Cats

Weekend Cat Blogging: What Did You Eat?

Our friends Kashim, Othello and Astrid are dedicating Weekend Cat Blogging to our fellow cat blogger Sherry “Sher” Cermak of What Did You Eat?. She passed away suddenly last Sunday.

Sher was also an accomplished food blogger, and we have made some her recipes before. So in addition to Weekend Cat Blogging, we are also participating a tribute hosted by the “Bread Baking Babes” this weekend and preparing her last recipe.

So let us move to the kitchen and dining area of CatSynth HQ:

And with Luna ready to supervise, let us begin:

Angel Hair Pasta With Red Pepper Pesto

[Adapted from Food and Wine.]

3 medium red bell peppers or bottled roasted red peppers
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 small garlic clove, smashed
1/4 cup basil leaves, plus 2 tablespoons chopped basil
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 pound angel hair pasta
1/2 cup grated pecorino cheese

Roast the red peppers over a gas flame or under the broiler, turning occasionally, until charred all over. Transfer the peppers to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool. Peel, core and chop the peppers. (We opted for the bottled peppers here at CatSynth.)

In a small skillet, toast the pine nuts over moderate heat until golden, about 4 minutes. Let cool.

Transfer the peppers and pine nuts to a blender or food processor (If your food processor has been sitting in a box at the bottom of a kitchen cabinet since moving, make sure to clean it first.) Add the garlic and whole basil leaves and blend until coarsely chopped. Add the olive oil and cheese and puree to a chunky pesto. Season with salt and pepper.

In a large saucepan of boiling salted water, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain and cool slightly under running water. Transfer the pasta to a bowl and toss with the pesto. Season the pasta with salt and pepper. Top with the chopped basil and pecorino and serve at room temperature.

Now let us raise a glass and toast…

More tributes can be found at Weekend Cat Blogging, hosted at Astrid’s food blog. I’m sure the boys won’t mind too much.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted here at CatSynth tomorrow. Click here to submit your entry.

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos will be hosted this week at Pet’s Garden Blog.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.


The Fourier Transform of a Cat

We at CatSynth never miss an opportunity to combine mathematics and cats. Recently, our friends at Walking Randomly posted this image:

It was created by Andrew J. Bennieston, and inspired by this comic from xkcd:

Unlike the number theory and other mathematics we like to post here at CatSynth, the Fourier Transform is part of our stock and trade. There are many variants, including the Discrete Time Fourier Transform which one of the basic tools of signal processing and sound synthesis:

Basically, what a Fourier Transform does is decompose a signal (or any time-varying mathematical function) into separate frequencies. If you have a spectrum representation of a sound, this is output of a Fourier Transform. Similarly, if you have a graphic equalizer on your stereo, it can be seen as operating on a very low-resolution Fourier transform, as it allows one to raise and lower different frequency ranges of sound.

For images, “frequency” corresponds to detail. Highly detailed areas of image that change from pixel to pixel are high-frequency, while areas of constant color or intensity are lower frequency. Another variant of the Fourier Transform, the Discrete Cosine Transform, or DCT, is more often used with images because it tends to put more information in lower frequencies.

Theoritcally, one should not lose any information when taking a Fourier Transform of a signal (or image) and taking the inverse to retrieve the original. However, in Bennieston’s image, which applies two DCTs to the original image, results in the “ghost” that loses a bit of the original detail. Certainly, some is due to the rounding error when doing any calculations on the computer, but it seems like more than that. Most, likely, the DCT is more sensitive the boundaries, i.e., what happens at the beginning or end of a signal.

DCTs are often used in “lossy” image and audio compression, such as JPEG for images. However, I have rarely seen them used in music applications, where one tends to see more general Fourier Transformations, which correspond more closely to an intuitive understanding of musical frequency.

As such, it would be interesting to work with DCTs in a musical context and see what transpires. If we ever get around to this project, we will certainly post it here on CatSynth.

This post is part of the Carnival of Mathematics which is being hosted this weekend by Logic Nest.


Sad news today

Some very sad news today. Our friend sher of What Did You Eat? passed suddenly this morning.

