Sunday, 12 October 2014

Week 1 (13-19 October 2014)

Read an article of your interest at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle  and present it here. Comment on the articles presented by other students as well.

12 comments:

  1. By 'present' You mean just post the one we choose here and write our own thoughts about it or should we try to summarise it?

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  2. ' to present' means:
    1. summarise it in 2, 3 sentences, and
    2. express your thoughts on the topic.

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  3. It wasn’t easy to pick an interesting story, but finally I’ve picked the one about abortions in Mexico (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2014/oct/01/abortion-mexico-catholics-law-right-choose-video). The movie shows us the reaction of Mexican society, after legalizing this treatment in some states. We are presented with many interviews and pieces of reportage telling us the view of both prolife fighters and abortion supporters. Women are relieved that they have an opportunity to decide about their pregnancy (even if in only couple of states), but catholic church sees it as a sin, so they’re trying to delegalize it once again. The author of the video doesn’t give us her point of view, but I had a feeling while watching this movie, that she is in favour of giving women a right to abortion.

    It’s too hard and too sophisticated topic to comment in only couple of sentences. An example of Adriana Manzanares (woman from the movie), who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for killing her baby (it was a miscarriage), only ensure me that forcing women to give a birth to a baby, when they know that baby is incurably ill or when she was a victim of rape, is nothing but a torture.

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  4. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/oct/10/my-homemade-cronut-made-to-be-instagrammed

    Last year whole New York held its breath when Chef Dominique Ansel, owner of Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York, introduced his sweet invention to the public. He called it „cronut”. The revolutionary pastry is something between a doughnut and a croissant. It's produced by frying laminated dough in canola fryer oil. Sounds easy, but after reading a three-day report by Rhik Sammader, I doubt if I would make an attempt to play baker. He had some serious troubles starting day one. What's worse, the effect was not satysfying. Maybe we shouldn't give up on trying though, as the chance of getting a cronut in a bakery shop is not even close to possible. Take a look at what's happening at the Dominique Ansel Bakery in NY:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I3a4Sc9MJs

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  5. Article:

    http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/13/should-i-stop-smoking-cannabis

    Summary:

    This article is about smoking marijuana and the impact which exerts on people who are addicted. After years of studies on this case we know more about it and the main point is that cannabis could be more dangerous than we have previously considered.

    My Opinion:

    Everybody knows about harmfulness of taking stimulants but in my opinion cannabis has lower impact for people who take this than alcohol or other strong drugs. People after drinking alcohol could be very aggressive and completely different people than before. We hear about many dramatically car accidents where people have died by drunk driver but we haven`t heard about driver under influence of THC who killed people yet… Why? This is a good question. I think THC doesn’t take so much impact like alcohol and the people behave so different. They are more quiet and peaceful. One thing I can’t accept is why somebody who has a small amount of marijuana is convicted and has to spend some time in prison but the man who drove after drinking alcohol lost a license for one year? In my opinion law should be corrected and matched for really threats that some stimulant brings. A debate about legality of cannabis is still going even some countries in EU have decided to institute new regulations related to cannabis case for ex. Czech Republic or Netherlands. We need a fresh and more liberal attitude to this case because it`s not fair and proportional to made detriment.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/oct/14/why-eating-with-other-people-makes-us-fat

    Above article tries to answer the question in the title. Why eating with other people makes us fat? Some studies suggest we eat more in the company than eating alone.

    After reading this article I have to totally agree with it! I've just realize that since I met my girlfriend few years ago I've put on 5-6 kg!
    It is also true that eating with someone else takes more time than eating alone. I'm sure it's connected with desire to spend more time with friends, but it influences how much we eat. The algorithm is simple: more time you spend at the table, more food you eat. Of course it's not a general rule to all people.
    Another reason of eating more (especially in restaurants) is that we (as a society) still treat visit in the restaurant as a product not as a service. A lot of people have this way of thinking: "I paid for it, so I have to eat it all".

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  8. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/14/brian-cox-guide-citizen-scientist

    When I saw Brian Cox article I just had to read it. I like him very much as a presenter, he always talks with passion. But enought about that, let us talk about the article.

