Advantages Of Acid Foods And Alkaline Foods

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What You Need To Know About Acid Foods And Alkaline Foods

There are acid foods and alkaline foods present in your everyday diet. Both these types of food affect your body, its pH and the metabolism rate differently. You eat what you want to eat but you don’t know how it will affect your body. A balanced and good diet should be taken by you so that your body stays healthy and in a proper condition.

The food you eat is either acidic or alkaline depending on its pH value. pH value tells us whether anything is acidic or alkaline. pH below 7 is acidic and above 7 is alkaline. You have to maintain a pH of approximately between 7.35 and 7.45, which is mildly acidic, if you want your body system to work most efficiently. pH above or below this value will result in diseases and illness. This pH can be maintained by taking proper type of food. Highly acidic, example, pH1 to 5, or highly alkaline, i.e., pH 11 to 14, are all bad for your health and internal body system. Because it is the pH of your body that lets the enzymes work most efficiently. 

A few examples of acidic foods are corn. Ketchup, pickle, meat, beans, fish, fowl, cigarettes, sugar, coffee, plums, distilled or e ionized water and most of the grains. There are many other meals as well that have acidic factor in them. By being acidic it means that this type of food has a high concentration of hydrogen ions in them. Increase in the acidic pH of your body will result in less absorption of minerals by your system, decreased ability to repair any damage of cells, increased fatigue and illness, and it an even result in diseases like tumor and coma. So, acidic pH of body is very dangerous and should be avoided as much as possible by taking proper diet and keeping yourself happy. 

Alkaline foods are cabbage, carrot, eggplant, garlic, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, peas, pepper, pumpkin, radishes, apple, apricot, almonds, chestnuts, sea salt and other types of salts and minerals. Citrus fruits like lemon also have an alkalinizing affect and are a great cure of acidity. Although, lemon itself is acidic but after digestion and assimilation it has an alkaline affect, which is very useful. Alkaline food is necessary in order to balance the acidic food that you eat and also to keep you body pH alkaline in the end. But high alkaline pH is also not good for your body so there should be a balance between the two which results in the required optimal pH of your body, which will keep your body healthy both externally and internally.

Thus, you eat both acid foods and alkaline foods but a balance is very important to be maintained between the two types so that your body Ph can be kept alkaline in order for it to work most optimally. You should have a clear idea of what to eat and what to avoid in order to live longer and a healthy life. You should consult a doctor or a nutritionist and get a balanced diet chart made. This chart will tell you what to eat and when so that you have a proper and healthy intake of both acidic and alkaline foods and that your body gets a balance of both, which is very essential.

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Source by Anthony S Sparks

How Do You Store Medifast Foods And Meals?

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People sometimes ask me how much space is needed for your Medifast foods. Another common concern is whether you need a refrigerator or freezer to keep the Medifast meals fresh. You really don’t need a lot of room for the Medifast meals. In fact, I’ve heard of people storing them in boxes under their bed. Most of the prepackaged meals come in small boxes that contain pouches of the foods. People sometimes mistakenly assume that the shakes, puddings, or soups need to be refrigerated. They don’t. You mix them from the dry ingredients that come in pouches or boxes. The same is true for the brownies, soft serve, and chilli. Now, the bars and the chips, nachos, and puffs don’t need to be mixed or constituted. For them, you only have to open the wrapper.

If having enough room for storage is a problem for you, then you can always break down the boxes and lay the contents flat. And I even know people who do this not because space is a problem for them, but because they like to separate out their meals in the way that makes preparation the most convenient. For example, I know someone who will separate out all of their foods and then will make a drawer, box, or canister for all their shakes, brownies, puddings, and soft serve, and other similar foods. And then there are people who will take this same idea and separate out their meals by the day. So, they might have a box or drawer marked for each day within the week. And for example, in the Monday drawer you may find 2 shake packages, 1 bar, 1 pancake mix, and 1 chili mix. Or, in the Tuesday drawer you might have a latte, a scrambled egg package, a brownie mix, a ready to drink shake, and cheese puffs. And then other people will just grab the boxes exactly how they are shipped and stick the whole thing in their pantry without sorting any of it.

It really does come down to your preferences and how you tend to organize. But the bottom line is that you don’t need a lot of storage space for even a large monthly Medifast package. All of the foods stack flat and do not require much room at all. And to save space even further, you can sometimes break down the main box for each item and just store the pouches. For example, 15 bars come to a box. Nothing says you can’t take those bars out of the box and then store them in a bag that would lay perfectly flat. And you don’t need any refrigeration or freezer unless you chose to store the leftovers.

