Week 3 [16-22.04.2018] Formula 1 in Warsaw

Formula 1 in Warsaw, is it possible?

You can say, never ever…., but try to imagine how many opportunities it can give our city. It seems crazy but LG company proposed this idea in 2009. In the end, they were unfortunately unsuccessful but I can show you the design project of the proposed track

http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/1/6727/m6727271.jpg

Formula one is not only a race... Thousands of visitors, hundreds of journalists and the same number of car team crew. In addition, the prestige of the possibility of saying that Warsaw is a grand prix city. It all results in a lot of benefits.

But are we ready for it?

Yes! Look, during Euro 2012 the whole city was adapted for welcoming visitors. Many hotels and motels were opened directly for this event. I think you remember that in the centre of the capital of Poland we had quite a nice party zone called “Strefa Kibica”.

Grand prix is a shorter event. One week and that’s all. So it doesn’t kill the city for the whole summer vacation. But the one problem will be the location. I’m pretty sure that if we want this kind of entertainment we need to invest a lot of money and probably even more time. It also affects the quality of life during construction works. I mean that if the correct private and government organs choose the right place for the race, other people need to design a new surface with correct width of the track with possibility to let’s say, fast adaptations for the race.

Please look at the video of the race track in Monaco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LeDKOU_5JA

also you can read the article about the Singapore GP in which you can find information about preparing Marina Bay into an F1 street race.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/24127798

For now there are more cities which want to host the GP than all rounds of F1 races during one racing season. Our city would have to rival with for example Paris. Another bad piece of information is prices. How many Polish people will buy a ticket for 200 euro? Is our city rich enough to pay something like 20 million euro for a licence? And that’s nothing compared with the required documentation. There are extra costs of designing and building the track etc. In all benefits there’s the same number of expenses. In the end Warsaw can gain a lot. But is it ready for it? How do you feel about this idea? Would you be interested in working on this project or attending as a spectator?

Week 3 [16-22.04.2018] Are we overpopulated?

        An article about fake news at week 2 inspired me to write about overpopulation on our planet. Are we overpopulated?

Source: http://bigthink.com/arpan-bhattacharyya/overpopulation-are-the-doomsayers-crazy-or-acutely-aware-heres-what-aldous-huxley-had-to-say-about-it

        Opinions on this subject are divided. Some people think that our planet is overpopulated. Others say that this is not true and they see a conspiracy theory in this. Media flood us with articles that reinforce the idea that people settle our planet like parasites and suck natural resources out of it. They throw a lot of hard to understand phrases about how the world is overpopulated, which in theory may lead to the destruction of the natural environment. They assume that this is an undeniable fact. Their goal is to program us in such a way that we recognize the need for population control. Are we really in such trouble? Is the Earth really on the way to total destruction? In my opinion, no, and we do not even approach this point. Let's look at the facts. When we analyze the data, we will quickly see that the number of human births is falling.

        For starters,  a lot of countries have a zero or even a negative birth rate, and the rate of human births is below the level of population exchange. Based on these indicators, it appears that Western European countries have a total fertility rate below the population exchange rate. Another example is China,  where people bellieve continuing a good policy is frequently enjoyed. Often derided by comparison to rabbits, population has seen a decline in the number of births from 16.12 per 1000 people in 2000 to 12.31 in 2012. It is important to mention that the birth rates for both sexes in India are falling. The birth of girls shows a significantly greater drop there than boys.

Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/china-and-india-could-be-the-key-to-golds-next-big-rally-cm678746

        While birth and fertility rates are falling massively, other numbers are growing just as quickly and proportionally. WHO estimates that Alzheimer's disease and other debilitating dementias affect 24.3 million people and are growing in developing countries; WHO announced that the number should double every 20 years. Childhood leukemia and brain tumors are becoming more frequent, and numbers will increase by one percent annually every 20 years.

        Autoimmune diseases are like "hits" on the charts. Celiac disease - an autoimmune disease that attacks the small intestine of the body, the main function of which is the absorption of nutrients, now affects five times more Americans than in 1950. According to the American Diabetes Association, the incidence of type 1 diabetes in the American youth increased by 23 percent from 2001 to 2009. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted in a study earlier this year that one in 88 children now have autism. And these are only examples.

        To sum up: the numbers do not lie. The number of births from year to year is decreasing in many countries. The number of cases of many dangerous diseases is increasing. Taking everything into consideration we realize that the entire depopulation program is designed to arouse warm feelings in us. The myth of overcrowding has been exposed to public sight many times over the last few centuries to scare people and make people accept this fact.

I encourage you to watch the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM


Sources:
http://www.hangthebankers.com/overpopulation-is-a-myth/
https://www.nasdaq.com/article/china-and-india-could-be-the-key-to-golds-next-big-rally-cm678746
http://bigthink.com/arpan-bhattacharyya/overpopulation-are-the-doomsayers-crazy-or-acutely-aware-heres-what-aldous-huxley-had-to-say-about-it


Questions:
1.    Do you think that too many people live on our planet?
2.    Should we reduce our population or maybe there is another way to preserve environment?
3.    How will our lives look like when 15 billion people live on our Planet? What do you think?

