Positive Qualities – Presence of Mind & Clever

Dear Folks,
Whatever the mind is taught to expect, that it will build, produce, and bring forth for you. — The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity, Catherine Ponder (1927-) Minister, Author
The mind is a very flexible tool. We can dump information into it, sort and separate what we have learned, come up with new and Clever ideas, and take imaginative trips. We can teach it to have Presence of Mind. It is hardwired with the fundamental ability to know the difference between fact and fantasy, right and wrong, and – best of all – it recognizes values: good, better, and best.
Peace,
Jim
PRESENCE OF MIND
Definition: able to think clearly and act quickly and intelligently <especially in an emergency>; cool, alert, and ready under pressure; quick-witted
Compatible Qualities: creative, risible
Comment: Presence of mind is a quality of “practical smarts.” It includes flexibility and ready retrieval of information. But it is also the ability to put things together in new ways. In addition it implies a sense of timing, with an appreciation of the subtlety of what others perceive.
Suggestion: Recognize, in the present, what effect your actions are having upon the situation, and then act accordingly.
CLEVER
Definitions: (1) mentally quick and resourceful; quick‑witted; astute; bright; (2) skillful or adroit in using the hands or body; nimble; dexterous; talented; (3) something ingeniously or expertly made, said, or done
Parental Qualities: courage, curiosity
Symbol: the fox

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Positive Qualities – Fair & Relaxed

Dear Folks,
Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some, and think some and draw and plan and sing and dance and play and work every day some. — Robert Fulghum (1937-) Elementary Solutions
Life is not inherently Fair. It is up to each of us to bring that quality into it. Some things and values have been given to us by the gifts of nature and grace, others we have the privilege of creating within the flow of subjective reality. Often it is difficult, and yet just as often if we just Relax and trust, the answers will come to mind.
Peace,
Jim
FAIR
Definitions: (1) all sides treating each other impartially; just; equitable; (2) pleasing to the eye or mind <especially because of fresh, charming, or flawless traits>; lovely; beautiful; attractive; (3) free from anything which might impair the appearance, quality, or character; clean; pure; (4) pleasant and courteous; civilSynonyms: candid, clear, frank, honest, open, reasonable, unprejudiced
Comment: Every circumstance cannot be fair, but if all parties enter a situation with an attitude of fairness, they will have a better chance of ending up with a satisfactory outcome for all. Take into consideration not only a concern for your interests, but also a healthy concern for the other person’s interests.
RELAXED

Definitions: (1) possessing an easy manner; informal; (2) free from or relieved of tension or anxiety
Too Far: lax, lazy
Saying: En pantoufles (French): “In slippers” [at ease, informal]
The Quick Crisis Escape
There are situations in which you find yourself overloaded. You are tense, uncomfortable, and wishing you could just be someplace else, or at least in a more relaxed state, but you can’t. It could be a test at school, an important game, or a half dozen people have to have their report done right now. Neither your fight nor flight mechanisms are appropriate. The only thing left is flow. You don’t have time for your usual, tried and true relaxation method, but you’ve just got to cool out.
Here’s what you do. First, you don’t get anything for free. There is some preparation necessary. So you condition yourself to be momentarily, and quickly, transported to a special inner place of peace and strength. While you are there, you trigger an intensely positive, and thus relaxing, experience focused into a few very powerful moments. It is best to use a real historical event in a very exceptional place. When you do have the time, enhance the experience to keep it fresh with regular practice. As you re‑experience this wonderfully uplifting place, you are creating an “energy gem” – a feeling you can release with full clarity and force on a designated clue. This gem is packed with sharp, familiar information encompassing all six of senses. The more complete your inner experience, the more intense will be its release.
It is important the external environment of your special place be very satisfactory, but also it must include a rich internal landscape. Feel your true and most valuable qualities. And, depending upon the situation, incorporate a prime quality that would be just right to infuse into the environment at hand. You know your wants and desires. You know when you are comfortable and happy. Use these criteria as friends. Bring them back with you into even the most difficult situations.
Connect the release to a common physical and socially acceptable action, such as rubbing your eyes or the back of your neck, stretching, or a few deep breaths. It is best if you can close your eyes for at least a few seconds, to close down all external information and release the internal experience into your being. This is no luxurious soak; it is a sudden wave. Your body, mind, and spirit will be fooled into staying where you have just been. The people around you need not know you just took a delightful and powerful little trip.
Things To Help Relaxation:
• Cuddles
• Massage
• Flotation
• Laughter
• Hot water
• Being in a safe situation
• A diversion – something familiar
• A diversion – something different
• Being with somebody you like and are comfortable with
Colors: blue, turquoise, violet
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Positive Qualities – Laudable & Stylish

