English Conversation Course

In November 2013 there was a premiere of PlayStation 4, a new console from Sony. Only in the first 48 hours 250,000 consoles were sold.  Over 20.2 million consoles have been sold since its premiere, which shows how popular consoles are. The main difference between the old generation and the new one is the speed of the processor: now GPU(Graphics processing unit) can perform 1.843 teraflops. This allows us to run games in the high definition resolution. The controller was also updated, and a  touchpad and a speaker were added to it as well. Microsoft had launched its their console a little bit earlier, but Xbox One hadn’t had so powerful GPU as PS4 so it couldn’t handle high resolution in as many games as PS4. So sales of Xbox have been smaller and its resolution isn't the only reason of it, a wide choice of exclusive games on PS4 also causes it. To PlayStation 4 we can also connect a PlayStation Camera, which is an optional motion sensing accessory allowing us to use o...

Veganism has  become more and more popular over the last years. Everyone wants to eat healthy and lead a lifestyle that doesn't t harm animals. So in order to meet those needs there were opened vegan restaurants. A few years ago they weren't so popular as these days. If you go, for example, to Krowarzywa at lunch time, there will be a queue of 15 people waiting for their burgers. So be careful in picking your eating time in this restaurant. A few years ago people who went vegan and love fast food like hot dogs or pizzas were disappointed because there weren't vegan places to eat those dishes. But in the last few years there has been opened many places with vegan pizzas, hot dogs, burgers, etc. Now I'd like to introduce to you some of these places. Krowarzywa It's one of the most popular vegan slow food restaurants in Warsaw. Burgers are its specialty. They have about 6 kinds of them with different kinds of bread, even gluten-free. They also have delicious sau...

Have you already seen that popular video? It popped up a few days ago and the internet users  went crazy about it! The video shows a limbless 6 year old who gets a bionic arm. Not just “an arm”, but the one inspired by the Iron Man’s suit, and presented to him by Robert Downey Jr. himself. The arm was created by Albert Manero, a student who used 3D printing technology to lower the costs of production. Depending on where you get your statistics from , there are between 10 and 15 million amputees in the world. People who lose a limb and want to get a prosthetic one that allows them to fully function again must take high costs into account: bionic limbs cost around $40,000 and are not covered by health insurance companies for children because the kids grow out of them. Manero’s bionic arm costs less than $350. It may be the most famous example of 3D printed  prosthetics for now , however, not the first nor the only one. Teams of scientists and designers comp...

"Illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promo clip", "song video" or "film clip" ; all these refer to a well-known medium, a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes, known since the 1980s as a music video. All of us have probably seen dozens of them: animated music videos, live action filming ones,  documentaries, and non-narrative abstract films. However, a lot of things have changed since the 1980s and every time you start thinking nothing can surprise you, technology and human  creativity prove you wrong. Arcade Fire is a band which created quite a few innovative, interactive videos. Neon Bible   allows you to use simple point - and - click interactions. The technology may not be the newest  or the most impressive one but the idea of incorporating it into a music video is worth  mentioning. Another of Arcade Fire ’ s videos, We Used To Wait , is far more complex ; it ...

FGC – The Fighting Games Community Source: http://static.zerochan.net/Street.Fighter.full.172203.jpg I’m a big fan of video games, especially fighting games which, in my opinion, are very competitive and unique. In fighting games two opposite players compete with each other usually using one chosen character from the game’s roster.  Compared to other types of video games they require very high agility, precision, quick decision making and ability to study your opponent, learn his tactics and take advantage of its flaws.  On a higher, competitive level, fighting games are almost like chess. FGC – Rise Of The Fighting Game Community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15lBHqdrFg One of the most prominent games from this genre are: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Virtua Fighter, just to name a few.  In Asia, USA, and some European countries there are big communities (called FGCs) that consist of skilled competitive players as well as tourna...

Fear In Movies And Video Games Source: http://openbooksociety.com/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/4bebfb785325f01496d661b6da9f9532.jpg Many people like to watch scary movies or play scary video games, but why is that? What attracts people to horrors and what actually makes them scary?  Let’s take a closer look at those aspects. What is Fear? Fear is an emotion that is strongly connected with our survival instinct. It is our organism’s tool to detect and sometimes even predict a potential danger. In reality, fear is nothing else than chemical reactions that happen in our brain. Scientists associate the right amygdala with emotional reactions including fear.  What’s interesting, the research has shown that the mentioned portion of the brain responds much more to images of animals rather than to images of other objects or humans. This might provide some information about why many people are scared by movie monsters that are often animalistic in their appearance...