English Conversation Course

Thanksgiving, an American holiday associated with turkey, and a pumpkin pie, is a holiday which memorizes an event from 1621 when Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians feasted together for three days to celebrate the autumn harvest. Proclaimed as a national holiday just over 200 years later by the President of USA Abraham Lincoln until this day is held each fourth Thursday of November. But did you know that not only US celebrates Thanksgiving Day? Here are some other countries that do: Germany (on first Sunday of October) Octoberfest celebration (Source) In Germany, the so-called Oktoberfest is held to celebrate the harvest. Celebrated both in cities and cottages is one of the best known German holidays. Nowadays it is associated with a beer festival. It is a great time to visit Germany and see traditional clothes and colorful festivities. Canada (second Monday of October) Canadian Thanksgiving Day has its origin from an English explorer Martin Fro...

Every single day brings us new obstacles to overcome on our long road to success. Each of those obstacles, like pebbles in a lake, add up to our past experiences until our goals are achieved. Whatever it is you're chasing after , i.e . a career, dreams or even the simplest task like next homework, we all encounter those obstacles, those pebbles on our roads we get sick off , stuck, distracted sometimes simply discouraged to push forward. Some of us are prepared for the difficulties to come, to give up on different aspects of our lives. The unprepared struggle to continue their paths. Whether you are the prepared or the unprepared one, we all have one thing in common: our motivation. We push forward because at the end of our road it’s what we strive for, the goal we choose for ourselves. Watch this video by Duncan „Thoorin” Shields discussing struggle for success , inspired by the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Questions: How do you keep yourself motivated? ...

Maybe some of you know about Khan Academy - the non-profit education organisation that had delivered more than 1 billion lessons worldwide, and is used by 40 million students and 2 million teachers every month. The reason this company was created is simple: our educational system could be better than it is now. And that’s what this TED speech is about. What is your opinion about the education system in our schools and universities? Have you used this service before? As a bonus - a short video from Khan Academy: You can teach everything (YouTube)

The world is full of technologies that are not yet part of our daily experience. They will change our world as soon as we are ready for them. But those things are just ideas without the participation of brainy scientists and engineers. The brainiest of the brainy (in the field robotics) are of course Boston Dynamics. If we ever suffer the Rise of the Machines, it will be Boston Dynamics who provide an AI the ability to strangle us by own hands. In a more optimistic future, their robots will work in factories, load cargo ships, clean the streets, etc. This future may be closer than we think! Boston Dynamics began as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they developed the first robots that ran and maneuvered like animals. The first robot that made them known in the robotics world was the BigDog : - with a mass of approximately 109kg, it can carry up to 150 kg loads. It’s maximum speed is about 10 km/h - quite a slow cyber dog, don’t you think? Then ...

As scary and unimaginably as it sounds, we are only a single tiny particle of the incredible universe. This rather bothersome fact is a result of slowly developed and improved self-awareness. It took us years of observation and studying where and who we are to come to this one statement – we are simply a miniature part of the gargantuan bowl of particles we call universe. Certainly, such information is confusing, upsetting and unbelievable. This absolutely normal reaction we feel yet proves our limitation even more, showing us that indeed the universe is far beyond our perception and acquaintance. Fortunately or not, here the complex issue of understanding our role in the universe does not stop. Apart from limited space we occupy in the galaxy, we are also in possession of only a short period of time to live. Remarkably short if compared to the age of the universe. There is no denying the fact a part of world population experience so called existential crisis. At the ...

uyu Probably most of the time we watch a documentary movie about curiosities of the universe and its mysteries, there are some alarming, slightly eerie prognosis of The Solar System’s fate. Commonly, such chilling predictions are left with room for doubt, judgment and conclusions. That is mainly due to evergoing research into fundamental laws of the universe. Surprisingly for some, the humankind is still discovering and acknowledging new phenomena occurring in the space and even much closer to us – phenomena on molecular level. Thus, being aware of not knowing all the facts and detailed process underlying the complex mechanism of the Universe existence, popular science publications present mostly theories with open questions at the end. Quite recently a new breakthrough in physics has took place as in 2012 a new theory regarding elementary particles origin was created – Higgs theory. It explains a phenomena dating up to the Big Bang event. Physicist believe that right after the...

Today I want to share with you some informations about my hobby which is a car races. I have in mind not typical cars but a bit smaller which are controlled by remote radio and what is interesting they are not much slower than real cars. How does it work? This cars has receiver inside and you control it using a transmitter. This cars are made very similar to real buggy cars but in smaller scale. They have a really resistant construction which can deal with a serious accidents during a race. I mentioned before that they are fast but how it is possible that such little car can drive more or less 100 km/h? They have nitro engines fueled by a special mixture of nitromethane, methanol, and oil. The best engines of them takes 45000 rpm which is 3x more than in real cars engines. A toy or not? Most of you probably think that is is only kind of toy but I can provide that of course it gives a lot of fun but it doesn't has much similarities to rc cars which you can buy in...

Have you ever heard about Linda Liukas? She is a programmer, storyteller and illustrator. She wrote a children's book, Hello Ruby which raised total of $380,000 on Kickstarter. She is involve in promotion of programming and she also tries to engage womens to start programming organising such great event as Rails Girls. She is concious that we are surrounded by computers in our world and we should learn people programming because we need creators which will be changing our reality. What I think it is awesome in her attitude is a way how she speaks about a programming. It is easy to understand that she loves coding and when I was watching her speach I feel the same. Please watch this speach and answer for questions wchich are on the bottom of my article. I feel that her look at the world will has positive influance on us because most of us are a programmers. 1. Do you agree with her opinion that a code can be treat as a today's poetry? 2. What do you think about her o...

Hello Have you ever wondered about your identity? Not the one that smiles sweetly to friends and acquaintances, I'm talking about your inner self that is inside of you and drives your choice, actions and decisions. In this post, I have prepared for you several psychological tests that will help you understand yourself and learn new facts about yourself. I'm not a professional psychologist and the tests that I picked up for you can only show an approximate result!  Are you ready to learn the terrible truth? Below you can find some personality tests. Here is a picture of four female silhouettes. Question: Which lady is the oldest? You should trust your sixth sense, think and make your choice. Well, did you choose? Then it's time to sum up: 1.      If your choice is a green girl at number one, you are definitely a purposeful realist. This means that you bring to the end any business you started and in no case, do not lose you...