How this came about is sort of a long story, but the short version is that I built a teeny greenhouse for a basil plant out of K’nex and plastic wrap. As you can see in the following photo, it has made this basil plant quite happy. The structure is about 30 inches tall at its peak, and Tracie has harvested leaves from the plant three times. Much of its remarkable growth took place during the rather cold weather we’ve had recently, and the thermostat in the house is set at 62, so apparently the structure is doing a pretty good job of trapping heat around the plant.
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Chris has been muttering about Last.fm and today I finally paid attention to him and checked it out. It’s a neat thing, I’ve decided. The idea is that it watches what music you play on your MP3 player (software player, that is) and keeps a little database of your listening habits. Then it looks at the databases of other people who listen to the same stuff that you listen to, and suggests other things you might want to listen to. The very first track I played under its observation (“Escent” by Maitreya) produced suggestions for five other artists, four of whom I’ve never heard of. read more