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Dog Orrery
Inspired by [xenzag]'s Calder Dog Walker | |
First, construct a very large orrery, say, 30-50 yards in diameter. In
place of the planets & moons, put dog harnesses, and in the
harnesses put ... class? Yes? That's right, dogs. Jupiter will be a St.
Bernard, Iapetus a chiuaua, and so on.
You now have two options:
1) Spend years painstakingly
training an assortment of dogs to walk
round their appointed orbits at exactly the right speed. After many
failures, finally succeed in making a 90 second video. Upload to
YouTube. Bask in your 15 minutes of fame.
2) Collect an assortment of appropriately sized dogs whose only
other qualification is that they're good natured. Provide minimal
training. Fasten into harnesses, then dip the entire contraption into
a pond or swimming pool, and let the dogs paddle 'round in circles.
Orrery
http://www.youtube....watch?v=xToOPSPm7xA
[mouseposture, Feb 13 2010]
Nine crystal yo-yos
http://books.google...=onepage&q=&f=false
[mouseposture, Feb 13 2010]
Teaching ravens to fly underwater
http://www.epicure....n.co.uk/ravens.html
[mouseposture, Feb 13 2010]
Egorrery
egorrery
Another splendid orrery idea. [wagster, Feb 14 2010]
Elsa
http://www.warman.d...k/anna/att_int.html
[xenzag, Feb 16 2010]
The Cat/human interface
http://www.youtube....watch?v=w0ffwDYo00Q
VERY funny and very true [xenzag, Feb 16 2010]
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The right kind of neurological deficit would get them to walk
in circles, but the problem would be getting them to move in
ellipses instead. It seems the scale would be logarithmic.
What base were you thinking of using? |
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[-] insufficient cruelty to cats. |
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[ninteenthly]//What base were you thinking of using?//
Mahogony, with a nice brass plaque. (Orrerys move in
circles, not elipses. They're models of Ptolomeic or
Copernican astronomy. Hence the Ciardi link.) |
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I can think of no reason why this could possibly not fail to
work. If you build it, I will come. [+] |
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Touche, [mouseposture]! In that case, what about epicycles?
Should the whole thing be like one of those fairground teacup
rides? |
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epicycle = dog with choc drop stuck on tip of tail. |
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(Bun available - awaiting "pointless cruelty to cats" element of idea) |
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"insufficient cruelty to cats."
Stack 'em in a pile and set 'em on fire - instant sun. |
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[8th of 7] All right, I'm willing to prostitute my genius for a
croissant. How about a feline Halley's comet?: suspend a
cat, in a flying harness, from a long, long cord, and let it
swing, pendulum-wise, in an eccentric ellipse, inches above
the slavering jaws of the dogs. |
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On second thought, no, I can't do it. This was supposed to
be a light-hearted idea. The above shall not be canon. |
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I like the cat idea, but you should leave the canon in. |
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[21Q], That link has made my day. Did the concept for this carrier originate from the HB? I couldn't find it on [8th]'s profile ... |
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[8th of 7]//houses heated and lit by huge windmills with cats
nailed to the tips of the blades rubbing on glass rods//I am
just not in your league when it comes to ailurophobia. |
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We can do it for you wholesale ... |
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Besides, it's not actually ailurophobia as such, which is defined as "a persistent, irrational fear of cats". |
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We do not fear cats. We hate cats, which is something quite different, and entirely rational, cats being the filthy verminous amoral hyperallergenic panhandlers that they are. |
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We loath and detest cats, but have no fear of them; how else can we approach close enough to convert them for the extra two points ? |
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It seems to have been a successful evolutionary strategy for cats to hook onto human affection for them, but their relationship is closer to parasitism than dogs'. Nevertheless i prefer cats to dogs because i can anthropomorphise their behaviour as more self-respectful. |
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The cat was venerated in ancient Egypt, and those who mistreated any cat, was rightfully executed. If I caught anyone abusing a cat, I would burst both their kneecaps with a lump hammer, and plant a virulent strain of fast growing weed in the gory mess that remained. This is a traditional form of punishment where I come from. |
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If I caught anyone abusing my cat, there probably wouldn't be a lot left of them by the time I reached them. |
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If you can't hurt cats what then do you feed your dogs? |
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//If you can't hurt cats what then do you feed your dogs?//
Burglars. |
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Braised venison, smoked salmon, roast duck and pate de foie gras. |
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// their relationship is closer to parasitism than dogs // |
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True ... closer to parasitism than many life forms, including tapeworms, faecal coliforms, and malaria. |
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It's as unfair to mistreat a cat as it is a dog, or any other mammal, because whatever we may project onto them, they're just our own interpretations of behaviour which is instinctive to them. They don't have the freedom to behave otherwise most of the time. There may be a few exceptions, but in general the common response to such an animal behaving in a manner which we find dangerous is simply to kill it, not to cause it long-term suffering. |
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But how far can you take this? I can see it applying to mammals fairly uncontroversially, but what about guinea worms? |
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// It's as unfair to mistreat a cat as it is a dog, or any other mammal // |
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Dogs are loyal, noble and intelligent, and far nicer than most humans. Cats can (and do) bugger off if they want to (and so they should). |
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// i prefer cats to dogs // |
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Your name's going in the Big Book then, chummy... |
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// This is a traditional form of punishment where I come from // |
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Tell us more. We know so little about East Anglia ... |
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// an animal behaving in a manner which we find dangerous is simply to kill it, not to cause it long-term suffering // |
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But what about politicians ? Yes, they are poikilothermic, and have a secondary brain near the base of their spine (if any), but that's certainly no reason to withold excessive pointlessly cruel and gratuitously unnecessary pain and violence. |
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// But how far can you take this? // |
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Well, it depends on how long you can keep them alive. |
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They're just doing what they need to do to live. It's an ecological niche. They don't do it deliberately, or claim expenses on a second home they've already paid for, or get the voters to pay for carpet cleaning and duck houses.... |
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//carpet cleaning and duck houses// |
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Carpet cleaning AND duck houses??? Arrrgh! Damn and
blast!!! I thought it was carpet cleaning IN duck houses.
