Computer Script Not Write Stuff

There’s nothing like the human touch, as a pair of computer programmers discovered after designing software that produces letter-perfect calligraphy. The problem, Joseph and Jonathan Sieber soon found as they peddled their beautiful script, was that prospective buyers were complaining that it didn’t have the unevenness and little flaws that real calligraphy would have. So the Siebers went back to the drawing board, so to speak, and introduced those little human touches into the software. “At first, the lettering was very consistent, and most people didn’t think it looked hand-drawn. The little glitches went in and everybody was happy,” Joseph Sieber said. Now business is booming for Inscribe Inc., with the Cambridge, Mass.-based company’s computer able to turn out in 10 minutes what it used to take a calligrapher 10 painstaking hours to accomplish. Are the practitioners of the real thing worried? Not particularly, says Joanne Fink, a New York calligrapher. “The professionals use calligraphy as an art form. Lettering envelopes can be pretty boring,” she said. “The machine does all this. . . . It takes away the drudgery.”

--The reports of her pregnancy are greatly exaggerated, says Buckingham Palace of an account in a tabloid newspaper that the Duchess of York is expecting her first child in July. The 28-year-old duchess, the former Sarah Ferguson, is on a skiing holiday in Switzerland while her husband, Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, is serving in the Royal Navy.

--A still life painting by Jan Davidsz de Heem of such popular Dutch Baroque subject matter as fruit, shellfish and a silver and gold table service has sold for $2.93 million, breaking the American auction record for an Old Master painting set in 1961 with the $2.75 million fetched by Rembrandt’s “Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer.” The masterpiece, painted in 1649, was consigned to Sotheby’s New York auction gallery by real estate tycoon Gerald Guterman and his wife, Linda, and was purchased by Thomas T. Brod, a London dealer.

--Patients at one Massachusetts hospital won’t have the hospital food to kick around anymore. The Baystate Medical Center in Springfield will offer a menu of four appetizers, three entrees, two salads, four desserts and a wine and beer list to patients that includes such treats as seafood cocktail, filet mignon and baked stuffed shrimp. The meals will be served by specially trained staffers pushing carts complete with china, elegant linens and silk flowers, said David Giroux, director of Baystate’s food services.