This keeps me up at night
2026-04-09 22:53 UTC
Replies (16)
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@sompreno@lemmy.zip 2026-04-09 23:03
The cats not falling if its attached to a generator
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@teslekova@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-10 03:39
Apart from the problems pointed out by my esteemed colleagues in the comments elsewhere, I am sorry to say that this project, upon which our country has spent so many dollars, is fundamentally flawed. I know that this will be a major disappointment, but we are scientists! We must face the truth! The entire principle that causes a piece of bread to fall butter side down depends on, as we know, the fundamental law of inconvenience. Butter, touching the floor and getting icky dust and germs on it, is rendered useless, and taints the very bread upon which it is installed. Furthermore, one must clean up the butter from the ground. Such concentrated inconvenience, combined with Murphy’s law, ensures that the buttery bread will indeed fall down and touch that floor. Touch, gentlemen! For it to be inconvenient, it must make contact with the floor! But if we, in our ambition and satisfied self-regard, ensure that the bread is securely strapped to the back of one of our many, many brave feline test subjects, then the bread can never touch the floor! Inconvenience then has no mechanism of action, and Murphy smiles upon us no more! This project’s delays, long thought to be merely an issue of getting the balance right, of baking the perfect slice of bread, of securing sufficient butter, of scaling up using cheetahs, etc… They are all explained by the tragic and incontrovertible truth that we have been wasting our time on a doomed errand that could never work, even in principle! We must shut down, and stop wasting our time on this foolishness! I personally have already applied, and been accepted, at the Corpse-Spinning Turbine Project, where I can only hope there is no similar fundamental misunderstanding. I suggest you all do the same.
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@SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 2026-04-09 23:20
So then why do we have the idiom, “dead cat bounce”? Seems this would only work until the cat dies. (Entropy is a bastard.)
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@JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 2026-04-10 03:50
Check out Cato on PSN. Its a puzzle platformer based on this concept!
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@Agent641@lemmy.world 2026-04-10 11:40
This meme is so old it could vote. For Regan.
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@justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-10 07:51
There was a video about it, which was hilarious. Just to lazy to look it up
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@grranibal@lemmy.zip 2026-04-10 09:56
Where is the boiling water?
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@Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 2026-04-10 16:57
Purrpetual motion machine!
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@FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 2026-04-09 23:09
Theres actually a video version of this meme: [YouTube Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc)
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@EveningPancakes@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-09 23:42
Already been done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc
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@bearoftheisle@europe.pub 2026-04-10 02:47
I think my grandpa saw this meme in his youth
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@Emotional_Engi@lemmy.zip 2026-04-10 02:15
2010s called, they want their jokes back.
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@unmagical@lemmy.ml 2026-04-09 23:19
The rotation is partly actively maintained by muscular action from the cat. This is a chemical process that requires fuel and releases heat. This also eventually tires the cat. Given the relatively low mass involved this really doesn't have much potential for large scale generation. An Ox mill would be more practical in most cases.
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@Resist@lemmy.org 2026-04-10 01:14
Won’t work cause they are no longer falling… duh
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@fox2263@lemmy.world 2026-04-10 03:29
Or instead of bread, two cats.
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@grainfed@quokk.au 2026-04-10 00:27
This is classically called a "buttered cat array". I first remember it in New Scientist sometime last century. Oh, and you need an array, because a single cat will not produce much power on its own.