Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Week 2 [23-29.10.17] Incredible Talent

Incredible Talent



In this world there are large amount of people with rare talents. Unfortunately most of talent shows show more singers rather that these kind of people. It is very hard to them to become popular. They often show in auditions, competitions, or play they own small art-show on the streets. Spectators are amused, but artist get rare opportunity to get sponsor, for them it is like lucky strike. In my opinion TV stations should be focused on this kind of people, who do amazing things, not only singers or dancers, because they got specified shows like i.e. ABDC (American Best Dance Crew- last season was in 2015), Idol, Dancing with the stars. Do you agree that Talent shows should be not for dancers and singers? Underneath I’ll show you some short amazing and funny movies.
This is incredible duet father and son – Sebastian and Rejean. They cooperation is on very high level. In fact Rejean previous shows were solo, but when his son grew up little more, he  started to teach him the art of juggling.

Another short movie shows 13-year old Darci Lynne, who is ventriloquist, singer and comedian. Indeed she sings but mostly we can see her connecting voice with ventriloquism and it is amazing. She won one of the edition of America’s Got Talent, so her success is just a beginning of future.

Here’s performer who made big success, when I saw his show I thought “what is he doing”. He is speed painter – D.Westry. He paints upside-down and without looking.

How about magic? Is it some kind of talent or just trick, which made us a fool? I think it is kind of talent, which makes people amused. Here you have magician Steven Frayne. You may know him from stage name – Dynamo. He had to work hard to become popular. His fascination of magic comes from his grandfather.

Share your opinion about text and ask question:
  1. Do you think that dancers and singers should ONLY go for dancing and singing shows and leave “talent shows” for people with rare talent?
  2. Do you have or know somebody with unusual talent?


Sources:

Monday, 23 October 2017

Week 2 [23-29.10.17] Gold Bubble

GOLD BUBBLE


    Nowadays one of the biggest trends in tech and banking are cryptocurrencies. The best known is called Bitcoin. Just recently its value skyrocketed reaching over 5500$. Bitcoin is doing very well on the market despite the fact it has been there for just 7 years. The chart below shows its value between 2010 and 2017.

bitcin_chart.png


Let's go through the chart. You can spot that for the first 4 years there is little change in the price of bitcoin. It started with worth for 0.06$. The first bigger peak happened in 2014 when its value went up to around 1000$ which was just a temporary raise and you can see it was constantly falling until late 2016. The end of 2016 and 2017 year present a constant rise of the Bitcoin's price. Currently the currency is priced around 5500$. It's a huge amount. Imagine investing in bitcoins when it was as cheap as 0.10$. Imagine investing in bitcoins even when the price was around 1000$. In both cases you would gain a high profit if you sold it now.
The price of the Bitcoin is definitely a huge advantage, but there are also cons of it. Many financial institutions are advising not to invest in this currency. The National Bank of Poland issued official advice for investors to keep their money out of Bitcoin. Although the it's highly profitable it's also very risky. The Bitcoin is not supervised by banks. It is said that the Bitcoin is widely used by criminal minds to conduct money laundry or is used as a safe payment method (it's much easier to avoid transaction being tracked when it’s done in Bitcoins). Financial giants around the world are convinced the Bitcoin price will fall and it will fall to the ground. They said it's another financial bubbles which already happened in the past. This particular one is bigger than any other before and it can have serious consequences. According to them it's just a matter of time.
Taking everything into consideration, it's hard to say if you should or shouldn't invest in the Bitcoin. On the one hand, the price changes, the demand gives you the right to buy a few bitcoins and earn easy money. Even national institutions around the world are slowly accepting payment in this particular cryptocurrency. On the other hand many financial experts say although you earn money in a short period, afterwards you lose much more than you have earned. It's up to you to make a choice!


I encourage you to read the article about Bitcoin (link in the sources at the bottom) and answer the questions.


