Overheard today on the Twitterstream:
TheKatzer: Last day at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, with the best transmission electron microscope in the world, but the most terrible office coffee ever.
ccmarshall: http://twitpic.com/j5n5w – Great drawing I found on the ground when I was on campus (UC Berkeley) today.
The announcement by philanthropist Warren Hellman (left) that he is pledging $5 million to kick-start a new online Bay Area news service in conjunction with KQED, UC’s journalism school and possibly the New York Times has prompted a variety of responses.
Robert Gammon in The East Bay Express probably came out most strongly against the initiative, saying it represented a threat to Bay Area journalism as well as to the long-term fortunes of journalism students in the area.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given his position as an adjunct professor at the J-School, Silicon Valley new-media consultant Alan Mutter passed no comment on the development and merely reported it on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur.
Susan Mernit, who is about to launch hyperlocal blog called Oakland Local, was ambivalent on her own blog, but concluded that, “As much as I worry that Hellman’s project will suck $$ from my own little project and other wonderful smaller sites I see emerging, the Hellman project feels more like a replacement for something we’ve lost — the big (bloated?) newsrooms of the corporate papers — not the local sites that are close to their community.”
All the major news media have reported the initiative whose website can be found here and its Facebook page, launched just today, has already attracted about 240, mostly encouraging, followers.
Just before 6pm fire crews were responding to a car on fire on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge.
[Source and pic: ABCNewsBay Area]
A coffee insurgency may be in the making as startup coffee impresario Phil Jaber readies his first foray into the East Bay with a new Philz Coffee store to be located at 1600 Shattuck Ave. at the corner of Cedar, site of a former Starbucks Coffee Cafe de la Paz, and just a stone’s throw from the original Peet’s outlet.
I have never tasted Philz coffee, but their web site emphasizes the “special customized blends” used to make every “hand-crafted to your liking” coffee drink, and describes their drinks this way: “The amount of beans we put into each cup is equivalent to 3 cups of your normal coffee so you will be as high as a plane!” The web site sells T-shirts and other swag, and even features a cartooned Quentin Tarantino quote about their mocha drink.
Since opening his first store in 2003, Jaber has expanded to six outlets in San Francisco and down the peninsula in Palo Alto and San Jose, and Philz has generally gotten good reviews, so they must be doing something right. And all their shops feature free Wi-Fi.
Watch out Peet’s. Here comes Philz.
If you want to catch up on the protests yesterday at the university, zunguzungu does the best job I’ve seen. There’s a great juxtaposition, as well, of a photo from yesterday and a photo of Mario Savio speaking from the same spot in 1964.
My teenage son and I like this piece of street art which is on the old photo-processing shop on the corner of Ashby and Telegraph. It puts us in mind of the notoriously successful British street artist Banksy.
We’d like to know more about it — the artist, the message? Anyone?
Update: Thanks to reader Cleita we have the answer we were looking for. The artist is Jesse Hazelip and you can find out more about him and his work on his website here.
As the parent of a Berkeley High student, I remember going through a thorough registration process. The school district needed to see utility bills and a host of other documentation to prove that our family really lived in Berkeley. I also heard stories about investigators roaming around, checking to see whether families were really living where they claimed to be.
It’s understandable, I guess. Berkeley High School has a good academic reputation, and some of Berkeley’s neighbors — notably Oakland and Richmond — have high schools with less academic clout (although I consistently hear good things about Oakland Tech’s Paideia Program and Engineering Academy).
At least, the theory is understandable. In practice it’s widely known that Berkeley High is filled with kids from other cities. I’ve heard reports of kids streaming out of the BART station every morning. No one living in Berkeley would commute to BHS by BART. A friend who helped at freshman registration this year recognized scores of kids who she knew were Oakland residents — spend years on soccer and baseball fields, and you get to know lots of your child’s peers all over the East Bay. I’ve heard estimates of 10 to 20 per cent of BHS students being non-resident.
As a Berkeley taxpayer and BHS parent, it feels like a rip off. Or have the rumors run out of control? I’d like to know.
Photo from Flickr by Jeremy Franklin
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion created a storm of controversy over the question of God’s existence. Now, in The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins presents a stunning counterattack against advocates of “Intelligent Design” that explains the evidence for evolution while keeping an eye trained on the absurdities of the creationist argument.
Berkeley Arts & Letters presents Richard Dawkins on Wednesday, October 7, 7:30 p.m., at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana St. Tickets are $12 in advance ($6 for students with ID) at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, or $15 at the door.
Update Melissa Mytinger from Berkeley Arts & Letters reports that the Dawkins talk will sell out in the next few days. If you want to attend, order tickets online. There will be nothing left at the door.
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