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Source by Lindsey Price

The Smeg Fab32 Fridge Freezer and the Smeg Fab30 Fridge Freezer Open Their Doors

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There’s almost nothing one can say about the new range of Smeg fridge freezers that they don’t say better themselves. Talk about trend setting: the Smeg fab32 fridge freezer, and the Smeg fab30 fridge freezer look good enough to live in, let alone keep frozen vegetables in.

Smeg’s reputation for design is always going to precede a new launch from the company, whose status as leading light in the world of functional retro cool is unassailed. So any mutterings about new Smeg gear are usually met with a mixture of glee and fearful anticipation: what if, this time, they’ve finally lost their touch? Well, they haven’t. Not at all. Both the new fridge freezers, and their similarly named cousins besides, look like they’ve been imported from the 1950s by way of a super-intelligent future-dwelling space designer. The Smeg fab30 fridge freezer, and the Smeg fab32, are both available in a series of shockingly groovy colors – enough that any kitchen, anywhere on earth and quite a few places off of it, will be more then complemented by the hue. From the frankly awesome lime green to the range’s flagship red (imagine a classic sports car you can keep cheese in), these new Smeg appliances ooze style and class to beat the band.

So – what are the numbers for? Simple. Add a zero and you’ve got the storage capacity in liters, of each one. Making the Smeg fab30 fridge freezer worth a whopping 300 liters of food and drink – and the Smeg fab32 even more generous, swallowing 3200 liters. Enough, then, to feed a family of five with room to spare. The new Smegs don’t just look good – they’ve been designed as well as all the old Smeg stuff, too.

Favorite design features include specifiable hinge locations, allowing customers to have a fridge freezer whose doors either open to the right or to the left; and the wonderful coalition of old styles and new lines, which manages to make the new Smegs in town look as though they’ve come from a future obsessed with all that was great about the past. There’s a nice even split between fridge space and freezer space, too, ensuring that the Smeg fab30 and the Smeg fab32 both manage to sidestep the traditional shortcoming of most oversize fridge and freezer combinations. The fab30 loses a little freezer space here, presumably in order to retain the generous fridge capacity – but, overall, both are excellent bets for the household with large storage requirements and an eye for fashion.

There aren’t many appliances on this or any other planet that look good enough to cause actual desire: but the new Smegs do so with ease. So much so, in fact, that one has to wonder whether anyone considering a new fridge freezer (provided, of course, they’re as hip to the groove as the design team at Smeg) would even look at another option. The Smeg fab32 and the Smeg fab30 have landed. Don’t ask from where. Just be happy they’re here.

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Source by Matt Jeffers

The Training

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Preparation is the Mother of skill. Understanding is the Father of skill. We all love to win, but who loves to train? With all of the variations of those quotes I have used over the years so many times, and in so many ways. I still act and genuinely feel that my own advice is fresh meat I am biting on as if it is new meat freshly killed for survival. Indeed, I am like a rabid wolf chomping on reality when it comes to what counts. I named this article the training because reality is mostly preparation, and the actual action compared to that training is not too much compared to the training it takes to take the genuinely winning actions.

I remember the “Rocky” movies (yes, the “Rocky” movies with Sylvester Stallone), every last one of them including the “Creed” movies so far. Most of the movies as you would astutely notice are not about the fight, most of those movies are about the preparation, training and drama, actually very little winning when you really and realistically think about them. So, that brings me to a point: Reality that is won and successful depends mostly on your preparation to handle it. Think about a singer like Susan Boyle, as a better example than the “Rocky” movie example: She was at least thirty years of preparation, singing in her bathroom mirror and in small halls and training, and a few moments on a big show of winning. That is my point, miracles happen, I believe in them and everything, but they take preparation to be valid and working in a genuine sense that is lasting, or the miracle is just genuine “flash in the pan” luck without that substance to make it last if the miracle successfully happens.