Sher was one of the first people we met through Weekend Cat Blogging. She often left kind words on our site for Luna, whom she quite admired. And in turn we got to know her late cats Upsie and Sundance, and of course her little black kitten Laura.


We remember her sharing life with cats and squirrels. But she was also an accomplished food blogger, and we have tried several of the recipes she posted. Indeed, I was going to be making the Angel Hair Pasta With Sweet Red Pepper Pesto that she posted on Thursday, not knowing this would also be her final post.

Our thoughts are with Sher’s family and friends this evening.


Weekend Cat Blogging #163

It’s time for the Weekend Cat Blogging #163 round-up:

Luna will supervise the festivities from one her high perches.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to wish us a happy second anniversary of CatSynth. And with that, let us begin…

Breadchick threw out her back lifting some heavy amplifiers (another reason why we at CatSynth prefer software for our audio work). But fortunately, LB is there to look after his mom. Breadchick is in the pro-audio business, so maybe she will come visit us at CatSynth while recovering for music, audio and feline fun. Oh, and that New England breakfast is looking pretty good this morning…

We move from pro audio to Music and Cats, where Sergei is puzzled by the behavior of his siblings Sasha and Lyra. They have been fighting a bit, and Sergei doesn’t understand why he can’t curl up with them for naps. “Sergei’s a lover, not a fighter, so he gets out of Sasha’s way, and looks to his people for affection.” We at CatSynth wish more humans were like that.

Things are more peaceful at Rosa’s Yummy Yums, where Fridolin has been an angel and doesn’t even mess with Maruschka. “He can be such a loveable cuddly kitty when he is not behaving like an evil little ‘monkey’!“

More feline friendliness can be found at Sammawow, with some great “then and now” photos of China Cat and Willow napping. It is great to have some constants in life, like the setting for these naps, that one can return to for years.

Napping appears to be activity of choice this weekend (and perhaps most weekends). And there is a serious snoozefest at CorgiFeathers featuring Titania and Oberon. A Midsummer’s Night Dream, anyone?

A little more activity can be found with Chica and Pumuckl, who are pretty intent on something on their ceiling. You will have to follow the link to find out what it is…

Our friends at the House of the (Mostly) Black Cats share some pictures of the friends (or rather, pikshurs of furrends). There was a little bit of difficulty with a disposable camera, and apparently much cursing (by their mom) as a result. But they still have some great pictures to share.

Our friends Samantha and Tigger are hosting the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos this weekend. The theme is “Christmas in July.” Now if it only it was Channukah in July…

Time for some WCB Apocrypha!

Arthur and the other cats at Gattina’s are mouse hunting. Fun all the whole feline family.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Sunday without Lectionary Readings from LOL Cat Bible.

We were happy to receive wishes from our house-panther friends, including Mickey the Black Cat.

And Mr. Hendrix.

And that concludes the round-up for now. As always, we will continue to post entries as we receive them through Monday morning, so all are still welcome to participate.


CatSynth 2nd Anniversary (and Weekend Cat Blogging)!

July 19 is the Second Anniversary of CatSynth!

And by coincidence, we are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging (really, it is a coincidence). So we invite all our friends to participate and celebrate with us. As always, please leave a comment with your link, and we’ll post it during the roundup later this weekend.

Of course, we must post the photo of Luna that started it all on July 19, 2006:


`
and some fun stats for the occasion. Over two years at CatSynth, we have:

657 articles.
2,476 comments.
106,000 visitors.
298 “catsynth pics.”

The latter is using some custom analysis tools I created for the occasion, which also provide the top 33 tags/categories here at CatSynth:

cats 738
synthesizers 444
luna 280
music 169
news 136
wordless wednesday 101
weekend cat blogging 97
wcb 94
art 90
highways 85
personal 79
modernism 54
san francisco 50
stats 39
electronic music 35
experimental 34
carnival of the cats 32
mathematics 29
podcast 29
mp3 28
kitty 27
keyboard 26
friday ark 25
analog 23
photography 22
reviews 22
video 22
cotc 21
black cat 20
cats on tuesday 20
festival 19
california 18
chaos 18

Some tags, such as “photography”, should really be much higher.

