I can foresee a design flaw, which is that the cat will ignore all the specially designated areas and sit on your keyboard instead.
x______________ 1 days ago [-]
Past experience with cat-wrangling over the years have taught me one thing (amongst many): It doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human.
Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).
Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.
And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.
And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!
Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~
teamonkey 1 days ago [-]
They are incredibly communicative animals. Their problem seems to be that I am a very stupid creature that often does the wrong thing, like not feeding them every time they’re hungry, sitting at a desk instead of playing with them, carrying them out of the room when they were clearly trying to get on the kitchen counter, and so on.
miriam_catira 23 hours ago [-]
Or, god forbid, stupid creature that I am, I buy _the wrong flavor food_. Then it's all "why are you trying to poison me, hooman? do you not love me anymore??"
embit 21 hours ago [-]
One of the best Human-Cat interactions scenes about food in a movie is the opening 10 minutes from movie The Long Goodbye
Rewatched this movie last week. Best movie I've seen in at least a year. Robert Altman is immortal.
rkagerer 20 hours ago [-]
And yet despite all our deficiencies they still choose to spend their time with us, how great are these creatures.
teamonkey 5 hours ago [-]
They are very patient with us
__david__ 3 hours ago [-]
My cats actually love their cat tree. I’ve had to replace it because they clawed through the scratching post legs (all the way through the cardboard underneath the sisal rope).
Knowing that they love rectangles explains a lot too. They love every Amazon box that arrives, the folded hand towel in the bathroom, the top of my pc mini tower (rectangular and warm). Though they get off the tower when I’m playing a game since the gpu heats up so much and the exhaust fans blow out the top—it just gets too hot for them. I made a “cat catcher for my bed—a single hand towel folded in half lying on the otherwise featureless comforter. There’s almost always a cat there when I wake up in the morning.
This desk might actually work for me since one of my cats loves to sleep right under my office chair, dangerously close to the wheels. He’s got real long hair and I find tufts of fur around the chair and feel absolutely horrible. Crazily I almost never notice when it happens, he doesn’t yelp! I finally ended up buying a small scratching post with a bed on top and set it under my desk. He instantly took to it, so no more running over the poor cat. As a bonus he’s now in petting reach so I can get my cat fix whenever I need (petting is a two way street).
dylan604 23 hours ago [-]
From my direct multi-year study, the surest way to have a cat not lay in a specific place is to place a fluffy cat bed in that place. Also, no toy is more precious to a cat than a non-toy item stolen from the hooman with hair ties being one of the most precious items.
wpm 17 hours ago [-]
My cat yells at me a lot but my god I took a pastic bag from him a few days ago that he was licking (is there a more annoying noise on the planet?) and my god he sulked about it for a good 18 hours.
winrid 14 hours ago [-]
My cat also likes to lick plastic, but they're plastic containers. No idea why.
habinero 12 hours ago [-]
I cat sat once for a friend who had a plastic goblin. I spent the entire two weeks obsessively checking that I didn't leave any plastic out only to (occasionally) find the cat happily chewing on something that I didn't think they would find.
I learned my lesson about the depths of feline creativity lol and I was thankful they didn't get into anything that hurt them
enlyth 1 days ago [-]
Yeah after investing in countless cat toys from the pet store, I found out that my cat's favorites are (in no particular order):
- McDonald's paper straw
- Bird feather from outside
- Empty toilet paper roll
- Shoelace
- Strap of Velcro
- Bottle cap
unsnap_biceps 1 days ago [-]
I think variety is the key, and we've had really good outcomes by having a few pet shop toys (feather on wand, squeaky mouse, ball with bell) that we bring out for a few hours every few weeks and then put away, so it doesn't turn into something normal for them to ignore.
brewdad 23 hours ago [-]
Elastic hair ties have always been a favorite of my cats. My wife has to hide them unless she wants to be gifted with the "kill" at 3am.
shinycode 11 hours ago [-]
+1 after many failed attempts to buy useless cat toys, I’ve been really surprised that those are what we loves the most. He can play alone with it for hours and is absolutely crazy happy to play fetch with me. Maybe when I throw the elastic hair is kind of a bird like feature him.
financetechbro 1 days ago [-]
Cat + bottle cap around the hours of 3am - 5am seems to be a preferred form of entertainment, from my experience
tonyarkles 19 hours ago [-]
I woke up early the other day. The house was perfectly silent until I got near the kitchen, when I heard a ping followed by an odd sound. As I got closer to see what was going on, an empty beer can casually rolled past my feet. The cats were nowhere to be seen.
