English Conversation Course

VIRTUAL REALITY (source: https://i.warosu.org/data/biz/img/0011/54/1458530885109.jpg) What do you think of when you hear the words virtual reality (VR)? Have you seen The Sight at Vimeo? ( https://vimeo.com/46304267) The definition of virtual reality comes from both ‘virtual’ and ‘reality’ We perceive the world through our senses. In school we all learned that we have five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing. You would be presented with a version of reality that isn’t really there, but from your perspective it would be perceived as real. Today virtual reality is usually implemented using computer technology. There are a range of systems that are used for this purpose, such as headsets, omni-directional treadmills and special gloves. These are used to actually stimulate our senses together in order to create the illusion of reality. (source: http://redframe-game.com/wp/uploads/2014/01/RedFrameVr.jpg) Reading Wikipedia, we can observe that f...

LIFE HACKS (source: http://i.imgur.com/3WvFg.gif) Ultimately each of us finds some interesting non-obvious solutions to problems but some people are masters. Lately I have become interested in life hacks – ideas and things that make our life easier. Life hacking refers to any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency in all walks of life. The term was primarily used by computer experts who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow in ways other than programming (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_hacking). Some time ago I was looking for a solution to one of the problems I was struggling with and I surfed on YouTube. It appeared that many vlogers tend to create their own life hack videos presenting amazing solutions to all problems you can only imagine. Starting from tips for lazy people through beauty tips for women ending with tech tips. Here ...

As a die-hard gamer over the years, I have formed a certain taste in video games. That’s why I’d like to discuss the subject of stealth games. A quick definition for those less familiar with gaming. Stealth games are all about avoiding being seen by enemies, avoiding combat. That’s quite contrary to modern AAA productions which are action-heavy, loud and proud. Some might wonder why even bother, where’s the fun in sneaking around, why not go in guns blazing? Of course, it’s a 100% subjective choice of mine. But there is a certain charm in the stealthy approach, sneaking just behind enemy forces leaves a rush of adrenaline and a feeling of satisfaction. There are a few solutions in gameplay when it comes to "stealth" in video games: stay unnoticed or you’ll fail if you alert enemies - hide engage in combat Personally I appreciate variety, so I think it’s best when the game let you decide because having to restart the mission every time you alert your enemies might be...

Most of you might have come across the phrase “Augmented Reality” but there still is some confusion in differentiating between augmented and virtual reality. So what is it? Augmented reality, as the name implies, is an augmentation of real world, while virtual reality replaces real environment by computer generated graphics. So the user using a VR device sees nothing but CGI and in AR it’s all about embedding some elements in a regular field of vision. The idea was first mentioned by Frank L. Baum, the author of “The wonderful wizard of Oz”, in his story “The Master Key”. Baum writes about a device called the character maker, special glasses, allowing people to see a note on the forehead of the person they looked at. That note mentioned something related to the target’s character. That does sound a lot like Google Glass, but for many years that remained just a dream. At the turn of the 50s and 60s, Morton Heilig, a camera operator and a pioneer in VR, invented a machine called Sen...

Healthy eating is something that I pay a lot of attention to. I have taken care of what I eat for such a long time that it's not such a challenge that it was at the beginning, it's actually became a routine that I really like to follow. I want to share with you some of my tips, discoveries that I have made so far, and meal inspirations. I’d love to hear what your opinion is, how you keep your diet clean and healthy, if you do so! :) So first of all when it comes to healthy eating an important thing is your attitude. Resigning from the food we are used to eating, but is not healthy, is extremely hard. The best thing is to change it with small steps – if you eat   …… (could be fast food, sweets, chips etc) 4x a week try to reduce it to 3x per week, like you’d do when fighting any other bad habit. If you want to quit sweets, it’s also great to find an alternative option to minimalize craving for sugar. For me “healthy” sweets did a job – of course they conta...

I am not a big fan of computer games, but I love board games! Last week I had a pleasure to play something totally different, a game called „Keep talking and nobody explodes”.  Source: http://www.downrightgaming.com The game was a mix of… both! A computer and let’s say an “analog” game (not particularly a board game, because there was no board). The whole game lasts 5 minutes and your task is to disarm a bomb, but... Only one person sees a bomb on a computer screen, but he has no clue how to disarm it. Other participants are experts, that have a bomb manual (it can be either printed or you can use it on your computer or mobile phone) and they give advice how to disarm a bomb. It is absolutely amazing because once you have the manual, you have no idea about anything – how much time is left (unless you ask), nor what you need to know to go ahead. In fact, you can’t watch your friend’s screen, but you can listen to stressful sounds of a ticking bomb a...