything but anything other than biting the bullet and diving back into courses on OOP. I’d rather go sewage diving.
            Oh, there’s an idea!

  4. Stay cool, Jerry. I doubt that any of those little old ladies wants to “shoot an atheist for god.”

  5. I haven’t slept through the entire night since 2006, when I acquired Evil, a rescue Russian Blue at the shelter.

    In the winter, when he is cold, he walks across my pillow two or three times a night, to tell me he wants under the covers, where he stays for an hour or two. Then, because he sees daylight through the blinds, is hungry, is bored, is whatever cat-like state, he knocks the TV remote onto the floor-bats at the blinds-walks over the pillows-jumps onto my chest in a continuous loop until I give up and get up.

    In the summer, he is less persistent until morning, when he determines that it is time to get up, at which time he scratches the wall, jumps up and down on the pillow holding my face, knocks the remote onto the floor, or jumps on my chest, positioning his weight on a single paw.

    I truly hate this cat. Until he is gone, and then I will ache and wish I was dead with him.

  7. Dunno if you’ve heard this, but an apocryphal, I imagine, story about Einstein’s first U.S. lecture tour. After twenty dates, the great man’s driver complained that he had heard the spiel so much that he thought he could deliver the patter himself. Albert said, “OK, then. Let’s swap jobs for the night.”

    Next stop, in Springfield, Anystate, sure enough, the chauffeur rattled off relativity fluently, lucidly and to general acclaim. Come question time, some smart-ass threw the poor motor-man a real curve-ball of a poser.

    He replied, “That point, sir, is so simple, even my driver could answer it.” Whereupon, AE himself took over the Q and A session.

    Thought you might need a laugh, Jerry, with those gun-totin’ Georgians on your mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind.

  8. Open carry (unlicensed) is legal, in fact, in 12 states, including Vermont, where I live, but I have never seen anyone (apart from the police and a few hunters during deer season) walking around with a holstered handgun. The open-carry movement does maintain that a right not exercised is a right lost, and so they promote the sort of display you’ve encountered in Georgia–to get people used to the idea. I don’t think it’s working.

      1. Defending their kill from other hunters. And Bob Newhart? (“Two game wardens, seven hunters and a pure-bred Jersey cooooow!”)

          1. Memo to self : stop waiting for wife to decide where CD rack will go and just put the thing on the wall somewhere and get the CDs unpacked.

        1. All of the hunters I’ve ever known have used the same rifle they shot the deer/elk/other game animal with to finish it off if their first shot wasn’t sufficient to kill the animal. The only times I’ve heard of hunters carrying pistols, they were bow hunters who were carrying the pistol for defense in the event of a bear attacking them (never heard of any of them being actually attacked by a bear, though).

          1. Yes, some bow hunters and black-powder hunters carry a sidearm in the unlikely event of a bear encounter, but, in my experience, more often they carry because they may have to finish off a wounded deer with a close, clean shot. Some deer hunters, depending on the territory, also carry a revolver with shot shells for snakes.

  11. As much as it might pain you to do it, Jerry, given your love for the felids, in your talk I would “let it slip out” that you actually really really like bulldogs.

    That should keep 99.9% of Georgians on your side, despite your heathen nature.

  13. The cat I had in high school (that I have occasionally mentioned on this) was a lot like this video, but only if you were eating TOAST!!!

    It was her most favorite food ever, to the point that she would jump on the counter to claw her way into a grocery bag if there was bread in it.

    One time, when she was a kitten, she saw Mom in the kitchen eating a piece of toast. She proceeded to climb up Mom’s leg, all the way up to the shoulder, then walked out Mom’s arm, stood on her wrist, and proceeded to eat Mom’s toast.

    She was a very peculiar cat.

  14. There is security at my talk; the first time I’ve had that.

    Would tonight be a good time to send a few sacrificial Creationists round?

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