Cats and Bins
Its been all over the internet, so I guess it would be remiss of me not to mention it in blog format. More after the usual goodness.
Oh, A couple of things first.
One, on a personal note, looks like we have a house to move in to, Hooray! Thanks to Adam Greer for sorting that out.
Two, I realised the website of the week thing wasn’t working. I don’t often stray from my usual websites, and if I do its only for a one hit wonder. It hardly seems worth complimenting the whole website for that. I am gonna try to stick to a set format on this blog, but expect the items to change every now and then.
ANYWAY, ON WITH THE GOODNESS!
Song of the week
Off the map - Alkaline Trio
I slated this album a bit when it came out. I love alkaline trio. I have the Alkiheart tattooed on my chest, but I thought this album was a bit disappointing. Its very short, and I worked out something like 13% of the album was fade outs. I’ve been listening to it more, and while I maintain a lot of the album isn’t great, “Off the map” is excellent. I’ve always preferred Dan Andriano’s songs and this is definitely one of the best on the album, possibly after “Fine” also by Dan. Give it a listen!
Youtube video of the week
I bet you thought the cat video would be here didn’t you? WRONG! This is some of the earliest colour footage ever shot. Its from 1922, and the quality isn’t bad at all. Without it, youtube probably wouldn’t exist, so its nice to see colour footage at its humble beginnings.
News story of the week
Thought the cat thing would appear here? WRONG AGAIN! Be patient!
This week scientists discovered a tiny species of frog, living in Pitcher plants, in the jungles of Borneo, South East Asia.
Apparently specimens exist in collections up to 100 years old but were wrongly classified as babies of other species.
The official name is Microhyla Nepenthicola, named after the Pitcher plant (Nepenthes ampullaria) that it seems to use to breed in.
I learned a couple of things from this, one: there is actually a smaller breed of frog which lives in Cuba and two: Amphibians are the most threatened group of animals in the whole world. Apparently one third of them are in danger of become extinct.
Bad times.
Movie of the week
eXistenz (1999)
I haven’t had time to watch a new movie this week, so I thought I’d give a mention to one of my favourite movies of all time.
It stars Jude Law as a gaming PR intern and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the worlds leading games designer. It opens at a small event to show off Allegra’s (Leigh) new gaming systems to a select group of testers. The game system (Called eXistenZ) is connected directly to a game port installed in the base of the players spine.
Its a great movie which keeps you confused all the way through, and even more so at the end. Give it a watch!
Thing I learned of the week
The first world war was a terrible thing. That isn’t what I learned, we all knew that. Millions died, and far more were injured.
So many were injured that cotton bandage supplies became very short, very quickly.
The Kimberly-Clark Corporation discovered that bandages could be made from a special compound of pulp, which they named “cellulose”. This was a far cheaper way to make bandages, and those produced were five times more absorbent than the cotton alternative.
Obviously nurses at the time were very busy, and didn’t have the time to let the little things get in their way. In this case, their period.
The nurses places the cellulose bandages in their underwear and didn’t need to worry for the rest of the day. As the cellulose was so cheap, they could throw it away and use another bandage the next day.
After the war the Kimberly-Clark Corporation had a huge amount of cellulose bandages left over, and nothing to do with them.
The Cellucotton Products Company was born, its main product? Kotex.
Here is a print ad from January 1921:
So, the thing I learned this week was that menstural pads and eventually tampons etc all came from a bandage designed to save world war 1 soldiers.
Rant of the week
Ok, so now I am gonna talk about the cat lady. Firstly, here is the video:
I HATE people being cruel to animals, more than anything. There is no excuse, at any time, ever.
This woman was being cruel. She has since been named and shamed, but I am not going to post her name here because, despite being cruel, I don’t think she deserves the death threats that she is receiving. If you must know, its easy to find on google.
In an interview with The Sun (Which I take with a pinch of salt, I can’t believe for sure anything they have printed is true) She apologised for putting the cat in the bin, said it was a momentary lapse of judgement, but she didn’t see what all the fuss was about because its “just a cat”.
Its not “Just a cat”. Its a living creature. A living creature with a brain fair smaller than ours, and with far less understanding of cruelty than her.
In the video, you can see the cat greeting her, and being fussed. I very much doubt it expected to stuck in a bin for 15 hours following that. I also wonder what was going through the cat’s head. The poor thing must of been terrified. I hope the owner has given it a lot of attention since then.
Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of posts about this all over the place, and if you sift past the death threats etc, you’ll notice a lot of people saying “She should be put in a bin, or a big hole for 15 hours and see how she likes it”.
I disagree.
Not that she shouldn’t be put in a large container for a long time, but I disagree with it being for 15 hours.
Cats live far less that humans. The average is 15 years for a cat. The life expectancy of a British female is 81.6 years.
I decided to take it upon myself to work out how long the evil witch should spent in darkness, with no food, to take away the same portion of her life as she did the cat.
Here goes:
The cat lives for 15 years, which is 5475 days, which is 131400 hours. As a percentage, 15 hours of the cats life is 0.00011% (rounded up) of its total life expectancy.
A British female lives for 81.6 years, or 29784 days, or 714816 hours.
0.00011% of 714816 hours is 78.63 (rounded up) hours.
So thats 78 hours 37 minutes and 48 seconds (roughly, rounded up) that the disgraceful example of a woman should spend isolated in darkness by my count.
I hope the police suggests this to her in place of community service.
