JEF RASKIN, who died recently aged 61, was best known for his early work on the Apple Macintosh computer, but he had a wide variety of interests including art and music, as well as an independent streak. We have just come across his account of how he left his faculty post at the University of California, San Diego. He wrote: “When I resigned I got into a hot air balloon in the middle of Revelle Plaza and flew over the Chancellor’s residence playing my sopranino recorder so that he would hear the sound. He came out and I yelled down that I was resigning and floated off. I was an art professor at the time and it seemed arty to leave that way.”

Makes my resignation from SI seem utterly boring in comparison…