21 hours ago [-]
ProllyInfamous 1 days ago [-]
I awoke this morning to newcat lapping from my bedside drinking glass (with a dash of tea/caffeine). She has two other waterbowls... but I guess is mad at me because the edible I ate last night caused me to sleep in too long for her breakfast likings.
Lil'shit knows this is not allowed, on a tabletop she's not allowed upon, no less!
----
I'm not a cat person and somehow have inherited a black kitten from each parent.
----
At least she didn't curl up napping upon my Apple Silicon (thankfully kess attractive than older Macbook AMD GPUs)... that's when I know I've actually fucked up #catWorld
ordu 11 hours ago [-]
When I was dying from COVID, it was an agony that lasted for two or three days. I don't remember the most of it, but I had no will or strength to get up. My cat was pissed off about me not feeding her. Obviously she was, though I didn't witness it with my own eyes, I was too deep into that COVID thing. At some point she decided that enough was enough, so she came to me and sat on my face. But the real devilry was the piece of shit that was stuck to her fur. I can tolerate my cat's ass on my face, but not her shit. I was fully awake in seconds. And she got her food.
I always thought of her as of the stupidest cat I knew, but that event convinced me otherwise. She was the smartest cat, she was smart enough to conceal her intelligence so as not to raise my expectations for her behavior.
andix 1 days ago [-]
Exactly. Contrary to popular belief cats don't sit there because a laptop keyboard is warm. They also sit on external keyboards or even in front of a tablet without a keyboard (blocking the view to the screen). They just want your attention.
whimblepop 1 days ago [-]
I'm not sure if this is enough for demanding cats, but I used to type with a small dog bed directly in front of me and my keyboard behind it, so that I'd work typing with my arms around my elderly chihuahua every day. She seemed to like it a lot, and she basically had my attention every time she stirred.
I also felt that it was probably good for me for her to break my flow and demand my attention every now and then. It helped remind me to get up and stretch and be human better than I otherwise would have done.
groovy2shoes 1 days ago [-]
i came across a manuscript once that had a bunch of inky paw prints across a page. the scribe clearly tried to blot one of them, merely smudging it, then decided to let the rest be. it was in a very beautiful hand, and the full page must've taken hours to write. that scribe's exasperation echoes through the ages. i wish i could find that MS again.
to be fair, the page was probably arranged in a nice sunny spot at the time of the incident.
I have a keyboard tray and a desk with two monitors. Both of my cats love to stand on the space in the desk of whatever monitor I happen to be focusing on more (preferably blocking as much of it as possible from my view). They know exactly what they're doing.
freedomben 1 days ago [-]
Partially correct. For sure a lot of it is getting attention, but they do care about the warmth. I've walked in to my office plenty of times to see my cat sitting on my laptop when I haven't even been in there for hours. She will even find the laptop and lay on it when it's in random places around the house. Reproduced with three different cats over the yeras. The warmth is definitely a cat magnet.
freedomben 5 hours ago [-]
I should also add (too late to edit the original comment), that when the laptop is off and I haven't used it in hours, she doesn't care about it. It's only when it's on that she does (which is why I think the heat is a factor).
nkapias 22 hours ago [-]
Noticed that in my absence, cats hang where I spend the most of my time when present.
If for a few days I only come home to sleep I'll usually find them on my bed.
If I work at my desk for a week, then the next days they'll be found on my chair.
And so on.. A somewhat reliable habit indicator.
JumpCrisscross 20 hours ago [-]
> Noticed that in my absence, cats hang where I spend the most of my time when present
Mine too. I believe it has something to do with your scent being soothing to them. We tend to think of domestic cats as solitary creatures. And while it's true that cats are solitary hunters, they are absolutely a social species, a truth betrayed by feral cats predominantly organising into colonies.
habinero 12 hours ago [-]
Mine take turns getting The Good Spots, so I wonder if they think it's their turn
saghm 23 hours ago [-]
When my cats want warmth, they go on top of my desktop tower (or on my lap under the keyboard tray). If they're at the level of my desk, they're almost definitely angling for attention.
butvacuum 23 hours ago [-]
sometimes its scent too.
rickstanley 1 days ago [-]
Put a useless keyboard down there and pretend you are typing with your toes.
dhoe 1 days ago [-]
They're predators. They are very good at understanding where your real attention is.
egypturnash 23 hours ago [-]
this is an invitation to toe crimes
drgo 24 hours ago [-]
this is a good way to lose a toe or two
conartist6 1 days ago [-]
It could have a special heated area of the desk that isn't used for any technological purpose
andix 1 days ago [-]
It doesn't work. I have the laptop next to my screen and an external keyboard. The cat always chooses the cold external keyboard instead of the warm laptop, because that's the center of my attention.
tauroid 24 hours ago [-]
Split keyboard. Far enough apart and you have a dedicated cat zone.
