This morning, as I sat down to browse through today's possibilities for the Tracker, I came across a nice little science story out of Stanford. Two researchers "have successfuly enabled a pair of rhesus monkeys to move a virtual cursor across a computer screen merely by thinking about their response to human commands," the story reports.
This is not something I would ordinarily have picked out for the Tracker–it's a competent piece, but not remarkable. What was remarkable was the byline: David Perlman.
Perlman has been filing stories for more than 80 years, since he used a mimeograph machine to launch a newspaper in junior high school. He has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle since 1940–72 years ago. Perlman turned 90 in 2009, a milestone noted by The New York Times, among many others.
Depending upon when his birthday falls, that would make him 93 or 94 now. And not only did he file last night, a quick search of the Chronicle shows he's been filing regularly for the past few weeks, and before that, too.
I have no particular reason to celebrate Perlman today, except that it's my birthday, and I thought it might be good luck to, you know, touch Perlman.
Cheers, Dave!
-Paul Raeburn
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