If you're smart, you recognize that good communication goes way beyond your computer screen. When it comes to exchanging ideas and really being understood in the workplace, e-mail and instant messages are only the tip of the iceberg. After all, there are real conversations that happen countless times on any given day in any office. While any of the tools using computers can be effective, none is as powerful as the old-fashioned, face-to-face conversation. This is because engaging someone face-to-face allows you to gain their trust and boost their motivation. Moreover, it is the only way to guarantee that you have the person's complete attention.

Technology affects all aspects of our lives, including art. New technologies are rapidly changing the way digital art is bought, sold and distributed. The distribution of digital art is likely to follow the lead of software and music where content is simply paid for online and downloaded onto personal computers. Like traditional art, limited numbers of digital pieces can be produced and distributed. To protect their originality and value, each piece of art can be equipped with its own secret serial number, and for those who want a hard copy, CD-ROMs will remain available. Thanks to advancements in technology, digital art can now be circulated quickly and conveniently.

While most believe that hard work is the key to success, a new study has found that taking a break for a self-massage reduces work stress and increases productivity. Subjects in the study were given math problems before and after the massage break, and they were found to complete the problems quicker and more accurately after the break. Fortunately, say the researchers, it is easy to act as your own massage therapist. Most people, in fact, perform self-massages without even being cognizant of it. For example, when experiencing a bad headache, people often rub their temples or, after a hard day, rub their own feet. These techniques may not be as pleasurable as a professional massage, but they do help to relieve overall body tension.

Homeschooling can provide many benefits for people who choose not to participate in traditional forms of education. Children can, however, develop serious social problems if certain precautions are not taken. Social interaction, for example, is thought to be as important in primary school education as the knowledge that students go to school to acquire. The biggest problem children face when home-schooled is that they lose important opportunities to interact with their peers, so parents must take on the extra responsibility of creating these opportunities. You can start by getting to know neighborhood the where you live. Find out where the other children in the area live and make a point of getting to know them and their parents. Once these relationships have been established, organize events that will give your child opportunities to play with the other local children who are of similar age. Weekend fishing trips or barbecues are welcomed by other parents and enjoyed by children, and field trips that are related to school projects are a great way to allow social interaction and provide education. Joining local sports teams is often the best way to ensure the proper social development of your child. While playing sports, children spend a lot of time together practicing as a team in order to accomplish shared goals. Driven by their desire to succeed, kids form deep bonds with each other during this time. In addition, playing sports provides a good setting for children to learn how to become gracious winners and to accept and overcome the disappointment of defeat.

Because all mammals, including humans, share the same ancestors, we also share very similar biological structures. In fact, all mammals have the same internal organs, and we all use the same systems to control them. We all have hearts, kidneys, lungs and livers, and we all use a bloodstream and a nervous system to control these organs. There are, of course, many differences between different mammals' bodies, but there are so many similarities that researching other mammals continues to be worthwhile. Understanding why mice, for example, are more resistant to certain forms of cancer than humans are can help us develop cures for our variation of the disease.

Antibiotics are strong medicines that can cure many bacterial illnesses. But it is a worry that many doctors prescribe powerful antibiotics before knowing if an illness is caused by a bacteria or a virus. If the illness is caused by a virus, the antibiotics will not help, and the prescribing of unneeded antibiotics is causing harmful bacteria to become resistant to medication. One bio-tech company is developing a test that may help put an end to this problem. The method uses safe types of viruses that actually attack harmful bacteria. The virus is simply mixed in a test tube with the patient's blood, and doctors can easily detect a reaction. The test only takes 2 to 4 hours and it is very accurate because the viruses only attack certain types of bacteria.

Many people believe that telecommuters, due to a lack of supervision, are less productive than workers who sit in an office every day. In fact, though, telecommuters have been found to outperform their in-office counterparts in employee efficiency and productivity reports. Telecommuters work with no direct supervision, so they feel an added sense of responsibility, which drives them to work harder and perform better. In addition, working from home means that they are not bothered by the various distractions that often occur in office settings. Lastly, when working at home, people are free to make schedules that fit their particular lifestyles, working and resting when they think appropriate.

