Stéphane Pigeon has created Purrli, a web site that generates audio of a cat purring.
It's customizable; I found setting it for "sleepy" and "relaxed" produced my particular fave timbre of cat-purr.
As Pigeon notes:
The sound of a purring cat is one of the most comforting sounds available and can help soothe and calm you down when you're feeling stressed. Naturally, it's not just the sound that is important, but it's also the presence of the warm cuddly cat. Purrli tries to recreate both the sound and the presence of your very own virtual cat through a custom sound engine modelled after real purrs.
With a purr that delicately changes over time, Purrli aims at making the experience as real and lively as possible. Just like a real cat, Purrli will call for your attention. Just be careful when adjusting the last slider, if you don't want to be nagged in the middle of your work.
Scroll down the page and read the testimonials -- it's quite interesting to see the varied reasons people enjoy hearing a virtual cat purr, including:
My cat that grew up with me during childhood died two or three years ago, and whenever I was upset, she would come and lay next to me and purr to calm me down. She would nap with me, and her purring would help put me to sleep. I really miss that. This cat purr generator sounds just like her, and it really helps with my anxiety, especially during large projects.
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Two cats facing each other on a narrow ledge want to pass each other, but it isn't easy.
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We think cats are our pets but we are mistaken. The New Yorker interviews Abigail Tucker, author of The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World:
She explains how “cats domesticated themselves”—essentially by choosing proximity to people as their survival strategy—and then proceeded to infect one in three humans on Earth with a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which affects our behavior in ways that are still not entirely understood, although there is speculation that one of the symptoms might be an attraction to cats. Scientists estimate that there could be as many as a billion cats in the world, and their number continues to grow. So, if you feel like you live under your cat’s paw, you might as well get used to it. As Tucker says, “We’re never going to get control over these animals.”
(The New Yorker) Read the rest
This wonderful litter trapping pad keeps litter from being scattered all over my home.
I figured out my cat needed a 2nd litter box, and felt pretty smart. A few days later my home office was full of litter that had escaped the box on his paws and fur, I had forgotten to put a pad under the front of the box. I felt pretty silly. I tried a towel, because towels are pretty useful, but it didn't really help much.
This rubber mat does the trick.
Cat Litter Mat | XL Super Size | 35" x 23" via Amazon
Image via my home office Read the rest
"You scare me," he says. Then: "*sigh*" Read the rest
This luxurious upholstered cat sofa by FelinEva is certainly a favorite of the French maid in the video. Watch her fondle it gently, quietly, as if she herself was a cat, a cat in fishnet stockings.
Will actual cats be as enamored? There's no real way to know until it's in your living room, right? I'd guess my cat would quickly inspect it and then promptly ignore it, because cat.
No mention of the sofa's cost on the website but we have to imagine it's going to set you back a pretty penny.
"Would you rather be a cat sofa?"
Now, if you're in the market for a cat sofa but are looking for something a bit more economical (and less over-the-top), check out the Paws & Purrs sofa bed for cats (and other small to medium pets). It's about $102.
(hauspanther) Read the rest
A woman who goes by @brenaclifton on Twitter insists she doesn't have a cat, but was greeted by this cute kitty who popped out of the vent on the floor of her house. Just passing through!
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A Cat Thing combined feline love for cardboard boxes with an architect's eye for modular prefab housing to create a series of max-and-match cat houses. Read the rest
This is Felix, a super-weird cat lamp by Belgian design house Studio Job that switches on by pressing its tiny gold testicles. When you do, its eyes will glow. O...kay...
Australian blog So Bad So Good reports it will be available in three colors (black, white, and b/w combo) in April and will retail for £205. (~$284.).
images via So Bad So Good Read the rest
This cat appears to be chattering adorably with invisible fairies, but I'm sure that some terrible illness or infirmity has in fact befallen it and all I achieved by posting this is to serve the sociopathic tendency of social media to suppress human empathy in its endless provision of amusement and distraction.
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On Saturday, Lucy Schultz of Denver, Colorado shared touching, intimate photos of her childbirth.
Well, not technically.
What she shared was a hilarious album of her pretending to give birth to the baby kitten she and her boyfriend Steven recently adopted.
The new mom wrote:
On 1/10/18 we welcome our first baby kitten, a neutered male DLH. He is 22" long and weighed 6 pounds 7 oz. He is already eating solid food. Name to be announced. We are so in love <3
A professional photographer herself, Shultz told Denver's 9News:
“So I’ve been thinking of this idea for a while because I’m totally a crazy cat lady who didn’t have any cats. So, I decided as soon as I got a cat, it’s a big milestone for me and sort of like the hallmark of me settling down and starting my menagerie of future cats, and so the first one is pretty special.”
Without further ado, here are some of their (mildly NSFW) photos:
The full set of 28 photos, taken by Elizabeth Woods-Darby, has, of course, gone viral. As of this writing, the album has been shared nearly 75K times.
(HuffPost) Read the rest
Jun from Jun's Kitchen has very well-behaved cats, even the new one they rescued. Here, he takes a break from cooking to show how they got so well-trained. Read the rest
Bettie Bee, a lovely two-faced kitten, was born two weeks ago in Eastern Cape, South Africa. According to her Facebook page, she is receiving wonderful care and doing quite well even though so-called Janus cats rarely live very long. The medical term for the rare condition is diprosopus.
Updates on Bettie Bee at her Facebook page.
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FixNation is a nonprofit working to reduce the feral cat population. To raise funds, they commissioned cool cat shelters from prominent Los Angeles architecture firms, then auctioned the structures like Flora-Gato in the video for charity. Read the rest
Max is the internet's new hero, and, mercifully, not a duck. That's not to say, though, that Max is not a problem for his humans.
This warning was spotted posted to a library window by by childrens' book illustrator Erin McGuire
"This is basically halfway to being a children's book," wrote McGuire, who is working on a graphic novel about young Harper Lee titled "Alabama Spitfire."
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