[{"content":"I’m living for a while in Puerto Escondido, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, in a house with a lot of cats. Some are pets. Some are strays. Some are of unknown origin. The owner of the house is in Italy, so while I’m here, I look after them.\nNinja, Ciccio and Mika Ella, with a black-and-white friend. Pets, strays, or somewhere in between? I buy their food out of my own pocket. Sometimes I pay for a vet visit, or deworming medication. Nobody asked me to — it’s just what you do when a cat is sitting at your door looking at you.\nI’m sure I’m not the only person in the world doing this. In fact I think there are a lot of us: people quietly becoming informal custodians of cats we don’t technically own. We feed them, we recognise individuals, we notice when one disappears or gets sick, we pay for sterilisation or vet care — usually with no coordination with the other people doing exactly the same thing a few streets away.\nThe question Most systems for animals assume every cat needs an owner. But what if the more useful starting point is simply this:\nA cat with an identity, a history, and a network of people who care about it.\nIdentify the cat. Create its record. Let every human encounter after that add to its shared history.\nThat feels like the seed of something. I don’t yet know what it grows into — this blog is where I’m going to find out, in public, with your help.\n(I’m focusing on cats for now. Dogs are welcome eventually — they’re just a different type of cat.)\n","date":"Oct 3, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/the-cats-nobody-owns/","section":"Stories","summary":"Where this idea started: a house full of cats in Puerto Escondido, and a question about who looks after them.","title":"The cats nobody owns"},{"content":"When I arrived in Puerto Escondido I didn’t know any of the cats. Then people started introducing me to them. I learned their names, and their stories. Now I have many names and many stories.\nWhen someone new arrives, I tell them those stories and share the names. That’s how the knowledge spreads — person to person, over dinner, on the doorstep. But it doesn’t spread much further than that.\nI also started an Instagram account, @mimos_cat_sanctuary, to show off the cats: their beauty, their characters, the funny videos. Instagram is great for that. But it isn’t built around the cat — it’s built around me, the account holder. It can’t let the next caretaker inherit what I know and keep adding to it.\nCiccio and Tenkilo. Every one of them has a name, a story and a personality. Right now, those live in my head and on Instagram. I’ve already built the system — by hand Looking at it now, I’ve been running a cat-tracking system all along. The database is human memory, storytelling and Instagram. Each cat gradually picks up an identity: a name, photographs, a personality, relationships, a territory, a health history, origin stories, encounters.\nThe problem is that all of it lives inside individual people, and when those people leave, the knowledge disappears.\nA first principle The cat persists while the humans around it come and go — so the record should belong, conceptually, to the cat, not to any particular caretaker.\nThe opportunity isn’t just “tracking stray cats”. It’s creating a persistent, shared identity for an animal that no single human owns.\n","date":"Oct 3, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/the-cat-outlives-us/","section":"Stories","summary":"Everything I know about these cats lives in my head and on Instagram. When I leave, it leaves with me.","title":"The cat outlives its caretakers"},{"content":"Some of the cats that visit me are obviously being fed very well somewhere else. I don’t know where. I don’t know whether those people think of the cat as their pet, or as a stray they happen to feed. And I don’t know what they call it — so I’ve given it my own name. Which means these cats now have several names.\nImagine one physical cat:\nTo me, it’s Ninja. Three streets away, someone calls it Naranja. To the restaurant on the corner, it’s an unnamed stray. To a family nearby, it’s Milo, their beloved outdoor pet. All of those perspectives can be true at the same time.\nWhat this tells us A cat’s identity can’t be its name, its location, or its owner — because all three are ambiguous. Underneath, there has to be a single cat, with many human claims attached:\nI call this cat Ninja. I see it here, most mornings. I feed it. I think it’s a stray. I think it belongs to someone. I last saw it on Tuesday. And the important bit: the system shouldn’t force everyone to agree too early. It should gather evidence, and over time recognise that what looked like separate records are probably the same cat.\nThat changes the idea from a cat directory into something more interesting: a way to piece together the fragmented truth about an animal from many independent human encounters.\nDo you know a cat with more than one name? I’d love to hear about it.\n","date":"Oct 3, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/many-names-one-cat/","section":"Stories","summary":"Some of ‘my’ cats are clearly well fed somewhere else. I don’t know where, or what those people call them.","title":"Ninja, Naranja, or Milo? Many names, one cat"},{"content":"We live in a time of incredibly rich technology and very mature development tools. I think the moment has come for something like this to exist. But it’ll take time and resources, and I’m not going to start coding today. For a while, this is going to be all talk.\nThat’s on purpose. Writing code now would constrain the thinking. The most valuable work right now is figuring out what the system is before deciding how software should represent it.\nSo for now there’s:\nno product plan no MVP no business model no commitments Just following whichever question seems most interesting, and seeing where it leads. Along the way I expect to uncover the building blocks the system will need to understand.\nWhy a blog, and why this one I wanted somewhere to share these ideas and get feedback — and I wanted to own the platform completely, rather than put it on Facebook or another algorithm-driven social network. So this is a simple website of its own, with short posts and a way to reply directly.\nI’m not pitching an app here. Each post starts with something real — a cat, a name, a caretaker, a vet bill, a disappearance — and follows the question it raises. If you recognise the problem because you’re living it too, you’re exactly who I’d like to hear from. The unfinished thinking is the interesting part.