Bugger - clearly I owe Jeremy an apology. |
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There is a problem with this, in that it cannot represent out-
of-plane orbits, such as that of Pluto. |
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Therefore, perhaps a fish-based orrery would be more better. |
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Yes, but how do I get harnesses on the little buggers? |
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Mickey Mouse's pet dog is named Pluto. |
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Cats are superior beings, something of which they are well aware. |
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Cat fur can smell of vanilla, whereas dog hair will smell of whatever festering object on which it has recently rolled around ie cow shit, dead carcass etc (cat smell personally verified, dog smell I leave to owners to confirm) |
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[MB], if the dogs were trained to pilot little subs, they
could maybe float around in different planes. I don't think
Pluto is the main problem with this idea because the orbits
aren't even elliptical, so i would say that what's being
emulated here predates Kepler and even the discovery of
Uranus, let alone Pluto. |
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Politicians? Well, i think the expenses claims rather fall
into insignificance compared to all the other stuff they do.
It's not that they're OK, just that they're pretty
unimportant compared to the rest of what goes on. |
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Yes, it's interesting that buying unnecessary duck-ponds seems to have attracted the same level of outrage as starting unnecessary wars. |
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The cat v. dog debate is silly. It's baseless in that people desire different qualities in a companion, and this will ultimately be the final measure. |
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However, there is one undeniable truth that all cat lovers neglect to consider: Cats are only viable companions when they are small in size. That's why all domesticated cats are small, very few can even be considered medium sized. |
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While some dogs can be dangerous if their size is large this is largely correlated to poor ownership. The only thing keeping the calculating cat from killing is its small size. |
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//Mickey Mouse's pet dog is named Pluto// I thought that
was *Goofy's* dog. |
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//The only thing keeping the calculating cat from killing is its small size.// Only partly true.... check out "Born Free" Even after being released back into the bush, Elsa would periodically return to the camp of Joy and George Adamson, and behave exactly like a large domestic cat. |
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You can read the description of this amazing animal sneaking into naturalist David Attenborough's tent and sleeping on top of him - a great story by a great man. (see link) |
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[rcarty]//Goofy was a dog.// So he was. They were both
dogs (but you're right, Pluto was Mickey's pet, not Goofy's. I
should have done more research). |
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Pluto should've had a dog too. |
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I'm pretty sure cats do more damage to the local ecosystem than dogs, because dogs are more social. Therefore, they hang out with their owners, who tend to restrain their behaviour. By contrast, cats are out unsupervised and so able to devastate the local wildlife. This could presumably be solved by having indoor cats or taking them for walks. |
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Dogs evolved with us, i think (i.e. my personal opinion, not necessarily well-founded). Cats merely take advantage of our presence, and are more commensal than symbiotic, which is what dogs are. |
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Cats are less potentially harmful to most people, but more people are allergic to cats, even fatally so. |
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Yeah but what is a cat though? |
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Fissipedal obligate carnivores with horny lingual papillae and whiskers, which physiologically exhibit the Flehmen response. |
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If you had two of these, but one was more like an orrery than the other, would it be orreryer? Would the better one be more orreryy? |
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[bungston] Yes, and if the dogs walk round a full cycle so the
orrery returns to it's starting configuration, that's an
orerryyear. Happens fairly rarely. |
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Should i shut up about my bloody evening classes, [Ian]? |
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Cats sort of evolved with us too, in a way. I imagine our debris attracting rodents, which in turn attracted cats, particularly after the event of agriculture, but i think they've not changed as much or had much influence on us genetically. |
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Why dogs? Surely an Ottery Orrery would have been more logical. |
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Sorry, but really it should be a Sean Conerry orrery, located on a lorry, parked in a quarry. |
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Perhaps famous astronomers should be given an honorary (sp: corrected, thank you hippo) orrery? |
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If this took off, you could stage a performance by singers and musicians of a dramatic work set to classical music about it. |
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[hippo] I saw what you did there. |
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There have been so many orrery-related ideas posted, lately,
that [jutta] may have to declare an orerry moratorium. |
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What, an ottery orrery oratorio moratorium? That would make us all very sorrery. |
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// [jutta] may have to declare an orerry moratorium.
// |
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Either that or a new categorrery. |
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Cat Ego Orrery - a spinning series of concentric ellipses powered entirely by the unfiltered (but taxonomically organised) desires of a sample of felines. |
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[bungston], you'll have to decide what qualities make something an orrery. Then, 'orreriness' may manifest in the expression of these qualities. What makes a chair different from a door? What makes them different from an orrery? This is a rather peculiar playpen for dogs for people who don't understand outer space. |
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The thing is, i'm often sitting here with FB on one tab and the HB on another, switching between them. If a lot of people are doing that, we could end up treating this place as if it's a social networking site. Then again, it could introduce HB-style memes to Facebook, which i think is a good thing. |
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[+] Because [mouseposture]. |
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(...and "pointless cruelty to cats"...) |
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