You know you’ve married the right person when…
You’re in the library and in browsing through “The Ultimate History of Video Games” you find this funny passage about the acquisition of Atari by the Tramiels.

Everybody was expecting something draconian to happen. When they first walked in the building, someone got on the PA system and did the line from The Empire Strikes Back. I think it went, “Attention, Imperial storm troops have entered the base.”

You gleefully run over to show it to your husband who you think will appreciate it. He responds “Oh! That was me!” (read my husband’s account of this event)

Medical Antiques Online has photos and information on the history of the stethoscope. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec invented the stethoscope in 1816 after divising an alternate method of listening to the heart of a young woman. As he was unwilling to place his ear on her chest, he rolled up 24 sheets of paper, placed one end on her chest, listened at the other, and was happy to find that the sound was magnified. The site includes his own description of his discovery that led to the invention. He created the first stethoscope using a wood-turning lathe. ‘Binaural’ models (for both ears) came to market in the 1850s.

A long forgotten Pippi Longstocking story, printed in 1949 in a children’s magazine, was rediscovered by Lena Toernqvist, secretary of the Astrid Lindgren Society. The short tale tells of a visit by Pippi to cheer up three children who are facing a dreary Christmas. No one in the Lindgren family had heard of the story either. Toernqvist had been preparing for an exhibition of illustrations from Lindgren’s books when she happened across it.

A listing of all the Presidential pets, courtesy of the Presidential Pet Museum in Lothian, Maryland. (via Breaching the Web)

A self-tuning piano? “Carefully controlled electric currents” are used to warm the strings to the correct pitch. It leaves the factory tuned sharp and can then be warmed to the right pitch. No news on whether the heat has an adverse effect on the longevity of the piano wood or strings.

At last, Red Dwarf DVDs will be released in the U.S. Seasons 1 & 2 will be available on February 25. Amazon has preordering ready to go. Of course if you have all the episodes memorized already, well, maybe you’d rather look forward to the movie they keep trying to make. It’s in pre-production. (thanks TVPicks)

Kay Thompson’s infamous Eloise lives on in a newly published book “Eloise Takes a Bawth.” Thompson had just about finished the book in the late 1960s but decided not to have it printed. She also, reportedly in “a dramatic fit of pique”, decided that none of the Eloise books except for the first one should be in print. Her estate has since decided otherwise and reissued them all. The “Bawth” text has been reworked and original illustrator Hilary Knight has redone the drawings as well. Also, Julie Andrews will be portraying Eloise’s Nanny in two movies for ABC-TV/Disney. As you certainly remember, Andrews has already taken on incorrigible children for Disney before.

Wasn’t it just October? What happened to November? The passing of time has become ridiculously fast for me, and it’s most distressing that our perception of time goes faster and faster the closer we get to the end of our lives. I had a digital clock with a seconds display on it when I was a child, and I remember watching a second go by and thinking that it was a pretty long span of time. Now I watch the second hand on my analog clock swoop around with the tiniest of pauses, and I wonder how it will look after another thirty years goes by. Scientists don’t need to make me live forever, I just want my childlike perception of time back.

Michael “Mickey” Bookspan was 24 when he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra and he went on to perform under the baton of three successive music directors. Holder of the principal percussionist position, he died in September at age 73. The search is now on for a replacement for the coveted position, filling the shoes of “arguably the principal percussionist in the greatest orchestra percussion section there ever was.” First they’ll go through resumes (due this week), then there will be auditions in February. The final few candidates will likely be asked to play for a few weeks with the orchestra to test their fit with the section. They’re not doing much publicity to recruit candidates; they don’t need to. As one percussionist said “Jobs like this open up once every 10 to 15 years.”

Arriving to prop up my continued pondering of the “scan all your documents into a searchable database” concept, Microsoft is working on a database to hold your life memories. The MyLifeBits project is a “lifestore” as envisioned by Vannevar Bush. Microsoft’s prototype is storing emails, online purchases, phone conversations and meetings, and could potentially store everything you ever look at or hear. Imagine an even more futuristic device that would allow your brain to recall the taste of that $200 bottle of wine you once splurged on, or the feeling you had when you first fell in love. For now, though, keyword and date indexing will allow you to supplement your perhaps faulty (but sometimes rosier) memories of correspondence, image, and text information. (via eatonweb)