Of Cats & Curiosity

Two things I often like to compare are cats and government. I mean, think about it: they both give off an air of intelligence, but are actually quite incompetent; they both like to sit around all day doing absolutely nothing to contribute to society; and, most importantly, they both get cranky when their minions... er... masters don't feed them. So you can imagine my delight when I came across this article from some random blog that my male parental unit enjoys reading. Have you read it? No? Good, it's a waste of time. Lemme summarize it for you.

Apparently, the ever secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or NAMBLA, for short) has decided that it is not content with computers that simply solve equations for you; they want computers that can interpret them for you as well. Calculus for the lazy, essentially. They've already built a "supercomputer" based off of the mind of a mouse, back in 2007, but that project was abandoned when researchers realized that mice are incapable of thoughts more complex than "CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!!!!1!" So what did the government scientists decide to do? Build a computer based on the brain of a cat, which, I suppose, is technically slightly farther up the evolutionary chain than a mouse is. Of course, a cat's thought process, while more complicated than a mouse's, is not more adept to solving mathematical equations. Take my cat, for instance. She is clinically insane. She feels the need to touch her nose to everything in sight, in the process crossing her eyes every time to see just what exactly it is that she is olfactorily investigating. Not only this, but anything that remotely resembles a small animal (i.e. FOOD!), green plants that might house such food, objects that she could generally either get her claws stuck in or tear up, or preferebly to her, some horrible combination of all three, is of far more interest to her than solving math problems. While I'm sure that she is capable of staring into my eyes and seeing through my soul, as well as contemplating the meaning of life during her frequent power napping sessions, I doubt that the brain of a cat is what one should base a computer off of; they are much too interested in other things, and have attention spans equvilent to those of goldfish. Besides, hairballs and computer hardware do not mix.