To Anne Morrow Lindbergh, peaceful rest and a final safe landing. The NY Times obituary is suitably thorough and informative, including mention of her liaison with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It closes with the death of her grandson, sadly echoing the murder of her own baby boy.

A Washington Post article cites the following Chinese government statistics: China produces 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year, cutting down as many as 25 million trees. Disposable wooden chopsticks were once required by the government in some cities, to help fight the spread of diseases. Now environmentalists are discouraging the use of disposables. I hope the wooden ones are not replaced by disposable plastic ones. (via randomWalks)

Most professional violinists, even if they are famous and well-paid, can’t afford a Guarneri or Stradivarius. These instruments cost millions, $3 to $5 million being an often quoted figure. Provenance and condition of course play a large part in the value. So how do many artists obtain a violin they covet? Robert McDuffie set up a limited partnership where his daughter’s friends’ parents, childhood friend and R.E.M. bassist, Mike Mills, and N.F.L. commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, purchased shares of a 1735 Guarneri del Gesu. Many violinists obtain their instruments from corporate sponsorships or borrow from foundations set up to loan out instruments. Some musicians do well enough that they can eventually purchase their favorites. Robert McDuffie has his on a 25 year lease from his partnership. After that, they can reap the benefits of their investment by selling it. But I think most of them aren’t doing it for the money.

A couple of UK news links today. Here’s a rather top level view of affective computing and how it may change human computer interaction for the better. Devices like the Emotion Mouse are designed to adapt cold technology to react to human emotions. The article brings up the smart point that once computers start reacting to our emotions, we may have to start caring about the computer’s emotions. My solution to that is to keep the human computer relationship as professional as possible. Often I find that when people describe someone as “professional”, their main characteristic is that they are able to control inappropriate emotions in their business dealings. I’d rather my computer stayed professional, even if I’m using it to play games.

Some scientists are blaming an increase in severe memory loss on people’s growing dependence on computers and other electronic devices. People aren’t using their brains to keep track of things and their underused recall mechanisms get slow. And I thought I was just getting old. So by using my PalmPilot to keep track of things because I can’t remember them, am I making myself even less likely to remember things? Didn’t people use notebooks, DayTimers, scraps of paper, the backs of the hands before computers anyway? Did the advent of the use of paper for taking notes kill off some of our memory skills? I am all for the idea that if you exercise a brain skill, it will improve. But I am not about to blame my computer and PDA use for my memory loss. However, if it is indeed true that younger people are losing their memory skills, I suppose that the shift to computer use could be to blame. I hope they are using those saved brain cells to create cool new things instead of filling them with trash. (via Feed Daily)

In an interesting co-marketing deal, TurboTax is also shipping on Zip disk. The idea is that you run the software off the Zip disk and also save your tax files to it. That makes it portable and, as far as you trust the Zip disk, safe. It also solves an interesting problem I’ve run into, which is that even though I may save the actual tax files, I also have to either save my installation of TurboTax from that year or re-install it if I need to look at the file. With the Zip disk method, I have an archive of both the file and the program. Of course I need to keep a Zip drive around. I don’t actually worry too much about saving TurboTax versions, though. I just keep paper copies of my tax return and relevant paperwork which should be enough since that’s all I used to have in the dark ages.

It is fun to discover that someone hasn’t seen a certain movie when you absolutely know they will love it. Having the opportunity to spread that bit of joy and happiness into their lives is a special treat. And often it is part of an ongoing chain of recommendations that travels from one like-minded person to another, domino-ing endlessly to many happy victims. That said, Harold & Maude is indeed out on DVD (since the summer). If you enjoyed it, think of someone else who will too and share.

Right now the Purple Moon website claims to be “Under Construction” and has links instead to other Mattel sites. It’s not the first time, by any means, that something I’ve worked on has evolved past my incarnation of it, but it frightens me because, well, it is Mattel now. And part of me would rather just see it go away instead of becoming something else.

If you follow weblogging, you know there is a lot of discussion right now about Pyra being out of funds, laying off its crew, paring down to Ev. Blogger is the most personal software I’ve ever used. I think about the apps I use: Microsoft products which are completely faceless and anonymous, development tools that seem to be written by people who don’t write code the way I do, even shareware stuff written by one guy who only asks that you send postcards in return. Nothing has had as much of a face as Blogger. It is in its nature. It allows people to publish themselves for others to see, and the team that created it did so themselves (and, I hope, will continue to do so). And the team cared — still cares. The face of Blogger to me will always include everyone that worked on it. It’s hard to let go of a child. I wish everyone the best and, most importantly, relaxation and peace.

The NY Times reports on the latest hot trend in dining: tobacco in desserts. Pipe tobacco in sundae sauce, fine Cuban cigars crumbled into mousse, tobacco ice cream. Makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, it’s not really a new concept, witness the marijuana brownie. Doctors aren’t amused since the ingestion of nicotine can be bad for diners. Smokers, of course, aren’t likely to notice the effects since they are already tolerant.