xkcd

by **'; DROP DATABASE;--** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 10:05 am UTC

I seem to be particularly sensitive to the cat effect. Just having a cat in the room makes me prone to lack of concentration and the uttering of random noises. I find myself looking back at it every minute or so. O_o

by **Maurog** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:09 am UTC

That's easily explained by the fact that cats are telepathic.

by **'; DROP DATABASE;--** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:28 am UTC

Maurog wrote:That's easily explained by the fact that cats are telepathic.

...Of course, that explains everything! Such as why my cat's glaring at me right now! GET OUT OF MY HEAD MIDNIGHT >_>

If nothing else, I swear that cat speaks English. Has a nasty speech impediment, but he's clearly understanding my sentences and attempting to form words in response. It's crazy.

Wonder if I could teach him Japanese...

by **Shpadoinkle** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 2:13 pm UTC

pKp wrote:This works better with small children.

That would be true if small children were not universally ugly.

by **pKp** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:38 pm UTC

Shpadoinkle wrote:
pKp wrote:This works better with small children.

That would be true if small children were not universally ugly.

My classmates do not share your opinion.

by **zenten** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 9:37 pm UTC

Shpadoinkle wrote:
pKp wrote:This works better with small children.

That would be true if small children were not universally ugly.

Remind me to stay away from the kids in your part of the world.

by **PatrickRsGhost** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 3:13 pm UTC

Mah kittehs...let me sho u dem:

Tim:

Simon:

Coaly:

by **Masuri** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 3:19 pm UTC

Caturday already!?

Very cute!

by **Cytoplasm** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:27 pm UTC

ohki wrote:Am I the only one who just chats with my cat w/ changing tone of voice or speech dynamics?

Our conversations tend towards:
"Why do you have to watch me clean your box"
*Stare*
"I'm not your slave, you know?"
*stare*
"This would be easier if you ate less"
*licks mouth*
"You little %&#^@"
*rub rub*
"Alright, I'm sorry" *goes back to scooping*

I have the same problem with one of my cats! She stares at me while I scoop or change the litter box. Sometimes she wants to go into the litterbox while I'm trying to scoop or right before hand. I usually say and/or think, "Can't you wait? I just got here and then you decided to show up." She wins in the end.

Also, I seem to see the same things for dogs/puppies. By that I mean as to the comic, not the litter box-thing.

by **Cytoplasm** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:48 pm UTC

Oh, and one more thing. We could include a song called "Kitty" by The Presidents of the United States of America. It's a good song.

by **Eleyras** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:11 am UTC

This happened at work.

We have a cat in the store, who catches rats. His location could be tracked by customers bending over and going "awww, a kitty! Hi kitty!" Since I was bored on reg and nobody was buying anything, I promptly reproduced the "Cat Proximity" comic and pasted it up for my coworkers' amusement. My boss obviously took it down, since it wasn't there when I got in this afternoon

by **i like pi** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:16 pm UTC

I say put it back up.
oh........ right. ask your boss about it?

by **eboyce** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:40 pm UTC

pKp wrote:This works better with small children.

You get particularly inane statements when you put small children near cats.

Our family's cat was shedding her winter coat, so my 3 year old brother pulled out a small clump of fur while stroking her. He looked up and said, "Pussy cat broke!"

by **'; DROP DATABASE;--** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 9:18 am UTC

eboyce wrote:
pKp wrote:This works better with small children.

You get particularly inane statements when you put small children near cats.

Our family's cat was shedding her winter coat, so my 3 year old brother pulled out a small clump of fur while stroking her. He looked up and said, "Pussy cat broke!"

ROFL. That would be so funny to see.

Yeah, when I was a little kid I loved cats... unfortunately I couldn't quite grasp how delicate they were. ^_^; I never hurt any of them, but they weren't fond of me.

by **littlebee** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:22 pm UTC

Would the Kitty Proximity work in the case of raptor cats?

Yay picture works

by **Mo0man** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:51 pm UTC

I often find I get loooong two sided conversations with my cats. Every time I see one of them I say, meow, and then he says it right back, and then suddenly I realize I've been sitting in front of them for half an hour, just meowing

by **Amarantha** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:50 am UTC

Mo0man wrote:I often find I get loooong two sided conversations with my cats. Every time I see one of them I say, meow, and then he says it right back, and then suddenly I realize I've been sitting in front of them for half an hour, just meowing

I used to do that with my cat

But she's siamese, so rather than meow she tends to make this whiny, emo rrrrrrrrrrr sound, with which I would reply. Anyone within earshot would murder us inside of two minutes; thus, we no longer converse in that fashion.

by **titanicdaze** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:37 am UTC

Yesssssss! I love this one. Not only is the kitty adorable, but the graph is true. My sweetie nose-girl is right next to me now and she's a wuvvy wittle merry-paws!

Oh, Lord. I think I have Cat Fumes in my head. :oops:

by **Tyr_oathkeeper** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 2:03 am UTC

I have a bunny and the principal works the same. Until he chews through you mouse cable.

by **BlueNight** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:37 am UTC

This is SO true. I made a video of me playing with my sister's cat and the Ultimate Cat Toy: a rubber-band tied to a two-foot-long piece of kite string. After viewing it, I realized that it likely would go viral, but that I would never be taken seriously EVER again. You know, like Numa Numa guy.

Excerpts: "Run! Jump! FLY!!!" "Can you get it? Can you get it? C'mon down! Come down here!" Blech.

by **GIR** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:00 am UTC

I really wish this were a T-shirt...although it would be difficult for me to but it, since Paypal HATES me!

by **Sprocket** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:21 am UTC

Yeah, fuck I asked the QC guy, Jeph Jacques, if he was bringing t-shirts to ROFLcon, cuz PayPal decided it hated me a LONG time ago, and he's not....so I'm annoyed. Why do everything gatta be PAYPal?

littlebee wrote:Would the Kitty Proximity work in the case of raptor cats?