Week 3 [16-22.04.2018] Story of musical instruments

Story of musical instruments

Music has been accompanying people for years. It is hard to say when exactly everything started.  Music is as old as human beings. People love music. Some people love music more, some less but for everybody music plays some role in their lives.
In overall, we can distinguish 6 periods in history of music and these are prehistoric, ancient, early, common practice, modern and postmodern. Each period is significant for music development. Let’s start from the begging. We are in the Palaeolithic. Most of us remember it as the oldest period in the history of human being. When we were learning how to produce the first stone tools we also started making music. It is probably too soon to talk about instruments other than the human voice and natural objects. There are a few theories how it all began. One of them and most probable for me is that music started when the human started to follow natural rhythmic sounds. The first known musical instrument, a bone flute came from 41,000 to 32,768 years before the Common Era. Most of changes occurred during the Renaissance period and it is connected with the biggest musical instruments development. Nowadays, companies still work on musical instruments and make them better. Instrument’s appearance doesn’t change drastically.
Companies focus mainly on instruments quality of sound. In the 18th century the music industry adapted electricity. The fastest development of electronic musical instruments started during the digital era, which is from 1980 to 2000. There were a lot of instruments like for example digital synthesizer. Musical industry had started change before the digital era. Everybody knows how a electric guitar changed the music  industry. Today, it’s hard to imagine how rock music would be without a electric guitar. We are surrounded by computers
and electronic gadgets. It’s getting be normal to treat computer as an instrument. People produce amazing things and they  use only computer. Every year there is a less acoustic music. Electronic music reaches hearts of more and more people. Music is in a strong correlation with a receivers. Our musical tastes change every year. Electronic musical instruments offer a lot of opportunities but the concert of a dj who perform their music sets it’s not the same as a performance of band. Maybe it’s about the taste and taste is not a matter of dispute but I’m interested in your opinions.
And here is something for fun:
https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/beat-blender/view/
Do you prefer acoustic music or electronic music?
Is there any chance that acoustic instruments will disappear?
In the light of artificial intelligence, do you thing robots could replace us in making music?
Sources:

https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/beat-blender/view/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_musical_instrument

Week 2 [3-8.04.2018] Fake News

Fake News

The news has always been present in the society. At the beginning the main sources of information were radio and television, which only have broadcasted confirmed news. Nowadays the biggest player in providing current information is the Internet. Not many people thought about how the Internet would change the essence of the news.

It is a known fact that the fake news can have a huge influence on many fields of everyday life. One of the first examples which I remember was fake information about Steve Jobs’ death. As a consequence,  Apple’s stock price crashed and immediately was relatively cheap. Afterwards the fake news was denied, Apple’s stock price went back to its normal price. It’s an example how a simple lie posted on the Internet can have a real life impact. Another example is the last election for US President. It is said that the fake news were used to encourage people to vote for particular candidate. It hasn’t been confirmed with solid evidences as the investigation is ongoing.

What is more, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated the discrepancies between spreading true and false news stories. They have examined people’s reaction in social medias, sent surveys, interviewed users. The study is unsettling, showing false news spread faster than true news. Moreover, they confirmed the fake news may have impact in the real world – “False news can drive misallocation of resources during terror attacks and natural disasters, the misalignment of business investments, and misinformed elections.”

Nowadays the fake news are being perceived as negative incidents and the biggest tech companies started to fight against them. Companies like Google or Facebook announced start of their own programs against the fake news. It might be  a move in the right direction, but can we be sure they will in fact remove only fake news and not also the news they think is not appropriate? What if we end up reading only the news which the biggest players in the market want us to read? What do you think about it?

The following links lead to two article about fake news which I consider interesting. Feel free to go over them:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/20/google-announces-plan-to-combat-spread-of-misinformation/?utm_term=.046a06cd6c0e

http://www.businessinsider.com/mit-study-fake-news-spreads-6-times-faster-on-twitter-than-truth-2018-3

Week 2 [3-8.04.2018] My (short) coffee adventure

I do not know about you, but I started to drink coffee when I went to college. Yes, I know it's late but better late than never. You can say that studies forced me to do that. I had to learn a lot and spend my nights with books. So I needed more coffee.

The adventure began with soluble coffee, because only such coffee was at home. There are many sources informing that we should not drink something like that, and I think we’re aware of it just like we should not drink Coca-Cola.

After some time I found an old coffee percolator at home like in the picture below.

Source: https://www.konesso.pl/pol_pl_Kawiarka-Bialetti-Moka-Express-9-filizanek-1453_1.jpg

So I started to use it. I ground coffee and put it into a container. It was the worst ever coffee in my life, because the beans were bad.

When it comes to coffee beans, there are two main types: arabica and robusta. The first one is mild and flavorful. Sometimes you can even taste the taste of chocolate. The second one has more caffeine and that would be enough when it comes to its benefits. It has a bitter and sharp taste. Obviously everything is a matter of taste ;)

After the coffee percolator, the time has come for the espresso machine. Due to the fact that I did not want to spend too much, I chose one of the delonghi models.

Source: https://f00.esfr.pl/foto/5/6766837532/ee37b53907f57896c1cc8c3965cf7ee4/delonghi-ec-680-m,6766837532_7.jpg

It does not have a grinder, so coffee must be ground in another device. But when it comes to the taste of coffee, I'm honestly happy. Of course it is easier to make a coffee in a machine which makes coffee itself. But these are more expensive and not very configurable. The last and the newest thing I have when it comes to coffee is AeroPress.

Source: https://www.coffeedesk.pl/photos/products/normal/114509915ded896d423d1903fefb195f.jpg

It uses alternative coffee brewing methods. It looks like a piece of plastic, which is actually true, but fortunately is BPA free. It costs a little over 100PLN, so it is even a reasonable price. However, this machine in combination with the right coffee does the job. It is best to look for coffee for overflow coffee. Roasting should be lighter than for espresso. And what is the most important, you should choose specialty coffee. Unfortunately, this coffee is more expensive, but it also has many advantages. One of them is that it is healthier and of course tastier.

What coffee tastes you the most?

How often do you drink coffee?

Have you ever tried overflow coffee?

Have you ever heard of specialty coffees?