Mon 11 Jun 2007
MeowVisionâ„¢
Posted by anaglyph under Cats, Technology
[11] Comments
Boingboing ran a snippet a day or so back about ‘Mr Lee’ the German cat whose owner has equipped him with a camera to record his feline adventures. The ‘Cat Cam’ is fastened around Mr Lee’s neck, and a timing circuit snaps shots at regular intervals.
It is fascinating to see what Mr Lee gets up to in the course of his catty day. Tour #1 has him encountering a bird feeder, several other catty denizens of the area, and even snapping a couple of ‘art’ shots.
After scanning through Mr Lee’s Cat Cam site, the obvious thought occurred to me to try and do the same thing with The Spawn! (Yes, I can hear you all screaming ‘You must be mad! Don’t you want to keep your remaining fingers??!!’)
So, over the weekend I dug out a little Sony Cyber Shot that I was using a little while back in some Kite Aerial Photography experiments and charged up its battery… w00t! still working!
The electronics for the camera had previously been wired to be triggered remotely for the aerial shots so it was pretty easy to re-jig them to work with a little timer chip.
A little bit of trial-and-error and it seemed to work pretty well, and after some ‘cat-proofing’ with an old cellphone case and some gaffer tape, I tied The Spawn down and fitted the GlitchCamâ„¢…
Hmm. Not terribly impressed, but tolerating the humiliation for the moment.
I let him walk around the house for a bit to make sure that the cam was secure and that the timer was working properly. After a little bit of head shaking and scratching he seemed to get used to the GlitchCamâ„¢, so I let him outside.
Off you go little fella! Let’s see what happens in your catty existence!
(Click on the image to start the tour. Type ‘N’ for Next or ‘P’ for Previous, or use the on-screen navigation.)
So that’s why you secure the door at night when I sleep over! aargh!!!
You betcha! And I bet you won’t joke about the strings of garlic and the crucifixes anymore either.
Isn’t that what all kitties do when loosed upon the world?
Well played Rev. By image 5 I was suspicious, but it wasn’t until image 9 that I twigged. (Image 11 made me LOL, as Sister V would say.)
Colour me gullible, but I’ll say – thanks for the ride.
(You’d think the circuit board photo should have tripped at least one or two brains cells, but no.)
I actually thought “wow, does the Reverend know how to rewire a circuit board!”
But I had Faith…
Next time capture an audio track; I’d like to loop the gates creaking as a soporific.
Excellent work, Rev. You had me going for awhile.
So that’s what it looks like when someone becomes a 23rd degree mooson in the Fraternal Order of the Cows
Phoebe Fay: Not Mr Lee, it would seem. Although we don’t know what kind of child-consumption he undertook in his wild youth I guess.
Cissy Strutt: The circuit board was a fortuitous piece of ‘found’ internet image that happened to match the desk in my study. It is, er, a tad wrong in scale for that teensy weensy camera. But I’m glad you got a LOL. From my cat. Even if he wouldn’t be seen dead in the company of LOLCATs.
Pil: Tsk. I can wire a circuit board. Not necessarily that one…
Jam: Audio? I don’t think so. As we know, the sound is the thing that really makes things creepy.
Catalyst: Heh. This was the most time-consuming gag I’ve ever had the pleasure to blog.
Casey: You don’t know the half of it…
oh you are SO bad!!! i totally fell for this (but it was a fun ride)
Heh. Sorry Pixie, it is the Evil of the Spawn’s influence.