Many years ago, (man, I’m getting old) I listened to the keynote address at a national conference. I think it was by the Vice President of Development of Microsoft, but like I said, it was many years ago. Anyway, in this address he gave this analogy:

50,000 years ago – man was a hunter/gatherer, living in family units and having very little communication outside of his realm.

5,000 year ago – man became agricultural, putting down roots leading to civil culture.

500 years ago – was the invention of the printing press, leading to the mass production of information that could be disseminated.

50 years ago – was the invention of the first computers.

5 years ago – was the invention of the internet. (I told you I am old, this was probably the mid 90s)

This analogy, which you may have heard before, demonstrates the trajectory of information dissemination that has taken place in the world. But I would like to update it a bit.

10 years ago (2000) – it was told that the average home computer was more powerful than the entire computer system that put a man on the moon.

And just the other day I was told that scientific computing experts are saying that the average laptop is more powerful that the average super-computer of just 5 years ago. And that this, has always been the case, every five years.

Now, with this said, I noticed a job “want ad” that said that the applicant needed 10 years of experience. 10 years. That was two super computers ago. What information was this person educated too? Is it still relevant today?

I am not disparaging this company for wanting a person with vast experience in their field. But on the other hand, how relevant is his or her education?

This is powerful stuff. With the exponential growth of information available and the speed at which you can get it, you just have to wonder what information needs to be taught in schools. Are schools being tailored to take this into account? I am sure they would say that they are, but are they really? And if they are being tailored to today’s world, what about tomorrow’s?

The power of computing, the power and relevancy of search engines, the ability to discern information from crap. Networks, the accessibility to receive and to give information, open source coding, cloud computing; where is it going? Digg, StumbleUpon, Disqus, Viadeo, Xing, Facebook, Ning, YouTube, bebo, buzznet, wiki, gala, Dopplr, Whirl…

And then the most important question is; what are you going to do to stay on top of and stay relevant in your profession in tomorrow’s world?

The speed, by which a computer can become, does have limitations according to computer engineers. It has to do with a “Heisenberg” kind of thing. The way I understand it, computing speed is coming down to the number of electrons it requires to perform a function. Therefore, the goal is to get it down to one electron, traveling unrestricted, to its destination (literally, at the speed of light). The “Uncertainty Principle” problem then is you can know its location but not its speed or you can know its speed but not its location. This means when you get to these speeds, you cannot control the speed or the destination. Basically, it doesn’t work.

But speed of computers is not really the issue. It is the amount of information available, both good and bad, that is so daunting. If a company is working on only half of the information available to them, it will be very difficult to keep up with their competitors. This is just as true for IBM, as for Procter & Gamble and as for Joe’s Hardware store.

I have often said that colleges should require a class in logic for all incoming freshman. There seems to be a lot of illogical people out there. But now I might suggest a class designed to differentiate between true and false information, a way to distinguish between credible information and the crap. This has always been done by looking at the source. Unfortunately, I am not sure that is reliable any longer. There are far too many people making claims that seem to have hidden agendas.

I don’t really have the answer to what or how this class would be designed. There are people much smarter than I that could focus on this, but I do perceive a problem developing in our society. Perhaps a “problem” is too strong of a word, but instead we are not taking advantage of our society’s own developments.

What value is it to teach today’s philosophy when tomorrow the world will change and make it obsolete? What value did we give our children when their college education is outdated before their loans are paid off?

Perhaps education needs to focus more on the philosophies within the world, throughout history, which has brought us to where we are today; and less time on the state of today’s philosophy, alone. Perhaps this time would be better spent learning methods of gathering and assimilating new information.

When you’re a child, magnets are a bit of a magical item. To a child’s eyes, their ability to attract or repel objects seem to contradict the, up to that moment, all powerful force of gravity.

As adults, we don’t play with magnets anymore, their amusement factor having worn off. However, there is one thing about magnets that we can take advantage of: magnetic electricity.

Before I go deeper on explaining magnetic electricity, I’d like to talk about how electricity in general is produced.

There are several ways to produce energy. For example, chemical reaction, which is used by the batteries we buy to power our toys, flashlights and remote controllers. However, common household electricity is produced almost exclusively by motion. When something moves and spins, it has the potential to create electricity. In an industrial setting, turbines are the objects that spin to create electricity.

When a dam is built, water makes the turbines spin. However, more than anything, the thing that makes turbines spins is plain water vapor. A power plant boils water for this purpose. A nuclear plant doesn’t use radioactivity to generate electricity, it uses it to boil water. Any other type of material used in a power plant is burnt to boil water. The purpose in every single case is to generate motion.

Now, magnetic electricity skips all these phases and goes directly for the motion part of the equation. This is its first advantage, since it doesn’t require fuel or creates pollution through burning.

