It seems like everyone these days has a “top 100 list”, indeed we are listed on a few of them. Well, we at CatSynth like to be different, so we're introducing the “CatSynth 83.” All sites related to cats, synthesizers, electronic music, or any of the other topics frequently discussed on this site like highways, mathematics, software, etc., can apply. We will list to top 83 participating sites. So come and join the only top-sites list based on a neglected prime number.
Here is a small sample of calm and well-thought-out reactions to the recent knighting of British author Salman Rushdie:
The Senate of Pakistan expresses its strong condemnation on blatant disregard for the sensitivity of the Muslims of the World shown by the British Government by awarding a Knighthood to Salman Rushdie, who committed blasphemy against a pillar of Islam, the persona of Holy Prophet,” said the resolution moved by the leader of the [Pakistani parliament] Wasim Sajjad and supported by all opposition groups. [Times of India].
We will give 10 million rupees (165,000 dollars) to anyone who beheads Rushdie,” Islamabad traders' association leader Ajmal Baluch told around 200 people in one of the Pakistani capital's main bazaars.[AFP]
Not to mention this heart-warming photograph:
(AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)
C'mon, “Biggest Evil of the World”? Did you guys forget about the whole invasion and occupation of Iraq, a (mostly) Muslim country, where lots of people are actually dying? And you wonder why you guys have such a bad rep…
The ironies of course are that The Satanic Verses didn't seem all that blasphemous when I read it years ago – it was mostly about a snooty anglophile from Bombay, with occasional interludes – and that Salman Rushdie has written many other works. One of my favorites was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a childrens book. We did a children's theatre play based on the book while I was at Yale, for which I composed several original works – everyone's favorite was the disco soundtrack for the chase scene. It was a fun exercise in how to make a children's tale something dry and off-beat while keeping it suitable for a young audience.
I think this lolcat is particularly apropos:
salman rushdie knighthood protests pakistan embarrassment muslims shriner cat lolcat
From rathergood.com original home of the “Viking Kittens”, comes this cool “chill-out” kitten combo. It's actually grown on me a bit, and it's been a nice diversion playing on the iMac in my office while I toil away on a nearby PC. Yes, it's been a pretty rough couple of days…
The music is “We Like The Music (latino remix)” by John B.
Thanks to our friend jellypizza for calling this out. Not sure I quite get the Soprano's reference, but ok…
The mini-conference that brought me to Berkeley on Monday and Tuesday ended fairly early, and I took the opportunity to wander the streets up into the Berkeley hills. This is something I used to do all the time, but haven't in years.
I started out by heading out of the campus on Piedmont Ave., passing by the Greek Theatre, which I hereby dub the “scene of the crime” from end of my time here.
At the northeast corner of the campus, Piedmont becomes La Loma and heads up into the residential neighborhoods of the Berkeley hills, an area that is apparently called La Loma Park. I always enjoyed wandering through these streets, which start out very much like city residential blocks and get more and more sparse and wooded, yet somehow remaining “part of the city.” Again, that is a bit different from Santa Cruz, which feels like a town squeezed between the ocean and the mountains and redwoods. I do walk downtown and along the shore a lot, but the hills here just haven't seemed as interesting to explore. As I write this article, however, I will note that the sunsets here in Santa Cruz are better than they were in Berkeley apartment.
Beyond Cedar Street, the city-block feel ends and La Loma continues up a steep hillside with retaining walls on one side and rails to another.
It is a view I remember quite well. The first time I wandered up this way, I was simply curious to see where this ended up – indeed, I never really “planned” out these walks and simply relied on my strong sense of direction to get me home again. Around the corner, the road comes to the top of the steep canyon cut by the Codornices Creek, with spectular views of the bay.
]It is hard to get a sense of the canyon from a photograph, unless you place it in context, such as the houses built along the steep grades. What looks like a flat ranch from the top of the canyon turns out to be a five-story monster built into the hillside:
This view is from the street below, Shasta Road. Shasta and LaLoma aren't actually connected, but one can make use of the numerous public staircases throughout Berkeley. In this case, I took stairs descending from La Loma to Rose Street, which then connects to Shasta. At the bottom of the stairs, one can see the supports that hold up La Loma on the side of the hill:
Upon seeing the support structure, I was immediately reminded of the architecture of Gaudì at the Parc Gruel, which I visited in 2005.
Longtime readers have already seen some images of Gaudì's residential architecture, in the context of parabolas (indeed, both “parabola” and “Gaudì” are among the most popular search terms by which people reach this site). The connection to Gaudì is not one I would have made while I was still living in Berkeley, having not yet visited the Parc Gruel or Barcelona in person.
I eventually made my way back to campus via Euclide Ave and Scenic Ave. “Scenic” is a very bold name for a street, and more the most part it doesn't live up to its name, except for a couple of blocks near the Pacific School of Religion, whose main walkway I crossed often.
Driving out of Berkeley on Telegraph Ave. towards highway 24, one cannot help but notice the incredible contrasts between the neighborhoods in the hills and those in South Berkeley and northern Oakland. I still think that it all fits together, somehow.