Many readers may recall that last year, on our first anniversary, the site went down due to a rather annoying problem with our service provider, and we were sent into exile at the CatSynth FEMA Trailer. So we are leaving an anniversary post at the trailer as well.

A year ago, we at CatSynth had no idea what was going to be in store for us over the next year. A new job, a new home, a new life.

We traded the sun and greenery of our old home:

for our new home:

and life in the big city:

But some things remain the same. Luna, of course, is always here. And our friends and family. And CatSynth!

And we’ll still be here, continuing to do what we always do…

Some other significant milestones this weekend:

The 200th Friday Ark boards this weekend at the modulator.

Our friend Dragonheart is two years old today.

This is week also includes several birthdays for friends, whom we won’t embarrass by announcing their ages on our rather public forum…

It’s only one weekend after the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos first anniversary, so let us include it as well. This weekend’s edition will be at Life from a Cat’s Perspective with Samantha and Tigger.


Cats on Tuesday: Diggy and Slicky

We visit again this Tuesday with Diggy and her buddy Ein Slicky Vömel from Jacksin Music.

We posted a photo of Diggy and the Access Virus two weeks ago. It generated quite a few comments, including a question from Jewelgirl on how Diggy got her name. This week, Jackson responds with Diggy’s story:

I think she’s the sweetiest-meatiest k-mow ever. She got her real name when I got her 2 years ago (her name was Gracie but she didn’t respond to it so I felt a change was in order). This puffy Siberian k-mow always digs her face onto my fingers/knuckles (Diggy) and is so fluffy & overweight (at the time) & she looked like a massive pillow (Malow) & when she’d eat she was so round she looked like a huge ball (Ball) & that’s how she got the name Diggy Malow Ball.

She’s about 6 years old now & I only hope I have her for as long as I can. Diggy loves to take residence on my lap or bed & curl up to my gear yet is overwhelmingly respectful to avoid my keyboard & tv remote. The perfect cat IMO:)

I got a buddy for her, Ein Slicky Vömel, but that’s another story…

And we conclude with a photo of Ein Slicky Vömel, with the Virus of course.

Check out more Cats on Tuesday.


Under The Paw

Last week I finished reading Tom Cox’s Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man.

Both the book and his blog The Little Cat Diaries chronicle his life as a “cat man.” There is undeniably a love of cats expressed in this book, but without being overly maudlin, or overly cuddly. The more frustrating or ridiculous moments of living with cats are not hidden. There are some very funny stories, some quite familiar to anyone who has lived with a cat, and also some very poignant and sad moments, such as the story of his youthful companion Monty. Between chapters, I often flipped back to the inside cover, which featured photos of each of the cats in his life, and comparing the images to the stories. Did the image of “The Bear” fit with his narrative, for example?

As a fellow “cat man” (I suppose there is no avoiding that label when you write a site about music and cats), there is certainly a lot in common, but also quite a contrast. While Tom Cox and his wife Dee live with six cats, there is only one cat here at CatSynth. Tom moved with his cats from London back to rural and small-town England, while I recently made the transition from a smaller coastal town to downtown San Francisco. One cat man has a passion for golf, another for modern art, photography and mathematics. But music is a common theme. And black cats (the Cox household boasts three black felines).

I found myself reading Under the Paw while getting some maintenance on my car in one of the outer neighborhoods of the city. A man came in with a large but friendly dog who did what large but friendly dogs are wont to do, namely try to become best friends with everyone sitting and waiting and systematically being told that they had a “burnt out headlight that needed to be replaced.” (What are the chances that three cars in a row would all have burnt out headlights?) After the man asked if I wasn’t fond of dogs, I showed him the cover of the book I was reading. “Hmmm, Confessions of a Cat Man…”, he mused. There was no accusation in his voice, just curiosity, and it turned into brief but friendly conversation between two people on opposite sides of the “pet divide.” Actually, the conversation was mostly just my describing the book, which I highly recommend…