  1. Do you think the Bitcoin is the next financial bubble?
  2. Would you invest in it?




Week 2 [23-29.10.17] Good deeds (for animals)

Some time ago I wrote an article about turtles on this blog. This time for a change the article will be about cats. The cat who was not planned at all. 
But starting from the beginning…
One time I needed to go to my
home town. I knew no one would be there, because my parents were on vacation. When I arrived, I saw a cat. I thought “ok, it's a village and there are homeless cats everywhere”. Together with my fiancé we tried to ignore it. But it was impossible. He made scary and sad sounds. So we gave him something to eat. He was starving and ate the whole sausage (nothing else was at home). Then we agreed that we would take him to the vet. You probably never carried a wild cat. We tried to pack him into the box. 4 times :) The Fifth time, he destroyed the box with claws. After two hours of catching the cat we took him to the vet. We wanted to know if it had a chip. Unfortunately he did not. He got the basic drugs and we took him to our home. All day long, he was sitting under the couch, seriously! The next day we made up notices saying we had found a cat. There was only one phone call, as it turned out - it was not that cat. After that, we started the discussion. The decision was not easy because I and my fiancée were allergic to cat’s hair. You probably know how the story ended.


We are happy cat owners. We wanted to have a dog and we have a cat – this is sick :)
As I have already said about dogs, I would like to mention a cool initiative. You probably do not know, but you do not have to adopt a dog. You can go out with homeless dogs for walks.


You can do this every Saturday in the shelter called ‘Schronisko dla bezdomnych zwierząt w Celestynowie’. I am personally a volunteer there. Walks usually take from 30 minutes to an hour and all you have to do is have good intentions (and ID 😉).

If you want to walk
dogs (here you have some links)

But if you would like to adopt a pet, then I recommend the following page




Do you have any pet? If yes, please share it 😊
Have you ever considered being a volunteer or adopting a dog? Why/ why not?

Did my presentation made you interested in walking dogs?

Sunday, 8 October 2017

Week 1 [09-15.10.17] Facebook

Read the article at  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/23/facebook-global-takeover-f8-conference-messenger-chatbots and discuss it. Present your personal experiences.


Week 1 [09-15.10.17] IKEA

Read the article at  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/08/flat-pack-to-the-future-how-ikea-shaped-our-lives and discuss it. Present your personal experiences.

List of blog moderators

Put your name on the list of blog moderators (choose a week when you would like to do it). Remember, blog moderation is an obligatory part of the course.

What do you do as a moderator? Choose some theme for your week. Put on the blog links to interesting articles, films, presentations, etc. Comment on them and encourage your group to discuss them with you and other course participants.

1.    09-15.10.2017
2.    23-29.10.2017 Karol F.,  Rafał P., Monika D.
3.    06-12.11.2017 Jacek K.,Kasia P. 
4.    20-26.11.2017 Łukasz B., Mateusz D., Marek Michalak 
5.    04-10.12.2017 Michał W., Maciej P., Maciej Jusiński
6.    08-14.01.2018 Marek W., Krzysztof Barzyk, Stefania Kolanowska, Anna Binkowska
7.    22-26.01.2018 Kamil W., Sławomir Wolski, Aneta Kwapulińska, Joanna Puacz

Obtaining Credits Winter Term 2017/18



You should prepare a presentation  based on text with some short videos and photos.

You  moderate  your presentation (ask questions, comment on your friends’ opinions). Your moderation will be evaluated.

Moreover, each week you read/watch and comment on/ discuss your colleagues’ presentations.
Send me your presentations at least a week before the date of their publication
Your presentation should:
1.    consist of text (ca.400 words).
2.    include photos, videos (only in English).
3.    be interesting to read, watch and comment on. If I do not like the topic, I can ask you to prepare a new presentation.
4.    be submitted in the Word file or the Google docs (no PDF files).
5.    include the sources used.
6.    not offend anyone’s beliefs.
Ignorance of the rules will result in the course failure.
Attention!
I will not evaluate any presentation sent to me after the deadline.  
I will not accept any excuses.
I will not accept plagiarism

What constitutes plagiarism? 
Each week of our work finishes on Sunday at 11:55 p.m.

1.    09-15.10.2017
2.    23-29.10.2017
3.    06-12.11.2017
4.    20-26.11.2017
5.    04-10.12.2017
6.    08-14.01.2018

7.    22-26.01.2018