\n","date":"Oct 3, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/all-talk-no-code/","section":"Stories","summary":"Why I’m deliberately not building anything yet.","title":"All talk, no code (for now)"},{"content":"Every project needs a name, even a temporary one. It doesn’t need to be commercially perfect — it just needs to capture the idea and make me smile.\nSome of the contenders:\nCatena — Latin for “chain”: a chain of encounters and shared knowledge, and it starts with “Cat”. Catlas — an atlas of cats. Catkin — cats connected through relationships. WhiskerNet, Nine Lives Network, and the wonderfully literal Who’s This Cat? Straybook — I like it, but it sounds like a Facebook spin-off, and that’s pretty much the opposite of what I want this to be. In the end I settled on the simplest one: Stray Cats.\nEveryone knows straight away what it’s about. It doesn’t pretend to know what the finished product will be. And I like the irony in it: we call the animal a stray cat, but this whole project might end up showing that it isn’t really stray at all. It has a whole network of humans, places, names and relationships around it.\nSo, Stray Cats it is — for now. If you have a better name, tell me.\n","date":"Oct 3, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/naming-the-thing/","section":"Stories","summary":"Every project needs a code name. Here’s how this one got its name.","title":"Naming the thing: Stray Cats"},{"content":"When someone new arrives at the house, I introduce them to the cats. This is Ciccio. That’s Tenkilo, in the sun as usual. The orange-and-white one by the bowl? We call it Mountain Lion; nobody knows its real name.\nAnd when people meet a cat, they take a photo. Almost everyone does. It’s the most natural thing in the world.\nThen the photo disappears into a camera roll, somewhere between a receipt and a sunset. The name I told them fades. The cat goes back to being “a black cat I saw in Mexico”.\nWhat if the photo was the introduction? Imagine taking that photo and, a few seconds later, getting the cat’s card:\nCiccio Black A girl, whatever her name suggests. Curls up with Mika Ella. Mountain Lion Orange and white A nickname. Real name unknown. Tenkilo Cream Named for weighing almost ten kilos. Clearly fed somewhere else too. A name, a coat, one thing worth knowing. If the cat is already known, you meet it properly: here’s what other people know about it. If it isn’t, you’re the first, and your photo is the start of its story.\nThat would be a lovely thing for the person holding the phone. But the real point is the cat. Every one of those photos is an encounter: one more piece of the cat’s history, one more person who recognises it, maybe one more person who notices when it’s thin, or limping, or gone.\nFun is the doorway, not the destination I want meeting a cat to feel like a small gift, because that’s how people will keep doing it. But it’s easy to imagine what happens if “fun” takes over: the most photogenic cats get the attention, and attention isn’t always good for a cat that lives on the street. A cat’s exact spot becomes something anyone can find. A cat becomes an attraction.\nSo the rule I keep coming back to is simple: if a fun feature and the cat’s wellbeing ever disagree, the cat wins. No rankings. No exact spots. No photos floating around without the cat’s story attached.\nI’ve written up the details in a new idea page, Meeting a Cat. What would make you stop and record a cat you meet? And what should a cat’s card never show?\n","date":"Oct 4, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/a-photo-is-an-introduction/","section":"Stories","summary":"When people meet a cat, they take a photo. What if that photo introduced them to the cat, and the cat to everyone who could help it?","title":"A photo is an introduction"},{"content":"When I first came to the house, Ninja was skin and bone. A little orange tomcat, missing fur, covered in wounds, fighting the other cats every night: you could hear him screaming. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near him. He clearly hadn’t met many kind humans for a while.\nNot everyone who loves cats can afford to feed every cat that turns up, and some cats end up going without. Ninja was one of them.\nSo I started feeding him at night. Before long he was coming to my door, then sleeping at my door, because he knew I was there. Little by little his fear of me faded.\nNow he’s the talk of the town. Friends and family of the house come by and ask, “Is that Ninja?” and then, “He looks so good!”\nNinja Orange and white Not Mountain Lion, though they're easy to mix up. What Ninja taught me Loving cats and affording them are different things. In a place where money is tight, a person can care deeply about every cat in the yard and still not be able to feed them all, or pay for sterilisation. That’s not a failure of love. It’s exactly the gap a care network could fill: someone else might be able to share the cost, or the food, or the vet bill.\nOne person can change a cat’s life, and then leave. Ninja is thriving because someone had the time and the means to feed him every night. But I’m only here for a while. When I go, who will know that Ninja eats at night, or that he was once in such a bad way? That’s the whole reason for Stray Cats: the cat outlives its caretakers.\nWhen feeding stops, cats notice fast. On the hard days, when Saibo was ill and when I was sick myself, feeding slipped. The cats started hunting and biting almost immediately. Being fed regularly is the difference between a calm cat and a desperate one.\nDo you know a cat like Ninja, one who was turned around by someone who simply kept showing up? I’d love to hear about it.