If you’ve got a Windows machine and a webcam, you can install and play the Virtual Theremin. Looks like fun! (I haven’t tried it yet.) (via LarkFarm)

Although the accompanying text is in French (ah, but perhaps you read French), you can still enjoy this lovely collection of Chinese posters from three different eras: the 20s & 30s, the Communist era, and contemporary times.

Gretsch Guitars ran one of their 1961 models through a CAT scan machine, to rediscover the design of the original bracing. Apparently the knowledge had been lost. Musician Brian Setzer had requested that his signature series of instruments be braced in the older design.

With the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call registration revving up to allow you to eat dinner in peace, there are actually deceptive sites up that claim to pre-register people for the federal list. One of them was charging money for the service.

“But what can I do? I cannot kill him,” lamented Wilfried Seipel, director of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, to the NY Times. He was referring to a security guard who merely turned off what he believed to be a false alarm without investigating the cause. Later Sunday morning a cleaning woman discovered that Benvenuto Cellini’s masterpiece “Saliera” had been stolen. One or more thieves had climbed up exterior scaffolding (unsuccessfully designed to thwart such audacious thievery), broken a window, and entered the building, quickly smashing a heavy display case and running off with the 10-inch-high sculpture. Shown in lectures to many an art history student, the gold-plated salt and pepper holder is the famous work of the infamous Cellini, who led an Italian Renaissance life that would stun the imagination of modern tabloid readers, and chronicled it in his autobiography. It is likely that a private collector paid dearly to have own this piece. Perhaps an enterprising underground art dealer decided the time was ripe for a bidding war in the black market. Whatever hands it ends up in or travels through, the Kunsthistorisches Museum director hopes they will take care of this fragile Renaissance artwork.

Items from the estate of The Who’s John Entwistle go under the gavel at a Sotheby’s auction on Tuesday. Entwistle’s vast collection of over 150 guitars will be up for bid alongside a selection of brass instruments (a French horn, euphonium, tuba, tenor horn, bugles and trumpets). Life-size casts of 30 fish caught by Entwistle (hammerhead shark, marlin, barracuda) are among the more unusual items. Conventional rock memorabilia include band photos and silver, gold, and platinum records.

The NY Times is running a series of articles following the creation of one Steinway concert grand piano, No. K0862. The first in the series tells of the physical labor of the bending of the rim. There is an accompanying multimedia segment that delves into the mystery of each Steinway’s unique sound as Erika Nickrenz, pianist with the Eroica Trio, auditions three concert grands lined up in the showroom. Will the destiny of K0862 be determined by the end of the series? Some Steinways blossom with phenomenal sound while others are just another well-made Steinway.

Librarian Bill Drew is collecting a list of libraries with wireless Internet access. (via xBlog)

A Chronicle article on nanotech spoke of “stain-resistant ‘nanopants’ already on the market.” Nanopants? “Nano=Care” pants, available at Eddie Bauer, are made of material marketed by Nano-Tex. The fabric is coated at a molecular level with stain resistant chemicals. The Eddie Bauer chinos were introduced in 2001. For the latest nano-news, check Nanodot, a Slashdot for nanotech.

Short bits today:

We know who won’t be watching NBC on May 19th. “Martha Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart” with Cybill Shepherd as the duchess of domestics will air that evening. Review copies of the tape arrived in TV critics’ mailboxes accompanied by a nutcracker and two walnuts.

Infogrames is going all the way with their ownership of the Atari brand by renaming their company and their NASDAQ symbol. But Midway still owns the original agames.com domain (not that it has much recognition as an Atari domain unless you are in the know).

$100,000 for one easy day of filming versus maintaining your journalistic integrity? Yesterday, the NY Times ran an article questioning the use of news anchors in public television “news breaks” that are paid for solely by the health care companies that are being profiled. The CNN anchor mentioned quickly backed out of the deal, and Walter Cronkite will likely pull his participation as well.