Indeed, we must evolve, grow and prepare to make a miracle work for us genuinely and permanently. The genuine failure in life is to depend on luck and miracles from the beginning without preparation or understanding of what is happening. To appreciate and understand anything fully without doubts or fears, we must train. As Yoda essentially said in “Star Wars, Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back”: There is not try, only do. In the sense I am writing about, that is reality. The person who depends on luck and miracles without preparation essentially tries even if they do succeed, and does not do and just depends on a lucky break or a “miracle” prayer to succeed without consciousness or conscience. The prepared person always does, especially when they genuinely succeed, and if they fail, it is a slip and not a fall, only to succeed later through a better of consciousness and conscience of what needs and wants to be done. So, essentially, to really win without doubt and repeatable results, we must genuinely train and desire, or winning means nothing but a “flash in the pan” like the lucky single three-point shot in a basketball game from mid-court that is not easily repeatable because it is a “buzzer miracle”. In this sense, there is not try, only do, also. Reality is training, and our genuine actions and results in it are the championship game, always.

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Source by Joshua Clayton

Garage Door Installation & You

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Because the average homeowner rarely buys more than one garage door (and some of them never even need to do that), then knowing what to expect during the installation process can an uncertain experience. However, it doesn’t have to be a overwhelming or difficult. After all, the biggest part of the garage door installation process is the selection of the door. Once that piece is accomplished, then the installation part is up to the garage door company.

However, if you are the type of homeowner who likes to be fully informed about every element of your home – and there’s nothing wrong with that! – then chances are you have some questions or concerns about the garage door installation process. Here are some things to keep in mind as you begin the process of selecting a garage door and understanding the installation process.

  • If you are considering putting your home on the market, then updating your garage door(s) is a great way to add value and curb appeal.
  • If the door is more than 10 years old, it may be time to consider getting a new one as mechanical issues are more likely and the opener itself might not work as well.
  • The older your door gets, the more likely it will be loud when opening/closing.
  • The safety features that are common in new door opener designs, were not the norm on older systems.
  • You need to understand the types of openers available on today’s market. The most common are chain drives, belt drives, jackshift drives, and screw drives. The quietest of these is the jackshift which is mounted to the wall, rather than ceiling, while the loudest is the screw drive openers which work with a steel rod and a trolley.
  • Keep in mind that the door doesn’t do the actual lifting. Consequently, it is important that the team that does your installation, is fully certified and licensed for the work so that you can be sure it will work properly.
  • Take time to look at the various features of the different types of garage door openers. From being able to open them through an app to having a battery backup or a wireless and keyless entry that doesn’t require a fob of any sort, there are many choices – beyond just considering the type of door and amount of insulation.

Once you have determined which type of door you want, don’t try to cut costs by doing the installation as a weekend DIY project. Talk to a garage door installation team and schedule an appointment.

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Source by Janet Slagell

Dog Aggression: Discover Dependable Tips and Solution

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Another common cause of aggression caused by manipulation is a minor personal experience. Nail trim and bathing are the two most common causes. When cutting dog’s nails, easy to “speed up”, i.e., cut the blood vessels that enter inside the nail. Painful for the dog, a sure way to cause a permanent dislike for nail scissors. Washing is something many dogs find difficult to negotiate. Many landlords, when they meet an angry or half angry dog, have it complete washing them to restrain by force.

This only increases the sense of panic in the dog. It enhances influence as washing something that should avoid at any costs. Defend against him with a display of teeth and hair at the end. Can I “train” on it to enjoy rigor and stability? In a word: Yes. Much easier to start from a young age. Treat with much of gruff and make him familiar with touching it and rubbing. Young dogs enjoy being treated; only older people who have had little physical contact throughout their lives sometimes discover physical affection is difficult to accept.

Practice lifting your legs and touching them with scissors. Practice taking them to the bathtub (or outside, under the tap – whatever serves you. But lukewarm water is more fun for the dog than an icy stream!). Increase the treat with much of praise and a small gift sometimes.

For an older dog who may have many unpleasant driving/grooming experiences, things get harder. You must undo the damage earlier caused by those awful experiences. What you can do by taking things slow, focusing on keeping your dog calm. The moment you show signs of stress, stop and allow yourself to relax. Try to turn everything into a game: Give it much of compliments, buds, and desserts. Take things slow. Do not press too much: If you get stressed, stop.

Dogs show aggression: they warn you to retreat, otherwise! If you think your dog does not accept to be a professional, no matter how much practice you do. Best to shift the job to professionals. Your veterinarian will cut dog nails. (be sure to tell him first he becomes aggressive when a clippers nail out, so your veterinarian can take precautions!).

Dog brushing and cleaning, dog work is a booming industry. Just a small fee, you can get a dog washing, trimming, and carving. Everything else that requires experienced professionals. (again, be sure to inform them of your dog’s reaction to the first experience!)

