Yesterday I celebrated the second anniversary of my move from the continent of North America to the continent of Europe. My mother came to visit (coincidentally, but it seemed appropriate). Nothing much else happened on the occasion. The bottle of sparkling wine I had bought stayed unopened in the refrigerator. Not that there was anything wrong, but it also wasn't exactly an Earth-shattering transition, and the simple fact of a visit from my mother was enough to move my attention firmly from the topic.
Now, late at night, I've had some time to think, and I thought of the following excerpt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
From the perspective of essentially the entire universe, I moved only an infinitesimal distance. Even from within our own solar system, I moved over the tiniest fraction of a pixel, from a highly advanced camera specifically focused to find that particular point of blue light in the depths of space. I just celebrated that this little point has made two complete revolutions around the modest star that gives it life, since I made that nearly imperceptible move.
If anybody can instill a sense of humility in a person, it's Carl Sagan.
It does make me yearn to make a more perceptible move, though. Somehow. Sometime.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Rules of Engagement
I don't generally write "political" posts because people are provably: ignorant, unreasonable, and self-centered. Read any cognitive psychology book. I'll get into the specifics in another post maybe.
At any rate, I recently posted a video released by WikiLeaks about an incident where a US Apache helicopter mowed down a group of "possible" insurgents, which happened to include two Reuters staffers. I'm an active reader and contributor of Reddit, a rather large online community that encompasses a wide range of perspectives from people of all walks of life. The video initiated a heated discussion in many many threads, with thousands of comments, and I've read a fair selection and hopefully gleaned something meaningful from it.
The most interesting item I encountered was a post by a former US military combatant who had served in precisely the same area where the video took place. It echoed - from a personal perspective - the position that the personnel heard on the audio track acted legally within the standard rules of engagement determined by the US military for attack helicopters in urban environments in Iraq. The situation was exacerbated by the stress of increasing insurgent activity at the time of the incident, leading to the unsettling tone of the commentary.
These things don't bother me particularly much. War is a fact, and a horrible, dirty, despicable, and undeniably negative fact at that. People die, and that's the point of war (pretty much). The subsequent coverup is also understandable, to a point. It's clear that it's difficult to wage a war without public support, so certain things must be done to keep that support. Fair enough, we all knew that, no big deal.
Two things bothered me.
Thing one: the Rules of Engagement are designed, written, controlled, and enforced by the US military. What is the purpose of these rules? To minimize costs in personnel and material, and maximize efficacy (achieving military goals). Civilian deaths increases costs because of court costs, PR costs, and perceived costs from public outcry, etc. Without public support, the tax money dries up (or somebody else gets elected), and the troops have to go home. It's a simple equation.
Logically, the solution offering maximum efficacy and minimum costs is nuclear annihilation: the enemy is irrevocably wiped out, and not a single ally is lost. The amortized cost of the weapon is absolutely minimal. Win! Except the domestic public and international governmental bodies would be horrified, the generals and commander in chief would be charged and judged to committing war crimes, and this type of thing certainly wouldn't be done.
The other extreme is sending in a force armed entirely with handcuffs, legions of detectives, psychologists, and lawyers, and capture, investigate, and try each potential enemy. Each case would be dealt with justly and with an absolute minimum of collateral damage (aside from inaction). This scenario is just as clearly impossible as the previous.
So we identify the need for a middle ground. Can we honestly say that a middle ground where it's acceptable for a helicopter to circle over a kilometer away and kill a group of people without absolute certainty that they pose a direct threat is where the line delineating the "Rules of Engagement" should be drawn? How about a middle ground where it's acceptable for that same helicopter to target and attack a van whose occupants show no interest but to help the wounded? When that van contains children? And what can we say about those rules of engagement when they prompt officials to deny any wrongdoing or mistakes, don't offer support or condolences for the survivors, and don't release the events for the public at large to consider the implications? What effect does that have on democracy?
Thing two: the ex-military man who wrote the post was intelligent, eloquent, and morally just man. He wrote with conviction, was well-informed, and refrained from name-calling, generalizations, and other low-brow techniques that can sometimes convince unreasonable people. The problem was that he argued the actions of the pilots and gunmen were justified, solely on the fact that their actions were within the letter of these Rules of Engagement. As if they were ordained by God himself. But they aren't - they're just written by some people in suits in a building somewhere, who're trying to balance a min-max equation of costs and benefits, and the derivative of the equation happens to be zero at the point where Apache helicopters and weaponized unmanned drones cross - a little to the right of the police-raid-arrest-trial nightmare, and a little to the left of nuclear holocaust.
