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.
October 5, 2026: When a cat goes missing
Version v2026.10.05.1
- New 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
The first Let’s talk conversation, with Les, brought new stories and ideas.
- New 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 & 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 & 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
- New: 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
- New: 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
- New: 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
- New: 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
The biggest update so far: what if meeting a cat took one photo, and every meeting helped the cat?
- New 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 & Animal Safety (celebrating cats without exposing them) and Open Data & Tech.
- Updated: two new questions on Give Feedback.
October 4, 2026: A small fix
Version v2026.10.04
- The 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
- Updated: 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
- New: 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
- Five 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.