You must pick one very minor talent:

[vikxin@beach.city]

@futurebird I can mostly understand what my cat is saying to me when he meows already. There's a noticeable difference between the meow he uses for needing his litter box cleaned, the meow he uses when he's hungry, the meow he uses when he just wants attention, and the meow he uses when he's scared of something.

[vikxin@beach.city]

@futurebird unfortunately, it's not very precise. But it's usually good enough for me to know what he wants.

[claralistensprechen3rd@friendica.myportal.social]

@futurebird @oldguycrusty @Rob_T_Firefly That's exactly why I never got rid of the Hayes modems I've acquired when everyone else ditched 'em. Also landline phone equipment. I could set up just such a network on a home-only phone system connecting different room modems thereby, and here's a reminder that TTY devices for the Deaf are similar in operation.

[sigsegv@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird understanding what my cats are saying would not be a minor talent! I can’t how many times one of them has been hollering (middle of the night) and I’ve been answering with “what do you want?!?!?”

[octothorpe@mastodon.online]

@futurebird @Rob_T_Firefly Could you imagine the beatbox innovation?!?

[malin@dice.camp]

@futurebird
To silently judge.
@mansr

[sofiav@mastodon.online]

@futurebird I don't get what #2 could be used for, and doesn't everybody already have 3 and 4? My cats ignore most of what I say to them, but that's not because of lack of understanding--it's an active choice

[sofiav@mastodon.online]

@futurebird @malin @mansr she wants An Attention (because she deserves it )

[extra_special_carbon@mastodon.world]

@futurebird It was a difficult choice. Making realistic modem noises? There’s some hi-jinx to be had there. But telling my cats how to avoid the dog is practical.

I already know what they say: “Where my food?”

And there are no modems making noise anymore, so what would I interpret?

[apophis@yourwalls.today]

@futurebird if i can understand cats i should be able to figure out some basic communication the other way by trial and error, but it would be a lot harder to do the other way around

maybe impossible, given it's not like cats would obey your commands or anything

[apophis@yourwalls.today]

@oldguycrusty @futurebird @Rob_T_Firefly i thought about this

but the cat network sounds like it'd be more robust

[stripey@meow.social]

@futurebird @Rob_T_Firefly I used to be able to whistle 9600 baud - *and* get the modem on the other end to negotiate

[bstow@beige.party]

@futurebird if I already have two of these, can I still pick another one, or would this be considered greedy?

[ethicalprofessor@mstdn.social]

@futurebird

I chose the 4th option. But...

Waddya mean 'minor talent'???

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird I can kinda already do 3 so I had to pick 4. Let's make this bidirectional.

[sanpan@mas.to]

@futurebird These choices are legit super-hero stuff, I´m team Green Meowtern.

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird Joke's on me tho, I wasted my wish. It turns out all the sounds just mean "FEED ME!!!!""

[shadsterling@mastodon.social]

@futurebird the last two being separate is just cruel. I guess we need to pair up

[neatchee@urusai.social]

@futurebird it was a real struggle picking between 3 & 4 for practical reasons, and 1 for the sheer meme of it

[y6nh@im-in.space]

@futurebird Now obviously the cat communications are winning here, but hear me out. I already understand what my cat says (it's almost always "give me food"), and she wouldn't care about much I had to tell her.
But if I could understand modem noise, that's 56kbit/s. It wouldn't be too hard to play back arbitrary text as modem noise, so I'd be able to speed-read at 7000 characters per second. I'd be able to read Ulysses in under 5 minutes. Clear win.