Yay picture works

Yes...it's a kitty! There.

by **Jekka_Lynn** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:41 pm UTC

This is true for me with all animals but especiablly horses. I work in a barn with over 40 horses. Whenever one of the horses does something noteworthy I turn to the closest co-worker or horse owner and translate what I think the horse really means or thinks.
Example: I was walking one of the larger horses down the aisle way and the barn cat walked around the corner and the barn and startled it. It slammed me into a wall then dragged me backwards away from the cat finally stopping it turned to face me eyes ad nostril's wide breathing heavily, a look of shock on it's face. I turned to my co-worker who had rushed to see if I was alright and using the voice I always use when I'm prettending to be the horse say. "DUDE!!!! Did you see that? That cat just tried to eat us!!!! We're lucky to have gotten out of there ALIVE!!!"
People at the barn have gotten so use to me doing it that whenever something happens they all stop and wait for me to tell them what the horse thinks.

by **That_one_guy** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:49 am UTC

Conversation I had with my cat recently.

Cat: Mewr! *purrs*
Me: Hi Kitty! Oh shit, my Brain!
Cat: *continues purring*
Me: A squared plus B squared equals C squared! Saboo is a slag! Negative B plus or minus the square root of B squared minus 4AC divided by 2A is the Quadratic Formula! You're a Cat!
Cat: *continues purring*

Yeah, it didn't end so well.

by **mgranlun** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:19 pm UTC

Alt Text: You're a kitty! >\0/

by **SimonBob** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:28 pm UTC

And yet all I can think whenever I see this one is:

: Cats like fish.; catfish.gif (7.45 KiB) Viewed 13349 times

by **mgranlun** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 6:38 pm UTC

'This smiley (dude face shouting) will from now on be my favourite!' >\0/

Because it reminds my of "You're a kitty!".

by **burndive** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:42 pm UTC

mgranlun wrote:

Alt Text: You're a kitty! >\0/

Shouldn't the "far" and "near" portions of the graph be reversed (along with the lines on the graph)? The current layout implies that you can only get so far away from a cat, but that you can infinitely increase your proximity to cat.

Cat density is not that high.

by **dean.menezes** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:47 pm UTC

burndive wrote:
Shouldn't the "far" and "near" portions of the graph be reversed (along with the lines on the graph)? The current layout implies that you can only get so far away from a cat, but that you can infinitely increase your proximity to cat.

Cat density is not that high.

This is correct if you are on the surface of the earth, which has a finite surface area.

by **TV4Fun** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:33 am UTC

You're a kitty!!!

by **joeyhndc** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:12 am UTC

burndive wrote:
Shouldn't the "far" and "near" portions of the graph be reversed (along with the lines on the graph)? The current layout implies that you can only get so far away from a cat, but that you can infinitely increase your proximity to cat.

Cat density is not that high.

Log scales (along with the aforementioned surface of the earth answer)?

As you can tell, I'm nowhere near a cat right now.

by **bikuki** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:20 pm UTC

I saw this today and it made me smile:

by **HawkDesigns** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:57 am UTC

bikuki wrote:I saw this today and it made me smile:

Now THAT is awesome.

by **thanksbastards** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:42 am UTC

you think cat proximity is bad, try kitten proximity. Granted the effect is greatly lessened when they are sleeping, it is not a force to be trifelled with. HEHE, the one sleeping on me is running in his sleep. I thought only dogs did that.

ok, i am never talking wierd to this kitten again. I was making fun of it in a baby voice (you know you have done it) and it lifted its head in its sleep, one eye opened 1/8th of the way, just enough for me to see the eye jumping around in her head, and started twitching and lolling its head back and forth all deamon possession like, and then flop back down limp. I thought it died or something.

freaking deamon cat. sure is cute tho. yes you are. yes your are! whos a cute stinky butt? you are, looka t you all covered in poop and boogers. whos a cute deamon kitty? poopy kittens a cute deamon kitty!

by **icenine** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 7:29 am UTC

This should apply to soft toys too, at least among the girls in my school.

Nobody seems to mind dogs though!

by **Anubis** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:56 am UTC

It IS a kitty!

by **UltraAyla** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:36 am UTC

Interesting to see this hitting the top again - This is easily the comic I reference the most often and the one I tell people unfamiliar with XKCD about because it's easy to describe as well as an idea someone with little background in the sciences can relate to. Definitely a favorite

.

by **10nitro** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:02 pm UTC

I find the "inanity" to be accurate, but "intelligence" to be far from true. I've done some of my best hacks with one of my cats curled up against my leg. Of course, the debug statements are stuff like "yay nugget4". [edit:] as opposed to say... "foobar3"

by **Faranya** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 2:57 am UTC

burndive wrote:Shouldn't the "far" and "near" portions of the graph be reversed (along with the lines on the graph)? The current layout implies that you can only get so far away from a cat, but that you can infinitely increase your proximity to cat.

Cat density is not that high.

Unless you have a method of inter-universal travel, yes, you can only get so far away from a cat.

And that doesn't really imply that you can get infinitely close to a cat, the line appear to be approaching an asymptote, in addition to the fact that there is no indication that the trend of this graph extends any farther than what is shown.

by **YTPrenewed** » Tue Sep 07, 2010 12:17 am UTC

... could I use a screenshot of that graph in a future YTP of mine?

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