A Note On The News Banner

The drawing at the top of this blog depicts a stand that sells CHON food. Frederick Pohl, a science fiction author I read a lot of in high school, proposed that mankind could be saved from starvation by building "factories" that synthesized food from the four elements that most commonly composed it: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. He also wanted to put the factories in the Oort Cloud surrounding the solar system, because the Oort is supposed to be heavy on carbon. Of course, given what we now know of the prohibitive cost of space travel, as well as our increasing distrust of processed foods, the whole concept seems faintly ridiculous now. This, I guess, is why it stuck with me.

You can read more about CHON stuff here: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=532



Anyway, I drew the banner the way I did because a small pink technofood factory on a beach is cuter and, maybe, funnier than a massive silver one in space. Maybe I should add in a tanned couple strolling on the boardwalk with a paper cone-bag full of CHON snacks, enjoying the sun and the great taste of molecules.

I was originally going to name the blog "CHON food" too, but then decided it was too geeky, got butterflies, and went with a reference to the most pointless vocabulary entry from my high-school German class, where I once got so distracted that I colored my entire left forearm and hand yellow with a highlighter. The end.