Split keyboard mounting each half to the chair and VR headset instead of a monitor. That way, they can't get in front of the monitor or walk across the keyboard.
A frmr coworker of mine wrote a Linux kernel module (not an April Fools' joke) to detect and prevent feline input... either stuck or neighboring keys. I don't think it was ever merged.
tdb7893 23 hours ago [-]
I put a nice box with a pet safe heating pad and blanket and the cat never sat on my keyboard again. When she wanted my attention she then just stood in front of my face and then would sit back on the blanket eventually
fwip 22 hours ago [-]
Yep. I have one of these on my desk: https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Cattop/dp/B09F8QQPJH/ (a heating pad shaped like a laptop), and our cat will spend 90% of my workday on it, and the remaining 10% is spent getting my attention (or getting lunch).
dcminter 23 hours ago [-]
My wife, being a genius, has a decoy keyboard. Pretty effective, it usually has a cat sitting on it.
PebblesRox 15 hours ago [-]
I tried this for my toddler but unfortunately it fooled me more often than it fooled him.
nottorp 1 days ago [-]
Exactly!
Although my last cat was nicer and slept between the keyboard and monitor. Pushing aside every small piece of crap that I kept on the desk of course (had to regularly gather sd cards that she pushed off the desk) but at least she let me see and type!
Vedor 10 hours ago [-]
Mine too likes to lie between the keyboard and the monitor, but if I want to actually work I still have to remove her from the desk.
The issue is that, while she usually is a lovely cat, the hand movements over the keyboard are turning her predatory instincts on, and sooner rather than later she's going to bite...
isolay 1 days ago [-]
Makes sense. Cat probably thought you were grooming and warming up the keyboard just for her.
pjmlp 1 days ago [-]
Exactly my thought, given my experience with fellow felines.
type0 22 hours ago [-]
Or more likely on top of your tower pc
dbacar 1 days ago [-]
That is inevitable :)
1 days ago [-]
ivraatiems 1 days ago [-]
The problem is that cats can flawlessly detect when something was made for them to use, and then will not deign to use it.
Meanwhile, the cardboard box you have forgotten to take to the recycling for three weeks will become their palace.
fullstop 1 days ago [-]
I have food periodically delivered from Chewy, and I keep the box. Each month, the old box is recycled and the new box is put to use: https://i.imgur.com/lFgp63O.jpeg
There is definitely an attraction aspect related the "freshness" of the box, as there are squabbles over which cat gets to use the new box. These squabbles wane over time, until the new box arrives.
aitchnyu 10 hours ago [-]
Are they using some olfactory "palatant" on the boxes?
dmd 10 hours ago [-]
No. The simple explanation is “cat”.
zdware 24 hours ago [-]
Same habit here!
mcswell 1 days ago [-]
We got a nice cozy fuzzy cat bed. So naturally the cat decided to sit in...the cardboard box the bed came in.
bartvk 1 days ago [-]
We once got a cat bed with a soft canopy. It held up due to the stiffness of the fabric. The cat found out that it’s possible to make the canopy sag by putting her full weight on it. She never actually slept inside it, only on top of it. When she died of old age, the bed looked old and disheveled, but the inside was pristine…
pdpi 1 days ago [-]
I deliberately leave the most recent delivery box out for my cat to lounge in. Sometimes it’s a small studio flat, other times (like when my 3d printer arrived) it’s a whole palace. She likes them either way.
PhilipRoman 1 days ago [-]
Mine likes them as well, but usually within 24 hours they're transformed into thousands of tiny cardboard pieces.
ChrisMarshallNY 1 days ago [-]
Chewy.com deliberately indicates that its boxes are for cats.
Also, their brown paper filler is loved by my cat. He doesn’t like Amazon packaging paper, but is all over Chewy paper. I wonder if they add a scent.
rationalist 1 days ago [-]
I just put an appropriately-sized cardboard box on the corner of my desk.
linsomniac 1 days ago [-]
Ditto, a short box from wet cat food worked really well to keep my cats off the laptop.
I have a USB keyboard and external monitors, so the laptop sits off to the side, and is warm, so they loved to sleep there. Particularly a problem since it also has a button that powers off the laptop. I made a keyboard cover, but even then it was problematic with them sleeping on it (thermal throttling).