You are going to quit working for your company and are ready to give a notice two weeks in advance to your employer. What's the best way to say good-bye? Regardless of the circumstances of your leaving, your first responsibility is to let your employer know that you are resigning. You need to part on good terms and you don't want your boss to hear rumors of your departure. The next step is to say farewell to co-workers and to let them know that you are moving on to a new position, retiring, or doing something else. It's appropriate to send a farewell by email. You can include contact information, so that you can stay in touch.

Many improved technologies are being used to build homes today. One new product is a water heater that attaches to the plumbing system and heats water only as you need it, reducing your monthly usage of gas. Photovoltaic panels are also being installed, and they allow you to generate your own power from the sun. Walls and roofs that are specially designed to keep warm air from escaping in the winter and cool air from escaping in the summer are gaining in popularity as well. These walls have a hard foam core that reduces electricity consumption for heating and air conditioning. In addition to appliances that use less water, these new technologies are helping to save vital resources.

People generally think that playing too many video games is not healthy for kids. In some hospital situations, however, it can actually be very helpful. When kids bring their portable video games to the hospital, they feel less nervous about what will happen to them. When concentrating on the battle between the game's heroes and villains, patients experience less pain during difficult treatments. In addition, kids who keep active by playing their games after operations spend less time thinking about their health problem, and they seem to heal quicker. Doctors and researchers see so much promise in this that they are now connecting young patients to the Internet, so that they can play interactive games with kids at other hospitals.

Dolphins have a rare ability to be unaffected by sleeplessness during a special period of their lives. Baby dolphins stay awake for a month immediately following birth. No other mammals can stay awake that long without suffering serious consequences. Almost all infant mammals require much more sleep than adults in order to develop their brains and bodies properly. In contrast, baby dolphins need less sleep than their mothers. So, it is possible that dolphins simply do not need sleep to develop and learn. Otherwise, we have to assume that they spend a lot of time swimming in their sleep, just like sleepwalkers who can walk, eat food and sometimes drive while in a deep sleep!

I had always wanted to teach children, but when I was in university I took another path because the salaries offered to teachers were not enough to raise a family on. After many years in the corporate world, though, I was financially secure, so I decided to follow my dreams and take a job as an elementary school teacher. However, it did not take long until I found out just how difficult teaching could be. My class was comprised of 8-year-old autistic students, and the difficulty I faced trying to teach them was something I was not prepared for. On the first day of school, a boy slapped me on the cheek because he felt frightened of his new teacher. Another boy, Jimmy, knew fewer than 15 words and was not able to write any letters or numbers. I soon realized that I should not run my classroom like a corporation where I always had to get things done quickly and perfectly. I gave up my old attitude about what constituted an achievement. I set up realistic goals and praised my students when they did their best, even if they failed at a task. As a result, I started to see real progress with my students. When Jimmy began to learn letters and numbers, his parents and I celebrated with a big hug. Towards the end of the term, Jimmy could recite his ABCs and count to 20. His mother was so happy and proud of his accomplishments, and she told me how much she appreciated my efforts. For the first time in my life, I felt a real sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, and I no longer missed the glory of the corporate world.

Because home prices have increased rapidly in the past 20 years, most people can no longer afford to live close to the center of a major city. Therefore , those people are spreading out to the edges of cities where land is cheaper and homes more affordable. But the move to the suburbs has at least one major drawback: the long commute. When parents have to spend hours every day just to get to work and back, it can place a lot of strain on the family. Recent research indicates that for every 10 minutes spent commuting, 10% less time is spent with family or being active in the community. Parents with long daily commutes have little involvement in their children's after-school activities, and these families cannot spend time eating dinner together or taking part in other activities that are important for family bonding. What also makes family life more difficult is that long daily commutes can be dangerous for people's health: drivers will often attend to other matters while on the road, such as eating or making phone calls. This, of course, causes people to pay less attention to the road and, in turn, causes many traffic accidents. As a result , the risk of becoming obese increases by three percent for every 30 minutes spent commuting. Finally, long daily commutes home add extra stress to people who have already put in a hard day at work. All of these major health problems can be terrible burdens for families not only financially but also emotionally.

