Felix est non aliis qui videtur, sed sibi <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/09/texas-lawyer-zoom-cat-filter...> he coronavirus has been responsible for a series of video-call stumbles and mishaps, and the phenomenon seemingly reached its zenith this week, when a Texas lawyer appeared before a judge as a cat, after being unable to change a video filter. “I’m not a cat,” Rod Ponton was forced to clarify during a hearing in Presidio county, south-west Texas, as he and his assistant scrambled to remove the filter. The filter, which displayed a kitten instead of Ponton’s face, was able to capture the lawyer’s horror and confusion, its eyes flitting across the screen as Ponton scrambled to remove it. The coronavirus has prompted many computer mishaps, as many of the world’s workers adapt to working from home in the face of the pandemic. They have ranged from the inadvertently hilarious to the career-ending. Faced with hearing legal debate from a kitten, Judge Roy Ferguson of Texas’s 394th judicial district told Ponton: “I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings. You might want to …” The Ponton/kitten entity then interrupts Ferguson in a panicked drawl: “Can you hear me, judge?” Ferguson responds: “I can hear you. I think it’s a filter …” “It is,” the cat-faced Ponton responds. “And I don’t know how to remove it. I’ve got my assistant here, she’s trying to, but I’m prepared to go forward with it … I’m here live. I’m not a cat.” Ferguson deadpans: “I can see that.” Ponton was representing the state of Texas in the hearing, which reportedly centered on a person who had attempted to leave the US with contraband and illegally-obtained cash. Presidio county is on the US-Mexico border and includes the town of Marfa and much of Big Bend national park. In an interview with the New York Times, Ponton said he was using his secretary’s computer during the incident. Ponton told the newspaper he was “mortified”, although he appeared to see the funny side. “If I can make the country chuckle for a moment in these difficult times they’re going through, I’m happy to let them do that at my expense,” Ponton said. Ponton’s accidental morphing into a wide-eyed baby cat is not the first pandemic-inspired video call mishap – and likely won’t be the last. [...]