CategoryTechnology

Black Magic Soil

Fascinating ancient Amazon technique could reduce global warming by 12% …

Scientists Promote Benefits of Black Magic Soil | LiveScience:
Scientists say terra preta can do much more than a box of Miracle-Gro. The process of making it pulls carbon out of the atmosphere, and can reduce global warming.

“The knowledge we can gain from studying the Amazonian dark earths, found throughout the Amazon River region, not only teaches us how to restore degraded soils, triple crop yields and support a wide array of crops in regions with agriculturally poor soils, but also can lead to technologies to sequester carbon in soil and prevent critical changes in world climate,” said Johannes Lehmann, a biogeochemist at Cornell University.

A Screw Loose

I’ve been having a problem with the page down key on the MacBook Pro. It wouldn’t go down when pressed. I examined it more closely and say something under the key holding it up. I tried tweezers with no luck. I thought it must be a sesame seed or something. I pressed the key some more and it just popped right off revealing a tiny screw. At that point I freaked a bit, not relishing the idea of another trip to the genius bar. Where could that screw have come from? I didn’t think Apple used that in keyboards. To my chagrin it struck me when the side-piece of my glasses fell straight off. I have a habit of laying my computer glasses on the keyboard when I’m not using them and apparently the screw worked it’s way loose just enough and just at the perfect moment to lodge itself under the key. Now I have a lovely ziploc bag containing said key awaiting the time when I can figure how to stick it back on (it’s not like past keyboards I’ve had that just have this circle that the key pops onto – this has a tab and hinges that are tinyest tiny). Going to Yodobashi to get one of those plastic sheets that go over keyboards to prevent further travesties of the mac variety

LiveBookmarks

I’m so very irritated. I keep trying to make a live bookmark in Firefox 3 but all it ever does is bring up the page (rss feed). Perhaps the creation of these things – they just make a pull down menu of post titles rather than loading the page – is a windows only feature? I’d love to be proven wrong if anyone could share something I’m obviously missing. <sigh>