For the required Valentine’s Day candy topic, the San Francisco Chronicle visited TCHO Chocolate, a start-up headed by Timothy Childs, a former NASA scientist, and Louis Rossetto, founder of Wired Magazine. It’s the only true chocolate maker in San Francisco, crafting bars from cacao beans. With the bootstrapping practicality of a garage start-up, Childs cobbled together equipment intended for other uses, dal grinders from India, dryer duct, tape used on the space shuttle, to mix chocolate (see the result in a 2 min. video). TCHO has 30 employees and is now selling its products on the web, at its factory store, and select retailers. (A longer tour of the machines from BoingBoing TV in July 2008.)

Cooper, the cat with the camera on his collar, now has his very own photo exhibit at the Urban Light Studios in Seattle. 16 of his photographs are framed and also available for purchase. Part of the proceeds benefit the PAWS shelter.

Frank Gehry isn’t about to let a downturn in the economy compromise his uniquely curvy building designs. His Digital Project software models Gehry’s oddball architecture on the computer screen, allowing him to revise and tweak building elements, resulting in cost savings. The software and services offered by Gehry Technologies also gives Gehry an income source helping others build projects while demand for his own ambitious visions may have to wait out the frugal climate. Architects can use Digital Project to easily try different materials, shapes and change other parameters to stay within budget.

I don’t know much about sports cars, high performance vehicles, and even less about how to drive them. But after driving (if you can call it that) a Tesla Roadster in Project Gotham Racing 4 I was intrigued by this electric sports car. It’s the result of a Silicon Valley startup, high-tech VCs and all (including the Google founders). Like many high-tech startups there was some FUD along the way, was an electric high performance engine just vaporware? But with actual cars now shipping, Tesla has sold out almost all of its 2009 production, and their CEO expresses optimism in a recent letter that they will weather out the bad economy despite some order cancellations. The letter also pointed out that the purchase of a Tesla ($109,000 list) is an investment in a company that wants to also develop mass market electric cars. They can actually enable well-off buyers to not feel guilty about spending $100K on a fast car. Tesla hopes to become profitable by mid-2009. By the way, my experience in PGR4 was suitably insane: the Tesla accelerated so quickly with so little noise that I was crashing it all over the place not realizing how fast I was going. Once I got the hang of not using gear clanking and engine noise as my speed indicators, it was a dream. Plus, it’s gorgeous, thanks to Lotus’ hand in the chassis design.

When Boeing delivered a Boeing 737-800 to Kenya Airlines on Wednesday it came with a special cargo. Three teenage girls from Issaquah and Sumner, WA coordinated donations of almost half a ton of clothing for orphanages in Kenya. The Wema Centre selected the recipient organizations. Previous Boeing planes have arrived in Kenya with computers and school books through similar programs.

Vehement comments from readers of Eric Asimov’s N.Y. Times article on single malts caused the Times editors to change their stylebook regarding the word “whiskey”. Scotch whisky has no ‘e’ as several readers strongly pointed out in comments and emails to Asimov. He summed up the feedback in a December post and has now announced the results after careful consideration by the editors: “As of now, the spelling whisky will be used not only for Scotch but for Canadian liquor as well. The spelling whiskey will be used for all appropriate liquors from other sources.”

If you look inside most luxury brand leather products these days, you’ll find a “Made in China” label. Those high prices don’t necessarily mean you’ve purchased traditional Italian craftsmanship. Worse though is that a “Made in Italy” label may not mean what it used to. Products that are manufactured primarily in China may be finished in Italy, let’s say a buckle is put on, and then tagged with the “Made in Italy” label. Also, factories in Tuscany are being staffed with Chinese immigrants, often working long hours and in questionable conditions. That situation at least is truly “Made in Italy”, but perhaps not at the level of craftsmanship that may be assumed from the price. The craftsmen who are keeping the old-style practices alive have to compete with this cheaper labor.

What do you do when you design a Christmas tree sculpture for Times Square but don’t get it done in time for the holidays? You cut and flip your blueprint around and turn it into a heart for Valentine’s Day. With pink Corian donated by DuPont and labor donated by a hot rod shop, the heart is now stationed at Times Square, glowing with LEDs. (N.Y. Times slide show)

At age 88, White House reporter Helen Thomas is covering her 10th President. Her relationship with the most recent President Bush was rocky, especially after she called him “the worst president in American history”. He slammed the door on decades of Thomas tradition by not calling on her at a 2003 press conference and denying Thomas her usual closing of “Thank You, Mr. President”. Bush did not call on her at his final press conference either. Now a columnist with an opinionated agenda, Thomas, strictly speaking, no longer holds an objective news reporting position that earns her that front row seat, but her longevity and career are respected by many. President Obama called on Thomas, back in the front row, last night with a cheerful mention of his “inaugural moment” with the notoriously hard-nosed reporter. After taking care of her question, not to her satisfaction (he ignored her follow up), he called on Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, thereby “bookending”, as the N.Y. Times put it, representatives of old and new media.

The publicity machine for Dollhouse is rolling merrily along with Joss Whedon on the interview treadmill: N.Y. Times and NPR (mild spoilers about storylines). It’s difficult to feel hopeful for a series stuck on Friday night especially after what happened to Firefly, but new Joss Whedon is better than none at all, and 13 episodes are schedule to air. More links to coverage and early reviews on Whedonesque and of course fan sites are up and running.