CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farming are an interesting concept. Basically, instead of just buying whatever they want from a farmer, people buy a seasonal “share” and get a fixed percentage of whatever the farmer produces. There are some variations, but the general idea is that it relieves farmers from dealing with fickle customers and the vagaries of farming. Instead of having to deal with supply and demand issues, the farmer has fixed demand (because he is selling fixed shares) and the customer carries the burden of supply issues. If there is a bad harvest, everyone gets and equal share of the bad harvest.

It is an interesting hybrid. In a sense, the farmer becomes simply the labor for his customers, who are “share farming” and thus dealing with all the real life difficulties of farming–too much harvest of one thing, too little of another. By spreading the risk across a stable customer base, this allows small-time farmers to survive.

For more information, read the wikipedia article, check out this example farm, and for more reading, see this Google search.

A few things for the curious.

Did you know the Smithsonian Magazine had a website? They do, and it has a lot of content. If you have enjoyed reading the magazine, you might want to check the site out.

Search for the Holy Grail, end up dead. The Telegraph had an interesting article on a real search for the Holy Grail during the time of Nazi Germany. No, his name wasn’t Indiana Jones.

Picture This: Wedding photographs during earthquake.

From the same website as I mentioned in my last post, here is another tip: How to download your Wordpress install on your local computer and get the permalinks to work.

It’s nifty to know how to edited a database.

For some time I have wondered how one went about adding a “Stumble This” link to blog posts. However, I didn’t wonder enough to take the time to look it up. Then I recently stumble upon (ha ha) some directions. As it happens, the website also has directions for implementing a few other services as well.

• How to add StumbleUpon links
• How to add Digg links
• How to add Del.icio.us links
• How to add Reddit links

Thanks to Herselfwebtools for these clear and concise instructions.

Who would have thought such a hip person as Steve Jobs would have such a dim view of human media consumption? Well, okay, who would have thought he’d admit to such a thing.

From Wikiquote:

When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth. — Steve Jobs