For more information managing aggressive and dominant behaviors, a wealth of detailed information on several other common dog behavior problems, see the Secrets to Dog Training. The complete guide to a dog owner, raising and training your dog, and dealing with every prospect of dog ownership. To learn further preventing behaviors associated with a problem such as aggression and dominate your dog, it’s helpful to look at the Secrets to Dog Training program.

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Source by Emilio Vargas

Important Facts You Need to Know About CNC Hot Wire Foam Cutters

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What is a hot wire cnc foam cutter used for?

Hot wire foam cutters will cut different types of foam, from insulation to fabrication, from logos, surfboards and signs to crown moldings and concrete molds

Hot wire foam cutters are designed to cut different types of foam

1. EPS – expanded polystyrene

2. XPS – extruded polystyrene

3. EPP – expanded polypropylene

Not to be used for cutting polyurethane – will result in toxic fumes

What are the main components that a foam cutter is made of?

1. The software is divided into two sections – design software to design the shapes to be cut, and the cutting software that controls the machine

2. The hot wire tensioning mechanism

3. Effective cutting sizes for the horizontal, vertical and the wire length

4. Number of axis – a 4 axis machine will be able to cut tapered shapes (like a cone or a jet wing)

Here are some features to look for in a hot wire foam cutting machine:

For production of crown molding:

1. Multiple wires – from 3 to 8 wires will increase the cutting capacity from 2 to 7 times

2. 8 foot effective wire length – don’t settle for a 4′ machine

3. If primary use of the machine is to cut logos and signs – a smaller machine will do the job

4. Cutting speed – mostly material dependent – as a rule of thumb: the higher the foam density – the slower the cutting speed

Hot Wire CNC Foam Cutter prices:

CNC foam cutters will range from $1500 to $50,000. The price is a factor of the machine size, the number of wires, the way the wires are kept under tension.

Other foam cutting machines:

Another way to cut foam is with a CNC router – this is mainly for machining the foam and not for cutting.

CNC routers for foam are mostly used for 3D shapes seen in Las Vegas, theme parts and even signs

Foam coating: EPS and XPS will melt if painted with oil-based paint. Painting is composed of two steps:

1. Preparing the foam for coating – a primer should be used to prevent the coating material to penetrate the EPS beads

2. Coating – Coating is usually Epoxy (usually brushed) or Polyurethane (brushed or sprayed)

Once the foam is coated – it can be painted with any type of paint.

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Source by Sigal Barnea

What Type of Companies Need Paper Shredding Services & Why?

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If you are in a company that handles many documents, you may be wondering whether you should consider looking for a paper shredding service. Finding paper shredding isn’t difficult, but do you need it? Why should you spend money to have your old documents shredded? What benefits does it bring to your business? Read on to find out.

Why Businesses Need Confidentiality

In this day and age, people are usually much more worried about a slip-up in confidential information coming through digital means. However, there are plenty of old-fashioned criminals out there who will still go through old documents if they are not properly disposed of. Even if identity theft isn’t an issue with the type of documents used in your business, there could be problems with rumors or the reputation of your firm or of a client. In some cases, proper confidentiality protocols are actually a legal concern as well. Examples of businesses that need to use paper shredding for these reasons include hospitals, legal firms, and banks and other financial firms.

Corporate espionage is also a problem. If you are a company that relies on innovation to stay ahead of your competition, you need to make sure that you are properly disposing of plans. Otherwise, you may find that your innovations are quickly copied by other companies. Any business in the field of technology, whether hardware or software, should seriously consider this service as a means of safeguarding their ideas.

General Reasons to Invest in Paper Shredding

Paper shredding also has advantages all on its own. For example, although it might seem counterintuitive at first, but it is actually a green practice. Shredding documents makes them easier to recycle, and most shredding services automatically recycle the resulting scraps of paper. If your business uses a lot of paper, then shredding is a great way to offset some of that use and give your company an eco-friendly image.

It also just gives your business a better reputation. Even if you feel that your building is secure, customers will be happier knowing their information isn’t laying around somewhere, but is instead shredded and recycled when it is no longer needed. They will feel more comfortable doing business with you knowing that you take every precaution to make sure they are safe.

Paper Shredding Services

If you’ve decided your business needs to use this service, what are the advantages of using a service over getting your own shredder?