\n","date":"Oct 5, 2026","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/posts/ninja-the-talk-of-the-town/","section":"Stories","summary":"Ninja was skin and bone when I arrived. Not everyone who loves cats can afford to feed them all, so what happens to the ones left over?","title":"Ninja, the talk of the town"},{"content":"Before software can represent a world, you have to understand that world. These are the concepts that keep coming up:\nConcept What it means here Cat The actual animal. It exists whether or not anyone has recorded it correctly. Identity What makes this cat this cat. Not its name, location or owner, which can all be ambiguous. Encounter A moment when a person sees, feeds, photographs or treats a cat. The basic unit of knowledge. Meeting The simplest encounter: someone meets a cat and takes its photo. The way in for most people. Card How a cat is shown and shared: photo, names, coat, neighbourhood, and only what’s safe to show. Place Where encounters happen: a house, a street, a restaurant, a territory. Person Anyone who meets the cat: caretaker, neighbour, visitor, vet, rescuer. Care Feeding, shelter, deworming, sterilisation, vet visits — and who pays for them. Health What we know about the cat’s condition over time. History The growing record of everything above, from birth to death (with an obituary), which belongs to the cat. Relationship Cat ↔ person, cat ↔ place, cat ↔ cat (mothers, litters, rivals, companions). Trust How confident we are in a claim, and in the person making it. Principles so far The cat persists, the humans come and go. The record belongs to the cat, not to any caretaker. Identity ≠ name, location or ownership. All three are ambiguous. Don’t force agreement too early. Gather claims and evidence, and let the truth emerge. No one has to be the owner. A cat can simply have a network of people who care about it. Cats first. Dogs come later (they’re just a different type of cat). Meeting, not owning. People meet cats; no one owns or claims them. Fun is the doorway, not the destination. Meeting a cat should be a pleasure, but every feature is there for the cat’s benefit. If fun and the cat’s safety disagree, the cat wins. Listen: the whole idea in depth A 38-minute audio deep dive: the stories from Puerto Escondido, then the ideas, the building blocks and the open questions, and what’s new in this version. It was made with Google’s NotebookLM from the pages on this site, so the two voices are AI-generated. There’s also a 90-second introduction to the whole idea.\nDownload the audio Speed 1× 1.5× Remembering the Cats Nobody Owns, an audio deep dive (38 minutes) Open questions Which of these concepts is missing, or should be merged into another? Is “Encounter” really the basic unit, or is it “Claim”? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/the-building-blocks/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Twelve concepts the system will need to understand, long before anyone writes code.","title":"The Building Blocks"},{"content":"Background: A photo is an introduction\nThe idea When people meet a cat, most of them take a photo. That photo is the easiest way in there will ever be, so Stray Cats should start there:\nSee a cat, take one photo. That’s the whole first step. No form to fill in. Get the cat’s card in seconds: its photo, a name, its coat, and where it was met, at the level of the neighbourhood, never the exact spot. If the cat is already known, meet it properly. “This might be Mountain Lion. Real name unknown. Others have met this cat here too.” You learn its story instead of starting from nothing. If nobody has met it yet, you’re the first. You can give it a name, and your name for it joins the others; it doesn’t replace them. You can start with just a nickname: no email, no password. And every card starts from a real photo of a real cat that someone actually met.\nCats you’ve met Everyone who uses Stray Cats would keep a list of the cats they’ve met. Not cats they own or have claimed: cats they’ve met. It’s a small, warm thing to look back on, and it’s the start of a relationship with each one.\nThese are the cats I’ve met at the house, as cards might show them:\nCarlitos Grey tabby Skittish and not neutered. After months, finally lets me touch him. Ciccio Black A girl, whatever her name suggests. Curls up with Mika Ella. Hootie Black, with a collar The collar says someone's looking out for Hootie. Who? Lucia Calico A black patch over one eye. Mika Ella Tabby and white Curls up with Ciccio. Mountain Lion Orange and white A nickname. Real name unknown. Ninja Orange and white Not Mountain Lion, though they're easy to mix up. Tenkilo Cream Named for weighing almost ten kilos. Clearly fed somewhere else too. Sharing a cat You could send a cat’s card to a friend in a message, or to the next person who’ll be looking after the house. They can then follow that cat: see when it’s been met again, and its story as it grows. A card only ever shows what’s safe to share (see Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety).\nYou could also see cats being met in other towns and countries: a gentle window on how many people, everywhere, are quietly looking out for cats. Only the area is ever shown, and only after a delay, so it can never lead anyone to a cat.\nLearning to see cats Once you start meeting cats, you start seeing them: the tabby’s M on the forehead, the tuxedo’s white chest, the calico’s three colours, the notched ear. Stray Cats could help people learn coats and markings a little at a time, and keep track of the ones they’ve met.\nThat isn’t only for fun. Coats and markings are exactly what helps tell one cat from another (see Cat Identity \u0026 Multiple Names). The more people notice, the better everyone gets at recognising each cat.\nGentle reasons to look A few light prompts could make a walk a chance to notice the cats around you: “Have you seen Ninja this week?”, “Meet a cat on a street you don’t usually walk.” Cats met while travelling could be kept too: the cat outside a café in another town is part of someone’s memory, and part of that cat’s story.\nWhat it’s for The pleasure of meeting a cat is the doorway, not the destination. Every meeting is an encounter, and every encounter quietly helps the cat:\nIt adds to the cat’s history, so the next person inherits what’s known. It helps recognise the cat: “Is this Mountain Lion?” is a moment of fun for one person and a confirmed match for the cat’s record. It can carry a quick note about the cat’s wellbeing: looks thin, limping, ear tipped (already sterilised), new kittens nearby. That’s what the care network needs to know. It shows who cares: a cat met by many people has many people who might help. What it won’t do No popularity contests. No rankings, no “most-met cat”, nothing that turns a cat into an attraction. Attention can put a cat at risk. No exact spots. Cards show the neighbourhood, never the exact place where a cat lives or eats, and never landmarks that give it away. No public photo links. Photos are shown inside cards, never as open links anyone can pass around. Never at the cat’s expense. If a fun feature and the cat’s safety disagree, the cat wins. Open questions What’s the least a card needs to show to be useful, and safe? How do you invite people to add something useful (a health note, “this cat is missing”) without turning a nice moment into a chore? Should the first person to meet a cat be remembered on its card? How do you keep the fun from ever becoming the point? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/meeting-a-cat/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Meeting a cat should take one photo and feel like a small gift. But the gift is for the cat: every meeting adds to its story and helps the people who look after it.","title":"Meeting a Cat"},{"content":"Background: Ninja, Naranja, or Milo?\nThe idea Under all the names, there’s one cat. Every person who meets it makes claims about it: what they call it, where they see it, whether they feed it, whether they think it’s owned. Claims can disagree, and that’s fine.\nOver time, the system may notice that two records probably describe the same cat: similar photos, same coat pattern, overlapping territory, the same notched ear. It could suggest merging them, and people would confirm or reject the match.\nThings that might help recognise an individual:\nPhotos. Coat patterns on tabbies, calicos and tuxedos are close to unique. Distinguishing marks: ear tip, notched ear, tail kink, scars, eye colour. Place and time. Sightings near each other in time and space. People’s knowledge: “that’s definitely Naranja”. Tabbies look alike at a glance, but stripes, eye colour and markings differ from cat to cat, if you know where to look. “Is this the same cat?” The best moment to match a cat is when someone meets it. After taking a photo, the person might see: “This might be Mountain Lion. Is it?” Yes, no, or not sure. For them it’s a small moment of recognition. For the cat, it’s a confirmed match, or a sign that this is a different cat that deserves its own record.\nKnowing coats helps everyone get better at this. Tabby, calico, tortoiseshell, tuxedo, solid black: a coat narrows the possibilities, and markings like a tipped ear or a kinked tail settle them. Ninja and Mountain Lion are both orange and white, which is exactly why people need to look closer.\nMountain Lion Orange and white A nickname. Real name unknown. Ninja Orange and white Not Mountain Lion, though they're easy to mix up. Open questions How do you show a cat with several names without picking a “winner”? What happens when a merge turns out to be wrong? Can two cats be split apart again? How do you tell solid black cats apart? Who gets to confirm that two records are the same cat? How do you ask “is this the same cat?” without leading people to say yes? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/cat-identity/","section":"Ideas","summary":"How do you model one cat that has three names, two homes and no clear owner?","title":"Cat Identity \u0026 Multiple Names"},{"content":"The idea An encounter is any moment a person and a cat cross paths: a sighting, a feeding, a photo, a vet visit, a funny video. Each one adds a little to the cat’s history. No single person needs to know everything.\nToday these encounters live in people’s heads, camera rolls and social media posts. What if they could all attach to the same cat, so the next person who meets it inherits that history instead of starting from nothing?\nMeeting is the easiest encounter The most common encounter is simply meeting a cat and taking its photo. That’s why Meeting a Cat is the way in: one photo is enough to start. Everything else is optional and can be added in a tap or two:\nA name, if you have one for the cat (it joins the others; it doesn’t replace them) What it was doing: eating, sleeping, waiting at a door How it looked: healthy, thin, limping, ear tipped, with kittens Who’s caring for it: “I fed it”, “it’s been to the vet” A story: “she only eats if you sit with her” The place is recorded at the level of the neighbourhood, never the exact spot (see Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety).\nFrom cradle to grave Some encounters are milestones: a cat’s birth or first litter, a microchip, sterilisation, an injury, a recovery. And one day, its death. A cat’s record should be able to hold all of it, including an obituary, so the people who knew the cat can remember it together.\nMany small encounters, one history One encounter says little. Hundreds, from many people over months and years, become the cat’s history: where it’s usually seen, who feeds it, how its health has changed, which cats it spends time with. That history belongs to the cat, and outlasts everyone who added to it.\nOpen questions What’s the least someone has to record for an encounter to be useful? A photo? A place? How do you make recording an encounter as easy and pleasant as taking the photo itself? Should stories and personality (“she only eats if you sit with her”) matter as much as facts? How do you ask for a useful detail (thin? limping?) without making it feel like a form? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/encounters/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Each time someone meets a cat, they add a little to its shared history.","title":"Encounters: Every Meeting Adds to the Story"},{"content":"Background: The cats nobody owns\nThe idea Around a single cat there may be several people: one feeds it in the morning, another in the evening, a restaurant leaves out scraps, and someone once paid for its deworming. None of them know about each other.\nIf they could see that they’re all caring for the same cat, they could:\navoid double-feeding, and avoid double-treating with medication share vet and sterilisation costs notice sooner when a cat goes missing or gets sick coordinate TNR (trap–neuter–return) with local groups hand over care when someone leaves town, as I eventually will From meeting to caring Most people will only ever meet a cat. Some will see it again and again. A few will feed it, take it to the vet, or arrange its sterilisation. All of them matter:\nSomeone who’s met a cat once can still flag something: it looks thin, it’s limping, it hasn’t been seen for weeks. Regulars notice changes first, because they know what normal looks like. Caretakers can see those flags and each other, and act. Meeting a cat should make it easy to take the next step, if someone wants to: “I fed it today”, “I can help with the vet bill”. Never pushed, always possible.