Let's rethink those Rules of Engagement. This time, let's consider the foreign civilians as equals.
At any rate, I recently posted a video released by WikiLeaks about an incident where a US Apache helicopter mowed down a group of "possible" insurgents, which happened to include two Reuters staffers. I'm an active reader and contributor of Reddit, a rather large online community that encompasses a wide range of perspectives from people of all walks of life. The video initiated a heated discussion in many many threads, with thousands of comments, and I've read a fair selection and hopefully gleaned something meaningful from it.
The most interesting item I encountered was a post by a former US military combatant who had served in precisely the same area where the video took place. It echoed - from a personal perspective - the position that the personnel heard on the audio track acted legally within the standard rules of engagement determined by the US military for attack helicopters in urban environments in Iraq. The situation was exacerbated by the stress of increasing insurgent activity at the time of the incident, leading to the unsettling tone of the commentary.
These things don't bother me particularly much. War is a fact, and a horrible, dirty, despicable, and undeniably negative fact at that. People die, and that's the point of war (pretty much). The subsequent coverup is also understandable, to a point. It's clear that it's difficult to wage a war without public support, so certain things must be done to keep that support. Fair enough, we all knew that, no big deal.
Two things bothered me.
Thing one: the Rules of Engagement are designed, written, controlled, and enforced by the US military. What is the purpose of these rules? To minimize costs in personnel and material, and maximize efficacy (achieving military goals). Civilian deaths increases costs because of court costs, PR costs, and perceived costs from public outcry, etc. Without public support, the tax money dries up (or somebody else gets elected), and the troops have to go home. It's a simple equation.
Logically, the solution offering maximum efficacy and minimum costs is nuclear annihilation: the enemy is irrevocably wiped out, and not a single ally is lost. The amortized cost of the weapon is absolutely minimal. Win! Except the domestic public and international governmental bodies would be horrified, the generals and commander in chief would be charged and judged to committing war crimes, and this type of thing certainly wouldn't be done.
The other extreme is sending in a force armed entirely with handcuffs, legions of detectives, psychologists, and lawyers, and capture, investigate, and try each potential enemy. Each case would be dealt with justly and with an absolute minimum of collateral damage (aside from inaction). This scenario is just as clearly impossible as the previous.
So we identify the need for a middle ground. Can we honestly say that a middle ground where it's acceptable for a helicopter to circle over a kilometer away and kill a group of people without absolute certainty that they pose a direct threat is where the line delineating the "Rules of Engagement" should be drawn? How about a middle ground where it's acceptable for that same helicopter to target and attack a van whose occupants show no interest but to help the wounded? When that van contains children? And what can we say about those rules of engagement when they prompt officials to deny any wrongdoing or mistakes, don't offer support or condolences for the survivors, and don't release the events for the public at large to consider the implications? What effect does that have on democracy?
Thing two: the ex-military man who wrote the post was intelligent, eloquent, and morally just man. He wrote with conviction, was well-informed, and refrained from name-calling, generalizations, and other low-brow techniques that can sometimes convince unreasonable people. The problem was that he argued the actions of the pilots and gunmen were justified, solely on the fact that their actions were within the letter of these Rules of Engagement. As if they were ordained by God himself. But they aren't - they're just written by some people in suits in a building somewhere, who're trying to balance a min-max equation of costs and benefits, and the derivative of the equation happens to be zero at the point where Apache helicopters and weaponized unmanned drones cross - a little to the right of the police-raid-arrest-trial nightmare, and a little to the left of nuclear holocaust.
Let's rethink those Rules of Engagement. This time, let's consider the foreign civilians as equals.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Plug!
I've started an official blog for BioLogic! I haven't spent much time either blogging here or working on BioLogic (makes me wonder what I've been doing?), but that should change here. I'm very excited about BioLogic, and being excited about stuff also triggers the "writing hormones," as I like to call them. At any rate - anybody interested in the project need to go here to find out more.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Challenger Deep
I spent monday coursing over bright shining oceans. They are the Seas of Source, and they are deep.
Having sounded the depths the day before, today I was ready to jump ship to find out what lurks beneath the waves. What manner of creatures might live in the baby-blue upper layers, where the water is warm and the light is plentiful? What lies beneath? How deep is the darkness below? What survives the cold and the black, the thousand atmospheres of pressure, the isolation, the test of time? Does it dream? Fthagn...