Putting a box on the desk solved that, they prefer it, until a second cat wants to join the party, which is thankfully rare.
burnt-resistor 6 hours ago [-]
And bags.
The exceptions to not pandering to cat overlords are scratching posts and litter boxes.
_fat_santa 1 days ago [-]
I have a cat bed[1] that's attached to my desk. It's got a "monitor arm" and a bed on top. My cat loves to see what I'm doing all day so she will just lay there for hours and watch me work.
Seems designed by people who definetly do not work from home with cats.
The cats demand to be on top of the desk, within attention reach at all times.
Pro tip: even big cats love to lay in the top cover of a printer paper box. You can adorn the outside, but keep the inside plain smooth cardboard as they are extremely fond of that feel.
drfloyd51 1 days ago [-]
I put a small blanket in an inverted printer paper lid. Instant hit.
The can was always at arms reach for scritches and cat debugging.
wombat-man 1 days ago [-]
There's just no room on my desk. But I put a chair next to mine and sometimes she sits there to watch.
shinycode 11 hours ago [-]
The article is useless, but the comments about people talking about their cats are priceless.
Thank you OP to have ignited this thread, makes me so happy to read about other people love/observations of their cat.
Definitely my all time favorite on HN
yardshop 20 hours ago [-]
Simone Giertz had a different approach, she built a bench for her and her dog with stairs so it could come and go as it wanted to.
Putting "cat desk" into Amazon didn't show any custom desks, but did come up with a wide range of desk attachments for cats, as well as "cat laptop" (a scratching board shaped like a laptop) so this doesn't feel very surprising.
I agree with other commenters that this has about 99% chance of being ignored in favour of your keyboard, though.
stronglikedan 1 days ago [-]
Heh, cool. It's the complete opposite of my idea - an office chair for people who work at home with a dog. It's just a regular office chair but double wide - an office loveseat maybe? Anyway, the point is that the couch just isn't ergonomic enough for me to be productive, but I like when my dog cuddles me while I work.
ana_lysis 1 days ago [-]
I have a relatively big office chair and do exactly this. I ordered the chair online so I didn’t know that it would be quite so big. Now my dog has learnt to hop on to the chair and curl around behind me. I do end up sitting on the edge of my seat but obviously my dog’s comfort takes priority.
emeraldd 1 days ago [-]
yeah, this is no go. What you want is a way for the cat to be in a box front and center. So an underdesk keyboard tray that doesn't have room for a cat to sit on, but is big/deep enough for your hands, keyboard, and mouse and a "box" on the desk proper that the cat will naturally gravitate too. Of course, this works best with desktop machines or external monitors and keyboards instead of just a laptop.
dsr_ 17 hours ago [-]
Behind me: the recliner where I sometimes think or listen to music or read. Has a towel on it just in case. Cat likelihood while working: 55%
Next to me: the windowsill cat tray. Cat likelihood while working | sunny day: 65%. Cat likelihood while working | overcast or evening: 40%
Cardboard banker's box lid on my desk, with an old t-shirt in it. Cat likelihood while working: 70%
It's true that there are four cats in this house, and cat politics is weird, so these results may not hold for any other circumstances.
jollymonATX 1 days ago [-]
More like cat tree you might get no work done on but good for te kitties
MisterTea 1 days ago [-]
Seriously. This desk does the opposite of what I need. My cat has no issue getting on top of the desk. I need the desk to keep the cat off the keyboard and a shield over my mousing area before the cat settles it and denies mouse access.
Was easier when I had a big CRT on my desk, and the cat would just chill on top and bat at the mouse pointer moving around the screen.
nabbed 21 hours ago [-]
I came to post the same thing. I assume my cat liked the heat emanating from the CRT's vents on top.
geephroh 1 days ago [-]
Sounds like a good diy project with an old monitor and a raspberry pi...
lstodd 3 hours ago [-]
I have an EGA monitor (one of the Thomsons), but a custom built USB CRTC/framebuffer (that uses SRAM from 386-486 motherboards I still have laying around somewhere) instead of RPi. It does not help with the cat though.
alsetmusic 16 hours ago [-]
I had a shallow box on my desk during the pan and one of the kitties would rest there while I worked. I had to let that desk go when moving because it wouldn't survive another deconstruction and reconstruction.
My present desk is very much "no kitties," but there's a largish box that my NAS came in next to me and they like to get on that and interact with me, so it never left. I also bought a super cheap tall narrow Ikea chair for the shallow box and one of them loves to sleep there next to me. The total cost (excluding the nas that was in the box) was like $17.