\nLove isn’t the same as money Not everyone who loves cats can afford to feed them all, or to pay for sterilisation. When food is short, some cats go without. That’s how Ninja ended up skin and bone, until someone with a little more time and money started feeding him every night.\nA care network could make that kind of help easier to find and to share, without anyone having to explain their finances: one person feeds, another covers the vet, another steps in when a caretaker is away or ill. Because when feeding stops, even for a few days, cats quickly start hunting and fighting.\nOpen questions How do caretakers connect without exposing personal details? Should shared costs be tracked, or is that a step too far? What do rescue and TNR groups need that individuals don’t? How do you turn “this cat looks sick” from someone passing by into help, quickly? How could people who can afford a little help those who can’t, without making anyone feel small? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/care-network/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Many people quietly care for the same cats with no coordination. What if they could find each other?","title":"The Care Network"},{"content":"Background: Let’s talk. This page grew out of one of the first conversations.\nThe idea A lot of what goes wrong for street cats isn’t cruelty. It’s not knowing: about poison, about sterilisation, about black cats, about what happens when feeding stops. Stray Cats could help people learn these things a little at a time, at the moment it matters, without lecturing anyone.\nWhat people could learn Sterilisation changes everything. Someone adopts a kitten, doesn’t get it spayed, and a year later there’s a litter, and then a household with five cats and not enough money to feed them. Here, sterilising a cat costs around 900 pesos (about CA$80): affordable for some, out of reach for many. Knowing where low-cost sterilisation is available, and when a cat is old enough, could prevent a lot of hunger.\nPoison kills cats, by accident and on purpose. Rat bait is a common accidental killer: a cat eats a poisoned rat and is poisoned too, even though cats were the natural rat control in the first place (thanks to Les for that point). Some people also poison cats deliberately. Knowing safer ways to deal with rats, and recognising the signs of poisoning, could save lives. The deliberate kind is also why Stray Cats will never show where a cat lives (see Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety).\nBlack cats deserve better. Black cats are often said to be adopted less and put down more in shelters, partly out of superstition. In my experience they’re some of the sweetest cats there are: once Ciccio trusted me, she simply melted.\nFeeding is a commitment. When feeding stops, even for a few days because a caretaker is ill, cats quickly start hunting and fighting. Cats also catch wildlife: Les’s tortoiseshell once brought in a hummingbird. Regular feeding, and someone to cover when a caretaker can’t, matters for the cats and for the birds.\nHow Stray Cats could help A tip at the right moment. Meet a cat whose ear isn’t tipped, and learn what sterilisation involves and where to find it nearby. Local knowledge, shared. Low-cost sterilisation campaigns, vets who help community cats, safer rat control. Stories over rules. Ninja’s recovery and Ciccio’s sweetness may change more minds than any list of facts. Carlitos Grey tabby Skittish and not neutered. After months, finally lets me touch him. Ciccio Black A girl, whatever her name suggests. Curls up with Mika Ella. Ninja Orange and white Not Mountain Lion, though they're easy to mix up. Open questions How do you share information without lecturing, or making anyone feel judged for what they can’t afford? Who keeps local information (campaigns, vets, prices) accurate and up to date? How do you talk about deliberate poisoning without frightening people, or giving anyone ideas? Should Stray Cats help people report poisoning, and to whom? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/education-and-awareness/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Many of the dangers street cats face come from things people simply don’t know. Awareness may help cats more than any feature.","title":"Education \u0026 Awareness"},{"content":"The idea “Stray” and “pet” aren’t two separate boxes. A cat might be one family’s pet, fed by three other households, and called a stray by the restaurant on the corner. Some cats really are lost, and their owners are searching for them.\nIf ownership is just another claim, not a fact, then:\na family could say “this is our Milo”, alongside the neighbour’s claim that it’s “Ninja” an owner looking for a lost cat could be matched against recent encounters nearby everyone could see that a “stray” actually has people looking out for it Many homes, many claims It happens at the house all the time. Tenkilo, named for weighing almost ten kilos, is clearly being fed at a comfortable home nearby, and so is Mika Ella, who barely nibbles when she’s back here. Ciccio isn’t welcome there, and eats only here. Does that make Tenkilo their cat? They may think so.\nPeople can be possessive, too. Les used to feed a neighbour’s outdoor cat salmon, until the neighbour asked Les to stop: the cat was “on a special diet”. A cat can have several homes, and the people in each may not know about, or approve of, the others.\nMeeting isn’t claiming Meeting a cat, naming it, even feeding it, doesn’t make it yours, and Stray Cats should never suggest it does. Your list of cats you’ve met is a list of acquaintances, not possessions.\nThat list can still help. When someone is searching for a lost cat, people who’ve met a similar cat nearby recently could be asked: “Have you seen this cat?” The answer might be in someone’s photo from yesterday. (More in When a Cat Goes Missing.)\nOpen questions How do you handle conflicting ownership claims without starting neighbourhood feuds? Should we connect to existing lost-pet services rather than duplicate them? How do you stop people falsely claiming an animal? How do you show that a cat eats in several homes without causing friction between them? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/lost-and-found/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Many ‘strays’ are someone’s pet, and many pets live like strays. Ownership is a spectrum.","title":"Stray, Pet, or Somewhere in Between?"},{"content":"Suggested by Michael, a reader of my newsletter. A friend of his lost her cat a week ago and has been crying for days.