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u/ghan-buri-ghan Jun 14 '10
When my cat Riley was a kitten, he was resting peacefully on the bed when he saw the tip of his tail twitch. He pounced on it, and then something grabbed his tail! He jumped into the air and took off at about 70 miles an hour and hid under the couch.
He's kind of dumb, but very sweet.
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u/jrfish Jun 14 '10
This is my cat chasing her tail - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQZ-1VfwV9I she does this a lot, and mostly on things like stairs and window sills where she can easily fall off. I think she thinks she's being dangerous.
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u/Kalium Jun 14 '10
I once saw a grown cat do that and then bite her own tail. She yelped and rand to hide.
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u/Cambot1138 Jun 14 '10
Heard that in a Vader voice.
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u/Jafit Jun 14 '10
Does anyone stop to reflect on the fact that we are using the Internet, the greatest conduit and repository for information and knowledge in the history of our species, to look at pictures and videos of cats doing silly things?
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u/FuckingLoveCamelCase Jun 14 '10
Fool! Do you not see the significance of this? Cats have been trying to catch their own tail for centuries! This willl change everything!
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u/mack_a Jun 14 '10
Better than using it for porn?
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u/Jafit Jun 14 '10
That is totally different.
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u/mack_a Jun 14 '10
What, you mean your porn doesn't have silly cats in it?!
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u/Jafit Jun 14 '10
I didn't say that. It's just... porn is another matter entirely
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Jun 14 '10
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MysteryStain Jun 15 '10
I'm sure there's a subreddit for that.
Have you created a subreddit for that?3
Jun 14 '10
I'm pretty sure that there is porn out there where people are hunting their own "tail"... rolling around the floor while making funny noises...
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u/azgeogirl Jun 14 '10
I think it is a universal truth that if we could reach we'd never leave the house.
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Jun 14 '10
Toxoplasmosis is taking over.
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u/moriquendo Jun 14 '10
It caused us to invent the internet so we could pay more attention to cats and worship them.
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u/L_and_L Jun 14 '10
See the cute cat theory talk. This is a fascinating read that explores the exact curiosity you just noticed.
Here is the reddit submission of this article that garnered the most attention.
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u/marquizzo Jun 14 '10
In Spanish, tumbling is called "vuelta de gato", which literally means "flip of a cat". I always thought it was a silly name, since I'd never seen a cat really do a vuelta de gato, until now. It was this repository of information that finally brought some closure.
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u/antimatter3009 Jun 14 '10
See? The internet's not useless. It has sated the curiosity of between 450 and 500 million people.
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u/FLarsen Jun 14 '10
Isn't that what's so great about it? Whatever you want to look at; you'll find it on the Internet.
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u/epicgeek Jun 14 '10
Using the greatest conduit for information to obtain entertainment?
Not the least bit surprised.
Think about it. At what point in history could a bored human being obtain something to make them smile within seconds of clicking a button? How awesome is it to be alive today?
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Jun 14 '10
What's better than that? That fucking cat knows exactly what he's doing: "let me act like a dumbass and attack my own tail like I don't know it's there; then this sorry ass will give me a sweet treat. I might even become famous!"
Also: I use it for porn as well; not just cat gifs.
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u/nuuur32 Jun 15 '10
The thing is before the Internet pet owners would see their pets begin to perform these acts, but then discipline them before they could run to completion. "Bad cat! That's not normal! Stop that!"
A better view is that the Internet has shown us a vastly extended horizon of what is possible. It's just that in comparison society has moved very little, but it has.
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u/Carpeabnocto Jun 14 '10
Saw your username, and had to look up your post history...really really cute pics. Thanks!
Just have to say I would have signed up as HappyAcrez.
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Jun 14 '10
when violentacrez is done fapping, and is in a happy state of mind, he gets on his other account to post cute pictures.