As I entered these vast waters, I had an idea of their true extent. Twenty thousand source files in four different languages, with currents and riptides streaming to and from other libraries, frameworks, and runtime environments at every turn. But without tasting the salty drops of Source for myself and personally sampling its silty bottoms, how could I code the bays and inlets that are to come? How can I sculpt new seas, where salty spray is blown over steel decks not yet conceived?
Into the source I dove!
The upper layer - the world of light and constant motion. The layer between the unfathomable depths of the sea, and the life-giving air on the surface, where users live their lives, sleep in their comfortable beds with their wives, eat breakfast on cold winter mornings, and - when the winds are favorable - design ships. A user interface written in Eagle; flexible, powerful, it soars above the waves with sharp eyes and claws honed to penetrate the surface and trigger the functions beneath.
In the shadowy layers beneath, silvery objects flit about. A C++ thermocline layer forms a public interface between the utter darkness of the deep sea and the friendly code above.
Below that is a body of C. Strange structures of impenetrable mystery, bioluminescent jellyfish, surprising unions of different creatures squeezing out a living by exploiting every possible efficiency to survive in these cold, dark, nutrient-poor waters. The creatures are small as plankton - small creatures for small footprints.
The sea floor is ancient beyond mortal comprehension - a thin layer of Fortran sediments from times long gone, in the process of subduction. The silty bottom slides ever so slowly into the crust and joins the mantle, forever removed from the code base. Centuries hence, only the memory will remain - perhaps traces of variable naming conventions may boil up from volcanic vents into the C region above, but the modules and the code will exist no more. Currently, however, Fortran is the sand and the dust, the layers of clay and stone, the eyeless crabs and bizarre invertebrates seen only at these terrible depths, which separates and forms the interaction between two vastly different landscapes - the ocean of source-code above, and the world below: a world of mathematics and abstractions, databases, file systems, a globe of molten metal and amorphous rock. Our world. The same world which we mine, from which we extract the iron and minerals that make up our steel ships, which we drill for oil, which we travel by ship and by train, for business, pleasure, and exploration. Our world.
The sea floor is ancient beyond mortal comprehension - a thin layer of Fortran sediments from times long gone, in the process of subduction. The silty bottom slides ever so slowly into the crust and joins the mantle, forever removed from the code base. Centuries hence, only the memory will remain - perhaps traces of variable naming conventions may boil up from volcanic vents into the C region above, but the modules and the code will exist no more. Currently, however, Fortran is the sand and the dust, the layers of clay and stone, the eyeless crabs and bizarre invertebrates seen only at these terrible depths, which separates and forms the interaction between two vastly different landscapes - the ocean of source-code above, and the world below: a world of mathematics and abstractions, databases, file systems, a globe of molten metal and amorphous rock. Our world. The same world which we mine, from which we extract the iron and minerals that make up our steel ships, which we drill for oil, which we travel by ship and by train, for business, pleasure, and exploration. Our world.
From this perspective, this expanse of code – the Sea of Source – is a multi-tiered complex that connects the users on the sunny surface with the resources underlying ship design and construction down on the bottom of the abyss. The Sea is deep and vast, but penetrable; ultimately, its changing shorelines are finite and the deepest crevasse is measurable. Adding to it is certainly challenging, but not an impossible dream. Fthagn...
Monday, August 31, 2009
Well, there goes the neighborhood...
If you haven't seen this video yet, watch it. I'm a couple weeks late for having a timely reply, but I thought it would be nice to record my response for posterity.
Being someone who made similar little videos at my job, I can guarantee that this is 100% legitimate. Well, probably closer to 90% - I'm sure that robot hand doesn't always catch the phone.
Right?
Holy smokes, though. Imagine if the Terminator had this hand - just one - in the first Terminator movie. Sarah Connor would have been toast in a second! Add another couple of decades of development, make it two hands, and put SkyNet in charge. Then see what happens. Holy smokes.
I'm watching the US Open as I'm writing this. It's just the first round, but wow - Federer can do some amazing things! For all his strength, dexterity, innate talent, trained skill, the billion years of biological evolution, the thousands of years of technological development, and the hundreds of years of cultural background that has brought him to this point of history, I cannot help but wonder how long humans like him will remain the best on a tennis court. A decade or two? Maybe more?
It all depends on whether somebody convinces enough investors, universities, or government bureaucrats that a tennis-bot is worth $100 million or so to develop...