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Joyful Kwanzaa, Blessed Solstice,
Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. — Islam, Muhammad, The Farewell Sermon
Here’s hoping your holidays are filled with Style. Laud the Lord.
Peace,
Jim
LAUDABLE
Definition: praiseworthy; commendable
How to Live This Quality Today: Do what you are supposed to do.
STYLISH
Definitions: (1) characterized by or conforming to the current fashion; smart or chic; (2) a unique combination of charming elements; individualistic
Synonyms: elegant, fashionable
Quote:
Style is the dress of thought. Style is the outward manifestation of our inner spirituality.
— Reverend Leo Booth (1946 – ) British-American Author, Say Yes to Your Spirit
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Bokeh

‘Natural’ Driving Product Development in 2013

The 2013 edition of New Nutrition Business’s trend-spotting report, 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition & Health, indicates natural foods and ingredients will continue to see an upward trend in product development.
The report, conducted by German-based Kampffmeyer Food Innovation, highlights consumer research that shows 74% of people surveyed thought that ‘natural’ meant ‘healthier.’
Several product categories appear to be building on the strength of the natural trend including.

Coconut water –In the US sales of coconut water jumped by more than 100% to at least $200 million in the year to September 2012.
Snacking nuts –Retail sales grew from zero to more than $400 million from 2008 to 2012.
Greek yogurt – Explosive growth of Greek yogurt in the US has been powered by the Chobani brand, with annual sales of over $1 billion four years after launch.

The 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition & Health 2013 report identifies and analyses the 10 major forces that will define the food and beverage industry in the coming year.
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Energy Efficient Photovoltaic Production

The Optical Cavity Furnace is a relatively new type of furnace that uses light and optics rather than other sources to create silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) cells. The new process uses only half the amount of energy to make conventional PVs.
The recent innovation uses a series of lamps in a reflective chamber to create temperature uniformity at high-heat levels throughout the chamber. It’s so uniform that, when heated up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, the entire furnace interior only varies by a few degrees. The heat is used to convert silicon wafers into fully functional photovoltaic cells.
Light Has Multiple Advantages in Furnaces. Photons have special qualities that prove useful in creating solar cells. When light is shined on silicon atoms that are bonded electronically to each other it changes their potential.
The Optical Cavity Furnace shines visible and near-infrared light to heat the solar cell, and also shines ultraviolet light to take advantage of photonic effects that occur deep within the atomic structure of the cell material. This combination offers unique capabilities that lead to improved device quality and efficiency.
Iron and other impurities can degrade the silicon quality quickly. But shining the right light on it can remove that impurity from the silicon. Optics can also make a lot of things happen at the interfaces in a cell, where, for example, metal can reflect the light and speed the diffusion of impurities. The lamps in the furnace help fool the impurities in the silicon into moving out of the way, by creating vacancies.
Bhushan Sopori, NREL Principal Engineer said “We call it injecting vacancies.” A vacancy refers to the lack of a silicon atom. “If the atom is missing, you have a vacancy here, an empty space.” Those spaces prompt the impurities such as iron to feel much more like moving – and they do so at a much lower temperature than would otherwise be required. The iron moves in with the aluminum, creating an aluminum-iron mix that, happily, is needed anyway as a contact point.
Removing impurities can change a cell’s efficiency from 13 percent to 17 percent. What that means is that 17 percent of the photons that hit the improved cell are converted into usable electricity.
The absence of cooling water and confinement of energy in the OCF proves to be a big advantage for lowering the energy payback time of solar cells.
Other advantages of the photonic approach:
Silicon cells often have silver contacts in front and aluminum contacts in back. They usually are fired simultaneously as the cell is being formed. The OCF by selectively heating the interfaces of silicon and metal can better control the process, and thus create stronger field surfaces and improved cell performance.
The Optical Cavity Furnace uses photons of light to remove weak, cracked wafers from the processing line. Photons can more easily produce a thermal stress in a wafer and screen out bad wafers. The photon process tests the wafers’ integrity right after they are cut. The conventional method requires physical twisting and bending of the wafers to test for weakness.
“Its main purpose is to process the wafers into solar cells. We have developed the furnace configurations for major steps used in silicon solar cell fabrication, junction formation, oxidation, and metallization firing,” Sopori said.
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Making Things Glow

