Comment by squarefoot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by squarefoot | Hacker News Reader

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RIP Mosfet, sorry to read that. Cats are wonderful life (and lab) companions. I also have a couple and had others I miss a lot. All of them had their personal character, habits and quirks, but invariably all of them have this fantastic common trait in all cats: curiosity! I just love when they stare at us when we're doing something; they don't interfere, just sit there and watch. One of them apparently didn't like circuit boards; one day I was looking at a circuit board I just finished soldering, then that cat came closer, looked briefly at the pcb and started hitting it with his paws... that was hilarious, just like telling me i sucked at soldering stuff.:) Probably there were light reflections on the solder joints he didn't like, but whatever... He and another one were also attracted by ultrasound, I discovered this when testing a 40KHz transducer connected to the signal generator: as soon as I hit the transducer resonance the cats rushed in the lab from 2 rooms away meowing... apparently they can hear 40KHz from distance but also totally ignore you when you call them a meter away. I just love those animals!:)

Get a new one soon, there are countless of them in need of someone taking care!

I've got one cat that's around 1.5y old. Some time ago I was playing an FPS game and he looked at my left and and the screen and then back again, finally made eye contact and again looked at the screen.

I'm pretty sure he in that moment groked that I can control the movement of the character on the screen with the keyboard.

Also we've got a cat that watches Netflix with us. Sits somewhere with his gaze glued to the screen.

I highly recommend anyone to read about cat body language and how to behave to not irritate them. Cats turn into assholes when people around don't understand the cues they give. Eventually they stop giving cues and just go away or are aggressive. It's best to compare how cats in a cat cafe behave compared to home cats of people that know how they behave.

Apparently they can’t hear male voices. Their hearing is sensitive to higher frequencies than most male voices and the usual human range. I usually chirp or make other high pinched noises to get their attention-though still get ignored much of the time, of course.

Also apparently they’ll attack whats in our hands as they think they’re helping us hunt.

They really are great. I was lucky to have a cat part of my life for 2 months shy of 20 years. I learned a lot from him and still miss him absolutely every day. He knew many human words - would come running and even let us hold him up to swat at whatever bug was flying around, if needed.

I've had also an adopted cat for 14 years - and he was this standard cat - an asshole. Still was very loved.

But even if adopting is very nice - you get a cat for free and help the poor animal, me and my wife wanted a maine coon for a long time, so we bought one.

Together with us for two years. And he's like a dog - plays fetch, and when you call his name, he comes to you. I have deep-ish voice, and he certainly hears me and understands words like his name, "negalima" (can't do that/not allowed in lithuanian), and he certainly knows the word "skanėstas" (treat). He's so unbelievably friendly, anytime I tap on my lap when I'm sitting, if he sees that - he comes and curls on lap instantly.

He's also very gentle. I was surprised - when playing, he very very rarely bites bare hand. All cats that I know have no problems biting and clawing your bare hand when playing. Funny when friends come over - oh my god, he looks dangerous - big and has this evil look. Gentle giant indeed.

Maine coons are great.

The standard cat is not an asshole. It's just that unlike the standard dog, you have to earn a cat's respect and that takes time and effort. It's the same as with humans: if you think all or even most cats are assholes, the problem is probably you, not cats.

Scientific resources online seem to disagree about sound range, which is both wider and more sensitive than human hearing or voices.

http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html

Cat sensitivity is a good 6 dB more sensitive so even if they're peakier in treble than humans, they still hear human males from further away than humans can hear them. Somewhat intuitively this makes sense, lots of human powered evolution to make dogs work well with males would force excellent hearing of male voices.

Also you can run a reasonably intelligible for all voices telephone service off 300 to 4000 hz for a century or so, so no point debating 50 hz cutoff vs 75 hz or whatever, its vastly wider band than telco standards either way. Something kids under 30 will never experience is before digital vocoders and high bit error rate cell phones, telco voice service was somewhat hi-fidelity almost AM radio sound quality. Maybe someday voice communication will be that high quality again.

Cats of course are very intelligent and can train humans to do all kinds of stuff that is likely very amusing to cats, as per the anecdotes of them training their humans to perform in singsong voices and whatever.

As my gf said - cat fascinated by laser pointer => human fascinated by cat.

More than an echo of Montaigne's famous quote, "when I am playing with my cat, how do I know she is not playing with me?"[1]

1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne#Book_II

Communications grade audio, used to sound pretty good.

> Apparently they can’t hear male voices. Their hearing is sensitive to higher frequencies than most male voices and the usual human range. I usually chirp or make other high pinched noises to get their attention-though still get ignored much of the time, of course.

Not unlike dogs. My girlfriend is a pet behaviourist, but sees mostly dogs. And she says that one of the hardest problems is getting the male owners to engage with their dogs in a higher-pitched, fun and excited voice.

I can't imagine why. I'm a fairly manly dude, wear leather jackets and boots, fairly muscular. Bring a friendly dog around and I sound like a cooing baby.

That seems like a red flag for someone who’s emotionally cold.

I don't see how can be true. My cat comes to me when I call it from across the house. I'm a man with a relatively deep voice. How could this be?

From my own experience, it's not true. Another comment explains why: they can hear better than humans at both ends of the spectrum. So they can absolutely hear low pitch male voices.

I think they can hear male voices, but cats seem more responsive when I meow to them -- not 100% responsive though! (I can do a cat voice that'll fool many humans.)

The shape and size of their ears would lead one to believe they can't hear male voices, but they can.

> apparently they can hear 40KHz from distance but also totally ignore you when you call them a meter away

Just because they can hear you, doesn't mean they choose to respond. :)

My hearing isn't quite that good, but my wife would ascribe to me similar behavior.

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