A general robot that could match Federer and do your dishes? Give it thirty or forty years. Not more than fifty, I would say. Ray Kurzweil thinks I'm a pessimist, and in this area I am. But that's because dealing with the real world is hard. Dealing with abstractions, logic, and ideas, however, is much easier. Considering this, I'd expect we'll have a robot that can match wits with Federer (or Hawking) within two decades. They already surpass us in so many ways, it's only a matter of time before we can consider them better in "most" ways.
Looking forward to it!
Being someone who made similar little videos at my job, I can guarantee that this is 100% legitimate. Well, probably closer to 90% - I'm sure that robot hand doesn't always catch the phone.
Right?
Holy smokes, though. Imagine if the Terminator had this hand - just one - in the first Terminator movie. Sarah Connor would have been toast in a second! Add another couple of decades of development, make it two hands, and put SkyNet in charge. Then see what happens. Holy smokes.
I'm watching the US Open as I'm writing this. It's just the first round, but wow - Federer can do some amazing things! For all his strength, dexterity, innate talent, trained skill, the billion years of biological evolution, the thousands of years of technological development, and the hundreds of years of cultural background that has brought him to this point of history, I cannot help but wonder how long humans like him will remain the best on a tennis court. A decade or two? Maybe more?
It all depends on whether somebody convinces enough investors, universities, or government bureaucrats that a tennis-bot is worth $100 million or so to develop...
A general robot that could match Federer and do your dishes? Give it thirty or forty years. Not more than fifty, I would say. Ray Kurzweil thinks I'm a pessimist, and in this area I am. But that's because dealing with the real world is hard. Dealing with abstractions, logic, and ideas, however, is much easier. Considering this, I'd expect we'll have a robot that can match wits with Federer (or Hawking) within two decades. They already surpass us in so many ways, it's only a matter of time before we can consider them better in "most" ways.
Looking forward to it!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
BioLogic: Logic Programming with Biological Parts
BioLogic is shaping up nicely.
Right now, I have a Perl program that takes all FASTA-formatted BioBricks provided by this page of the Parts Registry, scrapes additional information for each entry from the Parts Registry website, and puts it in a giant Prolog program.
When this program is loaded, you can query the knowledge base to get, say, the names of all the parts sharing the same part parameters as part with id number 9422:
?- parameters(Partname, Parameters),parameters(ThePart, Parameters),part_id(ThePart,9422).
Partname = 'BBa_I14016';
Partname = 'BBa_K0991107';
...
No.
Cool! From there it's only a small step to get additional information about the parts in question, pick the ones marked 'Group Favorite,' print out their DNA sequences, or get a link to the web page with information about obtaining the part (e.g. a page like this).
It seems to me this is already a neat tool that could help scientists interact and explore the parts database, based on their needs. Just a little work on getting it robust, opening web-pages in a browser window, and the nifty command-line tool is ready. Slap a UI on there (more work than it sounds, unfortunately), and it might actually be user-friendly.
But the real power of Logic Programming is not exploited with little steps like these. We plan on introducing rules into the program that allow it to reason about combining parts.
With just a few basic rules, it'll be possible to give the program a list of one or more parts we'd like to use, and have it return an entire ordered list of the parts and processes required to incorporate them. Several lists, in fact, leaving the final choice up to the scientist, but at least ensuring that - according to our basic rules - each entry in the list is possible.
Ok, so this step in the development of BioLogic is pretty neat - automating some of the reasoning the synthetic biologists need to do to ensure they end up with a functioning organism. Useful and handy, but not as far as we can push this technology.
By adding additional rules about the behavior of parts, the program will be able to generate a complete part sequence based on a list of desired behaviors supplied by a scientist. These rules would apply to what the program knows about each part - the semantic implications of different categories, the part parameters, etc. Specific rules applying to individual parts or part classes could also be added, providing even more detailed and subtle knowledge to the program.
Prolog provides two great benefits in addition to the core functionality described above.
One great thing about Prolog programs is that they don't simply return one "best" answer, unless you really want them to. They can generate a nearly limitless number of solutions, which in this case would give researchers ample opportunity to experiment with its answers and introduce rules to improve the program. The second great bonus is that you can ask Prolog to explain itself - that is, show its chain of reasoning. This feature can give greater insight into the program, how the parts function together, and any errors or limitations in the knowledge base. It also helps explain how Prolog comes up with surprising answers - which often happens, for better or for worse.
Most of this advanced work will have to be performed by synthetic biologists who understand the interaction between parts, chassis, DNA, and the enzymes involved. Anybody know someone who might be interested?
