The cat was mewling piteously the other day and I said “she sounds like a siren. Hey, did the Sirens have names?” Away we went to the Internet to find a page on the mythology of the Sirens. There are conflicts as to their names and number, but here are the most common names: Aglaophonos: one of brilliant voice, Thelxepeia: one who uses words to enchant, Peisino‘: the persuasive one, and Molpe: one with song. Good thing the cat already has a name.

ENIAC programmer Betty Holberton died on December 8th. She contributed not only to the war effort, COBOL, and FORTRAN, but also made computers easier to use for programmers (and everyone else too). “Grace Hopper later described Betty Holberton as being the best programmer she had ever known.”

A reader sent in an update on the Swedish ultrasound study which quotes the Vice President of the Australian Medical Association. He says that the study is flawed since it only included men whose mothers had ultrasounds in the 1970’s when they were only used for high-risk pregnancies. He also quibbled with the association between left-handedness and brain damage.

The SF Chronicle rounds up more information on the business of cell phone ring tones. EMI Music Publishing has banned the ring-tone versions of 300 songs while two rappers have been amongst the first to release new record tracks as ring-tones. These personalized rings are catching on fast in the U.S. with Cingular, AT&T; Wireless, VoiceStream and Sprint ready to sell cell tones. But, thanks to EMI, it looks like cell-toting fans of “The X-Files,” “Star Trek” and “Buffy” won’t be able to go legal ringing their theme songs.

Great Performances’ Art of the Violin airs on PBS stations this month. The website has interesting tidbits including an interview with Hilary Hahn and a Flash depiction of the internals of a violin. The program’s archival footage of violinists such as Fritz Kreisler and Yehudi Menuhin should be of great interest to those who have surmised about their technique by listening to recordings, but never actually seen it.

Although AT&T; Broadband Internet swiftly transferred our service over to their own networks, our cable modem has regularly stopped working each evening for anywhere from one to “I don’t know because I fell asleep while I was on hold with tech support and when I woke up the sun was shining and it was working again” hours. When it is working, our speeds are one third of what we used to get. I expected glitches, and some is better than none, but I hope they are intending to make things much better, not just tolerable.

Aerie Networks, who acquired the remains of Metricom’s Ricochet assets, has plans to launch wireless broadband service early next year. One way they are running their business smarter: “To avoid the $4 to $10 fees Metricom paid on each pole-top transmitter, Aerie is negotiating with municipalities to exchange free service for pole space.” (via RandomWalks)

Is this enough evidence to stop common practice? A study in Sweden showed that ultrasound may disrupt fetal brain development. Their evidence: of almost 7000 men born between 1976 and 1978 who had ultrasonic scans in the womb, 32 per cent more were left-handed than would be expected. A 1999 study on females showed no difference.

The oldest known working lightbulb hangs in a Livermore, California firehouse. Its 4 watts serves as a nightlight over the firetrucks. You can see it gleaming on its very own webcam. It hasn’t been burning continuously since its 1901 installation, as it has been moved a few times, but I bet it wouldn’t have lasted this long if it had been turned on and off a lot.

Violinist Joshua Bell recently acquired a Stradivarius with an intriguing past. Stolen multiple times, the Gibson Strad was missing for 51 years until it surfaced in 1987 after a dying man confessed to having bought it for $100 following its theft from Carnegie Hall. The insurer’s finder’s fee became embroiled in inheritance bickering, but the violin itself was bought for $1.2 million by British violinist Norbert Brainin. Bell discovered Brainin was about to sell it to a German industrialist, and quickly made a deal to purchase it himself for $4 million. A page on his website has a photo of the violin and reprint of the article.