    Brian wrote about very important thing. Today everyone can become a scientist, everyone can have a big influence for the future. Thanks to internet, thanks to technology there are no boundaries, we can work in international team that is looking for cure for cancer, we can help to find aliens.

    Many organizations already thought about that. If you look in the internet you can find many projects like that. For example in US everyone can participate in looking cure for the cancer. Everything you need to do is to share you computer. As a participant you're receiving small part of data that need to be checked and you run in in a special program. That is it. You can help !

    Same thing with NASA projects, you can help - as Brian wrote - finding new planets, there is even a project that is focused on analyzing data and looking for some distortions connected with aliens !

    We're living in fantastic time for people that want to help, that want to become a scientist. Because we can do that if we want !

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  9. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/14/do-something-challenge-conquering-arachnophobia-spiders

    This article is about the arachnophobia and possibilities to overcome your fear of spiders. Amy describes her all experience with spiders and how she defeated her phobia by attending the course which is hosted by John Clifford.

    Fortunately I don't have arachnophobia nonetheless I really don't like spiders and how they look like… but to be honest, who likes them ? ;)
    When I was reading that article I sympathized with Amy because her fear was on unimaginable level and I was curious how she overcame her fear. That must be pretty hard to live with something like that and I was really glad that such a kind of problem wasn’t mine. Also I was surprised by effects of the course which was finished with total success for Amy. She not only defeated her phobia but she even became oddly fascinated by spiders. That is pretty interesting how our brain works...

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  10. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/19/cosmetic-surgeons-repair-stretched-earlobes

    Article I chose tells us about a new cosmetic procedure that is used to repair stretched earlobes. It describes how a recent rise in negative attitude towards ear-stretching lead to an increased need for such surgery and gives us more details on both the stretching process and repair procedure.

    I personally never understood the need to deform one's ears or physically modify any body part for that matter. Small piercing or discrete tattoos are OK, but how can a huge metal ring hanging under your ear be considered attractive? Maybe it's just my bitter nature, but when I was reading about all the people who had problems because they wore stretching jewelery in their ears I was asking myself "How could they not foresee it? That's just stupid." For example, a soldier was facing a possible discharge from the army if he didn't repair his ears. When thinking of earrings and army, first thing that comes to my mind is a possible scenario where the ring gets caught somewhere during the action and is just ripped off along with a part of the ear. And those prices! £1,800 for two ears. Maybe if people knew about those consequences they would give a second thought to their questionable fashion choice.

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  11. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/19/beast-restaurant-review-jay-rayner

    I hadn’t been in this restaurant, but I think I’ll give it a try on my next visit to London. In this review we can read about new extraordinary restaurant in London. It’s worth mention that London is quite expensive, but this restaurant is … I must quote : “As long as you go with someone else’s money, because God knows you’ll need a lot of it. Got any friends who are, say, international drug barons?”

    Nice, don’t you think? On the other hand we’ve a lot of expensive restaurants in Warsaw and our salaries aren’t comparable. For example: Atelier Amaro. If you want to pay around 1k PLN(~200 GBP) for a dinner this is the place for you. Do you like eatable dirt? Maybe you like parsley ice cream? Everything is here. You can even eat bread made from ashes. To expand your knowledge about molecular cuisine, please visit: http://www.molecularrecipes.com/ . And you can call it: scientific investigation of cooking.

    If you enjoy eating with celebrities, millionaires and politicians this is the place for you. One more thing, you must be patient, because queues to book a table are very long.

    Anyway, try it yourself. It’s an amazing experience.

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  12. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/18/pudding-dessert-recipes-blancmange-banofee-vienetta-baked-alaska-chocolate-mousse-treacle-tart-tapioca-crumble

    Here we go! :D There it is ! if you don't have the oven, please do not read it. These 10 best British puddings I would love to eat BUT what I dream of right now beside "Sticky banoffee cake with salted caramel" is to make a cake that's called "Kopiec kreta" i don't know if there is an english name for that but ... I don't know I just can't read articles about Elijah Wood and stuff when I am hungry like right know. I guess I have to eat something right now... Really.

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