This continues a series of guest columns on how technology is reshaping hobbies and passions – basket weaving, rugby – whatever.
This time it is Rusty Weston, founder of Third Set Media, and an award winning journalist, blogger, researcher and public speaker. Here he writes about why cat people rule tech world. My beagle asked for equal time at the bottom :)
“Cats are like Gen Y employees. They have short attention spans, not much loyalty and are much more agile than your previous generation of tail waggers.
Take, for example, the topic of pets, pet owners, and technology. At the risk of generalizing, let's assert that dog people prefer clunky PCs; cat people like Macs. Dog people use Blackberry's; cat people have cool iPhones. Of course, some people don't know which they are because they either own both types of pets or neither one. Such people are truly lost.
I co- owned a fine dog for eight years but now have two gray cats, both Russian Blues, (Vixen and Dash) rescued from a one way ticket to Palookaville. My productivity is exponentially higher now – except for my bad habit of photographing them curled on my laptop.
Empirically speaking, cats are to high-tech innovation what dogs are to hunting – essential. Cats were the obvious inspiration behind your electronic device's sleep mode. Except that cats can jump into action much faster than my computer.
I don't want to knock dogs or dog people. But owning a dog can be dangerous – and no, not because they're likely to bite you. The feds recently revealed that out of 86,000 injuries that befell pet owners in the US last year, a whopping 88% of them affected dog owners. That stat tells us two things: both cats and cat owners are far more agile than dogs or dog people.
It's often said that dog people choose dogs that look like close relatives. Cat people make good movie villains but we don't resemble our cats. Academy Award Winners Halle Berry and Michelle Pfeiffer, dressed up as cats, have attained cat-like coolness in popular culture. Again, I hate to generalize but it seems like dog people look more like Morley Safer or Vinnie Mirchandani.
I could rest my case there but there are many more compelling facts to share with you. Consider that Mark Twain, a true genius, preferred cats over dogs. I could almost stop there, but then some goofball might argue, oh, Hemingway was often photographed with dogs.
To which I reply: His best short story was called A Cat in the Rain.
As you will see from the stats below, dogs tend to get more press than cats. Let's not blame that all on PR people. Dog owners are more evangelical than cat owners. After all, there are fewer of them!
Facebook (pages)
238,805 (biggest cat fan page)
471,629 (biggest dog fan page)
Technorati
71,584 references for cats
115,807 for dogs
Flickr
4,979,576 photos of cats
5,368,178 photos of dogs
Amazon
500,275 results for cats
561,557 results for dogs
You Tube
681,000 for cats
778,000 for dogs
131,000,000 results for cats
207,000,000 results for dogs
Humane Society
88.3 million owned cats in the US
74.8 million owned dogs in the US
$175 typical vet visit for cats
$219 typical vet visit for dogs
So, in conclusion, there are more cats than dogs, they're cheaper to maintain, they're smarter, sexier, and you're way less likely to trip over one in the dark. “
PS: Peanuts here. Remember me? I am Vinnie's beagle - number 25 in this guest series. Rusty can brag about cats, but I made sure he is number 43 in this series. You know as in George W. Lowest positive rating, and all that. ROFL.
Also, good to see number 41 in the series is a dog lover. So, Mr. 43 who's your daddy??!! Heheh...
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