Right now, I have a Perl program that takes all FASTA-formatted BioBricks provided by this page of the Parts Registry, scrapes additional information for each entry from the Parts Registry website, and puts it in a giant Prolog program.
When this program is loaded, you can query the knowledge base to get, say, the names of all the parts sharing the same part parameters as part with id number 9422:
?- parameters(Partname, Parameters),parameters(ThePart, Parameters),part_id(ThePart,9422).
Partname = 'BBa_I14016';
Partname = 'BBa_K0991107';
...
No.
Cool! From there it's only a small step to get additional information about the parts in question, pick the ones marked 'Group Favorite,' print out their DNA sequences, or get a link to the web page with information about obtaining the part (e.g. a page like this).
It seems to me this is already a neat tool that could help scientists interact and explore the parts database, based on their needs. Just a little work on getting it robust, opening web-pages in a browser window, and the nifty command-line tool is ready. Slap a UI on there (more work than it sounds, unfortunately), and it might actually be user-friendly.
But the real power of Logic Programming is not exploited with little steps like these. We plan on introducing rules into the program that allow it to reason about combining parts.
With just a few basic rules, it'll be possible to give the program a list of one or more parts we'd like to use, and have it return an entire ordered list of the parts and processes required to incorporate them. Several lists, in fact, leaving the final choice up to the scientist, but at least ensuring that - according to our basic rules - each entry in the list is possible.
Ok, so this step in the development of BioLogic is pretty neat - automating some of the reasoning the synthetic biologists need to do to ensure they end up with a functioning organism. Useful and handy, but not as far as we can push this technology.
By adding additional rules about the behavior of parts, the program will be able to generate a complete part sequence based on a list of desired behaviors supplied by a scientist. These rules would apply to what the program knows about each part - the semantic implications of different categories, the part parameters, etc. Specific rules applying to individual parts or part classes could also be added, providing even more detailed and subtle knowledge to the program.
Prolog provides two great benefits in addition to the core functionality described above.
One great thing about Prolog programs is that they don't simply return one "best" answer, unless you really want them to. They can generate a nearly limitless number of solutions, which in this case would give researchers ample opportunity to experiment with its answers and introduce rules to improve the program. The second great bonus is that you can ask Prolog to explain itself - that is, show its chain of reasoning. This feature can give greater insight into the program, how the parts function together, and any errors or limitations in the knowledge base. It also helps explain how Prolog comes up with surprising answers - which often happens, for better or for worse.
Most of this advanced work will have to be performed by synthetic biologists who understand the interaction between parts, chassis, DNA, and the enzymes involved. Anybody know someone who might be interested?
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
It's You! (How are you, Gentlemen?)
The number of cats in this neighborhood is absolutely staggering. I believe they outnumber us humans by a factor of two or more.
What happens when cats rule the streets? Who determines which cat goes where? What rules do they follow? Are there any rules? Who would enforce them? Why?
These questions continue down paths few people dare tread: why do we have cats in the first place? Why do they insist on our company, yet consistently refuse to obey our commands or indulge in our whims? What's going on behind those big green eyes?
That glint; the winking eyebrows, cheeky grin; what on God's green Earth could they be up to?
I'm not going to pretend to have any answers, but I've been around my neighborhood enough to have gained a little glimpse of understanding of their world. It works a little like this:
At the top, Boss Cat is boss. A giant one-eyed Persian, he paid our two young female felines a visit a week after their arrival in the neighborhood. Boss Cat waited for us to let them out, moved away to a respectful position, and observed - to see if they behaved like proper young cats. It appears both Anka and Izzy passed the test; he hasn't been back since, and they've been allotted our back yard. I'm not going to pretend our dog didn't have anything to do with it, but Boss Cat calls the shots.
Boss Cat has several deputies. One of the most notable is Highway Cat. He sits by one of the main passages between downtown Groningen and Beijum - a bridge over the ringway surrounding Groningen. Highway Cat performs two functions. The first (probably his primary) function is to monitor our comings and goings. Perhaps there's a Highway Cat at every through-way to Beijum. In any case, this Highway Cat is at his post at least three of every four times I pass this point. Of course - who knows if he's hiding in the bushes - observing in secret.
