Mike Little’s Journalized

I’ve been doing a bit of graphic based web page design the last couple of days for one of my hostees. It’s been quite good fun! We’ve agreed on a look chosen from four that I put together. I need to redo the various elements and plug in the B2 engine next.
I’m doing it all by hand (PaintShop Pro and Epsilon programmer’s editor) of course rather than with some WYSIWYG application.

Jan got a bread maker from my sister Carole today. She gave it a try this evening. The bread was great! Still warm, really soft. I think we’ll be having lots of fresh bread from now on.

I’ve recently finished Minority Report by Philip K. Dick. Which is a re-published collection of short stories. Re-published to cash in on the movie based on the short story of the same name, I presume.
In all it was quite a good collection. I have not read a lot of Philip K Dick before, so this collection was an eye opener. I liked all the stories (although one much less then the others); he has a quirky sense of plot, and likes to add an unexpected twist to each of the stories and give you something to think about. This collection also included “We can remember it for you wholesale” which was the inspiration for the movie Total Recall. I say inspiration, because the point of the story is quite different from the movie.
I also found that the science in this science fiction was quite dated. Typical of the pre-70s (when these were written). In fact, it kind of made my feel a little nostalgic; I first started reading Sci-Fi in 1971 (Asimov’s ‘I Robot’ was the first book I ever bought).

Anyway, recommended!

Here’s an interesting story on the BBC News.

Jatoba, or hymenaea, a rainforest tree, has been found to grow much faster in atmospheres with high levels of carbon dioxide.
This could be important in fighting climate change, as carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that is making the planet warmer….
Simply planting large numbers of Jatoba trees may not be the answer, as they can take a very long time to reach maturity and specimens 500 years old are not unknown.

The article goes on to mention isolating the gene which causes the desired effect and applying it to other plants.

But that idea is controversial, because it would in effect create a large number of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
“It will take years for us to understand how these things work,” Professor Buckeridge conceded.
“I’m not saying we should have GMOs everywhere. But we have to be prepared.