I’m sure you’ve all seen a magnet move an object without touching it. It’s the magnetic field of the magnet that causes it. The object will move towards or away from (depending on its charge) the magnet when the force of the magnetic field is stronger than all the other forces that are working on the object (specially the pulling force of gravity).

It’s with the use of several magnetic fields that motion is generated, and if the object in motion is connected to a generator, then the motion can be transformed into electricity.

The best part about it is that you can use magnetic electricity to your advantage. Unlike other types of electricity generation, magnetic electricity can be generated by a home built machine. You can find how to build one yourself with a guide that you can get on the Internet.

It’s not difficult at all, and you can have the people in your house help you. But most importantly, it will help you reduce the amount of money you pay for electricity. Depending on your energy consumption, you might even get rid of your electricity bill completely.

Believe it or not, studying cattle behavior absolutely pays off. Not only does it increase and help in the production you are hoping to attain, but it makes raising cattle a lot easier. When you understand their behavior, you will also understand how they adapt to their surroundings. You will therefore learn how to manage them effectively as well.

You may now be asking yourself what causes cattle to produce poorly despite all that you have provided. It is stress. Stress affects cattle too, thereby producing poorly. It affects their immune system and this will cost you more money. That is why learning about cattle behavior is important because when you know how your cattle behave, you will know what stresses them.

There are five areas of cattle behavior you ought to look into. First is the allelomimetic behavior. This is actually the starting point of cattle behavior. It is most helpful if the animals are not confined. You can observe them when they are out in the field grazing pasture or simply resting. Because cattle is a herd, they function as a unit, you will be able to easily spot which among them might be sick or calving, or displaying any abnormal behavior.

Next is the herd behavior. Cattle also form their own groups. Females group together as well as the males, and at times you get a mixed gender group. Having mixed genders often happen during mating season. Observing them in their groups will help you know how to group them without causing any unrest. You have to be considerate of all members of the cattle especially the bulls when they tend to be very aggressive.

Then there is the ingestive behavior. This is probably the most important aspect for good production. When it comes to effectively feeding them, cattle behavior during eating and drinking should be observed. First, you have to consider them as innately grazing animals. But if you want to add crop as part of their diet, that can be done too. Plan their diet ahead of time so that they will be able to adjust well. Just keep in mind to prioritize their health. Next, food must be easily accessible. And during feeding times when not out in the field, they should not be facing each other to avoid aggressive behaviors.

The last two areas of cattle behavior are maternal and handling behavior. You have to give special consideration to cows and calves during the following months after they’re born. Cows tend to be very protective. And if they’re not able to give protection, this causes a lot of stress on both mother and calf. And as for handling the entire cattle, the key is to remain calm. Do not fight with them because there will be many procedures like branding or ear tagging. They have to know that they’ll be able to interact with humans peacefully.

The world heavily depends on fossil fuel for energy. The electricity we use daily comes from coal burning and other fossil fuels products like natural gas. This type of energy source has its limitation. For decades we have used an energy source that is non renewable, and according to experts; we have already consumed half of the fossil fuel reserves. With the ever increasing demand, and our current rate of consumption, we are likely to consume all the fossil fuel supply within just 35 years.

We still have an energy source better than fossil fuel, and it is all around us. Solar Energy, wind energy and hydro energy are just some of the energy we can use as an alternative for fossil fuel. These types of energy are renewable which simply means they will never run out.

Solar energy is probably one of the most abundant energy available in the planet. Almost anyone can make use of the suns free energy. That is also the reason why it is the most popular alternative energy being used today. There are wide ranges of solar application you can choose from. Using a solar heating application, anyone can keep their homes cozy at night all for free. The system stores the heat during the day, and slowly releases it throughout the night, keeping the entire house warm and comfortable.

Instead of using expensive natural gas for cooking, a solar cooker is a great alternative. It uses the free heat from the sun to cook food.

The most popular solar application uses a device called solar panel. It is comprised of several tiny photovoltaic cells. These small powerful cells can generate electricity. One of the good things about the solar panel, is it can be used anywhere there is a good source of sunlight. More and more households today are starting to adapt these solar applications to take advantage of the suns free energy.

Another alternative energy source for producing electricity is wind power. This kind of alternative energy is suitable for locations that have wide open areas and strong winds. If you are located near farm lands, then this is the best alternative energy source for you. The system is made up of several blades, a generator, and a tall tower. It looks almost like a windmill; the only difference is it produces electricity. More and more wind farms are now being developed these days to utilize the winds energy. This only proves how effective wind energy is for generating electricity.

Renewable energy sources like solar power and wind power has so many advantages over conventional production method like fossil fuel burning. Renewable energy sources produce clean and reliable energy without the threat of pollution, and best of all, it’s free and would never run out.