In writing ads, advertisers should consider the different styles of cultures. In some cultures, advertisements usually describe the product and explain why it is better than others. But in other cultures, the message depends more on situations and feelings than it does on words. In this case, the commercial will not say that a product is better than others. Instead, its goal will be to create a positive mood or feeling about the product.

If you long for a place where eagles soar and whales regularly appear on the ocean's surface, look to Alaska. This is the United States' northernmost state, and has abundant forests, salmon-rich rivers, and incredible beauty in a land mass that is twice the size of Texas. Among Alaska's many attractions is the Saxman Native Village, home of the world's greatest collection of totem poles; if the weather permits, a helicopter ride to the Mendenhall Glacier is an experience that you will never forget. In Prince William Sound, you'll be amazed at the sight of so many whales, dolphins, and seals that are attracted there by the plankton. It won't take long before you agree that nowhere else on earth has the diversity of beauty that you have witnessed in Alaska.

Peasants were people who farmed land that was owned by someone else. In return for the use of the land, the peasant farmers had to pay rent or give the owner half of what they grew. Peasants arose at sunrise to begin working, and they worked in the fields until sunset. Their homes were small, wet, cold, and with little furniture. At night, peasants would sit near the fire for warmth and do housework by candlelight. The food they ate was poor. Their main foods were thin soup and bread. Meat was served only on special days, often not more than once a month.

When it comes to behavior, we are natural copycats. One person in a group yawns or frowns, and everyone else is soon doing the same. Some people on the sidewalk stand staring upward, and passersby pause to do likewise. Laughter spreads quickly, even when pre-recorded for a comedy show. Street musicians always put money in their own hats before performing, because people see it and put more in. But our tendency to copy other people can have tragic results. It's well known that suicides increase following news of a famous suicide. After Marilyn Monroe's suicide on August 6, 1961, the number of suicides in the United States in that month exceeded the yearly August average by two hundred. Also, a sudden rise in suicide rates tends to follow fictional suicides in TV dramas. When many teenage suicides occur in a short space of time, copycat behavior is the likeliest cause.

Professional athletes do not agree on what their roles should be. Some star players believe that their role is to be a great player, not a role model for young people. They insist, "We're not paid to be role models." They strongly believe that what they do in their private lives is their own business. On the contrary, other star players disagree. They maintain that sports stars are role models for people even though they may not want to be. They say, "We do not choose to be role models. We are chosen. Our choice is whether to be good role models or bad ones."

Globalization is the exchange of cultural, political, economic, and technological information between all countries of the world. It is a word that describes how our lives are becoming linked together in all of these areas. Indeed, it seems that we are moving towards becoming just "one global society." This single society is starting to form through multiculturalism ─ a policy stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences. Due to policies of multiculturalism, cultural diversity (the variety of different cultures in one area) is increasing.

As for your use of language, remember that two great masters, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which seemed childlike when their subjects were serious. To be or not to be? asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce could put together a sentence as complicated and glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his story Eveline is this: She was tired. No other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. Simplicity of language is not only powerful, but perhaps even respectable.

Although it isn't hard to get sick during the flu season, it's not always easy to tell if what you have is a cold or the flu. The two illnesses may seem alike. However, there are some distinct differences between cold and flu symptoms. First of all, a cold isn't usually accompanied by a fever, but the flu causes a high fever that lasts three to four days. Second, although a cold can sometimes give you a mild headache, strong headaches are far more likely with the flu. Third, a person who catches a cold will experience at most a few slight aches and pains. But aches and pains are an unavoidable effect of the flu and can often be quite severe. Finally, a cold doesn't usually cause tiredness, but people with the flu may feel so exhausted they can barely move.