Cat's don't need expensive furniture. They just need things that fit the way they like to hang out. Mostly boxes.
vjvjvjvjghv 1 days ago [-]
Since Japan is a rule following society I assume the cats there will sleep only in the designated areas.
huggerl88 1 days ago [-]
They just took a computer desk from the 90s and cut three holes in it.
> Cats are not humans, but we design things like they are, for our convenience. What are the design patterns for cat-architecture? One missing design pattern: progressive concealment, for cat ledges, flaps & window boxes.
windowliker 1 days ago [-]
If only we could plug our cats in and use them to type. Call it a purrallel port.
tonyedgecombe 1 days ago [-]
They prefer cat-5 cabling.
markstos 1 days ago [-]
Also need a split keyboard so a cat can sleep in between the halves.
skyberrys 1 days ago [-]
I put a chair next to my chair and now my cat sits there so she can easily bat my USB wires and threaten my hair. She also sometimes hops onto my desk and gently taps at loose things or tries to chew up papers. I think this desk would offend her, but maybe the hole would make for fun surprise attacks at me?
kabdib 1 days ago [-]
Lap-insistent cat made it impossible to use a keyboard. I finally bought a desk-height cat "tree" (maybe a shrub...) and put it beside my chair. He'll move to it after some scratching, and he's happier because he can actually nap.
CamouflagedKiwi 1 days ago [-]
Valuable lesson about understanding your potential customers. There is in fact zero chance of my cats (and probably most others) sitting where they are supposed to, they much prefer being on top to look around - and sometimes to look intently at the screen as though they are reviewing my code.
vidarh 1 days ago [-]
There are desk attachments that will allow your cat to lord it over you from on high.
CamouflagedKiwi 1 days ago [-]
I have a bookshelf and a cat tree near my desk, they do indeed do that.
green-salt 1 days ago [-]
I love the weight limits being described in case someone has a particularly chonky cat
librasteve 11 hours ago [-]
How about a startup that integrates a cat with agentic AI … lemme know if you would like to see this on crowdsource. If only I could think of a name…
sdoering 1 days ago [-]
I am working from home, my office is actually the former (and current) "cat room". For nearly 10 years my SO and myself were a foster home for rescue cats. And quite a few stayed here for various reasons.
None of them would use the desk. But they really enjoy their cameos in my Teams and zoom calls. And when I am not at my desk, when I am closing my laptop for the day, they instantly enjoy flopping down on the still warm machine.
omoikane 1 days ago [-]
I agree with all the comments that say the cats will likely not use the desk as designed, but note that they did manage to take all these photos with the cat in the designated places, albeit not a single photo with the person actually typing on the keyboard as opposed to playing with the cat.
Maybe the desk really is designed for people who work at home, if their job is cat photographer.
Freak_NL 1 days ago [-]
> There’s another cat space on the underside of the desk surface, in the normally unutilized space in front of your knees when you’re sitting.
Yeah… If you're of a typical Japanese length. My knees appreciate all the space they can get, and that very much includes the bit of 'unused space' where a cat can go in the article.
(Living in Japan as a student really made me feel like a two metre tall giant at times. Classroom desks at Japanese universities were universally too small.)
tusuegra 23 hours ago [-]
Working from home in Buenos Aires with two cats. Can confirm: no amount of designated cat space will prevent them from choosing exactly the spot where your hands need to be.
My actual solution ended up being a cheap heating pad on a shelf right next to my monitor, at the same height. Cats are heat-seeking missiles, so in winter it works about 80% of the time. In summer nothing works and you just accept the situation.
The real issue nobody talks about is video calls. Clients see a cat walk across your keyboard mid-demo and suddenly the conversation shifts from your product to your cat for 10 minutes. Not the worst sales strategy honestly.
jmugan 1 days ago [-]
My cat and I want a chair with a little shelf on the back by my head where he can sit.
ge96 1 days ago [-]
Every time I get up my cat steals my chair even though he has his own next to mine
kleiba 1 days ago [-]
Get two identical chairs.
olyjohn 1 days ago [-]
I think they like the heat. They also love to sit on warm car hoods after the car is shut off. Maybe a heating pad set on low would attract them.
Someone 1 days ago [-]
Could be because that one is warmer because you sat on it.
baddash 1 days ago [-]
my cat personally wants to be between me and the monitor right in front of my face. so maybe designing a desk with like, a dip or hole or something where the cat can go into would be good
hinkley 1 days ago [-]
Just put a box top on the corner of your desk as a cat trap.
himata4113 1 days ago [-]
All fun and games until the cat ends up sitting in front of your monitor, just like my cat is doing right now because it is warm.
