1. Buying local encourages contribution to the local economy
2. You know exactly where your food is coming from (as long as you ask!)
3. Non-hybrid heirloom seeds can often be exchanged online: http://www.seedsavers.org/
4. Far more variety and flavor of foods- and far more nutritional value.
5. Social benefits of a 21st century "cottage industry"

What we buy and how we promote our purchasing can have a direct impact on several areas. For example, at wfree rice, by answering simple questions, they will donate 10 grains of rice per answer. You can also download a toolbar and use it to answer trivia throughout the day.

Exchange Programs and fair trade can also offer Entrepreneurship opportunities for those who might not otherwise have the opportunity. Kiva is a service that allows a mixture of people to offer very small loans that can eventually add up into entire projects to open new businesses.

Undoubtedly this is a very passionate area of focus for myself. I also see more people discovering this as forming it into both their professional lives as an outside pursuit and in their own lives to live a healthier path.

Issues of health and privacy is a major concern for everyone involved with the patient, and this involves employers as well. I remember holding some fairly heavy opinions on RFID tags during this project, and I held grave concern over patients safety in the matter when it came to bottling them with the medication. I have been in and out working in most departments of a hospital and this project seemed very interesting from an Oncology ward's point of view to the basicprimary care physician.

It was a long 48 hours, or however long it felt like the project seemed to run through. But the run helped us learn a lot.

This also brings the point home about how is information segmented. Is ownership of knowledge given by a copyright or word of mouth? Garner Also publish an article called "A Tale of Two Citations" Computerized tools can hunt out similar citations as well as paraphrasing of key words that may seem oblivious to the casual user. Text-comparisons can also affect the searching process.

In light of these current economic times, a recent youtube phenomena made face. 93-year old Clara Cannuciari made a cooking show on youtube. It's entitled "Great Depression Cooking With Clara" and has tidbits and recipes from her young life living during the 1930's. With the help of her grandson she now has a cookbook as well as a dvd. I actually saw it at Barnes and Noble recently. It shows the power media has. It can be a medicine or a poison for society, regarding it's path on where it goes.

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines a homestead as " the home and adjoining land occupied by a family" but it also defined it as " a tract of land acquired from United States public lands by filing a record and living on and cultivating the tract". It emphasis is on cultivating, or making the land or earth viable as a renewable resource for it's inhabitants. Having total control of certain aspects of lifestyle such as where electricity comes from and how the food is prepared can have a dramatic affect on outlook of freedom. Balance is crucial these times, but it's also a reminder of that balance to society's roots as well as looking to the future.

In this film, Bell Systems is testing a variety of telephone equipment. The rigor of testing is staggering. It included slamming a phone on a receiver several times to test durability as well as measuring the spring relay for the receiver of a pay phone. Many customers of this era up until the early 1970's had to pay a monthly fee for their phone. The days of buying a phone from Walmart did not exist. However, I often wonder if quality has shrunk since those days and much of the research has given way to reduction in cost. I found an old rotary phone in cream color from the 1970's. Although extremely dated in technology, the engineering and quality of the phone is high. The buttons are very solid to press and the bulk of the phone is enough that proved indestructible if it fell on the floor.

Music Genome Project, which gathers common elements from the song to find other similar artsists or songs. It looks at the genre, the voice style of the artist, the tempo of the music, the era it was recorded, and other pieces.

Pandora's name was based on the idea of "Pandora's Box". Pandora's box is Greek Mythology for unleashing terrible things on mankind. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create a woman called Pandora as punishment for man. Pandora was given a jar and ordered to keep closed. She opened it out of curiosity and horrible things came out of it. However, at the bottom of the jar lay hope.
That is a very ironic thing to name after for a music service. Many companies just attempt to find a 'trend name', but if I were to look into it deeper, perhaps it is based on the idea that by allowing individuals to have more of a say in music selection, it creates the "hope" at the end that there will be an improvement on what is heard on mainstream radio and improve the amount of individual selection.

According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, It also states that 65.7 million Americans could foresee lack of health insurance. This alone can also trickle to a global effect across the spectrum, which rises more personalized health care issues.

As more patients take charge of their own health, and individuals tackle health care issues preventatively before the damage occurs, health care costs can go down.
Applications as shown:
Allow these key attributes to a growing information society:

1. Flexibility in getting a second or third opinion
2. Increase in personal medical knowledge for patient advocacy
3. The ability to have total control of your own medical freedom

Leonardo ad Vinci's life from 1452-1519 left a trail of loose pages that was compiled shortly after his death. According to the British Library, it was probably acquired by Thomas Howard, Early of Arundel shortly after his death. It has long been considered a treatise on mechanics, with a variety of other topics. When I visited the British Library in the winter of 2005, I noticed that many of his sketches indicated a "Renaissance Man". With that, he had works that went from Psychology, to anatomical renderings, to a fulcrum design to draw water from a well.
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

Renaissance literally means "rebirth". I often think of now, whether we are in our own "Renaissance" at the moment. The information that may have been taboo long ago is becoming accepted into our lives. It was interesting to note that throughout the Renaissance, there were hierarchal moments of thinking everywhere. Within the article Introduction to the Renaissance at the City University of New York, much of that hierarchy was due to creating correspondences for many things. According to the article, "Thus the hierarchical organization of the mental faculties was also thought of as reflecting the hierarchical order within the family, the state, and the forces of nature."

This further explains the category and placement science had on society at large for the time.