I had a visitor today!

My human came to visit me this afternoon. Of course I was glad to see her. It's been a while.

She called my name repeatedly and asked me to go to her. I hung back for a bit. You know ol' me. I'm not one for sidling up to her, nudging her and sitting on her lap. "Come, come, Nookie!" she called. I sat a foot away and enjoyed it when she tickled me under my chin.

My roomies responded to her calls instead, and surrounded her, kneading her lap with their paws. Sheesh, how grovelly,how... how... KNEADY. Harharharh

She finally got exasperated and pulled me to her. She was determined not to leave until she got a pic of me with her. (See pic with Reluctant Ol' Me. Harharharharh.)

Huh, my roomies are the types of cats who come when called. Me, I say: Leave a message and I'll get back to you.

Cat-haters, revisited

David Hooi Yin Weng, the serial cat killer of Bedok, has been given a year's jail - the maximum sentence - for killing the kitties in the area, and this follows a three-month jail term he served earlier this year, also for killing cats.

What was clear was that:

He was found to be of below average intelligence;

He had an apparent 'fondness' for cats, as evidenced by his petting them and taking them into his home (at least initially);

He could not tolerate it when the cats did 'cat things', such as scratching him when past the point at which they no longer wanted to be petted, or peeing in prohibited areas in his home;

He has not been able to form meaningful relationships with other people.

The judge has asked that, on his release from prison a year from now, the animal welfare groups include him in their activities so he can learn the ways of animals (and cats in particular). All this is in the hope that he won't repeat his heinous crime.

How equipped are animal groups to deal with such a person, who's obviously socially inept, inadequately socialised to conduct normal human relationships? If he can exhibit such violence towards animals, what are the chances that volunteers from animal welfare groups aren't at risk when dealing with him themselves?

Keeping him in prison indefinitely is not an option.

Don't we all see similarities between him and the other cat killer - the one I wrote about in my Aug 24 posting, '101 uses for a dead cat-hater'?

A wine-bot? What's next?

You might have noticed how not a single week passes without some cute-sy Japanese innovation making the news.

This week, it's the "wine-bot". "The what?", I hear you ask. Well, the "wine-bot", a creation of NEC Systems Technology and Mie University (yes, in Japan) is a robot-sommelier (see picture). It can "taste" and identify types of wine, and also discern and analyse foods.

Oh, woo hoo.

My rant today is about research priorities. If the Mie University scientists can come up with something like this, did they think of putting the technology to more productive use??

I remember seeing a Discovery channel documentary once about how some dogs can actually sniff out cancers even before they are diagnosed. There was a first-person account of a woman whose labrador started going batty around her leg. Shortly after that, when she went to the doctor, a tumour was found in that leg. Scientists then ascertained that some tumours do give off smells that dogs can detect.

My point is, if scientists can make a robot that can taste wine, it's a hop, skip and jump to making a robot that can sniff out early cancers, is it not?

Why do Jap scientists insist on coming up with not-terribly-useful inventions? The last dumb one was thumbdrives designed to look like sushi. And previous to that, there was a "robocarp" - a fully mechanical (metal) fish with fully-articulated fins.

Who is funding these scientists???

Quick, anyone, name me a Japanese scientist who's won a Nobel prize for an earthshaking discovery that makes life for humanity better. Can't think of any, ri...ight?

Japan: No other country comes close as Kitsch Central.