\nThe idea When a cat goes missing, the people most likely to have seen it are the ones who already know it: the neighbour who feeds it in the morning, the restaurant on the corner, someone who met it last week and took its photo. Today there’s no way to reach them. Stray Cats already connects a cat with everyone who has met it, so it could:\nLet the people who care for a cat mark it as missing, with when and roughly where it was last seen. Alert the people who’ve met that cat, and people in the same area, with its card: “Have you seen Ninja?” Check recent photos. Someone may have met a cat that looks a lot like it yesterday, a few streets away. “Is this the same cat?” becomes urgent and useful. Send sightings privately to the people searching, never onto a public map. Celebrate the good news. When a cat is found, everyone who looked gets to know. Strays go missing too Not every missing cat has an owner who’s searching. A community cat can simply stop turning up, and nobody may notice for weeks. If its regular visitors are connected, someone notices sooner: “Has anyone seen Carlitos lately?” That alone could save a cat that’s injured, trapped or sick.\nWhen a cat doesn’t come back Many missing cats are never found, and some are found too late. Not knowing is its own kind of grief. A cat’s record could stay open (“last seen in October”), so that if it turns up months later, someone recognises it.\nAnd when a cat dies, the people who loved it should be able to remember it together. A cat’s history can end with an obituary, written by everyone who knew it (see Encounters). This project began as a way to remember cats; it’s dedicated to Saibo.\nKeeping it safe A missing-cat alert must never become a way to find where a cat lives, or to trick a worried owner. Alerts show the area, not the address; sightings go only to the people searching; nobody’s phone number is shown; and someone who claims a found cat should have to show it’s theirs (see Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety and Stray, Pet, or Somewhere in Between?).\nNot just cats? Michael also asked whether this should be for all pets. Dogs go missing too, and so do rabbits, parrots and tortoises. Stray Cats is starting with cats, on purpose: they’re the animals most likely to live between homes. But nearly everything here (identity, encounters, the care network, missing alerts) would work for any animal. Dogs come later; they’re just a different type of cat.\nOpen questions Who can mark a cat as missing: an owner, a caretaker, anyone who’s met it? How do you alert people without overwhelming them, or alarming them about every cat that stays away for a day? How do you stop scams, such as people asking for a reward for a cat they don’t have? Should Stray Cats connect to local shelters and existing lost-pet services, rather than replace them? How should a cat’s record end: with “missing”, “found” or “remembered”? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/when-a-cat-goes-missing/","section":"Ideas","summary":"A missing cat is one of the hardest things a person who loves cats goes through. The people who’ve met that cat may be the best chance of finding it.","title":"When a Cat Goes Missing"},{"content":"The concern A public map of exactly where stray cats live and get fed is useful to helpers — but also to people who want to harm animals, or who object to colonies in their area. Caretakers' own locations and routines also need protecting.\nPoisoning shows why. Some of it is accidental: cats eat rats that have eaten rat bait. Some of it is deliberate, by people who want cats gone. Either way, a map of where cats live and eat would make the deliberate kind easier. Awareness is part of the answer too (see Education \u0026 Awareness).\nPossible approaches Fuzzed public locations — show an approximate area, not an exact point. Trusted roles — verified rescuers/caretakers see precise data. Delayed publishing — sightings appear publicly after a delay. Minimal personal data — collect as little about users as possible. Celebrate cats without exposing them People love the cats in their neighbourhood, and Stray Cats should let them enjoy and share them. But some things that make an app exciting would put cats at risk, so they’re ruled out:\nNo popularity. No rankings, no “most-met” or “favourite” cat, no counts that make a cat famous. A well-known cat is easier to find, for good people and bad. No exact spots, anywhere. Not on cards, not in shared links, not in landmarks or place names that give a feeding spot away. Your own private map can remember where you met a cat; nobody else sees it. No public photo links. Photos are shown inside cards, not as files anyone can pass around and reuse. No people in photos, and nothing that shows someone’s home. Welfare over engagement. Features are judged by whether they help cats, not by how much they’re used. Open questions Where’s the right balance between openness and safety? Who decides who is “trusted”? How do you let people share a cat they love without sharing where it lives? ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/privacy-and-safety/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Location data about vulnerable animals can be misused. How do we protect them?","title":"Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety"},{"content":"The idea Not yet! I’m deliberately not building anything while the idea takes shape. But these are the constraints I expect:\nOpen source under a permissive or copyleft licence (to be decided). Mobile-first — most sightings happen on the street; a cross-platform app or a Progressive Web App could cover iOS and Android. Open, anonymised datasets for researchers and councils studying stray populations. Low running costs so it can survive on donations and grants. Owned infrastructure. Like this blog, it shouldn’t depend on a social network’s platform. Quick to start. A nickname is enough to begin; no email or password until someone wants more (for example, to join a cat’s care network). A real cat in every photo. The phone itself could check that a photo shows a real cat, before anything is uploaded. Private by design. Exact locations stay on the person’s phone; only the neighbourhood is ever shared, and photos are never published as open links. Works with a weak signal. Many street cats live where coverage is patchy, so meeting a cat should work offline and sync later. Cards that travel. A cat’s card should be easy to send in a message, and open nicely for someone who doesn’t have the app yet. Many languages from the start, beginning with English and Spanish. Open questions Native app, cross-platform framework, or PWA first? Which licence — MIT, Apache-2.0, AGPL? How much can happen on the phone itself (recognising a cat, matching it), so less data leaves it? How should the project be governed and funded long-term? Are you a developer or designer who’d like to help? Say hi! ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/ideas/open-data-and-tech/","section":"Ideas","summary":"Thoughts on how the app could be built, hosted and kept sustainable as a non-profit.","title":"Open Data \u0026 Tech Stack"},{"content":"In one sentence Stray Cats is an open-source, non-profit idea about how the world could remember the cats that nobody owns.\nListen to the idea A 90-second introduction to the project, if you’d rather listen than read. It was made with Google’s NotebookLM from the pages on this site, so the two voices are AI-generated.\nDownload the audio Speed 1× 1.5× Giving Stray Cats a Permanent History, a brief audio overview (1½ minutes) For the full deep dive (38 minutes), see The Building Blocks.\nDedication This project is dedicated to Saibo, my cat of sixteen years, who came with me to Mexico and died here in September 2026.\nWhere it comes from I’m living for a while in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, looking after a house full of cats: some pets, some strays, some of unknown origin. I pay for their food and sometimes their vet care. I’ve learned their names and stories from the people who were here before me, and I pass them on to whoever arrives next. I keep an Instagram account, @mimos_cat_sanctuary, to show off their personalities.\nIt works. But everything I know lives in my head and on my phone, and when I leave, it leaves with me. Read the full story →\nThe core idea What if every cat could have:\nan identity that doesn’t depend on one name, place or owner a history built up from every human encounter a network of people who care about it, who can find each other and pass the history on a way in that’s a pleasure: meeting a cat takes one photo, and every meeting adds a little to its story (more) What this site is A notebook kept in public. Each story starts with something real and follows the question it raises. The ideas pages collect the concepts and open questions that come out of them.\nWhat it isn’t (yet) An app. There’s no code, no product plan and no business model, on purpose. Right now the job is to understand the problem.\nPrinciples Open source. Ideas, designs and eventually code are public. Non-profit. No ads, no selling data. Ever. The record belongs to the cat, not to any caretaker or platform. Owned, not rented. This is a site of its own, not a page on Facebook or another social network. Animal welfare and privacy first. Cats first. Dogs later (they’re just a different type of cat). Meeting, not owning. People meet cats here; no one owns or claims them. Fun is the doorway, not the destination. Meeting a cat should be a pleasure, but every feature exists for the cat’s benefit and to help the people who care for it. No popularity contests. No rankings and no exact locations. Attention can put a cat at risk. ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/about/","section":"","summary":"What Stray Cats is, where it came from, and what it isn’t (yet).","title":"About"},{"content":"Saibo · 1 August 2010 – 16 September 2026\nThis project is dedicated to Saibo, my grey-and-white cat.\nHe was with me for sixteen years. When I came to Mexico, he came with me. Here in Puerto Escondido he fell ill with stomach cancer, and on 16 September 2026 he died.\nStray Cats is about remembering cats, so that a cat’s story doesn’t disappear when the people around it move on. I want it to carry Saibo’s memory too.\nSaibo in Puerto Escondido. ","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/saibo/","section":"","summary":"This project is dedicated to Saibo, 1 August 2010 – 16 September 2026.","title":"For Saibo"},{"content":"The readers of this site are the project’s first research community. I’m most interested in stories like these:\n“We have exactly the same thing happening here.” “That cat has four names on my street.” “I’ve been paying for a cat’s vet bills for years and I don’t know who else feeds it.” “Here’s why that idea won’t work.” Disagreement, edge cases and strange situations are all welcome. They’re how the idea gets better.\nQuestions I’d love answered Do you look after cats you don’t technically own? How do you keep track of them? Have you met a cat with more than one name, or more than one “owner”? What happens to the cats when caretakers move away? Which ideas excite you? Which ones worry you? What would make you stop and record a cat you meet? What should a cat’s card never show? Would you like to help one day: stories, design, code, rescue experience? Let’s talk Ideas and stories come out best in conversation. Book a relaxed 30-minute chat about the cats in your life and your ideas: Let’s talk.\nHow to reach me Every story ends with a Respond to this idea box. You can also reach me here:\nEmail: davidjdwilliston+straycats@gmail.com GitHub Discussions: https://github.com/david-williston/straycats/discussions, the best place for open conversation GitHub Issues: https://github.com/david-williston/straycats/issues, for specific suggestions or corrections Every page also has a Suggest changes link if you’d like to propose an edit directly.\n","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/feedback/","section":"","summary":"Tell me what I’m missing.","title":"Give Feedback"},{"content":"Ideas and stories come out best in conversation. If you look after cats you don’t own, have met a cat with too many names, or simply have an opinion about anything on this site, I’d love to talk with you.\nBook a 30-minute chat\nWhat a chat is like 30 minutes, on Google Meet. Pick a time that suits you; the link arrives by email. Cameras optional. I like to say hello face to face and then turn the cameras off, so it’s more like a relaxed phone call. Keep yours off the whole time if you prefer. No preparation needed. I’ll ask about the cats in your life and what you think of the ideas here. Disagreement is welcome. In English. What happens to what you say The conversation is transcribed, so I can capture your ideas accurately instead of scribbling notes. Before you book, you’ll be asked to confirm that, and to choose how I may use what you say.