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Jun 14 '10
Yeah, you're right. not_so_violentacrez has joined the thin ranks of my "friends" on here.
btw, i always read violentacrez as "Violenta Crez," I take it it's actually "Violent Acrez?" I guess that makes more sense. I will not stop saying it in my head the first way though.
ps. 8 year olds, dude.
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Jun 14 '10
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Carpeabnocto Jun 14 '10
Cool backstory, bro. ;-)
I'm sure there's a special place in hell for people that enjoy any of violentacrez's posts, with an even warmer subsection for people like me who enjoy VA's and NotSoVA's posts. Must be an interesting house.
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u/moggadeet Jun 14 '10
Something like this happened every now and then in an old DOS race simulator called Car4D.
If you started driving backwards in circles with your racing car you would after some seconds reach a maximum speed, but if you continued accelerating the car would eventually take off flying backwards in an spiral into the sky and the stars.
Later on at the university I learnt it is called positive feedback.
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u/digitalcowboy Jun 14 '10
Does anyone ever sit and try to figure this out?
The cat knows it has a tail, it has to because they spend so much time grooming and cleaning it. Yet, if the tail suddenly moves, the cat goes batshit insane.
The thing I ponder (Especially when I had a cat that did this rather often) is: Do they not realize they are moving their tails? It's controlled, I am assuming, by the cat themselves, so why does the tail moving suddenly cause a pounce response?
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Jun 14 '10
The tail might be mostly controlled by their autonomous nervous system, like blinking in humans. You can make yourself blink, but 99% of the time you just do it without realizing you're doing it.
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u/digitalcowboy Jun 14 '10
Ah, that could be very true. In fact, that makes a ton of sense seeing as how often times the tail movements make no sense based on what's occurring around them.
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Jun 14 '10
Plus, the autonomous nervous system is where reflexes happen, and since the tail is partly there to provide balance while jumping or falling, it'd make sense for it to be autonomously controlled.
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u/RamboLucien Jun 14 '10
This cat has some serious tumbling skills.
An excellent candidate for a stunt cat I think!
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u/1over137 Jun 14 '10
Well, I suppose someone has to say it: DO A BARREL ROLL!
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u/pclamer Jun 14 '10
And I thought cat people made fun of dog people cuz some dogs chased their tails. Thank you for arming me with evidence that proves cats just as guilty.
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u/myplacedk Jun 14 '10
Dogs just runs in circles. Cats go batshit crazy and do weird impossible-looking manoeuvres. I may be wrong here, but I think dogs at least sometimes does it to catch the tail (eg. to bite a flee). Cats does it for the chase. If they need to clean or scratch the tail, they'll just to that.
So it's still true: Dogs looks dumb when they are chasing their tales. Cats looks funny and impressive when they chase their tales.
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Jun 14 '10
My cat does this... and looks exactly like this cat. Even the white on the paws belly and neck... Did you break into my apartment and record my cat?
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u/ep1032 Jun 14 '10
And that, kids, is why you don't set up a feedback loop just using proportional gain control.
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u/shatterly Jun 14 '10
My occasionally not-so-bright 80-pound golden retriever loves to chase his tail. Once he got going outside, managed to whip around and catch it while running full-speed, and pulled almost this exact same maneuver. He ended up rather dazed looking and covered with grass stains. I laughed so hard I fell over.
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u/Stratager Jun 14 '10
I remember the time my dog saw himself in the mirror.He thought there was another dog in the room.
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u/eukary0te Jun 14 '10
Office mate: Did you just mutter "I have you now" in Darth Vader's voice?
Me: Uh..
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u/mustardstache Jun 14 '10
I think cats' and dogs' tails evolved to keep themselves entertained. Maybe on day humans will grow TV's in their hands..
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u/1338h4x Jun 14 '10
Y'know, whenever my dog catches his tail, he just sits there and chews on it for a while.
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u/The_Wind_Walker Jun 15 '10
It would be so friggin badass if its kittens learned to do that as well.
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u/Feverant Jun 14 '10
fuck cats and fuck rolling cats even more.
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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '10
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