I’m going to be busy at work in the run up to the Chinese New Year holidays and likely will not have any regular net access during that time while I’m away, so this is going to be the last post for at least a couple of weeks or so. In the meantime, if you’re starved of reading material, here are links to some interesting stuff I’ve read recently:

• I’m not much of a fan of classical music, but it’s still sobering to learn that sales of just a few hundred units are currently sufficient to get an album on the Top Ten list by Billboard magazine. My wife, who is something of a fan, argues that this is countered by the fact that classical music recordings have a much longer shelf life than other works, but I think an upper limit of a few hundred sales is still rather pathetic. I fail to see how it’s economic to even produce these albums. Sales outside North America seem somewhat healthier however.
• This is an older article that dates from August last year but I only recently came across it while reading one of the blogs by The Economist. As someone who’s married but has decided not to have children, I supposed I’m biased but it confirms a point I’ve been making for a long time now: having children is easily the most environmentally unfriendly things a person can do. It doesn’t matter how else you do right, like driving an electric, recycling regularly, use energy efficient light bulbs, etc. As soon as you have a child, your carbon impact takes off like a rocket.
• Shanghai is cracking down on the wearing of pyjamas in public, apparently because it looks unseemly? What would they think about Malaysian-style singlets and short pants?
• This review and summary of recently published biography of Ayn Rand, entitled Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Ann C. Heller, compares her to Stalin and argues that even though she rejected the Soviet Union and eagerly fled to the United States, there is still something profoundly Russian about her thoughts and views. It also relates an astonishing anecdote about how she treated her husband Frank O’ Connor who suffered from dementia in the last years of his life. Apparently Rand believed that he could snap out of it if only his willpower were strong enough and assigned him long, grueling lessons on how to think and remember and warned other people not to humor him but instead treat him as they would any other normally functioning person.
• This essay by fantasy author Terry Pratchett who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease is very well-written and moving. It’s a plea for the authorities to allow people with incurable diseases to decide to die gracefully at the time and in the manner of their choice.