Week 2 [18-24.03.19] “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

It's been over 20 years since the release of the first book about the adventures of Harry Potter and you must admit that this is a story that is still going on. Less than two years ago, J.K Rowling wrote a continuation of the adventures in the form of a script, which was also published as a book. At the cinema, we could watch “Fantastic Beasts” which are the prequels of the story about the young wizard. I really hope that J.K Rowling and Warner Bros will surprise us not once.

Harry Potter is a success story. The novels have been translated into 80 languages. By 2018, global sales of seven books exceeded 500 million copies, the highest result among all novel series. What's more, the last four parts have broken the records of the fastest-selling books in history. The screen adaptation of the novel has yielded 7.7 million dollars income, it is the highest-grossing film series in history, and all the individual parts are at the forefront of the most profitable films of all time.

I remember exactly how my adventure with Harry Potter began. The first two volumes I got from my grandfather for Christmas. It was the first book that fascinated me enough to read it out of  my own free will. I was waiting in suspense for every next part of this story. I always had to have a book on the day of its premiere. While waiting for the next book, I had read a lot of fanfics. I'm the person who is still waiting for her letter from Hogwarts. 😉

Harry Potter had a profound effect on the young-adult fiction. A huge publishing success of J. K. Rowling's books led to the emergence of a phenomenon later called Pottermaniac.

According to the report “The greatest magic of Harry Potter: Reducing prejudice”, children who have read books about the adventures of Harry Potter are more tolerant. This is because young readers identify with the heroes of books who stand out from other members of the school of magic. The world of Harry Potter is divided into the world of muggles and wizards. Hermione comes from a Muggle family, Harry is an orphan and Ron comes from a poor, large family.

I encourage you to watch a short movie about the Harry Potter phenomenon.

Are you fans of Harry's adventures?

Do you also think that Rowling's books influenced your life?

Have you noticed the impact of Harry Potter story on your friends?

Sources:
1) Image 1
2) Image 2

3) Bazhum

Week 2 [18-24.03.19] Be happy with less stuff

This post is about the benefits of owning less stuff. I got inspired by the fact that I was moving 2 times recently. I had to pack all my belongings into bags and could only fit limited number of items. This made me realize that I did not have that many items as others, but I was twice as happy with them. Some people call it minimalism I call it common sense.

What is minimalism? This YouTube video represents it quite well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgBpyNsS-jU

To put it in the nutshell, more stuff won’t make you happy. Pretty obvious right? Well, not for most of us as the society told us that we should always want more. More money, more clothes, bigger houses, best smartphones and the list goes on. But why should we do this? The reality proves that it will only make us happy for a very limited amount of time, shot of dopamine when we buy something new. Then, after you have it, you start to want to have more. It’s a never-ending story and many companies benefit from it. Fashion industry is one of them. With fast fashion we are constantly filled with the new items and want more and more. Minimalism tries to stop that to focus on things we have and only buy things we will love for long amount of time.

Another video that is quite interesting about owning less stuff that I highly recommend watching (it’s only 5 minutes and down to the point):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzyENavtLFo

All of those make you think how easy it is to move places without tons of stuff we don’t need at all. If we want to be happier in life we should focus more on the experiences rather than on the material things. Of course, we need clothes or food to survive but not in a way big companies try to sell us. I highly recommend imagining moving house tomorrow with limited storage space, would you be able to do it? Or would you let your stuff to stop you?

I also want to mention that for me being happy with less stuff doesn’t mean I have 1 pair of jeans and 1 spoon. No, that’s not true. It means that I find more time and space for things that matter in my life. I have a big collection of games that bring joy to me every time I use them. If I want to buy a new one, then I should get rid of 1 from my collection. This way I only keep things that I truly value.

Questions to you:

1. Have you heard about minimalism and its benefits?

2. Do you value experiences more than material items in life? Why or why not?

3. Do you find moving to new places challenging?

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgBpyNsS-jU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzyENavtLFo

https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/reorder-your-routine-with-these-books-on-minimalism-simplicity

Week 2 [18-24.03.19] Automotive revolution is here

You have probably already heard that electric cars and autonomous driving are the future of automotive industry. Today I would like to show you that this future is actually already here. It all started with Tesla and the original “Master Plan”. Elon Musk invested in this startup because he believed that electric cars are the only sustainable solution to transport and the master plan for the company success was simple:

1. Build sports car 
2. Use that money to build an affordable car
3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car 
4.  While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options [1]