Had to move my browser up to see what I am typing.
bombcar 1 days ago [-]
You need a stand such when the cat's weight is detected in front of the monitor, the monitor is lifted up.
himata4113 1 days ago [-]
Then the source of heat will disappear and the cat will simply move to the 2nd monitor.
ciberado 1 days ago [-]
Electric blankets. I put mine in the chair next to me and my cat will furiously ask me to turn it on each morning. Three hours of peace.
wiether 1 days ago [-]
The website design, the post content, the pictures... I get a big OO's web feeling reading this; that's weird!
QuantumGood 1 days ago [-]
I have a rolling wire rack with plants on it next to the desk. One shelf is dedicated to a cat bed and toys.
amelius 24 hours ago [-]
Nobody else worrying that a cat may be caught under the wheels of your office chair?
walrusted 12 hours ago [-]
some cats want to be high up. and where is the litter box and snack station?
dbg31415 9 hours ago [-]
Yeah... The cat gets a penthouse AND a front-row seat to watch me destroy both knees every time I sit down -- courtesy of the hidden shelf under the desk. Truly designed by evil cats, for evil cats.
mytailorisrich 1 days ago [-]
Just get a cardboard box, like your latest Amazon delivery. They are a magnet for cats.
nickpsecurity 1 days ago [-]
Nah, they like to lay on the laptop to eliminate their competition. They want all our attention.
m3047 1 days ago [-]
I swear that once upon a time I sat at a desk, and it had a label printer sitting on it, and the box of labels was in a box fed through a hole pretty much like that... except I think it was kinda square with rounded corners. The "shelf" under the main part looks like you could put a retractable keyboard mount under there. Is this a joke?
jldugger 1 days ago [-]
I'm sorry Japan, but this is not how cats work. Cat "flight or fight" response is to run and climb a tree. They prefer to be up high, not down low in some cabinet. Feels safer for naps.
> There’s another cat space on the underside of the desk surface, in the normally unutilized space in front of your knees when you’re sitting.
"Normally unutilized"? This is where the drawer goes. Otherwise, it's just a glorified table, not a desk.
FpUser 22 hours ago [-]
I just put round cat bed on my desk to the left of my keyboard. Works like a charm. It is close by so I can play with the cat / pet it and cat does not use my keyboard as a bed.
xybernetex 22 hours ago [-]
Yeah, fantastic idea. 'Cept that whole cats are waaaaaay more intrigued with what a human has to do than what it most well thought out for it.
impoppy 1 days ago [-]
That’s silly. Cat will get on your keyboard anyway. The only real solution is to get heated floors. So my cat prefers sitting under my chair or desk and never gets on it.
throwaway290 1 days ago [-]
cat review: 1 star, I want to sleep on my warm desktop tower again
goodpoint 1 days ago [-]
Pretty poor design all around.
mrweasel 1 days ago [-]
Also illegal here in Denmark, if you use it while working from home. Desks must be height adjustable. Your employer is responsible for providing ergonomically correct office equipment. Basically any influencer and YouTuber who's showing "clever" desk hacks or builds fails because their creations aren't height adjustable.
And my cat sleeps behind the laptop anyway.
andai 1 days ago [-]
Remarkable. What else is illegal there?
mrweasel 23 hours ago [-]
You can't stuff workers into rooms/offices without access to daylight.
type0 22 hours ago [-]
In Sweden, not checking on your cat at least twice daily is illegal
dboreham 1 days ago [-]
Not proper bacon, which seems to be illegal in the USA!
cestith 1 days ago [-]
Not illegal, but much harder to find than the sliced, cured belly meat (often from the side of the belly) usually meant when we just say “bacon” without qualification. One can get Canadian bacon, cured side bacon, cured back bacon, uncured pork belly, uncured side meat, uncured back meat, turkey bacon, beef bacon, and several other things in bacon-like categories. If you just say “bacon”, though, you’re probably going to get pork belly meat cured with salt and/or some form of sugar, and possibly smoked.
flakiness 1 days ago [-]
This comment made this post worthwhile. Thanks for the tip!
slopinthebag 1 days ago [-]
Wait, what? Can you chose not to use a height-adjustable desk, and your employer is only responsible for offering you one, or are you 100% forced into using a height adjustable desk?
mrweasel 23 hours ago [-]
For work you must use a height adjustable desk. It doesn't have to be electric, you just need to be able to adjust it to your correct work height. If you don't use it, and I don't know work at your kitchen desk, that's technically a violation of workspace rules. Your boss tell you to use a proper desk, because if they don't they can be fined.