Well, for one, keep in mind that the expense of shredding your own paper is not limited to the cost of the shredder itself. Your employees will lose time and productivity shredding their documents. Additionally, problems like corporate espionage are most likely to come from someone already in your company. A paper shredding service has the right equipment to shred your documents thoroughly and is often more secure and affordable than doing your own shredding.

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Source by Kelly Franklin

Making Your Schedule Flexible With Online Learning

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There’s a war going on: It’s the war on scheduling. Often times, your lifestyle is its own unique battleground. You’re constantly on the defensive against time, you’re only ally is quick wits and a bit of luck, which in itself won’t work without you. Your weapons include a calendar, your laptop and planning skills. But times are changing, from the language you speak, to the way that you learn. You’re constantly on the prowl for knowledge, except that there are road-bumps and unexpected challenges, holding you back. In fact, these days, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re a student or an investment banker: the ability to schedule flexibly is your priority.

How about this: Yohana is a young entrepreneur currently experiencing her first days in career mode. She lives just outside of town – away from the city center, but not too far out. Much like any other woman, Yohana has duties to fulfill: she has a husband, works a full time job, takes care of her parents and looks after her kids every day of the week. Then all of a sudden, career kicks in. She’s in charge of clients, not just in Germany, but almost the entire European continent and like many international people; she struggles with adapting to cultures, learning new languages and keeping in touch with her clients. However, she is also part of a growing trend that’s catching on. As much as she loves face-to-face learning, she also embraces online learning.

Flexibility is a must for most young adults. Another growing trend is “work-life-balance”. This of course is easier said that done. Most people know or at the least have heard of it, however if it was as easy as flicking on a light switch, we’d all be resting on our sofa beds, or learning how to cook better or learning a new language. Before online learning was even considered, it was simply a catch-phrase. Busy people took night classes after work, hopping on their bikes, cycling through the windy night as they sit in crammed classes and begin the exciting journey of learning.

Now, we find ourselves at a time where learning can be achieved anywhere through means of technology and while technology changes, our lifestyles and flexibility often don’t. 50 years ago, you’d organize everything with a pager that was marketed as an alarm clock plus belt and jeans. But these days, scheduling and flexibility has never been more important, especially for those that work beyond borders. To the average adult, that flexibility is becoming more and more of a requirement. But flexibility isn’t something that can be bought at your local gas station, or touched and be seen. Students have to make flexibility.

Our girl, Yohana, works and is a daughter to someone as well as a friend and a sister. Right off the bat, she is already working multiple jobs at once. She has commitments to her family and dedication to her job and a passion for her career. She has no choice. Online learning however, has provided students like Yohana with an alternative to accessing education. We live at a time where 18 -20 year olds or even 14-16 year olds require flexibility that a Banker in the 70s would need. Much like Yohana, many boys and girls want work life balance. Where activities such as athletics, language skills and further education can be accessed through institutions, online learning allows these students to access them with the much needed flexible scheduling and low cost alternative.

Working and Studying

The Germany Trade and Invest center suggested that, at least in Germany, the working hour exceeds no more that 40 hours per week. Thus, maintaining a work life balance is not a steep learning curve and our girl, Yohana, could sure use that extra time to better communicate with her clients. In the sense of both, having the freedom to enjoy speaking in the same language and clear-cut audio.

Information from Diana G. Oblinger, author “Education and Information technology”, stated that at least 5.6 million students are enrolled in an online class as of 2009. Now, that number is 6.3 million and that’s only in the US. In fact, a study done by UNESCO in their IDEAL project (Impact of Distance Education on Adult Learning) states that the most active online learning countries in Europe were Greece, United Kingdom, Italy and Germany.

If we translated these statistics, we would get the answer that the education industry is shaping and changing. Traditional adults like Yohana, studied at a traditional university and now that she’s in the real world, it’s time for her to take a step further. Adults, like Yohana, require flexible scheduling and need a non-traditional method to fulfill her family and career expectations. Authors such as Oblinger, suggested that adults can ease up their scheduling and not murder their calendars via online learning means.

The word “classroom” will soon have a different meaning. When you first hear the word, you’d think back to your old high school, with rows and rows of seats as far as the eye can see, filled with students docked down with hoodies and sweatshirts. The word “classroom” will mean nothing when adults can learn and access whatever class they’re taking at home, in a café, in a holiday home and more or less any part of the Earth.