The lamps of yesteryear, incandescents, produce light when electricity heats a thin filament. This causes it to glow. The quality of light is pleasing to many. But the lamps only last about 1,500 hours at best. They’re also inefficient. Roughly 90 percent of the energy is emitted as heat rather than light. Full, partial, or pending bans on incandescants are now in effect for much of the world, including the European Union. So, for now, expect incandescents to become harder to find.
At present the most widely used alternative to incandescents is the spiral-shaped compact fluorescent lamp, or CFL. It is filled with gas that creates light when electrons from the power source flow into the tube and collide with the gas excitable molecules. CFLs have acquired a bad reputation. There were exaggerated longevity claims, the bulbs don’t dim, they produce an unappealing color, and they contain toxic mercury.
Enter the future. LEDs are digital, they are easier to dispose of, and they last longer. They are following an innovation curve akin to other high-tech items like computers and digital cameras. LEDs are semiconductors, and like all solid-state technology, they tend to get better and cheaper as time passes. Organic LEDs, or OLEDs, have carbon based diodes. These lights could be powered for decades on a single small battery. They could be produced on flexible plastic sheets to hang virtually anywhere. They also don’t require an old fashioned socket. For this reason, developing nations are likely to be the first adopters, with Europe and the US playing catch-up.
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B’More Healthy — Joint Effort Yields Better Food Choices

Poor urban neighborhoods are often food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables. According to a report by the Bloomberg School of Public Health, nearly one in four school-aged children in Baltimore live in a food desert — an area where nutritious food choices are limited, and almost one-third of city households lacked access to enough nutritious food to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

There is a 20-year difference in life expectancy between some neighborhoods in the city, and unhealthy diet contributes to many of the top causes of death and disease in this city like cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. That’s according to Dr. Kimberly Gudzone, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who directed a recent pilot program for the Healthy Stores project.
The Healthy Stores projects realistically address the complexities faced by store owners with respect to maintaining an inventory of fresh produce. Teams aim to improve health and prevent obesity and disease in low-income communities. The Johns Hopkins initiative operates through the Center for Human Nutrition and engages in culturally appropriate store-based interventions that increase the supply of healthy foods while also promoting their purchase.
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Train Your Ear to the Pulse of Innovation — 3d Printing is Here!

MakerBot Replicator 2 — With a resolution capability of 100 microns and a 410 cubic inch build volume, the MakerBot Replicator™ 2 Desktop 3D Printer is one of the easiest, fastest, and most affordable tools for making quality objects.

Need a new knocker for the front door? Select a design and push the print button. How about that fork that got damaged in the garbage disposal? Scan one of the remaining ones and print a replacement. Printing 3d objects at home is now possible although the choices of material are somewhat limited.
Soon, very soon, new picture frames, eating utensils, a replacement piano leg for the one the dog chewed up, that weird looking fastener that was missing from the new bookshelf kit, bookends, crown molding, coat hangers, phone chargers, earrings, Toynbee convectors, and flux capacitors will be had by giving a voice command to a StarTrek like replicator.
A new era of Consumer Sovereignty will come to light as additive layer manufacturing technology allows us to bypass those inconvenient economies of scale. Instead of having to purchase a pound of drywall screws, we can just buy one.
Big companies have already bought in to the technology. They envision a future where Home Depot and Kinkos-style shops fill local needs while online markets focus on larger projects and more intense customization. Amazon is planning to install commercial printers in all of its U.S. factories and Staples is rolling out 3D equipment in its European stores.
Thanks, in part, to a variety of open source projects, the Home Depot and Staples models aren’t likely to be as popular as home printing in the long run. Why? Because the mother-may-I product chain is just too bloated and unpleasant. Even today, an item priced at less than four dollars doesn’t justify supermarket shelf space. A service bureau experience marked by overpricing, long lines, outmoded software, outdated hardware, poorly trained staff, and sluggish execution times is seen by most as something to be avoided.
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Empowerhouse — From Concept Home to Family Residence

One of the green concept homes showcased at the Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathlon now has a permanent address in Washington, DC. The design is based on several net-zero energy systems that reach peak efficiency when they are joined together.
A rainwater harvesting system captures water from the roof and adjacent land, minimizing the water that drains into public sewers. It features a roof garden and vegetable window boxes. The design won the Solar Decathlon’s first Affordability contest.
Empowerhouse was designed and constructed by a team of more than 200 graduate and undergraduate students from The New School and Stevens Institute of Technology. They worked with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. (DC Habitat), and the DC Department of Housing and Community Development to move the original design to Washington’s Deanwood neighborhood and expand it into a two-family home.
Deanwood is a primarily working-class, African-American community that is known as one of the greenest areas in Washington, DC. The community recently participated in CarbonFree DC’s “Extreme Green Neighborhood Makeover,” which retrofitted low and moderate-income homes.
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