\nYour transcript is used only to develop Stray Cats. An AI assistant helps me pick out the ideas and stories you shared. The transcript isn’t shared or sold. Then the transcript is deleted. Only the ideas and stories are kept. You choose how you’re credited if I retell something you said on this site: by your first name, anonymously, or only after asking you first. If you ask for anonymity, everything is anonymised: your name and anything else that could identify you. I’ll never publish where a cat lives or is fed, or anything that could identify your home (see Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety). Questions or second thoughts? Write to me any time: davidjdwilliston+straycats@gmail.com. Ideas that come out of these conversations show up in the stories and ideas, and in What’s New.\nBook a 30-minute chat\nRather write? See Give Feedback for other ways to reach me.\n","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/talk/","section":"","summary":"Book a relaxed 30-minute chat about the cats in your life and your ideas for Stray Cats.","title":"Let's Talk"},{"content":"Been here before? Here’s what’s new and what’s changed, newest first. Pages that changed also say New or Updated under their title.\nOctober 5, 2026: When a cat goes missing Version v2026.10.05.1\nNew idea: When a Cat Goes Missing, suggested by Michael, a newsletter reader: reaching the people who’ve met a missing cat, noticing when a stray stops turning up, remembering a cat that doesn’t come back, keeping alerts safe, and whether Stray Cats should one day be for all pets. October 5, 2026: From the first conversation Version v2026.10.05.1\nThe first Let’s talk conversation, with Les, brought new stories and ideas.\nNew story: Ninja, the talk of the town. How a cat who was skin and bone became the neighbourhood favourite, and why loving cats isn’t the same as being able to feed them all. New idea: Education \u0026 Awareness: sterilisation, poisoning (accidental and deliberate), black cats, and what happens when feeding stops. New cat: Carlitos, a skittish grey tabby, on the cat cards. Tenkilo’s card now explains the name: almost ten kilos. Updated: The Care Network (love isn’t the same as money), Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety (poisoning), Stray, Pet, or Somewhere in Between? (many homes, many claims), Encounters (from cradle to grave) and The Building Blocks. October 5, 2026: Let’s talk Version v2026.10.05\nNew: Let’s talk. Book a relaxed 30-minute chat about the cats in your life and your ideas for Stray Cats. The page explains how the conversation is transcribed and how what you say is (and isn’t) used. Updated: you’ll find the invitation in the menu at the top of every page, on the home page, on the Ideas page and Give Feedback, and in the reply box at the end of every story and idea. (Tags moved out of the menu; they’re still on each page.) October 4, 2026: The whole idea, in depth Version v2026.10.04.5\nNew: a 38-minute audio deep dive on The Building Blocks, Remembering the Cats Nobody Owns: the stories, the ideas, the open questions and what’s new. It has the same normal and 1.5× speed buttons, and replaces the earlier 20-minute one. New: the Spanish site has its own deep dive, in Spanish. October 4, 2026: Listen in 90 seconds Version v2026.10.04.4\nNew: a 90-second audio introduction on the About page, Giving Stray Cats a Permanent History, with buttons to play it at normal or 1.5× speed. It replaces the earlier five-minute overview. New: the Spanish site has its own audio introduction, in Spanish. October 4, 2026: A What’s New page Version v2026.10.04.2\nNew: this page, in the menu at the top of every page. It used to be called “Release notes” and was hard to find. New: pages now say New or Updated (with the date) under their title, and in the lists on the home page, so you can spot what’s changed while you browse. October 4, 2026: Meeting a cat Version v2026.10.04.1\nThe biggest update so far: what if meeting a cat took one photo, and every meeting helped the cat?\nNew idea: Meeting a Cat. One photo gets you the cat’s card in seconds; you keep a list of the cats you’ve met; and every meeting adds to the cat’s story and can carry a quick note about its wellbeing. With cards for the cats of the house. New story: A photo is an introduction. Updated: The Building Blocks, with two new concepts (Meeting and Card) and two new principles: meeting, not owning, and fun is the doorway, not the destination. Updated: About, with those principles and one more: no popularity contests. Updated: Encounters (what a meeting can record), Cat Identity (“is this the same cat?”), The Care Network (from meeting to caring), Stray, Pet, or Somewhere in Between? (meeting isn’t claiming), Privacy \u0026 Animal Safety (celebrating cats without exposing them) and Open Data \u0026 Tech. Updated: two new questions on Give Feedback. October 4, 2026: A small fix Version v2026.10.04\nThe version number at the bottom of each page was showing the previous version. Fixed. October 3, 2026: Meet the cats Version v2026.10.03.2\nUpdated: the photos across the site now name the cats: Ciccio, Hootie, Lucia, Mika Ella, Ninja and Tenkilo, plus Mountain Lion, whose real name nobody knows. Updated: Ninja, Naranja, or Milo?. The cat on the cover isn’t Ninja after all: it’s Mountain Lion. The real Ninja is on The Building Blocks. October 3, 2026: Listen to the idea Version v2026.10.03.1\nNew: a five-minute audio overview on the About page. New: a 20-minute audio deep dive on The Building Blocks, about why street cats are a hard problem for software. Both were made with Google’s NotebookLM from the pages on this site, so the voices are AI-generated. October 3, 2026: The site opens Version v2026.10.03\nFive stories about the cats of Puerto Escondido, starting with The cats nobody owns, and seven ideas. Everything in English and Spanish, with photos of the cats, search, and a way to reply to every story. The project is dedicated to Saibo, 2010–2026. About the version numbers: each update is numbered by the date it was published (year.month.day), with .1, .2 and so on for later updates the same day. For the technical details of every change, see the change history.\n","date":"","permalink":"https://david-williston.github.io/straycats/whats-new/","section":"","summary":"Been here before? Here’s what’s new and what’s changed, newest first.","title":"What's New"}]