Like Yohana, these adults aren’t concerned with prestige, labels, branding, what exotic town their learning institute is in, or whether or not the business is associated with social status. These are people who are concerned with solving real world problems, whilst battling time constraints and schedule issues and she recently had clients who speak multiple languages from different parts of Europe. But that doesn’t matter; she takes language classes through online learning to help her with that. What she needs is flexibility.

Live Online Learning

Choosing an online learning platform is like finding night classes, only the process is simpler. Much simpler. You screen out the shady, untrusted ones that are too far from your house or office and pick the ones that are close. Except that you don’t even have to do that anymore with online learning. You can join a session held in Belgrade, while you are in Hamburg. That one step already eliminated. There are plenty of platforms to choose from, one of the most noteworthy is Live Online Learning, or the abbreviated LOL. The first thing you’ll notice is how incredibly easy it is to sign up. No paperwork or tedious application process. You fill in the details and in 5 minutes, you’re set and ready.

Yohana, like most adults out there, has international clients and wants to learn English. The nearest language school is a 5 km bike ride away and she has other priorities, such as university classes at 8 in the morning and preparing meals for the weekend. She can go through the process of reading thick phone books and cold-calling teachers to tutor her at home, adding transport costs which will be out of Yohana’s expense and given her finances, she’s not in the mood to borrow from the bank any time soon. So, she turns to online learning. She goes back home, turns on her laptop, arranges a meeting with her teacher and on the knowledge train she goes.

The beauty of online classes is that it’s repeatable anywhere and at anytime. She can be learning English while she’s visiting her family in Spain and afterwards take guitar lessons while on her USA trip.

Let’s be honest, most of us avoid commuting like the flu. What better way to wind down from a stressful day at work than to sit in a traffic jam and endure more stress. Students and professional workers have priorities, and sitting in traffic is most likely not one of them. The weather isn’t exactly helpful as well, as snowstorms and blizzards are not only dangerous, it is also unproductive. The economic costs of canceling classes is devastating, for both students and teachers and is highly inefficient. No more time is wasted and days gone without learning won’t be a problem.

Not to mention the cost of accommodation in som extreme examples. With traditional night classes, you’d probably spend hours on end, searching for close dorms and accommodation, because like the average college student, you’d try to find the sweet spot, only to find out that all the rooms have been taken. You’re not exactly keen on spending half your budget on transport and accommodation, so you’ll have to make decisions.

At this point, Live Online Learning is the Band-Aid to your open wounds. You sit at home, on a futon or your work desk and dive straight into class. After all, why buy a cow when you can buy milk from the grocery store? We are in the midst of a global transport-pocalypse. Except that this isn’t the fun kind where you can fantasize about saving the day. The only apocalypse that’s going to happen is to your wallet as you cash out euros after euros just on transport and commuting alone.

The focus of online learning is flexibility. To say that online learning will grant you flexibility is an understatement. You earn it by default once you’ve registered for a class. You’re flexible class-wise as well. Some offer classes from plasma physics to learning how to speak Indonesian. We’re talking about an institution that offers traditional classes and taught in a modern way. It’s not every day that you can wake up and take any class you’d like, but with online learning, students like Yohana can easily decide to learn painting in the morning and study coding in the evening.

Online Learning – Available in a local shop near you!

Don’t be mislead, Live Online Learning is a tool for teachers as much as it is for students. In fact, Online learning has paved way for new industries and a way for small businesses to reach their customers. Moving away from textbook studies and theories, there are of course real life examples. Interact! is a language school situated in Hamburg and it offers online learning as an alternative for its students. Business is as usual, but every dog has its days – sometimes, customers are overwhelmed and their available times don’t match with the teacher’s time. The result is a schedule-organizer’s worst nightmare. The solution was simple: what if teachers and students were taught using video cameras, so students can stay at home and teachers can stay at home and communicate through the internet.

It doesn’t stop at language schools. Several multinational corporations organize meetings via web cam and online platforms. This example is not strictly “learning”, it is however a useful concept to know. Back in the day, you’d have to send emails to each other back and forth, organize phone calls and possibly flights. Now, from Mumbai to Sydney, you can discuss business.