You also can't use the keyboard and trackpad on your laptop. You must be provided with a separate keyboard, mouse/trackpad/trackball and a monitor. Working on your laptop is for emergencies or very brief tasks.
slopinthebag 14 hours ago [-]
So in other words my preferred way of working (laptop on couch) is literally illegal? What an insane nanny state lol.
tsumnia 1 days ago [-]
For real, what is that? World of Warcraft icons on a generic fantasy background?
I actually hoped for a good solution here, but this is basically a table with holes. I would not dare call such a table a solution for annoying cats. On youtube there are many examples that are better. My favourite one here is where the walls of the room are climbable areas for the cats.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1 days ago [-]
They should add radiative heating. Cats often just want to steal your warmth.
kevin_thibedeau 1 days ago [-]
That's what the tower PC is for.
dgunay 21 hours ago [-]
my cat would be like "cool desk bro" and then plop themselves right on the keyboard or, even though I'm using a 32:9 monitor, exactly in front of the desktop window I happen to be working on
cf100clunk 1 days ago [-]
I cannot tell if this is real or satire, but it is brilliant for online cat people.
whackernews 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
gib444 1 days ago [-]
I will never understand the accomodations people make for a pet which gives you so little in return. If most owners were 100% honest and in private I reckon at least 50% would admit their cat is an asshole.
I mean they don't even smile like a dog. They look miserable most of the time!
It's like an abusive relationship where nothing you do will please them LOL
Yes, I'm a dog person ;)
There must be something to the toxoplasmosis theory
drgo 23 hours ago [-]
I recall reading that ~30% of humans have evidence of toxoplasmosis. But, it is unclear whether that is harming their intelligence. Statistically, cat owners have higher IQ than dog owners (pls do not shoot the messenger unless you want to provide further evidence of the validity of this observation).
tptacek 18 hours ago [-]
Sure, I'll bite: there is no such thing as a sufficiently powered survey of validated tested IQ with "dog owner" and "cat owner" in the cross-tabs.
cestith 1 days ago [-]
I’m a dog person, but most cats are lower maintenance than most dogs.
gib444 23 hours ago [-]
High ROI though
Does your cat welcome you every day when you come home like you're the most awesome person in the world? Doubtful! Dogs - hell yeah
gverrilla 23 hours ago [-]
> so little in return.
That's simply not true. You clearly never had a cat.
gib444 23 hours ago [-]
Pray tell
Rendered at 19:48:22 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).
Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.
And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.
And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!
Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~
Knowing that they love rectangles explains a lot too. They love every Amazon box that arrives, the folded hand towel in the bathroom, the top of my pc mini tower (rectangular and warm). Though they get off the tower when I’m playing a game since the gpu heats up so much and the exhaust fans blow out the top—it just gets too hot for them. I made a “cat catcher for my bed—a single hand towel folded in half lying on the otherwise featureless comforter. There’s almost always a cat there when I wake up in the morning.
This desk might actually work for me since one of my cats loves to sleep right under my office chair, dangerously close to the wheels. He’s got real long hair and I find tufts of fur around the chair and feel absolutely horrible. Crazily I almost never notice when it happens, he doesn’t yelp! I finally ended up buying a small scratching post with a bed on top and set it under my desk. He instantly took to it, so no more running over the poor cat. As a bonus he’s now in petting reach so I can get my cat fix whenever I need (petting is a two way street).
I learned my lesson about the depths of feline creativity lol and I was thankful they didn't get into anything that hurt them
- McDonald's paper straw
- Bird feather from outside
- Empty toilet paper roll
- Shoelace
- Strap of Velcro
- Bottle cap
Lil'shit knows this is not allowed, on a tabletop she's not allowed upon, no less!
----
I'm not a cat person and somehow have inherited a black kitten from each parent.
----
At least she didn't curl up napping upon my Apple Silicon (thankfully kess attractive than older Macbook AMD GPUs)... that's when I know I've actually fucked up #catWorld
I always thought of her as of the stupidest cat I knew, but that event convinced me otherwise. She was the smartest cat, she was smart enough to conceal her intelligence so as not to raise my expectations for her behavior.
I also felt that it was probably good for me for her to break my flow and demand my attention every now and then. It helped remind me to get up and stretch and be human better than I otherwise would have done.
to be fair, the page was probably arranged in a nice sunny spot at the time of the incident.
https://art.thewalters.org/object/W.305/
Mine too. I believe it has something to do with your scent being soothing to them. We tend to think of domestic cats as solitary creatures. And while it's true that cats are solitary hunters, they are absolutely a social species, a truth betrayed by feral cats predominantly organising into colonies.
