Week 4 [20-26.11] Boundless daydreaming

How often do you dream? Have you ever heard about Elon Musk? His one of the guy who isn’t afraid of dreaming and makes dreams come true!

Even If you’re not like him, you must concede he’s fearless. Personally, he’s not my hero. For me, he seems to be a normal guy but extremely intelligent. His ability to dream makes him so smart. I know him because of his biography written by Ashlee Vance and I have in my mind one unmissable fact about him, his willingness to colonize Mars. Impressive, isn’t it?

When I first heard about it I couldn’t believe it so I started digging. Here’s something more about his idea:

The goals are ambitious, until 2022 SpaceX, which was founded by Elon Musk, wants to hold a transportation mission to Mars. In 2024 the company wants to send people to Mars. It’s really impressive. I’m looking forward to hearing more news about this mission.

The question is, what makes him so brave? It isn’t his only idea, which takes my breath away. There is a list of other wildest ideas from Elon Musk:

• using computers as an implant with your brain to augment his capabilities
• new transportation called the Hyperloop, which zip you from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. Now it takes approximately 5 hours by car
• making space travel affordable and possible to everyone

The list could be much more longer. So is Elon Musk an incurable dreamer or an ordinary salesman? Of course, the truth lies in the middle. He’s an entrepreneur, so money is one of his element, but he’s also a dreamer, one of the biggest dreamer that I know. One more important thing which is worth to spread. He keeps both feet on the ground. "The first journey to Mars is going to be really very dangerous," he said. "The risk of fatality will be high. There's just no way around it.” and that’s why I decided to write about him, because of his honesty. I appreciate such people.

Do you know similar personalities like Elon Musk? Maybe you are a type of person who makes dreams come true? Share your experiences.

Sources:

http://www.spacex.com/mars

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/04/25/teslas-elon-musk-big-ideas/100884144/

https://www.techworld.com/picture-gallery/business/elon-musk-ideas-that-are-borderline-genius-3627252/

https://businessinsider.com.pl/international/the-14-craziest-things-elon-musk-believes-right-now/536k0vg

Photos:
https://ocs-pl.oktawave.com/v1/AUTH_2887234e-384a-4873-8bc5-405211db13a2/spidersweb/2017/09/SpaceX-15-1000x563.jpg
http://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/426_20170928_musk_2000x1124.jpg?w=990
https://ocs-pl.oktawave.com/v1/AUTH_2887234e-384a-4873-8bc5-405211db13a2/spidersweb/2017/09/SpaceX-9-1000x563.jpg

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSv0Y7qrzQM

Week 3 [6-12.11.17] Unsocial social media

Go to http://konwersatorium1-ms-pjwstk.blogspot.com/2017/11/week-4-06-12112017-unsocial-social-media.html and watch the presentation. Comment on it on our blog. Share with us your experiences and observations.

Week 3 [6-12.11.17] Science of Intelligent Machines

Go to http://konwersatorium1-ms-pjwstk.blogspot.com/2017/11/week-4-0611-1211-science-of-intelligent.html and watch the presentation. Comment on it on our blog.

Week 3 [6-12.11.17] What if there was no internet

What if there was no internet

Most of us can't imagine a day without the internet. It is present in our everyday lives. We use it on multiple occasions, for example to communicate, to check the news, to have fun. Without it people would have had to spend much more time to get some things done (e.g paying bills, buying something, learning). Computer games would be much more boring with no connection with other people, many of it are available only through the internet. Also access to the information would be much more limited. People would be much more easier to manipulate with only television and press as a source of information. 

http://www.nowanet.pl

On the other hand internet have its dark sides too. A lot of people are addicted to the internet, spending whole days in front of computer, tablet or phone, surfing the web with no purpose. I think without it the internet people would be going outside more often, connecting with real humans, not the one on the web. People also would be more active, therefore more healthy and happy.

Considering all the pros and cons of the lack of the internet it is hard to say whether the life would have been better or worse. For sure it would have been a lot different than it is today. We will never know.

1. How do you think, what life would be like without internet?

2. How often do You use internet?

http://thinklink.in/internet/

Week 3 [6-12.11.17] Quadcopters

What are quadcopters

You must have heard about drones, quadcopters, buzzers, UAV or whatever other name you find for them. They all mean the same and mostly refer to aircrafts with four arms sticking out of the main frame, each of them equipped with an electric engine and a propeller. Nowadays people use them for various reasons.

When you think about drones what most of you probably see a device presented below:

https://store.dji.com/product/inspire-1-v2

This type of quadcopter is used for professional photo- and videography. These machines are expensive and very easy to fly. They have multiple sensors pointing forward and down to detect whether a pilot is not going to crash into an obstacle like a building or a tree. This, however is not a type of drone i want to focus on in this post. What I want to tell you about are small (250mm diagonal between engines) quads that have really short flight time (2-3 minutes on one battery). What they lack in air time they make up for with speed, flips, rolls and dives.

Below is my machine in its present form, it still lacks a battery, propellers and gopro mount which you can see in the second picture. These machines are almost always a DYI projects so if soldering, or PCB programming, is not something you’re keen on, you might want to give this hobby a pass.

Before we proceed to the final step. Llet me quickly go through parts of my quad, perfectly visible in the photo above

1. A camera for the first person flight
2. A Gopro mount for recording
3. Engines (two of them turn clockwise, two counterclockwise)
4. Propellers
5. A battery
6. Power distribution and control board
7. A video and signal transmitter
8. Antennas

Finally, below is a short clip of one of my favourite pilots, his flight style is really smooth and hardly nauseating :) see for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DHwUaEdOCs

Sources:

https://store.dji.com/product/inspire-1-v2

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHxiKnzTyzE9Qez8ZGpQbPQ

After reading did you consider this as a hobby for you?

Do you think that every drone should be registered and supervised to limit incidents where someone flies over an airport and disturbs airspace?

Did you get sick while watching the video?

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lworyG0DsPo

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk_qLtk0m2c

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ficvPdpZg

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP8SHRKED7A

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:

http://www.banzaj.pl/Syn-z-ojcem-graja-na-keyboardach-pilkami-tenisowymi-95280.html

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

http://www.dwestry.com/bio.php

https://w.uktv.co.uk/dynamo-magician-impossible/article/dynamo-biography/

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.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/price/

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?

Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/12/bitcoin-price-5000-cryptocurrency-gold-bubble

https://www.coindesk.com/price/