Online learning is a part of a new era of simplicity. We used to listen to music through CDs, now we YouTube it. We used to watch movies on DVD and now we stream it. Online learning is next on the conveyor belt. Educators have been asking the wrong question. It’s not about the what, or the whys or the whos. Rather it’s all about the how. How is it helping the students and how is it helping the teachers. Textbooks, for example might not even be necessary. 20 or so years ago, if you were to say. “I think textbooks are useless and will die out”, people would immediately think you’re some kind of hippie weirdo who’s only job is to wake up in the morning and blame the government for everyone’s problems. Books have been a part of human culture since the dawn of time and there’s no way people will ever stop using books.

But now, with online learning, it’s perfectly logical to ask “will we need textbooks anymore?” Of course, textbooks will always be part of education and learning, however with Live Online Learning, how we use textbooks could be entirely different. For one, it’s important to note that no matter who you are, student or adult, you’re probably sick and tired of having to travel around everywhere carrying tons of thick books, when it could all be traveling light weight and have everything in a laptop. Online learning and e-textbooks go hand-in-hand. When Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, first proposed the idea of streaming movies and TV Shows through the internet, traditional retail giants of entertainment laughed the idea off and passed it on as “frivolous”. However, much like online learning, Hastings believed that what people want is to stay at home and achieve their needs without having to leave their front door. Think of online learning in the same light. You’re achieving the same output with fewer resources.

Online Learning – It’s for Everybody

So far we’ve covered Online Learning for adults, students but as a matter of fact, online learning is accessible by just about anyone. Even the youngest pupil can learn their favourite subjects at home. This also gives them more useful and productive activities to do, rather than increasing their high score on candy crush. Here’s an idea, why not increase their IQ scores instead and with online learning, children can stay at home and access videos and catch up on last week’s Math homework. Sharing information has never been easier and only today has online learning been put on the spotlight.

Inspiration from Online Learning

As human beings, our imagination virtually knows no limits. If everyone could be astronauts, then we probably would. So why aren’t there more astronauts in our society? A possible explanation is interest and motivation. Going back to our girl, Yohana, she spends most of her weekends lying around in bed, possibly meandering back and forth between the student lounge in her dorm and back into her room. All the while, the time she spent pondering about what movie she should watch next, she could have learned a new language, or a new instrument or any set of skill. But to figure out our question “Why aren’t there more astronauts?” we’d have to understand how we get inspiration. As most of us know, an inspiration is like having an epiphany. It’s not something that can be switched on and off like a light switch and if we want inspiration, we’d automatically get it. Inspiration comes from sources and there are plenty of ways that you can find inspiration, from books, education sites, TV shows and given today’s demographic, most of us would get it online. Let’s face it, most of us wanted to learn French because we heard that one robust, thick and exotic French accent from a scene in a Hollywood movie. But given that signing up for a French class means more energy spent, more phone calls to make and more French people to respond to, most of us forget about it and continue with more important activities, like seeing if a millionaire YouTube vlogger’s baby is a boy or girl.

As mentioned earlier, instead of asking the “what”, we should all be asking the “how”. How do we keep finding sources of inspiration and how do we apply ourselves, so we don’t forget about it after 5 minutes? The answer to that is to put yourself in an environment that’s comfortable to you. Whether it’d be your home or a café, you’d want knowledge to come to you and not the other way around. You don’t want to pursue your ideas, because you make a mental calculation that you’d have to splash out resources such as transport, time and energy. But now we have everything in our laptops. YouTube, Online Learning, Google, the works.

Should you sign up for online classes?

All your friends seem to be signing up for online classes, like there’s no tomorrow and there’s a good reason why. A lot of the times, it’s because of flexible scheduling and time constraints. A study done by the Economics and Education Review revealed that distance between home, the workplace and university is the underlying factor of enrollment. Why was online learning invented in the first place? The same reason why anyone would want to start a business or sell a product or idea: because it solves an underlying need. People want knowledge, so you give it to them. You can either do this the traditional way, through stores and shopping malls. Or you can sell it through an online platform. Amazon tried this, and it worked. Netflix tried this and it worked. Online learning was first created by colleges in North America, who’d like to allow their students to engage in classes, even through those tough blizzards and long distance travels. Absent days may not seem like much on paper, but in reality it costs a lot when thought about. Knowledge is actually a valuable asset and people are willing to pay more to those that have more. Instead of knowing how to play no instruments, why not start learning or learn 3 languages instead of 2. Take private lessons without having to leave your front door.