And that is what Tesla did. It started with a Roadster – fast and very expensive car, then Model S, Model X and finally Model 3 – an affordable car for many people. Just a few weeks ago Tesla finally was able to dump production cost so much so it could offer Model 3 for 35,000 USD.

https://youtu.be/Q4VGQPk2Dl8?t=84

 And how can this be a revolution you may ask. It’s just one company producing a fraction of a percent of cars sold all over the world. It’s true but we need to notice that every year Tesla sales increase – in 2018 Tesla delivered over 245,000 cars which is 138% of 2017 Tesla’s sales.

https://electrek.co/2019/01/02/tesla-record-deliveries-production-q4/

 Another fact proving that revolution is happening are actions taken by other automakers. Jeff Dyke, the President of Sonic Automotive, a company that operates over 100 car dealerships for many different brands in the US, admitted that Tesla Model 3 is impacting sales of other car manufacturers e.g. BMW. He also admitted that just 5 years ago Tesla was not taken seriously by any automaker while today it is a top priority for everyone. [3] 

If you are still not convinced that EV’s (Electric Vehicles) will be driving on our roads in just a few years let’s look at Geneva Motor Show 2019 [7 MARCH 2019 – 17 MARCH 2019]. Audi showed 3 new electric cars coming to the market this and next year along with 4 new plug-in hybrids (vehicles with both engines - internal combustion and the electric one - and with a small battery which can be recharged by plugging it into an external source of power). Skoda showed a model Vision Vi coming to production in 2020, Seat showed a model El-born also coming to production in 2020. BMW showed 4 plug-in hybrids, Jeep showed 2 plug-in hybrids. Fiat, Kia, Mercedes, Honda, Peugeot, Volvo – everyone showed some EV’s coming to the market soon. And that’s just a one motor show, which does not present everything.
The last important puzzle that shows a complete picture of automotive revolution is money.
Volkswagen is investing 91 billion USD in electric cars and e-mobility, Mercedes 42 billion USD. Every automaker is making huge investments. The most of money is going into China as as  the batteries are being produced there. Here is a full report: https://graphics.reuters.com/AUTOS-INVESTMENT-ELECTRIC/010081ZB3HD/index.html.

With such an investment being made there is nothing that can prevent EV’s from hitting the market on a global scale.

Questions:

1. Do you agree that EV’s will replace gas cars in near future? And if so how fast will it happen? And if not – why do you think that?
2. Do you think that EV’s replacing gas cars is a good trend?
3. Electric cars accelerate much faster than gas cars. 5-7 seconds to 100 km/h is nothing special for them. The fastest ones can do it in 1.9s. Do you think that it is good that everyone in the future will have such fast cars? E.g. young drivers or very old ones?

Sources:

1. https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me 
2.  https://youtu.be/Q4VGQPk2Dl8?t=84 
3. https://electrek.co/2019/02/21/tesla-top-priority-automakers-bmw-dealer-model-3-affecting-sales/ 
4.  https://graphics.reuters.com/AUTOS-INVESTMENT-ELECTRIC/010081ZB3HD/index.html 
5.   https://electrek.co/2019/01/02/tesla-record-deliveries-production-q4/

Week 1 [04-10.03.19] How to boost your mood

Read  the article and watch the video at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181016-how-to-boost-your-mood-with-one-10-minute-exercise Discuss the presented ideas/concepts. Share with us your experiences and knowledge.

Week 1 [04-10.03.19] How to get on with someone you hate at work

Watch the video at https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/how-to-get-on-with-someone-you-hate-at-work/p072bwd0 and comment on it. Present your personal experiences and solutions to the problem.

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. 04-10.03.19
2. 18-24.03.19 Sylwia Ch., Franciszek G., Klaudia B.,
3. 01-07.04.19 Małgorzata G., Krystian N., Artur M., Aleksander K., Damian S., Paweł Kamiński,
4. 22-28.04.19 Dajana K. , Mateusz J., Jakub B., Filip K., Tomasz B., Juliusz Rajski , Mateusz Zalewski
5. 06-12.05.19 Tomasz S., Małgorzata B., Tomasz M., Mateusz D., Michał B., Mateusz Z. Anh T. N.
6. 20-26.05.19 Damian J., Ewelina Z., Cezary P., Jakub Sz., Mariusz Pieńkosz, Łukasz Piwowarski, Łukasz Kobus
7. 03-09.06.19 Oleksandr D.,., Karol Krasnowski, Jakub Jaszczuk, Maciej Romanowski, Tomasz Rosłon, Alec Chocholski