Highway Cat doesn't only work for the benefit of felines. I was biking home one time, coming at high speed down the bridge, when I noticed Highway Cat at his usual place. There's an intersection with a blind corner there, and I've always taken it on faith; there's not much traffic, so the chance for misfortune is small - usually. This time, however, he sat up, stared at me, then backed away in an odd fashion. I understood this to mean there was someone coming from the other direction, so I moved to the left lane in anticipation. Sure enough, a moped came cruising at high velocity! Had I not moved in response to the cat, I don't think that avoiding a collision would be possible.
There are other cats that fulfill some sort of function within cat society, but I don't really know what those functions are...
Creepy Cat, for instance. At first I thought he played a policing role, but it's just creepy... its teeth are large, yellow, and point in all the wrong directions. It eats like a fiend, looks totally emaciated, sits on garbage cans and bike seats, and its meow is like rubbing sand paper on a chalkboard. Perhaps he works as a scavenger of sorts - he loves to ravage garbage bags.
Love Cat is one cat I don't know very well. It seems that Love Cat has his heart set on Anka. Anka is certainly very beautiful - our little princess - but is entirely uninterested, due to some surgical intervention. Love Cat hates on Izzy, too, so perhaps Love Cat's purpose is to encourage some form of cat prissiness.
I'll add more cats to this list since I'm not home during the day, when all this drama is visible to humans. I'm finally on vacation, so perhaps I can observe a few more cats first-hand and see what they are up to, such as Gimp Cat and Mean Big Furry Black Cat, among others.
What's the lesson in all this? I don't know, but that's probably only because Boss Cat doesn't want me to...
What happens when cats rule the streets? Who determines which cat goes where? What rules do they follow? Are there any rules? Who would enforce them? Why?
These questions continue down paths few people dare tread: why do we have cats in the first place? Why do they insist on our company, yet consistently refuse to obey our commands or indulge in our whims? What's going on behind those big green eyes?
That glint; the winking eyebrows, cheeky grin; what on God's green Earth could they be up to?
I'm not going to pretend to have any answers, but I've been around my neighborhood enough to have gained a little glimpse of understanding of their world. It works a little like this:
At the top, Boss Cat is boss. A giant one-eyed Persian, he paid our two young female felines a visit a week after their arrival in the neighborhood. Boss Cat waited for us to let them out, moved away to a respectful position, and observed - to see if they behaved like proper young cats. It appears both Anka and Izzy passed the test; he hasn't been back since, and they've been allotted our back yard. I'm not going to pretend our dog didn't have anything to do with it, but Boss Cat calls the shots.
Boss Cat has several deputies. One of the most notable is Highway Cat. He sits by one of the main passages between downtown Groningen and Beijum - a bridge over the ringway surrounding Groningen. Highway Cat performs two functions. The first (probably his primary) function is to monitor our comings and goings. Perhaps there's a Highway Cat at every through-way to Beijum. In any case, this Highway Cat is at his post at least three of every four times I pass this point. Of course - who knows if he's hiding in the bushes - observing in secret.
Highway Cat doesn't only work for the benefit of felines. I was biking home one time, coming at high speed down the bridge, when I noticed Highway Cat at his usual place. There's an intersection with a blind corner there, and I've always taken it on faith; there's not much traffic, so the chance for misfortune is small - usually. This time, however, he sat up, stared at me, then backed away in an odd fashion. I understood this to mean there was someone coming from the other direction, so I moved to the left lane in anticipation. Sure enough, a moped came cruising at high velocity! Had I not moved in response to the cat, I don't think that avoiding a collision would be possible.
There are other cats that fulfill some sort of function within cat society, but I don't really know what those functions are...
Creepy Cat, for instance. At first I thought he played a policing role, but it's just creepy... its teeth are large, yellow, and point in all the wrong directions. It eats like a fiend, looks totally emaciated, sits on garbage cans and bike seats, and its meow is like rubbing sand paper on a chalkboard. Perhaps he works as a scavenger of sorts - he loves to ravage garbage bags.
Love Cat is one cat I don't know very well. It seems that Love Cat has his heart set on Anka. Anka is certainly very beautiful - our little princess - but is entirely uninterested, due to some surgical intervention. Love Cat hates on Izzy, too, so perhaps Love Cat's purpose is to encourage some form of cat prissiness.
I'll add more cats to this list since I'm not home during the day, when all this drama is visible to humans. I'm finally on vacation, so perhaps I can observe a few more cats first-hand and see what they are up to, such as Gimp Cat and Mean Big Furry Black Cat, among others.
What's the lesson in all this? I don't know, but that's probably only because Boss Cat doesn't want me to...
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