The fact that we have access to education with the click of a few buttons is one of the greatest miracles of the modern age. For most of human history, knowledge was kept jealously at the affluent level of society and it was one of the unfair realities of living at that time. That’s right, what family you were born to could influence whether or not you’d be educated or not. But times are drastically changing and we no longer live in an age where those that can afford to buy a car can have easier access to education. You can simply, sit at home and enjoy a long list of subjects to learn and pitch in seminars. Thus, busy adults like our girl, Yohana, can educate herself and it might not take much paperwork or her time and energy. So should you subscribe to the idea of online courses? Why shouldn’t you? For all we know, it might be up your alley. We learn in different ways and who’s to say that through digital means isn’t a way to learn. These days, there are plenty of businesses and institutes that offer online learning as an alternative to traditional means and that’s the beauty of it all. You can still learn through traditional means and if the timing isn’t right, you no longer have to sacrifice days and can learn through websites.

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Source by Fahry Maulana Slatter

The Real Granny Smith – A Passion For Apples

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You know it, you love it-the Granny Smith apple. The gleaming chartreuse skin. That brilliant crunch. The perfect balance of juicy-sweet and tongue-curling tart that makes it the ideal eating and cooking apple.

But did you know there really was a Granny Smith?

Born Maria Ann Sherwood to a farming family in the lush agricultural area of Sussex, England in 1799, she married Thomas Smith, a farm laborer, when she was 19. They settled in the parish of Beckley, worked the land, and started a family.

In 1838, the Smiths were tapped by government agents looking for farmers willing to relocate to New South Wales, Australia. The British colony had been founded 50 years earlier as a penal settlement, a place to send convicts. But as more and more free settlers arrived in New South Wales, agricultural workers were desperately needed to feed the developing colony. Prospective emigrants were offered attractive financial incentives to make the move.

The Smiths took advantage of the opportunity, packed up their five children, ages 1 through 16, and boarded the Lady Nugent. The voyage from England to Australia was long and difficult, 13,000 miles on the crowded ship. The Smiths landed in Sydney in November, 1838. By 1856, they owned nearly 24 acres of rich farmland in the district of Ryde, outside of Sydney.

The Smiths were “orchardists,” farmers who specialize in tree fruit. Maria was particularly passionate about apples. On their land, the Smiths grew apples and pears, as well as vegetables, which they sold at the Sydney markets. Maria was also a skilled baker, well known for her fruit pies.

It’s said that one day a salesman at the markets gave Maria a box of crabapples from Tasmania for her pie-making. She toted the fruit home, baked her desserts, and tossed the peels and cores onto the garden compost heap along with the rest of the orchard rubbish.

Soon, Maria found an apple seedling growing in the compost. She lovingly nurtured the tiny tree until it eventually bore fruit-the deliciously tart, green beauties we know today. There in her compost, Maria had unknowingly crossed the crabapple with the domestic orchard apple, it’s believed.

The earliest documented account of Maria Smith’s apple appeared in the June 25, 1924 edition of Farmer and Settler, in an interview with Ryde-area fruit-grower Edwin Small. Small remembered that in 1868, Maria had invited him and his father to look at an apple seedling growing by a creek on her farm. According to Small, Maria explained the seedling had developed from the remains of some French crabapples grown in Tasmania.

By the time of her accidental apple discovery, the much-loved Maria Smith was affectionately known by her community as “Granny.” Sadly, she died two years later, in 1870, well before the commercial success of her namesake apple. She was buried at St. Anne’s Cemetery in Ryde, where her headstone still stands.

In 1890, Granny’s fabulous fruit first appeared as the “Smith Seedling” at the Castle Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show. The next year, “Granny Smith’s Seedlings” took top honors there for best cooking apples, and farmers in the area began growing their own.

In 1895, Albert H. Benson, Fruit Expert for the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, deemed “Granny Smith’s Seedling” appropriate for export. Indeed, Granny’s apple is noted for staying firm and crisp longer than other varieties. While Benson began the first large-scale cultivation of the Granny Smith, Granny’s son-in-law, James Spurway, and later his son Fred, are credited with early propagation of the apple and its expansion in Australia and export to the United States.

Today, Granny Smith apples are enjoyed all over the world-eaten out of hand and transformed into delectable pies, sauce, and juice. In Australia, a festival in Granny’s honor draws thousands of people annually. Edna Spurway, great-granddaughter of Granny Smith, attended the 2008 event in Ryde.

So the next time you take a bite out of one of those glorious green Grannies, say a little “thank you” to Maria Ann Smith of New South Wales-the real Granny Smith, apple-lover to her very core.

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Source by Susan A. VanHecke