A frmr coworker of mine wrote a Linux kernel module (not an April Fools' joke) to detect and prevent feline input... either stuck or neighboring keys. I don't think it was ever merged.
Although my last cat was nicer and slept between the keyboard and monitor. Pushing aside every small piece of crap that I kept on the desk of course (had to regularly gather sd cards that she pushed off the desk) but at least she let me see and type!
Meanwhile, the cardboard box you have forgotten to take to the recycling for three weeks will become their palace.
There is definitely an attraction aspect related the "freshness" of the box, as there are squabbles over which cat gets to use the new box. These squabbles wane over time, until the new box arrives.
Also, their brown paper filler is loved by my cat. He doesn’t like Amazon packaging paper, but is all over Chewy paper. I wonder if they add a scent.
I have a USB keyboard and external monitors, so the laptop sits off to the side, and is warm, so they loved to sleep there. Particularly a problem since it also has a button that powers off the laptop. I made a keyboard cover, but even then it was problematic with them sleeping on it (thermal throttling).
Putting a box on the desk solved that, they prefer it, until a second cat wants to join the party, which is thankfully rare.
The exceptions to not pandering to cat overlords are scratching posts and litter boxes.
[1]: https://a.co/d/0hymOUdn
The cats demand to be on top of the desk, within attention reach at all times.
Pro tip: even big cats love to lay in the top cover of a printer paper box. You can adorn the outside, but keep the inside plain smooth cardboard as they are extremely fond of that feel.
The can was always at arms reach for scritches and cat debugging.
I built a chair for dogs that always want to sit next to you (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYqz1F6eAVU)
I agree with other commenters that this has about 99% chance of being ignored in favour of your keyboard, though.
Next to me: the windowsill cat tray. Cat likelihood while working | sunny day: 65%. Cat likelihood while working | overcast or evening: 40%
Cardboard banker's box lid on my desk, with an old t-shirt in it. Cat likelihood while working: 70%
It's true that there are four cats in this house, and cat politics is weird, so these results may not hold for any other circumstances.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/b1tay1/the_decoy_keybo...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJH3pXLa8o0
My present desk is very much "no kitties," but there's a largish box that my NAS came in next to me and they like to get on that and interact with me, so it never left. I also bought a super cheap tall narrow Ikea chair for the shallow box and one of them loves to sleep there next to me. The total cost (excluding the nas that was in the box) was like $17.
Cat's don't need expensive furniture. They just need things that fit the way they like to hang out. Mostly boxes.
> Cat itecture: Better Cat Window Boxes
> Cats are not humans, but we design things like they are, for our convenience. What are the design patterns for cat-architecture? One missing design pattern: progressive concealment, for cat ledges, flaps & window boxes.
None of them would use the desk. But they really enjoy their cameos in my Teams and zoom calls. And when I am not at my desk, when I am closing my laptop for the day, they instantly enjoy flopping down on the still warm machine.
Maybe the desk really is designed for people who work at home, if their job is cat photographer.
Yeah… If you're of a typical Japanese length. My knees appreciate all the space they can get, and that very much includes the bit of 'unused space' where a cat can go in the article.
(Living in Japan as a student really made me feel like a two metre tall giant at times. Classroom desks at Japanese universities were universally too small.)
My actual solution ended up being a cheap heating pad on a shelf right next to my monitor, at the same height. Cats are heat-seeking missiles, so in winter it works about 80% of the time. In summer nothing works and you just accept the situation.
The real issue nobody talks about is video calls. Clients see a cat walk across your keyboard mid-demo and suddenly the conversation shifts from your product to your cat for 10 minutes. Not the worst sales strategy honestly.
Had to move my browser up to see what I am typing.
Something like https://desknest.com seems much more likely to work.
"Normally unutilized"? This is where the drawer goes. Otherwise, it's just a glorified table, not a desk.
And my cat sleeps behind the laptop anyway.
You also can't use the keyboard and trackpad on your laptop. You must be provided with a separate keyboard, mouse/trackpad/trackball and a monitor. Working on your laptop is for emergencies or very brief tasks.
[1] https://soranews24.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/03/ch...
I mean they don't even smile like a dog. They look miserable most of the time!
It's like an abusive relationship where nothing you do will please them LOL
Yes, I'm a dog person ;)
There must be something to the toxoplasmosis theory
Does your cat welcome you every day when you come home like you're the most awesome person in the world? Doubtful! Dogs - hell yeah
That's simply not true. You clearly never had a cat.