Tonight's posts are coming to you from Berkeley, my home for six years while I was a grad student at the university. I was invited up for a two-day mini conference by my former colleagues at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies and the recently created research group for parallel computing (aka “the View from Berkeley”). The interesting technical topics will have to wait for some other time – though I can't imagine the EECS faculty would enjoy seeing their research reviewed by a blog about cats…
For now it's simply worth noting that I'm sitting out with my laptop and a hot cider at an outdoor on a summer night. It's one of many things to miss from this much larger town, even as conference participants told me how lucky I was to now be living in Santa Cruz. I of course enjoy the ocean and the interesting cast of characters in my current home, but regular readers also know that I often miss being in a more urban environment…
It is interesting to compare Berkeley and Santa Cruz. Berkeley is much larger, more urban and culturally vibrant, better food, and spectacular streets to wander in the hills – stay tuned for more on that in part 2. Santa Cruz has the ocean, it's calm laid-back character, and an interesting community of creative and artistic people. Interestingly, Berkeley had little to no “night-life” in terms of live music and clubs during the time I was there. The nightlife in Santa Cruz is nothing to brag about, either, but it does have several live music venues that have managed to stay open despite the best efforts of residents to close them down – I never understand why people who hate nightlife live in downtown areas. In any case, almost every place in Santa Cruz closes by 10pm except a few clubs/bars, while in Berkeley things at least stayed open until 2am or later. I'm not sure one can conclude much from this comparison, except that either town would be a better place to live than most…
Not too much interesting to describe from a travel point of view, unless you count the Bay Bridge, which I don't think I have drivin in quite a while. There is a lot of contruction on the San Francisco approach, it looks like they might be trying to fix the remaining “errors” left over from the earthquake and subsequent demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway. With the changes to the 101 freeway described in a previous post, the 80/101 corridor might start to look civilized.
Then there is of course the new eastern section of the Bay Bridge (to replace the current seismicly dubious eastern span), which remains under construction. I wonder when they're planning to finish that…
worthless kitty berkeley conference computing nostalgia cafe highways I-80 bay bridge
I was working on a Memorial Day post, but I couldn't find a photo of Hillary at the parade today in Chappaqua (my home town). In the meantime, enjoy this video clip from the 1975 cult movie Dolemite:
Some of you might have noticed that this site went dark for several days. During this time I was in the bucolic Texas “Hill Country,” away from any sort of computer and internet technology (not to mention cell phone service).
Like many out-of-state visitors, my first introduction to the area was the Austin airport. And you cannot leave the airport to either the city of Austin or the countryside without vist passing through this interchange:
This interchange connects I-35, the area's only interstate highway, with state highway 71, still called Ben White Boulevard even though a large portion has been converted to a freeway. However, significant portions are still not freeway, and as I discovered there is no way to connect to or from I-35 south of the interchange without going through at least one traffic light and/or stop sign. Indeed, this interchange between Austin's oldest and newest freeways is still very much under construction:
From the impressive site TexasFreeway.com:
This intersection is the worst traffic disaster in Austin. The 290/71 freeway ends about 0.5 mile to the west of the interchange, dumping all the traffic into this substandard intersection with a traffic light. But relief is on the way. The 5 level stack is under construction. Texas 71 will be depressed below grade, and the feeders will be at grade.
Austin seems to be a city awash in freeway construction projects. Several were plainly visible from the air. Again, the TexasFreeway site is an excellent source for more detailed information.
Another freeway of note in Austin is the MoPac expressway (aka “MoPac Boulevard”), or Loop 1. Texas has several so-called “Loop” highways that must use a different definition of the word “loop” than most of us. Loop 1 is mostly a north-south highway that fails to loop around much of anything. But hey, it's Texas, it's different, what can I say? Many readers might know Texas by its reputation, which has most certainly been harmed by George W Bush and his cronies. Austin, the state capital, has a separate reputation as a liberal oasis and thriving music/cultural scene at odds with the rest of the state. And within Austin, the MoPac is known for being quite scenic, at the interface between Austin and the Hill Country, and not having the usual frontage roads that track most Texas freeways. The frontage roads mostly attract ugly strip malls and other commercial developments that were almost as tacky as the televangelist I heard while driving on I-35 south – he seemed obessively concerned with identity theft (maybe he was bitter after sending his checking-account number to someone in Nigeria?), and decrying the assumption of power-of-attorney for elderly parents as a sin. If he has any grown children, I might advise them to do just that.
As my trip to the area was for family reasons, I will not go into details, although I probably will have some photos and other items of interest to share in a later post.
From Corey Anderson at American Idle:
Take that, MC Rove! W's band has a major Motown hit and an aardvark!
Only 634 days…
Well, it looks like we've been nominated for Blogger's Choice Awards in three categories:
Of course, half of all the sites I visit these days are nominated for Blogger's Choice Awards. But nonetheless, we at CatSynth ask for your support, if nothing else it's a bit of fun. I think our best chance is in the Geek Blog category. In the Animal Blogger category, there's very little chance of competing with sites like Cute Overload, dailykitten or the lolcats.
From the nominating statement:
“cats, synthesizers, music, art, opinion” Yes, it's a blog about cats and synths, a strange combination that seems to work. Lots of cute photos of cats posing with, and occasionally playing, music gear. Also features frequent appearances by the lovely black kitty Luna, pretty much the *star* of the site. This site is quite informative, in terms of various global issues, such as pet food recalls, interesting stats of highways, information about people and places (ie New Orleans). This website has many visitors, especially kitty lovers and those people who like music and synthesizers as well. It's got class, it's got variety, best of all, it's got kitties!
I'm glad someone out there appreciates my “highways” posts.
hehe, crack upen a window!