CatSynth

The 20 most common search strings (out of 376 total) for the first week of April that lead people to CatSynth and my other websites:

1 	22 	3.49% 	mondrian2 	15 	2.38% 	crazy cats3 	15 	2.38% 	new world trade center4 	8 	1.27% 	parabola5 	6 	0.95% 	new world trade centers6 	5 	0.79% 	New World Trade Center7 	5 	0.79% 	betta splendens8 	5 	0.79% 	breeding fighting fish9 	5 	0.79% 	fishy10 	5 	0.79% 	the new world trade center-11 	4 	0.63% 	The Sphere WT-12 	4 	0.63% 	black cat13 	4 	0.63% 	cats fighting14 	4 	0.63% 	cats musical15 	4 	0.63% 	circuit bending16 	4 	0.63% 	panther animal17 	4 	0.63% 	piet mondrian18 	4 	0.63% 	the new world trade center19 	4 	0.63% 	vtech phone circuit bent20 	3 	0.48% 	Mondrian

Up until this month, “Mondrian” in various combinations has topped the list, because of my popular Mondrian Machine page I did several years ago. More searches are now leading directly to CatSynth, including the variations on “New World Trade Center.” That one is a bit surprising. I did a rather lengthy article on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, and apparently it places quite well in Google's image search. Go figure.

stats
fun with stats
search strings

This chart represents the most popular automotive colors for North America in 2004.

That is one fine-looking chart!

but which one is the new black?

stats
fun with stats
cars
automotive
colors

What better way to reflect upon the year than with marginally meaningful statistics?

The following table represents the frequency of tags in all 2006 articles on CatSynth.com (except for this one). Tags are either those funny words at the bottom of every post or the category names that follow the dateline at the top of every post.

With 285 distinct tags during 2006, it is rather difficult to show them all in the graph above. However, most are only used once. As can be seen in the following pie chart (hey, who doesn't love a good pie chart?), the top 15 tags account for almost 50%:

Here are the top 33 tags for 2006:

cats			85synthesizers		54news			34music			33luna			26weekend cat blogging	20worthless kitty		17kitty			17art			17wcb			14new orleans		9photography		9experimental		8electronic music	8lebanon			7modernism		7osw			6emulator x		6stats			6kitties			6e-mu			5beirut			5fun with stats		5podcast 		5jazz			4computer music		4analog			4improvisation		4open sound world	4funk			4sculpture		4mathematics		4resonance		4

Happy New Year!

stats
fun with stats
new year

From John Battelle's Searchblog, we have some self-described “fun stats for the holiday:”

If you were expecting something more directly apropos of the holiday season, consider a few of these gems courtesy of New American Dream:

* A typical middle income family earning around $45,000 a year saw its debt burden grow by 33.1% between 2001 and 2004, even after adjusting for inflation.

* Recent statistics show that in November of 2003 54% of consumers were still paying off credit card debt left over from the previous holiday season.

* The amount of household garbage in the United States generally increases by 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, from 4 million tons to 5 million tons.

* 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. Of those, 30-plus million get carted to the landfill every year.

* The National Mental Health Association cites the financial stresses of the holiday season as one cause of the ?holiday blues? which, for many, transforms the holidays into a time of anxiety and depression.

So folks, lay off the credit card debt for a bit, and spend some more time with your family and friends, both furry and not so furry.

Maybe give a little something to your local animal shelter, too. You can find shelters and other organizations near you on Petfinder.

stats
fun with stats
holidays

Happy 300 million!

1. China 1,313,000,000
2. India 1,112,000,000
3. United States 300,000,000
4. Indonesia 222,000,000
5. Brazil 184,000,000
6. Pakistan 163,000,000
7. Nigeria 159,000,000
8. Russia 143,000,000
9. Bangladesh 136,000,000
10. Japan 128,000,000

(From the Population Resource Center)

stats
fun with stats
population

Top ten “nations” by number of internet users

1. European Union: 230,097,055
2. United States: 203,824,428
3. China: 111,000,000
4. Japan: 86,300,000
5. India: 50,600,000
6. Korea, South: 33,900,000
7. Brazil: 25,900,000
8. Russia: 23,700,000
9. Canada: 20,900,000
10. Indonesia 18,000,000

stats
fun with stats

From Daniel Faigin's amazing California Highways website:

1. US 101. 807 miles
2. I-5. 796 miles
3. CA 1. 656 miles
4. US 395. 557 miles
5. CA 99. 415 miles
6. CA 299. 307 miles
7. CA 65. 305 miles
8. CA 49. 295 miles
9. I-15. 294 miles
10. CA 33. 290 miles

Here are the ten highest-rated posts based on 90 ratings as of this morning:

the inaugural post (5.00).
moring walk and sea lion (4.33).
In memoriam, Ruth Schonthal (1924-2006), composer and teacher (4.33).
DSI Evolver legal again in Kansas public schools (4.00).
getting ready for tomorrow's performance, part 1 (4.00).
Cat Welfare Society of Israel (4.00).
fun with Emulator X and filter response (3.83).
Luna and table in black and white (3.50).
Green Kitties (3.29).
shades of luna (3.17).

No one has left any comments, so I'm not entirely sure how to interpret any of this. But I'm pretty sure this post will get a very low rating…