A Meta-analysis of Research into the Warm Flat Rectangle by Dr Fluffy

July 26, 2024 6:56 AM

This short gen fic from a cat's point of view amused me: If Comfy, Warm, and My Size, Why No Sit: A Meta-analysis of Research into the Warm Flat Rectangle by Dr Fluffy Jones
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (21 comments total)

This is wonderful. I wish I could read the cited papers.
posted by pattern juggler at 7:05 AM on July 26, 2024 [6 favorites]

Clearly the problem is that we humans made the flat rectangle entirely the wrong size.

This seems remediable. How about a flat rectangle, say, roughly the size of a human hand, give or take?
posted by humbug at 7:11 AM on July 26, 2024

I'm assuming "gen fic" doesn't mean AI generated?
posted by Reyturner at 7:13 AM on July 26, 2024

I'm assuming "gen fic" doesn't mean AI generated?

Gen fic means that there's no romantic or sexual content. I remember it being used in fandoms 15+ years ago and probably pre-dates that.
posted by joyceanmachine at 7:14 AM on July 26, 2024 [7 favorites]

It means "fic for general audiences," which is a bit of a euphemism for "kid-friendly."
posted by humbug at 7:15 AM on July 26, 2024 [2 favorites]

Early researchers (Morris, Cleo, et. al. 1997) attempted to find a correlation between the WFR and the Large Cardboard Box (LGB), since both were obviously optimal for sitting, but were inconclusive.
posted by briank at 7:32 AM on July 26, 2024 [5 favorites]

Go Mittens:

Mittens et al. (2016). Stop Labeling Things Ritual Items Just Because You Don't Know What They Do

Academia needs more cats like that.

However, this brief literature review raises more questions than it answers. For example:

Most recently there have been proposals that the WFR has some application as a hunting tool: “During observation it was noted on twelve separate occasions that soon after playing with the buttons on the WFR a new human would appear at the entrance to the territory carrying food.” (Smudge and Oreo, 2022). As unlikely as this sounds it would help to explain humanity's lack of hunting ability, although as Mittens Jr pointed out in their rebuttal (Mittens Jr, 2023) this does lead to the question of how humans survived before the appearance of the WFR.

Does there exist no literature on this subject predating the WFR? Does food-WFR correlation appear throughout WFR history or is it a more recent trend? The fact that Jones fails to cite any literature predating 2001 indicates a number of possibilities: that Jones prefers napping to reading; that access to such literature is unavailable to the academic cat; or that academic development in cat society is itself a recent phenomenon. All of these but the first is worthy of further study.

The review also fails to cite the controversy in philosophical and mathematical circles over the signifier WFR, nor the WFR's recent emergence as a leading topic for party games ("Is This a WFR" in particular has wrapped cat society in its paw, and introduced "the clam rule test" into modern lingo). Nor has Jones addressed the startlingly common appearance of cats on the button-less portions of the WFR. The current reviewer has written no less than 3 papers on the topic; not one has been cited.

There is the seed of an interesting analysis here, but in the opinion of this reviewer Jones fails to exhibit the threshold level of curiosity for publication.
posted by trig at 7:36 AM on July 26, 2024 [21 favorites]

I’m surprised they did not cite the relevant research on SGRs, particularly the groundbreaking Small Glowing Rectangles: Are They Red Dots for Humans? (Timmy, Prancer et al., 2003) which documents the humans’ growing obsession with these objects and established the Sparkles Coefficient, the correlation ratio between SGR time and decline in Scritch Rates. Perhaps it is the lack of sitability that has caused SGR research to fall out of favor in most Academic Depurrments.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 8:11 AM on July 26, 2024 [12 favorites]

In the immortal words of the German catialist Karl Manx: "We must seize the means of cosiness."
posted by soundofsuburbia at 8:29 AM on July 26, 2024 [5 favorites]

trig & Ishbadiddle, other comparable studies are clearly biased, compare e.g. "not so cute"(!) [sciencefocus]

i, for one, laud Dr Fluffy's research & send gratuitous thanks once again to chariot pulled by cassowaries for continuing to bring critically important papers to our attention
posted by HearHere at 8:50 AM on July 26, 2024 [3 favorites]

Mittens et al. (2016). Stop Labeling Things Ritual Items Just Because You Don't Know What They Do
oh I see someone knows some archaeologists
posted by cobaltnine at 9:26 AM on July 26, 2024 [11 favorites]

in the opinion of this reviewer Jones fails to exhibit the threshold level of curiosity for publication.

While this criticism is not unfounded, it should be tempered by consideration of the fact that we do not know, and would not be so gauche as to inquire, what life Dr. Jones is on. In light of the known feline safety risks associated with curiosity, allowances should be made for personal decision-making and risk tolerance.
posted by nickmark at 9:58 AM on July 26, 2024 [5 favorites]

I love it. But...I assumed initially the WFR was a cardboard box, but the "buttons" part means that it is not. So - what exactly is WFR?
posted by davidmsc at 10:27 AM on July 26, 2024

So - what exactly is [a] WFR?

I believe I am both typing and viewing this comment on a Warm Flat Rectangle, but Jones's failure to describe more fully the characteristics of the object in question is a further demerit of their work.
posted by trig at 10:37 AM on July 26, 2024 [3 favorites]

Mittens et al. (2016). Stop Labeling Things Ritual Items Just Because You Don't Know What They Do


David Macaulay's delightful (and delightfully illustrated in his signature style) Motel of the Mysteries is a 1979 book about future archaeologists excavating and (mis)interpreting the ruins of a motel from the modern era. My 11-year-old self loved the notional future interpretation of a toilet seat as some kind of ritual headwear. Come to think of it, my present self needs to order a used copy.
posted by bassomatic at 10:46 AM on July 26, 2024 [6 favorites]

Surely there has been research into the connection between the WFR and the appearance only days later of brand new cardboard boxes.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:04 AM on July 26, 2024 [1 favorite]

I have not read this yet but everything about it is worthy of favoriting and so I have.

May have to create a sockpuppet account to come back and favorite again after I've read it.

Thank you for this, chariot pulled by cassowaries!
posted by kristi at 11:18 AM on July 26, 2024 [1 favorite]

[content note: cattiness]
trig, did you not rtfa? Jones's failure to describe more fully the characteristics of the object in question is a further demerit
with all due respect, that is classic: "humans react negatively"

is Metafilter becoming some kind of haven for speciesism? in this day and age?? how can demerits for a lack of specificity be issued immediately after saying The review also fails to cite the controversy in philosophical and mathematical circles over the signifier WFR, nor the WFR's recent emergence as a leading topic...
open-ended exploration wrt wfr must clearly be the point, given the current philosophical controversy. or have you not read the literature you so broadly cite?

perhaps you are thinking of the other Fluffy? Fluffy's significant AAI research [nih 2015] is often confused these days with AI. this frustrates me. they are not the same! i can't even-
posted by HearHere at 11:42 AM on July 26, 2024 [2 favorites]

I'd love to see a paper where the cats looked back to their grandsires' day, when the Warm Glowing Rectangle was on one side of a box whose top was perfectly warm but just a bit too sloped to fully fall asleep on. And then the humans made everything flat.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 3:48 PM on July 26, 2024 [3 favorites]

warm, and flat, and
and uh
warm, and flat, and rectangular
posted by credulous at 4:14 PM on July 26, 2024 [3 favorites]

looking at what else the author has written leads me to a category of fanfic on 4'33". i could not have imagined that was possible.
posted by Clowder of bats at 4:19 PM on July 26, 2024 [2 favorites]